Major League Baseball mandates that teams play out the games scheduled in September, regardless how far out of contention they are. Players are contractually obligated to play in those games.

Fans, on the other hand, are under no obligation to watch or listen to those games, check the box scores, or to give any regard whatsoever to what happens.

Most fans of the Kansas City Royals have moved on, as of last Sunday, to football season, and rightly so. But still, the baseball games go on. And a lot has happened, and will happen, this September that is worthy of note.

New Ownership:

The sale of the Royals to Kansas City businessman John Sherman requires approval at the league meeting this winter. But with that approval essentially guaranteed, Sherman can get a jumpstart this fall on deciding the direction of the franchise. He’ll certainly be paying close attention to the product on the field, as well as evaluating what help can be realistically expected from the minor league system.

Little is known about Sherman’s plans for the team as it is currently constituted. There are rumors that he’ll keep general manager Dayton Moore in some capacity. Whether or not manager Ned Yost returns for another season remains to be seen.

Sherman’s evaluation, and his philosophy toward spending on free agents (to this point unknown) will affect the futures of several current Royals. Should Alex Gordon be brought back for a swan song? Should the team lock slugger Jorge Soler up long term? Should veterans Whit Merrifield, Danny Duffy and Ian Kennedy be traded for prospects?

Roster Expansion:

Major league teams are expanding their rosters in a big way for the last time this September. By rule, teams have been permitted to bring anyone on their 40-man roster up to the big leagues on September 1. If a club so desired, it could fill its dugout with prospects and give them a chance to gain experience on the big stage.

The tradition of roster expansion in September allows a handful of men every year to realize the dream of playing in the major leagues who would otherwise never make it. For all the players called up, the expansion allows them to showcase their abilities for future opportunities.

Backup catcher Nick Dini was called up to Kansas City earlier in the summer due to an injury to Cam Gallagher. But Dini knows what September roster expansion means to fringe players like himself.

“It’s huge. You play the whole season with the hopes of getting to play in the big leagues,” Dini said. “All the work you put in during the offseason, and during the season, it’s all for this, to get to get to the big leagues and show what you can do. September is a huge opportunity that we all want to take advantage of.”

Dini admitted part of the challenge of September call-ups is that playing time for so many players is limited. Men accustomed to playing every day suddenly find themselves sitting on the bench for days at a time.

“It’s tough but that’s part of being a professional,” the 26-year-old catcher said. “When it’s your turn to play, you’ve got to be ready to play. The days when you aren’t playing, you’ve got to put the work in to make sure you’re ready to go when your name is called.”

The rule of September roster expansion was recently amended. Starting next season, teams will only be allowed to expand their rosters to 28. Dini said this fact is well known to minor leaguers.

“Guys are aware of (the change) and how it’s going to affect opportunities. That’s 12 less slots for each team, so 12 less opportunities for guys to get called up. But that’s what’s going on. There’s nothing you can do about it. My mentality has been just to go out and prepare, and if, God willing, it happens, then you’re ready to go.”

The Royals’ September call-ups include utility player Erick Mejia and pitchers Gabe Speier and Jesse Hahn. Each has a good shot at being on the roster next summer, so this exposure should accelerate their learning curve.

Keller On Ice:

The Royals announced in late August that it would limit pitcher Brad Keller’s innings and pitch count. The team indicated that Keller still had a ways to go in the season, but it hinted at concern for the 24-year-old’s health. He got blasted on August 26, and that was all the Royals needed to immediately shut Keller down.

“It was a consensus among the coaches that it’s what I needed,” Keller said. “It sucks, from the competitive side. You always want to go out there and compete with the boys. But it’s like a stepping stone for the future. They’re looking out for my best interest, and I agree with what they’re doing. So I just have to (accept it) and keep moving forward.”

Keller’s absence in the starting rotation will open up opportunities for others. Giving starts to Jorge Lopez will open up relief opportunities for Speier, Hahn and others. The final month should see Kyle Zimmer, Josh Staumont and Eric Skoglund get a long look in the bullpen.

“I’m really excited to see how we do in September and what the other guys can do,” said Keller. “It’s a showcase. It’s going to give them a chance to get their feet wet, to get an understanding of what it’s like to play in the big leagues, on and off the field.”

Minor League Playoffs:

When the prospects that eventually won the 2015 World Series worked their way up through the farm system, a premium was placed on winning minor league championships. The franchise wanted the Royals of the future to learn to win together. New prospects, now at the lower levels of the minors, are reviving the winning tradition.

