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The Kansas City Royals have been the laughing stock of the AL Central for the last 25 years. However, it is a team with legit offensive options for fantasy baseball. Billy Butler, Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Alex Gordon, Salvador Perez, Alcides Escobar and Lorenzo Cain all have potential to be serious offensive contributors to your roto squad. Last year, Hosmer had a terrible sophomore slump but all of his peripheral numbers signal a comeback; he has become the off-season poster boy for BABIP regression. Billy Butler is as solid as it gets to slot in your corner infield position. Other than Gordon and Butler, it is a very young offense. James Shields and Greg Holland will most likely be the only fantasy relevant pitchers, unless Felipe Paulino comes back throwing fireballs from his Tommy John surgery. In general, the Royals are a potential sleeping giant with all of the young talent that has a chance to unload.

Fantasy MVP: Mike Moustakas

The typical fantasy analyst is going to assume that it is Eric Hosmer that will have the huge 30 homer, 90 RBI season and lead your fantasy team. I disagree with this line of thinking. To start, Hosmer plays first base, which makes him less valuable in fantasy in the first place. Moose, however, can be slotted in at third, an absolutely empty offensive position for fantasy. Going in the late teen rounds is going to be a huge boost to his value if he is able to improve on his .242 average. He hit well above .300 for periods of the season, showing signs of improvement in plate discipline and power hitting. If any of the Royals are finally going to break Balboni’s record, the smart money would be on Moustakas. Bank on Moose with one of your later draft picks.

Break-out Candidate: Salvador Perez

In just under half a season, Perez hit .301 with 11 homeruns. If Perez manages to stay healthy and extends those numbers throughout a whole year, he will be a huge value. The entire organization is incredibly high on him and if you have ever been to Royals Review, you know that the fan base loves him. His .wOBA of .340 would have had him at 8^th overall among catchers had he played a full season and his slugging % of .471 would have had him 4^th. Perez is an exceptionally gifted offensive player who is being curiously undervalued. Catcher is a difficult position to fill, but if Perez lives up to all the hype surrounding him, he’ll be a huge value in fantasy leagues.

Bust Candidate: Eric Hosmer

There is a chance that last season is who he is. High K% with a very low batting average. If Hosmer can’t bring his batting average up to around .280 he will be basically worthless as a fantasy player. The Royals play in a power suppressing ball park, which means its very unlikely Hosmer will take the leap from 18 home runs to 35 that would be needed to give him value with a similar batting average from the last season. For players like Mark Reynolds or Adam Dunn to be valuable with Hosmer’s 2012 batting average, they have to provide serious power. That, I don’t see coming from the Wizard of Hoz. While I don’t necessarily think Hosmer will be as bad, given his ranking around the 11^th round, he has a chance of busting.

Closing Time:

Greg Holland is the Royals’ closer and for very good reason. He has a 96 mph fastball and a vicious slider. His slider was actually 21 runs above average in 2012, according to FanGraphs, making it a particularly devastating pitch. He was great in 2011, struggled in setup for half of 2012 and rebounded after Jon Broxton was traded to the Reds with 16 saves and a 2.96 ERA. He will have solid job security and reward teams who wait on saves and draft Holland. The only way he will lose the position is through injury and one of the other young arms in the bullpen steps up in his absence.

Down On The Farm:

The best Royals prospect of 2013 will be Wil Myers. Unfortunately, he will be playing for the Tampa Bay Rays. After Myers, there is a real lack of big league ready-talent. Christian Colon may get a look at 2^nd point come midseason, but he lacks any skill to make him a special fantasy player. The organizations young talent is already on the Major League roster.

 Bold Proclamation: Mike Moustakas is going to hit 30 homeruns and be a top 5 fantasy baseball third basemen. He’ll avoid his normal slump to kill his batting average and contribute to fantasy teams.

