Kansas City Royals spring training recap

Well I am officially home safe and sound. I want to start off by saying I had a blast meeting all varieties of Kansas City Royals fans from all over the country. It is amazing how a baseball team from Kansas City can have fans from Alaska to Baltimore, and those are just the people I met in Arizona. I had the pleasure of talking with fathers and sons on male bonding trips, and an amazing fan who is not letting a debilitating disease stop him from enjoying his favourite thing! It really got me excited for what I do, and the upcoming season. That said, here are some thoughts that my visit to the Cactus League left me with:

My biggest question mark

The bullpen is really scary. They seem to be very hittable this pre-season. I saw first-hand multiple returning bullpen hands get knocked around. Ned Yost has stated numerous times he wants to keep innings off the pen, and carry 12 pitchers. I think the reason for that is that he realizes he will not have the success he had last year, and needs to have options.

Smaller Questions

Is Infante really hurt? Did the Kansas City Royals know about it from the get go? And can Danny Valencia play second? He looked rather serviceable there in a pinch, but can he be the answer for a longer stretch? And we all know Johnny Giavotella just isn’t quite a major leaguer (at least in the minds of the Royals brass).

Do we keep 5 outfielders and no middle infielder? After seeing the pen struggle and the lack of Infante, I am really scared about this. I know they will keep Jarrod Dyson. He has the speed that is just un-teachable, and the ability to change a game in later innings. But do they also keep Justin Maxwell? Yost says yes. He has had a great spring! And has the bat you can pinch-hit with late in a game. But is he consistent enough? Is he better than Carlos Paguero? He literally killed a baseball and possibly injured the wall on two different swings on Sunday. I have said it earlier – he is an absolute beast of a man.

Is Moose really loose? Mike Moustakas will be a lynchpin in this offense. I think he and Alcides Escobar have the potential to be big sparkplugs this year. Last year they definitely were a large part of the reason for the offensive sputter.

Upsides

This Rotation looks solid. James Shields has been dominant, Ventura looks like he is major League ready, and Vargas changes speeds well (and is about 5 years and 5 mph away from Bruce Chen). Jeremy Guthrie kept his ERA rolling today (and we lost again), and we will send Danny Duffy down to Triple A to get back to game shape.

This offence is capable of some great things. I think we could legitimately absorb ERAs of 4-ish from our starters with this lineup.

Will Salvy Perez continue to get better? Tony LaRusa has compared him to a young Yadir Molina. But I don’t think Yadi has the type of power Salvy is capable of.

Outcomes

This team scares me. It is better than the 2004 team (which was the last time we had this much hype for a season), but has a lot of the same kind of pieces. My prediction is actually pretty optimistic and the reason may be very pretty surprising. It is because of the staff working with these guys. Dayton Moore has actually brought in a lot of great MLB minds (and former managers). Dale Sevum and Don Wakamatsu make up two former skippers to help out with Yost (and his two or three games he loses for us a season). And the blonde bombshell Rusty Kuntz will continue to make this outfield be the best in the league. He is also the base running coach, and it just so happens we had the best stolen base percentage in the league in 2013.

Dave Eiland keeps the rotation in line, though he has his work cut out for him with the pen. And lastly, Pedro Grifol has had his first spring (and winter) to work his magic with some of these guys. After seeing the minor league camps, this team looks really well run. We were even running Spanish language practice sessions to help with the large number of Latin players. All said and done, there is a lot of good work going on, and I think it will pay off this year.

So what is that prediction? 88-74 second in the A.L Central.