As you’ve surely seen, heard, and/or read about by now, the benches cleared during Saturday’s White Sox game in Kansas City because Perez took umbrage to Tim Anderson being excited about hitting a leadoff homerun. Yes, you read that correctly. Salvador Perez, member of the 2014 & 2015 scraptastic celebration-addict Royals was mad about a player being happy. Here are the key quotes about it courtesy of editor emeritus James Fegan:

“He did it Opening Day, too,” Perez said. “The same thing. Said a bad word. He didn’t even play in a fucking playoff game. He doesn’t know about getting excited. You have to be in playoffs to get excited, win a World Series, to get excited. That’s a game. That’s a simple game. That’s the second time I said something to him. The first time I saw it I was on the DL. He do it again and I have the opportunity to say something to him again.”

“I’ve hit some homers, too,” Perez said. “I keep running the bases. I don’t get loud like you. That’s the only thing I tell him. Keep doing what you’re doing, bro. Have fun. It’s a game, you know, but respect my team. That’s it. He was mad about that.”

What.

Baseball will forever have some of the dumbest unwritten rules because traditions exist and the vast majority of them are pointless and ridiculous. But man, the hypocrisy of this coming from one of the key players in the Kansas City Royals Handjive Brigade is downright comical. The 2014 and 2015 Royals were maybe the most exuberant and demonstrative baseball team I can ever remember watching. They celebrated everything. Homerun? Trots and dugout dances. Hit a double? Elaborate hand gestures to the dugout. Eked out a single? Clap until your hands bleed. Strike someone out? Jaw at them the entire walk back to the dugout. And if the other team didn’t like it, you could always just get into a fight with them like the Royals did multiple times.

Anderson is happy again and it’s great to see. He’s rebounding nicely from last year’s awfulness and isn’t afraid to show his elation on the field. That’s going to rub some teams the wrong way and to an extent, I guess I get it. But if you spent multiple years defending Yordano Ventura’s attitude and antics, you absolutely forfeit all rights to tell players from other teams to calm down and play the game the right way.

Photo credit: Peter G Aiken

In a sense, the Royals had some of the same tough decisions to make as the White Sox did coming into this winter. The farm was depleted after shipping off considerable talent to obtain James Shields, Ben Zobrist, and Johnny Cueto.  Obviously, back-to-back World Series appearances, including a victory, are a worthy return for such an investment, but now they’re on the other side, already bumping up against budget constraints with a middling major league roster.  And while they did sign Jason Hammel, sadly, he merely serves to soak up the innings that would have gone to Yordano Ventura.

Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain, and Alcides Escobar will all be free agents at the end of the season, and the Royals largely opted to add short-term supporting pieces to make one last run with this group, and how 2018-2020 play out will hinge largely on whether or not they are competing around the deadline. If they have fallen out of the race, they may be able to inject some talent back into the system by trading these players off.  They’re rentals, but it’s better than losing them for nothing, or the greatly diminished compensatory pick system under the new CBA.

Indeed, unless the Royals do surprisingly well selling off their pending free agents, the cupboard is awfully bare. Sal Perez and Danny Duffy are still young and signed long term, but Alex Gordon and Ian Kennedy are on the wrong side of 30, and Gordon is coming off arguably the worst season of his career. That’s about it, although Raul Mondesi Jr. could at least ensure they don’t miss Escobar too much.

The farm is weak.  Their top prospect is pretty much ready, but his ceiling is limited, and the next two behind him are relievers. So despite the front office’s creativity and recent track record of performing greater than the sum of their parts, their system lacks impact potential. And, for all that the Royals did successfully building a team that competed for three years, it took a long time to accumulate it, and the talent is leaving faster than they can bring it in.

Update: On March 1st, the mother site published its Organizational Rankings, and Kansas City weighs in at 27th, only ahead of a troika of truly desolate systems.

Lead Photo Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports