Featuring Colin Hecht, Greg Quattrochi, & Trevor Utley
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Featuring Colin Hecht, Greg Quattrochi, & Trevor Utley
Featuring Colin Hecht, Greg Quattrochi, & Trevor Utley
By Trevor Utley We stay in the American League Central Division as we continue to ascend the 30 Teams In Under 30 Days ladder. The Kansas City Royals shocked the majority of us last year in their run to the World Series. They were one waved home base runner away from taking Game 7 against San Francisco. The way they barreled through the likes of Oakland, Los Angeles, and Baltimore on their way to the Fall Classic will live in Kansas City lore for ages. I must be quite the hater to be putting a team that just did all that down two spots from last year to 17th on this list. It isn't that I am particularly a hater. It is more my belief that the American League Central is the toughest division in the sport and somebody has to lose out. The Royals' infield remains completely intact. Catcher Salvador Perez completed his second consecutive All-Star season with his second straight Gold Glove. He is a complete backstop (17 home runs, 70 RBI, 9 errors) on a ridiculously team friendly contract who is only 24. The Royals would be remiss if they didn't do right by Perez with an extension instead of running the gamut with team options that run all the way until 2019. Eric Hosmer regressed slightly at the plate in 2014 but cemented himself, in my opinion, as the best defensive first baseman in the Major Leagues. I also feel that last year was a bit fluky in his lack of home runs. He'll be back in double digits in 2015. Omar Infante is entrenched at second base. Infante's batting average regressed to the mean in 2014 at .252 but he set a new career high with 66 runs batted in. His glove is starting to fade as well but he should be more comfortable this year now that he is no longer being asked to play every position on the diamond. Alcides Escobar played in all 162 games last year and stole 30+ bases for the second time in three years. I expect the Royals to exercise both of the relatively cheap team options ($5.25 million for 2016, $6.5 million for 2017) to keep their infield core complete for the next couple of years. The big question surrounds what Kansas City plans to do with third baseman Mike Moustakas. His once solid defense is starting to wane and his batting average has dropped in each of his four years in the big leagues. He hit a ghastly .212 in 2014 but a decent Spring Training thus far (.300 BA, 2 HR, 10 RBI) has him in line to be the Opening Day starter at third once again. They have three more years of control over the 26 year old but it may be time to cut bait before his skills continue to diminish. Kendrys Morales will take over the designated hitter role from Billy Butler, who is now in Oakland. Morales had a rough go of it (combined .218/8 HR/42 RBI between SEA/MIN) in 2014, but a switch hitter with power will always get work. The outfield's one change was a calculated risk. Alex Rios replaces Nori Aoki in right on a one year, $11 million deal. His only full season in Texas was by far his least impressive power display. He hit just 4 homers in 131 games and slugged under .400 (.398) for the first time since 2011. I think the deal is a win/win for both parties. On just the one year contract, Rios will looking to prove he deserves one final payday. In the process, the Royals get a hungry former All-Star playing his heart out who is gone, or trade fodder, if he doesn't work out. The other two outfield spots are holdovers from last year. Alex Gordon was the man stranded at third in the ninth inning of Game 7. How would things have changed if he decided to attempt a run at home as his single off Madison Bumgarner was kicked around the outfield? Instead, we must focus on what did happen last year for Gordon. That just happened to be his second straight All-Star nod and fourth straight Gold Glove. With Butler's departure, Gordon is now the longest tenured Royal. His leadership will be needed if the Royals are going to shock the world again. Completing the outfield is speedster Lorenzo Cain. In his second season playing every day, Cain's stolen base total doubled from 14 to 28. He is no slouch with the bat either. Just ask Baltimore after he hit .533 against the Birds in garnering ALCS MVP honors. He like many other is under team control until 2018. It'll be interesting