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Mike Matheny

Royals Fire Manager Mike Matheny

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The Royals’ organizational shake-up continues. Shortly after wrapping up a 69-93 season, Kansas City announced that manager Mike Matheny and pitching coach Cal Eldred will not return in 2023. The Royals had exercised a 2023 club option on Matheny’s services in Spring Training, but he’ll be relieved of his duties a season early.

The news comes a few weeks after the Royals made a change atop the front office. President of baseball operations Dayton Moore was dismissed in late September, with general manager J.J. Picollo tasked to lead baseball operations. Picollo’s first major decision is to make a leadership change in the clubhouse, and the Royals will now turn their attention towards finding a new skipper.

Matheny’s dismissal closes the books on his three-year managerial tenure. Originally brought to the K.C. organization over the 2018-19 offseason as a special assistant, Matheny was almost immediately rumored as a likely successor to then-manager Ned Yost. When Yost stepped aside at the end of the 2019 season, the Royals indeed tabbed Matheny to return to the top of the dugout steps. The former big league catcher had spent six-plus years managing the Cardinals between 2012-18, and he obviously impressed the Royals front office during his season as a special assistant.

It wasn’t a particularly imposing roster, with Matheny taking over as the team was firmly amidst a rebuild. Kansas City had lost over 100 games in each of the preceding two years, so it wasn’t especially surprising they stumbled to a 26-34 mark during the abbreviated 2020 campaign. The following offseason, the Royals added Carlos Santana, Andrew Benintendi and Mike Minor in an effort to be more competitive. They were, to some extent, finishing with a 74-88 record that came with their highest win percentage (45.7%) since 2017.

Still, the improvements weren’t enough to make the Royals full-fledged contenders. After a 15-7 showing in April, they finished .500 or below in every ensuing month. Kansas City was surprisingly quiet last winter. The Royals reunited with Zack Greinke on a $13MM contract and shipped out the underperforming Minor for reliever Amir Garrett. Otherwise, Kansas City was counting on internal improvements paired with the fruits of a burgeoning farm system to get back above .500 for the first time since winning the World Series in 2015.

The Royals carried top prospect Bobby Witt Jr. on the Opening Day roster. Within a couple months, MJ Melendez and Vinnie Pasquantino would join him. All three have gotten off to solid starts, with Witt and Pasquantino looking like above-average regulars from the outset. The team’s overall performance, though, went in the wrong direction. They won nine fewer games than they had in 2021, finishing with the fifth-worst record in the majors. Benintendi and longtime franchise cornerstone Whit Merrifield were traded away midseason.

Among the biggest reasons for the lack of progress was a starting rotation that ranked 26th in the majors with a 4.72 ERA. Of the seven K.C. starters to top 20 innings, five had an ERA of 4.93 or higher. That’s particularly disheartening considering the volume of talented young arms the Royals have seen reach the majors in recent seasons. Kansas City invested plenty of draft capital in bolstering their pitching pipeline, including using four of the top 40 overall selections in 2018 on college arms. Brady Singer, Jackson Kowar, Daniel Lynch and Kris Bubic were all brought in that year, but only Singer has taken the developmental strides the club had envisioned.

After surprisingly beginning the year in the bullpen, Singer was quickly sent to Triple-A to stretch back out as a starter. After reassuming a rotation role in mid-May, the righty emerged as the Royals most productive arm. He made 24 starts and worked to a 3.11 ERA with an above-average 24.2% strikeout rate and a quality 48.5% ground-ball mark. Singer still struggled to turn over lineups three times, but he dominated opponents his first two times through an order. While it may not have been a perfect campaign, Singer’s 2022 season undoubtedly qualified as a success.

Unfortunately for the Royals, none of his peers took a similar step forward. None of Bubic, Lynch or Jon Heasley posted an ERA below 5.00, and all three had well below-average strikeout rates. Carlos Hernández was one of the league’s worst pitchers in a season-opening rotation look and eventually found himself in the bullpen. Kowar has been hit hard during his limited MLB stints over the past two seasons and had a 6.16 ERA through 20 Triple-A starts this year. Grounder specialist Brad Keller has taken a massive step back over the past couple years and could be non-tendered this offseason. It’s to the Royals’ credit that Keller, selected out of the Diamondbacks organization in the 2017-18 Rule 5 draft, ever emerged as a productive starter in the first place. Still, his regression paired with the lack of progress from many of Kansas City’s most promising arms will have to be an area of focus for Picollo and his front office group.

