BP Daily Podcast

The Yuni point was excellent. Re-signing him was kind of weird, but you figured that he would not do a huge amount of damage playing 45 games or so this year. No one figured that he would have played in roughly half of the Royals games this year. He lived down to most folks' expectations - tolerable in a utility guy with limited exposure, but not at all in a semi-regular. He outlived whatever usefulness he might have had fairly quickly. The Royals did the right thing in cutting their loss.

As to the The Kids: I would also agree that it is too early to tell. Hosmer has regressed this year, Moustakas has stepped up (not so much lately, but still... and is a much, much better defender than most folks expected). Myers is getting closer, as is Odorizzi. Most of The Kids are still fairly young, and have room to grow and get more consistent - not many guys step up at the show at 21 and produce from day 1. And you can't plan for the team to suddenly become the Tommy John capital of MLB. Some definite bad luck there.

Overall, 2013 is probably not realistic, with so many arms recovering from TJ. I don't see a lot of reason for the Royals to try to pick up a big name FA pitcher this offseason unless someone REALLY wants to come to KC on a non-blockbuster contract to 1) help stabilize the team in 2013 and 2) lead the team in 2014, which is when I think the Royals have a much better chance of really pushing the other teams in the division. I'd love to see them get tons better sooner, but 2014 is more realistic, IMO