KC Royalty

Hosmer, Hosmer he's our man

2008-06-05T14:22:00.002-05:00

Well the Royals ended all the speculation today selecting Eric Hosmer, a high school first baseman with the third pick in the 2008 Rule Four Draft. Hosmer is compared by many scouts to Casey Kotchman and is expected to rise quickly through the system once signed. 2011 might be about the time we should expect his debut. I'm not going to pretend to know a ton about him or any of the draft's other prospects, but this is definitely newsworthy and if I'm your source for Royals news, I want to be there. I'll post some scouting reports tonight or tomorrow to give you all an idea of his ability and ceiling.

I'm not a big fan of A.J. Pierzynski

2008-06-04T13:46:00.002-05:00

Did you guys notice AJ jawing at Zack last night after his first inning single. I have a message for you, AJ: Man up and deal with the fact that you were pitched inside. So many of these hitters have a sense of entitlement and when any ball comes near them, they run for their mommy and I'm just sick of it. I've never liked Pierzynski and last night pretty much clinched that staying the case. Of course, I'm not sure many people like him. I heard his mom once tried to trade him for Joe Nathan, Francisco Liriano and Boof Bonser. Unfortunately for her, nobody is dumb enough to make that trade. Oh, right.

Anyway, it'd be nice to see Pierzynski take a Hoch fastball off his ribs tonight. I can't wait to see the crying act he puts on after it happens either.

Welcome back Willie Mays Aikens

2008-06-04T10:09:00.002-05:00

A story in The Star this morning by great and getting better every single time writer Sam Mellinger tells that Willie Mays Aikens is finally going to get released from prison today. I won't repeat the story here, so here's a link. Just good to see a former Royal getting back on his feet, and I wish him the best of luck.

Lets take a look at the rest of the year...

2008-06-03T14:02:00.005-05:00

The Royals are on a Bob Davis winning streak of two in a row, so its time to get an optimistic vibe in here. They are sitting at 23-34 right now with 105 games left to play. I see 54-51 the rest of the way. How will they get there? Lets start off with my projections for the offense.

1. David DeJesus - 100 games, .301/.366/.421, 6HR 33RBI
2. Mark Grudzielanek - 51 games, .278/.322/.384, 2HR, 19RBI
3. Alex Gordon - 104 games, .319/.388/.544, 17HR, 72RBI
4. Jose Guillen - 98 games, .294/.352/.533, 18HR, 80RBI
5. Miguel Olivo - 81 games, .266/.314/.489, 11HR, 55RBI
6. Mark Teahen - 102 games, .301/.370/.443, 8HR, 49RBI
7. John Buck - 80 games, .243/.322/.415, 9HR, 37RBI
8. Joey Gathright - 64 games, .277/.341/.328, 0HR, 15RBI
9. TP - 18 games, .144/.147/.165, 0HR, 3RBI

Others:
Billy Butler - 80 games, .320/.390/.485, 11HR, 53RBI
Alberto Callaspo - 77 games, .284/.332/.414, 4HR, 31RBI
Ross Gload - 56 games, .266/.315/.406, 3HR, 23RBI
Esteban German - 43 games, .225/.340/.320, 1HR, 9RBI
Mike Aviles - 30 games, .298/.330/.436, 4HR, 15RBI
Random others - .210/.290/.350, 2HR, 18RBI

As you can see, I think Gordon will really bust out over the course of the rest of the season as will Butler upon his return to give the Royals a truly formidable middle of the lineup when coupled with Guillen and Olivo (a moderate dropoff still). I still like Mark Teahen and I hope he doesn't continue to prove me to be an idiot. I think he's the #2 hitter by August. I also think Grudz finally gets traded. Until that point, Callaspo is the starting shortstop - for better or for worse. When Grudz gets traded, Aviles plays short and Callaspo goes to second. The lineup I'd like to see at the end of the year:

1. DeJesus, CF
2. Teahen, RF
3. Butler, 1B
4. Gordon, 3B
5. Guillen, LF
6. Olivo, DH
7. Buck, C
8. Callaspo, 2B
9. Aviles, SS

It might be the two straight wins and an off day talking, but I really think the lineup will go as far as Butler and Gordon will take it, and I see them taking it a long way - to 4.8 runs per game. The season totals will still be pretty modest, but definitely not in the running for worst ever. Here we go on the pitchers:

Greinke - 21 starts, 11-4, 3.19 ERA, 134 IP, 122 H, 29 BB, 114 K
Meche - 20 starts, 7-7, 3.88 ERA, 124 IP, 128 H, 38 BB, 97 K
Bannister - 17 starts, 5-8, 4.31 ERA, 107 IP, 121 H, 20 BB, 66 K
Hochevar - 20 starts, 10-2, 3.11 ERA, 131 IP, 119 H, 47 BB, 126 K
Davies - 16 starts, 4-11, 5.54 ERA, 82 IP, 103 H, 37 BB, 56 K
Rosa - 11 starts, 6-3, 4.12 ERA, 68 IP, 55 H, 29 BB, 83 K

The starting staff, I think, will really step it up with Greinke, Hochevar and Meche leading the way. Rosa will come up when Banny makes a trip to the DL and misses a couple starts and then will be back when the Royals have finally seen enough of Davies. He'll show enough in this time to almost have locked up his spot on the 2009 staff. That staff of five should be very formidable in 2009.

Its tough to predict the pen, so I'll give you the highlights from the triple threat on the backside of the pen.

Soria - 38 games, 1-3, 2.13 ERA, 43 IP, 29 H, 7 BB, 50 K, 24 saves, 3 blown saves
Nunez - 41 games, 3-2, 3.19 ERA, 52 IP, 49 H, 18 BB, 46 K, 1 save
Ramirez - 35 games, 2-4, 3.44 ERA, 41 IP, 31 H, 14 BB, 53 K, 3 saves

That's what I have for you today. Days after off days are worse for bloggers than the actual off day.

Just our luck

2008-06-02T14:05:00.002-05:00

The Royals just finished a stretch of 20 games in 20 days. I'm not sure if you all had heard the news or not, but in the middle of that, they lost 12 in a row while trying to impersonate teams of Royals past. So the Royals finally get an off day. Cause for celebration, right? Of course, they get the off day when it looks like they might be starting to put things together again to make another run at respectability.

Its not all bad, though.

The Royals play the first place White Sox next. I know what you're thinking. But KCRoyalty, the White Sox are in first place and the Royals are in last place. How is that a good thing or at least a not bad thing? Well, Jimmy. I'm glad you asked and I'm glad I've named my readers a collective Jimmy. Playing the White Sox on Tuesday is a good thing for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that Zack Greinke is on the mound, which is almost always a pleasant experience for fans. The second is because of the lineup that Greinke may be facing. After their second consecutive walk off loss to the Rays, Ozzie Guillen called out his whole organization including the peanut vendor and proclaimed that if changes weren't made that a radical lineup would be in place for Tuesdays game. How can you be a manager of a first place team and call out your GM who should've fired your ass last year and the rest of your team? Ozzie Guillen is certifiably insane, I do believe.

Of course, the way things have been going the past couple of weeks, the Sox will line up with Buehrle in center, Danks at first, Vazquez at short and Contreras at third and still score 8 runs and win 8-2. I guess it'll be an interesting experiment. Anyway, I hate off days and I hoped to have my massive MLB post ready, but I forgot to email my work home and thus didn't get to work on it at all this weekend, so soon...hopefully.

My how things have changed

2008-06-01T12:10:00.003-05:00

As you should know by now, our fearless Royals won a game last night, 4-2 over the Cleveland Indians and big CC. A lot has changed since the last time the Royals won a game.

The #1 song was The Macarena

Gas was $0.93/gallon

Bill Clinton was president

Simon Cowell was a nobody

Ok, so maybe it wasn't quite that bad, but wow that was a long time. Yours truly lost faith a grand total of 23 times proclaiming the game over the second an opponent gained a one run lead. But the point is that its over. So what's next? Well, I guess we find out today. I could see this team going in one of two directions.

Either they could take off from here and go like 60-46 and still end up around .500 or last night could be a blip on the radar and they could continue to lose regularly throwing in sporadic wins. I'd love to give you the answer, but I have no idea at all. My guess is that they actually kind of go in between those two and go 55-51 the rest of the season. But that might also be to make sure my 77-85 prediction was correct.

A few notes:

Apparently Ken Rosenthal thinks Zack Greinke could be traded to restock the farm system. Personally, I think its a bad idea if he's willing to sign long term, but if he's not then you have to shop him now or at the very latest in the off-season. He'd be a very valuable commodity and could probably bring back one major league ready player and two or three top prospects. If the D'Backs hadn't already picked up Haren (a player I think is a great comp for Zack) then I'd say they should be all over it. We'll have to see how this one unfolds.
Gil Meche has quietly been extremely solid since starting out the year in Elarton fashion. In May, he had six starts and a 2-3 record with a 3.65 ERA. He struck out 31 in 37 innings and walked 10. Prorate that out to 33 starts and you've got 203.1 innings, 170K, 55BB, 176 hits, 3.65 ERA, 1.14 WHIP. Anybody order an ace?
DeJesus is hot again, but I'm not sure that I can forgive him for Friday night for awhile.
Gordon is continuing to hit in the .280s. He hasn't been hitting amazingly well for a week or so either. His next hot streak, assuming it comes soon, should put him in the .300 range. I think we're still a year away from seeing a superstar. I also think its time to give him an 8 year deal.
Butler had three hits last night. We'll see him again soon.
When's the last time the Royals had a player like Jose Guillen who just muscles the ball over the left fielder's head. He's impressive. Plus, he curses like a sailor.

Glad the streak is over, and I'm glad I'm back in business here with a plethora of posts the last few days.

Hot dog, we have a wiener!

2008-05-31T22:48:00.001-05:00

That's all for now. Post tomorrow. Winning streak of 1...

12 Days of Losing

2008-05-31T14:50:00.002-05:00

That's a lot of losing. Everyday for almost two weeks. It started with a no-hitter, then it included games the Royals had no business winnings, but these last few have been even harder to stomach. Lets review. I'll wait until you have a trashcan nearby to vomit into. Ready? Well, even so, lets get this show on the road.

Down 3-0 in the bottom of the ninth, Mark Teahen slices one into left field and baseball genius Delmon Young tries out for the U.S. swim team by belly flopping on the warning track. Teahen comes all the way around to tie the game. Yay! 3-3 and going into extras. Lose in 12th.

Up 8-3 in the top of the ninth with two outs and Ramon Ramirez on the mound, Ross Gload in right and Teahen playing first (huh? what? Did Hillman's brain break out in hives too?), the Twins start chipping away, so with the tying run at the plate, lets bring in a flyball pitcher! What do you think happened? Then, rather than going with someone else, he left him in to give up the game winner to Morneau in the 10th.

Bad loss. Just ugly.

Up 4-1, Gil Meche gives up his second homerun to Mickey Mant...err Grady Sizemore to make the score 4-3. Gil has now thrown 12849 pitches through 5 innings so Hillman intelligently pulls him, but also throws up the white flag with a lead by bringing in Brett Tomko. Shockingly, Tomko gives up a two run homer. Who saw that coming? But the gem was the baserunning error you've all heard about by now and I really don't want to cause nausea to anyone, so I won't go through it again.

How many games can this team lose? I think they can lose as many as they set their mind to. Its hard to be this bad, but you know what I think is even harder? Hitting less than .160 on May 31 with regular playing time. I'm dropping the J in TPJ from now on and going with an unoriginal nickname for him. Yes, I'm fed up.

Lets bring out the rational side of things...

It'll get better and I think it'll get better soon. Butler will heat up in AAA and come back drilling the hell out of the ball. Hopefully that will mean a lineup with Gordon, Guillen, Olivo and Butler all driving the ball which will equal some runs. The pitching staff is still solid, just has a few bad eggs. I will continue to stand by 77 wins. Right now it just seems like 21-141 is more likely. One win will turn things around for this team. They need some confidence somehow, anyway. We fans do too.

