The Royals are advancing toward a potential trade of outfielder Jarrod Dyson, with the Athletics as a potential suitor, Joel Sherman of the New York Post writes (all Twitter links). (Jon Heyman of FanRag adds the Rangers and Orioles to the list of interested teams.) The idea, Sherman reports, is that with a number of key players set to become eligible for free agency following the 2017 season (including Dyson, Wade Davis, Lorenzo Cain, Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer and Alcides Escobar), the Royals need to think about how the team will look in the future. Meanwhile, they can capitalize on the market’s current demand for center field help by trading Dyson, while also dealing Davis and moving Kelvin Herrera to the closer’s role.

The 32-year-old Dyson batted a relatively modest .278/.340/.388 in 2016 and only collected 337 plate appearances, but still contributed 3.1 fWAR thanks to his excellent defense. The Athletics need outfield help and have, in recent years, acquired outfielders like Coco Crisp, Sam Fuld and Craig Gentry whose profiles when acquired were heavily oriented around defense. Dyson is also relatively cheap, at a projected $2.5MM for 2017. It makes a degree of sense, then, that the A’s would want to add him.