Obviously the Royals, who were still recovering from the death of Ewing Kauffman and were being run by a committee at the time, decided not to make the move. But every year when the Royals face off against the Cardinals, I wonder what might have been. See, more games against the Cardinals (and Cubs) were one of the main arguments for the move. Personally, I’m glad the Royals stayed. Kansas City has always been an American League city, and I wouldn’t want to lose that history, even if a lot of it (the entire existence of the Kansas City A’s; the first 13 years of this century for the Royals) has been bad.

An exercise like this is fun, because there are no wrong answers. However, it can get a little ridiculous, because everything changes everything. The butterfly effect of trading Player A might mean Player B was never a Royal. But there are a few situations in the past 20 years that would have been completely different if the Royals had switched leagues.

Although I said there are no wrong answers, I suppose there is one here: the Royals would not have been transformed into a good team for the 2000s. The 2004-2006 teams were so awful they probably would have been challenged in the Pacific Coast League, let alone the National League. But on an individual level, Royals history could be quite different. Here are some ways I think Royals history would have changed.

The Overworked Lefty

Right off the bat, one player I think could have been helped by the move is Jose Rosado. He was a promising young left-handed pitcher who had his career cut short by a torn rotator cuff suffered in 2000 when he was still just 24. Rosado had thrown 106 2/3, 203 1/3, 174 2/3, and 208 innings respectively in his first four seasons, and had suffered a tired arm in the 1997 season (his second year). He would pitch in five games in that 2000 season and never appear in another regular-season game. Managers Bob Boone and Tony Muser almost criminally overworked Rosado. With National League rules, on a team that was losing more often than not, Rosado would have been pinch-hit for often. That would have limited his innings and pitches. Maybe his rotator cuff just wasn’t meant to withstand the strain of a major league career, but maybe a move could have saved him from being overworked.

The Designated Hitters

For many AL teams, the DH spot has evolved to become a way to give position players a partial day off. The Royals, though, have seemingly had a long string of more or less regular DHs. From Hal McRae to Bob Hamelin to Chili Davis and on to Mike Sweeney, Billy Butler, and Kendrys Morales, it feels like the Royals have always had that one guy who was there solely to hit.

Sweeney’s case is interesting. When he came up to the majors, he was a catcher, albeit one who was not really up to par defensively. When he first got a chance to play every day, in 1999, it was mostly as a DH until Jeff King retired in mid-May and Sweeney began playing first base more. Going into that 1999 season, not knowing King was about to retire, would the Royals have sought to trade Sweeney for some of the pitching they desperately needed? Or would they have let him play more behind the plate? One hopes for the latter, but the former would have been tempting. Then, assuming they kept Sweeney, I wonder if they would have traded him later on, in the 2004-2006 period when injuries forced him to be a DH more often. Either way, in this case, Royals history would be changed for the worse, I think.

As for Butler, you may remember the Royals briefly tried to make him an outfielder. Then they decided they could live with his defense at first base, but mostly he served as DH. I suppose on the bright side, in this scenario, the Royals never would have brought in Jose Guillen. But once Eric Hosmer was knocking on the door of the major leagues, Butler probably would have been trade bait. I’d like to think he would have brought back a nice return, possibly hastening the rebuilding process. On the other hand, what if that trade brought back a quality starting pitcher or two and the Royals never felt the need to trade for James Shields and Wade Davis?

And simply put, if there’s no DH spot, Morales is never a Royal. That would be sad. It also makes me wonder how good the 2015 team would have been, especially in the postseason. He’s not there to hit a grounder to Carlos Correa. He’s not there to put the final nail in Houston’s coffin with a three-run homer in the eighth inning of Game Five of the ALDS.

The Postseasons

OK, let’s stipulate that not much changed and the Royals still had very good teams in 2014 and 2015. In 2014, the Royals’ 89-73 record would have done just what it did in reality: entitle them to host the wild-card game against an 88-74 team from the Bay Area. Unfortunately, in this case, that team would have been the Giants. And do you know who started the wild-card game for San Francisco that year? Yep, Royal-killer Madison Bumgarner. In reality, he struck out 10 Pirates and pitched a complete-game shutout. Frankly, I expect nothing else in this alternate reality.

