Royals Fire Manager Mike Matheny

The Royals’ organizational change continues. Shortly after the conclusion of the 69-93 season, Kansas City announced that manager Mike Matheny and shooting coach Cal Eldred would not return in 2023.

This news comes just a few weeks after the royal family made a change at the helm of the front office. Longtime chief of baseball operations Dayton Moore was fired in late September, with General Manager J.J. Piccolo tasked with leading baseball operations. Piccolo’s first major decision leading the organization is to make a change of leadership at the club, and members of the royal family will now turn their attention towards finding a new captain.

Matheny’s dismissal closes records of his three-year administrative tenure. Matheny was originally brought into the KC organization during the 2018-19 season as a special assistant, and was almost immediately rumored as a possible successor to then-manager Ned Yost. When Yost stepped aside at the end of the 2019 season, members of the royal family did indeed arrest Matheny for getting back to the top of the dugout steps. The former big-league player spent more than six years managing the Cardinal between 2012 and 2018, clearly impressing the front office in the Royal Family during his season as a special assistant.

It wasn’t a particularly imposing slate, with Matini taking charge as the team was firmly in the midst of rebuilding. Kansas City has lost more than 100 games in each of the previous two years, so it wasn’t particularly surprising that it faltered at the 26-34 mark during the shortened 2020 campaign. The following royal family members added offseason Carlos SantanaAnd the Andrew Benintende And the Mike Minor Trying to be more competitive. They finished, in a sense, with a 74-88 record that came in with their highest win percentage (45.7%) since 2017.

However, the improvements were not enough to make the members of the royal family complete competitors. After showing 15-7 in April, they finished 0.500 or less each subsequent month. Kansas City has been surprisingly quiet this past winter. The royal family reunited with Zack Greene On a $13 million contract and shipped from a poorly performing secondary as a savior prince garrett. Other than that, Kansas City has been counting on internal improvements paired with the fruits of its burgeoning farm system to get back above the .500 for the first time since winning the world championship in 2015.

Members of the royal family have achieved the highest expectations Bobby Witt Jr. In the opening day menu. within two months, MG Melendez And the Vinnie Pasquantino You will join him. All three got off to a strong start, with Witt and Pasquantino looking like regular above-average players from the start. But the team’s overall performance went in the wrong direction. They won nine fewer games than they did in 2021, ending the fifth-worst record in the tournament. Benintendi has long been the cornerstone of the franchise Wait Merryfield It traded away mid-season.

Among the biggest reasons for the lack of progress was the start of the rotation which ranked 26th in the majors with a 4.72 ERA. Of the seven KC starters to the top 20 of the round, five had an ERA of 4.93 or higher. This is particularly frustrating given the scale of talented young arms that members of the royal family have seen making it to the big business in recent seasons. Kansas City has invested a lot of trial capital in strengthening its promotional pipeline, including using four of the 2018 top 40 overall picks on college guns. Brady SingerAnd the Jackson QuarAnd the Daniel Lynch And the Chris Bobick They were all brought in that year, but only Singer had taken the development steps the club envisioned.

After an abrupt start to the year in the Bullpen, Singer was quickly sent to Triple-A to run again as a start. After resetting the rotating role in mid-May, the oath emerged as the most productive arm of the royal family. He made 24 starts and worked a 3.11 ERA with an above-average strike rate of 24.2% and a globe mark of 48.5%. Singer still struggled to turn over formations three times, but he dominated his opponents on his first two. While it may not be a perfect campaign, Singer’s 2022 season undoubtedly qualifies as a success.

Unfortunately for the royals, none of his peers have taken a similar step forward. Nobody from Bubic or Lynch or John Hesley He posted an ERA of less than 5.00, and all three had strike rates well below average. Carlos Hernandez He was one of the league’s worst bowlers in a season-opening rotation appearance and eventually found himself in the Bullpen. Cowar has taken a heavy blow during his limited looks in MLB for the past two seasons and has had a 6.16 ERA through 20 Triple A starts this year. Grounder Specialist Brad Keeler He has taken a huge step back over the past couple of years and could not be put up this season. It’s to the Royals’ credit that Keller, who was selected from the Diamondbacks in the 2017-18 Rule 5 Draft, ever appeared as a primarily productive start. However, his decline combined with the lack of progress from many of Kansas City’s most promising arms should be Piccolo’s area of ​​focus and his front office group.

More is coming.