Kansas City: The Waiting is the Hardest Part

If there's one thing you have to admire about the people who cut the checks for Kansas City's baseball club, it's their patience. For years they let Alex Gordon, Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer and Luke Hochevar marinate until they were ready to contribute. 

Two years ago, they doubled down on their personnel's strengths, focusing on contact, speed, defense and relief pitching, and flipping strikeout-prone Wil Myers for a dubious return (it seemed at the time) that catapulted them to a pair of World Series.

Yet baseballdom seemed taken aback when GM Dayton Moore stayed the course at the Trade Deadline following a 7-19 July that pushed the Royals to the edge of extinction for the season. What Moore knew was that the snake bites that crippled his team -- including a freak collision that put Moustakas and Gordon simultaneously on the shelf -- would mend itself in time for the team to bounce back.

Yost is the Most

KC has the perfect manager for just such a task. Ned Yost is no strategic savant, to be kind, but he keeps a steady hand on the till and maintains faith in his players, faith that has repeatedly been vindicated. Sure enough, a 20-9 August has the Royals back in the muddled Wild Card race.

"Dayton said he wasn't going to make any deals unless it made us better now or in the future," Yost said. "So, we just weren't going to sell off players. We both talked about it. This was the same group we liked out of Spring Training. And we both felt like we had the ability to get it turned around.

To Yost's credit, he doesn't subscribe to any of the silly chatter you hear from the buffoonosphere about one daring act transforming the team.

"You don't spur turnarounds. If you could spur turnarounds, then what were we doing in July?" he said. 

The Sweet Sound of Smart
When you hear that kind of talk from a manager, you know your nine is in good hands. The Royals are one of seven teams battling for just two Wild Card berths, anchored down by near-worst on base and slugging percentages, and four key pitchers on the DL. 

But if anyone can pull a rabbit out of their baseball caps it's the two-time AL champions. They can thank a general manager and a field general who know that sometimes just waiting is the best strategy.

A Fan's Identity Crisis

In 1993, following the death of Ewing Kaufman and eight years after the Kansas City Royals' only World Series championship (to that point), David Glass took the reins of the franchise. At that point, I had been a diehard Royals fan, despite growing up 1200 miles away, for 23 years. I attended the 1976 playoffs at Yankee Stadium and died a little inside when Chris Chambliss belted a ninth-inning, game-seven home run to foreclose the Royals' World Series aspiration.

Though I had never been to the state of Missouri, I followed my team and clung to my idolatry despite a string of losing seasons, because that's what a fan does.

Glass, former CEO and board chair at WalMart, was not so much a fan. Glass was a businessman who had made a career racing to the retail bottom. He deduced that a similar strategy would work in Major League Baseball, as long as he defined "worked" as "made a profit."

So Glass bled the franchise, secure in the knowledge that fans -- short for fanatics -- would continue to buy tickets and watch games on TV, not only because fanatics are fanatical but also because every game featured an opponent who might be worth watching. If the buying public wasn't interested in purchasing a ticket to see Mike Macfarlane and Hipolito Pichardo, a sufficient percentage of it would pay to see Mo Vaughn, Jim Thome, Roger Clemens and Cal Ripken.

Here's the Wikipedia entry extolling Glass' early "accomplishments" as owner:

Under Glass' leadership, the board cut the payroll budget from $41 million to $19 million. During the Major League Baseball strike of 1994-1995, Glass opposed any settlement with the players' union without a salary cap, and supported the use of strike breaking "replacement" players, despite a court ruling that the use of replacement players violated federal labor law

Lovely. So my favorite team was being guided by a Neandethal who cared not one whit about his team's place in the standings.

Letting Go of My Team
As you might imagine, my fanhood waned in the '90s, both because I grew other interests and because my team was literally a lost cause. By the early 2000s I had largely stopped following the Royals, who had not been competitive for 23 years and had no prospects of improving upon that record.

Indeed, despite the hiring of Dayton Moore as GM from the successful Atlanta franchise, KC had little to show for a string of high draft picks -- among Alex Gordon, Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer, Lorenzo Cain, Luke Hochevar and Billy Butler, only Gordon had performed as advertised. When they hired Ned Yost, a dinosaur manager who disdained new and improved baseball analytics, I scoffed. It occurred to me that not only was KC a pathetic shell of an organization, its mission was at odds with my fandom.

So in 2005, when the Montreal Expos moved to Washington, I seized upon the opportunity to attach myself to a new team. Living by then in Charleston SC, I was a lot closer to the District of Columbia than to Kansas City, and I could begin anew with a franchise whose long-term goal of a championship justified the lean times early on. And indeed, early investments paved the way for a pennant contender by 2012.