The first move in that arena comes on the coaching staff. In addition to Matheny, the Royals move on from Eldred after five seasons as pitching coach. First hired to join Yost’s staff going into 2018, the former MLB right-hander remained in the role once Matheny took over two years later. Kansas City will now look for a new voice to work with the big league arms, and Andy McCullough of the Athletic reports the organization is likely to follow with changes to its pitching infrastructure in the player development department.

It’ll obviously be a significant winter for the Royals, who now have the American League’s second-longest active postseason drought. The team’s collection of high-upside rookie position players bolsters an increasingly promising lineup. Kansas City could look for upgrades in the corner outfield and at third base, but the bigger area of concern seems likely to be the pitching staff. The Royals will have to go outside the organization to add at least one or two starters (particularly if Greinke doesn’t return in free agency), and they’ll obviously hope for better results from the likes of Lynch and Bubic in 2023 and beyond.

Kansas City becomes the sixth MLB team without a permanent manager in place. The Blue Jays and Phillies have interim skippers in John Schneider and Rob Thomson, respectively. Those teams qualified for the postseason. The Rangers turned to Tony Beasley in an interim capacity after dismissing Chris Woodward, while the White Sox went with Miguel Cairo once Tony La Russa stepped aside due to health concerns. The Marlins, meanwhile, have already announced Don Mattingly won’t return as skipper next season. There’ll be a fair bit of turnover on the managerial front around the league, although the Angels solidified their situation this afternoon by signing Phil Nevin to a one-year deal and removing the interim tag from his title.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Royals Exercise 2023 Option On Manager Mike Matheny

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The Royals announced Thursday that they’ve exercised their 2023 club option on manager Mike Matheny. He’d previously been set to enter the final guaranteed season of his original three-year deal.

Matheny, 51, is entering his third season as Kansas City’s skipper after succeeding longtime manager Ned Yost. The Royals have gone 100-122 under him since he took the helm, though the 2022 and 2023 seasons will be more telling in terms of the team’s record. Kansas City’s hopes for returning to contention rest in no small part on the development of top prospects like Bobby Witt Jr., Nick Pratto, MJ Melendez and a host of young pitching options (e.g. Brady Singer, Daniel Lynch, Jackson Kowar, Kris Bubic, Jonathan Heasley). Everyone from that group figures to contribute at the MLB level in 2022 and certainly by 2023 — and the team’s performance in those pivotal seasons will be more reflective than their 2020-21 records.

That said, the Royals are an immensely loyal organization and could well explore a contract extension of more substance with Matheny before even seeing how the 2023 season plays out. Managerial performance is evaluated now, more than ever, on far more than just the win-loss column. Yost himself serves as proof of that, as even in spite of a 2014 World Series appearance and a 2015 World Series win, the Royals only had three winning records during his decade-long tenure (during which they went 746-839 on the whole).

The Royals hired Matheny as a special assistant to the front office and an instructor in camp a year before Yost’s retirement, suggesting that the former Cardinals skipper was being groomed as Yost’s successor well before the move became official. Matheny, who also managed the Cardinals for seven seasons, has a 691-596 record in nine big league seasons and was the runner-up in 2015 National League Manager of the Year voting. The Cardinals reached the World Series under him in 2013 but fell to the Red Sox in six games.

Dayton Moore Expects Royals To Be Competitive In 2021

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The Kansas City Royals last made the playoffs in 2015. That was a good year. Alex Gordon, Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain, Salvador Perez, and a transcendent bullpen won the AL pennant for the second consecutive season, and they finished it off with World Series victory.

That team is the most recent Royals squad to post a winning record. They went 81-81 in 2016, 80-82 in 2017, and then the bottom fell out. They lost 100+ games in each of the next two seasons before posting a 26-34 record in this year’s shortened season. That’s a 70-win pace for a full season, definitely an improvement over back-to-back season in which they failed to crack 60 wins.