The Wilmington Blue Rocks, a club flush with premium prospects, is competing this weekend for the high A classification Carolina League championship. Meanwhile the lower A-ball Lexington Legends are playing for a South Atlantic League title. And down at the Royals Dominican Academy, a collection of Latin American prospects claimed the Dominican Summer League championship.

Fall League Action:

Some of the Royals’ top prospects in the minors will get additional seasoning in the Arizona Fall League. Brewer Hicklen and Kyle Isbel, seen by the Royals as outfielders of the future, will be joined by versatile slugger Gabriel Cancel. Pitcher Daniel Lynch, considered the Royals #3 prospect, will see some additional innings in Arizona to make up for time lost due to injury earlier in the summer. Lynch will be accompanied in Arizona by fellow pitching prospects Daniel Tillo and Tad Ratliff.

If, as Kansas City Royals general manager Dayton Moore so often says, pitching is the currency of baseball, the Toronto Blue Jays are going to some awful great lengths to acquire some. And they are doing it at the expense of the Royals.

Every offseason, without any fanfare, a draft is held in which certain players who are left off their teams’ 40-man major league roster, are eligible. This rule applies to players at least 23 years of age with four or more professional seasons under their belts, or players at least 22 with five or more seasons logged.

Thus unprotected, they are eligible to be selected by another team in what is known as the Rule 5 Draft. The only stipulation is that the drafted player must stay with his new major league club for the entire season. The cost of the selection is $100,000.

As stated above, this applies to players at least 22 years of age, except in a few rare cases. One such anomaly this past offseason happened to be an 18-year-old Royals prospect named Elvis Luciano.

Acquired by Kansas City from the Arizona Diamondbacks in a trade for Jon Jay in the middle of the 2018 season, Luciano had never pitched above the rookie leagues. Signed as a 16-year-old in 2016, he pitched in a total of 16 games at the lowest levels possible in the Diamondbacks’ system in 2017.

Recognizing his raw potential, the Royals asked that Luciano be included in the trade for Jay that also netted them pitcher Gabe Speier. Still just 18, the Royals brought the Dominican-born right-hander along slowly in 2018, using him in just 13 games at their rookie league level.

The Royals hoped to nurture the teenager into a hurler in the mold of the late Dominican star Yordano Ventura. But there was one catch. His original minor-league deal with Arizona was voided after he failed a physical at age 16. He reworked a second deal, but the technicality exposed him to the Rule 5 Draft from day one.

But no team would draft an 18-year-old in the Rule 5 Draft, knowing he would have to stay on the major league roster, right?

Apparently the Blue Jays so prize the talents of young Luciano that they believed he was worth the risk. Luciano has spent the entire season as the youngest player in the majors.

“That’s incredible,” said Brad Keller, whom the Royals claimed in the previous’ Rule 5 Draft. “I felt like the jump from Double A to the big leagues was pretty big. I can’t imagine going from rookie ball to the big leagues.”

The Blue Jays had to answer for why they would even consider putting a player so obviously unprepared on their big league roster.

“Elvis is an exciting young arm that we’ve done a lot of work on and feel that any time you can acquire someone who has the chance to be a Major League starting pitcher, or a significant chance to be that, based on our projections, based on our scout looks,” Toronto general manager Ross Atkins told MLB.com at the time.

“The work that we did on him, these types of attributes are hard to acquire,” Atkins said of Luciano. “The age, there are pluses and minuses to that. The pluses are the upside, the very high ceiling. The minuses are the risk and the unknown in how little he has pitched.”

Keller was one of the rare cases where a Rule 5 Draft pick actually turned into a frontline player. Keller shocked the league when he proved an excellent option out of the bullpen, then was elevated to a starter midseason. Keller finished his rookie year with a 9-6 record and a 3.08 ERA.

Keller was thrown directly into the flames in 2018. The Royals had to find out if he was worth keeping or not. Luciano has been spared such a baptism by fire. The Blue Jays have used him sparingly, and only in low-pressure situations. Still, Keller recognizes what a tall order the young man faces.

“All the power to him,” Keller said. “I’d just say keep your head down and learn as much as possible during the time you’re there, and soak in the moment of just getting to be in the big leagues.