Falling Back In Love With My Ex
And then a funny thing happened in Kansas City. Moore's new strategy of signing glove-first, high-contact players for his spacious ballpark, combined with a pitching rotation built from back to front, began paying dividends. The Royals won 86-89-95 games the last three years, earning two playoff berths and winning a World Series title with thrilling never-say-die performances. The Little Engine That Could is eminently rootable.

Meanwhile, despite a pile of talent, the Nationals have stumbled the last few years, unable to win a single playoff series. Their stars can be cantankerous and their new ballpark is a junk pile. My head says I'm a fan but my heart is not with the program.

What's a boy to do?  I don't have a favorite football, basketball or hockey team. Being a Royals fan, and later a Nats fan, has been part of my identity, and now I seem to be suffering from a split personality. In a baseball sense, I'm bipolar. It seems clear to me that a fan divided against himself can't stand, but if I return to my childhood crush it would require divorcing my current partner, to whom I have promised fidelity, til death do we part.

I am vexed. I must choose by Opening Day. Stay tuned, or help.

The Royals Have Sparked A Trend, But Not the One You Think

In mid-October, the 86-win Houston Astros held a four-run lead with six outs until the victory that would catapult them into the AL League Champion Series by a three games-to-one margin and send home the over-achieving Kansas City Royals. 

But KC roared back with five runs in the eighth to knot their series before winning the deciding fifth game, and then sweeping Toronto en route to the whole shebang. That small pivot is now beginning to change the whole face of baseball.

Your Nose Runs and Your Feet Smell? You're Build Upside Down
As we've recounted here before, the Royals are built upside down. Their offensive formula is predicated on low-strikeout batters who put the ball in play, pressure the opposition with speed, and then hold the lead with spectacular outfield defense. They win with lockdown relievers Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Greg Holland (since released following surgery that will sideline him all 2016) in the final three frames after hoping to cobble together six innings from their mediocre stable of starters. 

Had Houston held that lead, no one would be thinking twice about Kansas City's odd formula. But to the victor belong the spoils, and also the trend-setting. Now everyone wants to blot out innings seven through nine.

The Hot Stove Scramble for Closers
Consider that the Dodgers just made -- and may have nixed -- a deal for flamethrower Aroldis Chapman, to pair with closer Kenley Jansen. They've already lost Zack Grienke at the top of their rotation and lost out on David Price. So they're evidently attempting to build from the back forward, though that may now be on hold because of accusations that Chapman clamps down on more than just opposing hitters.

Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances, leaders of the Million Strikeout March, have made Yankee Stadium safe for late-game leads. The Red Sox swapped for all-world closer Craig Kimbrel to slot in above Koji Uehara, who has produced a 1.86 ERA, 72 saves and nine times as many strikeouts as walks the last three years. Dave Dombrowski couldn't buy a closer when he was running the Tigers and now he's got two of them to shut down the eighth and ninth innings for the Red Sox.

Out of nowhere, the Astros made the playoffs in 2015 with solid reliever Luke Gregerson and his 2.79 lifetime ERA shutting the door. Last week they swapped their top pick in the 2013 draft and a pile of young players for Phillies closer Ken Giles.

It's All About October (and now November)
And so on. Last year, the thought was that emulating the Royals required the immense good fortune of having three lights-out relievers. Now teams are actively in search of them, and promising them all predetermined roles.

What became clear to many GMs this year wasn't the success of the combo during the season. Teams are realizing that winning in the playoffs requires more than just bullpen arms; it requires bullpen quality. Herrera, Davis and Ryan Madson, their replacement seventh inning hurler, combined for 12 innings of scoreless World Series work with 19 strikeouts as KC came from behind late in three of their four wins. 

Now every team with serious postseason expectations is scrambling to cobble together their own endgame scenario. Good luck with that!

The New Trend That Won't Be

Far be it for me to pass judgment on the latest fashion. I was recently invited to an event in which we were encouraged to wear 90s styles, so I wore my usual attire. I couldn't actually tell you what was fashionable in the 90s, except that I wasn't wearing it then.

I stopped paying attention to pop music way before Justin Bieber was born (though possibly because of that), and see ads for TV shows I've never heard of on networks I've never heard of starring actors I've never heard of. I keep up with the Cashins, not the Kardashians.

And I'm still not clear what birds are angry or why.

So maybe I'm not the great trend spotter, but here's one trend I can publicly dismiss.

The False Narrative
During the World Series, one of the false narratives took shape around the construction of the World Champion Kansas City Royals, a low-payroll juggernaut with the best AL record making a second straight Series appearance.

Unlike the Moneyball A's, built around on base percentage and power, the Royals are a high batting average team without power. They led the league in fewest strikeouts and fewest walks, hit the second fewest home runs and paid no nevermind to "working the count." They put a premium on speed, athleticism and defense. On the mound, they trotted out a series of third and fourth starters and let the bullpen dominate.

And this, it's been suggested, is the next wave of roster-building.

Sigh.

Let's jettison the opening shibboleths before we wade into the facts.

Moneyball is Obsolete
First, there is nothing Sabermetric about OBP and power. What was special about the 2000 A's is that they realized that OBP and power were under-priced in the baseball labor market and therefore they could afford to sign those sorts of players. Walks and homers were cheap; singles and speed were expensive. That, of course, is no longer true.

In addition, the Royals are in a unique situation. Their home park is the size of a National Park. The grassy outfield has a zip code. Speed and defense are especially advantageous in that park; slugging is exceedingly difficult. Walks -- a key component of OBP -- are now appropriately valued, so for a small market team like Kansas City, the more cost-effective way to get on base is by making contact on a field with such wide gaps. In other words, don't try this at home.

Uh-oh: Here Come Facts
Now the facts: the Royals owe their success much less to their approach than to their talent. Lorenzo Cain became an MVP contender this year. Mike Moustakas learned to hit the other way and foiled the shift that foiled him last year. Eric Hosmer fulfilled his potential. Alex Gordon was already a star and Sal Perez rakes relative to his position. So if you want a team construction concept to emulate, here it is -- get really good players.

Lost amid the World Series hype is KC's Achilles heal, one that, largely by luck, avoided exploitation. This was a team reliant on their starting nine like no other, but because the injury gods smiled upon them, their lack of depth was not tested. (I made that very point in May.) Just three non-regulars came to bat 100+ times; the Mets by contrast had nine backups come to the plate that often -- for one less position. There again, building a team virtually free of injury is unquestionably a strategy worth copying.

It might be that GM Dayton Moore has systematically drafted, developed and signed players who make contact and flash leather. It's said (now in retrospect, though I never heard it at the time) that he traded Wil Myers for James Shields in that odd 2013 swap with Tampa Bay because Myers had swing and miss tendencies. But much of this has to be happenstance. The players who prospered in the Minors -- and in Kaufman Stadium -- were these kinds of players, so these are the types who comprise the roster. Teasing out cause and effect is tricky business, especially from where you and I sit.

There may be other franchises that take a swing at the Royals' model, especially those in big parks like San Diego and -- snicker -- Citi Field, where the front office is cost-controlled. It makes no sense in Fenway, Wrigley or Coors, or generally most anywhere else. Which means, you're unlikely to get invited to a 2035 party and encouraged to dress as a contact hitter from 2015.

World Series: It's a Tossup

"Predicting the future is easy. Getting it right is the hard part."

Just as you predicted, the Mets and Royals meet for the World Series title. At season's start, projection systems rated the Mets above average. Indeed, Baseball Prospectus's PECOTA system had NY winning the first Wild Card. Alas, it also pegged KC 20 games under .500.

Since those projections were made, each team added some pieces. The Royals nabbed Johnny Cueto and Ben Zobrist, and over to Flushing went Kelly Johnson, Juan Uribe and most notably Yoenis Cespedes. But they are basically the teams that started the season. Particularly in Kansas City's case, it's hard to argue that their trade deadline pitching acquisition (4-7, 4.76) is responsible for their success.

So if you had this quinella in March, please email me immediately with this week's winning Powerball numbers. One hundred dollars on these two teams to meet in the World Series would have yielded you $78,400. Place your bets!

Which leads to the question, who has the edge? Will this be the first championship for a team since 1985 (Royals over Cards) or 1986 (Mets over Red Sox)?

Who Will Win
The answer, as usual, is, "who knows?" It's a seven-game series. The Phillies took five of seven from the Cubs this year. Whatever else you read here is simply subtext.

That said, the Mets and Royals are both acceptable representatives of their leagues, the Royals because they were the best team wire to wire and the Mets because they took off once Cespedes joined the squad and Matz returned from injury. And Wilmer Flores cried.

