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A Critical Analysis of the Royals Part 3: Taking Stock

In the first two posts of this series, I made several predictions. These were made at the time of the All-Star Break. Let’s see how I’m doing:

1. The Royals will not make the Playoffs: Prior to today’s loss, their chances had gone up slightly since the Break, but we’re down to 55 games or so and the Yankees, Toronto and Seattle all have more talent (and, of course, the Halos have the other wild card locked). I’m pretty confident in this one (sadly).

2. Since the Royals are not making the playoffs, they should be Sellers: No-brainer, especially now that the market for Shields was set by Peavy, and the market for Holland was set by Soria (albeit taking Detroit out of play).

[Aside 1: There is absolutely no starting pitcher market right now, and Shields would easily be the best unless Price becomes available. Moreover, reports say the Dodgers are dangling Corey Seager, who is killing it in Triple A and projects out as a power-hitting 3rd baseman (as noted in Part 2, we could use one for '15). Put simply, the Royals holding Shields for a 10% playoff chance is looking more crazy by the day.]

[Aside 2: Atlanta would also be willing to part with some serious talent for Shields.]

3. The Royals will BUY rather than SELL: Sure looks that way based on the Star article that had GMDM absolutely not selling. Here’s holding out hope it was a smokescreen.

4. This terrible decision will harm 2015: So will breaking in a new GM and Manager without the benefit of Corey Seager and other ready-to-play prospects (in addition to losing Shields, Holland and Butler WITH NO RETURN ON INVESTMENT). Prediction result TBD.

5. Royals will trade for Alex Rios: I’m not an Inside ESPN member, so I don’t know what it said, but there’s an article to this effect on the Royals ESPN homepage.

In closing, (i) I’m either Nostradamus’ cousin; (ii) the Royals are VERY quietly working deals to sell; or (iii) this is a disaster in the making.

Since the Royals’ 5-5 record since the All-Star Break has proven them to be exactly what we knew they were 10 days ago (a .500 club with some nice pieces), I’m going with (iii).



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