2009: A Royals Odyssey Part Deux

2008-05-30T13:48:00.003-05:00

I'm back and this time lets talk about the pitching side of the equation. Pitching is actually a strength of this team even though they're ranked 11th in the AL in ERA as we speak. That could actually be wrong as I'll admit I'm too lazy to even open up a new tab and look. Without further adieu...

Cut ties with:
Brett Tomko (free agent)
John Bale (free agent)
Joel Peralta (DFA)

And away we go...

One idea that I was reluctant to bring up in the previous post was about trading for an outfielder, like a Jason Bay or a Matt Holliday. In order to get one of these two guys, it would almost certainly take one of the starting pitchers, probably a Meche or even a, gasp, Greinke. I'm going to work off the assumption that Greinke, Meche, Bannister and Hochevar are all in the rotation at the start of the year next year.

That means that the need in the starting rotation is for that of a fifth member. Notice I said fifth member, not fifth starter. I really think this starter should be a lefty and should be able to slot nicely into the #2 spot behind Greinke and in front of Meche. Lets take a look at who the FA lefty starters are:

Tom Glavine
Mike Hampton
Randy Johnson
Jamie Moyer
Mark Mulder
Odalis Perez
Oliver Perez
Andy Pettitte
C.C. Sabathia
Randy Wolf

Our top four can be found explaining just what happened when the dinosaur came by their house on the history channel, so we'll knock them out. Mulder has an option and is really an unknown at this point, so we'll knock him out too. Odalis Perez doesn't need us to knock him out, its the opposing offense that does that. Pettitte wouldn't com here and Wolf doesn't really fit the need although I'd love to have him, so we'll leave him on the least, which is now made up of Oliver Perez, C.C. Sabathia and Randy Wolf...

Oliver Perez - 5 yrs./$65 million
Randy Wolf - 1 yr./$10 million
C.C. Sabathia - 6 yrs./$120 million

Randy Wolf is surprisingly my top choice of the three when looking at it financially and when comparing bang for buck, but I also tend to fear that he'd struggle in the American League. If the Royals could somehow trade Gil Meche and get back some cheap offense, thus negating the need for Burrell or Cabrera, then I'd jump on the CC bandwagon and offer him $10 million more than the closest competitor, but lets play with the assumption that doesn't happen. It looks like I'm going after Oliver Perez and plugging him into the second spot in my rotation. I'd be extremely curious to see what kind of work Bob McClure could do with him.

Greinke
Perez
Meche
Hochevar
Bannister

Looks pretty decent to me...

Bullpen time

Soria, Nunez, Ramirez, Mahay and Yabuta are locks. Before you laugh, Yabuta's been good ever since taking a line drive off the shin against the Angels in the game the Royals won in that series at the K. Gobble's a candidate to stay or go, I'd vote for him to stay, which leaves one long relief spot. I doubt its really worth bringing a long reliever in, so I'd stick Kyle Davies in that role and maybe he ends up thriving and becomes a great 8th inning guy who could take over when Soria transitions to a starting role or maybe he sucks so bad the Hoover is embarrassed, but either way its time to see with him. I think we'll have a better idea of Davies in about two months now that he's up and starting.

Its that time, payroll!

Greinke - $5M (long term deal estimate)
Perez - $11M (bonuses and backloaded deal)
Meche - $11M
Hochevar - $500K
Bannister -$600K
Total: $28.1M

Soria - $1M
Nunez - $500K
Ramirez - $500K
Mahay - $4M
Yabuta - $3M
Gobble - $1.5M
Davies - $500K
Total: $11M

Pitching staff total: $39.1M, which brings the team total to about $90 million. That's a significant increase in payroll, but that team looks to be significantly better than the 2008 version has been, especially recently. I'll keep tabs on these posts and see how far off I was when the winter rolls around.

Interesting Draft Talk

2008-05-30T13:44:00.002-05:00

One thing I forgot to mention in my draft post is for a truly interesting 34 page and growing conversation about the draft, go to Royals Corner. A lot of knowledge over there.

2009: A Royals Odyssey

2008-05-30T10:04:00.006-05:00

I feel like I owe everybody a few posts this weekend to make up for the terrible lack of content that you wonderful patrons are paying $57.23 a week for. This is free? Well crap. Oh well, I guess I'll indulge you anyway. I still think the Royals will finish with 77 wins this year. As I've said before, I'll stand by that until I see loss 86. At this rate, it'll be around early August. But since the Royals are no longer in the race and are firmly entrenched in last place, here's what I'd like to see happen with this team as they transform into contenders. David Glass, if you're reading this, I'm spending your money and I'm spending it wisely, so step off.

Cut ties with:
Tony Pena, Jr. - release
Mark Grudzielanek - free agent
Ross Gload - trade (value depends entirely on if he improves)

That's the start.

In the free agent market, the Royals need to be looking for two bats. I'd prefer big power bats, but a shortstop is a key need as well. Mike Moustakas is not going to be a shortstop in the majors and even if they do draft Tim Beckham, he won't be ready soon enough to be influencing major league decisions. Anyway, in order to get those two bats, the Royals are left with two choices: free agent or trade because nobody in the farm system can help (unless you now count Butler as part of the farm system -- that's another post for this afternoon, though).

So who's available? The three biggest power bats on the market will be Adam Dunn, Mark Teixeira and Pat Burrell. All three can play first base. Two of them can play left field, although some people may offer dissenting opinions about that.

Here's what I think they will cost for the Royals:
Adam Dunn - 5 yrs./$85 million
Mark Teixeira - 6 yrs./$126 million
Pat Burrell - 3 yrs./$50 million

Well, clearly two of them are not an option. But based on what was offered to Torii Hunter this offseason, one certainly is. For the price and length, I'd almost certainly go with Pat Burrell on this one. Of course, I may be wrong and he may be out for a 7 year mega-deal, but that's what I see right now and who's the expert here anyway? Other cheaper options include: Frank Thomas, Carlos Delgado, Jeff Kent, Joe Crede and Juan Rivera. Of those, I'd give Rivera a 1 year deal because I assume that's all he'd take.

Ok, so lets say the Royals settled on Burrell and Rivera. What does our lineup look like now?

C Buck/Olivo
1B Butler/Burrell
2B Callaspo
SS
3B Gordon
LF Guillen/Burrell
CF DeJesus
RF Rivera/Teahen platoon?
DH Butler/Burrell/Guillen

Ok, so now there's a hole at shortstop left to fill...

Let's go to the big board!
Orlando Cabrera
Rafael Furcal
Christian Guzman
Juan Uribe

Lets go ahead and scratch out Guzman and Uribe right now because I said so. We're left with Cabrera and Furcal. DM knows Furcal well, but he'll be expensive. DM may or may not know Cabrera, but he's slick defensively and he's pretty decent with the bat.

Cabrera - 3 yrs./$21 million
Furcal - 4 yrs./$60 million

For those dollar amounts, it seems like Cabrera would be the runaway winner here, so lets go ahead and plug him in and make a lineup.

1. DeJesus
2. Cabrera
3. Gordon
4. Burrell
5. Guillen
6. Butler
7. Rivera/Teahen
8. Buck/Olivo
9. Callaspo

Now that's better than this 2008 team, no? Lets see how the salaries add up to see if it works (I'll go ahead and estimate arb totals).

1. 3.6M
2. 7M
3. 1M (long term deal starts)
4. 16.6M
5. 12M
6. 500K
7. 4M total
8. 5M Total
9. 400K
Total: 50.1M

I'll tackle pitching in my next post. I mean, I won't actually tackle them, although I do want to some time. I don't know, we'll see.

Don't forget your free week at The Royal Tower!

The Draft (after some rambling)

2008-05-30T09:42:00.004-05:00

Its been a long time again, and yes, I'm still working on that long post. I got busy at work, then I got busy wanting to break my television and/or tear up my whole season ticket package. 11 in a row is REALLY ugly. 11 in a row this way is even uglier. Let's break it down:

No-hitter
Dominated by a rookie
Dominated by a fat veteran
Dominated by DiceK, ripped up the bullpen, still lost by 3
Greinke hit hard for first time
Three non-descript losses to Jays
Looked dead, brought back to life, dead again
Ripped your heart out
Back to getting dominated by a nobody

Its been terrible, folks, but I don't have to tell you that. I'm not going to bore you with analysis of the last few games, but what I am going to do is talk, for the very first time about the draft.

The Royals have the third pick in the draft, and it appears that no matter what, a marquee talent will be available. This year's draft is one of the deepest in recent memory. It appears to me that the top players in the draft are:

1. Tim Beckham
2. Pedro Alvarez
3. Buster Posey
4. Eric Hosmer
5. Justin Smoak

The Royals should have their pick of at least three of them, if not more if the Pirates decide to go cheap. My personal favorite of that group is Pedro Alvarez who I believe will not only be a plus plus hitter, but one who will contribute next season (provided he plays this year at all). I think the best course of action with him would be to draft him, sign him and buy him a first baseman's mitt from the start. All reports indicate that his defense at third is pretty decent, but not on the level of Alex Gordon and do you want to move Gordon anyway? I think that's probably not the best idea.

You'll notice a theme here in a minute. My choice 2 and 2A is Eric Hosmer and Justin Smoak. If you ask me tomorrow, those names might be reversed. They're both first baseman. Hosmer is a lefty with a sweet, sweet stroke, but he's 18 and there's an inherent risk with high school players. Smoak is a switch hitter with tons of power and a college pedigree. Both are believed to play excellent defense (although that doesn't matter all that much), and both are expected to be big time big league contributors. Smoak has been compared to Mark Teixeira before, and that's a comp that I could be on board with from my limited exposure to him. I've never seen Hosmer, so I'm just going off scouting reports here, but he has a higher upside than Smoak, but is a little riskier play. The comparison you hear often regarding Hosmer is Casey Kotchman but more advanced with more power. Either way I don't think the Royals can go wrong there.

Hosmer and Alvarez are both Boras clients, and I'm not sure who represents Smoak because if you're not Scott Boras, you typically aren't really known until after the draft. An interesting subplot surrounding Hosmer is that his good friend and teammate Adrian Nieto is looked at as a possible sandwich pick. Nieto is a switch hitting catcher with oogles of power. Yes, oogles. If the Royals take both Hosmer and Nieto, it might make signing both a less difficult task. However, I have a difficult time justifying taking a high school catcher who is not considered a sure thing (whatever that may be).

Those are my thoughts on the first round of the draft, but for much, much, much better coverage of all the Royals youngsters and a little draft talk, visit royaltower.blogspot.com. Tell Keith I sent you. He'll give you a free week on the site.

Its been too long

2008-05-21T15:22:00.002-05:00

I've missed you. I think we've been apart for too long. What's that? Who was that other blog? Oh, nobody, just a friend. I was just reading it, I promise. Can you ever forgive me? Cool. Then lets get down to business.

Good weekend in Florida. I liked the bats, especially Jose Guillen's, really coming alive. Bannister struggled a little bit on Saturday, but I think Hillman left him out there too long. Yes, hindsight is 20/20, but I was upset with the move before Banny even threw one pitch in the 7th. That's ok, though. Good teams win two out of three on the road and the Royals were playing like a very good team and even got themselves just one game under .500 for their best record at this point in the year since that magical season, 2003.

No no no says Jon Lester. We all know it. I'll say it once. We got no hit. Lester was dominant and a dominant start plus an anemic offense equals Monday. It was bad, but it was very cool to watch. Congrats to Lester.

Pitching a Masterson-piece. Shut down again by a young pitcher was pretty disappointing, but not as disappointing as the 8th against Okajima. Masterson was good, not great. His command was spotty, but his stuff was excellent. The Royals, aside from Alex Gordon, just couldn't do anything against him, and that's why they only scored one run in 6.1 innings against him. The 8th was where the Royals really lost the game. Runner on 3rd, one out and nobody can get him home. Good ABs by Gordon and Teahen to work walks, but Butler was blown away by Papelbon. Meche, on the other hand, was absolutly fantastic last night with the exception of one hiccup in the 2nd which cost the team the game. I'll take his line from last night every single game he pitches and be satisfied with the result most of the time.

