Andrew Benintendi is among the numerous trade candidates that the Kansas City Royals employ who is unvaccinated and will not be eligible to play in the team's four-game series this weekend in Toronto.
In addition to Benintendi, Michael A. Taylor and Whit Merrifield are two other names discussed as trade candidates in recent weeks that will not be eligible to enter Canada because they are unvaccinated.
In total, manager Mike Matheny says that 10 players will be placed on the restricted list this weekend. In addition to the aforementioned trio, Cam Gallagher, Hunter Dozier, MJ Melendez, Kyle Isbel, Dylan Coleman, Brad Keller and Brady Singer will miss the final series before the All-Star Break, according to Alec Lewis of The Athletic.
The Philadelphia Phillies will wrap up a two-game set in Toronto Wednesday evening. They are without four players -- J.T. Realmuto, Alec Bohm, Aaron Nola and Kyle Gibson -- for their series against the Blue Jays.
It will be interesting to see how being unvaccinated affects the trade candidacies of Benintendi, Taylor and Merrifield.
We listed the Blue Jays as a potential landing spot for Benintendi last week, which is obviously off the table now that we know this. It would be hard for the New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox -- the team that Benintendi spent the first first five seasons of his career with -- to trade for him if he's not going to be eligible to play road games against a division rival.
Given that the Blue Jays are currently tied for the third Wild Card spot in the American League, there will be some teams in the junior circuit that need to consider vaccination status of players they are interested in trading for to make an October run with.
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