Royals *** Official 2017 Royals Repository *** - Page 203

Chiefsplanet’s (Proposed) 2017 Season Title: One Last Ride

Midish-Season Update (Royals 51-47, 2nd Wild Card, 1.5 GB of ALC):

We're halfway through 2017, and fittingly to the Chiefsplanet's 2017 Season Title, the Royals are all-in on what will likely be one final run with the current core. While many are worried the Royals will take a 2004 style tumble after this year, the farm system is hardly the barren wasteland it was during the Baird years. To see what's in the pipeline and what we have to look forward to, check out this exceptional list and analysis that Duncan put together of our system.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...htmlview#gid=0

While I had the honor of starting this thread this year, Duncan will always have a VIP pass to this OP, and can add more content at any time.

2017's Burning Questions Revisited:

1. What is the threshold between being “buyers” and “sellers” at the deadline?

We're buyers, baby.

In April, I argued that it would be a wise strategy for us to sell if we were 5 GB or worse, but that Dayton would likely add supplemental pieces for us to load up for another run if we were 1-2 GB. On July 24th, the Royals found themselves in sole possession of the 2nd wild card spot and 1.5 games back of the division. In April I said the Royals might pull the trigger on someone like Alex Cobb and resign Luke Hochevar, but since the Rays are also buyers and Luke's shoulder hasn't rebounded, this prediction hasn't come to fruition. Luckily, Dayton Moore again proved much more adept and creative than me by adding Trevor Cahill (good call, Duncan), Brandon Maurer and Ryan Buchter in a single trade. Giving us a solid starter to compete in 2017, and two relievers whom we will control through 2019 and 2021, respectively, keeping Moore's new vision through 2019-2020 intact. Moore has hinted that the Royals will continue to pursue the right deals if they're there, so the fun may not be over just yet. While we may not have the bullets to pull in a "star" like Cueto or Zo, Moore's adeptness may yet again net us what we need for another run in October.

2. Can Gordo and Moose bounce back to 2015 levels?

In April I asked if Gordo could at least set the table at a 265/325/425 clip and if Moose could deliver damage around a 265/335/500 clip for an entire year. This season Mr. Moustakas has been the prospect that was promised, delivering at a 277/307/568 clip as of this update. Gordo, on the other hand, has put up an unbelievably abysmal line thus far. But, if there is a silver lining, it's that Gordo has performed at a 246/311/432 line since June 1st, and if he can continue to perform near that mark, he will be more than a valuable asset at the bottom of the lineup while he continues to provide the best LF defense in the league.

3. Can Ned Yost manage a bullpen?

In April, I felt that despite the poor start, Royals bullpen would ultimately be "solid" this year, but the question was whether "solid" was good enough for Ned. I argued that the Royals needed Soria to bounce back and that Ned would need to start being strategic in his L/L and R/R matchups. While Ned has still made at times baffling and frustrating decisions with his starters (such as allowing Travis Wood to try to "get the win" and still insisting on sending Hammel out for the 6th, he's mostly done a good job).

MASH: Minor/Moylan - Alexander - Soria - Herrera (Credit to C3HIEF3S for the origins of the phrase) have cemented into reliable pieces, and now that Herrera is showing signs of stabilizing, our dumping of Wood, our call up Flynn, and the acquisition of Buchter and Maurer, the Royals have the potential to enter October with one of the best and deepest bullpens in the postseason.

4. Will the Royals find a boost from an unexpected X-Factor to lift them to contention?

Cool-Whit, Boni, Mike ****ing Minor, and Alexander have come up huge thus far. Cool Whit is, incredibly, is second on the team in WAR and has more than replaced Zo's presence on the team. They, like the X-Factors on the 2014-2015 teams, have been critical cogs as we've raced back to contention, while Cool-Whit and Boni also have provided a rosier outlook for this team's future. It's worth noting that Salvador Perez and Jason Vargas has been beasts on offense and the mound (along with Sal providing his customary defensive excellence), but I am still a bit wary of Salvy's annual Yost assisted offensive drought as the team moves into August, along with Vargy regressing to his averages.

5. Can Jorge Soler and Brandon Moss be productive contributors in Kauffman’s dimensions?

Ouch, no, but the Royals shift to power-hitting in the juiced ball era looks like one that will pay off. Thankfully, Moss is showing signs of entering his seasonal hot streak where he becomes corn-fed Jesus for a month, and we'll need him hot to keep up with Cleveland down the stretch. While Jorge has been painful to watch in the majors, his scorching performance in AAA should give one a bright hope for the future. While some may disagree, I offer Moose, Hos, Gordo, and Duffy's struggles as exhibit A for why it is far too early to give up on Soler's potential.

Bonus Question - Is Raul Mondesi truly ready to be an everyday player?

Ha! Not even close. However, like Soler, his progress in AAA is incredibly encouraging. With ceilings like Lindor and floors being Esky being thrown out there, it's hard not to be excited about his future.

The Picture Forward

There are many reasons to be excited, and not only for 2017. The Royals emergence of Cool Whit, Bonifacio, and Scott Alexander, and the fact that we have pieces like Salvador Perez, Danny Duffy, Kelvin Herrera, Jorge Soler, Ryan Buchter, Brandon Maurer Cheslor Cuthbert, and Raul Mondesi until at least 2019 should leave one feeling pretty optimistic. Re-up Moose or Hos (and heck, re-sign Dyson while we're at it), and suddenly this team looks very much like one that could compete for the indefinite future.

