The Numbers
	2002 record: 62-100, .383 (27th overall) Runs scored: 737, 11th in AL Runs allowed: 891, 13th in AL Run differential: -154 (27th overall) Starters' ERA: 5.18, 12th in AL Bullpen ERA: 5.27, 14th in AL Payroll (Opening Day): $47.2 million (22nd overall) Attendance: 1.32 million (27th overall) 3-year record: 204-282, .420 (26th overall)

2002 in review
What went right?
No one was arrested. No one suffered any career-ending injuries, unless you count Jose Rosado, who was released in spring training nearly two years after throwing his last pitch. Paul Byrd became the first 17-game winner on a 100-loss team in over 50 years. Mike Sweeney, who signed a potential five-year contract extension just before Opening Day, nearly won his first batting title. Raul Ibanez's deal with the devil didn't expire, as he followed up his impressive 2001 campaign with 24 homers and a .537 slugging average, both career highs by far. Carlos Beltran broke Mickey Mantle's AL record for switch-hitters with 80 extra-base hits, a record set so quietly that no one noticed until a month after the season ended.

What went wrong?
Needing to win just one of their last three games to avoid the franchise's first-ever 100-loss season, the Royals were summarily swept by the Indians. Neifi Perez had one of the most destructive seasons by any player in a generation, batting nearly 600 times and hitting .236/.260/.303, then causing a rift in the clubhouse by refusing to enter a September game as a defensive replacement. Mark Quinn missed almost the entire season with assorted injuries. Carlos Febles looked nothing like the promising rookie of three years before. Acquisitions Michael Tucker and Brent Mayne added $5 million to the team's payroll, but next to nothing in the win column. Aside from Byrd, the Royals' pitching staff went 45-89 with a 5.45 ERA. No pitcher other than Byrd and Jeff Suppan won so many as five games.

In retrospect, the critical decisions were:
1. The Perez trade. While this move was made at the 2001 trading deadline, the full impact -- in terms of wins and losses as well as in terms of respect for the organization -- was not felt until last season. While Jermaine Dye was an important cog of yet another Oakland playoff team, Perez was the worst everyday player in the game, and responded to fan frustration with those classic words, "They're just fans. Sometimes, they don't know about baseball." For a fan base still stung by the loss of Johnny Damon, the Dye-for-Perez deal was nearly catastrophic. If there's a silver lining here, it's that the front office was forced to re-evaluate their thought process from the ground up after making a trade that was universally ridiculed from the day it was consummated until the day Perez was let go.

2. Not letting the youth movement go full-bore. With the stated pretext of not wanting to force their young prospects into major-league action before they were ready, the Royals absorbed Brent Mayne's contract from the Rockies in 2001, then signed him to a two-year contract extension. The Royals traded a prospect to the Cubs for Michael Tucker, who already had a two-year contract. Roberto Hernandez's $6 million option was picked up. Chuck Knoblauch was brought in at $2 million for his veteran influence. The result was a bloated payroll -- a franchise-record $47 million -- stuffed with veterans who were very well-compensated to do little more than show up.

	Carlos Beltran Center fielder Kansas City Royals Profile
	2002 SEASON STATISTICS GM AB R HR RBI AVG 162 637 114 29 105 .273

3. Stanching, at least temporarily, the free-agent exodus out of Kansas City. After it appeared all but inevitable that Sweeney would follow Damon and Dye out of town, the Royals bucked tradition and signed Sweeney to a five-year deal with a creative (and unprecedented) clause which allows him to leave after two years if the team does not reach .500 in either 2003 or 2004. Keeping the Royals' most marketable and popular player was a godsend for a team badly in need of one. Alas, there appears to be no momentum to this deal. The Royals have been rebuffed in their efforts to sign fellow star Carlos Beltran, who is represented by every team's favorite agent, Scott Boras.

