However, I still feel a little bit skeptical about our chances for this coming season.  For years, the Royals have made efforts to improve the club by signing free agents, such as Jose Guillen, Miguel Olivo, Kyle Farnsworth, Rick Ankiel and Scott Podsednik, only to trade them for mostly MINOR league prospects.  If you’re wanting to improve your MLB franchise, why are you boosting your AAA roster instead of your main one?  To me, that makes absolutely no sense.

This past off-season, the Royals signed three more free agents – outfielders Melky Cabrera and Jeff Francoeur, and pitcher Jeff Francis.  But they also traded OF David DeJesus to Oakland, and pitcher Zack Greinke and SS Yuniesky Betancourt to Milwaukee.  In both trades, the Royals came away with mostly unproven baseball talent, most of which will be on the Omaha roster by opening day, in my opinion.

At FanFest, there was a lot of talk about the future of the franchise.  It seemed that every person that spoke on the main stage, from GM Dayton Moore to our broadcasters, talked about how the future seemed very bright for our boys in blue.  Talent is supposed to be coming out of the woodwork little by little over the next few years.  At this point, allow me to plug in a reminder.  The Kansas City Royals haven’t won a pennant, or even been in the post-season, since 1985.  We, the baseball fans of Kansas City, have heard promises from several managers and general managers since then about how we will be better.  You’d think that the promisers were running for political office in 2012.

Given that fact, manager Ned Yost, starting his first full season here in Kansas City, gave me some reason to believe again.  He told radio broadcaster Steve Stewart about how important it is to have every member of the team focusing on the same goal.  He said that when you have individuals trying to pad their statistics instead of focusing on the team, you weren’t going to get anywhere.  He felt that his players this year were definite team players, and told me that he felt he had the talent to compete this year.  He also mentioned that the Royals would surprise people.  He made a believer out of me, but I also believed Trey Hillman in 2008.  My opinion of Ned Yost, though, is that he is an energetic and enthusiastic baseball man who has something that Trey Hillman didn’t have before he became Royals manager 3 years ago – Big League managerial experience.  He managed the Milwaukee Brewers.

I think that the Royals are on the right track, and the future looks promising, but I’m hoping for evidence of this beginning this season.  I’ll go to a lot of games, so I’d like to see a lot of good this year.  It’s been over 25 years.  The baseball fans of Kansas City are overdue for something good.