"Plan 2021"--The Internal Inventory Method (Conclusion)

My previous post served as an introduction describing in some detail the aims of the Internal Inventory Method together with the rules I forced upon myself in pursuit of reaching the 2021 postseason using only players currently with the Kansas City Royals organization. Using OOTP20 I took the position of General Manager for the 2019 Royals and hoped to see if I could make the 2021 playoffs without making waiver claims, trades, and free agent signings. To reach that goal I wanted to do that under the additional restraint of attempting along the way to grant the various and changing wishes of owner "David Glass" while staying within budget limitations. Without going into minute detail this concluding post will play out the simulation through the 2021 season and these descriptions of my 2019, 2020, and 2021 campaigns in this article will stress the evolution of owner goals for the Kansas City Royals over a span of three years.

This exercise was less static than it might first appear. The dynamic roster of the Royals will change over time due to player free agency, retirement, and injury despite your best efforts to keep the old gang together. Youngsters become eligible for the Rule 5 Draft and one has to decide which kids need to be placed on the 40 man roster at the cost of perhaps saying good-bye to organization regulars. Players run out of options and the General Manager has to sometimes make close calls about which guys to keep and which fellows to drop from the roster. The Internal Inventory Method at least simplified this task by limiting waiver claims, trades, and free agent signings.

The Internal Inventory Method 2019 Kansas City Royals

Owner Goal One--Have a Respectable Record in 2019.

I found from past experience with various OOTP20 trials that "Respectable Record" for "Glass" means about 70 wins for the season. My IIM Royals achieved that goal with a record of 75-87. The team did not have a ten game losing streak early in the season but did see an eight game skid later in the summertime. Mondesi had a great year and joined the "30homeruns/30steals Club." Gordon played himself via fan vote into the starting lineup of the American League All Star Team. Lovelady not only caught fire but won the postseason trophy for American League Relief Pitcher of the Year. Duda and O'Hearn were both on the squad all season and the two combined for 58 home runs. Gore stole 23 bases and achieved 0.5 WAR along with some base hits along the way. Hamilton made the All Star Team as a substitute and chipped in over 4 WAR for the year. Keller had over 4 WAR as the best starting pitcher on the team. The team should have finished above the .500 mark except for some unfortunate injuries. Merrifield had several extended stints on the Injury List and at one point so many infielders were ailing that I was forced to add Nicky Lopez to the 40 man roster and call him up to the show for a season total of 31 days. Gordon got hurt and missed his All Star appearance. The injury to Alex also had a negative affect upon team chemistry as the losing streak seemed to coincide around the same time Gordon was out of action as the team during that span had no player chemistry leader. On a side note, Elvis Luciano was sometime during the season returned to the Royals from Toronto and Elvis was placed in Northwest Arkansas.

Owner Goal Two--Get a Top Twenty Prospect by the end of the 2020 season.

Since I was forbidden to trade for a top twenty prospect this goal could have been achieved through Scouting Discoveries, the International Free Agent pool, or the June Draft. "Lonnie Goldberg" did not find any top tier scouting discoveries ranked by the mysterious OOTP20 formula and I made a mistake and failed to get the top international player by letting myself get outbid for the very best player available. I learned in previous trials with OOTP that the game tended to rank prospects with its own method and so for the first half of the draft I ignored "Goldberg" and just drafted those players the OOTP Scouting Bureau felt had the most potential although I did allow "Goldberg" to freely choose Royals picks starting in the 18th round until conclusion of the draft. Using this plan the Royals chose Bobby Witt Jr. as the second overall pick in the June 2019 draft after the Orioles claimed Rutschman. By the conclusion of the 2019 season I had almost achieved this "Glass" goal for 2021 the first year out as Witt Jr. was ranked the #23 prospect after he finished his year playing in the Arizona Rookie League for Kansas City. One thing to keep in mind going forward is that the OOTP20 prospect rankings are dynamic since some players lose talent or rookie status while others move up the ranks, so Witt Jr. staying at #23 was no sure thing.

Owner Goal Three--Have a Top Six Farm System by the end of the 2021 season.