Oh, but it gets worse. The real 2015 Royals earned home-field advantage throughout the AL playoffs by going a league-best 95-67. That wouldn’t have even won the NL Central, as the Cardinals went 100-62. In fact, that wouldn’t have even qualified them for a wild-card, as the Pirates won 98 games and the Cubs won 97. Now, if the Royals had been in that division, those teams almost certainly would have won fewer games, but the Royals probably would have too. The best-case scenario there is a four-team dogfight for three playoff spots. First place is a division title. Second place and third place is a coin-flip game to advance in the playoffs. Fourth place is you’re fired.

There’s a great chance the Royals don’t even make the playoffs, then another great chance that they go home after one game. Now, if they survived that, I would have liked their chances against anyone left in the playoffs: we know they could handle the Astros, Blue Jays, and Mets. But I think their road to a title would have been tougher.

That is perhaps the darkest timeline. Nothing against the National League, but I’m glad the Royals passed on their chance to switch leagues.

One of the pitchers who stands out happens to be a local product in Alex Lange from Lee’s Summit West high school via LSU. After being undrafted in high school, all Lange did was head to LSU and start his career there with a 12-0 record and a 1.97 ERA with 131 strikeouts in 114 innings during his freshman season, earning freshman All-American honors in the process. The sophomore campaign wasn’t quite as good as early season struggles put him behind a tad, but he found himself during the Tigers campaign to help them get to the Super Regional where they would lose to the eventual champion Coastal Carolina, finishing the year with similar strikeout numbers (125) and a 3.79 ERA.

With a fastball that works 89-94 MPH with the ability to reach back for more at 96, it features movement and a true bat missing pitch when he’s working the corners. It tended to get fat last season at times and led to 12 long balls, but at it’s best, it is a plus fastball. Along with the fastball, Lange works with a plus curveball that get some 70 marks on the scouting grade by some, a true power curve that he gets plenty of swings and miss from. The change up lags behind, but flashes average and with the fastball and curveball being the dominant weapons that they are it all it needs to be is average to give him a true three pitch arsenal to compete in the bigs.

Currently the control lags behind and the effort in his delivery give some pause as to whether he can be a starter, but the body size combined with the two plus pitches give every reason to think he can pull it off. If he was a perfectly tuned prospect with better control, then the Royals wouldn’t get a chance to draft him with the 14th pick. A repeat of his freshman campaign could push him above their pick, but a local kid taken with the 14th pick and junior leverage could be an outstanding opportunity for Kansas City should he be there.

Prep Favorite

This draft lags behind in position player talent with just a couple of college position players could be worthy of Top 14 picks in the draft. The high school position talent isn’t a whole lot better, but there is one player who stands out for his ability to hit even if his lack of athleticism pushes him down draft boards. Outfielder Calvin Mitchell from San Diego has what many believe to be the smoothest stroke in the high school field if not the entire draft from the left side. Along with that smooth stroke comes some solid raw power with the hitter regularly registering 90+ MPH exit speeds off his bat as a high schooler in showcase game and is likely to develop into solid pull side power in the future. With his advanced approach at the plate, Mitchell is comfortable taking the ball the other way or yanking on one to right. A lack of foot speed and arm strength will likely leave him in left field in the infield, but that shouldn’t be a problem in an organization that regularly loads up with speedsters to cover center and big arms to man right. The lack of athleticism with an elite hit tool that falls to the 14th pick is eerily reminiscent of a Florida high schooler that the Royals took with the same pick in 2004, even if Mitchell is much more advanced athletically than Billy Butler ever was. The California prepster often earns comps to Garret Anderson, a another former California high schooler who enjoyed a 17-year major league career.

