Kansas City Royals: How to avoid the same mistakes in 2020

The young guns are just not ready.

For fans of the Kansas City Royals, the most exciting development since we won the World Series in 2015 was the draft of 2018. I genuinely believe that was an impressive draft. If anything, I believe the national media may underrate the 2018 draft thus far. (It is worth noting that I also thought John Lamb would pitch for 15 years in the big leagues.)

Anyone who spends too much time following the Royals online already knows many of these names by heart. Singer, Kowar, Lynch, Bubic, Bowlan. They already have a cool group nickname – The Fab Five. They have done nothing but impress, to this point.

Incredibly there is even a second group of pitchers with names like Cox, Haake, Heasley. All in the same draft. It is thrilling. Looking forward to the day some of these blossoming stars pitch in Kauffman with rapt anticipation is just good fun.

Using our minor league talent as a reason not to improve our pitching staff significantly in 2020 is absolute nonsense. Any contribution these young arms make next year should be considered a bonus. Any of them. And we need better pitching tomorrow. Now.

The rotation we started this season with is not a long-term one. And a third triple-digit loss season without significant attempts to improve the pitching product on the field is also unacceptable. If we really want to help these up and coming pitchers have a smooth transition to the big leagues, do it by having a good team when they get here. A billion-dollar franchise deserves a real pitching staff.

Move on from Yost by not trying to find a new Yost.

Mike Matheny is not the right manager for this team. I doubt I would believe Mike Matheny is the proper manager for any major league team in 2020, but I only care about the Kansas City Royals. There are reasons to believe that the Royals have finally begun to understand and embrace the use of analytics in today’s game. But it is not like we have always been on the frontier.

Now is a perfect opportunity to show they are serious about becoming a team ready for the 2020s. To make some significant movement towards becoming one of the leaders, and not trying to play catchup for the next decade.

Many MLB organizations are still trying to understand how to embrace the changes concerning the use of data in the modern game. Change has come fast and furious over the last 20 years. It has gone from understanding Sabermetrics as a way to help identify useful statistics to using analytics to make reasonable assumptions about future performances. Now franchises at the forefront of the league also use data to aid in player development as well as spotting overlooked free agents. Signing Matheny would be a sign, to me, that we have no intention of becoming one of those franchises.

Young players today are different from the players of yesteryear. They do not see analytics as some fringe idea for nerds. It is something they have been around their entire baseball lives.

Data is not the only thing from yesteryear that has changed. Bullying behavior in pro sports was once considered acceptable, even necessary. But it never actually was. And the movement away from treating your teammates like garbage is a good one and one that we should embrace. We should expect MLB players to behave as professionals towards one another. Bullying and ostracizing younger players is not only the wrong thing to do, but it is also unproductive.

The Royals are a franchise that anticipates bringing up a crop of young pitchers over the next few years. Young pitchers will struggle as much as they succeed. Young men who will have their confidence tested on the field. The last thing we need is a manager, as Matheny has shown himself to be in the past, that believes a professional dugout should be held to the same standards as the mean table in a high school cafeteria.

Salvador Perez cannot hit well enough to be a first baseman.

I love Salvy. Everyone loves Salvy. Well, maybe not Hunter Strickland. But everyone else. He is a perennial All-Star catcher with the enthusiasm of a big kid. What he does not have is a bat that is good enough for an everyday first baseman or designated hitter.

There is a decent chance that if Salvador Perez stays healthy for the entire 2020 season he still only ends up with about 15 more walks than I do. His propensity to regularly swing at pitches that bounce is not something I expect to see Salvy change now that our beloved catcher at this stage of his career. He should, however, be counted on to hit .250 and crush 25 homers. And those are good numbers. For a catcher.

Salvador Perez has never hit for an OPS over .800 in a full season. It would seem unrealistic to expect him to suddenly begin hitting that well after coming off a serious injury in his 30s.

There is nothing wrong with giving our 6’4 catcher a day off here or thereby allowing him to DH or cover first base. Cam Gallagher has shown himself to be a reasonable backup catcher this season. But, making Salvy into a first baseman would decrease his value greatly. Reasonable opinions can differ here, but I would like to see us play someone at first base that can regularly get on base.

Stop signing free agents that are cheap because they cannot hit.

There is some sense in taking a flier on a guy because he has shown potential. (Jayson Nix) But we would be in denial if we did not admit that there is a pattern to the Royals overvaluing a certain type of player. (Chris Getz)

(Chris Owings) Throwing a few million here or a few million thereafter players that are never going to contribute offensively is wasteful. (Billy Hamilton) We better be able to find guys that are only good for their ability to play defense within our own organization.

We should either go get a free agent that brings a real bat to the proposition or go with a young guy we already have. (Ryan Goins) Stop trying to convince us that guys who cannot make consistent contact will suddenly learn how to swing a bat inside Kauffman stadium. (Dusty Coleman) And, for the sake of all that is holy, please stop signing players with no punch under the silly premise that we are getting them for their in-season trade value. Please.

We need not be resigned to the idea that the 2020 Kansas City Royals will be yet another lost season. We should not accept that as inevitable. We have some bats in their prime now – such as Whit, Soler, Dozier. We have valuable pieces just on either side of their prime years –  guys like Mondesi, Perez. Catcher, shortstop, and second base are all positions where it is difficult to find decent hitters, but we have those already.

There is no excuse to once again shrug and look for generic free-agent options. No reason for another offseason of Chris Owings and Lucas Duda and Billy Hamilton. By accepting that some of our recent patterns have failed us maybe we can begin to change our recent results. Try something different. Start a new habit. The players we need are out there and available. The players we need can be found. There is no need to wait. After back to back seasons of more than 100 losses, what else do we have to lose?