I'm working on a hopefully debate-heavy piece that is about all of MLB. I'm not sure when it'll be ready, but it'll be a large, large document. You'll enjoy it. I promise. Have I lied to you before? Don't answer that.

Milestones approaching

2008-05-14T11:59:00.002-05:00

its not a long list, but a few players are approaching some milestones, so lets go over them here and an ETA for them.

Plus, its nice to track career stats no matter how minor...

Mark Grudzielanek, 2000 hits - Currently sitting at 1949, ETA: July 24 vs. TB Rays
Jose Guillen, 200 homeruns - Currently sitting at 169, ETA: May 21, 2009 vs. TBA
Mark Teahen, 100 doubles - Currently sitting at 87, ETA: July 30 at Oakland A's
John Buck, 100 doubles - Currently sitting at 74, ETA: April 22, 2009 vs. TBA
Miguel Olivo, 100 doubles - Currently sitting at 93, ETA: June 29 vs. STL Cardinals
Gil Meche, 1000 strikeouts - Currently sitting at 760, ETA: August 26, 2009 vs. TBA
Brett Tomko, 100 wins - Currently sitting at 94, ETA: August 23 vs. Detroit Tigers

I told you, its not much, but there's some moderate excitement around a few of these...I guess. Oh I forgot one.

Joey Gathright, 2 homeruns - Currently sitting at 1, ETA: August 13, 2017 vs. TBA

Now's the time

2008-05-13T12:18:00.002-05:00

With guys heating up on the Royals and a struggling Detroit pitching staff coming to town followed by a not-so-good Marlins staff, its time to find out exactly how good the Royals offense can be. Unfortunately 4.5 runs per game may be the peak, but many of the key guys are hot right now.

1. DeJesus has been hot and stayed consistent since coming back from his injury.
2. Grudz has been Grudz all year; steady, consistent, solid but not great
3. Gordon looks like he's really driving the ball again with two homers in the Orioles series. Hopefully he can provide the punch the Royals lineup needs.
4. Guillen has eight hits in his last four games since taking a day off and working on some things with Mike Barnett. Maybe that wasn't just an excuse.
5. Teahen shouldn't bat here and maybe won't, but for the sake of this, he is. He's not doing great, but he's at least getting the occasional line drive.
6. Butler would've had a game tying homerun on Saturday if not for the ridiculous winds and had a ringing double on Sunday, so it looks like he's getting going again and actually driving the ball.
7. Gload sucks as a starter.
8. Buck has a great approach at the plate and is actually really hot right now. Would we be all that upset with a .250/.350/.425 catcher? I think not.
9. Pena

Others:
- Olivo continues to slug lefties pretty well and will see action as DH against them (Robertson and Rogers in the Tigers series)
- Callaspo is going through a bit of a slump, but that's still better than TPJ.
- German actually picked up his 2nd hit of the year, but he's still really struggling for playing time.
- Gathright is fast.

Nothing groundbreaking, but the Royals offense seems to be clicking a bit, now lets hope they can mix together well to score some runs this week.

That's more like it!

2008-05-08T08:38:00.002-05:00

I'm a generally optimistic person, so when I get down on the Royals its because things are going bad. The last few days have just been the same story over and over again. Well, last night, the Royals showed why people keep getting so frustrated with them. When they have a game like yesterday, popping two homeruns and four doubles. See guys, when you drive the ball, you score runs a lot easier than having to string together singles.

Last night's line: .389/.436/.667.

Captain Obvious moment: Its all about getting on base and driving the ball. I'd be happer than a pig in, well, you get the idea, if the Royals would be able to sustain their offensive attack. The encouraging thing about the last three outbursts (all nine runs, still haven't cracked double digits yet) is that they aren't fluky bloop single outbursts. The Royals have a team have some power potential and maybe, just maybe, they'll start tapping into that soon. A few notes:

Greinke looked fantastic last night. After struggling fairly mightily in the first, he located everything well and was just extremely sharp. I'm waiting for a bad outing, but we've seen about 21% of his starts and he's been consistently great. Lets hope the other 79% are of the same quality and Zack can take home some hardware at the end of the year.
Did anybody who was at or saw the game think Yabuta looked significantly sharper after getting rocked in the leg? The movement on his pitches seemed to increase and he seemed to be able to control himself a little better. Granted it was just two batters, but he looked awful on the first three or four guys he faced and then he mowed down the last two. If he can become effective at this point, the Royals probably have the deepest bullpen in baseball. Maybe not the best, but the deepest.
Speaking of the bullpen, Peralta had one of the cleanest innings you'll see. Three outs, six pitches. Its always encouraging when a good team looks like the Royals.
This maybe should have been my first point, but is Jose Guillen fixed? We've seen him big games already this year only to fall back and give us an 0-10 stretch, but this game is coming off the heels of a day when Hillman mentioned they had figured out what was wrong with him and worked on it. If they figured out what was wrong with Guillen, then this offense improves by half a run per game easily. That's getting closer to that 4.5 per number we've talked about so many times before.
Looks like Gordon and Butler are waking up a little bit. The last two nights, Gordon has just scalded the ball culminating last night with this blast into the bullpen and Butler's been driving the ball with some serious authority. I maintain that Butler will be more of a doubles hitter, at least early, but I still 20 homers from him this year and 25 from Mr. Gordon.
Has anybody noticed how hot John Buck has been lately? He had two hits last night, raising his average to .253 with a .340 OBP and in his last eight games is hitting .346/.414/.577. I don't expect him to keep it up, but if he can go .250/.340/.425 this year, then he moves into the upper eschelon of catchers. Olivo's putting up the flashy numbers right now, but Buck is the far steadier and better of the two.
I think it might be time to give Teahen a couple of days off. He looks like he's pressing out there. The Royals need to try one more time to find the 2006 Mark Teahen because what he is doing right now is not really helping the team. I thought he'd break out this year and be a fantastic #3 or #5 hitter, but so far he's disappointed me greatly. There's still time, but maybe he needs the Guillen treatment to get going.
All in all, great win last night, now lets hope the struggling Orioles stay the struggling Orioles.

Last night and trades

2008-05-07T10:00:00.003-05:00

Not much to say about last night's loss except for that an early season Banny performance would have brought home the win. Anderson 5, Royals 3. The offense had problems again, but this time they had problems continuing their hot hitting, scoring three by the time the fourth rolled around and then falling back into their coma. Garrett Anderson upped his season total of RBI's to 18 and 10 of those have been against the Royals. Awesome.

---------------------------------

What I really want to talk about is trades and trade possibilities. A lot of people have been clamoring for the Royals to bring in a big bat through a trade. I think people see the AL Central as wide open right now and that its possible to make a move because the first time, the Royals have a legitimate strength: pitching. Throw in a league average offense and the Royals are probably a couple games up in the Central and possibly on the verge of pulling away. So the question is how many bats away are the Royals from being a 1st place team (at least in this version of the AL Central)?

My guess is they are two big, legitimate 30 homerun bats away. They're sitting at about 3.5 runs per game now, so I'd say they need to get to 4.5 to make their pitching staff worth while, meaning they need to add two guys who create 81 runs per year more than the person they replace.

Anyway, the point of all this is that is difficult to trade for these kinds of players anyway, but especially difficult considering the state of the Royals talent in the organization.

There are three categories of tradeable players. Highly sought after, moderately sought after and throw-ins. Obviously, its not so cut and dry, but for the sake of this it is. Here's the Royals list of those players that other organizations would want.

Highly sought after:
Greinke
Soria
Hochevar
Cortes
Rosa
Butler
Gordon
Meche possibly
Moustakas
Berroa (I keed, I keed)

Moderately sought after:
Bannister
Meche possibly
Davies (everyone thinks they can fix pitchers)
Pimentel
Ramirez
Nunez
Mahay
Callaspo
DeJesus
Teahen
Gathright
Guillen
Blake Wood
Joseph Dickerson
Edward Cegerra
Daniel Gutierrez

Throw-ins:
Everyone else

Its tough to trade for top end talent when you don't have top end talent to trade. The Royals have a few pieces and will probably be pretty good and pretty soon, but they can't go trading off their few marketable players in order to get a quick fix in 2008. Two more drafts and hopefully the high end talent will be flowing in the mid-upper minors and the Royals can pull off a deal for a guy like Miguel Cabrera.

One last note: I have a new favorite trade target that might not take as much as it should to get. Matt LaPorta with the Brew Crew. He's blocked at every single position and might be available for a reliever. Mahay and Nunez for LaPorta? I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Disgusting

2008-05-06T09:01:00.002-05:00

I was at the game last night and it was just about the most disgusting thing I've seen. Of course, I continue to say that as the season wears on, but it just keeps getting worse and worse for the boys in blue. Brett Tomko threw 7 shutout innings. You throw 7 shutout innings, you should get a win. Hell, even Gil Meche got a win with that line. But of course, the Royals got shut down again, managing just one runner in scoring position all game long. It was a pathetic showing that can only be characterized as pitiful. Well, I guess it can be characterized by a number of different things including disgusting, pathetic and pitiful.

The biggest culprit from tonight's game was, of course, Jose Guillen, striking out three times including in the bottom of the ninth to end the game. I've never been one to boo. Sure, I'll occasionally dislike a call and I'll boo the ump, but for the most part I stay pretty quiet. I've booed only a few people religiously: Albie Lopez, Angel Berroa, Buddy Bell and now...Jose Guillen. There is just nothing there when he goes to bat. I sure hope he gets hot because at some point, the Royals have to look at him for what he is this season and not what he has done in the past. Right now, he's a .160 hitter and .160 hitters don't hit everyday in the #4 spot. The problem then becomes that there is nobody in the entire lineup that is qualified to be a cleanup hitter.

Here's why the Royals are having problems:

1. Hot
2. Warm
3. Slump
4. Slump
5. Chilled
6. Slump
7. Never good
8. Usual performance, not good
9. Awful, terrible, gross, pathetic, disgusting, pitiful (hey, there's those words again!)

That's the Royals lineup right now. The top 2 hitters are doing everything they can to lead a winning and effective offense, but the last 7 are doing everything in their power to make sure they score about 1.8 runs per game. My best guess is that isn't their goal, but if it is, then at least they can say they have been wildly exceeding their expectations. Its time for a change. Its time for a big change. I'm prepared to wait until the end of this homestand because Dayton Moore has always said that he likes to wait until 40 games into a season to make evaluations, but I'd prefer to not wait. What is he going to find out in the next 9 games that he doesn't already know now? If he's hoping that Tony Pena will go 20-36 in his next 9 games, then he's crazy and is doing a terrible job. If he's sticking by his laurels, then I can respect that even if I disagree with it although being stubborn is not a good way to run a professional baseball team. Still, he knows more than I (I hope), so I'll defer to him on this 40 game stuff.

Anyway, Mike Barnett needs to be fired. The Royals have not had a league average offense since he was brought on and I was flabbergasted when I found out he'd be part of Trey Hillman's staff. Potentially great hitters have become good hitters or worse, good hitters have become poor-fair hitters, average hitters have become bad and bad hitters have become anemic. I understand that the hitting coach isn't the be all, end all, but somebody has to take the fall for the disaster that is the Royals offense. They've scored 107 runs in 31 games this season. That is under 3.5 runs per game. That number might have won a lot of baseball games in 1968, but in 2008, you've gotta be at 5 or more to have a fighting chance. The Royals have to average 5.3 runs per game just to get to 800 runs, which I outlined before the season is probably a good number for this team. Boy was I wrong.

Other suggestions:
I'm not one for lineup shaking, but it might be necessary here:
1. Callaspo, SS
2. Teahen, RF
3. DeJesus, CF
4. Gordon, 3B
5. Butler, DH
6. Grudzielanek, 2B
7. Gload, 1B
8. Guillen, LF
9. Buck, C

I know, it seems like that's a combination of drastic and not drastic enough, which is extremely tough to pull off, but, hey, I'm just that kind of guy.

