http://www.pinetarpress.com/royals-s...probably-wont/
Royals Should Sell, But History Means They Probably Won't
DB Lesky
After the fears of many have been realized, the Kansas City Royals are now in the home stretch of July and under the .500 mark. This may seem familiar. Just last year the Royals didn’t reach the .500 mark to stay until they beat the White Sox to win their sixth straight and got to 51-51. They’d fall back to exactly .500 once more before finishing the season on a strong note and getting to 86-76. At that time, the season was trumpeted by the organization as a success. You may recall Dayton Moore’s probably regrettable quote about the World Series. So that brings us to today, in the midst of the most anticipated Royals season since 2004, and the team is floundering. It seems like so long ago that the Royals were 39-32 and in charge of the AL Central with a 1.5 game lead. That’s vanished. They’ve even lost their hold on second place in the division.
So now, they should sell.
I’m a firm believer that if a team doesn’t have a real shot at the playoffs that they should always be trading parts that can allow them to receive help for future seasons. How many players I’d trade really depends on the team and the season. The Rangers, for example, are pretty clearly losing because I’m pretty sure their entire roster has spent time on the disabled list. With better health hoped for and assumed in 2015, the Rangers should probably hang on to some of their key guys. Maybe Elvis Andrus could fetch something on the open market, but he can be a key contributor to a good Rangers team next year, so why trade him just to trade him? At the same time, Adrian Beltre might be a good fit to be traded because the Rangers have Joey Gallo on the way, so they could boost their 2015 team with the return for Beltre and hopefully not lose anything at third base next year with the young guy coming up.
With a team like the Cubs, trading Jeff Samardzija was probably the right move. They’re on the cusp of being good, but not right there, so trading a guy who would probably be gone after next season anyway is smart. If the Cubs felt they could win next year, then I think it would be harder to trade Samardzija. The Rays might believe they can contend next year. If that’s the case, they’re not likely to receive anyone in return for David Price who can better help them to that goal, so maybe they hold on to him.
You can see that it’s not so easy to make these decisions. The Royals are kind of no-man’s land right now because they are sort of in striking distance of the second wild card with a fair amount of time left to go this season. This is where the history of the franchise gets in the way of the future of the franchise. If the Royals were an organization that had a couple playoff runs here and there and weren’t gunning for their third .500+ season since the strike, things would be very different. The Royals would look at their current roster and see a lot of potential for this team next season with the right moves being made. The front office wouldn’t feel the weight of their first eight years in control along with the weight of the 21 years prior to that. If we’re being honest, anything that happened before 2014 from a franchise perspective should be irrelevant. If we’re being logical, though, we know that’s not the way things work.
Now the Royals are in a situation that they don’t really know what they should do. If you watch this team, it’s pretty apparent that they’re mediocre. No, they aren’t as bad as they’ve shown at times, and they’re not nearly as good as they showed during their winning streak that vaulted them into first place. They’re probably a team destined to win somewhere between 78 and 86 games. A team without the last quarter century plus of losing might look at that record and see that it’s not good enough to really get anywhere and realize that the difference between 72 wins and 86 wins is nothing if it means no playoffs. A team like the Royals, though, sees value in 86 wins over 72 wins because even a .500 record is so hard to come by. That’s a big reason why you’re not going to see a Royals team near .500 and relatively close to a potential playoff spot in July selling off pieces. If it gets really bad, then maybe the conversation changes.
A related reason is the failure of this regime to get to the playoffs in nearly a decade on the job. When the Royals traded for James Shields and Wade Davis, a pretty clear message was sent that the Royals were expecting to make the playoffs in 2013 and/or 2014. I think there are ancillary benefits of respectability that a lot of people just don’t want to hear, but you don’t trade one of the best offensive prospects your system has seen for two years of a legitimately good starting pitcher unless you expect to make the playoffs with that guy. You don’t trade a potential stalwart in the outfield to have two .500+ seasons. Some can argue that, but they’d be wrong. So yeah, this season means a lot to this front office.
And that’s why they’re probably not going to do what they probably should do and trade James Shields to a team desperate for starting pitchers. That’s why they’re probably not going to pick one of Davis or Holland and trade them now. That’s why they’re probably not going to even seriously consider trading a guy like Eric Hosmer or Lorenzo Cain or, gasp, Alex Gordon. Instead, they’re likely going to stand pat or maybe even add some pieces to make a run as the 2014 season begins to wind down. This team could potentially even make a run if they add the right pieces. A right-handed bat who can hit some homers would be huge in this lineup. Bolstering the bullpen would be really helpful to aid a very good starting rotation. And this team could make a bit of a run and they could get to that 86 or 87 win mark. The problem is that I don’t think that’s even going to be enough to make the playoffs. Why sell the farm to miss the playoffs by three games?
I’ve been an advocate of buying for the Royals, but my advocacy stems from the fact that I just don’t see the Royals doing the opposite. Realistically, they should probably sell and try to re-tool for next season. They have two guys in their rotation in Yordano Ventura and Danny Duffy who have shown that they may be able to headline a rotation. There’s potential for 2015. If the last 29 years of Royals hadn’t been such an abject failure, the organization might be able to look to that year and tell the fans that they’ll try again next year with a stronger team, with holes from this year’s team fixed and strengths made stronger.
With all the flack we deservedly give this organization, it’s easy to forget that they know exactly what’s going on with team. They know the problems. Still, they see a team with a lot of potential and often focus on what they can do rather than what they have done. When you look at the entirety of what this team has done, it’s just hard to see a way this team makes the playoffs. Becuase of that simple point, I would sell. Unfortunately, Dayton Moore and company know the history of both this organization and their regime and feel they just can’t do that. And unfortunately, that has a chance to lead to the organization missing an opportunity to strengthen the next few years for the glory of not being mathematically eliminated until late in September again.