I achieved this goal in 2019 in three different ways. First, I already mentioned my draft philosophy and several players chosen using the OOTP Scouting Bureau found favor within the OOTP rankings system. Second, while some teams lost top prospects because youngsters lost rookie status due to major league service time I tried to conserve the Royals kids like Singer, Lynch, and Nicky Lopez and I was fortunate that Lopez was not required to play in the majors for too many days as Nicky broke into the top 75 prospects list by the end of the year with Singer and Lynch ranked even higher than Lopez. Third, my plan all along was to make more money available for things like player development through lowering ticket prices in hopes that attendance would increase and result in more total money albeit on a cheaper per game basis coming out of the pockets of the fans. Attendance did average more than six thousand additional fans per game compared to the year before and with more money available I was permitted to keep increasing the development and eventually the scouting budget to finally at least match league average levels. More fans to the stadium basically translated into more money for development and that might have been part of the reason why fellows like Singer, Lynch, Lopez, and Lee moved up on the OOTP prospects list. The Kansas City Royals had the 6th Ranked Farm System in baseball at the end of the 2019 season using the Internal Inventory Method.

Owner Goal Four--Build up the team to reach the Playoffs by the end of the 2023 season.

This was yet to be determined but I mentioned that my preference was reaching the Playoffs by the end of the 2021 season. Headed towards the 2019/20 off-season I noticed that some players had contract options while the contracts for others would end and those later fellows would become free agents. On the other hand some youngsters needed to be added to the 40 man roster or the team would be in peril of losing some of them during the December Rule 5 Draft but prospect Nicky Lopez had already been placed on the larger roster. I learned from experience to use the player rankings of the OOTP Scout Bureau and not a team scout to evaluate a prospect for Rule 5 roster conservation since only rarely will some OOTP general manager claim a player outside a fairly rigid box. After looking at who was leaving the Royals and who was needed to be added to the larger roster using OOTP Scout Bureau evaluations, I figured at this point that I had roster room to offer both Gordon and Hamilton contracts under their mutual options. Both Alex and Billy were popular with the local fans, it appeared that I would have budget room for both of them while keeping each of scouting and development at least league average, and Gordon was already a chemistry leader for the clubhouse. Having achieved two out of four of "David Glass" goals, I noticed that "Glass" at that point was very happy. As a side benefit to "David", my team did not lose the previously predicted $15M for the 2019 year as I managed to get the loss down to a modest $2M. After the World Series witnessed the Indians defeat the Nationals, "Glass" came up with new goals for the 2020 season.

The Internal Inventory Method 2020 Kansas City Royals

Owner Goal Two--Acquire a Locally Popular Player by the end of the 2022 season.

I was surprised when locally popular players Gordon and Hamilton each decided to turn down the mutual option clauses in their contracts to test the free agent waters. Alex seemed to want a three year deal while Billy appeared to prefer some five year contract and one result of my losing $2M had "Glass" cut the overall budget to $114M which was $16M less than allowed for 2019. Wanting to keep both the scouting and development budgets at least around league average while still allowing predicted draft slot charges and the maximum international cap permitted left me with less than $2M to spend on free agents and neither Alex nor Billy wanted a deal that small. To make things worse, the Internal Inventory Method in theory prohibited waiver claims, trades, and free agent signings so one or more of these rules had to be temporarily broken to satiate "David Glass." I learned from experience that owner goals in OOTP were likely to keep returning year after year until either they were accomplished or until you were fired by the owner, so I decided to break some rules of the IIM in the smallest possible way in order to acquire a locally popular player. I scoured the player register in the game for extremely locally popular or very locally popular players who were willing to accept a minor league deal and I signed about four or five of them just in case some would get injured or otherwise be unavailable by the end of the 2020 season but just placing them in the minors after signing did not get the attention of "David" and so at least one of them had to be placed on the active roster. "King Felix Hernandez" might have been washed up but he was still considered an extremely locally popular player and he was willing to play in the majors for less than $2M if he was promoted. I had to break another rule to place Hernandez on the roster because the 40 man was full at the time, so I shopped the one player who was due to leave after the 2020 season. Nobody was willing to take any portion of the Ian Kennedy contract and I was about ready to give Ian his release to make room for Felix when the Dodgers were willing to throw in some nobody on a minor league deal they signed out of independent leagues if I retained 100% of Kennedy's contract. Eating the Ian Kennedy contract did not affect my finances for 2020 since I had budgeted to pay all of his $16.5M anyway, but passing Kennedy to the Dodgers did allow roster space to add Felix Hernandez and "David" felt mission accomplished for this goal once Hernandez was officially placed on the major league team.

