The Royals have struck again. First, they pried Johnny Cueto from the Reds for young arms Brandon Finnegan, John Lamb and Cody Reed. Now they’ve landed Ben Zobrist from the Athletics for two more pitching prospects — Sean Manaea and Aaron Brooks. Awful lot of pitching prospects changing hands these days. Anyway, here’s what the stats say about the young arms headed to Oakland.

Sean Manaea

Originally selected 34th overall out of college in the 2013 amateur draft, Manaea opened his pro career at the High-A level in 2014. He pitched well at the level, recording a 3.11 FIP and a 28% strikeout rate in 25 starts. However, he’s sat out most of 2015 on the shelf with an abdominal injury. He returned to action last month. He’s had mixed results in limited time this year, but has had a penchant for striking hitters out. In 32 innings across three levels, he’s run an impressive 29% strikeout rate.

Running this limited data through the KATOH machine yields a forecast of 2.0 WAR through age-28. The more informative number, though, is likely his preseason projection of 2.3 WAR, which is based on an entire season’s worth of data. Since he’s hardly pitched this year, I generated his Mahalanobis comps using his 2014 campaign. Among the comps, we see a couple of mid-rotation starters in Doug Davis and Kip Wells. These guys probably represent realistic possibilities for Manaea’s upside, so long as he stays healthy and his development goes as expected these next couple of years.

Rank	Mah Dist	Pitcher	IP thru 28	WAR thru 28
1	0.25	Juan Pena	0	0.0
2	0.38	Doug Davis	663	9.5
3	0.50	Mike Judd	75	0.0
4	0.66	Everett Stull	47	0.0
5	0.70	Chris Dwyer*	3	0.0
6	0.83	Kip Wells	983	9.4
7	0.88	Donnie Elliott	35	0.0
8	0.96	B.J. Wallace	0	0.0
9	0.99	Rafael De Paula*	0	0.0
10	1.12	Nik Turley*	0	0.0
11	1.21	Ken Holubec	0	0.0
12	1.22	Ben Shaffar	0	0.0
13	1.29	Ryan Cameron	0	0.0
14	1.29	Josh Outman	246	2.9
15	1.32	Matt Wright	0	0.0
16	1.34	Eric Schmitt	0	0.0
17	1.41	Aaron Cames	0	0.0
18	1.41	Jose Arredondo	220	1.2
19	1.42	Curtis Shaw	0	0.0
20	1.47	John Burke	74	0.0

*Pitchers who have yet to play their age-28 season.

*****

Aaron Brooks

Brooks, 25, spent time with the Royals both this year and last, but his stints with the big club were very short-lived. All told, he’s recorded just seven innings in the bigs, and possesses an unsightly 20.57 ERA.

In the minors, though, Brooks has had moderate amounts of success. Last year, in his age-24 season, Brooks pitched to an unexciting 4.18 FIP and struck out a similarly unexciting 17% of batters faced. He’s improved his strikeout rate to 21% this year, which has allowed him to cut his FIP down to 3.59. Although his strikeout numbers have left much to be desired, Brooks’ calling card is his command. He’s managed to keep his walk rate below 5% both this year and last, and has walked less than 4% of the batters he’s faced as a pro.

Yet, despite these excellent walk numbers, KATOH isn’t a fan. It forecasts him for just 2.3 WAR through age-28, which is only a slight improvement over his 1.8 WAR forecast from the preseason. There’s not much room in KATOH’s heart for 25-year-olds with weak strikeout numbers, even if they’ve performed well at Triple-A. Brooks’ upside isn’t huge, but there have been a few moderately successful pitchers who came from a similar mold, including Jason Hammel and Sam LeCure. The full list of comps:

Rank	Mah Dist	Name	IP thru 28	WAR thru 28
1	0.44	Tavo Alvarez	58	0.6
2	0.45	Tyler Walker	74	0.0
3	0.49	Alex Graman	6	0.0
4	0.50	Shane Komine	16	0.0
5	0.52	Sam LeCure	183	1.5
6	0.53	Gary Rath	8	0.0
7	0.62	Horacio Estrada	36	0.0
8	0.70	Glenn Dishman	135	0.6
9	0.71	Jason Hammel	732	8.0
10	0.72	Eric Schmitt	0	0.0
11	0.73	Chris Lambert	33	0.0
12	0.74	Carlton Loewer	216	1.7
13	0.75	Brad Meyers	0	0.0
14	0.76	David Phelps*	399	3.6
15	0.77	Dicky Gonzalez	66	0.9
16	0.77	Robert Rohrbaugh	0	0.0
17	0.80	Dave Bush	815	10.8
18	0.81	Brandon Dickson	14	0.0
19	0.82	Yusmeiro Petit	282	1.3
20	0.83	Daryl Thompson	17	0.0

*Pitchers who have yet to play their age-28 season.