How is Baltimore Still As Bad As KC?

Our Kansas City Royals now hold a narrow lead in the MLB's grand race to see who will earn next year's top overall draft pick. The Baltimore Orioles, somehow, are still neck and neck with the Royals in this season's marathon of sadness. KC still has the league's worst offense and pitching staff statistically, so our Boys in Blue should inevitably win this race by the time they wrap up the 67 games left of a season that's so disappointing it's almost historically unprecedented. After 2014 and '15 brought Royals fans to such unbelievable heights, fan morale now reaches a staggering and unexpected low-point. Morbid examinations of how the franchise arrived at this lowly state came in abundance recently, so I'd like to instead focus on KC's only important race for the rest of this season.

The Chicago White Sox currently sit six games away from "first place", and every other club is at least 11.5 games out of the race for last, making them too "good" to realistically vie for the #1 pick. It's more baffling to see Baltimore with the MLB"s 3rd-worst team ERA and team OPS than it is to see the Royals struggle this much. The Orioles have a guy currently hitting .315 with 24 dingers, and they're somehow just as bad as our Royals at the All Star break. Their problem with the offense is, well, everyone else in the lineup. Mark Trumbo is the team's second-best bat, judging by his .761 OPS. There are currently 11 Orioles with over 100 at-bats and an OPS below .700. Five of those players have an OPS below .600. Only four teams have fewer walks than Baltimore (while KC has the fewest), and only one team has less total runs scored. That team, of course, is your Kansas City Royals.

O's fans also place a lot of the blame on their starting rotation, and there's good reason for that. Alex Cobb, David Hess and Chris Tillman have combined for 33 starts for Baltimore this year. None of them have an ERA below 6. Opposing batters are hitting .313 off Cobb and .365 off Tillman. Oh, and Cobb is the team's highest-paid pitcher. If that sounds familiar, let's remember that KC's highest paid pitcher has been so awful that local media suggests the Royals should shut down Ian Kennedy for the year (and I agree.) To be this bad at the All Star break, teams apparently need to have a lot in common. At least KC spent $10.5 million less to get here.

Doug LaCerte tweets about Royals stuff and occasionally about Kanye West @DLaC67. He is usually too cool to pay attention to his Facebook.

10 Reasons for Optimism in 2017

Only a sick bastard would start his Kansas City Royals blog today, but here I am. What am I supposed to do, just suddenly stop thinking about baseball after enjoying four hours' worth of baseball and baseball-related entertainment nearly every day for six months? After the ridiculous stretch this Royals organization just experienced - or rather, is still experiencing - any healthy transition away from constantly thinking about KC baseball is impossible.

It's gonna be a rough offseason, but I'm focusing on the positive in an attempt to avoid my typical end-of-the-season sadness-slump. Without further unnecessary info about my psychological problems, here are 10 good reasons to be optimistic about the Royals in 2017:

1. Ian Kennedy gave up more homers than any other Royal this season, but he also pitched the most innings and recorded the second-most strikeouts. If Kennedy keeps pitching like the guy who recorded a 3.38 ERA since the All Star break, Royals fans will quickly grow to adore him.

2. Paulo Orlando stepped up and proved to be a legit big-leaguer, and he's earned the lion's share of the starts next year as he presumably continues to split time with Jarrod Dyson. Kendrys Morales, Eric Hosmer and Lorenzo Cain are the only Royals with a better 2016 OPS than Orlando. That's two pillars of a championship-winning roster and a full-time veteran DH.

3. Despite Cheslor Cuthbert playing remarkably well as a replacement, KC suffered from the lack of left-handed power in the lineup after Mike Moustakas went down in May with a knee injury. Before that fateful moment, Moose looked like he was on pace to repeat his solid performance from 2015, when he finished with a .284/.348/.470 batting line, 22 homers and 82 runs batted in. Adding that production to next year's lineup will clearly change things for the better.

4. Jason Vargas was not expected to take the mound again in 2016, so any contribution from him before the 2016 season ended was an unexpected luxury. That's not to mention that Vargas quickly went back to being his old self, and should slate right into the rotation next year.

5. The next step for Danny Duffy after this successful season is to become a bona fide ace. Many experts within the organization believe that if all goes well, we could witness the best starting season for a Royal since a guy named Zack Greinke played here.

6. A bunch of the young talent we saw, namely Cuthbert, Raul Mondesi, Whit Merrifield and Matt Strahm, look like they'll be legit contributors in 2017 and beyond. Well, maybe they'll be trade pieces instead, but that's a different story.

7. I know it's too early to project an entire starting lineup, but just imagine this defense taking the field- Salvador Perez, Hosmer, Mondesi, Alcides Escobar, Moustakas/Cuthbert, Orlando/Dyson, Cain and Platinum Glove Award winner Alex Gordon. Go ahead and find me a position where the Royals don't have a chance to win a Gold Glove next season.

8. The Royals ranked 12th at the All Star break with just 50 stolen bases, but they swiped 71 bags in the second half, which was 4th in baseball and bumped them up to the 6th-highest total for the season. It seems like the club returned to embracing that style of play, and that should continue into next year.

9. The old Detroit Tigers roster gets one year older next year, the Minnesota Twins don't look like they're ready to contend yet, the Chicago White Sox somewhat-predictably faded into obscurity and the Cleveland Indians can't stay healthy. It's not as if KC needs to win the AL East next season.

10. There just aren't too many question marks surrounding next year's roster, and most of the questions we do have are actually fun to ask. How will KC deal with Moose's return and Cuthbert's success? Which one of the aforementioned young infielders will earn the majority of starts at second base? Frankly, we won't be asking if the Royals can be good next year, but instead we'll want to know just how good KC can be.

The Royals face off against the Twins at Target Stadium at 3:10 PM on April 3rd, 2017. We're less than 182 days away, Royals fans. Thanks for reading.

Doug LaCerte also runs The Red and Gold Report and tries not to neglect his minuscule fanbase on Twitter @DLaC67.