Looking ahead to 2003
Three key questions
1. Does Beltran have a future in Kansas City? The Royals' young center fielder, who turns 26 in April, is a five-tool talent who is ready to explode on the league this year. But he's only two years away from free-agency, and the Royals have learned from their experiences with Dye and Damon that if they want fair value for their stars, they need to trade them early. Barring a sudden change of heart from Beltran, it's unlikely he'll sign any deal with the Royals that would delay the onset of free agency, and if he doesn't buckle the Royals appear committed to trading him by Opening Day. If the right offer comes along -- a trade with the Rangers involving Hank Blalock would help both teams -- the Royals should be prepared to bid adieu. On the other hand, if the Royals are committed to trading him just for the sake of trading him, they could have another Neifi-sized disaster on their hands.

2. Who is the real Angel Berroa? Is he the Top 20 prospect of 2001, who dazzled onlookers with his glove and bat while hitting .304 with 14 homers and 25 steals between Class A and Double-A? Or the pretender who would have swung at Mike Tyson last spring if Iron Mike was a slider down and away, hitting .215 in Triple-A? The Royals have high hopes that Berroa is the second coming of Miguel Tejada, but after learning that Berroa is two years older than he claimed, they've also brought in Desi Relaford as insurance.

3. Can the Royals get any offense from offensive-minded positions? Left field and designated hitter are two of the easiest positions in the lineup to stuff with a big bat, but the Royals' three main options to fill those two spots all have question marks attached. Mark Quinn: can he stay healthy and resemble the hitter who hit .294/.342/.488 as a rookie in 2000? Dee Brown: can the former first-round pick, now out of options, show the power in the majors that he once flashed in the minor leagues? Ken Harvey: is he the pedestrian swinger who hit .277 in Triple-A last year, or the monster who was named MVP of the Arizona Fall League after hitting .479?

Can expect to play better
Of the Royals' promising trio of Runelvys Hernandez, Jeremy Affeldt, and Miguel Asencio, at least one can be expected to take a big step forward. Darrell May is a better pitcher than his 5.35 ERA last season suggests. If the Royals hold on to him, Beltran is a legitimate 40/40 candidate and a darkhorse for MVP honors.

Stats Corner
Mike Sweeney (above) was second in the AL in batting (.340) in 2002. Rookie Runelvys Hernandez was 1-0 with a 3.27 ERA in his final three starts. Raul Ibanez established career highs in nearly all offensive categories, including homers (24), RBI (103) and batting average (.294). Jason Grimsley was tied for eighth in the AL in appearances (70).

Can expect to play worse
Hey, if the Royals had players that outperformed expectations last year, they wouldn't have lost 100 games, would they? Actually, they did have one, but Byrd is the Braves' problem now. Ibanez has eliminated doubts that he can hit, but still must erase suspicions that his 2002 campaign was a career year. Joe Randa, who just turned 33, has been one inch away from the cliff for the past two years, and eventually he's going to step off it.

Projected lineup
2B Carlos Febles
CF Carlos Beltran
1B Mike Sweeney
RF Raul Ibanez
3B Joe Randa
LF Mark Quinn/Dee Brown
DH Ken Harvey/Michael Tucker
SS Angel Berroa/Desi Relaford
C Brent Mayne

Rotation
Runelvys Hernandez
Jeremy Affeldt
Darrell May
Miguel Asencio
Albie Lopez

Closer
Committee, chaired by Mike MacDougal, Jeremy Hill, and Ryan Bukvich

A closer look
After years of hedging their bets, the Royals have finally decided to gamble their future with the young talent in their farm system. In particular, after years of investing No. 1 draft choices on pitchers -- Kansas City hasn't taken a hitter in the first round since Dee Brown in 1996 -- the Royals are hoping that in 2003, for the first time, they will see a return on that investment.

Gone are Paul Byrd and Jeff Suppan, the only two pitchers on the team to win even five games last season. In their place, the Royals are counting on a bunch of starting pitchers who still have to pay extra for insurance every time they rent a car. Runelvys Hernandez will still be 24 when he likely takes the mound on Opening Day. Following him in the rotation will be 23-year-old Jeremy Affeldt and 22-year-old Miguel Asencio. Chris George, also 23, may be the No. 5 starter, unless he's beaten out in spring training by 21-year-old Jimmy Gobble. Among projected starters, only Darrell May, veteran of 30 years and a long exile to Japan, would look out of place on a college campus.