Manager Mike Matheny will need to coax a more substantial improvement from his squad if they want to compete in 2021. That’s indeed the plan, however. General Manager Dayton Moore spoke with reporters during a Zoom call today, and he made no bones about his expectations for the Royals in 2021. Moore said, per Lynn Worthy of the Kansas City Star:

“We expect to win next year. What does that look like? Is it going to be enough wins to make the playoffs? We’ll find out. Our mindset is going to be to win every single pitch, every inning, win every game. That’s the only way that we’re ever going to win another championship, you’ve got to expect to win at all aspects.”

Don’t expect the Royals to be major players in free agency, however. The small market club figures to be judicious in adding from the open market. The primary pieces of the next Royals contender are going to be developed in-house, as has been the Royals preference. They’ve long believed in their current crop of players, even as the team as a whole has struggled. Interestingly, Moore did say that he doesn’t see finances getting in the way of improving the team, should the right opportunity come along.

The Royals plan to pursue their own free agents before expanding to the open market, which would be very “Royals” of them, though returning any of Greg Holland, Ian Kennedy, Mike Montgomery, or even Trevor Rosenthal could help boost a bullpen that needs some work. The Royals have incrementally added young arms like Brad Keller, Kris Bubic, and Brady Singer to veteran Danny Duffy in the rotation. The bullpen remains a work in progress. They did, however, put forth a 3.84 ERA in 2020, a mark that ranked 8th in the majors. Losing Holland would create an opening, with first looks presumably going to Josh Staumont, Kyle Zimmer, Jesse Hahn, and Scott Barlow. That quartet present some intriguing options with which to move forward into 2021.

Otherwise, the Royals will continue to try to develop and build from within. Bobby Witt Jr., Khalil Lee, and Kyle Isbel received high praise from Moore as prospects that could turn into significant pieces. Witt was the #2 overall pick of the 2019 draft, and he has yet to play a full season in the minors.

Royals Notes: Matheny, COVID-19, Kuntz

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With positive coronavirus tests dominating the news from training camps around baseball, Mike Matheny told reporters (including MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan) Saturday that he also contracted COVID-19 “about a month ago.”  The Royals manager said he has recovered fully, though not without first experiencing some symptoms.

“We had a family member test positive, so we knew even before the test because we had exposure, so my wife and I took off and we quarantined just the two of us,” Matheny said.  “And it was just the way they said it might happen, about three days [after exposure], I started feeling it.  But we laid low and quarantined and stayed away from people and it ran its course.  Fortunately I’ve been tested with the right antibody and looking forward now to donating some plasma to help out however we can.”

Owing to the unpredictable nature of the virus, Matheny said his wife Kristin “never had any symptoms and never tested positive,” even though the couple stayed together during the quarantine period.  Now, Matheny is at the Royals’ training camp in preparation (after several months of delay) for his first season as Kansas City’s skipper.

While it’s certainly good news that the Mathenys have a clean bill of health, the specter of COVID-19 continues to linger over every team in the league, the Royals included.  News broke yesterday that Salvador Perez was quarantining after a positive coronavirus test, and the club announced Friday that longtime coach Rusty Kuntz wouldn’t be coaching first base in the coming season.

The 65-year-old Kuntz is at a greater risk for COVID-19 due to his age, and GM Dayton Moore noted the large amount of travel associated with being part of a baseball team also presented an additional danger.  Instead, Kuntz will remain based out of Kansas City, still able to offer coaching and advisory tips to Matheny from the safer distance of a Kauffman Stadium suite.

Damon Hollins will move from his minor league outfield/baserunning coordinator role to take over as first base coach for Kuntz, who returned to the position just this past offseason.  Kuntz previously worked as the Royals’ first base coach from 2008-10 and 2012-17, spending the last two seasons as a special assistant to Moore.

