KC Royals: The unforgettable mistakes of 2017, Part 2

The KC Royals cooled off in August. They didn’t play well; two five-game losing streaks put the club well behind Cleveland, and the Indians ran away with the Division in September.

Much to the pain and anguish of the KC Royals and their fans, the promise of June and July turned to despair in August and September. There would be no postseason baseball in Kansas City, the final disappointment for a special team soon to be broken apart by free agency. Two things happened to ruin the dream of one last run with the championship core, one of the Royals’ own making, and the other not.

For their unfortunate part, the Royals lost nine of their first 11 August games and 18 of 28 in all, a startling collapse that left them 11 games out of first with virtually no hope of recovery; a lackluster 15-14 September simply assured them of a final losing record. Cleveland, on the other hand, scorched the division, winning 44 of its last 57 games.

And what of Moore’s moves to improve the club’s stretch run chances? Recalling Terrance Gore and trading for Melky Cabrera, Brandon Maurer, Ryan Buchter and Trevor Cahill didn’t work. Not that it would have made a difference if they had succeeded–the Indians were just too strong a late-season team–but the Royals’ acquisitions didn’t make their intended collective difference.

Gore mattered only if the KC Royals needed his special speed late in games–in other words, if they found themselves having to score late in critical contests. But the team’s poor play meant the need for Gore’s speed rarely materialized; he attempted only four steals.

Cabrera, a switch-hitter presumably acquired because he was hitting lefties well (.296) and could spell Alex Gordon and other outfielders down the stretch, was hitting .295 with 13 homers and 56 RBI when he arrived. He fell to .269 and hit just four homers for the rest of the season.

Cahill, obtained with Buchter and Maurer, had an 8.22 ERA in 21 innings, walked six more hitters than he struck out, and posted a 10.24 FIP. And Maurer, obtained to bolster the bullpen, was a disaster. His otherwise benign 2-2 record with two saves belied the collective ugliness of the 26 games he pitched–an 8.10 ERA (56 ERA+), 2.25 WHIP, 15.3 H9, and 5.0 BB9. (Buchter was 1-0 with a 2.67 ERA in 29 games).

Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain, Alcides Escobar and Jason Vargas all played in the club’s final game of the season, a home loss to Arizona that left them 80-82. All became free agents; Hosmer signed with San Diego, Cain with Milwaukee and Vargas with the Mets. The Royals re-signed Escobar, and then Moustakas when his market failed to develop. Escobar played out the 2018 season with KC and now plays in Japan, while Moustakas was traded in July to the Brewers and is now with Cincinnati.

The KC Royals made the wrong decision when they chose the present over the future in 2017.

Were the KC Royals wrong to keep the core intact and acquire help to improve their postseason chances? With or without the benefit of hindsight, the answer is Yes. Some of the championship core was still intact, but vital pieces were missing even before the season started. The bullpen didn’t have a Greg Holland or a Wade Davis; Kelvin Herrera and Joakim Soria had decent seasons, but the club sorely missed a combo like the old “H-D-H.” Jason Vargas finished 18-11 (the 18 wins led the league), but his was the only winning record among the regular starters.

No one replaced Kendrys Morales‘ production; Cabrera was never expected to and couldn’t. Adding Terrance Gore really didn’t matter one way or the other–he would have been called up in September anyway.

Inexplicable, of course, was manager Ned Yost‘s mystifying faith in Cahill and Mauer (especially Maurer), a perplexing managerial defiance of their continuing inability to pitch effectively. And Maurer’s pre-trade performance signaled trouble–he had a 5.72 ERA and a negative WAR with San Diego, both bad for a reliever (especially for one expected to bolster a bullpen) and danger signs the Royals should have heeded. KC made the deal anyway, one that remains among the worst the club ever made.

Fortunately, what the Royals sacrificed to get Cabrera and the trio of Padres’ pitchers hasn’t come back to hurt them. The real harm came not from what the club did, but from what it didn’t do–the Royals should have at least tried to capitalize on the value of assets soon to be lost to free agency. Although trading Vargas and Escobar probably wouldn’t have realized a significant return, there was a potential bounty to be reaped by moving Hosmer, Moustakas and Cain.

Hindsight isn’t required to determine the Royals made mistakes. The 2017 club simply wasn’t good enough from the start, and the June-July hot streaks, unlikely to be sustained down the stretch, offered illusions of contention and ignored the fact that Cleveland was simply too good a team to let the Royals stay close.

Convincing themselves that they were truly good enough to contend was the first mistake the Royals made; sacrificing the future for an improbable run at the playoffs was the second and most damaging. Moore dislikes the term rebuild, but that’s what the club has been in since the 2017 season ended and the core departed. It is a rebuild the length of which the right moves in ’17 could have shortened and rendered less painful.

The championship core of the 2014-2015 KC Royals will never be forgotten. But the club’s 2017 failure to maximize the value of key core players value was a mistake, one from which they’ll hopefully learn and never repeat.

Time will tell what lessons the Royals have learned, or will learn, from 2017.