KC Royals: How club and old core are 4 years later

The scene was what everyone expected it to be, a bittersweet, tear-jerking moment when the KC Royals and a 2017 season-ending Kauffman Stadium crowd paid final tribute to four key players who helped the club win two straight American League pennants and its second World Series title.

Few thought any of that championship core—Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain and Alcides Escobar—would return in 2018. All would soon be free agents, and the frugal Royals probably wouldn’t spend the kind of money required to re-sign all, much less any, of them.

So it was that a sense of finality began to settle in late that October day when the four left the field together, waving to the fans who’d adored them and their regular and postseason heroics.

Strangely enough, however, the finality of it all wasn’t all that final. Half the core quartet did indeed leave, while the other half remained, albeit temporarily.

Four years later, how are the Royals and the core doing?

The shortstop returned to the KC Royals twice before settling in elsewhere.

Of the four key free agents, Alcides Escobar was the most dispensable, which may explain why he came back for 2018 —a good market didn’t develop for him, and he re-upped with the Royals in January.

Escobar, who Ned Yost insisted on using in the leadoff spot despite his lack of statistical bona fides for the role, had played every game in 2017 and batted .250. His return relieved Kansas City of the stress of immediately finding a new full-time shortstop, but he hit a career low .231 in 2018 and, with Adalberto Mondesi apparently ready to succeed him, Escobar’s days with the Kansas City organization appeared over.

And they were…for a time. He played in the Baltimore and White Sox minor league systems in 2019, then signed again with the Royals last May. He didn’t get back to The K, but had a good year with Washington (.288/.340/.404) after Kansas City sold him to the Nationals in July. He signed a new one-year deal with them in October.

The center fielder left the KC Royals to return to his baseball roots.

Lorenzo Cain, whose defense, speed, clutch play and effervescence made him one of the most popular players in Kansas City history, wasn’t always a Royal. Picked by Milwaukee in the 17th round of the 2004 amateur draft, Cain didn’t join Kansas City until the Brewers packaged him with Alcides Escobar, Jake Odorizzi and Jeremy Jeffress to get Zack Greinke and Yuniesky Betancourt after the 2010 season.

Panned by many at the time for giving up Greinke, the deal turned out to be one of the keys to Kansas City’s 2014 and 2015 World Series appearances, and enabled Cain to establish himself as a legitimate big league center fielder. He hit .289 with a .342 OBP and 120 steals in his seven Royal years and is batting .279 with a .355 OBP since returning to the Brewers after the 2017 campaign.

And Cain won his first Gold Glove in 2019.

Cain’s departure made Milwaukee better, but left a gaping hole in the Royals’ outfield. Can’t-miss prospect Bubba Starling couldn’t fill it; nor could Brett Phillips, Brian Goodwin, Billy Hamilton, Paulo Orlando or Abraham Almonte. Not until last season, when Michael A. Taylor claimed the position with the sparkling defense that earned him his first Gold Glove, have the Royals been comfortable in center—so comfortable, in fact, that they signed Taylor to a two-year extension before the season ended.

After returning briefly to the KC Royals, Mike Moustakas has struggled.

Like Alcides Escobar, third baseman Mike Moustakas didn’t find the 2017-2018 free agent market lucrative and re-signed with Kansas City. Moose’s return was predictably short-lived—the Royals reunited him with Lorenzo Cain in a trade deadline deal that sent him to the Brewers for Jorge Lopez and Brett Phillips.

Moustakas found Milwaukee to his liking. The Brew Crew made the playoffs in both his seasons there and he homered 35 times in 2019. But Cincinnati lured him away with a surprisingly good four-year, $64 million free agent deal.

Moving to the Reds meant switching more than teams for Moose. Cincinnati shifted him from third base to second (he’s since returned to third more often than not), his offense all but disappeared, and he hasn’t managed to stay healthy. Nagged by injuries, he’s played in less than half of Cincinnati’s games and is hitting .217 since joining them.

And what of Kansas City since Moustakas left? The Royals tried Hunter Dozier at third two years ago. Apparently concerned about Dozier’s glove, they brought in Maikel Franco to play the hot corner in 2020; Franco played every short-season game that year and hit .278, but the club didn’t bring him back, used a variety of third basemen last year, and seems ready to play Bobby Witt Jr. or Adalberto Mondesi there next season.