With four-fifths of the Royals' starting rotation under the age of 25, the question must be asked: is this wise? Or is this a case of throwing sheep to the wolves? To answer that question, I looked at which teams in major league history got the most starts out of pitchers who were still 24 or younger on Opening Day:

Year	Team	GS	Record	Main starters (age on April 1)
1968	Oakland A's	162	82-80	Catfish Hunter (21), Len Krause (24), Chuck Dobson (24)
1915	Philadelphia A's	144	43-109	John Wyckoff (23), Rube Bressler (20), Joe Bush (22)
1967	Kansas City A's	142	62-99	Catfish Hunter (20), Chuck Dobson (23), Jim Nash (22)
1960	Chicago Cubs	140	60-94	Glen Hobbie (23), Bob Anderson (24), Dick Ellsworth (20)
1998	Florida Marlins	140	54-108	Livan Hernandez (23), Brian Meadows (22), Jesus Sanchez (23)

Apparently, the "A" stands for "Adolescent." The three youngest rotations of all time pitched in three different cities, but for the same franchise. The A's rotation of the late 1960s laps the field in this regard (the 1966 squad places 10th on this list), although when it comes to youth being served, no team comes close to the 1968 edition: every one of their starts was made by a pitcher who hadn't turned 25 by the season's opening bell.

Two of these five teams, the 1915 A's and 1998 Marlins, represent the aftermath of the two most infamous dismantlings of a World Series squad in history. In both cases, the youth of their rotation was more a product of desperation than a carefully-thought out plan, and neither team made a quick journey back to respectability. But the young starters on the 1967-68 A's formed the nucleus of the A's dynasty that three-peated from 1972 to 1974.

Clearly, there is precedent that a rotation made up predominantly, if not entirely, of youngsters can yield tangible rewards soon thereafter. It goes without saying that it helps when those youngsters can actually pitch, like the Catfish Hunter-led A's squads, and are not given the opportunity simply because ownership isn't willing to spend the dough on more established pitchers. In this regard, the Royals are somewhere in the middle; while all of their young pitchers have been well-regarded prospects at some point, they each have significant question marks.

Upping the ante in the Royals' big youth gamble is that they appear determined to hand the closer's job over to a rookie, even if they aren't sure which rookie that is yet. Mike MacDougal, Jeremy Hill, and Ryan Bukvich all throw very hard, and all are an intimidating presence on the mound, enough so that their almost complete lack of major league experience isn't keeping them out of the running to be Roberto Hernandez's successor.

Together, if the three combine for 40 saves this season, they would set the major league record for most combined saves by rookies on a single team:

Year	Team	Rookie saves	Main closer
1999	Atlanta Braves	39	John Rocker (38 saves)
1975	Cincinnati Reds	38	Rawly Eastwick (22 saves) and Will McEnaney (15 saves)
1986	St. Louis Cardinals	38	Todd Worrell (36 saves)

Given that the 1999 Braves won the NL Pennant, the 1975 Reds won the World Series, and that Todd Worrell served as the Cardinals closer in the World Series the year before he won Rookie of the Year honors -- I'd venture to say that handing the closer's job to a rookie isn't such a bad gamble to take.

If the Royals decide they can't lock into one particular rookie closer, they should note that the Big Red Machine is the only team ever to have two rookies to each save 15 games. And if they really want to get cute and go with the rookie bullpen-by-committee, letting all three candidates share in the save booty, they could become just the second team ever to have three rookies to save five games each. The first team? The 1968 Detroit Tigers -- also World Champions.

None of this is meant to endorse the Royals -- the sad-sack, triple-digit-loser Royals -- as a legitimate contender, or even an illegitimate one. But keep this as food for thought the next time you hear a talking head somewhere write off a team for relying on young, unproven pitching.

You can check out more work from the team of writers of the Baseball Prospectus (tm) at their web site at baseballprospectus.com. Rany Jazayerli can be reached at ranyj@baseballprospectus.com.