Anyway, its reached a point where something has to be done. I'd be willing to try everything. Maybe the best solution for the offense for awhile is to trade a couple prospects for Adam Dunn and lock him up to a long term deal (4-5 years) and plug him into that 4 hole while moving Teahen to first. How would this look?

1. DeJesus, CF
2. Callaspo, SS
3. Gordon, 3B
4. Dunn, LF
5. Butler, DH
6. Teahen, 1B
7. Guillen, RF
8. Grudzielanek, 2B
9. Buck, C

The question is what would I trade for Adam Dunn? Well, I'd say that Rosa is off limits and so is Cortes, but the Reds are always in the market for pitching, so I'd start with an offer of three players: Julio Pimental, Kyle Davies and Chris Lubanski. While that probably wouldn't get it done, I think it'd be a good starting point. Maybe if they throw in Todd Frazier (SS prospect who I personally think can stick there with a good bat), I'd add in another player.

The point is that this is a team in need of a short term fix and a long term fix, and might be pitching rich very soon, so now's the time to use that surplus before it gets exposed. Let me know what you all think and how you plan to fix the Royals.

Links - The Monday Edition

2008-05-05T11:18:00.003-05:00

I've been out of town for the past few days, so I don't have any brilliant insights to add to this weekend other than its nice to get a sweep even in a two game series. 14-16 through 30 games? A little disappointing considering the 9-6 start, but if I was told in March that the offense would average under four a game and be 14-16 through 30 games, I'd have jumped for joy. Time to get the bats rolling, boys.

Gil Meche had his first truly good start of the year and picked up a win. Hopefully that gets him going for the rest of the year. This story also comes equipped with the standard Star pixelated photo, so its a two-fer.
Rany gives his State of the Royals address for May/looking back on April.
Sam Mellinger takes a look at John Bale and his fight with the door.
The Royal Tower checks in with the top 10 prospects in the organization and sees how their status has changed in the season's first month.

Apparently its a slow day everywhere. If I run across more, I'll send 'em your way.

You guys chime in

2008-05-05T01:06:00.002-05:00

Judging by the comments, either nobody's reading or you're looking for something more out of this blog. Let me know what all of you would like to see incorporated into the site. Go ahead and leave it in the comments and I'll probably try to work in just about anything and everything you suggest. Its all about the readers!

Its Greinke Time

2008-05-01T15:48:00.001-05:00

Its not often that I get to post about two different games on the same day from work, but this is one of those days, so lets take advantage of it!

There's really not much to say about today's game. Zack Greinke made two mistakes and was otherwise dominant. he struck out 9 in 7 innings, quieting his critics that said his K rate was too low. The top two hitters in the order simply did him in getting three of the four hits he allowed including both homeruns, which from the sounds of it were wall grazers.

My beef is once again with the offense. Sidney Ponson was on the mound. He should have been done by the third inning, but instead he went eight and was damn good in those eight innings. Its embarassing. I might have a little more on this game tomorrow, but that's all I have for you right now. Greinke's 3-1 and he should be 4-0, such is life.

Earth, wind and fire...but mostly just wind

2008-05-01T09:23:00.003-05:00

I think most can agree that last night's game was a strange aberration brought on by 30 mph wind gusts out to left center in a stadium where the ball carries ridiculously well anyway. That said, Bannister started off as not the best pitcher to put in a situation like that and add to that he didn't have his best stuff and what you get is the disaster that was his pitching line last night. I'm not even going to go any farther into the pitching. It was bad. It was windy. We'll get over it.

There were some positives to take from the game, though. The Royals matched their season high in runs from Tuesday night by banging out nine and their runs were slightly less wind aided than the Rangers, if that's any saving grace. David DeJesus and John Buck each hit a homerun giving the Royals three in two games, which qualifies as something of a major miracle. Remember yesterday's batting line? It wasn't quite as good last night, but it was still pretty impressive: .293/.341/.488. See? You put up lines like that and you score runs.

I'd like to point out an interesting line from today's KC Star. Bob Dutton wrote about the Royals revolving #3 spot and how Teahen and Gordon have both struggled there while hitting well elsewhere in the lineup. This line made me laugh and maybe it was only me but he said, "One cue, Gordon batted seventh and went two for five." See that's funny to me because it was the exact same two for five that Gordon hit on Tuesday...from the #3 spot. Good times. Bob Dutton's a really good writer and covers the Royals well, so I'll give him a bit of a pass here and continue to enjoy his coverage.

My two complaints for the evening lie with Trey Hillman. He's a young manager, so maybe he's growing but it seems to me that the Royals had their best offensive output of the season on Tuesday night, so it makes very little sense to shuffle the lineup on Wednesday. It makes less sense when you see how he stood by his lineup through the rough stretch of games over the last two or three weeks. Yes, it worked, but its kind of like in poker how you have to just know that you made the right play even if it doesn't work and how you feel a little sheepish when you make a bad play and it does work. I understand wanting to shuffle the lineup, but it clearly worked the other way on Tuesday, so why potentially break the momentum. My other complaint is probably pretty common among Royals fans. Down two in the top of the ninth with one out and Tony Pena is due up, I'd assume that Alberto Callaspo is going to get a chance to hit. Dude's only got a .351/.415/.432 line this season and seems like he hits the ball squarely every single time. But no, Pena hit and made an out, followed by out machine Joey Gathright not being pinch hit for by Miguel Olivo (Gload could have played left with DeJesus shifting to center if the game had progressed past the top half of the inning). When you're down by two in the top of the ninth, there's no reason to save your bench. Its time to fire your bullets at the point. Anyway, venting is now over.

Today could be another big offensive day for the Royals as Sir Sidney Ponson takes the mound for his second start with the Rangers against Zack Greinke. Hopefully Zack gets a ton of grounders and doesn't let Texas have their way with him. 1:05 central time start today for those who forgot.

Good to win, still need to get better

2008-04-30T09:04:00.003-05:00

It was good to see the guys put some runs on the board, pick up some extra base hits finally, and draw a bunch of walks. Maybe this'll help them see the correlation between getting on base, driving the ball and scoring runs. I counted six walks and six extra base hits in this one. For the night, the Royals batted .333/.417/.548. I know, I know, its just one game, but isn't that nice to see for once?

The bullpen was once again fantastic going 5.2 innings and giving up no runs. Soria was uncharacteristically wobbly in the ninth, giving up his first walk of the year after Grudzielanek made an uncharacteristic error to open the inning. Even when off, Soria's stuff is just absolutely wicked. I just hope its not a close game tonight because Soria is probably due for today off after throwing nearly 30 pitches in his one inning last night. The problem was that the bullpen had to be fantastic because of Brett Tomko's latest implosion. Staked to a 5-0 lead, Tomko labored through 3.1 innings, giving up 5 earned before yielding to Mahay who pretty much saved the day for the Royals by going 2.1 scoreless innings. The Tomko experiment might be coming to an end soon when John Bale comes off the disabled list. I just question who goes down among probably Hochevar, Peralta and Yabuta. My pick from that group is Yabuta, not because I don't like him but it seems like he needs to get some stuff worked out.

Lets talk a little offense now. First the good. Jose Guillen's five RBI were nice to see and increased his season total by 50% from the start of the game to now. That homerun was a massive moonshot, and it looks like he might be starting to emerge from his slumber. That's a big boost to the offense. Mark Teahen picked up three RBI himself with a couple of hits including a triple. Who could forget Mark Grudzielanek's night at the plate? Four hits and three doubles from the man coming off the back injury. George Brett used to do that, too. He'd go on the DL or sit out five or six games and then come back for a week and just be scorching hot. A bat like that will be valuable out of the two hole for the next few games.

Now the bad. Alex Gordon had two hits but struck out three times and looked worse each time. He's going to be a very good player and may already be there, but the difference between very good and great/superstar is him laying off that slider in the dirt. If he can take that, he'll go from a .290/25/100 guy to a .320/35/125 guy. Billy Butler's slump is beginning to concern me a little bit as everything he hits is on the ground now unless its a lazy fly ball. I know he's a great hitter and right now he's more of a doubles guy than a homerun hitter, but all those ground balls should be coming off Gathright's bat. Butler needs to be driving the ball and right now he's just not. Sitting him for a couple of games might be a nice idea to give him a little time to clear his head. If Guillen's actually got it going, it'd probably be safe to lose the offense Butler does provide. The worst part of the lineup was Olivo and Pena, two OBP sinkholes with matching 0-5's.

All in all, its nice to get a win, but teams constantly need to improve and the Royals are no different. Let's hope Bannister has another nice outing tonight and gets some run support and brings home a winner to close out April on a high note.

Off Day Thoughts

2008-04-28T09:30:00.002-05:00

I'm back from a weekend off and ready to go! Just a few random thoughts to get your weeks started and to also let you know to check out kansascityfantasy.com where yours truly is becoming a regular contributor. I wrote today about Luke Hochevar and his fantasy value for 2008 and beyond.

Sticking with the Hochevar topic, didn't have great stuff on Saturday but gutted through it and ended up with a nice, clean line and more importantly, a W.
The Royals offense, however, was still anemic, scoring 12 runs in the series despite an 8 run outburst on Friday.
Friday was fun, though. When the Jays scored three in the top of the eighth, I was pretty sure the game was over, but then the boys surprised me by scoring their highest inning output with a six run eighth. The next big inning should come sometime toward the end of May or early June, so stay tuned!
Gil Meche looked terrible again yesterday, but somehow made it into the 7th (first time, not good) and only gave up 3 runs. He took the loss and fell to 1-4 and I'm not sure the end is in sight for Gil. His stuff and command seems to deteriorate every time out. It might be time for a strained forearm.
Alberto Callaspo has to start. He just keeps on hitting and he is one of just a handful of players on the team with a plan at the plate. Once Grudzielanek gets back, Callaspo has to play SS everyday despite Pena's great plays this week (he had some boneheaded errors too).
The shine is off the Royals defense as errors have been committed left and right, but I'm the most worried about Alex Gordon. Same play three days this week and its resulted in a ground ball hitting off his glove and deflecting high in the air and landing in short left field every single time. Its gotta stop or Teahen at third and Gordon at first might not be so laughable.
Greinke was again fantastic, but was a tough luck loser on Friday night. He doesn't seem to be slowing down at all, though, and I'm pretty excited for what this year may bring for him. Hopefully with this offense, he can crack 10 wins.
As for the offense, I am still of the mind that it will improve. Guillen has to get better. Pena's production has to be replaced by a much better hitter. Gordon and Butler won't slump forever. Teahen will have his usual .290. This team won't suck this bad all year. I still say 77 wins is where they'll end up.

2008-04-24T08:58:00.003-05:00

While Chase Utley hit his 10th homerun last night, leaving the Royals behind him as an individual and the rain came and kept on coming, I was thinking about this inept offense and what had to be done to fix it and what we can expect for the rest of the season. I think this offense cannot be repaired in season so long as the Royals don't even show a tiny bit of interest in Thomas and/or Bonds.

This Royals offense should improve as the season goes on. There are some indescribably bad numbers coming from the lineup. The two biggest black holes in the lineup right now are Jose Guillen and Tony Pena, Jr. Even if you think Mark Teahen is a worthless sack of...hey look at the sun...he is not the problem.

Let's take a look at what we can expect from Guillen and Pena based on their career month by month splits.

Guillen:
Always a slow starter, but never this slow, Guillen tends to heat up as the calendar turns to May. His career line is still not awe inspring, but it is .294/.333/.483. I think from this point on, you can expect to see something like .290/.345/.480 the rest of the way. Remember, he has shown some signs of heating up by stroking a bunch of doubles on that last road trip and hitting his first homerun. If he does that, he'll end up with a line of about .273/.330/.455. While that is not world beating and certainly not worth $12 million, its at leat an improvement and makes the offense considerably better.

