The L.A. Angels and the K.C. Royals: Going in Different Directions

[OFFNY]

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The Angles have won 8 straight games, including a 4-game sweep of the Royals. After a horrendous start to the season, they are now knocking on the door of respectability at 23-27.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/team/schedule/_/name/laa/los-angeles-angels

The Royals, on the other hand, have lost 6 straight games (including today's loss to the Cardinals), and after starting the season at 17-10, have now lost 17 out of their last 21 games to fall to 21-27 overall.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/team/schedule/_/name/kc/kansas-city-royals

[Palmoripken]

Honestly stinks for KC. I like seeing new teams emerge as contenders which is why I'm happy with the Pirates good start and was with the Royals starting off nicely too. Angels still have a long way to go but I am not surprised they've turned things around. They've got too much talent not to have done that.

[25 Nuggets]

Same story for the Angels, dug a hole early and they're spending the season coming back from it. And guess what; while they're 8-2 in their last ten games Oakland is 9-1. Oops.

As for KC, they are just not scoring enough runs. Their team OPS+ is third worst in the AL (Minnesota, Chicago) and fourth worst in runs scored / game. They are showing a shocking lack of power.

13. Oakland - 51

14. Minnesota - 38

15. Kansas City - 28

That's a little over half the home runs of the 13th place team. Consider that the Orioles, with 69 team HRs, have nearly 2.5 times the number that KC does.

[notyourbuddy]

Reminds me of the offseason Fangraphs arcticle, Royals Mortgage Future To Be Mediocre In 2013.

And, unfortunately for Kansas City, it?s hard to see too many scenarios where adding Shields and Davis put them over the top for a playoff berth ? the kind of result that would essentially be required to justify this kind of future-for-present trade. Last year, the Royals ranked 22nd in both wins (72) and WAR (+30, which suggests an expected W-L record of ~73 wins). This was not a team that drastically underachieved their on field play. They were bad at hitting, bad at fielding, and bad at pitching. Their bullpen was excellent ? pretty much everything else was horrible.

The Royals offense is basically Billy Butler, Alex Gordon, and a lot of hopes and prayers. This is just not a team that was a couple of pitchers away from the postseason. This was a team that was a couple of pitchers away from not picking in the top 10 in next year?s draft.

The obvious comparison here is the Erik Bedard trade. [...] That trade is generally regarded as the worst prospects-for-veteran swap in recent history. This might be worse.

[crowmst3k!]

Bright side: maybe Shields becomes available sooner.

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