FanPost

The Season That Never Was--Kansas City's 162 game 2020.



We all remember March 12, 2020 when MLB called off spring training fourteen days before the Kansas City Royals were set to play their season opening game at the White Sox. The original hope was that opening day would only be delayed for a couple of weeks but it was not until July 24 before the Royals played their first game of the modified 60 game 2020 campaign.

Asking baseball fans to skip four months was not easy as many had spent the winter of 2019-2020 debating their favorite team's chances while trying to stay warm near their hot stoves. For example, fans of the Kansas City Royals for the most part did not expect the 2020 Royals to win any flags but modest dreams of avoiding another 100 loss season were not dismissed out of hand as totally impossible. Avoiding 100 losses due to a shortened schedule did not, and still does not, answer that dream.

Baseball Reference did a good job last year by playing the original 162 game schedule day-by-day with the aid of the simulation game Out of the Park Baseball 21. They did not play the whole season in minutes although that could have been done and instead they only advanced the season one day at a time like a "real" season to keep those interested in some suspense. Unfortunately the 2020 Kansas City Royals in the Baseball Reference simulation failed to show improvement and ended with 54 wins and a franchise record 108 losses.

Having played OOTP for a number of years I have learned more about the tricks in the game and I also wanted to simulate the 162 game season one single day at a time but with some differences between the BR model and my version of the campaign. For one thing the Baseball Reference 2020 season allowed some fictional trades like sending Rosenthal to the Dodgers for a minor league pitcher. I instead had turned off all trades and waivers in the league but did move players who actually changed teams via my Commissioner Mode powers so Rosenthal was sent to San Diego for Olivares on the exact date of the real deal. I made the Brett Phillips for Lucius Fox transaction when it happened but Baseball Reference kept Phillips on the Royals roster all season. I also had learned some tricks to get the artificial intelligence managers of teams to give more playing time to various fellows but apparently BR just let computer "Matheny" do his thing with the result that Maikel Franco in their simulation earned his money playing all of only eight games all season. My "Mike" penciled Franco into the starting lineup 149 games. I dare to think that my OOTP21 version of the 2020 Kansas City Royals was more probable and realistic than the Baseball Reference attempt and my Royals finished with a record of 77 wins and 85 loses. My 2020 Royals not only avoided 100 losses but they also avoided 90 losses and for much of the season a .500 record was not an impossible dream.

Before going into more detail about the 162 game 2020 Royals I should mention that since I wanted the rosters of all thirty teams to be as accurate as possible I had turned off all game-created artificial injuries and instead used my Commissioner Powers to place players on either the Injured List or the Covid-19 List for the actual durations or their real maladies which required me to check sources like Rotoworld every single day. Players injured before the season like Chris Sale missed the actual parts or wholes of the year. Ohtani was healthy enough to be a two-way player until his actual arm issue which forced him to give up pitching duties for the remainder of the season. A player opting out of the year due to Covid-19 did so the exact day it became public. The Royals had their share of Covid-19 and injured players which affected the way I had to construct the 26 man roster (28 man roster after September 1). The AI GMs of the other twenty-nine teams had to make adjustments based upon real transactions and injuries but they were given some slack to use players in their internal organization outside of their original 40 man rosters. Since waivers and also the right to refuse assignment were turned off those GMs could easily cut from the 40 man without entirely losing guys and replace the "unclaimable designated" with more promising fellows and prospects like Mize and Bart and Rutschman ended up playing enough in 2020 to lose their rookie designations.

Since the 162 game season never happened we will never know how things like rescheduling games would have worked but I had turned off all rainouts and I also never did cancel a game due to Covid-19 concerns. Teams played the exact scheduled games on the exact scheduled dates and they had to come up with some kind of roster on game day despite the number of missing players. The Marlins and the Cardinals were fortunate that my Commissioner Mode powers allowed them to fill in when necessary with fellows deep beyond the original 40 man rosters in order to have 26 or 28 warm bodies for every game. Being lenient with the 40 man rosters also allowed my Royals to fill in when necessary and names like Tillo (before his injury), Kowar, Lee, Melendez, and Fox made major league debuts which never happened in real life. However, only Daniel Tillo (barely in his case) of these five men played enough for my 2020 Royals to lose rookie status.

Perhaps the quickest way to describe my OOTP21 Royals season is to concentrate on the team's standings by month in the American League Central Division.

After all games of April the Royals were second in the ALC and trailing Cleveland by one game.

After all games of May the Royals were tied with the Twins for second in the ALC and trailing Cleveland by three games.