Pena:
Pena I'm more concerned with. He's never been a good hitter and had an extremely fluky average this year. The production from the shortstop has to get better and there are two ways that it could. Pena won't hit in the low .100s all year long...I don't think. He will get better. He'll probably triple his production as he heats up. Remember, this is a guy who had three months last year with a better than .750 OPS. He does have the ability to get hot and let his singles do the talking. So that's a solution, but the other solution is to play Alberto Callaspo at shortstop everyday and let his bat do the talking. I think Callaspo is a .320/.360/.400 hitter right now with the potential to get better. Would you all take a .760 OPS from your shortstop? I think so.

Those two things alone should score about .8 runs per game more for the Royals. It doesn't seem like much, but its an extra 114 runs over the course of the season. The other obvious problems for the Royals are the lack of power and the lack of patience, but once the team starts hitting (if the team starts hitting?), pitchers won't be able to go after them quite as easily and the walks should start to reappear.

That's for this year, but then what of next year? Funny you should ask because I have a plan. You'll have to check back later today or tomorrow to find it though...

I'm starting to get on board

2008-04-23T15:29:00.003-05:00

MLB Trade Rumors started it, and now I'm starting to like the idea more and more, although I'm not sure its possible. Its time to sign Barry Bonds and Frank Thomas. I like the idea for reasons beyond helping a struggling offense, but those two will serve that purpose as well.

You give Bonds a 1 year, $5 million deal (obviously prorated) but put clauses in there that allow the Royals to cut bait at any time if legal troubles arise. He's obviously not allowed to bring his lounge chair with him or any of his other crap that has alienated clubhouses in the past. Also, give him a clause that requires him to meet with the press every so often.

Thomas is a little different story because he's earning $9 million this year whether he's signed or not. That's why you pump the pot a little with him and offer him more than other teams are. Give him 1 year, $2.5 million (go as high as say $5 million) and let him mash. He'll get hot just like he always does.

Signing these two players may put the Royals in a bit of a roster crunch, but I'd argue its for the best. So here's what I'd do.

Finally trade German. Call the Dodgers back, call anyone. Right now, he's of no use on the roster and is probably not a future contributor to the Royals. I say that not because I don't like him but based on the way he's been handled this year.
DFA Tony Pena. I think you all know how I feel about him.
Mark Teahen goes into a super utility role where he still plays probably 5 days a week.
Ross Gload becomes the odd man out and is used as he was intended as a bat off the bench that can play first base and the outfield.
Teahen will play because Bonds will need many days off. He'll probably play only 4 out of every 7 days. He could also replace Thomas in the lineup as DH against tough right handers.
Billy Butler plays every day at first base.
Alberto Callaspo becomes the everyday shortstop.

Here's my new lineup:

DeJesus, CF
Gordon, 3B
Butler, 1B
Bonds, LF
Thomas, DH
Guillen, RF
Grudzielanek, 2B
Buck, C
Callaspo, SS

I've mentioned this before that I really like Gordon out of the 2 hole where I think he'll excel. But here's the beauty of my plan...

Let's say the Royals do this and Bonds and Thomas combine to hit 40 homeruns between May 1 and July 31. If the Royals are in contention, they keep them and ride their bats the rest of the year. If the Royals are out of contention, they trade off two big bats who could have theoretically done some to bolster their reputation and can provide a huge upgrade for a contender's offense.

Let's say the Royals do this and Bonds and Thomas are terrible and show their age. Drop them like a bad habit. Give them some time, see if it works, if it doesn't, you're no worse for the wear.

I'm not one to advocate drastic changes after just 20 games, but its clear that this is a stagnant offense and the future doesn't look a whole heck of a lot brighter for the rest of this season. I'm sure Teahen won't slump like this all year and Butler and Gordon will eventually hit some longballs and Guillen will eventually get back to his usual self, but that still probably isn't going to score enough runs. The absolute worst case scenario of signing both these guys is they sulk around the clubhouse for a couple of months before Dayton Moore sends them packing. The big argument against Bonds and Thomas is that their attitudes suck and they rub off on their team, but something tells me that if they help to win baseball games, then these guys won't really care how sultry they are. And if they don't help, they're out the door anyway. This is drastic and very unlike me, so if you disagree, take me to the cleaners and let me know why. I think this is a solution that might just work.

Uh...what just happened?

2008-04-23T10:57:00.003-05:00

This time last week, the Royals were coming off a game in which Hideo Nomo was inserted into a tie ballgame in the early innings and went on to surprise everybody by letting the game get out of hand. The Royals fell to 8-6, but all was still right in Royal-land. They'd rebound the next day. And they sort of did, beating the Angels behind a decent outing by Gil Meche. They haven't won sense and Gil Meche turned in quite the stinker last night. He was the key culprit, but he certainly wasn't the only one who wouldn't have earned a Burger King salary last night, let alone a Major League salary.

The one time strength of this team, the pitching, is now gone. They gave up 15 runs to a team that couldn't score at all the last week coming on the heels of allowing 26 runs in a three game series to a team who people were saying might have had a worse offense than the Royals. I'm not sure that anybody's questioning who's the worst now! We all keep saying that it has to get better and that the bats will come around as it gets warmer, but we're 1/8 of the way through the season now and while 9-11 is pretty respectable, it looks like this might be the last time we're this close to .500. Now, not only are the bats ice cold, but the pitching is reminiscent of 2006.

I was at the game last night and it was terrible. I don't leave early from games and I did stay through this one, but I almost left. I almost got up and left. When I got home, I had serious thoughts of just putting my season tickets on ebay and washing my hands of this season, which I know is just ridiculous.

There is some good news, though. Every team goes through slumps. Every team loses badly at some point or another. Usually 15-1 is about as bad as it can get, but I've seen worse and I'm sure I'll see worse again. Good teams lose these games, bad teams lose these games. The big difference is that good teams bounce back from their five game losing streaks and win 10 out of 13 or something like that to get back on track. I still think the Royals are a 77 win team and I'll stick by that until the day they lose their 86th game (if they lose their 86th game). I just hope they don't make me look stupid for that prediction.

Next Up: Cleveland Indians

2008-04-22T11:01:00.002-05:00

Record: 7-12, 4th place, AL Central

The Cleveland Indians come to Kansas City thanking the Detroit Tigers for making sure they are not the most disappointing team in baseball. After leading all of baseball with 96 wins in 2007, the Indians have won just 7 times in their first 19 games. The biggest culprit has been C.C. Sabathia (0-3, 13.50 ERA). He has been awful, giving up 9 runs in each of his last two starts. Almost as bad as Sabathia has been the Indians offense which ranks near the bottom in every single category. The Indians are clearly better than this, and could break out at any time.

Lineup:
Eric Wedge has messed with his lineup enough to make Bob Boone proud, so I'm going to take my best guess at what we might see, but this, more than others, is a rough idea.
1. Grady Sizemore
2. David Delluci
3. Travis Hafner
4. Victor Martinez
5. Jhonny Peralta
6. Ryan Garko
7. Franklin Gutierrez
8. Azdrubal Cabrera
9. Casey Blake

Injuries:
"Closer" Joe Borowski is on the 15 Day DL with a triceps injury. The Indians would be better off if they stashed him on the DL for awhile. Travis Hafner has been battling a sore shoulder, but should play today and for the series.

Probable Pitchers:
Game 1: C.C. Sabathia v. Gil Meche
Game 2: Fausto Carmona v. Brett Tomko
Game 3: Cliff Lee v. Brian Bannister

Who's Hot?

Victor Martinez is hitting .360 in his first 50 at bats, but without much power.
Cliff Lee has been incredible this year. He's 3-0 with a 0.40 ERA and a 20:2 K:BB ratio. He's given up just 8 hits in 22.2 innings so far this season.
Fausto Carmona may appear on both these lists. He's been good with a 1.96 ERA and just 17 hits allowed in 23 innings, but we'll get to the bad in a minute.
Jake Westbrook has built on his great spring to start the year a 2.73 ERA in 29.2 innings with just 5 walks allowed in that time.

Who's Not?

Pretty much the entire offense aside from Martinez, Garko, and maybe Sizemore. They're hitting just .235 as a team yet somehow have a higher OBP than the Royals.
Fausto Carmona has some sparkling and some not so sparkling numbers like his 10:18 K:BB ratio this year giving him 35 base runners allowed in 23 innings. I'd bet a significant sum of money that his ERA will not stay even below 4 with that kind of ratio. Either he'll improve upon that or he'll be labeled a one-year wonder.
We mentioned Sabathia before, but its hard to describe just how bad he's been. 18 innings, 32 hits, 27 earned runs, 5 homeruns, 14 walks and 14 strikeouts. It all adds up to terrible work for the Indians ace and soon to be free agent.

What To Expect
My best guess is that the Indians start playing like they're capable real soon, but I have an inkling that it won't be this series. I think the Royals probably got chewed out pretty good sometime in the last 48 hours and are angry about it. It looks like Guillen's starting to come around a little bit and his emergence will make everyone in the lineup better. I think Sabathia will be better tonight, but still not his usual self and the Royals will be the first to put a crooked number on Cliff Lee. My hope is that the pitching returns to pre-Oakland form and puts up a 5 or 6 runs allowed series.

Predictions:
Game 1: Royals 7, Indians 2
Game 2: Indians 4, Royals 3
Game 3: Royals 11, Indians 1

Due up next: Toronto for 3

If the playoffs started today...

2008-04-21T11:00:00.003-05:00

I'm going to steal a page from Joe Posnanski's book and take a look at the current playoff picture. I know, I know, its early. Its also an off-day and I don't particularly feel like writing about the Royals and continuing my disapointment from this weekend's lopsided tangle with the A's. There I go. See what it does to me?

Anyway...

The Division Winners
AL Central: Chicago White Sox
AL East: Boston Red Sox
AL West: Los Angeles Angels
AL Wild Card: Oakland Athletics

NL Central: Chicago Cubs
NL East: Florida Marlins
NL West: Arizona Diamondbacks
NL Wild Card: St. Louis Cardinals

AL Playoffs
ALDS: Chicago v. Oakland, Boston v. Los Angeles
NLDS: Arizona v. St. Louis, Chicago v. Florida

Ok, so now the question becomes: Which of these teams (if any) have staying power?

Well, the White Sox just might. Their run differential is already a very high 32 meaning that though they are playing at an over .600 clip, they are underperforming their pythagorean record by a full game. I personally think the Indians end up taking the division, but the White Sox are not a fourth place team like I thought early in the year. Their pitching has surprised me and their offense has been much better balanced than last year.

We know the Red Sox and Angels are good. Its a little surprising that the Angels have been this good so far considering all their injuries, but that's how good teams work.

The Athletics are another story. They were expected to be at best a .500 team after trading off Dan Haren and Nick Swisher, but it seems that Billy Beane has accumulated talent while keeping the big league club fairly strong. They're playing right along with their pythag, so I'd argue that right now they're for real, but I imagine they'll soon fall off the pace and finish with between 77 and 83 wins.

We knew the Cubs and Diamondbacks would be good. Maybe we didn't think the Diamondbacks would be this good, but that offense is really clicking right now and everybody knows about the pitching.

The Marlins are not long for first place, at least not in a division with the Phillies, Mets and Braves. Especially because they've actually been outscored this year. They have the potential to have a pretty prolific offense, but that pitching is about a year away from making any kind of impact. Anybody want to merge the Royals and Marlins and see what we've got?

The Cardinals have been really good this year with a patchwork rotation and a patchwork offense. They're legit so far, but it won't last. If they finish with more than 75 wins, I'll be surprised and not in a good way at all. Any team running Todd Wellemeyer out there every fifth day will struggle eventually.

So who isn't in the picture that should be or will be?

The Yankees are sitting at .500, but we know they'll be there in the end. They always are. They may miss the playoffs one of these years and this may even be it, but they'll still be at or above 90 wins when its all said and done.

