A Pessimist’s View Of The 2014 Kansas City Royals
By Tom Fontana
Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Jeremy Guthrie (11) Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports
The Rotation
With the everyday lineup basically set, and James Shields, Jason Vargas and Jeremy Guthrie locks for the rotation, the battle for the final two rotation spots is the most important thing to watch this spring. The ceiling is much higher for the Royals if those two spots go to Yordano Ventura, Danny Duffy or Kyle Zimmer.
If those three fail to show anything in Arizona, and we’re stuck with Davis and Hochevar again, well, I just can’t see that as anything but a negative.
I would like to think the Royals could have, and certainly should have, been past any discussion of Wade Davis or Luke Hochevar in the rotation. But that doesn’t appear to be the case. So our options are three guys with loads of upside but no experience, or two guys with lots of experience, nearly all of it bad. Great.
Shields is a horse, but as he ages, surely at some point all of the innings he’s thrown are going to catch up with him. I am hopeful that since it is a contract year for him, and he’s already leaked that he’d like Zack Greinke money (ridiculous), he will out-perform his 2013 numbers.