Do Royals Have The Rotation To Compete With Tigers?

By Rob Neyer - National Baseball Editor

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Feb 14, 2012 - A lot of people are going to like the Kansas City Royals this spring. A lot more people would have liked them if the Detroit Tigers hadn't invested $837 million in a first baseman built like this guy, but sometimes there's no accounting for a billionaire who won't live forever. Still, when the pundits are casting about for a team that might come out of nowhere like the Diamondbacks did last year, the Royals will be on the list because they've got a bunch of young players who might be real good (or who, in the case of Eric Hosmer, already is real good).

Still, the Royals' starting rotation does seem a bit deficient if the goal is to win 85-90 games. Which has led to calls for a targeted investment in an established starting pitcher like Edwin Jackson (too late) or Roy Oswalt (still possible). But management showed no interest in such a move, and Bob Dutton recently asked GM Dayton Moore why not:

Moore and his staff made their moves early in the offseason by acquiring Jonathan Sanchez from San Francisco in a Nov. 7 trade for outfielder Melky Cabrera. Roughly two weeks later, they reached a two-year deal to retain Bruce Chen.

Those two moves filled the Royals' desire to land two starters to team with Luke Hochevar as the rotation's front three. Club officials felt no urgency to do more.

"If Hoch pitches like he did in the second half of the season," Moore said, "he's perhaps an All-Star. Once we had those three guys we were committed to, to do anything else would block those young guys from getting an opportunity."

Relying on their deep pool of available rotation candidates, the Royals believe, is not only cost-effective but also offers the potential to match or exceed the performance of any veteran likely to be acquired through trade or free agency.

Hochevar, once the No. 1 pick in the whole amateur draft, did pitch well in the second half last season, with a 3.52 ERA and a strikeout-to-walk ratio close to 3. He's probably not going to be an All-Star, but even at 28 he's still got a chance to be pretty good.

Aaron Crow, once the 12th pick in the whole amateur draft, was an All-Star last season. This, after pitching not all that well as a minor leaguer. Moving to the bullpen really seemed to help him, but the Royals -- in what's probably a smart move -- are going to try him out as a starter this spring. Still, considering his just-decent strikeout-to-walk ratio and his (apparent) penchant for giving up home runs, he's far from a sure thing as a starter. A good one, anyway.

Other candidates for the rotation include Danny Duffy and a bunch of other guys who figure to be adequate, at best. Duffy's intriguing, of course, with his silly minor-league numbers. But he got hammered in his 20 starts last season with the big club, and they can't all turn into Greg Maddux as sophomores. In fact, most of them do not.

Given their current group of starting pitchers -- all dozen of them or whatever -- the Royals are highly unlikely to win 90 games. It's just really hard to do that without a really good starter or two, and the Royals' best candidate for that label remains a figment of Dayton Moore's imagination.

But I'm not convinced that adding a veteran starter would change the equation. Enough, anyway, to justify spending $11 million on Edwin Jackson or Roy Oswalt or whomever. One of those guys would make the Royals better, for sure. And this bit from Moore isn't real thrilling:

"It just doesn’t fit," he said. "For me, we would be abandoning our plan with the young players. That’s not who we are. I think it’s important that we understand who we are, where we’re going and what we’re trying to do.

"Abandoning that (approach), and precluding any of those young pitchers from being in our rotation, is doing just that."

It is important to understand who you are. It's also important to respond to changing situations. It's also important to recognize that your young pitchers might be a year or two away from actually being in your rotation. By most measures, the Royals have three young pitchers with solid chances of pitching well as major-league starters: Duffy, Mike Montgomery, and Jake Odorizzi. Duffy struggled in the majors. Montgomery posted a 5.32 ERA in Omaha last season. And Odorizzi has pitched only 69 innings (4.72 ERA) above Class A.

There are other young pitchers, but those are the best of them. And the Royals will be lucky if just one of them wins 15 games in any of the next three seasons.

Again, I don't know that Edwin Jackson would have been enough to make a difference. Or Roy Oswalt. But without one of them, this season figures to be a battle to reach .500, with 2013 or (more likely) '14 the first season in which we might reasonably expect the Royals to compete for a division title.

Read More: Bruce Chen (P - KCR), Greg Maddux (P - LAD), Roy Oswalt (P - PHI), Melky Cabrera (LF - SFG), Edwin Jackson (P - WAS), Luke Hochevar (P - KCR), Aaron Crow (P - KCR), Danny Duffy (P - KCR), Jake Odorizzi (P - KCR), Mike Montgomery (P - KCR), Eric Hosmer (1B - KCR), Kansas City Royals

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