After all games of June the Royals were third in the ALC and trailing both Cleveland and Minnesota by three games.

After all games of July the Royals were third in the ALC and trailing Cleveland by eleven games even though their record after the game of July 10 of 51-44 was only three games behind Cleveland.

After all games of August the Royals were third in the ALC and trailing Cleveland by sixteen games.

After all games of September and the complete season the Royals were third in the ALC, fifteen games behind Minnesota and twenty-one games behind Cleveland.

What in the world happened starting sometime near the All Star Break to my 2020 simulation Kansas City Royals?

Offense

My 2020 Royals were next to the last in scoring runs for the entire American League. Only Merrifield and "non-pull-happy" (according to the game ratings) Nicky Lopez seemed to stay relatively consistent for the year. Franco had fifteen homers through July 5 but he then had zero long flies for the entire rest of the season although he remained a fixture in the starting lineup. Mondesi hit all of .188 for July which included a one for thirty-eight slump. Dozier was below the Mendoza Line for most of the first half of the season and then he landed on the Covid-19 list and missed the games from July 23 through August 9. Phillips was well below the Mendoza Line before being traded to Tampa Bay and Salvador Perez missed one group of games in July due to Covid-19 and then another stretch in August/September due to an eye problem. Soler's 26 homers in 2020 was a big drop from the 48 of 2019 and Jorge also landed on the injured list late in the year. Cam Gallagher did a fine job filling in for Perez but there are just not a lot of positives to write about concerning the rest of the Royals batters in my simulation. For example, both Lee and Melendez really struggled during their brief trials.

Pitching

My 2020 Royals were a big surprise regarding pitching as in the entire AL only Tampa Bay and Cleveland allowed fewer runs. Kansas City pitchers were especially talented in preventing home runs as the staff gave up thirty-one less long flies than their closest competitor in the American League. Keller finished 7th in the AL for ERA and the team took a big hit when Brad landed on the Covid-19 list from around the All Star Break until August 6. Montgomery was doing surprising well until injury basically took him out of action for the final two months of the campaign. Duffy was stingy on giving up homers along with Keller and was inconsistently good from time to time highlighted by a two-hit complete game shutout of the San Diego Padres. Hahn and Holland were usually dependable and Kennedy started hot and saved twenty-five games in a row before wearing late in the year permitting Lovelady to take over as closer.

Injuries to the pitching staff allowed some looks at the young arms. Singer got roughed up in his early starts but settled down enough by the final month to challenge Keller as top arm. Tillo was a surprise until his TJ injury and Kowar did very well in his short trial late in the season. Bubic spent the season in Omaha getting ready for next year.

Summary and Prospect

The simulation OOTP21 Kansas City Royals were a mixed bag but they certainly were not the sad-sack outfit that many liked to disparage. If the team could get into the late innings with a lead they would typically manage to hold on for the win. Unfortunately even a quality start by one of the pitchers was no sure thing when the bats went cold. The bats went cold too many times for the team to be considered a serious contender.

Next year is another chance. Maybe additions to the team like Taylor and Santana will help the offense or perhaps a young batter or two will take a step forward but batting (or the lack of such) might be the key to the 2021 Royals. I think barring heck or high water that the 2021 Kansas City Royals should have at least a decently good pitching staff.

I have no idea how the ratings of players will be different for the various guys with OOTP22. I will say that Bobby Witt Jr. should get to be a regular at the better restaurants of Davenport, Iowa this upcoming season if his development has not gone much beyond his final OOTP21 ratings.

Personal Note

I did enjoy the project of going one day at a time through the entire 162 game season while adjusting rosters for things like injuries and transactions each and every day but I never want to do that again. It took too much work and it took up too much time. I had a lot of time at home last year due to the pandemic but I do hope that things are better for all of us this coming year. I personally hope that I will get out of the house to do other things in 2021 or that I at least have the chance to watch 162 games of Royals baseball this year on television.

Some of you may remember that I added a link to my Royals game for Royals Review readers to watch the entire games replayed on Twitch. I had over 100 games there but they were each removed after a period of two weeks and so now all are gone except for the memories. I will always have the particular memory of one game with my custom camera located high in the upper deck along the third base side at Kauffman on Margaritaville Night with a special added seventh inning stretch song from the stadium organ playing something about wasted away somewhere and featuring the Royals surprisingly walking off with a win. I might have had a Red Stripe or two that evening. It was the most fun I ever had in Kauffman since the last time I actually attended a game there in person.

This FanPost was written by a member of the Royals Review community. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the editors and writers of this site.