Dayton Moore's Sisyphus

“We’re pushing forward. We’re pushing up the hill. We’re not going to stop.”

This is per Dayton's ill advised, poorly worded and borderline insane comments to the KC Star that have driven Royals fans to the brink of rioting. There is a lot of truth in this comment, but not the kind Dayton seems to think  he's getting at. In the article Dayton thinks he's being the power of positive thinking, leader of men-type that his Tony Robbins books tell him he needs to be, but he's actually the guy who refuses to get it. The Royals are done this year, they just lost 5 games in a row and they have only 70 games remaining in which to make up a seemingly insurmountable lead in either the division behind both the Indians and the Tigers or the Wild Card behind even more teams. The Royals had been hanging around, just barely dodging extinction and then came the pre-All Star break sweep at the hands of the Indians. The best we can hope for is that this is Dayton Moore putting on his best poker face and that he is just waiting for the best offer to come in on Ervin Santana. However, anyone who thinks Chris Getz should get one more ONE MORE CHANCE to prove that he can´t hit major league pitching doesn´t get the benefit of the doubt with the PBR. This type of comeback has happened before in recent memory just down I-70, but if we're the 2011 Cardinals then this blog can officially retire in Peace.

With the Royals opening back up today against the Tigers, there is only one thing that can happen to get things turned around: a sweep, either by us OR them. If they go out and get swept then Dayton can no longer make these types of comments, Ned Yost will have to start putting a resume together and Dayton can be free to trade Ervin Santana and hope to get a minor league player than can help in 2014. If the Royals are the ones who sweep the Tigers, then we restart the Bandwagon and resume talks of 2013 contention and Ned Yost being manager of the year, Dayton Moore being lauded for his brilliant trades for James Shields and Ervin Santana, Hosmer and Moustakas as the new Bash Brothers, etc. However, like Dayton says there is likely more uphill pushing in the future of the Royals and the remainder of the season will be marked by more delusions, so here are the Top 5:

#1 Ned Yost Loves Hot Guys:  He said it: “In fairness to (Giavotella),” Yost said, “he only had 35 at-bats. I understand that. But we’ve got to go. It’s time to go. We want to make sure we’ve got as many hot guys in that lineup that we can get in it.” This is Ned's justification for the recall of Chris Getz. Getz is SO HOT right now there should be a warning label on the back of his jersey instead of his name. A .313 hitter in AAA, that kind of bat has to be in the line-up, never mind the guy who in just shy of 1,500 major league plate appearances has a slugging percentage of .313. I'm done.

#2 Hosmer is Awesome:  All of this Eric Hosmer is on-fire, George Brett unleashed the monster, he's back talk needs to slow down. Yes, he finally started hitting home runs again and now has almost as many as Vernon Wells! However, he still trails Chris Davis by 28 so lets hold off on the excitement until it is really warranted. He's about an average offensive player, he still has a long way to go until we can get excited about him in the future. Don't get me wrong, I like to see those HRs as much as anyone, but he's not even Mike Sweeney yet.

#3 Mike Moustakas is coming around: Yes, Since June 1st he's raised his average from below .180 all the way to .215. Sorry this isn't progress, just going from being really bad and having really bad luck to just being really bad. I'm really not sure who Mike Moustakas is going to be, but right now he's quite simply one of the top 5 worst hitting everyday players in baseball.

#4 Alcides Escobar, short stop extraordinaire: He's right there with Moustakas for worst everyday hitters in the AL, but he hits second in the line-up because he is really good at bunting. Ned Yost and the 2-hole is probably some of the most overworked territory on the Royals Blogger circuit, but it's because IT IS STUPID to have the guy with a .277 OBP getting the second most ABs in the line-up. If this doesn't change in the second half, we know Ned Yost is certifiable. Bunts, good speed and nice backhanded plays on defense, don't allow you to bat in one of the most important places in the line-up, this is just wrong. Alcides Escobar is an average major league SS, nothing more, no matter how many times Rex Hudler calls him a ballerina dancer.