The dominant narrative is the Mets' power arms against the Royals' broad skill set and experience. That's a simplification, of course, but it is true that New York is much less balanced then Kansas City. Should any two of the Mets' hurlers stumble, it would likely spell disaster for them. You can't fall behind early against the Royals, especially if Ned Yost has "accidentally" given Ryan Madson the wrong directions to the ballpark.

The Edge Goes To...
Starting rotation is the big edge the Mets have, and much is being made of that. But that would be true of any team against KC because they are purposely constructed backwards on the mound. No team is more lethal than KC if their starters can muddle through two-thirds of the game with a lead. This strategy has worked for two seasons and is particularly effective in the playoffs, given the short leashes starters generally have now. Ignore that at your peril.

One more thing about the Mets' rotation. It is over-rated right now. It is over-rated because its youth and promise account for some of its allure, but the World Series is being played this week. We're all projecting out what deGrom, Harvey, Syndergaard and Matz could be, and the possibilities make us drool (particularly when we recall that Zack Wheeler will join them next year.)  But the Thor who will face Lorenzo Cain had a 3.25 ERA and a susceptibility to gopher balls.

I've debunked much of the home advantage in the playoffs in this post. (Spoiler alert: it comes into play in a seven-game series only if it goes the distance.) But in this particular case, there is a slight edge to Kansas City. No team is woven more snuggly to its home ballpark than the Royals, who value speed and athleticism over pure power in their wide-gapped stadium. Of course, Citi Field is no homer dome either, so some of that small advantage is offset.

There's always talk about it, but there's no evidence that experience is of any value, particularly now that both teams have run the playoff gauntlet. It is worth observing that no deficit appears insurmountable to the Royals, and whether that's a function of team psychology or skill set, it's a good quality to have. 

Rust, on the other hand, is measurably detrimental to playoff teams. The Mets will have spent nearly a week waiting for the Series to begin by the time they get underway Tuesday. Long rest can help an older team with a key player hobbled by injury and a clear ace they would like to line up for three starts. But none of those advantages accrue to the Mets.

Both teams are managed by men who appear to do a great job molding coherent units out of disparate parts. Terry Collins's in-game strategy gets the edge over Ned Yost's because everyone's in-game strategy gets the edge over Ned Yost's. 

Again, absolutely anything can happen on the road to four wins. Noise is just so loud at that level that a few missed notes here or there might not matter. That said, the Royals have some small advantages and I would rate them slightly more likely to win their first World Series in 30 years. Then again, Al Weiss...

Blue Jays-Royals: Forget the Caricature

If you were drawing a cartoon of the President of the United States of America, you'd give him dumbo ears, a long face with a Rhode Island-sized forehead and a mole that nearly blots out his nose. There's some truth in the caricature, but it's blown out of proportion.

It's easy to fall into the same trap with the Royals-Blue Jays series. You will hear a lot of pitching versus hitting about this match-up. For sure, the Blue Jays were baseball's best team on offense, mashing 232 home runs. And it's true the Royals flash leather, particularly in the outfield, and boast a shutdown bullpen.

But it's a much more nuanced series. For one, these are not the 2014 hitless wonder Royals. That team called three infield singles a rally. This team boasts six above-average starters with the bat and the same basepath scorchers who ran opposing teams ragged last season. Three Royals bopped 20+ home runs.

At the same time, KC's starting rotation is more like five set-up men for the vaunted bullpen. Absent James Shields, last year's ace, its ERA has jumped 30 points.

On the other side of the ledger, the Blue Jays are more than wallbangers. Their moundsmen finished fifth best in the AL, anchored by Cy Young candidate David Price and supported by Marcus Stroman, who posted a 1.67 ERA in 27 frames following return from injury. The bullpen of Roberto Osuna, Aaron Sanchez and Liam Hendricks (Brett Cecil and his sub-one WHIP is on the shelf) gave opponents fits, posting a 137 ERA+.

The real contrast between these two teams, besides the admitted difference in home run power, is the bench. Kansas City's cupboard is largely bare. It contains two defensive replacement/speedsters -- Terrence Gore and Jarrod Dyson, and that's it. As a result, manager Ned Yost simply prints out a pdf of his daily lineup each night. Toronto, by contrast, platoons Chris Colabello and Justin Smoak at first, with the backup on any given night serving as first bench option.

The Royals are more narrowly suited to their home park but the Blue Jays have the superior roster. Both teams have shown grit by snatching defeat from the jaws of victory -- the Royals in Game Three and the Blue Jays in the series. There's no telling which starving fan base gets rewarded with a World Series appearance -- and that's the way we like it.