to see how GM Dayton Moore handles all these potential arbitration cases. The pitching staff lost their ace this offseason with the departure of James Shields to San Diego. That makes the need for their two youngest arms, Yordano Ventura and Danny Duffy, to step up that much more important. Ventura went 14-10 with a 3.20 ERA in 2014. He also showed big game poise in his two World Series starts, pitching seven shutout innings in his second start to force a Game 7. Ventura will start Opening Day. Duffy somehow went 9-12 with a 2.53 ERA and 1.11 WHIP. Towards the end of the season he moved to the pen to A) protect his shoulder and B) provide a steady left handed presence in the playoffs. He won't be making a change like that this year as the #2 starter so they'll need him to stay off the DL. The "replacement" for Shields is Edinson Volquez. Volquez rediscovered his stuff in Pittsburgh last year after taking two seasons worth of lumps in the NL West. He returns to the AL for the first since being traded for Josh Hamilton all the way back in 2007. The Royals are hoping that the homecoming is a good one. The rest of the rotation will be sorted out between Jason Vargas, Jeremy Guthrie, and Chris Young. Young's decision to sign as essentially a sixth starter in Kansas City was a puzzling one. Guthrie and Vargas aren't spectacular, but they should pitch well enough to maintain their spots in the rotation. It will probably have to take a long term injury for Young or the only man to pitch in the College and Pro World Series in the same calendar year, Brandon Finnegan, to crack the starting five this year. Kris Medlen (2 yr, $8.5 million deal) is also a person to watch as he rehabs from Tommy John surgery. He was one of the Braves' best starters before his 2014 was wiped out. If both Finnegan and Young make the big club, they'll only add to an impregnable bullpen. Closer Greg Holland has been the model of consistency and efficiency. In his two full seasons as KC's ninth inning man, he is 93 for 98 in save opportunities (95%), sports a 1.32 ERA, and has a K/BB ratio of 193 to 38. The pitchers ahead of him are just as scary. A Wade Davis was a pitcher reborn in the pen as he went 9-2 with a 1.00 ERA with 109 strikeouts in just 72 innings. He even finished above Holland in the Cy Young balloting. Paired with Davis in the 7th and 8th innings is Kelvin Herrera. Though not the strikeout machine that Davis was, the Dominican righty sported a 1.41 ERA in 70 games, finishing 12 of them. If Finnegan isn't the main left hander, that role will be Franklin Morales'. He was a non-roster invitee this spring but looks to be a certainty to make manager Ned Yost's 25 man roster. Overall, where they play determined my placement of the Royals more than who they are. They are an emerging team in the American League, funny to say since they just went to the World Series. I just can't see them getting by the Indians or Tigers this year and I think the Wild Cards are coming from other divisions. The Royals will get to .500 but it'll take every thing they have to do that. LAST YEAR'S RANKING: #15 (DOWN 2) PREDICTED RECORD: 81-81 PREDICTED ALL-STAR REPS: Alex Gordon (outfielder), Danny Duffy (starting pitcher), Greg Holland (relief pitcher) Trevor Utley wants Royals fans to put down the pitchforks and torches. .500 in the AL Central is REALLY good. Image Credit: Royals logo (sportslogos.net) Featuring Trevor Utley, Andrew Sanford, & Lou Kessler Featuring Trevor Utley, Lou Kessler, & Andrew Sanford By Trevor Utley The Kansas City Royals are in first place. Yes, you read that right. The Kansas City Royals are ahead of the powerhouse known as the Detroit Tigers in the American League Central. A team that has been a symbol of futility for over a decade has finally cracked the code to success in today's Major League Baseball. I'm here to tell you how they are doing it. Last year the Royals won 86 games, their first winning season since 2003. They missed out on the second Wild Card but were able to give their fanbase something they haven't had since their glory days of the 80's: hope. Similar to what the Rays did in the latter part of the 2000's, the Royals have finally parlayed drafting in the top 10 for years mixed with savvy free agents signings into winning. Unlike Tampa, the Royals will not have to auction off their prized assets after their ascendancy. Kansas City has played their hand to perfection and the