The Royals are all in again, buckle in and enjoy the ride.

April OP:

Spoiler!

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@JPosnanski: People keep waiting for the @Royals to start trading off parts. I don�t think they will. I think Dayton is all in. https://medium.com/joeblogs/royals-all-in-41cd0e169d02

https://medium.com/joeblogs/royals-all-in-41cd0e169d02

Royals: All*in

�I like good baseball.�

� Dayton Moore

All season long, people � present company included � have assumed that the Kansas City Royals would be sellers this year. Well, it just stands to reason. When the season ends, the core of this Royals team (Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain and Alcides Escobar) will be free agents.

The Royals will not be able to sign all of them. They might not be able sign any of them.

And so: The smart money was on the Royals wheeling and dealing to protect their future. We have seen mess this up again and again, year after year � they have some success and they sit on it, they hold on to players too long, they watch their stars sign elsewhere, they see their once-vibrant minor league system atrophy, and they go into a terrible Philadelphia Phillies sort of nosedive that is all but impossible to escape.

Dayton Moore is a smart guy, and it seemed like he would counter this sort of dystopian future by trading off a few key parts before winter comes.

But, you know what? It�s become entirely clear to me now: He won�t. The Royals are not going to be sellers this year. If anything, they will be (small-time) buyers. And then they will face the future, come what may.

There are three reasons I believe this after talking with Dayton Moore.

1. There is enough parity in the American League to offer postseason hope.

You probably have seen this: In the National League, only the National League Central feels wide open, and no team is within 5 1/2 games of the two Wildcard leaders. The National League has become the league of disparity, with three teams playing great � Washington, Los Angeles and Arizona � and every other team (including the fading Rockies) trying to figure things out.

But in the American League, Ten teams are within 5 1/2 games of the two wild card spots, and both the AL East and Central feel pretty winnable for just about any team. The Astros are the only great team in the American League at the moment, but there are a lot of good teams that can get hot � Dayton Moore believes the Royals to be one of those teams.

There is evidence to suggest that Moore is deluding himself. The Royals are dead last in the American League in runs scored with all of the contributing factors (last in on-base percentage, 14th in slugging, 11th in homers, 14th in doubles) to suggest that last in runs isn�t a fluke. Their pitching staff is a whole lot of meh, aside from veteran Jason Vargas who has been stubbornly awesome and should have a his own section of Vargonauts at every game.*

*Come on: Jason and the Vargonauts? How has this not become a thing?

But, let�s be honest, the Royals didn�t score a lot of runs when they won back-to-back pennants either, and their rotation was a whole lot of meh (though their bullpen was way better than this one, at least so far). Dayton Moore�s Royals have long played with logic-bashing black magic, and Moore believes that they still have it.

Which leads to the second point.

2. If the Royals DO sneak into the playoffs, even as a wildcard, Moore has complete confidence that they can go to the World Series and win it.

Well, of course he thinks that. The 2014 Royals weren�t a great team. They were down 8�3 to Oakland in the late innings of their wildcard game � and with Jon Lester on the mound for the A�s. Next thing you know, the Royals had obliterated Mike Trout�s Angels and Buck Showalter�s Orioles and they got the seventh game of the World Series before finally being vanquished by Lord Bumgarner.

The 2015 Royals were a better team, but they too were impossibly down against Houston, mostly dead, and next thing you know Eric Hosmer was racing home, stopping New York cold, and the Royals were holding the biggest parade in the Midwest since the 1904 St. Louis World�s Fair.

So yeah, if Moore can get a ticket � even a standing-room only ticket � to the postseason, he will take his chances.

3. Moore likes good baseball.

That�s the quote from above, and I think it probably gets to the heart of things: Moore has never WANTED to sell. Sure, he�s smart, and he knows the score, and he knows how bleak it might get if the Royals just lose their best four or five players and have to start again.

But as bleak as that might be, it won�t be as bleak as 2006 when he took over the Royals. He saw what it was like when the team had no talent, when the team had no money, when the Kansas City fans were disengaged or disgusted, when the Royals represented baseball�s great punchline. �Nice hat,� the comedian Paul Reiser once said to me when he saw my Royals hat. �Let me ask you, do they TRY to find bad players? Do they see good players and say, �No, not for us?�

Moore figures life is too short to voluntarily go back to that. His feeling is that as long as this window is even slightly open, he owes it to the fans, to the players, to ownership and to his own distaste for bad baseball to ride it out, to go for it one more time. There are deeper reasons to keep it together � the Royals are negotiating a new TV deal, for example, and diving head first into rebuilding mode doesn�t help negotiations. Also, Moore has been largely unimpressed with the offers coming his way and is unconvinced that he couldn�t do better with the draft picks should he be unable to sign the players.

But mostly, I think Dayton will go all in because life is short. The Royals� rise reinvigorated Kansas City, brought baseball back to the center of the heartland, inspired a whole new generation of fans all over. He knows, of course, that some hard monetary realities lie just ahead, and the Royals could find themselves in a deep rebuilding mode, something that would not be a lot of fun for anybody in Kansas City who already endured it once.

But the Royals are playing better, and this team has shocked people before, and Moore figures that it would be a shame to let this last summer go by without trying to win it one more time.
[Reply]