After a 56-106 season in 2023, it was hard to figure out what kind of club the Royals would be in 2024.
Granted, 2023 was supposed to be an “evaluation” year, during which GM JJ Picollo and manager Matt Quatraro would decide who would be part of the Royals’ long-term plans and who could be dealt away. Last year was not supposed to be about wins. It was supposed to be about development and identifying what needed to be addressed in the short and long term.
All organizations go through this kind of period of rebuilding, which results in way more losses than wins. We have seen it with the Houston Astros, the Baltimore Orioles, and even the Kansas City Royals, who went through a rebuilding phase under Dayton Moore during “Process 1.0,” which led to postseason success in 2014 and 2015.
Nonetheless, after that “evaluation” season of 2023, Royals fans like myself were skeptical about what kind of “improvement” could be seen in Kansas City this season.
Did we all expect the Royals to be better than they were in 2023? Absolutely, especially after an offseason that saw an influx of veteran talent on the pitching and hitting end through free agency.
However, did we expect to see the Royals 20-13 after 33 games? And not just that, but also sporting the best run differential in baseball before the Royals’ 7-1 victory over the Rangers on Friday night at Kauffman Stadium?
I am not sure even the most optimistic Royals fan saw that coming.
As a result, not only are the Royals back playing competitive baseball again, but Kansas City as a whole is embracing Royals baseball in a way that we haven’t seen since 2017, the twilight of that last competitive era of baseball in Kansas City.
Royals Play On the Field Overshadowing Stadium Vote Fiasco
This offseason, Royals owner John Sherman did everything nearly right.
He gave Picollo the green light to improve the pitching and hitting through trades and free agency and locked down Bobby Witt, Jr. to a long-term deal. While many small-market teams made excuses to not be aggressive this offseason (especially those under the Bally Sports umbrella), Sherman seemed to push in most of his chips, dramatically deviating from the being like “Cleveland and Tampa” talk that colored his ownership style early in his tenure.
However, there was one black eye for Sherman this offseason: the Jackson County stadium tax extension.
I don’t know if it was a misread of the public or simply not being fed the correct information from his sources, but the Jackson County tax to support the Royals and Chiefs failed miserably at the ballot on April 2nd, just after Opening Weekend. The initiative lost by 16 percent, a sign that Jackson County voters were not impressed by the Royals and Chiefs’ plans to renovate a new Arrowhead and build a new Royals stadium downtown.
Early on in Sherman’s tenure, he did what he could to build goodwill with the sports fans of Kansas City.
He paid Minor Leaguers during the pandemic (which not every owner did). He has made the games more affordable, especially this year with the value section, more “social” sections, and flexible ticket packages. The experience at Kauffman Stadium is much more enjoyable than during the final years of David Glass’ ownership in 2018 and 2019.
Unfortunately, Sherman just couldn’t shake how he handled the stadium unveiling, which began as far as last year.
His constant switching of sights and delays in sharing information infuriated fans, even those who have been die-hard supporters. As a result, Sherman was tagged as another “greedy owner” only out to make money like Oakland’s John Fisher, the Angels’ Arte Moreno, or Baltimore’s Peter Angelos, just to name a few.
I don’t think Sherman is of that same cloth as Fisher, Moreno, or Angelos. Sherman has shown a willingness to spend and seems intent on building a consistent winner in Kansas City, which never seemed to be a priority under Glass, even after the 2014 and 2015 success. That said, the stadium unveiling and vote was a failure, and as a result, many Kansas City sports fans, especially those spoiled by the Chiefs’ constant success, started to tune out on Royals baseball.
Because of the stadium fiasco, there were many “jaded” feelings about the Royals’ outlook this year.
There were feelings that Picollo was just a “Dayton 2.0” clone and that Sherman wasn’t serious about winning but simply getting a passing vote for a new stadium. It seemed like after losing the Opening Weekend series to the Twins and the stadium tax vote loss, it would be a long season of Royals baseball that could get ugly all around.
Instead, the Royals on the field have helped Kansas City denizens get over the bad blood of that stadium vote. The sensational play of young starts like Bobby Witt, Jr., Cole Ragans, and Maikel Garcia, and veterans like Seth Lugo and Salvador Perez have captured the metro in a way that we haven’t seen since those 2015 days when Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Alex Gordon, Lorenzo Cain, and Yordano Ventura were leading the way.
The Royals are fun on the field, especially at Kauffman Stadium. Their pitching shuts down opposing hitters. The Royals hitters are streaky but can have big innings like they did tonight.
The Royals also get it done in the field and on the basepaths in ways that make Royals fans hark back to a decade ago when the Royals’ “old school” style captured the hearts of not just baseball fans in Kansas City but across America.
Granted, the Royals’ coaching staff and front office have a new analytical nature, evident in many hirings in their research and development and scouting departments this offseason.
However, the Royals still have the “soul” of those Dayton Moore-led teams, which made them so easy to root for despite the organization’s “anti-Moneyball” nature at the time.
It would’ve been easy for the Royals to cave, especially after a disappointing opening series against Minnesota and the stadium vote loss.
Instead, the Royals have helped Kansas City sports fans focus on the future of what’s in the stadium rather than the outlook of what’s outside, which is certainly refreshing.
Can the Royals Keep This Up?
After today’s win, the Royals have a +56 run differential. According to the expected W-L, they should have a 23-10 record. That would put them first in the AL Central and have the best baseball record.
The Royals with the best-expected W-L in baseball in May. As optimistic as I was going into the season, not even I thought something of that sort would be possible.
Then again, the path to a winning record and a possible AL Central division crown won’t be easy.
According to Fangraphs projections, the Royals still have the fourth-best odds in the division to make the postseason at 31.8%. As of Friday, they still lag behind the Twins (68.5%), Guardians (43.5%), and even the Tigers (35.9%). Granted, the Royals have already lost series to the Twins and Tigers this year, so being behind them isn’t surprising.
So much will depend on whether the Kansas City roster stays healthy and whether the Royals’ struggling bats can find some consistency in the coming weeks.
Furthermore, the Royals have had a tendency to tank in May.
Last year, they went 10-17 in May. In 2021, they lost 11 in a row after starting 16-9. Unfortunately, with the Royals, the possibility of the team hitting the skids significantly is always a reality.
Thus, there’s always that lingering feeling in the back of Royals fans’ heads that the bottom will fall out at some point. The good times will end, the losses will mount, and it will be “Chiefs Training Camp” season for Kansas City by the end of July, maybe sooner. Those scars just run too deep for Royals fans, especially post-2015.
And yet, the Royals keep proving us wrong.
They keep winning games. They keep winning series after series. When we think a losing streak will spiral out of control, the Royals bounce back with another winning streak.
One day, it’s the pitching locking things down. The other day, big offensive innings clinched a win. On other days, it’s due to Salvy being Salvy.
The Royals can beat teams in various ways, and Kansas City is slowly believing in this group more and more. Tonight’s attendance at Kauffman Stadium was over 25,000. For an early May game during the height of graduation season, that’s an impressive number.
And that attendance number will only increase with the Royals winning more and more.
Because Kansas City will always get behind a winning team, regardless of the sport. We have seen it with the Chiefs, Sporting KC, and even the ECHL Mavericks.
But winning Royals baseball?
The city seems to support that even more because it doesn’t happen often in Kansas City, especially in the post-Ewing Kauffman era.
Summertime at the K is going to get a lot more exciting.
Photo Credit: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports
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