#5 The Royals can compete in 2013: We covered this briefly in the outset, but it's not going to happen. The Royals need to be realistic and actually open the local newspaper or any one of a hundred internet websites and look at the standings. Sorry Dayton, it was a nice try but the Tigers better; Prince Fielder and Miguel Cabrera make Alex Gordon and Billy Butler look like Chris Getz and Jeff Francouer. It's over, be smart make the right moves for 2014 and keep with your perpetual testing of our patience year after year, but I'm sure NEXT year we'll really, really, finally be ready to win.

Treading Water (Thanks Detroit!)

When the PBR suggested that the Royals take advantage of their remaining weak schedule in June, a 4-5 run wasn't exactly what we had in mind. However, thankfully Detroit has been equally sub-par and despite the missed opportunity, the Royals find themselves in third place and a deceivingly close 4.5 games back in the standings. The calendar has flipped to July and the Royals are suddenly in a new phase of the season where Eric Hosmer is hitting HRs again, Mike Moustakas is north of the Mendoza, David Lough is making us forget about Wil Myers, James Shields and Ervin Santana are getting run support and Johnny Giavotella isn't in the minors. But those are all of the positive things going on, we will hold off on painting the rosey picture until the Royals are above .500. For now, we are going to do what we do best, beat dead horses....

Horse #1: C'est la vie Frenchy. Poor Dayton Moore had to put down his favorite old horse, he had been trying to convince the world that there was still life left in old Mr. Frenchy, but the vet finally got through to Moore and he was sent to the glue factory on Saturday night. As opportunistic bloggers, how should we react to this news? Should we hyperlink the 20 posts when we mentioned that signing him for two years was a bad idea? Should we go the soft route and talk about how it was a good signing at the time, but unfortunately it just didn't work out and kudos to Dayton for knowing when to pull the plug? Should we be realistic and separate the man from the decision and say that cutting an overpaid 5th outfielder is a relatively easy decision? Having paid $13.5 million for two years of service from the worst RF in baseball will naturally make Dayton Moore look like a bit of a fool, but in the history of overpriced MLB outfielder contracts this one is far from the worst. The one thing that made it so bad was when Ned and Moore refused to see what everyone else did, but recently it was clear that Frenchy had lost his job and this last move helps to prove that they aren't so blind, so there really isn't much to fault them for in this years use of Frenchy. If day one of the post Frenchy era was any indication of what is to come then we're probably going to win the World Series. However, the truth is, all the Royals have to do is replace Frenchy with an average player, he was so bad that ANYTHING was going to be better. Au Revior Frenchy, you made us laugh, cry and yell at the TV more than any Royals player in history, congrats.

Horse #2: Wade Davis-Luke Hochevar comps. It was all going in the right direction, Wade Davis had gone four starts without allowing more than two runs, he had his ERA back under 5.00 and then came Saturdays 1 IP, 5ER masterpiece. Now we have to start asking the questions again. Is he more suited for the bullpen? When will Danny Duffy be ready to replace him? Does Dayton more look like a giant sucker for taking him in the Myers-Shields deal? In my professional scouting opinion, Davis' problem seems to be that he gives up too many hits and walks too many batters, which is to say he isn't a very good pitcher. As good as James Shields has been, if you combine their numbers you have exactly 200 IP with a 4.05 ERA; this is much closer to two more Jeremy Guthries than the dominant Ace and #3 starter we would like to see. The point is, Wade Davis' performance has been bad enough to completely offset the dominance of James Shields, so if he doesn't pick it up soon things will have to change. We all want Davis to be better, but we wanted Jeremey Affelt to be better, we wanted Kyle Davies to be better and we wanted Luke Hochevar to be better, but they weren't and Davis might not be anything more than promise either. The real question is how long the Royals let this be talked about before they act? Hopefully the Tampa Bay Ray in Davis shows itself and he comes around to be a solid starter for the rest of the year, but if not there will be another driver for the Dayton Moore is an Idiot bandwagon.

