Royals start over, again. by Tom Donelson
You know your major league baseball team you follow sucks when you spend more time following the minor leagues to see who is coming up. It Is like you wondering if there are future stars close to coming up.
When the season began, I had high hope for the Royals. I had no illusion this was a world series contender but last year gave enough hope for the Royals as they improved to 74 wins and took the season series from Chicago, Minnesota and Detroit. If they had similar records with the Guardians, they may have 78 to 80 victories.
The offense looked like a strength with Perez coming off a 48-homer season, Merrifield hit .270, Benintendi .276 with 17 homers, Lopez hitting .300 and Bobby Witt Jr. coming to the big club. The bullpen looked like a rebuild of the Royals bullpen of 2014-15 with lot of young arms throwing high 90’s. The starting pitching was a question mark, but Zach Greinke was an improvement over Mike Minor.
The hitting for the first month and half didn’t materialize with Merrifield hitting 100 points below the Mendoza line, Perez fighting off injuries, Witt slow acclamation to the major, Lopez hitting 100 points lower than last year and Mondesi not only started off slow but suffered a knee injury.
The relieve pitching sucked and the young starters did not show improvement. The Royals are now worse record wise than past two years and the rebuild got short circuited. We are back to ground zero of a rebuilt and for many Royals, who have been promised we were at the end of tunnel and seeing the light, the disappointment of waiting for a playoff team has been extended.
The good news is that the young players that are now playing are showing potential including Witt, Melendez, and Isbel plus we are now looking at Vince Pasquantino. We still have more talent left in Double A and Triple A. As these youngsters learn to play in the majors, the growing pain and disappointment will outnumber the good times this baseball season, but we are seeing the future.
It also means by August; we may not be seeing Merrifield and Benintendi as we trade away veteran to contenders for Future prospects. We have already shipped Santana for two minor leaguers, one of whom has already seen action, Wyatt Mills.
The key question for Royals organization is the present leadership is the one to lead yet another Rebuilt. In 2007, the Boston Celtics tanked to get a shot at either Greg Odom or Kevin Durant but unfortunately, they didn’t get either pick, but they went ahead and picked up Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett. Celtics did not fire Doc Rivers but allowed him to coach the new rebuilt Celtics. Is Mike Matheny the guy who should be entrusted with the rebuilt? As one pundit observed, “A common complaint about Matheny’s time in St. Louis is that he did not trust his young players, yanking them from the starting lineup at the first sign of trouble, while sticking with a struggling veteran no matter how he was performing, creating a double standard. That has begun to carry over to Kansas City, with Matheny penciling in Whit Merrifield in his lineup literally every single game, despite the fact Merrifield has the fifth-worst wRC+ among all qualified hitters. He kept Carlos Santana in the lineup despite his struggles, and that was rewarded as Santana bounced back and the Royals were able to receive two pitchers in a trade for him.” So, do you keep a manager who prefers veterans during a rebuild? And while Merrifield has been good player since 2016, he is having a bad year, but he still plays every day as opposed to finally let him a day or two off. Matheny may not be the guy to manage the rebuilt and while Dayton Moore is a good guy, should he oversee the rebuilt? While he is not the day-to-day GM, that job belongs to J.J. Picollo, but Moore still has a role. He did a good job from 2006 to 2013 to rebuild the Royals to straight pennants and one World Series.
From 2016 to the present, we have seen the key players of the 2015 championship leave (except for Alex Gordon, who retired as a Royal and Perez who is still here). From 2018, the Royals had high draft picks but there has been disappointment as our young pitchers are still finding their way and there is question on whether the present coaching staff is the one to manage the young players to their potential.
After the season, the first thing that needs to be done is look at the present coaching staff and ask the one question, can this group lead a rebuilt? If not, they need to be fired and replaced. (I am concluding that Matheny is not the manager you want to lead the rebuilt and Cal Elrod is the not the pitching coach who can teach the young pitchers to take the next step.)
Royals are back to ground zero and there are lot of questions but the number one thing they need to do, get the coaching situation right.