The Blue Jays have found a loophole to protect Luciano even further. On June 12, they placed him on the injured list, and he’s stayed there. The Blue Jays will hide the “injured” teenager there for the maximum of 60-days. By rule, he has to be active for at least 90 days. So the Blue Jays will activate him in mid-August for a few weeks, and he will almost certainly be sent to the minor leagues next year.

Luciano will still be nursing his purported injury when the Blue Jays visit Kansas City July 29-31, thus missing his only chance to face his former employer.

“Its part of the business, part of the way things work,” said Keller of the strange route of young Luciano. “But you can try to enjoy every moment while you’re there. And if you learn all you can while you’re there, then maybe it won’t be such a long road to get back if you are sent down next year. For him, my advice would be just learn as much as you can, so that the whole time you’re in the minors you’ll already know what it takes to be in the big leagues.”

On June 3, the Royals had a record of 13-36, far and away worst in baseball. The 2018 season was already a lost cause. And to make matters even worse, their farm system was considered to be one of the weakest in the game as well. The team was horrible, and there was little hope in sight.

But when the team stumbled out of the gate and quickly ruined the year, it allowed the team to focus on talent acquisition, and to leverage the few assets it possessed.

General Manager Dayton Moore’s handling of the roster the past two years has been roundly scrutinized. But this summer, he leaped at a chance to improve the pipeline considerably.

First, the Royals utilized compensation picks in the amateur draft, which kicked off on June 4, to quickly inject an infusion of new talent.

The Royals were already pinning their hopes on a collection of youngsters in A-ball – the Lexington and Wilmington clubs – considered the next “wave” of talent comparable to when Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Danny Duffy, Salvador Perez and Yordano Ventura matriculated up through the system. On June 4, they doubled down on that wave by drafting a passel of college pitchers.

The decision to put so many eggs in this one basket was questioned by some. But by doing so, they essentially doubled the size of the wave. The farm system lacked quality arms, and they Royals added several who could move up quickly, particularly Brady Singer, Jackson Kowar, Daniel Lynch and Kris Bubic.

Then Moore kicked into action a plan he’d initiated during the winter.

Rather than just hand over positions in the major leagues to unproven rookies, Moore had chosen to stock up on cheap veterans under one-year contracts, hoping to flip them like one would a fixer-upper. While it didn’t work with each of his projects, Moore was able to sign and flip Jon Jay and Mike Moustakas for pennies on the dollar.

The Royals paid Jay about $1.2 million for a couple months of work, then on June 6, acquired a high-ceiling 18-year-old project named Elvis Luciano, plus a minor league pitcher with some potential in Gabe Speier.

On July 27, just before the trade deadline, Moore sent Moustakas to the Milwaukee Brewers for top prospect Brett Phillips and pitcher Jorge Lopez, both of whom had seen some action in the majors. Thus the Royals invested a mere $3 million in salary to Moustakas to acquire a top outfield candidate and major-league caliber arm.

Between those deals, the Royals flipped reliever Kelvin Herrera, whose contract was about to expire, for two developing minor leaguers in Blake Perkins and Kelvin Gutierrez, plus another young project in 17-year-old pitcher Yohanse Morel.

Beating the bushes even further, Moore picked up a versatile and speedy switch hitter of waivers from the Cincinnati Reds in Rosell Herrera. Then he traded a low-level prospect for former first round draft pick Brian Goodwin. The two joined the Royals and immediately paid dividends.

And just like that, Moore had dramatically restocked the empty cupboard that was the Royals farm system, and added some new blood to the big league team to boot.

Of the Royals top 19 prospects rated by MLB.com, nine were not in the Royals’ system prior to June 4. The wave at the lower levels of the system that was started in 2017 gained strength with college pitchers and college outfielder Kyle Isbel. The mid-level minors was fortified with Perkins, Gutierrez and Speier. Furthermore, Kansas City took a flier on a couple of “lottery tickets” in Luciano and Morel.

Talent wasn’t just injected into the minors. Judging by the recent play of Phillips, Rosell Herrera and Goodwin, help is already arriving in Kansas City.

Next up, the Royals will try to get something – anything – for short-timers Jason Hammel and Lucas Duda via deals that are permitted past the trade deadline. Over the winter, they might listen to offers for their three most prized possessions – Salvador Perez, Danny Duffy and Whit Merrifield.

And then they will be in line for one of the top picks in next June’s draft, the reward for being awful in 2018.

The Royals will continue to be bad for the foreseeable future. But perhaps the worst has passed. The youth movement will at least be entertaining to watch.