Horse #3: Giavotella over Gets, Finally! The question as to why Chris Getz got so many opportunities will never be answered. The short answer is that Ned and Dayton always wanted him to be the coaches favorite little Jimmy Hustle player who bunts well, plays great defense, gets on base, runs fast, does the little things, blah blah blah. As much as they wanted this, Getz never became that player no matter how many times Ned hit him leadoff or second. The PBR is one of the Royals Blog league leaders in negative words written about Chris Getz, but the truth is nobody would have ever noticed the immortal Getzie if Hosmer and Moustakas were Trout and Machado. He could have been just the irrelevant 9-hole hitter if the Royals big hitters were actually big hitters, but unfortunately our middle of the order is just middling. Again, Getz was so bad that anything would have been an improvement and hopefully Gio will keep this up just enough so that we never have to see Getz again, but I don´t think we just added vintage Dustin Pedroia to our line-up. Time will tell, but as long as I don´t have to write another word questioning Ned Yost´s decision to bat Getzie second (that will be reserved for Alcides Escobar, soon), I will be happy.

Horse #4: Eric Hosmer is hitting HRs (fingers crossed).

This...

is the only thing that can make us forget about this...

No questions about it, if the Royals get right this year, it will be because of the former.

Horse #5: The Royals need to get to .500. This is perhaps the most overused phrase associated with losing teams. Yes, it is historically impossible to make the playoffs when you don´t get to .500, but the dream of chasing .500 means that you are currently a loser. Short of trading for Giancarlo Stanton and Chase Utley, the Royals have pulled out all of the stops to be a winning team this year. With the Detroit Tigers trying their best to prove that the AL Central is the worst division in baseball, the Royals have done nothing to take advantage of this. Just because someone else is losing doesn´t make you a winner, you still have to win games. So hopefully as the Wil Myers vs. David Lough Rookie of the Year debate heats up, so will the Royals. Talking about getting to .500 needs to give way to being over .500 and not having to talk about .500 EVER. It is exactly the mark of mediocrity, if that's what the Royals are shooting for so be it, but right now thye are just reinforcing the fact that they´re not even mediocre. That's the Royals in a nutshell.

The song remains the same

The Royals are a somewhat disappointing 34-36 team. That is the easiest way to look at where they currently stand, what has happened during those 70 games has been something only a Royals fan could have expected. There was the early 17-10 "pitching wins championships" hot start, followed immediately by the 6-22 "fire everyone" spiral into last place, then came the resurrection period that saw the Royals God of Baseball step down from the heavens and lead the team on an 11-4 run in which they briefly reached .500 and regained 2nd place. Now what? So far June has been a very good month and if the Royals are to continue this roller-coaster season in a positive direction these next nine games need to go very well because July's schedule will be a different story. Three games against the suddenly pathetic Chi Sox, two against the suddenly beatable Braves and four more against the should-be-worse Twins. If there were ever a time to firmly establish themselves as no longer a part of the bottom of the division, that time would be now. 6-3 would be nice, but realistically we need to see a nice 7-2 run to finish out June if the Royals are really going to inspire hope for the rest of the season. First, a few questions need to be addressed:

Will Ned ever stop to look at Kelvin Herrera's stats? Yes, Kelvin Herrera and his 100mph fastball should be and have been better than what we've seen this season. But that doesn't change anything, Ned Yost only has eyes for the dominant 8th inning set-up man Kelvin Herrera, not the guy who has a 5.00 ERA, was recently demoted and blows the game every time he takes the mound. This can't continue, one way or another Ned has to give the 8th inning job to anyone else (yes, even Luke Hochevear).

Will Alex Gordon and/or Billy Butler cross the .800 OPS threshold again? These guys are by far our best hitters. Unfortunately, they've been just merely above average this season and if we're going to continually employ some of the worst hitters in baseball in RF, 3B, 2B and SS, we need to get better production out of them to offset the sub .600 OPS crew at other positions. Among other things, I'm pretty sure we're never going to catch Detroit when their third best hitter and 31-year-old SS has 100 points of OPS on our two best hitters.

Will Wil Myers out-hit Mike Moustakas & Jeff Francouer for the rest of June? This is so possible that I don't even want to keep track. The super prospect we traded in the off-season could actually be a better hitter than our veteran leader RF and future superstar 3B combined, right now! Now that these two are firmly planted in a quasi-platoon role, we can only assume that they will have a hard time eclipsing the recently promoted Wil Myers hitting in the middle of the Rays offense.

