Boy, I have yet to be right about a single thing this offseason, huh? Just like everyone else, I thought Cliff Lee would sign with the Yankees or the Rangers: WRONG. I thought Carl Crawford was going to be an Angel: WRONG. But more than anything, I thought Zack Greinke would somehow end up in New York pinstripes: WRONG WRONG WRONG.
Early Sunday morning, the Royals, who've been dangling Zacky boy in front of other teams for months, shipped him off to the Milwaukee Brewers in exchange for some young players and prospects that Kansas City hopes will help turn them into a championship-caliber team in the next few years. For the Royals, this may not be the worst move they've made: sure, the rest of their starting pitcher is pretty weak, and their offensive power, in comparison to other teams, is like bringing a water gun to a friendly game of Russian roulette, but these young ones still have potential, the bright-eyed innocence and blissful ignorance that they're on a team that hasn't done a single important thing since 1985 (before the majority of them could even pick up a bat). Youth is a dangerous thing: you can't tell for sure what these kids will help Kansas City accomplish, and it's likely that's what the Royals brass is counting on. With the signings of outfielders Jeff Francouer and Melky Cabrera, they've already added a few more non-impactful players, so some fresh new blood could help jumpstart their dying batteries, but it will take a lot more than that to drive them into October for the seventh time in franchise history. The only problem that they had (and why they couldn't truly afford to keep Greinke, and vice versa) is that their run support is truly atrocious. If the players in the lineup can find the power they've been lacking in so heavily, maybe they can recoup their loss of a Cy Young-winning hurler and begin to lay the foundation for becoming a stronger team.
The Brewers, and Greinke, both benefit in ways the Royals do not. The Brewers get a reliable pitcher with good command and a high strikeout rate who's young and has only been on the disabled list once in his career, and Greinke gets to pitch in a different league with a stronger emphasis on pitching, and also with a team that has big hitter (literally and figuratively) Prince Fielder, as well as other sluggers like Casey McGehee and Ryan Braun. Now, this sounds like a nice 1-2 combo on paper, but by no stretch of the imagination does this make the Brew Crew sound anything like a contender. Sure, they probably won't end up in last place in the NL Central with this roster, and they will probably beat out the Astros and Pirates, and may even take down the Cubs. But they're also lumped together with the St. Louis Cardinals and the Cincinnati Reds. The Reds are just returning to glory, while the Cardinals have Albert Pujols (at least through next year). And let's say, by some wild cosmic incident, that the Brewers win the NL Central, or at least make the wild card. A rotation of Greinke/Gallardo/Marcum sounds nice and threatening, but when you consider the powerhouse pitching in Philadelphia, they can't raise that white flag of surrender high enough. Still, they can make some noise in the division and possibly shake things up, so this just adds one more interesting component to the upcoming season.
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