Owner Goal Three--Show a Profit for the Year of at Least +$17M by the end of the 2022 season.

Despite not be able to sell for "Cash Considerations" any player due to the spirit of the IIM rules and since I was not going to trade for, claim on waivers, nor add via free agency any more expensive players this goal looked possible even while having the scouting and the development budgets both set at league average levels. The predicted profit for 2020 with those scouting and development budgets and with the draft expenses set at slot and with the international signing cap at the $5M maximum looked to be around +$20M. I felt that since lower ticket prices seemed to be appealing to some fans, I decided to lower the ticket prices again for 2020 just to be on the safe side towards making a large profit. The new average ticket price for 2020 of $13.50 set then became the cheapest seat by far in major league baseball. Reaching the profit goal depended in large part upon the team playing a fan-appealing brand of baseball in 2020 and reaching this profit goal still was no sure thing even after another ticket price slash. I later will mention the team record for 2020 but this profit goal was barely achieved with a final figure of +$18M despite an actual slight drop in fan attendance but that required "Goldberg" for the later part of the season to operate with a scouting budget slightly below league average.

Owner Goal Four--Get a Top Twenty Prospect by the end of the 2022 Season.

"David Glass" became more lenient with this goal since he had the year before hoped for a top twenty prospect by the end of the 2020 season but this goal actually was accomplished with the Internal Inventory Method by the end of the 2020 season. None of the players chosen in the June 2020 draft using the OOTP Scouting Bureau evaluations automatically ranked that highly but Kansas City could only draft tenth due to their respectable playing record in 2019. Once again I used the Scout Bureau for the Kansas City picks from first round through round seventeen with "Lonnie Goldberg" given control for the later June draft picks. Although "Goldberg" had his eye on somebody else, I spent every penny I had limited by the international salary cap or $5M on the very best international player according to the OOTP Scouting Bureau and he immediately became ranked as the #6 overall prospect in baseball once he inked with Kansas City and was placed in the Dominican League. By the end of the 2020 season I actually had four top twenty prospects in the organization, since a pitcher from the eleventh round of 2019 ranked 11th, Singer at 19th, and Witt Jr. at #20 had all managed to reach that upper tier. Witt Jr. spent the 2020 year at Lexington and his development was slowed by a few unfortunate injuries, but I credited having the development budget set to at least the league average level for the improvement of some in the farm like Brady Singer.

Owner Goal One--Have a Respectable Record in 2020.

I intentionally placed this owner goal out of correct order in the hope that readers can better understand that the roster construction of the 2020 Kansas City Royals had to work under some limitations due to other owner goals. Felix Hernandez was only on the roster because "Glass" wanted a locally popular player and when Felix was later injured for the rest of the season I was glad I had signed Paul Blackburn to a minor league deal to place on the active roster since Blackburn also happened to fit with the wishes of "David." Neither Hernandez nor Blackburn had many innings pitched in 2020 but the owner felt more comfortable having them on the team. I could not even provide "Ned Yost" with his desired opening day roster order due to conflicts with other owner goals. "Ned" wanted Lynch in the starting 2020 rotation with Lee as the everyday right fielder but both were moving up the prospect leader boards towards possible top twenty status if everything broke the right way and neither were on the 40 man roster. "Yost" felt that Duenez was a better option at first base than either O'Hearn or Schwindel, but Samir was not on the 40 man roster and with the budget so tight because of the desire to meet "David Glass" profit goal I felt it best to limit unnecessary promotions to the 40 man roster since the roster was full which meant that another player getting salary would have to be designated for assignment since trades and player sales were not permitted with the Internal Inventory Method. Finally, "Ned Yost" also wanted Elvis Luciano as a setup man from the bullpen as the team broke camp but I felt that the use of Luciano was a bit unfair if I wished to stick within the spirit of the IIM although Elvis did get a token twenty innings in 2020 due to injuries to pitchers on the big club. The team left Arizona with Keller the opening day starter and Lovelady as the closer with a lineup featuring Perez, O'Hearn, Nicky Lopez, Mondesi, Gutierrez, Merrifield, Phillips, Bonifacio, and Soler. Viloria was the backup catcher, Schwindel platooned with O'Hearn, Dozier played a lot of third base while learning super utility for outfield corners and even emergency shortstop along with some first base, and Gore was the pinch runner and outfield substitute. One surprise was bullpen arm Gavin who made the team after being saved the previous December before the Rule 5 Draft. The team chemistry was decent even without having Alex Gordon since Salvador Perez returned as team captain and since Felix Hernandez also just happened to be considered a team chemistry leader.

