The 2016 season has come to a close and it is hard to say the best team didn’t win. From day one this year, the Royals seemed the top team in baseball and they never lost that mantle, winning each of the final two series without playing a game with elimination on the line. Realistically, the Mets were largely considered the most well rounded NL team and it is hard to complain about their second trip to the World Series since 2000.
With the Mets, any talk wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the great Bartolo Colon. While he was the last pitcher on the mound in the 12th inning of game five and gave up three runs, these belonged to Addison Reed, who had already blown open the tie game. In all, Colon pitched in 7 postseason games, allowing just two earned runs in 8.1 innings, striking out seven. Some how he found himself in three World Series games, pitching 3.1 innings and not allowing a single earned run. He did allow some base runners with three walks and four hits, but cannot nearly be blamed for the Mets’ series loss.
As for Kansas City, there are few baseball fans in the country who have seen more Royals games than those of us who follow the Indians and kept up with the Central Division race all season. Somehow still underrated, those who saw them play early in the year got used to that near perfect defense as Lorenzo Cain robbed everything in site. The good news for the Indians is that unless they make major moves, the Royals will have an incredibly hard time repeating their success in 2016.
Kansas City’s top two pitching prospects were sent out to obtain Ben Zobrist and Johnny Cueto, both of who will likely leave through free agency. Tribe killer Alex Gordon looks to be on his way out as he has a $12.5M player option that he could easily decline and they stand to lose Chris Young, Ryan Madson, Franklin Morales and Joba Chamberlain to free agency as well. These are of varying value, but they certainly can’t be happy about Young’s status being up in the air while Jason Vargas is still owed $16.5M over the next two years. Former closer, Greg Holland has also been released as his Tommy John surgery should take him through the rest of his years of team control.
While they could technically return any one of these exiting players, the Royals may have their wallets emptied first by the arbitration deals of Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain, Danny Duffy and Jarrod Dyson. They will save some money by dropping Holland, but those four could cost about $18M between them in 2016 according to MLB Trade Rumors.
This isn’t all negative towards the Royals, just pointing out how tough it will be for them to repeat based on only a roster standpoint. They deserve all the credit as a World Series winner, breaking their drought that has lasted since 1986. With their second franchise title, the Royals have now moved out of the tie 21st in MLB history into a tie for 14th along with the Cubs, Indians, Marlins, Twins, Mets, Phillies and Blue Jays. The Indians, Cubs and Phillies deserve the most credit of course, as it only took them 115 seasons to win their two championships compared to the expansion teams like the Marlins who did it in a lengthy three decades or so.
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