The Most Stacked Lineup Of The Millennium Missed The Playoffs

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With MVPs Cody Bellinger and Mookie Betts sharing a lineup with thumpers like Justin Turner, Max Muncy, and Corey Seager, the Los Angeles Dodgers lineup is stacked. That’s five players who have proved capable of posting 5-6 WAR seasons. We can even include A.J. Pollock in that group (6.8 fWAR in 2015) if we’re being generous – though it would open some eyes to see Pollack produce at that level again (even for a 60-game span). The ceiling hasn’t been set on youngsters like Will Smith and Gavin Lux, who could very well enter that elite territory with a best-case development future. There’s no denying that the Dodgers have a loaded lineup – but has there been a more MVP-loaded lineup in recent history?

The most stacked lineup of the last twenty years belongs to an 85-win, 3rd place St. Louis Cardinals team from 2003. “Most-stacked,” of course, isn’t exactly an official metric, so let me define it. Fangraphs explains fWAR in their glossary by classifying a “good player” as worth 3-4 fWAR, an “All-Star” to be worth 4-5 fWAR, and a “superstar” as worth 5-6 fWAR. But for the “most-stacked” lineup, we want the cream of the crop. Fangraphs classifies MVPs as those worth 6+ fWAR in a given season, so I went looking for the lineup with the most “MVPs”, and I found the unequivocal champ with the 2003 St. Louis Cardinals.

Not only did the Cardinals carry four MVP-caliber bats that season, but they’re the only team since 2000 to accomplish that feat. There have been four other teams since 2000 with three bats in the lineup worth 6+ fWAR (2004 Orioles, 2003 Braves, 2004 Cardinals, 2011 Red Sox) – but only Tony La Russa’s Cardinals fielded a quartet of such players.

Albert Pujols (9.5 fWAR), Jim Edmonds (6.3 fWAR), Edgar Renteria (6.3 fWAR), and Scott Rolen (6.2 fWAR) each put up an “MVP-like” seasons in 2003. The 23-year-old Pujols would have been a shoo-in to snag the actual NL MVP, but that was the era of supernova Barry Bonds, who won his third of four consecutive MVPs (10.2 fWAR) that season. 

The Cardinals finished 5th in the majors in runs scored with 876, second in total fWAR on offense, fourth in wRC+. J.D. Drew, Tino Martinez, and Bo Hart were productive members of the lineup, So Taguchi gave them 59 plate appearances with a 109 wRC+, and Eduardo Perez (122 wRC+) was a successful power bat off the bench. Only at catcher did they really struggle offensively, where Mike Matheny hit .252/.320/.356 to total 0.4 fWAR while starting 121 games behind the dish. In short, the offense did its part. 

Unfortunately, the entirety of the Cardinals pitching staff mustered just 7.3 fWAR. They finished 19th in ERA, 22nd in FIP, and 26th in home runs per nine innings. The bullpen was a particular disaster, finishing the season dead last in the majors with -1.8 fWAR. The rotation boasted legitimate arms in Woody Williams, Matt Morris, and less so, Brett Tomko. Dan Haren made an okay major league debut with 14 starts and a 5.08 ERA/4.57 FIP. 

That said, they could have done without the 55 starts from Garrett Stephenson, in what would be his last dash as an MLB hurler, Sterling Hitchcock in his second-to-last season, 40-year-old Jeff Fassero, and Jason Simontacchi, who was coming off a surprisingly decent rookie season at age-28. 

Giving 34 percent of their starts to suboptimal contributors didn’t pave the runway for the bullpen to take flight, but the relief crew struggled all their own. In particular, the main culprits were (again) Fassero (56 games, 6.52 ERA/6.13 FIP), Dustin Hermanson (23 games, 5.46 ERA/5.49 FIP), Russ Springer (17 games, 8.31 ERA/8.97 FIP), and Esteban Yan (39 games, 6.02 ERA/5.59 FIP). It didn’t help that injuries limited closer Jason Isringhausen to 40 games and 22 saves. He would otherwise anchor the Cardinals’ bullpens of that era. 

The 2003 Cardinals paint a picture of the difficulties in team-building. Four monster seasons making up half their everyday lineup, and still the Cardinals only managed to eke out a third-place finish. They underperformed their Pythagorean record, but only by three wins. The Cubs won the division with exactly 88 wins, overperforming their Pythagorean record by – you guessed it – three wins.

