Kansas City Baseball Vault and Kelly's Westport Inn Present: Mark Simon of ESPN

Kansas City Baseball Vault

Ever since the James Shields trade, the question has turned from "what can the Royals do to get better?" to "how do the Royals win the division?" To help answer that question, we talked with Mark Simon of ESPN's Baseball Today podcast about his article that addresses that second question. A lot has to go right, Mark admitted, but it's not outside the realm of possibility. He took us step by step through what it'll take to get Kansas City back into the playoffs. There will have to be a couple of leaps, though, and nobody's allowed to get hurt. Following the discussion with Mark, we talked a bit more about other happenings in the league, including a comparison of the Royals trade and the trade that sent R.A. Dickey to Toronto. While not exactly comparable, they're similar enough that it seemed to be two team going for the same goal in their quest for pitching. We also discussed optimism, pitching staffs and the gap between the Royals and the Detroit Tigers.