potential pot is bigger than they've ever dreamed. THEY CRAVE A DIFFERENT TYPE OF BUZZ Kansas City's rise to relevance has been on the backs of their arms. That sentence may be anatomically incorrect but pitching wins and Kansas City has it in abundance. Neither their starting staff nor bullpen has headline making star power, but both corps have stayed healthy and maintained a level of consistency matched by maybe only Washington this year. Many Royals' fans were displeased when they traded top prospect Wil Myers to Tampa before 2013. He promptly won Rookie of the Year honors and made the playoffs. While Myers has had an injury plagued sophomore season (he just came off the DL after a 12 week stint), the man they got in return from the Rays, James Shields, has been a horse at the apex of the Kansas City starting rotation. Big Game James has taken the ball every fifth day for KC and is sixth in the Majors in innings pitched (178.1). He has never gone less than five innings in any of his 27 starts. Those are the kind of things you want to see when you are going into free agency. The rest of the starting five is nothing to shake a stick at either. That is unless you like shaking sticks at good pitchers. To each their own I say. Jason Vargas came over from the Angels on a reasonable 4 year, $32 million deal. He has already pitched more innings than he did all of last year and has out-dueled Corey Kluber, Scott Kazmir, and Justin Verlander to a 10-5 record thus far. 23 year old Yordano Ventura (9-9, 119 K) and 25 year old Danny Duffy (2.53 ERA, 1.08 WHIP) are coming into their own in the middle of the rotation. Jeremy Guthrie's numbers aren't spectacular, but he performed yeoman's work last year (15-12 record) while the roster cohesion strengthened. Recently he has won four of his last five games including six shutout innings against Sonny Gray and the highest scoring team in baseball, Oakland. I bring up that game because the way that game was pitched has been the formula for Kansas City's pitching triumphs. When Guthrie departed at the end of that sixth inning, Oakland would see three more pitchers in the game. Those pitchers were Kelvin Herrera in the seventh, Wade Davis in the eighth, and Greg Holland in the ninth. This triumvirate has been stellar in closing out games for Kansas City. They are even more dangerous when a starter can get to them with the regularity that Royals' starters have in 2014. The first man out of the pen is usually the fireballing Herrera. The Dominican righty averages around 97 MPH on his fastball and can ramp it up to as high as 103 on the gun. Pair that with a changeup at 86 and a fall off the table curve and you are going to get a lot of outs (1.53 ERA, 40 hits in 53 IP). Nevertheless, the first line of defense pales in comparison to the next bat silencer, Wade Davis. Davis has had a career renaissance in the set-up role this year. Davis floundered in the rotation in his first year in powder blue but a return to the pen has done wonders for his confidence. It has had an opposite effect on opposing hitters. Davis is 6-2 with a miniscule 0.81 ERA and 0.87 WHIP while filthily striking out 85 batters in just 55.1 innings pitched. Getting the final outs is Greg Holland's job. Holland has been an All-Star the two years he has had the closer gig full time and leads the majors with 39 saves (with only 2 blown saves). Having your starters consistently get deep into games paired with a bullpen set in their roles (and very good at them) gives you a puncher's chance come September. The team chasing them now, Detroit, needs to sure up that second part or risk not joining Kansas City in baseball's second season. TIGERS ON A GOLD LEASH The Tigers were my pick to win the American League Central going away at the start of the year. Justin Verlander was my AL MVP pick. They were able to pry David Price from Tampa Bay for essentially nothing and now sport three Cy Young Award winners in a rotation along with the more than capable arms of Anibal Sanchez (though currently disabled) and Rick Porcello. Why have the Tigers fallen behind then in a division they once led by as many as 7.5 games? The bullpen has been the main culprit. Closer Joe Nathan routinely has Tigers' fans on the edge of their seats for all the wrong reasons. He boasts a 5.28 ERA, 1.61 WHIP, and his six blown saves are the most among closers. They brought in Joakim Soria, then closer in Texas, to pitch