I had mentioned before that "David Glass" in OOTP considered 70 wins as the bare minimum number of victories to satisfy his wish for a respectable team record and the OOTP preseason prediction for the 2020 Royals expected only 67 wins out of club if everyone avoided injuries and if everyone played up to expectations. The team did not stay healthy and quite a few players had disappointing 2020 years and I failed this goal when the team finished 62-100. A number of players were ailing off and on with Gutierrez going down early in the year for the remainder of the season just one of many headlines on the medical front. At mid-season six position players were hitting under the .200 Mendoza line and the offense was ranked dead last in most categories so I decided to start making some changes to team staff and sent "Bradshaw" the hitting coach to the minors. The game rated "Bradshaw" as one who works best with power hitters and since it didn't seem to be working out I hired a new hitting coach from those looking for jobs who had a reputation of understanding the needs of all types of batters without trying to force some cookie-cutter approach with the kids. The offense did improve in the second half of the season with a new hitting coach so I expected to make more changes in staff over the winter if I could afford the staff turnover.

There were a few highlights. Staumont became a force out of the bullpen despite never getting his control problem completely solved and he made the All Star team. Nicky Lopez managed over 4 WAR despite missing time due to various injures and Mondesi had another good season. Outfield injuries became a problem which resulted in a big surprise. Lee was being held back due to prospect status considerations and the only true outfielder on the 40 man roster at the time of pasture weakness was Matias whom the OOTP Scouting Bureau considered only ready for Wilmington. One outfielder in Omaha whom "Goldberg" did not think highly was ranked as major league ready by the Scouting Bureau and his name was Bubba Starling. When Phillips went down Bubba became the center fielder and when Brett returned Phillips shifted to right field with Starling remaining in center field. Bubba Starling started out slow but eventually got his sea legs and ended up being voted second for 2020 American League Rookie of the Year (Nicky Lopez was voted fourth in that same ballot). Starling hit .243, managed 2.2 WAR, played an above average center field, hit 25 home runs, became locally well known and approached locally popular status, and even joined the ranks of team chemistry leader to back up captain Salvador Perez. After this incident with Bubba Starling I never again trusted "Lonnie Goldberg" for his evaluation of major league and minor league talent and based future promotions and demotions from then on upon the OOTP Scouting Bureau. The final bit of good news was while fan interest in the team did not improve as the fans suffered through another 100 loss season said fan interest also did not drop. Maybe the cheap tickets did provide some solace but total attendance did take a small hit over the previous year.

Owner Goal Five--Promote some Draftees to the Majors by the end of the 2022 season.

I learned from experience that meeting this goal requires players drafted by the GM starting with the June 2019 draft. Promoting fellows like Lee and Singer will not satisfy "Glass" even though they were previous draftees by the organization, so to accomplish this aim Witt Jr. and others will have to take steps forward and Witt Jr. was only in Lexington at the end of the 2020 season and the OOTP Scouting Bureau also felt that Lexington was the proper place for Witt Jr. at the time. At this point my thinking was to not skimp on the development budget and hope for the best.

Owner Goal Six--Build up the team to reach the Playoffs by the end of the 2023 season.