A Red Letter Day for Royals

Theirs is a most unusual, perhaps even unique formula for winning: no power, no starting pitching; all relief pitching and defense. The Royals are like a man with two broken legs who walks very fast on his hands. It's not that it can't be done; it's just not the way most do it, primarily because it's really hard.

Conventional playoff wisdom demands at least one ace, if not two, which is two more than Kansas City had. So, with an eye towards October, which GM Dayton Moore's club is now seven games closer to than their division rivals, they boldly swung a deal for Johnny Cueto. It feels like a quintessential win-win, even if it doesn't work out well for anyone.

Even with a third of a season of Cueto, the Royals still appear light on the mound in the first six frames of every game. Nabbing Cueto, who has hurled 1,000 innings of 2.72 ERA over the last five years, increases the already favorable odds (at least relatively speaking) of re-capturing the AL crown.

KC was a popular choice for the AL Central basement this year. Banking on reprised performances from a relief corps is a fools errand, and although defense tends to be less fickle than hitting, even a small dip in the field would have doomed the punchless Royals. Somehow, though, they've bottled lightning and charged to the top of the standings.

If you thought Kansas City was talent-challenged before this season, wait until Alex Gordon leaves after it's over. Between that and the unpredictability of their hitting, the Royals could return to perpetual doormat status starting in 2016. So it makes sense that Moore wanted to strike while the iron was hot.

It seems like they gave up a lot of future value for Cueto. No one ever knows with prospects, but 22-year-old Brandon Finnegan was a first-round pick who is pitching like one, now with the big club. John Lamb, a once-and-future Minor League star following TJ surgery, and semi-prospect Cody Reed, round out the deal. It seems like a nice haul for Cincinnati in exchange for 12 starts from a pitcher who can choose his hometown after the last wisps of the World Series trail off into the ether.

So the Royals make a run for it while they can and the Reds stockpile arms at essentially no cost. It's a good deal for both teams. Now we'll have to see whether the gods smile upon either or both ends.

The Last Shall Be First

A quarter of the way into the season, the three best teams in the American League have been the Houston Astros, Minnesota Twins and Kansas City Royals. They are a combined 32 games over .500.

Those very teams were rated the three worst in the AL by most projection systems when the season began. Baseball Prospectus's PECOTA system had the triad dropping 85, 92 and 91 games, respectively.

Is this a great game, or what?

Dipping Their Toe In Knowledge: The Kansas City Royals Shake Up Their Lineup

In 2005, after 35 years as a Kansas City Royals fan, I renounced my affiliation and took up with the Washington Nationals. It had finally become evident that while I cared for the team, the owner, David Glass, did not. He operated the franchise like a WalMart, of which he had been CEO, which is to say his primary concern was earning a profit.

So Glass sucked the franchise dry and ran it on the cheap, relying on low-cost young talent to induce the flipping of turnstiles before earning their freedom.

In the ensuing eight years, KC is 506-685, a .425 winning percentage. This year, their 25-32 record is mostly attributable to their work in the batter's box: seven of their 11 most-used batters sport OPS+ of 80 or less. In other words, much of their starting lineup is at least 20% worse than average, including keystoner Chris Getz, who, at .207/.267/.289, is only the second-worst regular in the lineup. 

The entire team has struck 30 home runs, three fewer than the Orioles' first baseman and shortstop.

Their manager, lightly-regarded Ned Yost, has not wasted any time perusing the newest research on game strategy. So, for example, he's given sabermetric punching bag Jeff Francoeur 167 plate appearances despite a predictable .213/.246/.319 performance. (Actually, it's not the batting average or lack of power that are so lamentable, since both of those can increase over the course of the season. It's the 3% walk rate, which tends not to change much over time and which would keep his OBP below average for an outfielder even if he batted .300.)

When it comes to lineup construction, it's no surprise that Yost has clung to the old ways. Before there was research that could muddy the waters with annoying "facts," managers arranged lineups by folk wisdom, some of which proved wanting. They batted a punch and judy lightning bolt first, a speedy bat handler second, the best hitter third and the slugger fourth.

Hundreds of studies later, covering tens of thousands of games, there is a whole matrix of rules for optimal lineup construction, which can be summarized this way:
1. Bat your best hitters at the front of the order so they get to the plate more.
2. Table-setters in the first two positions need high on base percentages.
3. Alternate handedness as much as possible.
4. Beyond that, it doesn't matter much.

