Quote:
Originally Posted by Chiefspants
I'm thinking to be successful this season, we're going to have to strike some near golden luck.
Fortunately, when you have solid pieces on your roster, golden luck doesn't mean 2003, it means that if your team catches 2 or 3 lucky breaks, you're in World Series contention. Almost every team needs these kinds of breaks in order to win the title.
We definitely had that good fortune in 2014. We hoped that a rookie pitcher could come in and match Ervin Santana's contributions in 2013. Yordano did that and then pitched like a ace throughout the playoffs. RIP, Ace.
Due to Hoch's injury, we also fell ass backwards into the best single season performance for a reliever in MLB history. Best of luck in Chicago, Wade!
Danny Duffy and Kelvin Herrera also suddenly found themselves and gave us near dominant numbers (some BABIP help notwithstanding) which helped carry us through injuries to Hosmer, and through awful stretches by both Moose and Billy.
2015 ended up with just as many lucky breaks. Big Ken crashed into the Royals and not only replicated Billy's presence, but won the Silver Slugger after bombing in 2014. Edinson Volquez, despite every advanced website predicting regression, came in and replicated Shields production in 2014, and Chris Young, a person who no one wanted, was the most reliable starter in our rotation through the early summer and was pivotal in our playoff run. While Holland didn't end up replicating his 2014 production and ended up tearing his UCL, Luke Hochevar, and Ryan freaking Madson bounced back from injuries and combined with Danny Duffy to give us even more postseason bullpen depth than we had in 2014.
Sure, 2016 evened our luck out in a hard way, but if we get the good in season luck we did in 2014 or 2015 (ie, Gordo and Soria bouncing back, signing a productive DH, and getting good performances from a starter like Strahm or Staumont), we have the tools to make one last ride after our 14 and 15 seasons.
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Along these lines, I'll talk about what needs to go right for the Royals to contend in 2017:
1) SP health. Duffy, Kennedy, Vargas and Karns must stay healthy and put up 750-800 innings combined. An injury to one of these guys could be crippling.
2) The offense must get peak contributions from three guys from this group: Hosmer, Moustakas, Cain, Gordon, Soler and the other two need to be at least average producers.
3) Get a breakout performance somewhere. Whether that's a rotation piece emerging (Strahm, Zimmer, Staumont, Jake Junis, Alex Mills, Chris Young), or a hitter emerging (Cuthbert, Dozier, Mondesi) or a bullpen piece emerging (Withrow, minor leaguer, etc). Just something.
Those three things probably matter most.
Supplementing the roster with at least one of (and preferably both) a DH and a reliever would also be a big boon.
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