There's little doubt that the Kansas City Royals are rich with young, cheap, talented players. They've been the subject the past two seasons of speculation of their prospects putting it together, and names like Hosmer, Butler, Gordon, Moustakas, Duffy, etc. becoming the new wave of the Crawford, Upton, Longoria, et al we witnessed in Tampa Bay 3+ years ago.
So right now we're all thinking... They won 71 games last season. However...
The Tampa Bay Rays won 61 games in 2006. 66 in '07. Then in 2008 they suddenly made 'the jump' and won 97 games. Not that the spike with Kansas City will be so severe, since KC is not TB, but when are they expecting their 'jump' to be?? Is it something we're going to wait, wait, wait for and never comes to fruition? Is it three seasons down the road? Sooner??
Competitive this season with an "a few things go right" shot at making a run at division / wild card. If the team isn't in strong contention for the division in 2013 there will be some severe disappointment.
Most Royals fans can finally see the way out of the forest and are ready for the Process to start coming to fruition, but already many of the fans are looking forward with the (not unreasonable) jaded view of Glass not allowing GMDM to resign any of the young talent to long term deals which could mean the window is very small. Maybe a strong shot at the playoffs for 2013-2015. Its going to take a ton of development luck with the pitching prospects to extend it out any further than that or for Moore to suddenly become a genius at trading the players off at the right time.
How they handle Gordon's pending free agency will be a good first test.
The Royals need an ace. Plain and simple. There are some decent arms there, but no one that I personally would feel real comfortable calling my stopper. The offense has come along nicely, but it seems as though the pitching always his a snag.
It's all about the rotation. We have the offense/defense/bullpen to compete next year...just depends on how the rotation ends up. It wouldn't surprise me to see KC compete for the division all the way into Sept next year(depending on how this offeseason goes) but like Tav said we have to make some noise in 2013-2015.
Element wrote:The Royals need an ace. Plain and simple. There are some decent arms there, but no one that I personally would feel real comfortable calling my stopper. The offense has come along nicely, but it seems as though the pitching always his a snag.
I think KC would settle for 5 avg pitchers at this point. Every team needs an ace but KC has gotten absolute garbage out of their rotation. But things are starting to come together for the rotation. Paulino, Sanchez and some nice young arms coming up.
Element wrote:The Royals need an ace. Plain and simple. There are some decent arms there, but no one that I personally would feel real comfortable calling my stopper. The offense has come along nicely, but it seems as though the pitching always his a snag.
I think KC would settle for 5 avg pitchers at this point. Every team needs an ace but KC has gotten absolute garbage out of their rotation. But things are starting to come together for the rotation. Paulino, Sanchez and some nice young arms coming up.
Duffy started looking pretty good toward the end of the season. I think in another 2-3 years that kid is gonna be a star. 7.43 K/9 is pretty damn good for his first half season in the majors. Once he puts it together he could be the Royal's ace for years to come. As a Tiger fan that kind of scares me to think about it..
CyboNinja wrote:Duffy started looking pretty good toward the end of the season. I think in another 2-3 years that kid is gonna be a star. 7.43 K/9 is pretty damn good for his first half season in the majors. Once he puts it together he could be the Royal's ace for years to come. As a Tiger fan that kind of scares me to think about it..
Duffy is one of the young arms that I'm talking about. But I don't like to get ahead of myself with young, unproven arms. Especially ones that had K zone problems. I think he'll be good but the Royals chose a better solution. Acquire a lot of arms and some of them will work out.
One only has to look at the AL East doormat for an example in young arms taking longer to develop than expected. We're still waiting for Matusz, Tillman, Arrieta and Britton to develop into a good rotation. And they are 1-2 years ahead of the royals pitching prospects.
If Crow, Duffy and Montgomery pan out, and Sanchez an Jeffrees find their control then they could make the jump very soon. I think alot depends on that offense, Hosmer, Mouse, Gordon and Butler are solid but they still need a table setter at the top. I'm not sure if Cains that guy.
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by bigh0rt » Tue Nov 29, 2011 6:18 pm 