• Roy Halladay, SP, Philadelphia Phillies: Before 2012, the last season where Roy Halladay didn’t throw for at least 220 innings was 2005. Over that span, Halladay has been the most effective and dominant workhorse pitcher in Major League Baseball. From 2008 to 2011, his highest ERA was 2.79. 206 strikeouts was his lowest talley in that time period. In 2012, the wheels came off and good ole’ Doc Halladay only threw 156.1 innings while posting an ERA in the 4’s for only the 3rd time in his long career. ESPN has Halladay as the 59th player off the board and the 18th pitcher. That is an absolute bargain. If you believe there is even a 50% chance that Halladay performs to his pre-2012 levels, than not grabbing him at his current price will be complete lunacy; because Halladay pitches so many innings when healthy, he has the ability to totally stabilize your pitching staff in a roto league. Clearly worth the gamble in the 4th or 5th.

• Paul Goldschmidt, 1B, Arizona Diamondbacks: Goldschmidt was a relatively unheralded prospect two years ago, until he started bopping homeruns at an alarming rate. After a disappointing rookie season that saw him strikeout 53 times in 177 plate appearances, he rebounded with a 20 homer sophomore season. His .OBP rose a very respectable .359 and decreasing his K% from 29.9% down to 22.1% and finishing as the 7th best first basemen on ESPN’s player rater. Despite all of the signs indicating that Goldschmidt is on the up and plays in a very hitter friendly park, his consensus ranking is the 12th first basemen. While everyone else spends early picks on Pujols and Adrian Gonzalez, you can acquire talent at more difficult to fill spots such as 2nd base or shortstop.

• Martin Prado, 3B, RF, SS, 2B, Atlanta Braves: Having Martin Prado on your fantasy baseball team is like having a first aid kid in real life. At some point, your team is going to suffer through stints to the 15-day DL and you are going to need gauze and bandages to get through those weeks. That is where Prado comes in. He doesn’t do anything amazing, but he won’t hurt you. He finished 7th on ESPN’s player rater last year and has a consensus rank of 112. It is really hard to find that value at any place in the draft and by just performing at a mediocre level, Prado earns a 8th round selection. Prado, when healthy is not mediocre, but rather pretty good. Last year, in a healthy season, he hit 10 homeruns, stole 17 bases, knocked in 70 runs, hit .301 and scored 80 runs. He comes close to that again, and he will far out earn his draft slot.

• Yadier Molina, C, St. Louis Cardinals: Catcher is a historically hard position to fill for fantasy baseball. Many guys who play the position in the bigs are all-glove, no-bat type of guys which creates intense position scarcity. For quite some time, Molina was viewed as that type of player. Last season, however, Molina swatted 28 homers and hit .315 while owning a K% underneath 10%. His ranking as the 134th player off the board is lunacy. He finished as the number 2 fantasy catcher last year and figures to be able to repeat a facsimile of that performance in 2013. Picking up Molina around the 10th round will help solidify many fantasy teams.

• Greg Holland, CP, Kansas City Royals: The underlings of the fantasy industry like to lob shots at ESPN and especially at Matthew Berry, but personally, I do agree with one of the main tenants of his fantasy baseball strategy. You should not play for saves. Finding a good, solid closer to anchor your pitching staff shouldn’t come until you have some serious offensive firepower as well as a least one pitcher who will be a positive for you all year. My personal favorite this year is Greg Holland from Kansas City. After Johnathan Broxton got the closing gig as the result of Joakim Soria’s torn UCL, KC fans waited for Holland to get the job. Eventually, Broxton was traded and Holland responded with 16 saves and a K/9 over 12. Fangraphs and Pitch f/x have his average fastball velocity at 96.1 MPH. That’s not even mentioning his 8.9 runs above average slider that he uses as his outpitch. Holland is an incredibly talented pitcher that should provide some cheap saves in the middle rounds of your draft.

Over the last few days, during Winter Meetings, there have been grumblings that Dayton Moore and co. were kicking tires on dealing Wil Myers or possibly other prospects for a top level pitcher. For a team that was trotting the likes of Bruce Chen out of every fifth day, it was a move that on the surface seems reasonable. So when around 10:15 CST it was reported that James Shields and Wade Davis were dealt to the Kansas City Royals for Wil Myers, Jake Odorizzi, Mike Montgomery and third basemen Patrick Leonard, no one could be that surprised. This doesn’t mean that Dayton Moore made the right move. If you were to tell me that the Royals were going to deal Myers for a #1 starter, I would say that both sides were getting a good deal. Problem is… James Shields is not a #1 starter.

