I'm going to say fock it and ignore those saying they don't want to hear more about the Royals. Just because maybe HT or others who are rooting for the Yankees might be interested in some additional insight heading into the series. Plus, this is an MLB thread and there's only a handful of teams still playing
The Yankees have much bigger names, so most of us know or have heard of Judge and Soto and Gerrit Cole, but honestly other than knowing the lineup top to bottom is probably the most stacked in the league, I don't know much about the Yankees either and would be interested in reading what those who do really perceive their strengths and weaknesses to be.
For the Royals, I think everybody at this point knows Bobby Witt, Jr. but may not know a lot about the rest of the team.
Starting Pitching
The Royals being where they are, in my opinion, is a result of the starting pitching more than anything else. Seth Lugo's name was in the running for Cy Young for most of the year, Cole Ragans has been a tremendous asset and Michael Wacha has pitched well all year. Lugo had an ERA of under 2 for the first two months of the year, where i think 11 of his 12 starts were quality starts. Since he hadn't been a starter for a full season there were questions about his durability, and his ERA did elevate in July and August but 3 of his 4 starts were quality starts in September. He pitched extremely well last night, but I'm guessing we see Ragans and Wacha for two starts if the series went to five games, and Lugo will only get one. The Yankess are the toughest out for any starting pitcher I think, but at his best he keeps hitter guessing when he's using about 12 different pitches.
Wacha is kind of the opposite, where his ERA the first two months was over 4, but for July through September his ERA stayed closer to 3. He finished the season really strong with a 2.60 ERA in September although he didn't get get past five innings in most of those starts. I assume he'll get game 1 since he didn't pitch in the wild card series. Ragans has probably been the most consistent, even as well as those other two had pitched. He had a 1.08 ERA in September through 4 starts going 6 or 7 innings in each, giving up 14 hits on 25 innings with only 3 runs allowed.
This 3-man rotation is the biggest reason I have a lot of hope going into the divisional series. The Yankees may very well be the toughest out for the Royals to make it back to the World Series, but if there's a team that's capable of doing it, I feel like it can be Kansas City.
Relief Pitching
The bullpen wasn't very good early in the season, and has obviously been the weakest link. They've been frustrating, have blown leads and couldn't find ways to close out several games.
Opening day roster included: Will Smith, Chris Stratton, Nick Anderson, John Schrieber, Matt Sauer, James McArthur, Angel Zerpa and Jordan Lyles
Wild Card roster included: Angel Zerpa, John Schrieber (the only two relievers from the opening day roster), Brady Singer, Kris Bubic, Sam Long, Daniel Lynch, Lucas Erceg and Michael Lorenzen
And the results, for the Royals bullpen in September they had:
ERA: 2.77 (5th)
FIP: 2.73 (2nd)
K%: 29.4% (4th)
BB%: 7.7% (6th)
GB%: 45.9% (12th)
Granted, that's not facing the Yankees every day but it's still a pretty damn impressive turnaround from where they came from. Erceg and Lorenzen have been tremendous additions, calling up Bubic and Lynch from the minors and moving them from starters to relievers has served the team well, and moving Singer to the pen adds yet another arm.
Another thing I noticed watching the series against the Orioles was how masterfully Quantraro used his bullpen. They are using tons of analytics and data to select the best matchups to put them in a position to win. Something the last manager we had to endure (Mike Matheny) would have never done for us. They are looking at the types of pitches their opponents have the most success with (or lack thereof) and it's really worked well. The results were that the Orioles scored 1 run in 2 games. That's pretty damn impressive.
Position Players
Bobby Witt, Jr. That's all I really need to say about him. Getting Vinnie back in under five weeks is huge, provides some protection in the lineup behind Bobby and plays well with the short right field of Yankee Stadium. Salvy is still the man, although I wish he wouldn't chase so many bad pitches. He still has to have the highest batting percentage swinging at pitches more than a foot outside of the zone
The Royals have struggled with (an a key offseason priority will be) identifying a decent leadoff hitter. Michael Massey, Maikel Garcia, Tommy Pham have just struggled to consistently get on base and provide an opportunity for the top three hitters to drive them in.
As you rounds out the roster there isn't a lot of star power, but the Royals have options to match up against righty/ lefty splits, and have players they can turn to for different situations late in the game. If you want to DH Salvy you can put Fermin behind the plate. If you want to DH Vinnie (might be highly likely as he's still going to be nursing his thumb) you can play Salvy or Gurriel at first. You can play Garcia at second or third, and gives you flexibility with Massey (left handed bat) at second or DeJong (right handed bat) at third). And you have some options in the outfield between Melendez, Pham, Renfroe and Isbel. None of those dudes are going to set the world on fire, but they give you options. And then you have Dairon Blanco in your back pocket, who seems to be our Jarrod Dyson of the team and can basically swipe a bag at will.
History
Win, lose, and I guess you can't draw, but whatever happens this has been a fun season to follow, and anything from this point is just gravy. This has been awesome as a fan, and I have tickets for both Wednesday and Thursday games nest week and will likely be in attendance for both if they both end up taking place. The Royals and Yankees have quite the postseason history going, and I'm looking forward to seeing it continue next week
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