Attention Royals: The All-Star Break is Over!!!!

Unfortunately for all the fans of the Kansas City Royals, someone played a terrible joke on them and forgot to tell the Royals that the All-Star Break ended on Friday! Because of this extended vacation, they have officially fallen out of contention and into 3rd in the Central, and 3.5 out of the Wild-Card, all while dropping under .500 for the season at 48-49.

But wait. We were promised that this would be the year. Everything Dayton Moore has been feeding us has said that 2014 is the year all the major pieces would fall into place.

So what gives? Well first and foremost you have to look at the players. More specifically, the offense. It has been well documented on this site that Major League scouts have been noting the slowing of Billy Butler’s bat speed. But how is it that the Royals did not notice this? And how is it that it was only last week that Butler finally dropped in the order?

His power numbers are nearing record marks for futility as a DH. Butler currently has 3 home runs, 36 RBIs and a .348 Slugging%. Butler’s Slugging% ranks 75th in the MLB this season. To put that in perspective here is a list of just a few people slugging higher than him: Jose Altuve (all 4’7 of him), Alexi Ramirez, Jason Castro, and Alcides Escobar. That’s right, even the Royals lite hitting shortstop has a higher Slugging% than the guy on the team who is supposed to be driving in the runs!

So is it hits that we aren’t getting? No, as Sarah wrote about this weekend,

“The Royals have out hit their opponent 11 times in their 47 losses, with another 7 times matching their opponent’s hit total. In another 13 games, they’ve had no fewer than two less hits than their opponent did. The Royals have lost 47 times. In just 16 of them, they’ve had more than two less hits than their opponent. That’s it!” (Read the rest here)

So what is missing? It is still that big bat. The Royals are still dead last in home runs with 55. That is about one every other game at this point. Likewise they are 3rd from the bottom in the A.L. in RBI’s with 363. But the truly amazing stat is they are 5th in hits of all team, and 4th in the A.L., and 5th in the A.L in Doubles. So we are getting runners on, and even into scoring position at an above average rate. Yet, we are failing to get them in.

What is the take home? Two things in my eyes. Where I realize that line-up order is often dismissed as an unimportant aspect of how many runs a team scores, on a team that gets a lot of hits yet can’t score runs, something has to be said. And this falls directly on the shoulders of a very stubborn and losing prone manager.

You may say that those words are just the thoughts of an angry fan looking for a scapegoat. Well I have two pieces of history to back that up. The first is Ned’s stint at Milwaukee where he was asked to bring a group of young, very talented players to the next level (sound familiar?). With just a few weeks left in the 2008 season, the team started to fade, and it looked like the season would be lost. Brewer’s brass made the choice to do what they deemed necessary to get into the playoffs, and let Yost go. The Brewer’s immediately pulled a 180′ and ended up making a run that ended up with them still playing in October. It might just be me, but I feel like this could be history repeating itself!

Second, of all the managers that have ever coached a significant number of games, Ned Yost is 3rd in ALL-TIME lowest winning percentages as a manager. Where I realize situation has a little to do with this…still. He is HISTORICALLY BAD!

The second take home is we need a power bat. There is no way around it. GMDM has to realize he did not grow enough talent in his farm system, and now look to outsource. I am not saying you have to rent a player for the second half of the season by giving up some serious prospects, but we have to do better than a Raul Ibanez. And if we need to give up a prospect for a player we will only have for a year and a half….so be it!

The Royals are quickly digging themselves a hole that they may not be able to jump out of. If they don’t make some MAJOR changes soon they will once again live up tot the fears of their already jaded fan base.

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