Managers still walking among the great lizards fail the test most often with respect to Rule 2 (and by extension Rule 1). For example, throwback strategist Dusty Baker bats shortstop Zach Cozart and his .270 OBP in the two spot, costing the Reds bits of runs every game.

That's exactly the error Ned Yost makes, albeit with fewer options than Baker has. Yost hits the Royals' best player, Alex Gordon (.315/.360/.468), at the top of the lineup and then follows him with speedy, punchless shortstop Alcides Escobar. The Gordon choice is defensible because he's likely to author the top OBP on the team. 

As for Escobar, remember him from his Milwaukee days? His Kansas City glory? I didn't think so. He might not be the worst hitter in the Royals' starting lineup, but if you made the case you wouldn't get an argument. That's the guy Yost sends to the plate the second most often. 

But! Earlier this week, Yost finally caved to the seamheads employed by the team (though one wonders why it bothers) and allowed them to re-arrange the order. Against a RHP, they dropped Escobar to the nine hole and moved first baseman Eric Hosmer, a .273/.332/.440 lifetime hitter against righties, up to second.

When asked whether he'd extend the experiment following a four-run effort the first night, Yost replied, "We'll see how it works tomorrow." (They scored seven the following night.) Yost is understandably wary, in as much as the new lineup represents a repudiation of everything he's believed for all his decades in cleats, but even a stubborn innumerate should be able to understand that a game or two is an insufficient sample size for testing a strategy that might boost scoring by a run every few games.

Obviously, optimal lineup construction is only optimal for the lineup in question. No batting order rife with dead weight, like KC's, can be transformed into the '27 Yankees simply by rearranging the uniforms. The improvement on offense that a more rational batting order conveys might bump the Royals to .500, but no further, and only if they improve elsewhere as well. But the decision to start listening to what the research says could transform the entire organization and produce occasional contenders.

The likes of Ned Yost probably won't be there to experience it. And I'll stick with my Nats all the same.

A Great Trade for Toronto

You, perhaps, comprehend the recent blockbuster trade between Tampa Bay and Kansas City. Perhaps you grasp string theory, follow NHL negotiations and appreciate the subtle talent of Demi Lovato. Or perhaps you're one of the general managers involved. For the rest of us in the baseball universe, the Tampa-KC deal was a Christmas-time Gift of the Magi.

With the Yankees diving headlong towards the salary cap, the Red Sox scrambling back to relevance and the Orioles seeking a new bottle for their lightning, the pitching-rich Rays appeared ready to enter 2013 a co-favorite for the AL East title.

The Royals, meanwhile, are still mixing up potions to consolidate the talent they've amassed on their roster with all those high draft picks. Absent the elusive formula, they remain a second-division team.

And yet, the franchise with the distant horizon flipped long-term investments for instant gratification, while the franchise aiming to fly its flag this year relinquished a key piece of the puzzle for a possible future bonanza. Suddenly, explaining the general theory of relativity seems simple.

Specifically, the Royals sent minor league outfielder Wil Myers, a top-10 prospect, along with three other farmhands of various promise, for James Shields, an All-Star hurler and Wade Davis,  a mid-rotation righty who pitched effectively out of the bullpen in 2012. While Myers and his comrades were KC's for six years of cost control, the two Major Leaguers they landed in return are signed for two years at $29 - $35 million, plus three option years on Davis at $25 million with a $2.5 million buyout.

Similarly, Tampa dumped their #2 starter and a useful bullpen piece for future returns just as the rest of the division has stepped back and left them to catch the bouquet. They save millions of dollars, for sure, but that's not how you win a pennant. They are betting on minor leaguers, none of whom is likely to contribute at the MLB level this coming season, if ever.

This is an Arty the Smarty transaction in which both sides are swimming against the current. Even if Shields and Davis deliver steak as expected, the good people of western Missouri still have to choke down lumpy mashed potatoes and creamed spinach along with them. This deal suggests that GM Dayton Moore dreams of a .500 season. And won't Rays GM Andrew Friedman be kicking himself if the team skids to within a few games of the playoffs for want of a #2 starter while this bag of goodies spends the year developing in Durham?

If you're Friedman or Moore, perhaps you can explain this. Perhaps the Royals believe that their talent-laden lineup is ready to metamorphose in 2013 and a pair of Major League arms will catapult them to the top of a weak division. Perhaps Tampa Bay believes it has squeezed all the quality it can out of Shields and will use the pocketed funds to fill holes at first, DH or back in the rotation. Only they know.

On face value though, this deal fails the smell test for both sides. But it looks great for the pennant hopes of the Toronto Blue Jays.