Will the starting rotation finally realize they're playing for the Royals? Again, our hot streak has been powered entirely by the starting rotation that is trying to wipe away many years of the Royals having the worst rotations in baseball. Every time Ervin Santana goes to the mound I sacrifice a bucket of chicken and hope this isn't the day it all goes south. With Jeremy Guthrie, Wade Davis and Luis Mendoza I've already made a deal with the devil to hand over my first 37 children in order to keep them passing as major league pitchers, we'll see how many more he wants.

Will Chris Getz finally be banished from earth for showing he can't even do the Little Things? Finally, Chris Getz failed at doing the one thing that was keeping him on the team: the sacrifice bunt. Now that this has happened, of course we're finally going to see Moore and Yost face the fact that he can no longer occupy a roster spot. Right? Please guys don't play the "good clubhouse guy" card, he hits .200, doesn't get on base, doesn't play anything more than an average 2nd base, has one HR in his Royals career and NOW he can't even sac bunt. It's over.

Hopefully we'll get some good answers to these questions and the Royals can keep their current fortunes moving in the right direction. If not, I'm bracing for another downward decent where we cozy up next to the Twins and Chi Sox and need a telescope to see the Tigers.

Market Correction

After first quarter earnings came in the Investment Advisers here at the PBR have taken their time parsing through these balance sheets in order to make sense of what has been an extremely volatile Royals baseball market early in the year. The way too promising start, followed immediately by a correction back to .500 and then free fall all the way down to Dead F-ing last behind the Twins. The market has come full circle and we are yet again left with what we know very well here in the KC Jones Industrial market. As a fan we were hopeful this might be something of a fun year watching the team hang around .500, as market analysts their hot start wasn't enough to get us going all in. Now we have to take a look a the pieces of the puzzle, and decide what needs to go and what needs to stay. This is when the true Royals market analyst wants to move to another trading floor, but unfortunately your friendly PBR investment analysts are still here and today we're talking package deals:

Jeff Francouer-Chris Getz Small Cap Growth Fund: We're going to spend very little time on these two because they are symptoms not the root of the problem. We feel like the PBR investment strategists have wasted entirely too much time trying to explain just how little value there is in these two stocks. We've hated on them so much, that we briefly have looked into buying a few shares based on the belief that no stock could still be listed on the MLB Stock Exchange and under perform to this degree. It turns out the problem is that the managers of the Royals hedge fund ignore all of the evidence which points to the fact that they are the only one's selling their scrappy, gritty, veteran leadering, defense first, BS mutual fund. They are junk bonds, penny stocks, Greek banks, default credit swaps all wrapped up in one offense destroying mutual fund. But they aren't the real problem...

Eric Hosmer-Mike Moustakas Core Value Fund: It's obvious why these two are a package deal. The head of the Royals hedge fund has literally staked his claim to the value lying somewhere deep down in that early rookie season promise and those minor league earnings reports. Unfortunately, they've hit rock bottom. Believers are still selling hard, they bought way too much and are trying to artificially inflate the value of these two stocks in order to recoup massive losses. The problem is that at this point, as a Royals fan, the only thing you can do is not look at the box score every night hoping to see signs of life, you'll inevitably read too much into any random 2-hit night. The only way to make sense of this is to remember way back when the Dow Jones was at 6,000, it's now over 15,000. These things sometimes get worse before they get better, but if you're an impatient earnings hound, we can't blame you for passing on these two. When hedge fund manger Ned Yost was asked to compare the struggles of these two to former players and offer a bit of hope, he brought up the names of Scott Posednik and JJ Hardy (listen here for more) . Not Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun. Unfortunately, in all seriousness, that might be the realistic upside for these two they way they're heading. What should we tell you? Be patient, look at Alex Gordon, they'll come around, don't worry, keep your chin up, this takes time, etc.? The PBR might now be moving from a moderate Hold recommendation to a strong Sell. We've lost patience, they've got so far to go to even be average major league players that we're not sticking around for JJ Hardy upside.

Ervin Santana-James Shields-Wade Davis-Jeremy Guthrie Value Advantage Fund: All in all, not a bad little starting pitcher mutual fund. The fee to buy-in wasn't cheap, but as a group you have to be happy with the earnings they've given you in the first quarter. We've now seen all of them start to shed their early gains, but with no injuries and three out of four with ERAs under 4.00, we'll take it. The PBR was fairly skeptical of the Santana and Guthrie portfolio additions and high on the James Shields stock option, but time will tell on this one. The only problem is that ugly Wade Davis index fund dragging down the earnings on this otherwise solid investment. This stock is a super duper HOLD; these are the Royals and things go sour too quickly to think about putting your retirement fund into these four right arms. At this point, no long time Royals fan would even blink if they were all four on the DL by August.

