Kansas City Royals at the All-Star Break

This post was contributed to FanSided.com from Michael Engel of FanSided’s very own Kansas City Royals site, Kings of Kauffman. For more Kansas City Royals news, check out KingsOfKauffman.com.

After making headlines by trading their top prospect, Wil Myers, to the Tampa Bay Rays for James Shields, the Royals sent a message that the rebuilding years were over and that 2013 would be the year where the collection of highly-touted prospects would come together and put the Detroit Tigers in the Royals sights.

Adding Shields, Ervin Santana, and Wade Davis (and re-signing Jeremy Guthrie) patched their biggest weakness from past years and the new starting rotation paid off with a strong April. The Royals were 17-10 on May 5, but the rest of the month saw the offense fall apart and no amount of pitching was enough to keep the Royals on a winning pace. They rebounded in June, but still find themselves trailing at the break.

Now, they find themselves in the awkward position of being within range of the top of the standings, but still far behind. Do they buy and try to pick up some bats to get over the hump? Or do they start to sell off parts and regroup for next year? Those aren’t easy questions to answer but how the Royals answer them will have ramifications for the rest of 2013 and for the years to come.

You can check out the complete review of the Braves first half of the season over at KingsOfKauffman.com.