Things can go right – so right – in any given season, and it still might not be enough to counterbalance what goes wrong. That’s not to say that the 2020 Dodgers are in trouble – but their spot in the postseason is hardly assured. The ’03 Cardinals had the most MVP-level bats of any team in the past 20 years, and yet it was only enough for 85 wins. The margin for error will only be smaller in a short season.

Of course, here’s the other funny little part of baseball. Pujols/Rolen/Edmonds/Renteria couldn’t power their way to the postseason in 2003, but the foundation in St. Louis was solid. They did reach the postseason in 2002, 2004, 2005, and 2006. La Russa’s Cardinals capped off the run with a World Series title. That season, they finished with 83 wins, one less than the “disappointment” their stacked lineup produced in 2003.

So the most-stacked lineup of the millennium missed the playoffs, and the “worst” division winner of the millennium won the World Series. If that’s not a good primer for the chaos to come in a short season, I don’t know what is. 

AL Notes: Mariners, Seager, Orioles, Davis, Matheny

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Seattle Times beat writer Ryan Divish cites a source close to the situation in saying that there is a “small chance but definitely a chance” that the Mariners deal Kyle Seager this offseason (link).  Any time a club does anything short of unequivocally ruling out a player as “untouchable”, it means a trade is a possibility — not as if we would be inclined to believe that anyone on the Mariners roster is untouchable from the unsentimental hand of GM Jerry Dipoto, least of all a well-compensated, past-30 player like Seager.  We heard this week that multiple clubs were in on the third sacker, although his $15MM club option for 2022 would convert to a player option if he’s traded. Seager could be open to amending that clause, perhaps in an effort to play for a contending team in 2020, but Seattle vet is still due $37MM over the next two seasons. Seager launched 23 home runs in Seattle’s difficult hitting environment last year while slashing .239/.321/.468 (110 wRC+), which is generally in line with career averages for the 32-year-old.

More notes from around the AL…

  • Orioles GM Mike Elias said on Saturday that the club likes the collegiate pitching at the top of the 2020 first-year player draft, as reported by Roch Kubatko of MASN Sports (link). Of course, Baltimore has the second-overall pick in that draft, so the club has a realistic shot at landing their choice of arms among Emerson Hancock (Georgia), Asa Lacy (Texas A&M), Cole Wilcox (Georgia), or Reid Detmers (Louisville). Arizona State’s Spencer Torkelson is widely believed to be the top player available in next year’s draft, but the Tigers will have the first crack at his burly bat.
  • Elias doesn’t sound overly stressed about the team’s remaining commitment to embattled slugger Chris Davis, saying in a fan Q&A–with Zachary Silver of MLB.com present–that the team will “work with [Davis] throughout the season“. While that doesn’t give an exact plan in regard to the team’s on-field usage of Davis moving forward, it certainly feels like a further reduction in playing time could be in the works. Davis got into just 105 games last season, logging a second consecutive season well below the Mendoza line (.179/.276/.326 overall). For what it’s worth, Elias also said that he doesn’t take Davis’ remaining three years “lightly” and that Davis remains an asset to the Orioles’ fan community.
  • Sports Management Worldwide is, according to its website, a sports agency and private for-profit sports management training institution based in Portland, Oregon; it was also the recent site of instruction for new Royals manager Mike Matheny, as profiled in a piece by Joe Lemire of Sport Techie. Matheny was often criticized for his strategic management during his time as skipper for the Cardinals, so this summer saw him buff up on his analytics via an SMM course primarily catered toward individuals “trying to break into the sports industry or boost themselves beyond an entry-level job”. The courses taken this summer are said to have covered nearly all aspects of the use of data in baseball, including arbitration forecasts, defensive valuations, and in-game preparation. “How can I stay relevant? How can I see what’s next? How can I provide our players any kind of edge to what’s on the horizon?” Matheny said in reference to his motivation for taking SMM courses. “We’re in a new era in baseball. Players are understanding the data and the information more. They’re hungrier for it than ever before and more open to it than ever before.” While some will snark at Matheny’s educational endeavor, it seems laudable that the 49-year-old Matheny–a man of no small professional accomplishment–would take pains to ensure that he’s adapting to a world increasingly impacted by data and evolving technologies.

