Moustakas had to go, but deal underscores how Royals are stranded between eras

While you were sleeping late Friday night into early Saturday morning, the inevitable-turned-imminent became a reality: Mike Moustakas, the prospect general manager Dayton Moore turned to as the first choice in his first full-fledged draft with the Royals and who blossomed into a pivotal force in the revival of the franchise, was traded late Friday to Milwaukee as the Royals set about rebuilding once again.

It’s a shame that reiterates both the economics that dictate the small-market vulnerabilities of the Royals and their current plight. But at least for a moment you can console yourself some if you think of it this way:

These last few months made for an unexpected encore here with Moustakas, who after last season was presumed gone on the free-agent market but became Exhibit A in an offseason marked by suspicious sudden frugality among baseball’s ownership.

Good for the Royals, though, who signed him at a late bargain rate of $6.5 million after he’d earlier turned down their $17.4 million qualifying offer. They extended the tenure of one of the last strands of their spectacular rise before the trade that further clarifies just how stranded between eras this franchise is.

Through this miserable Royals season, as one of the few remaining players from the glory days of 2014 and 2015 and still a fan favorite, Moustakas at least offered a living, breathing ongoing sense of connection to that for the faithful — a dynamic to which we paid tribute a few days ago.

So we’ll miss the Mooooose calls, the scratching of his late mother’s initials in the dirt and the power that enabled him to become the Royals’ single-season home-run record-holder (38 in 2017) and to hit a club-record five in one postseason when he busted loose in 2014.

We’ll think always of his connection with Eric Hosmer as the cornerstones of pent-up anticipation finally come true and think of his fire and grit, the stuff that showed in the miracle rally in Game 4 at Houston in 2015 and in the unworldly catch he made into the dugout suites in 2014.

We’ll miss the sheer humanity of a man who struggled to come into his own and grew up before us and experienced a poignant cycle of life here, including sharing the mourning of the death of his mother, Connie, in 2015, and his joy over the birth of daughter Mila and later son Michael Carter.

Now, he’s gone. And even if it was a foregone conclusion that figured to be anticlimactic after all logic dictated he’d be gone after last year, it’s anything but that.

Instead, it’s maybe all the more jarring since it’s not part of a mass exodus but just his very own exit. You can feel the pangs Friday night and a void already even if he’ll always have a special place here — perhaps even in the Royals Hall of Fame.

It’s a thud, really, because now there’s even less of a link to the glorious recent past and not yet enough tangible hope for the immediate future.

Intensifying the symbolism of this move as it speaks to the state of the union, Moustakas in Milwaukee will rejoin former Royals Lorenzo Cain and Joakim Soria and have a chance to be part of something meaningful with the Brewers, who entering play Saturday were 60-46 and 1 1/2 games behind Chicago in the National League Central.

He deserves this, doesn’t he? And the combination of Moustakas and Cain might make for a team Royals fans can root for with so little to look forward to now when it comes to their own 31-71 club. And while they wait and wait and wait to see if this deal with Milwaukee could have some upbeat echoes of another substantial trade the teams made — one that most notably featured the Royals dealing Zack Greinke in return for Cain and Alcides Escobar.

But to what degree this deal might make Moustakas again some kind of factor in a Royals restoration remains to be seen, of course, in whatever those acquired for him — outfielder Brett Phillips and pitcher Jorge Lopez — come to mean to the franchise.

But that won’t be known for some time: Each has spent most of this season with Class AAA Colorado Springs; Phillips will report to the Royals as soon as possible and Lopez is headed to Class AAA Omaha.

What we do know is that another gear has been engaged in the dismantling part of The Process, one that in fact we were girded for last year when Moustakas, Hosmer, Cain and Escobar all were set to enter into free agency — and all mostly assumed gone.

That’s why manager Ned Yost pulled them in unison in the middle of the last regular-season game for a fond farewell … only to have Escobar and Moustakas back.

That might have made for a flat return, the sort of thing that anybody who has said a profoundly emotional goodbye only to have someone, say, miss a plane and still be around might understand.

Instead, these months that included Moustakas hitting 20 home runs only endeared him more to fans.

That made for a fine curtain call and established him as irresistible trade fodder toward the future. But it’s a sad reality check nonetheless — an overnight development that parallels what feels like a nearly overnight collapse.

This story was originally published July 28, 2018 at 2:21 AM.