In the Central, the division is upside down. The Tigers have been terrible with just spurts of offense and no pitching to speak of. They will get better, but I think they were overrated from the start. Expect 84 wins, be surprised by 94. The Indians, though, don't seem to be playing as terribly and have been plagued by a bad closer who is now on the DL. They'll get it going soon and end up in the low to mid 90s for wins. Hopefully they wait until at least Friday to get it going though.

I never expected the Mariners to be good, so .500 is about right for them.

I mentioned the Mets, Phillies and Braves in the NL East. They can all hit and they will all win. Expect 3 teams above 85 wins.

The Dodgers have been bad, but will bounce back to win about 85 games. Disappointing sure, but its better than 7-11 for them.

Thoughts and...stuff

2008-04-18T13:18:00.002-05:00

The Royals are 9-7 on the young season and have alternated looking playoff good and somewhere below mediocre. My biggest concern about the team is the boneheaded mistakes on the bases. Things like trying to steal third with your best hitter at the plate and getting thrown out on the bases in ridiculous situations are things that playoff teams do not do. Assuming the playoffs and World Series are an ultimate goal, this obviously has to get better. I think it will, but its definitely got me concerned for the time being. I hope when Guillen heats up and the Royals start getting some more extra base hits, they'll stop trying to make so much happen on the bases. I think this lineup has a chance to be a tick above average. When you pair that with a pitching staff that's a few ticks above average, you start to have something there. Now we just need to make it happen. A few notes:

Gordon looks better at the plate every single day. I think he gets it now and we're about to see him truly explode. His at bats are getting better and in turn, he's not striking out as much. Its fun to watch him develop.
Billy Butler makes as much solid contact as I've seen on the Royals in awhile. I think he's a better pure hitter than pre-injury Mike Sweeney.
More and more, I'm seeing the 2006 Mark Teahen. That double he embedded in the center field wall on Wednesday was just a rocket. I think when the weather warms up, he'll get his long balls.
Bannister and Greinke. Good.
Meche was better, but still not great his last time out. Once he gets right, the league better watch out for the Royals. A top 3 like this one should take care of a lot of those series losses from the past few seasons.
I think Guillen is starting to heat up. His last few nights he's been hitting the ball hard and driving it. He's always been a streaky hitter, so lets hope he rides a hot streak for awhile.
Why isn't DeJesus on the DL? He's played 2.5 games and sat out 12 more full games. While this is going on, the Royals are playing with a 24 man roster, which is a clear disadvantage. Put him on the DL, let him heal and bring him back healthy. I don't want to play this game all year.
Tony Pena, Jr. is doing better, but it'd be hard not to. His approach quite frankly sucks. The time has come to find a replacement. This team will not contend with TPJ in the lineup every day.
Ramirez, Nunez, Soria. Filthy.

A's Preview coming up soon...

Link Time

2008-04-18T08:55:00.002-05:00

Its gonna be a multiple post kind of day, so to get you started, here's your good friend, links...

Rany writes a letter to Trey Hillman about his decision to hit Olivo for Gathright in the 9th last night and about some baserunning issues. My memo to Trey: don't shave the goatee...grit exudes from it.
This is a couple days old, but the boys and Royals Authority also take a look into the reckless running of the Royals.
Posnanski projects baseball using statistics and records prorated to a full season's worth. Even when he's doing stuff thats just ridiculous he's a brillian writer.
An interesting argument is going on around a couple Royals message boards about whether Dayton Moore or Allard Baird is really the true architect of this 2008 edition Royals team. Put me on record as believing Dayton Moore is responsible for this team and that remains true if they go into a tailspin and are 22-35 at some point.
Sam Mellinger gives us the view from the other side with Joe Stiglich of the Contra Costa Times.
In his notebook, Bob Dutton tells us that it looks like the Royals will turn to Luke Hochevar to take John Bale's spot in the rotation.
Not Royals news, but the Rockies beat the Padres in 22 innings last night. That's insanity!

Hope you enjoy...back in a bit with some thoughts on the young season followed by a look at the A's.

Next Up: Los Angels Angels of Anaheim

2008-04-16T12:06:00.002-05:00

Record: 9-6, tied for 1st place

The Royals head to Anaheim on the heels of their worst defeat of the season and worst pitching performance of the season. The Angels were the preseason favorite to win the West even with missing aces John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar. Lackey should return in the next few weeks, but there's talk of Escobar's career being over. The Angels still have formidable pitching with Jered Weaver, Jon Garland, Ervin Santana, Joe Saunders and Dustin Moseley.

Lineup:
1. Chone Figgins
2. Gary Matthews, Jr.
3. Vladimir Guerrero
4. Garret Anderson
5. Torii Hunter
6. Casey Kotchman
7. Macier Izturis (normally Howie Kendrick, but he's hurt...again)
8. Mike Napoli
9 Erick Aybar

Injuries:
Howie Kendrick is day-to-day with a strained hamstring. He might be available for pinch hitting, but he's a big loss for the Angels as he's hitting .500 on the young season. Francisco Rodriguez was a little dinged up, but he's back pitching regularly although without the command we're used to.

Probable Pitchers:
Game 1: Jered Weaver v. Gil Meche
Game 2: Jon Garland v. Brett Tomko

Who's Hot?
We're finally getting to the point of the season where there's a bit of a sample size behind these numbers, which is always a good thing.

Chone Figgins is hitting a cool .393/.507/.429. he's walked 13 times already and stolen 7 bases, which is more than Mr. Gathright. He's struck out a fair amount, but if you can get on base half the time, certain things can be easily overlooked.
Casey Kotchman isn't too far behind Figgins, hitting .352/.397/.630 with four homers and ten runs batted in. He plays great first base defense as well.
Joe Saunders has been outstanding in his first three starts, posting a 1.27 ERA in 21.1 innings for 2-0 record.

Who's Not?

Garret Anderson has started off slowly this season with a .234/.269/.422 line in 64 at bats. Track record would indicate he'll turn it around, but he is on the declining side of his career.
Maicier Izturis is having a dickens of a time getting any hits with a .128/.171/.128 line in his first 39 at bats.
Frankie Rodriguez has had some early season struggled while battling an injury and has posted a 5.68 ERA and has walked 5 in just 6.1 innings.

What to Expect
The Angels are a team who had very few weaknesses coming into the season but have been exposed a little bit by injuries early on. They've persevered so far with a 9-6 record, and are a good bet to continue. Their lineup is much improved from last season with the addition of Torii Hunter and the continuing development of Casey Kotchman and Howie Kendrick. The weather will almost certainly be the warmest the Royals have played in this season, so look for the bats to continue to heat up a little bit. Hopefully the pitching stays dominant, yesterday not withstanding.

Predictions:
Game 1: Royals 6, Angels 2
Game 2: Angels 5, Royals 1

Due up next: Oakland for three

Royals 5, Mariners1

2008-04-15T09:54:00.003-05:00

I'm terrible, I know. I didn't get you your team preview and in a 2 game series, it seems silly to get it to you but I promise that my Angels preview will be up in the morning.

On to last night...

Another excellent game turned in by the Royals. I'll get right to my points.

The Pitching...Can't talk about this game without doting all over Zack Greinke. He was so good in his first two starts that he pitched a complete game and allowed one earned run and his ERA went up by 25%. 3-0 with a 0.75 ERA through three starts. He and Bannister have just been truly incredible. The only time he looked a little shaky was in the eighth inning but then Teahen bailed him out and he looked as good in the ninth as he did in the first. It was just a fantastic start for Planet Greinke.
The Defense...It was one again outstanding. Mark Grudzielanek with ten assists. Billy Butler played really well at first. On those two consecutive throws to second that could have started double plays, I was impressed at how spot on he was with throwing to the right field side to lead Pena into his throw to first. He looked good and even fairly smooth out there. Obviously the Teahen catch has to be mentioned here. I don't think he robbed a homerun, but he might have. It was at least going to be a double.
The Offense...Billy Butler extended his hitting streak to 13 games and the way he's hitting, he could get to 162. He's just putting great swings on the ball and we all knew a homerun was coming from him sooner or later. He just missed one too many times early to continue to not hit the ball out. Guillen followed Butler's homer with a ringing double and then got another hit later in the game. Maybe he's starting to break out. Olivo's homerun seemed to put the nail in the coffin which is amazing because it was just the 2nd inning. He went on to collect two more hits and looks like an excellent option against lefties. Oh yeah, Tony Pena, Jr. collected two hits last night tripling his previous total.
The Rest...John Buck calls a great game and should start to be lauded for that soon. Bob McClure has to get a ton of the credit too. I'm all for a huge contract for the pitching genius that sits next to Trey Hillman. Zack Greinke was all smiles after the game, and is there anything better than a Greinke interview?

Hopefully we'll be recapping another win tomorrow morning. Remember, 5:30 central time game tonight.

Let's Compare: Minnesota Twins

2008-04-14T09:31:00.003-05:00

Well, after a 7-5 start, Royals fans should be downright giddy. Unfortunately they are not because that start includes a 2-4 record against the division rival Twins. So do the Twins actually have an edge over the Royals or has it been luck? My first reaction is that the two teams are actually pretty evenly matched, so its been largely a product of luck. Gil Meche has pitched against the Twins twice and been pretty terrible both times while Brett Tomko has pitched against the Twins twice and has been pretty good both times.

C Joe Mauer v. John Buck
There's no question Mauer is better, but its not as huge a discrepancy as most would automatically assume. Mauer can hit for average, but has very little power while Buck can't hit for average but has some impressive power (when he makes contact). Buck's defense is better and he's more durable than Mauer, but if you find me someone who'll talk Buck over him then I have some land to sell.
Advantage: Twins

1B Justin Morneau v. Ross Gload
It still pains me to write that Gload is the everyday first baseman, but he hasn't been too bad so far in 2008. Morneau is still the better bet, but he's definitely living on his 2006 season so far. A .900+ OPS sandwiched by two .830ish years indicates a player who had a career year and is a nice piece with some power. Still, that nice piece is head and shoulders better than Ross Gload.
Advantage: Twins

2B Brendan Harris v. Mark Grudzielanek
I think most Royals fans would take Grudzielanek over Harris, but I'm not sure if I'm in that camp. I think Harris will put up a similar average to Grudz but has better range at this point in their careers. Overall, though, its pretty close.
Advantage: Push

3B Mike Lamb v. Alex Gordon
This competition last year would have been a push, but with the way Gordon has been playing, there is no question in my mind that he is the much better player here. He hits for average and power and may even be kicking that nasty strikeout habit he picked up last year. Mike Lamb is a Twins type of player, but you're going to be lucky to see .270 and 20 homers from him. I actually think that's the floor for Gordon this year.
Advantage: Royals

SS Adam Everett v. Tony Pena, Jr.
I think Everett will eventually take the time away from Matt Tolbert when he comes back to earth, so for the basis of this comparison, he's the Twins shortstop. Adam Everett is all field, no hit. Tony Pena is all field, no hit. At this point, I think they're about equals in the field although Everett at his best was almost comparable to Ozzie.
Advantage: Push

LF Delmon Young v. Mark Teahen
I'll probably get crucified as a homer for saying this, but Delmon Young now is not better than Mark Teahen. If I had to pick a player for the next five years, there would be no discussion, but right now Delmon Young is an undisciplined hitter who plays mediocre defense and doesn't hit for much power. Mark Teahen is a disciplined hitter who plays pretty good defense and hits for roughly the same power, although it should be noted that in an off year for him, he still slugged roughly the same as "slugger" Delmon Young. Maybe the reason Tampa Bay traded him is because they thought he might not reach his potential in addition to his attitude.
Advantage: Royals

CF Carlos Gomez v. David DeJesus
David DeJesus is incredibly steady and you can expect .290/.360/.440 from him. Carlos Gomez would be lucky to even come close to approaching those numbers this year. He does, however, make up some of that value in speed and stolen bases, but not enough to overtake DeJesus...yet.
Advantage: Royals

RF Michael Cuddyer v. Jose Guillen
First two weeks not withstanding, these two players are very, very similar. They are both 20-25 homerun guys who you can expect to hit anywhere between .275 and .295 and drive in between 90 and 100 runs. They also both play pretty good defense and both have great arms.
Advantage: Push

DH Jason Kubel v. Billy Butler
This one to me is no contest and that's even taking into account that Jason Kubel is pretty good. Billy Butler has terrorized American League pitchers so far this season and if not for some wind, Comerica National Park and a massive baggy in Minnesota, he'd have the same 3 homeruns that Kubel does. Butler is probably one of the top 5 young hitters in baseball.
Advantage: Royals

Offensively the Royals should have the advantage. Maybe when the weather heats up, the Royals bats will too. I'll do the pitching tomorrow so you guys don't get too bombarded with posts today as I'll be previewing the Mariners series later today.