Royals Notes: Perez, First Base, Holland, Trades

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After missing all of 2019, Kansas City Royals catcher Salvador Perez will see extended stretches of time at first base in 2020, per The Athletic’s Alec Lewis (via Twitter). Perez underwent Tommy John surgery, and the Royals are willing to be cautious with their catcher as they ease him back in behind the plate. New manager Mike Matheny can certainly commiserate, having spent so many years behind the dish himself.

By Opening Day, Perez may be the last bastion of their title team. Danny Duffy remains, and there’s still a chance that Alex Gordon returns, but if Gordon retires or signs elsewhere, Perez would be the last remaining every day piece of their back-to-back pennant winning teams. Especially now that manager Ned Yost has passed the torch to Matheny, Perez represents an important daily reminder as the bridge to a successful era of Royals baseball.

Simply from a scorebook standpoint, a catcher with a strong defensive reputation who annually hits 20 home runs like Perez is extremely valuable, though poor baserunning and an extremely low walk rate have somewhat mitigated the plus sides of Perez’s game. Regardless, priority one will be avoiding another lost season like 2019. Besides, neither first base nor catcher is a position of real strength for the Royals sans Perez. As with Perez’s counterpart in the 2014 World Series Buster Posey, time at first base should ease the physical toll on Perez’s knees, arm, and back as he prepares to enter his thirties in early May. It may be that this move will be what allows Perez to maintain his influence behind the dish for longer, if not with the workload of his younger years.

As Perez returns to service, there’s some chatter about another member of the title team returning. MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan asked Dayton Moore about the possibility of a Greg Holland signing, to which Moore expressed some optimism. Granted, it would have been a bizarre jab for Moore to outright reject Flanagan’s postulating, but Holland does fit the mold of a free agent the Royals could afford and who might have some interest in playing in Kansas City.

Holland, 34, came out the chute hot last season as the Diamondbacks closer, but he was released after 40 appearances and a 4.54 ERA/4.76 FIP. Thus continued the late-career trend of hot-and-cold for Holland, who simply couldn’t find the strike zone with consistency. He can still miss bats (10.3 K/9), but 6.1 BB/9 and 6 wild pitches led to 5 blown saves and his eventual removal from the closer’s role in Arizona despite 17 successful conversions.

Once released, he signed on with the Nationals, for whom he’d put together a masterful 24 games with a 0.84 ERA at the end of 2018. He didn’t give up a single earned run in 9 innings for the Nats’ Double-A affiliate, but he did not find his way back to the big leagues.

As for the rest of the Royals roster, Moore doesn’t foresee much movement on the big league front. Whit Merrifield, Jorge Soler, and Adalberto Mondesi are parts of their core and the Royals have no intention of breaking them up, per Lynn Worthy of the Kansas City Star. There is excitement internally about the return of Perez and even Duffy gets a shoutout from Moore as having the potential to get better in the latter years of his contract. Though that’s not typically the arc for pitchers on the backside of thirty, it would not be wholly unprecedented. Duffy’s last two seasons have been largely forgettable as he’s put together 285 2/3 innings of 4.63 ERA baseball (4.74 FIP) while making roughly 25 starts per season.

Beyond those core performers, the Royals believe in the growth potential of infielder Nicky Lopez as well as first baseman Ryan O’Hearn. Both players struggled mightily in 2019. Lopez, 24, hit an underwhelming .240/.276/.325 in 402 player appearances, and O’Hearn, 25, wasn’t much better at .195/.281/.369. For players with at least 350 plate appearances, O’Hearn’s 69 wRC+ ranked 5th from the bottom in the American League, while Lopez came in dead last at 56 wRC+, two points behind Chris Davis’ mark of 58 wRC+.