As mentioned, I had hoped to make the Playoffs by the end of the 2021 season using the Internal Inventory Method and 2020 was a step in the wrong direction as far as team record was concerned but I still had a plan which I hoped could work if the pieces fell into proper place and if owner goals did not get in the way. If budget allowed, I wanted to make staff changes to find coaches willing to work with all types of players instead of trying to force round pegs into square holes. Both "Ned Yost" and "Lonnie Goldberg" had their contracts expire, but I decided to ask if "Ned" was willing to stay off the tractor and I reluctantly offered "Goldberg" one more year to finally find some surprising scouting discovery although I no longer trusted "Lonnie" for player evaluation. If budget allowed, I wanted to use the OOTP Scouting Bureau ratings instead of the "Goldberg" reports to make a number of 40 man moves which parted via designation for assignment those considered roster fill. Finally if "David Glass" allowed me to no longer conserve prospects I hoped to give "Ned Yost" more of the active roster he wanted. At least at this stage "David" was happy, so I was curious to find out what the new team aims would be

The Internal Inventory Method 2021 Kansas City Royals

Owner Goal Two--Increase Attendance to an average of 32,220 by the end of the 2023 season.

The only time in team history that the Royals averaged at least that many fans was the World Series 2015 version so I felt that this was one step too far by "Glass," but several things happened which gave me at least a glimmer of hope. "David" did cut the overall budget again to a next-to-last in the majors $108M, but it appeared that I had some working room with the budget even while pegging scouting and development at league average and while setting expected draft expenses to slot and international cap to the permitted maximum. I did spend money in the off season on staff. "Yost" and "Goldberg" both agreed to stick around, but a number of managers and coaches in the minors were either reassigned to places which fit best with prospects like Witt Jr. or replaced with more flexible coaches who seemed to have some potential to work with all skills. For example, Eldred was sent to work under Poldberg in Omaha with the task of helping some of the young fellows with powerful arms and both the pitching coach and the hitting coach in Kansas City now had scrapped the cookie-cutter approach. The predicted profit for 2021 remained at over $20M and I felt free to explore some things towards increasing attendance and the first opportunity arrived when extremely locally popular player and fan favorite Nicky Lopez asked me to contribute to a new local charity he had in mind. I not only agreed to make a modest donation, I agreed to have the Kansas City Royals spend a chunk of cash and sponsor the whole charity Nicky had in mind and the results were amazing. For the very first time since before the simulation began fan loyalty improved from below average to average and fan interest in the Royals jumped from a mediocre 50 on a scale of 100 to an almost slightly above average of 60. I still had cash to spend so I negotiated with team captain and extremely locally popular player Salvador Perez and he eventually accepted a contract extension for an additional two years at $13M each through 2023 which raised fan interest to 64. Players Mondesi and Keller were set to begin their first of three arbitration years before they would walk as free agents, but I was flush with cash and explored extensions with both of the two guys. Keller wanted to go only one year at a time, but Adalberto agreed to a three year deal which set his final two arbitration seasons and his first year of potential free agency at $9.2M each and now Mondesi was under team control through 2024. Fan interest bumped up to 66 with the Mondesi deal as Adalberto was also a locally popular player. I also decided that in order to take a stab at the second highest attendance in team history that the tickets would have to remain at $13.50 for the cheapest seats in the majors. After all this wheeling and dealing the team was still predicted to make a decent profit for the season so I hoped "David Glass" was satisfied with my work. As another encouraging sign, I noticed that the morale of both Salvador and Adalberto were now in the "great" category after their extensions.

Owner Goal Three--Promote some Draftees to the majors by the end of the 2022 season.

I appreciated the concept of this goal, but in a sense it had a minor conflict with the Internal Inventory Method because it depended in large part upon the results of the 2019 and 2020 drafts and none of these players were on the current 2019 Kansas City roster. I decided to very much limit any prospect's major league time in 2021 regardless of their readiness for the show or their skills predicted by the OOTP Scouting Bureau, but once the team result in 2021 did not depend upon some 2019 or 2020 draftee I did give a short cup of coffee to one pitcher who lost two games as a minor gesture towards "Glass." At the end of the year Witt Jr. still looked like the potential third baseman of the future for Kansas City but he was still rated at this stage in his development skilled for Northwest Arkansas and he again suffered in development due to various injuries. On the other hand, three pitchers from the 2019 draft chosen based upon the Scouting Bureau were at the end of the season in Omaha and rated as worth a major league look, so reaching this goal in 2022 appeared quite possible. Additionally, the entire farm system had improved to second best overall at the start of the 2021 season, the team chose second in the June 2021 draft due to their poor 2020 record, the Royals again signed in 2021 the very best available international player by dumping all their cap on the best guy, and any prospects playing with the big club in 2021 would not prohibit Kansas City from possibly having the very best farm system in baseball going into 2022.

