The Kansas City Royals are mired in another lost and forgettable season, buried deep in the AL Central Standings and on pace for another 90+ loss regular season. 2011 will mark their eighth straight losing season and sixteenth out of their last seventeen (2003 was the streak buster), so by now the city casually associates its once-proud baseball team with mediocrity, hopelessness and despair. Fans have given up and as a result the team ranks third to last in attendance in the American League.
And if you want to know where the season went wrong, you don't have to look far. The starting pitching, stripped of 2009 AL Cy Young winner Zack Greinke, has been atrocious. The bullpen has had a few bright spots a la All-Star Aaron Crow, but even reliable closer Joakim Soria has sputtered through a down season by his lofty standards.
But there is some hope on the horizon, for the young and talented lineup has gotten lost somewhere in the shuffle. Designated hitter Billy Butler and three outfielders Melky Cabrera, Jeff Francoeur and Alex Gordon have enjoyed remarkably similar levels of success at the plate this year. Their statistics are almost identical. Check it out here: http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/KCR/2011.shtml
They're all basically the same age, and 21 year-old rookie Eric Hosmer is keeping up with them, too. Glad to see the Melk Man and Frenchy have rejuvenated their careers in Missouri away from the bright lights of New York where Cabrera was a Yankee and Francoeur was a Metropolitan. Gordon, fully healthy after a pair of lost seasons to injuries, has salvaged an unimpressive start to his hyped big league career and seems to have finally turned the corner. Butler may never develop 30 home run power, but if he ends up being a righthanded Nick Markakis then nobody will complain.
All of these guys have been instrumental in keeping the Royals' offense above average this year. They've done their best to negate some of the team's pitching woes and unite with the struggling but still developing Mike Moustakas to create a great nucleus for the organization to build around. New manager Ned Yost has performed admirably as he lets his youngsters mature while he waits for reinforcements to arrive, because right now that's pretty much the only thing he can do. Kansas City doesn't exactly have the money to acquire big name free agents, but as Joe Posnanski has noted the organization spends what little dough it does have quite poorly.
But their loaded farm system is stocked with talented pitchers, and everyone's talking about the Royals as contenders in 2013 or 2014. We just need to wait a few years and give their prospects time to develop, and before we know it the Royals might be the top dog in the eternally unstable AL Central. Rebuilding takes time and patience, and for now the fans in KC must weather the storm and hope the sun comes out tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment