Long live the 2019 Royals

The easiest decision that could be made for the 2019 Royals was made the day the 2018 Royals left us. Ned Yost will be back as manager, on another one-year deal, a move that benefits each side.
For Yost, he continues to make more money than he ever has in his career, doing the one thing he’s been better at in baseball than anything else — acting as a sounding board, a swag coach and a stubborn supporter of young talent.
For the Royals, they retain a steady leader with clubhouse credibility and the chops of having been through this once before. There were moments some inside and around the club wondered about his communication, but that disappeared as the Royals went with youth and energy in the second half.
If you were to create the perfect roster for Yost’s skill-set, interests and ambitions, it would look a lot like the 2019 Royals: young, talented, not yet accomplished together but with championship rings and big-league examples sprinkled around the clubhouse.
“You build from the beginning,” Yost said. “You have to understand where you’re at. There’s a certain way you have to do it to get it right. And it’s easier for me to do it, because I’ve been through it.”
The team he leads next year will look a lot like the one he led this year. More specifically and accurately, it’ll look a lot like the one he led the last few months.
Alcides Escobar and Jason Hammel are the only players not under club control for 2019. Alaberto Mondesi, Whit Merrifield, Sal Perez, Danny Duffy, Jorge Soler, Brad Keller, Jakob Junis, Hunter Dozier, Jorge Bonifacio, and Ryan O’Hearn are among those under club control through at least 2021.
The Royals are likely to look for pitchers, particularly relievers, but without the counterproductive and mixed messages of trying to win and build at the same time, they’ll be able to better prioritize the players and situations that will help in 2020 and beyond.
“We know what our team is probably going to look like next year, right?” general manager Dayton Moore said.
This team lost 103 games. That’s more than all but two in club history, the only exceptions existing in the years the Royals declined to operate like a major-league franchise.
But beyond the obligatory Luggage Injury joke, this one is free of the dark comedy that marked the mid 2000s. For instance, only the Astros finished with fewer errors among American League clubs.
History is written by the victors, and past perspective is colored by result, so if these are the early stages of another 29-year playoff drought, this team will fade in with a string of losers.
But at least at the moment, that feels unlikely. Early this season, Moore shocked many fans by saying he expected the 2019 team to be the really bad one. But after trades of Mike Moustakas and Kelvin Herrera marked the end of a charade and the beginning of a full-throated rebuild, the Royals appear to be skipping steps.
Only two Royals hit more home runs than Mondesi, and only three men in the league stole more bases. His is the eighth best season by a shortstop in Royals history, using Baseball Reference’s WAR. Mondesi was in the minors until June.
Mondesi is the most dynamic example but hardly the only point of progress. Merrifield became the first player in Royals history to lead the league in both hits and stolen bases. Keller, a 6-foot-5 and 23-year-old Rule 5 pick, had the third-best debut season of any pitcher this decade — behind only Michael Fulmer and Jose Fernandez.
O’Hearn hit 12 homers in 44 games. Perez hit 27 homers. Gordon had what might be termed a deceptively valuable season. Soler, Dozier, Junis, Heath Fillmyer, Jorge Lopez — the Royals saw varying flashes from many.
There is no way to know what the Royals’ next playoff team will look like, or when it will exist. But if the last three months are real, the likeliest outcome is within the next three years, with Mondesi, Merrifield, Perez, Keller, Duffy and others on the current roster playing central roles.
Yost said the starting pitchers are better prepared than any group he’s had with the Royals, more involved in the building of game plans. Help is on the way, too. A farm system that was considered one of the game’s worst has been strengthened through trades and five draft picks in the top 58. Next summer, they will select second overall. The last time that happened, they got Moustakas.
These are the things that make Yost raise his voice, sit straight in his seat and use a few hundred words and comparisons to 2015 if you ask the right question.
“This is the nucleus of a championship club,” Yost said.
Twenty-seven teams have lost 100 games or more over the last quarter-century, and few if any have felt so … hopeful?
The Royals know more than most organizations that the climb from last place to the playoffs can take time, with setbacks between now and then that are impossible to predict.
Maybe O’Hearn is a pumpkin. Maybe Mondesi’s lack of plate discipline prevents him from being a star. Maybe Perez has to play first base, maybe Junis doesn’t develop, maybe Keller has to move back to the bullpen. Maybe the organization decides to brand a particular season as “Our Time,” and the team is booed 16 minutes into the home opener.
The first time around, the Royals did not manage a winning record until Moore’s seventh full season. The first postseason came a year later. He has often said it took longer than he expected, and has more recently said he and his assistants are better for the experience.
They need so much, still. Good decisions, luck, health, pitching prospects to turn into actual pitchers. Baseball players do not develop along straight lines, and neither do organizations. Sometimes they don’t develop at all.
But for now, the relevant part is that the Royals are developing. They’re committed to it, for better or worse, which means next year’s team will look a lot like the one that finished this season.
Progress will be measured constantly. By Moore, by Yost, by fans, the familiar wheels of a rebuild beginning once again.