FORT MYERS, Fla. – The Kansas City Royals added a high-leverage arm to their bullpen on Saturday, acquiring John Schreiber from the Red Sox in exchange for minor-league pitcher David Sandlin.

“Absolutely nothing but love and thanks to all that I interacted with inside the Royals org,” Sandlin wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Forever grateful for my time with the org and all the teammates I had this last year and half. Excited for new beginnings and can’t wait to get to work. The goal doesn’t change! #RedSox”

The Red Sox add a top Royals pitching prospect to a farm system that needs to develop more starting pitching. The trade also opens a spot on the 40-man roster and shaves about a million dollars off a Red Sox payroll that is already tens of millions under the lowest luxury tax threshold.

The Royals had been “pushing hard” to get Schreiber, Alex Cora said, and the Red Sox had their eye on Sandlin.

Sandlin, 22, pitched for the University of Oklahoma before the Royals selected him in the 11th round of the ’22 draft. In that year’s College World Series semifinals, he struck out 12 Texas A&M batters to advance Oklahoma to the finals, but they ultimately fell to Ole Miss.

“We had identified (Sandlin) early on as someone that we think is on the rise, has the makings of a legitimate starting pitcher,” Craig Breslow said shortly after the trade became public. “Loved the stuff, loved the make-up, and we’ve seen the stuff take a pretty significant step forward.”

The 6-foot-4 right-hander’s “stuff” now includes a fastball that can touch 98-99 mph, but usually hovers between 95-97, Breslow said. There’s also a “good breaking ball, and a change(up) that we see room to optimize,” the chief baseball officer said. “So, it was a combination of kind of, raw stuff, projection, and the chance to maybe tweak the usage a little bit and improve performance.”

It wasn’t easy for the Red Sox to part with Schreiber, but baseball is as it ever was: a business.

“Any time you make these trades, you have to recognize that we’re trading a really talented pitcher in Schreiber over there, and that was difficult,” Breslow said. “It wasn’t an easy decision, but like I said, I feel like my job is to do what is best for the organization, and I think this was a chance to do that.”

“I think we talked for a while about our right-handed relief depth,” said Breslow. “That’s something that we feel strongly about, something we feel confident in, and the need, when the opportunity exists, to create more starting pitching depth … I think this was one example of a chance to do that.”

MLB Pipeline ranked Sandlin No. 19 in the Royals’ top 30 prospects for 2023. Baseball America had him at No. 20 in his previous organization, and last month, named him one of the Royals’ three potential breakout prospects for 2024. In updated team rankings earlier this week, The Athletic placed him at No. 7.

If healthy, Sandlin could rise through his new organization fairly quickly. He excelled in Single-A last year, posting a 3.38 ERA, 79 strikeouts, and 13 walks issued across 12 starts (58.2 innings). His subsequent promotion to High-A came to a halt after two games due to a season-ending oblique injury.