Kansas City Royals should get back to small ball concept

With the Kansas City Royals set to lose many of their top free agents, the team needs to get back to the small ball concept that brought them postseason success.

For the most part, Kansas City Royals fans have pretty much come to terms with the thought that most (if not all) of the team’s big free agents will leave this offseason. The 2018 roster will look much different for Royals fans. With the big change coming, it’s time for this team to get back to its small ball attitude.

While it would be nice to keep guys like Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas, the market is just too much for a team like KC. That will be equally true of other big hitting free agents that the Royals could look to pursue. Instead, Kansas City should embrace the intense style of baseball that propelled them to the postseason in 2014 and 2015.

While most of the league has turned to home run hitters that put up big strike out numbers, Kansas City has looked its best when hitting for contact and moving base runners. The Royals tried to go with big bats the past couple of years, and it didn’t work out for them.

Moose, Hoz and Lo-Cain have all rejected their qualifying offers (1-year, $17.4M) from the #royals. ^fox4sports
— FOX4 News Kansas City (@fox4kc) November 16, 2017

The Recipe That Worked

Kansas City finished dead last in home runs in 2014, but fourth in batting average. In 2015 the Royals improved to 24th in home runs and tied for second in batting average. That would seem to show that trying for the long ball is not something that was advantageous to the team.

This past season the Royals hit 193 home runs, which is 54 more than their 2015 total. However, their batting average was down 10 points from the 2015 mark. As we know, the end result was missing the playoff in a disappointing year.

While fans were excited about Mike Moustakas setting the Royals single-season home run mark, we were overlooking the fact that this team was hitting much poorer as a whole. The emphasis being placed on the long ball simply did not work out for Kansas City. That should be noted by the team’s leadership moving forward.

What really grabbed my eye though is that the number of runs scored in 2015 and this past season were very similar. Some would say that shows the approach doesn’t matter, but I argue the opposite. In 2015, the lack of home run generated points shows that the team as a whole was more effective, rather than relying on one or two players to generate runs.

Less Money On Hitting = More Money On Pitching

The real benefit of a small ball team for the Kansas City Royals though is that money can be put back into the rotation and bullpen. Those World Series contenders got there on the strength of quality pitching and defense, with a small ball offense doing just enough to manufacture runs. That’s what works in KC.