KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The week I started working at The Star, in June 2013, the Royals hadn’t been to a postseason since 1985 and fell to 23-32 with a loss to Minnesota at the beginning of a nine-game homestand. Six men were in the lineup that day who would become crucial to back-to-back American League titles the next two seasons; the group largely reflected the beginning of the blossoming of a fertile minor-league system that had been assembled with a radical overhaul by then-general manager Dayton Moore. There was no way to know what that was building to then, of course. And the fan cynicism p…
