Tag: Kansas City Royals

Despite what GASN’s Noah and Clint like to suggest, the game of baseball is changing and evolving. Some of the current trends in the game are good, some are bad, and some are just so unconventional that we are not sure what to think yet. Why some of the changes have occurred are obvious and others are perhaps a little more hard to understand, but regardless we are left wondering if they are just a fad, or if these trends will continue.

The 2019 Royals starting rotation has for the most part done a decent job. Last year it was rated in the top 10 teams in the MLB in ERA even, a little fact that gets overlooked a lot. This year, even with our 5^th pitcher slot still undetermined, we seem poised to do that again. Keller could potentially be part of the rebuild being only 23 years old. He has the skill set to be a decent middle of the rotation guy in a strong rotation.

Welcome into another edition of our Kansas City Chiefs Monday Mailbag as we answer your fan questions each and every Monday! The latest news with the Chiefs is that they have traded safety Eric Murray to the Cleveland Browns in return for defensive end Emmanuel Ogbah. The Chiefs have also signed former Oklahoma quarterback Blake Bell who will play tight end. They also signed former Chiefs and AAF cornerback, Keith Reaser. We have 7 great questions today and I can’t thank everyone enough who participates in this. So without further ado, let’s open up today’s mailbag!

What If I told you that the Royals this season are more like the 2015 Royals than the 2015 Royals actually were, would you believe me? Now I realize that sentence doesn’t really make any sense, but it actually does when you analyze it. So the 2015 Royals as we all know was built on speed and defense. That was the thing we always saw in the press from the players, Ned Yost, and even Dayton Moore. The thing is, this was true, but just not as true as the current team. The 2015 team had 4 gold glove type defenders with Perez, Gordon, Cain, and Hosmer. . The current team has three gold glove contenders as well with Gordon, Hamilton, and Maldanado. So with the Defense, the 2015 team was probably a little bit better than this team, but there is potential for it to be close to as good. Speed on the other hand is something different all together.

The Pitching

Brad Keller was the opening day starter after coming off the rule 5 draft in the offseason. Seldom does a player come from the Rule 5 draft and become the opening day starter, Keller has now achieved this twice in two years. At 23, Keller showed some amazing control over his location and wasn’t afraid to challenge hitters in his 7 innings of work. He has the makings of a strong pitcher for the Royals for several years if he continues to pitch like this. Keller was up against a bad White Sox team today, so we can’t get too excited yet, but it is very promising. When he pitches like this against say, the Yankee’s or another strong lineup, then we will have a better idea of his grit and toughness.

In Dayton Moore’s book More Than a Season, he references what he calls “The Process”. This of course is the process of which to build a successful franchise. He talks about how he learned the process from his time in Atlanta and they were able to achieve major success there for quite a long time. They are a bigger budget team than we are in Kansas City, but still not Yankee or Boston level budget either. So some of their process made sense to bring here. The big thing was the understanding that the only real way to build a strong successful team for more than season is not thru free agency, but rather thru your minor leagues. You have to build and develop your farm system to be one of the best. Essentially the idea is that you continually have a supply of young talented players coming up to replace the talented players you have to let go because you can no longer afford them. The Kansas City Star Columnist Sam Mellinger has called our current rebuild The Process 2.0 and it is accurate. Now you could call what the Royals do “Money ball”, and you would be wrong, but also kind of right. It is a variation on the idea that was “Money Ball”.