Owner Goal One--Have a Respectable Record in 2021.

I had mentioned that with less restrictions on budget and with less need to conserve prospects due to owner goals that I was going to give "Ned Yost" a good hearing for players he wanted to break Arizona camp with, but I decided to not give "Ned" everything. "Yost" really liked Luciano again and the OOTP Scouting Bureau agreed, but Elvis was sent to Omaha due to possible conflict with the spirit of the Internal Inventory Method. "Ned" wanted to timeshare Duenez and Pratto at first base, but the Scouting Bureau felt that Nick Pratto at that stage needed more work in Northwest Arkansas so Samir became the first baseman with Dozier his backup and both O'Hearn and Schwindel were optioned to Omaha to listen to Poldberg. Left field was up for grabs and "Ned Yost" and the Scouting Bureau most preferred the Mr. Nobody out of the independent leagues whom the team got from the Dodgers as a consolation for eating the $16.5M Kennedy contract. Besides having a player acquired via trade being a violation of the Internal Inventory Method I did some Google search of this fellow listed as 25 years old for his name and listed home town and could not find anyone so I figured the fans would wonder if the kid was lying about his age and name and that he was actually Joe Hardy from Hannibal, Mo. or Roy Hobbs. "Yost" had to settle for his second choice in left field named Kort Peterson while Hardy or Hobbs or whateverhisname was returned to Omaha.

O'Hearn and Schwindel were lucky in the sense that I had budget room to cut the wheat from the chaff and they at least survived in Omaha. Besides Duenez and Peterson, active roster room was forced for Singer, Lynch, Bubic, Lee, and Rivera based only upon not listening to "Goldberg." Rivera made the team in large part because the previous year's injury to Gutierrez was serious enough to question Kelvin's ability to stay a professional player. The preseason OOTP prediction for the 2021 Royals expected the team to win 77 games and to meet "David's" performance goal, but I noticed that the club chemistry was getting very strong. Along with the steady hand of "Yost" and captain Perez, fellows like Starling, Nicky Lopez, Phillips, Hill, and Viloria were all taking a role towards a smooth running clubhouse and I started to imagine that the team was ready to kick bottoms and take names while doing so.

My hunch was at least correct up until the All Star break as the team busted out of the blocks and at that point in the season had the best record in the American League while the Indians were six games behind. Mondesi not only was voted the starting shortstop for the American League--he also got more All Star votes than any player in the American League. Finding seats at Kauffman Stadium became difficult as most games were becoming totally sold out. Besides Mondesi, Kansas City also was represented in the All Star game by Staumont and surprising rookie Kahlil Lee.

Things were looking very good until the inevitable injuries took their toll. The worst was losing Adalberto Mondesi for the rest of the season after he had only played in 109 games and was on pace for possible league MVP, but late injuries to the bullpen with Lovelady and Staumont resulted in Gavin doing his best to close out games. The team still fought hard to the very end propelled by ecstatic team chemistry and an all-time average record crowd of 37,311, but the Tribe dusted out Jobu and got hot for the last two months resulting in the Royals finishing second by two games in the American League Central with only a Wild Card slot as a consolation for finishing with the second-best record of all American League teams. Kansas City with a record of 91-71 will host 88-74 Oakland at Kauffman Stadium for the right to play Cleveland in the Division Series and tickets will be hard to find.

Owner Goal Four--Build up the team to Reach the Playoffs by 2023.

Going into the Wild Card game against Oakland with Singer on the mound, everything is up to date in Kansas City. The Royals have already reached the Playoffs two years ahead of schedule using the Internal Inventory Method and every single player on the playoff roster was already in the organization at the start of 2019. The farm looks like it is the best in baseball and the pipeline should supply a steady stream of major league players for years to come. Only Duffy and Soler are due to become free agents. The 2021 Kansas City Royals already have a profit for the year of over +$30M with playoff revenue to be determined. "David Glass" is happy.

Despite all these promising signs I cannot predict what will happen in 2023. For one thing my contract as General Manager is up for renewal after the postseason. I am not even certain that I will accept a contract extension without knowing in advance what kind of new owner goals "Glass" has in mind for 2022.

Footnote and Warning. This actually happened to me the first time I tried using the Internal Inventory Method but your results may vary.