Kansas City Royals: Let the rebuilding process begin
The Kansas City Royals were not able to retain Eric Hosmer and now it appears that they’ll be heading for a complete rebuild.
When the offseason began, the Kansas City Royals appeared to be all about re-signing Eric Hosmer. If they weren’t able to retain him, none of the other key free agents really seemed to fit their future plans.
Now that the Royals have not retained Hosmer, it doesn’t look like they’ll be re-signing Mike Moustakas or even bringing in someone like Logan Morrison to their ranks. It’s time for the rebuild to officially begin in Kansas City.
Royals fans know this story all too well, as the team was not relevant until the 2013 season. That was their first winning season in a decade. For people close to my age, bad Royals baseball is pretty much all we know.
It doesn't appear the Royals will be pursuing Mike Moustakas or any other costly free-agent, even with Hoz signing elsewhere. Dayton Moore said, “That period of time, that phase of who we are, is over. We need to move on.”
— Jeffrey Flanagan (@FlannyMLB) February 18, 2018
Jeffrey Flanagan’s tweet above summed this next stage up perfectly. We’ll always be grateful for those winning seasons and for what the core group did in Kansas City, but without Hosmer, there’s really no point in keeping Moustakas. Third base has someone to take over while first base was a little bit more of a mystery and that was where wanting to keep Hosmer came into play.
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While it sucks not having Hosmer or Moustakas back, we all knew this day would come eventually. The Royals need to see what they have in players like Cheslor Cuthbert, Hunter Dozier, and Bubba Starling.
Kansas City needs to see if Billy Burns can play in center field on a regular basis. The Royals need to see what all Raul Mondesi can do or if Jorge Bonifacio is the right fielder of the future.
All of these questions will be answered in a rebuild. While I like Eric Hosmer and will miss not seeing him bat at the K for the rest of his career, an eight-year deal worth $144 million would have absolutely crippled the Royals. They’re still struggling with those Alex Gordon and Ian Kennedy contracts, so adding another largest contract in team history would have been detrimental.
There is a scenario, if Moustakas signs elsewhere for $50M or more, in which the Royals could get five picks in the top 40 of next year's draft. As of now, they're projected to get four in the top 45.
— Jeffrey Flanagan (@FlannyMLB) February 18, 2018
With Hosmer and Lorenzo Cain both signing deals for over $50 million, the Royals received two compensatory picks and will now have four picks in the top 45 selections (see tweet above). Moustakas signing a big contract somewhere could see them having five selections within the top 40.
This is key for the Kansas City Royals if they want to replicate what they did just a few years ago. If they really make these picks count and get some quality players, they could be competitive again within the decade. We just have to be patient.
I’m not going to lie to you, Royals fans… 2018 is going to be rough. It’s going to be similar to watching those mid to late 2000s teams and Kauffman Stadium is going to be empty on a regular basis. We’ve gotten through a rebuild before though and if there’s a team and a franchise that can get back to the promise land in the next several years, it’s the Kansas City Royals.
In Dayton Moore we trust!