Royals Name Mike Matheny Manager

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The Royals announced Thursday that they’ve hired Mike Matheny as the 17th manager in club history. It’s not exactly a surprise, given that Matheny has been rumored to be the likely successor to Ned Yost since joining the Royals organization as a special advisor to GM Dayton Moore last offseason. Matheny replacing the recently retired Yost has looked all the more like a fait accompli with the Kansas City organization opting not to interview any external candidates for the position.

Mike Matheny

“Our entire organization is delighted to announce and celebrate the hiring of Mike Matheny,” Moore said in a statement announcing the hiring. “Every department has had the pleasure to work and interact with him this past season. Through this interaction, it became very clear to our leadership team that Mike is the obvious person to lead our baseball team. Mike Matheny is a passionate leader with strong virtues, intelligence, and a relentless commitment to help players reach their full potential.”

Matheny, 49, spent 13 seasons as a big league catcher with the Brewers, Blue Jays, Cardinals and Giants and was hired to manage in St. Louis following the 2011 season despite a lack of coaching/managerial experience. Matheny took the reins from retiring Hall of Fame skipper Tony La Russa, inheriting a roster that had just won the 2011 World Series.

St. Louis went on to post a winning record in each of Matheny’s six full seasons as a manager and even had a 47-46 record when he was fired midway through the 2018 campaign. In all, he posted a 591-474 record in St. Louis and was at the helm for three consecutive NL Central titles from 2013-15. Matheny’s 2013 Cardinals advanced to the World Series before falling to the Red Sox in six games, and the 2014 Cards made it as far as the NLCS before falling victim to the Giants’ “even year” dynasty that captured World Series titles in 2010, 2012 and 2014. The 2015 Cardinals won 100 games but were bounced in the NLDS by the division-rival Cubs.

The Cardinals didn’t make the postseason again under Matheny, who was ousted by the organization in a radical shakeup near the midpoint of the 2018 season. For all of his success in terms of wins and losses, Matheny also drew criticism for his bullpen management and an aversion to modern data trends. He was known as a manager who rode the “hot hand” frequently — often at the expense of providing consistent playing time to younger players. Shortly before his 2018 dismissal, reports of clubhouse strife between veterans and rookies emerged, although then-rookie right-hander Jordan Hicks quickly downplayed them when asked by reporters.

At the time of his firing, the Cardinals were a game above .500 but also looked to be in danger of missing the postseason for what would be a third consecutive season. That hadn’t happened in 20 years in St. Louis, giving the organization understandably higher expectations than most organizations throughout the league — particularly in the era of the ever-trendy rebuild.

Those standards won’t apply in Kansas City — at least not in the early stages of Matheny’s tenure. The Royals are still in the midst of what looks to be a lengthy rebuilding process and aren’t expected to return to contention until at least 2021, if not the 2022 season. Rather, Matheny’s focus with his new club will be on helping to develop young players and helping them to maximize their potential at the MLB level.

Rising talents like Adalberto Mondesi, Jorge Soler and Hunter Dozier will join steady veterans such as Salvador Perez and Whit Merrifield as the top players on a 2020 roster that will ideally see several top prospects graduate from the minors for their first taste of MLB action. Pitchers Brady Singer, Jackson Kowar and Daniel Lynch could all debut this coming season, as could outfielder Khalil Lee. The 2020 season will also be a pivotal year for former prospects like Nicky Lopez, Bubba Starling and Brett Phillips, who’ve had some experience in the big leagues but have yet to establish themselves.

Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com first reported that Matheny was being hired (via Twitter).

Latest On Royals’ Managerial Opening

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It continues to look as if the Royals’ next manager will come from within the organization. Special advisor Mike Matheny is still “the strong favorite” to land the position, according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post (Twitter links). However, the Royals aren’t simply going to hand him the job. They just completed a two-day interview with bullpen coach Vance Wilson, Sherman reports.

Matheny, who managed the Cardinals from 2012-18, has also landed on other clubs’ radars this fall. But he rebuffed at least one team – the Mets – per Sherman, who adds Matheny indicated to New York he’s focused on getting the KC gig. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see that happen, as the 49-year-old Matheny has looked like an obvious potential successor to now-retired manager Ned Yost since the Royals hired the former last offseason. Of course, that’s not to say Royals fans would be content with the selection of Matheny , who was an oft-derided figure during his time in St. Louis.