Featured Photo Alex Lange LSU via d1baseball.com Kendall Rogers

The Royals were betting on his 2014 season being a product of having no spring training, and the more I looked into it, the more sense it made that was the case. That season, he saw his line drive percentage drop to the lowest point of his career as a regular, which led to a BABIP that was significantly lower than any point in his career. He took more pitches inside the strike zone and swung at more pitches outside the strike zone. I still haven’t figured out exactly the correlation here, but he also made an odd amount of contact on a pitch outside the strike zone in 2014.

It all added up to timing issues, which makes sense given the circumstances surrounding his 2014 season.

In spite of that, I didn’t expect the season he put up in 2015. He posted a 2.3 WARP, which was the second best of his career and a .294 TAv that was right in line with the best years of his career. If you throw away his 2009 MVP-type season, you could make a pretty compelling argument that 2015 was actually the best season of his career.

The presence of Morales is what made the Royals lineup work so well last season. There’s a lot of talk about how deep the Royals lineup is, and while it is far deeper than it was prior to 2014, it’s not quite as deep as people think. They have a hole at the top of the order and two or three holes at the bottom. As a side point, the reason it could be three holes at the bottom of the lineup is if Salvador Perez’s increased power isn’t actually for real. He has offensive value due to his power, but if he drops back to a 13 home run guy, he could be a real problem.

Anyway, the Royals lineup is more shallow than many want you to believe, but it works, and I believe it works because of Morales. If that continues in 2016 will depend on a lot of things, some Morales can control, which I’ll get to later. First, let’s discuss why he makes it work.

Let’s start simple.

He’s a switch hitter. A lot of people tend to scoff at the idea of alternating left-handed hitters and right-handed hitters in a lineup, but it actually makes a lot of sense in this era of bullpen specialization. To be able to force a manager to make a decision every batter (if possible) once he gets to his relievers is a great tool to have.

The Royals lineup is one that seems more balanced than it is. Of the Royals best hitters, three are lefties (Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer, Alex Gordon) while just one bats from the right side (Lorenzo Cain). Having a switch hitter to slot in between two of the lefties is a huge benefit. It certainly helps that he was really good against lefties last season, which hasn’t always been the case. He hit .298/.359/.412 against southpaws in 2015, compared to his career rates of .268/.319/.415.

Morales also adds that consistent power bat that the Royals haven’t always had. Even in his terrible 2014, he posted a .141 ISO (slugging percentage minus batting average) once he got out of Minnesota. Averaging his four non-outlier seasons, he has a .189 ISO, which is in line with what he posted in 2015. He’s a good bet to continue hitting for power.

But what made him so great in 2015, and is so vital to him being a similar player in 2016, is his patience. You saw it in the raw numbers. He set a career-high in walks last year with 58, which is nine more than he’d ever had before. You also saw it in the rates. He swung at just 30.8 percent of pitches outside the strike zone compared with 32.8 percent the three years prior.

Pitch selection is important for every hitter, but take a look at how important it is for Morales.

Here’s his slugging percentage by zone:

And here’s his ISO by zone:

If you’re a pitcher and you’re able to get Morales to go outside the zone, you have a pretty good chance of keeping him from hitting for power. While it’s interesting that his patience spiked in 2015, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he’s established a new normal. PECOTA doesn’t seem to think it’s that likely, with a .264/.323/.426 projection and 7.4% walk rate, but it’s worth noting that Morales actually improved his plate discipline in the final two months of the season with a 13.3% walk rate.

So maybe Morales doesn’t follow up a near career season at age-32 with another one at age-33, but I do think the approach change is real. And I think when you put up him in the fifth spot of the Royals lineup, you take a group of players that might struggle to score runs and give them a chance to give pitchers trouble for five straight spots in the batting order.

There’s no guarantee that Moustakas continues to hit like he did in 2015 or that Cain and Hosmer build on what they accomplished or that Alex Gordon doesn’t find himself beginning his career decline. But I can pretty nearly guarantee that the Royals lineup will go as far as Morales will take them. He serves as the balance. He serves as the muscle. He even serves as the patience. Not too shabby for a guy many wouldn’t have even considered signing at all, let alone to a two-year deal before last season.