Kansas City Royals: Five bold predictions for 2019
By Cullen Jekel
The Kansas City Royals’ streak of five seasons of winning at least 80 games came to an end last year as the club crashed to a 58-104 record. Despite some familiar faces sticking around, 2019 expects to be the next step in a rebuilding effort, hopefully one that isn’t nearly as long or arduous as the last.
The Kansas City Royals famously went 30 years between championships, from 1985 to 2015. In that time, the franchise only went to the playoffs one other time: in 2014, when they won the American League pennant before falling in the World Series in seven games to the San Francisco Giants.
Outside of 2014, the Royals only had six winning seasons between championships. Unfortunately, a couple of those winning years happened became before the dawn of the Wild Card Era, such as in 1987 and 1989, when the team finished second in the old American League West, yet missed the playoffs.
After winning it all in 2015, the front office, led by Dayton Moore, who’s been with the club since 2006 and was instrumental into building a solid organization from the ground up, tried to keep the good times rolling.
Instead of dealing off players that would inevitably leave in free agency to recoup some prospects and re-stocking a suddenly barren farm system, Moore went all-in in 2016 and 2017, keeping around Lorenzo Cain, Eric Hosmer, Kelvin Herrera, and Mike Moustakas.
It didn’t work.
The Royals finished 81-81 in 2016 and 80-82 in 2017, both times on the outside of the playoffs. When Cain and Hosmer finally departed in free agency for Milwaukee and San Diego, respectively, and after trading Herrera and Moustakas (re-signed to a one-year deal in the 2018 offseason) to Washington and Milwaukee, respectively, the team crumbled.
And here we are.
Still, 2019 looks to be different, even better in some aspects, than 2018. Moore remains. So do veterans Salvador Perez and Alex Gordon. The team recently re-signed super-utility man Whit Merrified to a four-year extension with a fifth-year team option. Danny Duffy still leads the rotation. And, of course, Edgar Yost III, a/k/a Ned, is still calling the shots from the dugout.
Looking ahead to the next step in the re-build, here are five bold predictions for the 2019 Kansas City Royals.