Yes, it's only three games. But those three games have Dayn Perry wondering, are the Royals ready to compete?
The Royals this season have scampered to a 3-0 start, and they've done so by sweeping the presumably mighty Detroit Tigers on the road. Again, in the grand scheme three games mean little, but the Royals' opening run of success does provide us with a jumping-off point. What are we jumping into? A discussion of whether the long-suffering Royals are finally headed in the right direction...
In 2008 the Royals, even in the absolute best of circumstances, will wind up in no better than third place. In reality, they're probably bound for their fifth-consecutive last-place finish. This is so because the Tigers and Cleveland Indians are the power teams of the American League Central, and even the Chicago White Sox and strip-mined Minnesota Twins are better poised for success in the near term. Still, despite all the recent miseries, the Royals are getting better.
--snip--
Of course, it's players who win ballgames and not the suits upstairs. On that front, the Royals are improving. Despite his rookie struggles, Alex Gordon remains a profoundly promising young talent, and he's going to settle into All-Star form perhaps as soon as this season. He'll contend for the AL MVP at some point over the next half-decade. Billy Butler is to fielding what Keanu Reeves is to British accents, but at the plate Butler is a force. Blessed with tremendous power from the right side, Butler is going to be a middle-of-order hitter once he adjusts to major-league pitching. Sure, he'll be stowed away at DH for the rest of his career, but he'll put runs on the board and lots of them.
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When it comes to the Royals, I'm a noted skeptic. You know what, though? I'm not convinced they're "probably bound" for last place again. Numbers-wise, they're pretty well bunched up with the White Sox and the Twins, so I jumped them into third place in my projected standings, mostly for sentimental reasons but also because the Royals, with Gordon and Butler and
Zack Greinke, may have a bit more immediate upside than the Twins (and of course they have a lot more than the White Sox).
But there's another reason to like the Royals, and I can't believe it didn't occur to me until yesterday ...
Buddy Bell is gone.
Buddy Bell was a loser. I don't mean that in a personal way. I mean he was literally a loser. Everywhere he went, his teams lost, and they lost badly. In nine seasons (or parts of seasons), he managed one winning team: the 2000 Rockies, who went 82-80 despite outscoring their opponents by 71 runs. Granted, Bell rarely had wonderful talent to employ, but there was just never any evidence to suggest that his teams were better off with him than they would have been with someone else.
Do we know that Bell was a lousy manager? No. We don't. He wasn't a disaster, like Maury Wills. Maybe he was just unlucky. But I think it's
likely that Bell was a lousy manager. He's been replaced by Trey Hillman. Hillman was highly regarded when he managed in the Yankees' organization, and he was highly regarded when he managed in the Japan. So for the moment let's assume that he's a "good" manager.
What's the difference between a lousy manager and a good manager? Four wins? Six? More?
Let's be conservative and assume the difference between Buddy Bell and Trey Hillman is five wins. On paper the Royals entered this season as a 73-win team. Add five wins and you're at 78, and probably third place. Add three more for good luck -- or
Brian Bannister winning nine games when he's supposed to win only six -- and all of a sudden you're at third place
and a .500 season.
Maybe I'm dreaming. We spend a lot of time talking about managers and how much they mean. We talk too much, probably. But none of those preseason projections incorporated the switch from a (maybe) lousy manager to a (maybe) good manager. And I suspect that if the Royals finish in third place rather than fifth, we're going to look back, smack our foreheads and say, "Of course!"
Rob Neyer
