Is Kansas City's Young Pitching for Real?

For more than two decades, the Kansas City Royals have been the joke of Major League Baseball. They have been the Los Angeles Clippers, but without the cool city to play in. They've been the Detroit Lions, but without Barry Sanders. They've been whatever hockey team is always bad, but without whatever their redeeming quality may be. The Royals have been pitiful for a long time. In recent years, however, due to an insane amount of high draft picks (because of how bad they are), and wise choices in the rule 5 draft (see Joakim Soria), they have become to gain some shred of respectability. Currently, the Royals sit at 8-7, in a 3-way tie atop the AL Central with the White Sox and Tigers. The Royals success has largely been a result of their young pitchers, several of which have dominated thus far this year. Currently, the Royals are getting huge success from both Zack Greinke, and Kyle Davies, with a decent start coming recently from Brian Bannister. They have also received fine starts from their "ace", Gil Meche, the old man of their rotation. Their long term success this season will come down to Greinke, Davies, Bannister, and Luke Hochevar, who is currently at AAA Omaha but should see major league action sometime soon. Therefore, a major question is whether their pitching is for real. Lets go through each pitcher and see-

Zack Greinke- Numbers so far- 3-0, 20.0 IP, 26 K's, 16 H, 5 BB, 0.00 ERA-Obviously, Zack Greinke will not keep this pace going, as anyone reading this article should know that that is very much not possible. However, Greinke did not get drafted #6 overall in 2002, at the age of 19, ahead of such players as Cole Hamels, Scott Kazmir, and Prince Fielder, for no good reason. Coming out of high school, Greinke was a monster, having been named the 2002 Gatorade National Player of the Year. After being drafted, he destroyed the minors before being called up, and had a fine rookie season, going 8-11 with a 3.97 ERA. However, Greinke then decided to go insane, and had to be treated for an anxiety disorder. He was forced to leave baseball for awhile and pull himself together, and came back in 2007 with mixed results. Last season, however, he went 13-10 with a 3.47, pitching 202.1 innings. He has showed thus far this season that he's over whatever inner demons he had, and its certainly not farfetched to say that he'll win 17-19 games this season after such a hot start. The verdict here is that Zack Greinke is very much for real, assuming he can avoid going insane again.

Kyle Davies- 1-0, 18.2 IP, 21 K, 13 H, 8 BB, 2.89 ERA-Davies has a similar story to Greinke's, being a beast in high school, being heavily recruited by many major college baseball programs, and deciding to go pro. Davies was drafted by the Braves in 2003, and made his major league debut in 2005, pitching very well against the Red Sox at Fenway during a Braves interleague game. For the next couple of years he shifted between the Braves and their AAA affiliate, and was ultimately traded to the Royals for future Hall of Famer Octavio Dotel. He pitched poorly for the Royals in the 2nd half of 2007, but had a respectable 2008, going 9-7 with a 4.06 in 113 IP. This season, he's pitched pretty well, and his numbers are even more impressive when you consider one of his starts was @TEX and one was @CWS. However, I don't think that Davies can keep up this pace all season, and given how bad the Royals offense is, I expect him to finish with a record around .500 with an ERA around 4, similar to last season.

Luke Hochevar-Hochevar was drafted by the Dodgers out of high school, but instead elected to attend the University of Tennessee. He pitched phenomenally at UT, winning the Roger Clemens Award in 2005. He was drafted again by the Dodgers, refused to sign while being represented by Scott Boras, then in an incredible turn of events, switched agents, signed a contract, then, even more insanely, switched back to Boras the very next day and reneged the deal. Needless to say, the Dodgers were not happy, and he never ended up signing with them. He instead went to play in an independent league, and was then drafted 1st overall in 2006 by the Royals. Hochevar's major league debut was in late 2007, and he has pitched rather poorly thus far in the majors. However, unlike many high school pitchers who are something of a wildcard, Hochevar was able to dominate the most competitive conference in college baseball for several years, and clearly has the potential to pitch in the majors someday. He was sent to AAA after Spring Training to work on pitching on both sides of the plate, and its a pretty safe bet to say that he'll be called up sometime this season, especially if Sidney Ponson's 7.04 ERA doesn't improve soon. Its rather difficult to make a call as to whether Hochevar is for real or not, as he has very limited experience in the majors, but given how well he pitched in the SEC, its safe to say that at the very least, he will be a fine #3 starter.

The Royals may be able to continue competing in the AL central this year if their young pitchers are able to pitch consistently well, but its even more important that they get some offense. Currently, their lineup is looking much improved over last season, mainly due to the addition of Mike Jacobs and the wonderfully named, but terribly overrated Coco Crisp. It does appear, however, that if nothing else, the one guy on ESPN.com who picked Zack Greinke as his preseason Cy Young favorite may not have been so crazy after all. Or at least not as crazy as Zack Greinke is.