Maybe you’ve forgotten, but 2011 was hype. It was basically prospect Christmas all season. That year, a ridiculous number of promising young players made their big league debut for the Kansas City Royals, including Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Johnny Giavotella, Salvador Perez, Danny Duffy, Tim Collins, Aaron Crow, Louis Coleman, and Kelvin Herrera; it also featured the Royals debut of Alcides Escobar, the full-season coming out party for Greg Holland, and the first semi-regular appearances for Jarrod Dyson.
However, the 2011 Royals were the baseball equivalent of a middle age man earnestly dabbing for the on-ride camera on a roller coaster; in other words, it was just a colossal failure.