Bullpen High Yield Bond Fund: this mutual fund is classic Royal's market share. The first guy to be demoted on the entire teamed looked like Aroldis Chapman for the second half of last year and the first few games of this season. Then he basically gave up at least one home run every game since then while manager Ned continued to try to will it into working. Our closer's has surprisingly good number, but the surprising part is how they can be so good when I've seen him blow so many games. Obvioulsy, it has just been a select few very noticable losses, but this chink in his armer doesn´t inspire confidence going forward. The rest have been, somwhat predictable; Hoch has worked well anytime it hasn't been important, Crow has been irrelevant, Collins looks like the best one day and the wort the very next, Chen is Chen and the rest don´t really matter. As a package this is the only mutual fund I am actually buying, but that's because we recommended selling when they peaked in value. Now that they have lost most of their value a stock buy back approach might net you a few dollars at some point. That had so much valut at one point, it seems hard to imagine that they weren't worth something. Would you have missed them if they were part of the James Shields package? Probably not, but I'm also not going to claim I told you so and that we could have traded them for Justin Upton (I have no idea what Holland or Herrera would have gotten you, but Mark Melancon for Jed Lorwie seems like a good comp).

Royals Fund Managers: I've been pretty much hating on Ned Yost since the first time he opened his mouth, and have vacillated heavily on Moore. I would be the 700,000th Royals blogger to suggest that the Yost needs to go, but misery loves company so Ned goes now and Dayton goes at the end of the year if firing him doesn't fix it. They have literally driven the Royals portfolio into the ground.

Yostie´s mouth is back

So far this year the airtight baseball manager logic hadn't yet flowed out of Ned Yost's mouth in any clearly damaging capacity. That was until yesterday. Lets take a quick look at his justification for not leaving James Shields in after pitching eight scoreless innings of two-hit baseball (obviously, I'm not the one who noticed):

“In a one-run game,” Yost said, “(if) you send (the starter out) out, he’s either going to win it or lose it. So you let the closer go out and try to do his job.”

Okay...get ready because we are about to tumble deep down the well of Yostian logical incompatibilities regarding this new gem of  a quote. So, first of all, his justification relies on the utterly meaningless win-loss stat, kind of (we´ll come back to this). Further we can only assume that it also relies on that managerial psychology Yost so famously employs to protect his player's psyche. We are then to assume that a starter losing a ball game after pitching eight scoreless innings would be so damaging to his mental state that the repercussions would be nearly fatal. If James Shields had gone out and given up a run or two in the ninth, he might retire from baseball and move to a Tibetan monastery and never speak again. We must stop to point out that apparently this rule is only applicable in a one-run game, given the previous statement, the fact that Jeremy Guthrie was allowed to close out his game a few days ago and this response from James Shields:

"...and I think if we scored another run right there [in the previous inning], he (Ned Yost) was gonna leave me out there."

We're getting pretty deep down the well here, so lets stop and review. In a one run game you don´t leave your starting pitcher in to finish it because starting pitchers can´t handle losing ball games that are so close. This is also James Shields, the guy we gave up our best hitting and best pitching prospect to get two years of potential nine inning complete game shutouts and, yes, WINS!!! However, obviously this is irrelevant when you arrive at the Yostian One Run Lead Axiom of Managerial Bullpen Usage Theory. This is also closely related to the Yostian One Run Lead Existential Dread Theory of Fragile Starting Pitcher Mental Stability. We also need only dig into Ned Yost, Ph.D.'s research a few games back to see how clear this theory is. Four starts prior in Toronto, in the EXACT same situation, Ned Yost let this very James Shields pitch the ninth inning. However, this was when he was already losing the game, so clearly he had already been mentally conditioned to the prospect of losing a close game and therefore Ned's previous two theories are no longer applicable.