TGILoF: Thank Goodness its Links on Friday

2008-04-11T09:34:00.003-05:00

Its been awhile since I diverted you all away from my site (always a strong marketing plan...) so I have some links for your enjoyment.

Driveline Mechanics.com provided a great look at Zack Greinke's mechanics on RoyalsReview.com.
JoePo graced us with his latest Banny log after Bannister's home opening performance.
Craig Brown at Royals Authority explains why Tony Pena must go and has an old-time picture of the K.
Keith at the Royal Tower has a Joakim Soria crystal ball. I'm not sure that I totally agree with the progression he maps out, but its still an interesting read regardless. It would have been nice if he would have had a strange facial hair category.
Sam Mellinger looks for nicknames for Royals players in his BallStar blog.

I'm sure there are more out there and if I see them throughout the day, I'll add 'em to the post.

The View From Up Here is Just Mesmerizing

2008-04-10T09:05:00.002-05:00

Well the Royals hold sole possession of first place on April 10. This is sadly the latest they've been in first place since 2003, so lets take a look at why this start could be for real and why it could be a fluke.

Since I'm a sunny side up sort of guy, I'll start with why its for real, and yes, I'm going to my new favorite format...bullet points.

The pitching has been absolutely remarkable. The starting pitching has gone 50 innings in the first 8 games, which is an average of about 6.1 per game and has compiled a 2.88 ERA in that time period. They've also only walked 17 batters in that time frame. The strikeouts are a little low at 30, but they're still at roughly a 2:1 K:BB ratio. They've been very good so far. The staff's been led by Brian Bannister and Zack Greinke putting up a ton of zeroes, which is always nice to see. But, what's been better than the starting pitching?
The bullpen! 22 innings pitched, 2 runs, 28 strikeouts, 4 walks. Yeah, I just typed 4 walks in 22 innings and it was not a typo. Their ERA? Try 0.82. That's filthy and its all being led by Joakim Soria who has been just absolutely dominant. Throw in Nunez and Ramirez getting key outs late in games and veterans chipping in and it looks like the bullpen should once again be a strength of this Royals team.
The pitching, which has in the past been prone to giving up the long ball has not been this year, allowing only five. That's an average of .63 homeruns per nine innings where they were at about 1.1 last season.
The defense has been spectacular. While errors are not a great metric to use, the Royals have committed just one through the season's first 8 games. That would come out to about 20 for the year, which would easily be a Major League record. More than just not making errors, the Royals haven't really made the boneheaded plays in the field that we've seen the past few years.
Four players have a batting average above .300 thus far. Remember, this is the optimistic side. I understand that batting average isn't a barometer to judge a team on, but its nice to not be too embarassed when looking at the lineup. Oh, just graze over Tony Pena when you're perusing the stats. Better yet, five starters have an OPS+ above 100 and I don't think we can expect Jose Guillen's to stay at 4 for the entire season.
For a more statstical look, the Royals have a Batting Average on Balls In Play (BABIP) of .313 for the season, which is just slightly higher than what league average tends to be, so a regression seems a little unlikely.

And now for the why this fast start may not last and the Royals will be under .500 by May 1:

The offense has been just good enough to win so far, but they have been doing next to nothing all season long, averging just four runs per game. A .319 OBP is not going to get the job and a .381 SLG will not either. If the offense doesn't warm up with the weather, then we might be in for a lot of long nights at the ballpark.
Remember those five regulars with OPS+ of 100 or better? Well, that means four are below it, which normally wouldn't be too terrible except that one is at -67. No, I didn't actually hit a dash key. Tony Pena, Jr. is 167% worse than league average offensively. Joey Gathright is sitting at 38, Jose Guillen at 4 and John Buck at a much more respectable 80. Obviously these numbers should rise, but right now its a real concern.
The pitching can't keep up this pace. Its not 1968. As the weather heats up, so will opposing offenses. I think this pitching staff is the best we've had in KC since the mid-90s, but to expect a low 2's ERA is preposterous for the entire season. Expect a correction in a big way. Even if the Royals continue to have an elite pitching staff this season, the ERA will probably settle into the mid 3's. I think that's actually a definite possibilty, but the offense has to improve at the same rate as the pitching declines in order to not notice a change.
The baserunnings has been attrocious from a few players. I don't really have much to say, but running into outs is never a good idea for a team a little starved for offense.

I'd like everyone to keep in mind that I was being especially negative in the last set of bullet points. Its actually kind of hard to find bad stuff about the team. Sure, the offense has struggled, but so has offense league wide and on the bright side, the pitching has capitalized on opposing offense's struggles. As I mentioned above, the bullpen has a chance to continue to be dominant. I doubt they'll end the year with an ERA under 1, but an ERA around 3 actually seems attainable for them based on their early performances.

I'm highly encouraged by Alex Gordon, Billy Butler and Mark Teahen. Those three are the only Royals that have been doing anything extra base hit-wise. 21 extra base hits for the team and 13 from the three of them. If the Royals want to have any chance of contending this season, those three have to carry the offense. Once Jose Guillen gets going, and it looks like he's starting to heat up, that's four players the offense can count on to get a big hit. Add in Ross Gload and what will end up as probably a very superficial .300 average along with the same from Mark Grudzielanek and the offense may be able to actually produce a little bit in the future. With the pitching this team has, a little offense has and will go away a long way. Lets hope for a sweep of the Yankees tonight!

My Home Opening Experience - The Game

2008-04-09T15:34:00.003-05:00

The game yesterday was really a great way to start the home schedule. It would have been nice if we could have added about 30° to the temperature, but I guess you have to pick your battles.

My first inclination that this game might be a long one was when Bannister walked Damon to start the game, a very un-Banny like occurrence. He settled down and got out of the inning with only twelve pitches after inducing an inning ending double play off the bat of Bobby Abreu. The Royals scored one in the first to take the lead before the Yankees scored two in the top of the second and forced Bannister to throw 42 pitches. Luckily, the Royals battled Phil Hughes well and ended up knocking him out after just 3+IP. All in all, a great game and a 5-2 win to give the Royals a 5-2 record on the young season.

A few notes:

Tony Pena, Jr. drew a walk! Yes, that had to be the first thing I said because its such an incredible happening. I felt like I was at a historic event.
Alex Gordon continued his hot hitting with another two hit game giving him six in the three games he's been in the #6 spot in the lineup. Maybe Hillman had a pretty good idea with that one. I really think Gordon is a week or two away from going on an absolute tear and putting up like a 14-20 line over a four or five game period.
Billy Butler just hits. And hits. And hits. The man-child is simply amazing.
Back to the walks, five walks for the Royals in this one represented a 62.5% increase from their previous total. They basically out-Yankeed the Yankees yesterday.
Bannister, while not as efficient as you'd like to see, battled to allow just two runs in five innings before handing it over to...
The bullpen. Incredible again. ERA under 1 for the season so far. It doesn't seem like they're doing it with smoke and mirrors either. They're throwing strikes and striking people out, which is a welcome sight in Kansas City.
The boys try to make it three in a row tonight and will send out Greinke against Ian Kennedy in a game that has a threat of rain. As I'm writing this post, I'm looking out the window and seeing dreary skies, so hopefully the rain holds off long enough for the Royals to improve to 6-2.

My Home Opening Experience - Renovations

2008-04-09T15:26:00.003-05:00

Have you ever been sitting around thinking, 'golly gee, I could really go for a 100 ft. high definition television right now to watch this ballgame'? Well, I know that I have, and luckily we fine folks in Kansas City can get just that. The renovations have been advertised for over a year now and many of us have been watching the stadium slowly round into shape to actually host a baseball game. Before I give praise, I'd like to point out that the stadium is a huge mess. It will be a huge mess all season long, but after yesterday I have renewed optimism that not building a new stadium was the right plan.

Upon entering the parking gates, you can catch a glimpse of the new scoreboard and from the point of entrance to the time you walk out of the stadium, its hard to take your eyes off of it. Its mesmerizing. So big, so colorful. My first thought when really examining it was that it was going to take some time to get used to and it really did. Many times I found myself looking for a statistic in a familiar place only to find it somewhere else. Of course, due to the sheer magnitude of this great beast, I'd miss a pitch here and there while looking for the information I wanted.

Everything that was done to make the scoreboard look great was done exceptionally well, which is not something that can always be said of the Royals, so I was very happy to see it look so good. The playing field itself also looked great with the new bullpens and the left field auxillary scoreboard. If you want to continue to be impressed, don't look beyond the bullpens or past the outfield 'cause its a huge mess. Also, parking wasn't nearly as bad as people made it out to be, so I hope you all can get out to see a game this year and then hopefully be there for the unveiling of the all new K in 2009.

Next Up: The Filthy Yankees

2008-04-08T09:29:00.004-05:00

Record: 4-3, 3rd place, 1.5 GB

The first team the Royals will face at home this season is none other than the New York Yankees. $1.4 billion spent since 2001 and zero world titles. They're still very, very good and now they're starting to accumulate young talent. I'm looking forward to actually being able to go to a couple of games, provided the weather holds. Let's dive right in.

Lineup:

1. Johnny Damon

2. Derek Jeter (more on him in a minute)

3. Bobby Abreu

4. Alex Rodriguez

5. Jason Giambi

6. Robinson Cano

7. Jorge Posada

8. Hideki Matsui

9. Melky Cabrera

Injuries:

A new feature this series as we actually have an opponent's injury to report.

SS Derek Jeter is day-to-day with a strained calf he suffered yesterday in the Yanks' finale against the Rays. When he does not play, he'll be replaced by Wilson Betemit who could really hit anywhere in this lineup. 1B/DH Jason Giambi has been sidelined for the past few days. If he does not play today, Morgan Ensberg will likely take his place and hit in the lower part of the order.

Probable Pitchers:

Game 1: Phil Hughes vs. Brian Bannister

Game 2: Ian Kennedy vs. Zack Greinke

Game 3: Andy Pettite vs. John Bale

Who's Hot?

Bobby Abreu has started the season off with a bang hitting .400/.464/.640 in the season's first week.
Hideki Matsui has hit .375/.375/.667 with two homeruns and six ribbies. He has a Royal-esque zero walks thus far, but he's still hitting quite well to start things off.
Alex Rodriguez is not hitting nearly as well as he did in the early going last season, but he's still got a .320/.370/.560 line so far and he's still Alex Rodriguez.
The Royals are thankfully missing Chien-Ming Wang who has a 1.38 ERA through two starts this year.
Mariano Rivera and Joba Chamberlain have been devastating thus far with 7 combined innings, 8 k's and no runs allowed.

Who's Not?

Robinson Cano is off to another slow start this season with a .185/.185/.222 line so far.
Jorge Posada has only played in four games, but he's only hit to a tune of .143/.200/.143 in those games.
Johnny Damon has been terrible in the leadoff spot so far, posting a .185/.241/.296 line. Unfortunately, nobody can quite match TPJ's line for the Royals at this point.
Ian Kennedy was roughed up in his first start going 2.1 innings and giving up six earned runs while walking four and striking out two.
Latroy Hawkins has been brutal out of then so far with three innings pitched and seven earned runs allowed.