Like Matheny, Wilson brings several years’ experience as a major league catcher to the table. Although Wilson hasn’t gotten a chance to manage in the majors yet, he did serve as a skipper for multiple low-level Royals affiliates for a combined seven years. The team promoted Wilson, 46, to its MLB coaching staff entering the 2018 season.

Aside from Matheny and Wilson, two other Royals assistants – quality control/catching coach Pedro Grifol and bench coach Dale Sveum – have been mentioned as possibilities to take over for Yost. There’s no word on whether they’ve formally interviewed anyone but Wilson, however, and Grifol has drawn serious interest from at least one other known club (the Giants). With an ownership change on the way, the Royals don’t have much choice but to take their time with this decision.

AL Central Notes: Matheny, Twins, Indians

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October 16 is an important date in the histories of the Royals and White Sox, as the two teams each clinched the American League pennant on this day back in 1985 and 2005, respectively.  Kansas City recorded a 6-2 win over the Blue Jays in Game Seven of the 1985 ALCS, completing the comeback after being down 3-1 in the series and winning the second AL pennant in club history.  The Royals went on to take the further step of capturing the franchise’s first World Series that came October, topping the Cardinals in another seven-game set.  The 2005 ALCS was also Chicago’s first step en route to a World Series title, as the White Sox beat the Angels in five games before sweeping the Astros in the Fall Classic.  2005 ended a pair of long droughts for the White Sox, as it marked the club’s first pennant since 1959 and its first World Series title since 1917.

News from around the AL Central…

  • The Giants, Padres, and Mets have all shown some interest in Royals special advisor Mike Matheny as a possible candidate to fill their managerial vacancies, MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan writes.  Matheny hasn’t been linked to any of those clubs for an interview, however, and “word has it that the Padres are going another direction,” Flanagan writes.  [UPDATE: Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Giants hadn’t spoken to Matheny as of three days ago.]  All three of those teams have already amassed a long list of candidates for interviews, as you can follow via MLB Trade Rumors’ central post for the many rumors and reports floating around concerning the offseason managerial carousel.  Matheny has also been widely tabbed as the leading contender to be the Royals’ next manager, and while Flanagan notes that Matheny’s hiring is “not as certain as it once was,” the former Cardinals skipper still appears to be “the odds-on favorite” for the job.
  • Byron Buxton stands out as a prime extension candidate this offseason, MLB.com’s Do-Hyoung Park opines, looking at the Twins’ model in extending Max Kepler and Jorge Polanco last spring.  Both of those players were coming off solid but not surefire breakout seasons (Polanco’s year was also marred by an 80-game PED suspension) in 2018, while Buxton is similarly coming off something of a mixed 2019 campaign.  He hit .262/.314/.513 with 10 homers in 295 PA while contributing excellent baserunning and center field defense, though Buxton’s year was marred by injuries, including season-ending shoulder surgery that could cause him to miss the start of Spring Training.  With this health uncertainty in mind, Buxton could have interest in locking in a long-term payday, though he would be foregoing potentially big arbitration raises in both 2021 and 2022 (Buxton has three arb years left as a Super Two player).  Buxton has also achieved some financial security already, with close to $9.5MM in career earnings that includes his $6MM signing bonus as the second overall pick of the 2021 draft.  Beyond Buxton, Park figures Jose Berrios and Miguel Sano are also extension candidates.
  • Assuming the Indians are no longer cutting costs, the Athletic’s Zack Meisel (subscription required) estimates that the Tribe could have roughly $17MM to spend this winter.  The current payroll sits at $102MM, as Meisel calculates based on current salaries, some minimum contracts, and MLBTR’s projected salaries for Cleveland’s arbitration-eligible players (with a few non-tender candidates not counted).  That leaves the Tribe short of their $119.5MM Opening Day payroll from 2019, giving the club some extra cash to pursue needed help in the infield and outfield.  Meisel also guesses the Indians could look into some future payroll certainty by discussing extensions with Mike Clevinger and/or Shane Bieber.
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