72-90, 3^rd in the AL Central

For the last several years the Royals farm system was much talked about as about ready to pay dividends and this year was no different in that people talked about it and it did not deliver. It was another tough year for the Royals.

Alex Gordon is on the cusp of becoming a star (5.9 WAR) and Mike Moustakas (3.5) and Billy Butler (3.2) were none too shabby. Salvador Perez (2.6 in 76 games) was excellent as well, while Alcides Escobar was quite useful (2.6) himself. Unfortunately, the offense stopped there. No one else cracked the 2.0 threshold and Eric Hosmer and Jeff Francoeur combined to post a -2.3 WAR. That was a minus sign. So while five everyday players were very good, two were very bad. Think about it this way, Hosmer and Frenchie combined to erase Escobar’s production.

That wasn’t nice of them.

Kidding aside, it wasn’t the offense that tanked the Royals. It was the pitching. Was it ever the pitching?

Their two best pitchers by WAR, Greg Holland (2.2) and Kevin Herrara (1.9), were both relievers. If you see that on a team’s leaderboard, they were a bad team. Case closed. Their four best starting pitchers combined for a WAR (6.1) lower than Justin Verlander’s. The pitching in Kansas City was a colossal mess.

So that might mean that improving their pitching staff would be a good idea for 2013, and it is. They, however, did it in a silly manner. They sign Guthrie to a 3 year deal who was worth 1.5 wins over 91 innings in 2012, so if you bank on him repeating that (which is not a good bet), he’s a solid addition. They traded for the terrible in 2012, but somewhat good before that Ervin Santana. They also made the big Wil Myers plus for Shields and Davis trade.

Don’t get me wrong, their pitching got better for 2013, but they did so at the cost of the future, and at the cost of not having Wil Myers to improve their offense by 3ish wins. Basically, the Royals pitching staff should add 5-7 wins in 2013, but their offense would have gotten at least 2-3 of those from simply having Myers instead of Francoeur.

They will be better in 2013, but not enough so that we should expect them to be true contenders. If you’re a Royals fan, enjoy yourself because baseball is wonderful, but don’t expect your team to be anything but average.

2012 Grade: D

Early 2013 Projection: 76-86