Once we have understood this concept, we then must move to the conclusion: none of these rules apply to relievers. Obviously this has to be true or you could only use them in two-run lead situations and therefore only position players would be allowed to pitch with one-run leads in the ninth. Parsing through his quote some more we are to understand that it is the JOB of  a closer to pitch with one run leads in the ninth, but this is clearly not the JOB of a starting pitcher. Not Even the Ace of the staff, the Veteran Leader and certainly not the guy who led the league in Complete Games two years ago. No the mental state of a reliever with two years experience and an already erratic year, he is the guy you trust, because that's his JOB.

We're here, at the very bottom. Because we must now conclude that it is only a starter's JOB to win baseball games when the lead is greater than one run in the ninth inning. If a starter pitches a great game and holds the team without scoring over eight innings, but his team happens to only score one run, then and only then is when a starting pitcher loses his job of winning baseball games and it now becomes the job of the closer to SAVE games. It has nothing to do with pitch counts, nothing to do with the quality of a starting pitcher, nothing to do with how he is pitching in the game, no when the game is 1-0, you pull the starting pitcher because...I´m sorry but I can´t go on.

“(if) you send (the starter out) out, he’s either going to win it or lose it." Yes, Ned, this is exactly what happens EVERY TIME a starting pitcher, or a baseball team for that matter, walks out on the field. You either win or lose (presumably Ned was actually trying to do the former) and the best way to win is to LEAVE YOUR BEST PITCHER IN THE GAME!!!!!! Don't make up ridiculous rules that have nothing to do with the actual game situation. This is Ned Yost, this is the stuff that comes out of his mouth constantly and these are the decisions which lead to Royal losses. 

Cautious Pessimism

Two and a half games into the season I was just about ready to forgo the PBR's brief brush with a glass half full stance on the season and start in on full ridicule mode. Then, somehow they scratched together a few trash runs, Jeremy Guthrie struck out nine batters and the Royals have gone 6-1 since being on the verge of a sweep at the hands of the White Sox to open the season. However, while it's nice to know that we can sweep a really bad team and kick another team when they're down (or old, in the case of the Phillies), there is still a lot worry about. So until we start taking two of three from the Tigers, Rangers or any team in the AL East, we're going to implement the PBR's new mantra of cautious pessimism and go over a few reason why this won't continue:

Still Not Playing Long Ball: When CoCo Crisp has as many home runs as your entire team nine games into the season, we can cry small sample size fluke all we want, but it still isn't pretty. The main concern would be the double zeros from Hosmer and Moose; we're not going to get too worked up about this yet because at least Hosmer has been hitting relatively well, but that sophomore slump isn't going to be forgotten until a few fly balls reach the seats. As for Moose, despite being happy that he's proven to be a good third baseman defensively, he's currently no more valuable than Alberto Callaspo and is still miles away from being the guy to break Steve Balboni's Hank Aaron-like Royals HR record. They fired Kevin Sitzer, gave his job to two people and Ned Yostie spoketh, but still the team looks to be reliant entirely upon singles and doubles and it's hard to say if that will ever be enough to win.

James Shields (Veteran Leader Extraordinaire): We love the early season hype for the leadership abilities and such, but the fact is that right now he's not an ace (though almost no ace has been an ace so far) and he'll need to have  a couple more games like his first outing (when he got beat by an ace) to really get back on track to being the #1 we all waned to see. Not the good, but not great pitcher he was criticized for being at the time of the big trade.

Wade Davis (5th starter Extraordinaire?): Dark Horse, Break out candidate, potential, mystery, or just plain 5th starter? He got hit hard one day and threw a very suspect shutout the next time versus the worst team in baseball. We need to see more to believe he's any better than Jake Odorizzi (or even Bruce Chen), we've got plenty of time, but the dream of a third starter will die quickly if he can't get better soon.

The Schedule:  Unfortunately, I think we can safely assume that the Sox, Phillies and Twins are the easiest nine games we'll play for a long time. We've got every one's preseason World Series favorites coming to town this weekend, but the Atlanta-Boston-Detroit road trip after that will be what really sets the tone for early season optimism.

I have this strange feeling that at the exact moment we finally believe in the Royals and they're playing good baseball for a stretch, they'll pull the rug out and collapse in fantastic fashion. So until game 162 is in the books and the Royals have won the division, we're sticking with being cautiously pessimistic.

27 Years and counting...

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.