New Year´s Resolution: Stopping the counting at 27 years
The 2013 Royals are here and while we keep our fingers crossed that instead of the Rays being led to the playoffs by Rookie of the Year Wil Myers, we hope that a 90-win James Shields led Royals team can stop the PBR from writing about about year number 28. However, the real question this year might be if winning the division/wild-card is really a necessity?
One of the main criticisms about the biggest trade in Royals history was that it seriously overestimated the quality of the current roster and instead makes them a possible 80+win team with delusions of grandeur. Unfortunately for the fans of the trade, this logic is pretty sound. Entertaining the idea of winning the division takes some serious leaps of faith; first it has to be an absolute given that James Shields is who we think he is, second at least one of either Santana or Guthrie has to resemble a #2/3 starter. Then there has to be a surprise from the current rotation; be it 180 innings and a 3.8 ERA from Wade Davis, a surprise dominant 80 innings down the stretch from Paulino/Duffy, a miracle from Bruce Chen or a trade for Roy Halladay, something like this is key. Oh and by the way, the bullpen has to be even better than last year, which will be hard to accomplish.
You can see that we're already starting to take on some pretty big 'ifs' to get to 90 wins, but we're not done yet. Assuming that the pitching goes as designed above, the offense needs the ghost who possessed Eric Hosmer's body last year to be exercised and for him to get back on the future-star track. Then Sal Perez, Lorenzo Cain, Mike Moustakas and Alcides Escobar all have to be good, oh yeah AND healthy. Of course all of this also assumes that neither Billy Butler nor Alex Gordon will regress even one half of one percent and that they too will stay healthy. And finally there has to be a competent major league baseball player occupying 2nd base and/or right field this year; we can´t have the worst player in baseball in RF and potentially the worst platoon in baseball of Getz and Miguel Tejada playing 2B.
It's a long list and I submitted it to Sana Clause, but he never got back to me.
New Years Resolution: Reality sinks in
Okay, so now a some time has passed and we didn't get around to buying that gym membership, we just ate take-out for the 3rd night in a row and we're still at the same job. The reality is that all of the above might not happen. So would playing a sold out series at the K against the Detroit Tigers on the first weekend in September be a good year, even if in the end we finish a distant second in the division?
For me the answer is yes. Obviously if Wil Myers does blow-up and becomes the Rookie of the Year while James Shields is on the DL, this might be different. However, I'm willing to accept that an 80+ win season is worth a lot of risks from the fans point of view. The most memorable season for the Royals in the last 20 years was when Lima Time was a Cy Young candidate, Angel Berroa was the ROY and Tony Pena (Sr.) was designing tee-shirt slogans. That was ten years ago. This is the starvation of a Royals fan.
The people who were vehemently against the trade believe that giving up Wil Myers to get to 81-81 is insanity. This may be true, but wasn't waiting around to see if Wil Myers is really the savior also the same insanity that we've been subjected to as Royals fans for the last 20+ years? Convincing us that we are just one superstar prospect away from being good has been the motto of this organization for a while, but now we're getting a new message: the young guys are here, we just need a few proven players and we'll be able to contend. Again, this may also be delusional, but changing the message is exactly what had to be done in my opinion. The way it was done could have disastrous consequences if Wil Myers is awesome, but Wil Myers could also have been awesome on a 75 win team, we've seen it before (Sweeney, Dye, Beltran, Gordon, Butler, etc.).
So let's just assume that this is who we are. Unfortunately it took giving up one of the top five prospects in baseball just to get to be in the middle of the pack. That's how bad it's been for the Royals and I'm okay with what it took to get there, others think it was crazy and that's okay. However, if we accept that this may just be the first step and winning the World Series isn't the true goal of the 2013 Royals then we're able to put a little perspective on the situation. Taking the giant leap to a 90+ win division champ is going to be difficult, but making the first baby steps to becoming a .500 team is perfectly acceptable for me.
This Year's Resolution: Progress is progress
I think that at the end of the season, if we end up with some excitement, hope and a few interesting games in August and maybe into September, most people will be okay with that even if we're 7 games back of the Tigers at 82-80. Was it necessary to give up Wil Myers just for that? We have to agree to accept the fact that we'll never know. However, I'm in the camp of people that think it was necessary to do something fairly drastic for the sake of progress. If the Royals fail this year, it probably won't be because they didn't have Wil Myers. This team is more than qualified to be a .500 team and at least make the Tigers sweat a little. From a fan's perspective this seems worth the risk to me. Nothing is guaranteed, claiming that the Royals gave up on some sort of dynasty team by letting go of Wil Meyers is one kind of insanity, even if believing that James Shields makes this year's team a contender is another form of insanity. However, the worst kind of insanity is doing nothing and telling yourself over and over again that one day it will come.