As noted Royals fan Rany Jayzerli noted on twitter, if the trade works out well for the Royals, it will be because Wade Davis turns out being solid, not because of Shields. There is enough data on Shields. We know who he is. He can eat a solid amount of innings, even getting up to 246 in 2011. He posted a 5.2 WAR season in 2oo7 and a 4.7 WAR in 2011. However, the seasons in between that were 3.6, 1.6, -1.8 and 2.2 this last year. Shields has been good, maybe even very good, but certainly not great. If James Shields is your #1 starter, than the ceiling of your rotation will be limited. Granted, having Shields at your 1 instead of Bruce Chen is like going from a strip club in New Jersey to a strip club in Vegas. Yeah, it’s a whole hell of a lot better to look at, but you still aren’t getting 100% of what you actually want.

For the Royals to round to home plate like their fans have been begging them to for the last 26 years, Myers should have either stayed put and been extended or they should have traded him for a true number 1 pitcher. While the definition of such a phrase will always be vague, the easiest way to define it is at any given time, a top 15 pitcher in Major League Baseball. Shields teammate, David Price, was 2nd in Pitcher-WAR in 2012. Trading Myers for him would have been acceptable, maybe even positive for the organization. There were also rumors that the Royals were considering dealing several other prospects for R.A Dickey from the Mets. This would have been a much smarter deal for the organization.While Dickey is 38, he is also a knuckle-baller, allowing him able to play for a longer time. It clearly isn’t that Shields is a bad pitcher. He probably will be around a 4-win pitcher for the Royals and be very good; but he won’t be great. Wade Davis is not a terrible pitcher and certainly an upgrade to whatever trash the Royals would trot out every five days in that slot. He had a sub 1.1 WHIP last year and features several intriguing statistics. If Davis works out and posts several +3 win seasons, the Royals come close to at least tying this trade. The trade isn’t about what the Royals got though. They are a mediocre at best team in 2013; the Rays however, with a core of Myers, Longoria, Price, Desmond Jennings and Ben Zobrist, they are set to compete with the Yankees, Red Sox and Blue Jays over the next several years (Sorry Orioles fans, but you didn’t just have one of those seasons, you had the season).

This trade gives up on Myers for a pitcher who isn’t worth his ceiling. Myers lead the minor leagues in homeruns in 2012. He flashed serious power, is a capable glove in the outfield and is generally regarded incredibly highly by the scouting community. He certainly isn’t a Mike Trout prospect but projects as a perennial All-Star candidate. Multiple scouting outlets have praised his plate discipline, which has been evidenced by his .374 OBP in 2012. In 2011, Baseball America had them as their number 10 overall prospect. Adding him to an offense of Eric Hosmer, Salvador Perez, Alex Gordon, Mike Moustakas, Alcides Escobar, Billy Butler and a dead maple tree at 2nd base would give the Royals a shot at being a historic offense. Just by replacing the beyond-horrible Jeff Francoueur, Myers immediately improves the team. This is the sort of trade an over-matched and inept General Manager makes.

The problem is that Dayton Moore is finally feeling the flames on his behind. Moore has realized that the fans are sick of being a laughingstock and want wins now; however, in perfectly predictable Dayton Moore fashion, he screwed it up. Myers is the jewel of the farm system. Odorizzi is capable pitcher who could have competed for a spot out of camp. Now, his spot was replaced by Wade Davis. Montgomery was a former minor league all star. I’m not as upset about losing him as some. Leonard is mere organizational filler. As a Royals fan, I just feel that with Dayton Moore dealing with Andrew Friddman, we lose no matter what. Friedman has made hundreds of impressive personnel moves and extensions. This is the man who has Evan Longoria and Ben Zobrist signed below market deals. He knows what he is doing. Dayton Moore just tendered Luke Hochevar another deal. Let the wisdom exemplified by that move let you decide which man made the correct choice in this trade.