the seventh inning. He was working out about as well as the last Texas closer to be traded to a contender to pitch in the seventh inning, Eric Gagne. Gagne at least got a ring with the 2007 Red Sox. The jury is still out on Soria. A team can make it to the playoffs with a bad bullpen but if they expect to win it all, shaky relief isn't going to cut it. LIFE IS GREAT WITHOUT A CARE All this talk of pitching is exactly what the Royals' hitters want. Like the arms, the bats don't have that standout force that the national media can sink their teeth into. No 30 home run masher. No .330 hitting machine. They just have a full lineup of .260-.280 hitters that have about 40-50 runs batted in. Alex Gordon is the leader of the pack. According to Fangraphs, he has the highest WAR (5.7) in the entire Majors. Omar Infante is fourth among second basemen with a team leading 57 RBI. Billy Butler and Salvador Perez aren't hitting for the high average that fans are accustomed to but Butler leads the team in hits and Perez is tops in homers. A great deal of those are coming in clutch situations too. It is one of the reasons they have not cut bait with Mike Moustakas whilst he only carries a .202 batting average. There is no pressure on them to do so. They were a "sneaky expert pick" to make waves before the season but right now Kansas City is playing with house money. While tension builds in the Motor City, Baltimore struggles to find an ace, and the two teams out West beat each other into dust, Kansas City can keep playing baseball with the carefree nature of the kids pinging homers out of Williamsport. I know I am secretly rooting for them even though their standard home uniforms are complete ripoffs of the Dodgers. All in all I am happy for the Royals. They are a franchise that has put their fans through a boatload of losing without always the promise of future glory at the end of the trail. It seems they have now put their penny pinching, striving for the middle of the pack methods behind them and it is paying dividends. It is always good to see a fresh face in the MLB playoff picture like Baltimore two years ago and Cleveland last October. There is still over a month left in the regular season and plenty of baseball to be played. This may not be the year that the Royals become rulers of the Majors, but for now...let them live that fantasy. Image Credit: Lorde w/ Brett jersey (gamedayr.com) By Trevor Utley The Royals are the first team on this list that I have going over .500 in 2014. They were a surprise team last campaign as only an abysmal May kept the Royals from making the postseason for the first time since 1985. They traded away top prospect Wil Myers for James Shields and there could be valid arguments on either side as to who "won" the trade. Shields is the anchor of a staff that may be a bit weak now (Jason Vargas, Jeremy Guthrie, Danny Duffy, Wade Davis), but has much in the way of fresh new arms waiting in the wings. Yordano Ventura has great swing and miss stuff but needs to make sure that stuff stays in the strike zone to cut back on his walks. Kyle Zimmer, the fifth pick in the 2012 draft, is zooming up the Royals' minor league track. Sean Manaea is a power left hander who was projected by some as a potential #1 overall in 2013 (it ended up being Mark Appel) but collegiate injuries made him a steal in the compensation round. The bullpen is loaded with at least four different guys ready to close if incumbent Greg Holland falters or falls ill. Though improved, the lineup still poses the most questions for me. Will new right fielder Norichika Aoki may have some growing pains changing leagues. Can Omar Infante have the same production without the protection he had in Detroit? Will Mike Moustakas finally take Eric Hosmer's lead and live up to his potential? Can Alcides Escobar and Lorenzo Cain's offense catch up to their defense? Can Alex Gordon reacclimate to the middle of the order? Until all these questions get clear answers I can only have the Royals on the outside of the playoff picture looking in. For the first time in a good while though, Royals fans can take solace that that they have people in power that are trying to change that view. PREDICTED RECORD: 83-79 PREDICTED ALL-STAR REPS: James Shields, starting pitcher; Greg Holland, relief pitcher; Luke Hochevar, relief pitcher Image Credit: Royals logo (sportslogos.net) |
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