Chaos of 2020 clarified the Kansas City Royals’ wisdom in hiring Mike Matheny
With a new owner for the first time in 20 years, a new manager for the first time in a decade and facing the gravitational force of 207 losses the previous two seasons, 2020 loomed as a transitional year for the Royals.
Would it be a clear portal to a promising future? Or more of the same? And at the pivot point of all that: What would we learn about Mike Matheny in his first managerial job since being fired by the Cardinals in 2018 amid widely reported chaos?
Then came the coronavirus, making for an unrelenting crisis that distorted the sports landscape.
In the case of baseball, that meant the game was on pause for months and resumed with a 60-game regular season and an expanded (diluted) postseason — one that will reward a most deserving champion for adapting through a bizarre season and yet will come with the caveat that it didn’t resemble the slogs of its predecessors.
Against that canvas, it’s not simple to assess how much better the Royals are equipped to contend in 2021 because of the last few months.
The duality of the data we’re left with makes for a Rorschach test of sorts, leaving to the beholder’s perception what you’re personally inclined to draw from it:
Was the sum of this simply a 26-34 final record ... or a 23-24 finish after a brutal 3-10 start with several key players (starting pitcher Brad Keller and slugger Hunter Dozier) out with COVID?
Is this a little like the notice of the 2013 season (when the Royals finally broke .500 again) right before the back-to-back American League championships and the 2015 World Series triumph? Or is it more like 2012, when the Royals were 72-90 and flashing intermittent glimpses of something building?
Do you hold onto the wretched first month-plus for would-be superstar Adalberto Mondesi, or his remarkable final stretch?
Along the same lines, can rookie pitchers Brady Singer and Kris Bubic be assumed to pick up where they left off?
Beyond known formidable commodities like Whit Merrifield, Sal Perez, Jorge Soler (if he can stay healthy), Maikel Franco (if he can stay consistent) and Hunter Dozier (despite diminished numbers after returning from COVID), those are just some of the most obvious lingering questions.
So even if next year will tell us something more, we might not know the context or meaning of this season for years to come.
But we did learn something important.
For all the skepticism that came with the announcement Matheny would replace Ned Yost after last season, Matheny is a beautiful fit for this job and made good on the personal improvement commitments he professed at his introductory news conference.
Thoughtful, imaginative, nurturing and at once intense and patient, he was the right man at the right time in the right situation — including for a pandemic that he treated as a way to embrace found time.
It was one thing for him to demonstrate that kind of dynamic energy in the offseason, when he went to visit a number of players in person, and another to set the tone in spring training as a perpetual motion machine.
But it was quite another to know how to handle this pitch that no one in over a century had seen before as it came head-high.
Through the shutdown in mid-March, through catching the virus himself and the ups and downs of the potential restart that Matheny called “almost a psychological yo-yo,” he was a rock — with a fountain of optimism pouring over it.
“I’ve enjoyed this season, believe it or not, maybe as much as any season I’ve ever had,” he said.
Sensing Matheny might need to vent or bleed at some point, general manager Dayton Moore even tried to get him to complain about the circumstances. Matheny wasn’t having it in July, and he wasn’t having it on Wednesday when I asked about what kind of personal challenges these last few months brought.
Sure, he wanted some things to go differently, including wishing time hadn’t run out on the season when he believed the team was finding itself.
But ...
“I think life’s about perspective …,” Matheny said. “The glass isn’t half full. It’s all the way full of something, even if it’s only air. And (I have been) blessed with that fact that’s truly how I look at life.”
So it was easy for him to keep generating “perpetual optimism” and commit early that “we’re not going to tolerate the whining and complaining.” And to make a modeling statement, for the good of the team and game and well beyond the stadium, to wear a mask.
From spring training through the end of the season, his personal touch roaming the outfield or working the clubhouse to talk to players (including those sitting out to keep them engaged) was a galvanizing gesture appreciated by youngsters and veterans alike.
To be genuine and encouraging at the same time resonates. And it helped that at least in one way he doesn’t ask anything he isn’t doing himself: When it comes to self-evaluation, he said, it’s not an end-of-the-year concept that he’ll suddenly reflect on now.
“It’s a daily exercise,” he said, adding that from the get-go as a manager he has always believed he should be getting better from one game to the next just like he seeks to draw out of his players.
He added, “I believe I’m always evolving.”
Certainly at least always striving for that, he’d suggest later.
“I hope I got better,” he said. “And I hope I get better tomorrow.”
Making for a certain effect that is one of the few things we can glean from this season: The Royals will have a fine chance to actualize their potential because this was a terrific hire — no matter how many questions there were at the time.
Or perhaps in part because of why those questions surfaced.
“Maybe when you have something taken away you tend to appreciate it more,” he said. “Maybe that was it.”