Well this is more of a test than anything. I'm looking for somewhere to spill my thoughts where the mess won't make anyone upset. This seems as good a place as any.
Let's start with the Royals. This is a subject that I am rather fond of, if not obsessed with.
I wasn't always a Royals fan. In fact, I grew up as an Indians fan. Though this seems rather odd for a boy from Kansas, it was my father who set me on this path. Throughout the 90s I was able to root for a very successful team. Though they had some hard years in the early 2000s, the Indians were a damn good team as late as 2007. Since then, things have not gone well for them. As the Indians fell into darkness, in this case media darkness since nobody wants to televise a loser, it became more difficult to follow them. The natural response was to leave the shadow of my forefathers and blaze my own trail. It just so happened that this trail was to a new baseball team. Don't judge me, my journey was every bit as hard as you might imagine. That is to say, it was as simple as changing the channel.
You see, when you live in Kansas, you have about three options when it comes to rooting for baseball teams. You can root for the Royals, the Cardinals or the Yankees. The first is only an option because local TV stations have decided that people want to watch a team lose for 27 years. The other two are there because they are the only games that are ever shown on national television. As a convert from the long-suffering Cleveland fan base, I was obviously attracted to the losing ways of the Royals.
Though the loss to the Red Sox in the 2007 ALCS was the genesis of my transition to Royals fandom, I didn't truly become a fanatic until 2010. This was the last year B.P. (Before Prospects). As you may remember, the brightest spots back then were Greinke, Soria, Billy Butler and Mike Aviles. I obviously was a huge fan of Greinke, but Aviles also had some sort of special power over me. I always thought that he would become a great player despite his not-so-rare lapses of concentration and a batting stance that makes even the untrained eye cringe. If the team had only ever been this, I may have just given up. Then, we traded Greinke and I was alerted to a bright new world. The world of prospects!
The idea of prospects is something that we can all identify with. Prospects are that moment when you think about asking a girl out and you believe that she could end up being your wife. Prospects are diving into your Christmas stocking, not knowing what joys you may discover. Prospects are...you get the picture, right? Prospects are the hope that tomorrow will be better than today. The hope that one of the guys, who you likely have never seen and only heard about, will become a superstar and lead your team back to the promised land. Since Kansas City hasn't been to the playoffs since 1985, they are all about prospects.
The world of prospects was something that I had not anticipated, but for someone like me, who loves stats and very much wishes that the future was as bright as these prospects promise, it was wonderful. It didn't hurt that the Royals had collected what many saw as the greatest collection of prospects in the history of baseball. They had Montgomery, Lamb, Moustakas, Duffy, Hosmer, Dwyer and Myers, just to name a few. This group earned Kansas City the honor being named the top Minor League system in all of baseball. The promise of a better tomorrow created by these "can't miss" prospects could blind even the most skeptical of fans.
The 2011 season started no better than the previous. We were largely still using stopgap players and taking gambles on guys who were being bought low. Examples of these "buy low" guys are Jeff Francoeur and Melky Cabrera (worked out for one year, then...well...). Kila Kai'ahue was supposed to be a great first baseman from the minors. He wasn't supposed to be a star, but many thought that he could be the everyday first baseman on a good team. Then the season started. Kila was awful. Aside from once hitting a game-winning home run, he just plain couldn't hit. This led to the first member of the First Wave coming up to the majors. You see, Eric Hosmer was also a first baseman and had been shredding AAA pitching to the tune of a .440 batting average. The Royals decided that it was time to bring up their young star and get him acclimated to the major league scene. Hosmer arrived in Kansas City to much fanfare and proceeded to finish third in Rookie of the Year voting with .293 batting average and 19 home runs. Over the course of the season, the youth movement became more pronounced. Danny Duffy, a LHP, made his debut. Mike Moustakas was called up to become the everyday third baseman. Johnny Giavotella was inserted at second base to give the Royals an infield that was the youngest in baseball. Then, out of nowhere, Salvador Perez burst onto the scene and became a fan favorite for his grit, rocket arm and surprising bat. The future was looking bright.
What was lost in the excitement of several of our biggest prospects making their debuts was that several others were seeing significant regression. In 2011, John Lamb tore his UCL and underwent Tommy John surgery. Mike Montgomery posted an ERA over 5.00 at AA. Chris Dwyer thought that looked cool and did it too. Wil Myers had an injury-marred season and finished with a batting average around .250. Though many had made their debuts, the critical flaw of prospects became apparent: they are not sure things.
Still, when the Royals traded Melky Cabrera to the Giants for Jonathan Sànchez, the followers thought that he, along with a consistent Bruce Chen, an improved Luke Hochevar, second year man Danny Duffy and a resurgent Felipe Paulino could lead the young, talented roster to the promised land. This dream was cut short early when our star closer, Joakim Soria, went down with Tommy John surgery. The dream was further dampened as rising star Salvador Perez tore his meniscus and missed half the season. As the season began, there was still some hope that the dream could survive. We were mistaken. The dream quickly shifted into a nightmare as UCL tears to both Duffy and Paulino and a groin tear from Lorenzo Cain, who had replaced Melky in center field, took a decent chunk out of the team. Add this to the horrible seasons from Francoeur and Hosmer, who had both been pretty good in 2011, and 2012 quickly became another season of development and prospect watching.
Luckily, our prospects were looking pretty good again. In fact, Wil Myers was arguably the best player in all of minor league baseball. He hit. Not just hit, but crushed. He was a force of nature with a bat in his hand. After beginning the year in AA, Myers rocketed up to AAA where he continued his torrid pace. By June, many pundits were calling for Francoeur to be benched and Myers to be promoted. The Royals stuck to their guns and left him in the minors. Why? We may never know, but the allure of something you can't have is always more appetizing than finally tasting it. All I can say is that Francoeur remained in the lineup and Wil Myers became the Minor League Player of the Year.
This brings us, roughly, to today. Not today, but the present. Shut up. The Royals decided that their First Wave of talent was ready and opted to use what had been hailed as the Second Wave (Myers, Odorizzi, Montgomery) to take a massive leap forward. They traded all these prospects for two major league starting pitchers. They traded all these prospects for James Shields and Wade Davis. These pitchers had been in the Rays organization for a considerable time and had both experienced a decent level of major league success with Shields being very close to what some might call an "ace". You might think that the Royals were widely lauded for using their unproven talent to correct the glaring hole in the team. You might think incorrectly. You see, the Royals have been terrible for 27 years. They have been terrible since the day after they won the 1985 World Series. Fans who haven't been to the playoffs in 27 years have a certain kind of mindset. They are afraid. They are afraid to invest, because they only know that this team can lose. This is an understandable situation. It's almost like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. You see something for so long, it becomes part of you. When Kansas Citians think of baseball, they don't think of the 1985 Royals lifting that trophy over their heads. They think of the nearly three decades of losing that have followed. They can't shake it. It's ingrained in them. As Ellis Boyd Redding might put it, they are institutionalized. They are so used to the "next year we might have a shot" that the idea of playing for today terrifies them. Is it the fear of failure that creates this prospect-fueled angst? I don't know. What I do know is that the Royals, for the first time in decades, are focused on winning now. Regardless of how the next two years work out (the length of Shields' contractual obligation), this step has taken the Royals to the next level.
We are done waiting for tomorrow to be better. We are ready for today to be a good day.
Readily yours,
Brandan
No comments:
Post a Comment