If I were in charge, I'd write this season off as a super extended Spring Training where you expose some prospects to the maximum amount of MLB caliber competition since there's no minor league activity.

They're probably not good enough to advance in an extended playoff field if they do make it so why not see if one or two fielders in the lineup can hack it against good pitching as well as seeing if your young pitchers can make it through a Major League lineup once without getting blown the **** up.
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It’s worth noting the Cardinals consistently fielded shoddy defenses under Matheny.
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Dayton wont stand for that. I hope.
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Yeah I wasn't going to go there yet but especially towards the end his teams were very sloppy. I hope that's not what's happening here but we're making a lot of dumb mistakes. You'd think some of these basic errors are more on the players at this point, but I don't know what Matheny would be doing to cause the team to play bad defense.
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I advocated as much when the season began. Tank, get young guys some experience, profit.
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C'mon...

I have no particular like for Matheny, but I said before that this guy is going to get blamed for everything that doesn't go right. Every player that doesn't turn into an All-Star...Matheny. And I guess errors are going to be his fault.

The team hasn't been above .500 since 2015 and completely sucked the last two years. This year's team probably isn't all Metheny's fault just yet.
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It's something worth keeping an eye on, especially for an org that values D like the Royals (and we need to, especially with the park we play at).

I must say, Matheny has been a pleasant surprise so far (at least with how self-depreciating he's been in his interviews) and the strategy I've seen (it's been a lot different than Yost's, to say the least).
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Maybe Sherman has an idea from being on the outside that the Royals roster and front office isn't going to cut it and he allowed Dayton to bring in Matheny to justify blowing everything up after a likely work stoppage next year?
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There was discussion of a few Royals players regressing defensively, specifically Mondesi. Starting and Lopez have also looked much rougher.

Perhaps that is the lack of spring training and just normal rust.

But it also was a consistent component of the later Matheny cardinals teams. They were not sharp fundamentally, especially on defense.

He’s actually been surprisingly sound tactically in his short stint as Royals manager.
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I wonder how much of a leash Dayton will get with the new ownership? Obviously this year he gets a free pass. But once things get back to normal, how much longer does he get to turn things around?
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Was there any explanation for why our #1 catcher was playing 1st base? Seems like it's either a desperation move, or the Royals are just having fun for this season.
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It's not unusual for the starting catcher to not start as catcher on day games following night games. Here's an old blog post from about 12 years ago that I just found on the web that talks about this.
http://derekcarty.com/dfsedge_archive34.html

Sal is 30 years old. Also, this was an August day game, which can be pretty brutal. I used to be a food vendor at Royal Stadium from 1982-88, and Sunday games in the summer were big money days for us when we sold Cokes.

I remember hearing a funny comment about one of the Royals backup catchers back then being like fried chicken, in that he showed up around the plate on Sunday. :-)
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If you get swept its like a ten game losing streak. Season is toast. Covid still the favorite to win the division.
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Here's a 2018 SI article about backup catchers. It says that sometimes they are called "NFL Players", because they typically play on Sunday. :-)
https://www.si.com/mlb/2018/03/01/ul...backup-catcher
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I get a catcher not starting every game, but a catcher playing 1st base seems a bit odd when your team seems to having problems.
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