While the rest of the division was pulling off deals to make a run at the division or having a fire sale to improve in the near future, the Royals sat on their collection of, pardon the use of the term, talent. Queue the crickets!

The Detroit Tigers acquired LHP-Jarrod Washburn from the Mariners in exchange for LHP-Luke French and LHP-Mauricio Robles. For some quick reactions, click here and here.

Not to be outdone, the Twins made a deadline move and acquired SS-Orlando Cabrera from the Oakland Athletics for minor league SS-Tyler Ladendorf. Click here and here for reactions to the Twins deal.

The Chicago White Sox took a huge gamble and again traded for Jake Peavy. This time around Peavy approved and in return the Padres received LHP-Aaron Poreda, LHP- Clayton Richard, RHP-Dexter Carter, and RHP-Adam Russell. Click here and here for more.

In Cleveland the great 2009 sell-off continued. The Indians refused to be outdone by the Pittsburgh Pirates in terms of trading talent as Victor Martinez was sent to the Boston Red Sox in exchange for RHP-Justin Masterson, RHP-Bryan Price, and LHP-Nick Hagadone. V-Mart joins the other 5 Indians players already dealt this season; Cliff Lee, Ben Francisco, Ryan Garko, Rafael Betancourt, and Mark DeRosa in the former Indians club. Click here for more.

Aside from the acquisition of OF-Josh Anderson the Kansas City roster is exactly the same. Acquiring Yuniesky Betancourt is the highpoint of the Royals trade season, and that pretty much sums up this team.

The end result of all of this will be a 4th place finish for the second consecutive season. For the Royals, that is where the “good” news ends. This team is terrible, doesn’t fit together very well, and needs to be rebuilt. I can’t necessarily fault Dayton Moore for his lack of action at this year’s deadline, but I can fault him for the overall composition of this roster. Outside of the core players, there isn’t much to offer other teams. It is readily apparent that players such as Teahen, DeJesus, Bannister, and Bloomquist, have more value to the 2010 Royals than they could bring back in trade. However, moving players like John Bale, Ron Mahay, Miguel Olivo, John Buck, Mike Jacobs made a lot of sense regardless of return. Unfortunately for the Royals and Dayton Moore, of that group, only Mahay even got a brief mention amongst all the trade rumors.

Aside from the lack of action by our team, the most depressing thing for me is that the Indians traded away 6 quality ML players, 24% of their roster, and enter this offseason with a better chance to win the division in 2010. At this point the Tigers, Twins, and White Sox are completely out of reach unless Dayton makes significant changes to the roster and the overall team philosophy during the winter. If those major changes aren’t made, 4th place is the best we can hope for regardless of how good the starting pitching may be.

To trust the process, there has to actually be a process. From what I can tell, now we are just standing around watching the 2010 season pass us by before it even begins.

The sound of the crickets is absolutely deafening around here …