Royals’ decision to make Wade Davis closer, shelve Greg Holland harder than it looks

On the outside, this looked obvious.

On the outside, you see that Wade Davis has been baseball’s best relief pitcher the last two seasons. You see that Greg Holland’s effectiveness has been fading and sputtering, a car with too many miles and not enough oil. You think Royals manager Ned Yost had a clean, easy decision to make, like what kind of coffee to order in the morning.

But that is not how this went. That is not how this was ever going to go, even if Holland’s continued problems — first a strained pec, then a cranky arm, now a tight elbow, with squashed velocity and a 3.83 ERA in between — made a landmark decision inevitable.

Davis is the Royals’ closer now, and not just while Holland rests. He is the closer today and tomorrow and for however long the Royals last in the playoffs. Holland saved 125 games for the Royals the last three seasons, plus seven more in seven chances last October. Today, there is no defined role for him on this team.

“I’m pretty much going to go with Wade,” Yost said. “You know what you’ve got with Wade. With Holly, you just don’t know one day to the next how his elbow’s going to react. Is it going to be tight? Is it going to be sore? Is it going to be stiff?”

Making this move required a rejection of the paternalistic, loyalty-first instinct that’s been fundamental to the Royals’ rise.

Holland’s fading strength made the move necessary. But Yost doing it like this — more than two weeks before the playoffs start, decisively saying Davis is the closer without a clear idea where or even whether Holland fits — is a strong move in both the big and small picture.

The Royals’ play has always been patience, and it has always been loyalty. As much as their style on the field has been about energy, defense and the bullpen, their style of management has been about faith and perseverance.

And, virtually without exception, this has served the Royals well. They stuck with Alex Gordon when people called him a bust. They stuck with Eric Hosmer when another hitting coach’s message was lost. They let Alcides Escobar hit with the game on the line, and trusted Lorenzo Cain to stay healthy. When Davis and Luke Hochevar struggled as starters, the Royals turned them into relievers.

They didn’t just believe in Mike Moustakas through his bad seasons. They moved him up in the lineup, and coincidence or not, he’s been one of the league’s better third basemen.

This has been a top-down philosophy, really, as ingrained in how the Royals have operated since general manager Dayton Moore’s arrival nine years ago as building up the farm system. David Glass stood by Moore when people wanted him fired, Moore stood by Yost when people wanted him fired, and Yost has stood by his players when people have wanted them traded, benched, cut, or worse.

So this is complicated. You could hear that in Yost’s explanation of the decision. He talked with admiration, for what might have been the hundredth time this season, for Holland’s competitiveness. For his guts.

“Let’s not forget this guy’s got thirty-something saves,” Yost says, and he’s right — 32. “Let’s not forget that fact. But he’s been dealing with it on and off, really, from the All-Star break on.”

When a reporter meant to compliment Holland for trying to pitch through those elbow issues, Yost interrupted with a correction.

“He has been pitching through it,” he said. “He has.”

In the end, Yost knows his loyalty has to be to the team. To the grander goal of winning the World Series. He has said that one of his biggest mistakes in Milwaukee was staying in development mode for too long. He will not have to learn that lesson twice.

The big change came almost exactly a year ago. With the Royals in a crowded race for a playoff spot and a game against the Red Sox in the balance, Yost used an outdated bullpen-by-numbers process to choose Aaron Crow instead of Kelvin Herrera.

The decision made no sense on any level, except that Yost had decided that the sixth inning would be Crow’s, no matter what. Crow gave up a game-turning grand slam, the Royals lost for the fifth time in seven games, and the next day pitching coach Dave Eiland persuaded Yost to take a more flexible approach.

For all of the criticism Yost has taken here over the years — much of it justified, and much of it hyperbolic — he has been a rock-solid leader as the Royals close in on their first division title in 30 years.

The Royals have long since lapped a mediocre American League Central, and Yost has taken advantage by keeping his players fresh and by slowly but steadily shifting this team toward the playoffs. Gordon and Ben Zobrist replace Escobar and Moustakas at the top of the order. Kris Medlen moves to the rotation. Danny Duffy shifts to the bullpen.

And now, the final, major change — Davis is the closer, Holland is on the fringe.

This makes the Royals a better team, which is the only criteria that matters. Davis instantly becomes the American League’s best closer, and Kelvin Herrera — assuming those back-to-back bad outings were more blip than trend — one of the better setup men.

The depth isn’t as strong as it was last year, when Holland was still dominant, but if Ryan Madson’s arm is back — and he’s given up just two hits and no walks or runs in six outings since Sept. 6 — or Duffy takes to the relief role then the Royals should have enough.

This is a different team than the one that won last year’s pennant. The offense is much better, the lineup much deeper. If Johnny Cueto really did just need a lower target from Salvador Perez, the rotation is better. The defense is perhaps not as good, but still excellent. Most of all, they have a confidence they had no reason to carry until sometime last October. There is a calmness that comes with that.

These are all moving parts. The Royals lost Tuesday, their 13th loss in September, already the most of any month, and this time in a blowout. At least some of these losses can be explained by key players working through injuries or ailments, but each day that passes is another step toward the intensity of the postseason.

The Royals are trying to find the balance between competing for homefield advantage — after Tuesday, they are 1  1/2 games ahead of Toronto — and entering the playoffs with as much strength as possible. Baseball history is clear that how a team finishes the regular season has very little to do with how it performs in the playoffs, but all the same the Royals could squash some worry over the next two weeks.

To do that, the Royals need the best version of themselves. They made a strong step in that direction by elevating Davis and shoving Holland into the corner.

This is not how the Royals operated for so many years. This is good change, meaningful change, no matter how much it went against those old instincts.

This story was originally published September 22, 2015 at 10:10 PM with the headline "Royals’ decision to make Wade Davis closer, shelve Greg Holland harder than it looks."