GRID wrote: ↑Wed Apr 10, 2024 11:54 pm
The Royals are looking good so far. How do people think that will effect the new stadium?
I hate to be a downer, especially because I am enjoying this start as much as anybody, but I think it is way too early to draw any conclusions about how the season will go, which also makes it way too early to speculate on any effects on a follow-up stadium vote. On May 1, 2021, the Royals were 16-9, the best record in all of MLB, and on May 2 they lost the first of what would be eleven games in a row. They didn't permanently slip below .500 until June, but they still ended up finishing the season with 88 losses. If the Royals play well all year and make the playoffs, I have to think that helps them with voters (by how much? no idea), but that's such a huge "if" that 12 complete games and a 13th still in progress can't provide any meaningful information to resolve. If the Royals end up losing 88 games again, this hot start will be a distant memory by the time voters go back to the polls.
I already see two stupid excuses. "Sherman is only fielding a competitive team this year to get his toy stadium". Never mind that this is simply the result of a multi-year rebuilding effort. It's not like Sherman flipped a switch.
The Royals uncharacteristically splashing out on some reasonably high-profile free agents (certainly high-profile by the standards of the typical Royals free agent signing) a few months before asking the voters to build them a new stadium seemed pretty transparent to me, but sure. I don't necessarily believe guys like Wacha or Lugo would be on this team right now if not for the stadium vote, but it's impossible to say for sure. Granted, though, that their success so far does owe a lot to their home-grown players. The BWJ deal was a genuine surprise and represents the kind of deeper and longer commitment to investing in the team that we really haven't seen in the past thirty years.