I’m going to start with an exercise that may cause some pain. Think back just a short 10 years to a different sort of Royals team. This was before the Dayton Moore era. It was before the Royals really tried to win baseball games with any sort of frequency. It was a bad time.
Scott Elarton was the Royals starter on opening day that year. He finished the year with a 5.34 ERA. Mark Redman was the Royals lone All-Star representative. He finished the year with a 5.71 ERA. The Royals best starter in 2006 was either Luke Hudson (7-6, 5.