What to Expect
I think many people are still waiting for the other shoe to drop for Brian Bannister even after his tremendous outing against the Tigers on Wednesday. I don't expect it to happen today considering the conditions, although the Yankees are the type of team that could give Bannister fits in the future. I look for a low scoring game unless the weather takes a dramatic turn and gametime temperature is 70° with abundant sunshine. Tomorrow's dual should be a good one, but I think the Royals break out of their offensive slump and knock Kennedy out before the fifth and Greinke goes seven strong again to pick up his second win. The finale pits the Royals against a long-time nemesis, Andy Pettite, and I think Pettite gets the best of the Royals again as John Bale again proves that he'll be a perfectly adequate fourth starter.

Predictions:
Game 1: Royals 3, Yankees 2
Game 2: Royals 8, Yankees 3
Game 3: Yankees 6, Royals 1

Due Up Next: Minnesota for three

Comin' Home a Winner

2008-04-07T10:57:00.002-05:00

Anybody who said they expected a 4-2 road trip to start the season is either a terrible liar or one heck of an optimist. Either way, that's what happened. I'm pretty sure that if I had told you before the season started that the Royals would be 4-2 when they head home, not a single person would predict that it happened the way it did with a sweep of the now 0-6 Tigers and losing the series to the Twinkies.

Some notes:

Alex Gordon started off the year hitting third and hit two monstrous homeruns. Then he was dropped to the sixth spot for the last two games and has four hits. Overall, the kid's got six ribbies in six games, so I'm pretty pleased with his work thus far in the batter's box. Lets hope he keeps it up and gets back into that three hole. I think the offense should be at its best with him third and Teahen sixth.
Billy Butler is absolutely disgusting. He could easily have a couple of homers, but instead finished the season's first week with three doubles and a .400 (10 for 25) batting average. He hasn't drawn a walk yet, which is a team-wide concern, but as long as he hits like this, he could go the whole year without drawing one and I wouldn't be too upset.
Mark Teahen has looked pretty good so far this year with a few extra base hits and looks to be playing some nice defense out in left field. Its great to flank the center fielder with two cannons like Teahen and Guillen have.
Speaking of Guillen, he's struggled early and it now makes me wonder if giving him all that time at the beginning of the spring was a good idea. It probably wouldn't be an issue if he didn't get the flu that everybody else had, but I think that's as good an argument as any why he should've been playing from the start. His timing just looks off.
Tony Pena looks lost. Last year, he wasn't good, but he at least looked like he had some semblance of a plan, albeit a bad one. Now, he's just flailing away at a Berroa-esque pace. Good defense though.
Gil Meche is looking eerily similar to the 2006 Gil Meche and not the 2007 version. Its only two starts, so I'm not worried yet, but he needs to produce soon or else the contract is going to start coming up more and more frequently.
Bannister's first outing of the year was just outstanding. Great location, great stuff, just great. I'm looking forward to seeing him in person tomorrow.
If you didn't see Soria's save yesterday, you missed out on a thing of beauty. His stuff is just absolutely filthy. I'm glad he's on our side, that's for sure.
I'm pumped up for the home opener tomorrow. Got my tickets, got my half day off work and I'm ready for the hot dog and ridiculously overpriced drink. See ya at the ballpark!

Next Up: Minnesota Twins

2008-04-04T09:50:00.005-05:00

Record: 1-2, 4th place, 2.5 GB

The Royals take their perfect record to Minnesota to play in the big circus tent. The Twins have a decidedly different yet familiar look to their club over the past few seasons without Torii Hunter and without Johan Santana. Still, though, they have the middle of their order in Mauer, Cuddyer and Morneau and have added Delmon Young. However, their pitching staff is headed by Livan Hernandez. L-I-V-A-N spells disaster.

Lineup
1. Carlos Gomez
2. Joe Mauer
3. Michael Cuddyer
4. Justin Morneau
5. Delmon Young
6. Jason Kubel
7. Mike Lamb
8. Brendan Harris
9. Adam Everett

Probable Pitchers
Game 1: Scott Baker vs. John Bale
Game 2: Livan Hernandez vs. Gil Meche
Game 3: Boof Bonser vs. Brett Tomko

Who's Hot?

Its only four games in for the Twinkies, so all the hot and cold players come with a sample size warning, but here ya go.

Jason Kubel is hitting .333/.333/.778 with the Twins lone long ball of the young season.
Delmon Young has raked early to the tune of .400/.400/.467. Sadly that's the best non-Kubel line on the team thus far.

Nick Blackburn and Livan Hernandez both turned in strong seven inning performances their first time out with Hernandez even picking up the victory in his start.

Who's Not?

Justin Morneau is hitless in his first 12 at bats of the young season, but he has contributed two walks for a robust OBP of .133, which is still better than Tony Pena.

Mike Lamb is .091/.167/.091 thus far with just a single and an RBI.

Michael Cuddyer has just three singles and an RBI in the early going for a .188/.188/.188 line.

Former Royals prospect Brian Bass has struggled a bit out of the gate in two appearances with a 5.79 ERA.

What to Expect
The Twins made some curious decisions this off-season, deciding to trade off their best pitcher and getting very little in return and then signing their 33 year-old closer to a long term extension. In trading Matt Garza, they picked up some supposed offensive punch, but further weakened their pitching staff. Maybe Delmon Young will become a star, but he and Alex Gordon had very similar seasons last year and many are down on young Alex. I think the Royals might put up some offense tonight against a pitcher they've struggled against in the past, Scott Baker. The Twins will probably battle a little bit too, but I think the Royals pull this one out 8-6. Saturday is Hernandez against Meche, a matchup that clearly favors the Royals, but I think the Twins pull it out with the Royals taking the finale in a surprisingly well pitched game by Brett Tomko. Then its home at 5-1 to take on the Yankees. Enjoy!

2-0?

2008-04-02T23:00:00.002-05:00

Was anybody a little surprised to read that the Royals have only been 2-0 twice in the last 28 years? I mean, I knew the Royals struggled early, but if I had to guess, I'd have said this is like the 6th 2-0 start in 28 years. Mathematically, it should happen once every four years, but for our Royals, its once every 14 years. I guess the good news is that we're getting 'em close-ish together, with the last obviously being 2003.

I think everybody is going to start to jump to compare this team to the 2003 squad, but I think those comparisons are pretty silly because this edition is better. The 2003 team may prove to be luckier, but I think this team has more talent almost everywhere around the diamond with the exception of centerfield and shortstop. Plus, you have to keep in mind that the AL Central was very down in 2003, a year in which the Tigers went an unbelievable 43-119.

A few notes from the first two games:

I'm a little worried about Alex Gordon, but not because he's not hitting. Rather, I'm worried that some of these questionable calls might get into his head and he'll start chasing pitches off the plate that should be called balls. If he gets into that habit, he's going to be extremely easy to get out. Having said that, man was that homerun an absolutely bomb. I hope for many, many more of those.
Billy Butler looked fantastic today. That double to dead center is a homerun in almost every other stadium, and was reminiscent of last year against the Rangers at the K.
Its good to see Guillen get his first hit and RBI. Hopefully that'll relax him sooner and get him doing what we need sooner, which is obviously hit long balls.
Gil Meche struggled with his command on Monday, but was able to tough it out and pitch through it to put up a "quality start." I know I'd be upset along with many, many people if Meche only has starts like this one all year, but if he's going six and giving up three, the Royals should be in every game he pitches. Of course, the bullpen blew his lead when he was actually in line for a win, which leads me to...
Brett Tomko? I just don't get this one at all. I understand that he needs to get some work in since his first start is being pushed back to Sunday, but there had to be better options out there. And then, once he got through that first inning, why bring him out for a second? Aren't you just playing with fire there?
Nunez came in, though, and was filthy and then again today. He was followed by Soria who had sick movement on his pitches and struck out the side. If those two can be joined in effectiveness by two of Yabuta, Gobble, Mahay and Ramirez, this bullpen has a chance to be even better than last year's version.
Brian Bannister.
Brian Bannister.
Brian Bannister.

2-0 is sweet. Hopefully Zack can pick up the victory tomorrow to complete the three game sweep. We'll be back tomorrow evening with a recap.

Let's get ready to rumble

2008-03-30T21:45:00.007-05:00

As you all know, the first opponent of the year is the Detroit Tigers, and as a regular feature, I'll highlight the opponent at the start of each series.

Lineup

1. Renteria

2. Polanco

3. Sheffield

4. Ordonez

5. Cabrera

6. Guillen

7. Rodriguez

8. Jones

9. Inge

Probable Pitchers

Game 1: Justin Verlander vs. Gil Meche

Game 2: Kenny Rogers vs. Brian Bannister

Game 3: Jeremy Bonderman vs. Zack Greinke

Who's Hot?

Ivan Rodriguez was on fire all spring long, hitting .373/.403/.875 in 59 at bats with a spring training high 8 homers.
Placido Polanco hit .408/.447/.690 in 71 at bats in the spring even hitting 4 homers after hitting just 9 in all of 2007.
Carlos Guillen popped 7 homers while posting a .313/.373/.716 in 67 line in 67 at bats this spring hitting like a real first baseman should (take notes Ross).
Former Royal Denny Bautista made the Tigers squad on the strength of a 1.32 ERA in 13.2 innings with a 12:3 K:BB ratio.

Who's Not?

New left fielder Jacque Jones swung a wet noodle to the tune of .211/.275/.263 in 57 at bats. The Tigers hope he doesn't mimic his slow start from last year. He should still be one of the better bottom of the order hitters in the league.
Edgar Renteria's return to the American League is all too familiar for him so far with a .234/.275/.344 line in 64 spring ABs.
Dontrelle Willis' spring has done little to quiet his critics as he has posted an 8.64 ERA over 16.2 spring innings with a 12:15 K:BB ratio. Ouch.
Justin Verlander also struggled this spring with a 5.85 ERA in six starts, but something tells me that his act will play just fine in the presumed Opening Day cold weather.

What to expect

Well, it'll most likely be cold and the forecast is calling for some rain, so offense will probably be at a premium. Of course, as I type that, I realize that my prediction of this indicates that we will see three straight games of 13-8 finals. Don't you love what I did there? I totally hedged my bets and made sure I could not truly be wrong. I look for a good opening day matchup that the Tigers ultimately pull out in the late innings but the Royals take the last two games of the series as Bannister and Greinke take the first steps to showing last year was no fluke for them. The Royals catch a break with no Granderson due to him catching a break of his finger, but its still a fantastic lineup up and down, even though I do believe they're overrated. All I know is I'm ready for some baseball. Lets get it going!

Fantastic Read

2008-03-30T12:36:00.002-05:00

I think I could have a successful blog if all I did was link to Rany and Posnanski. No, they didn't start a Rob and Rany knock off, they're still two separate ones. Although...think of the possibilities! Anyway, here's Rany's latest...enjoy!

A Friend Chimes In...

Opening Day Roster and Other Random Thoughts

2008-03-28T09:07:00.002-05:00

Ok, well with a flurry of moves over the past few days, it looks like the Royals roster is pretty well set for Monday in Detroit. Here's what its looking like:

C John Buck
C Matt Tupman
C Miguel Olivo (suspended for first 4 games, counts on roster)
1B Ross Gload
1B Billy Butler (for the purposes of this roster)
2B Mark Grudzielanek
SS Tony Pena, Jr.
3B Alex Gordon
IF Alberto Callaspo
IF Esteban German
LF Mark Teahen
CF David DeJesus
RF Jose Guillen (looks like the suspension is gone)
OF Joey Gathright

SP Gil Meche
SP Brian Bannister
SP Zack Greinke
SP John Bale
SP Brett Tomko

RP Joakim Soria
RP Yasuhiko Yabuta
RP Ron Mahay
RP Ramon Ramirez
RP Jimmy Gobble
RP Leo Nunez

It looks like the Royals most consistent reliever (hell, pitcher) of the last two years, Joel Peralta, will begin the year in AAA, and based on a previous post, I wonder if its more than just a numbers game. Peralta has been awful this spring. He did, however, pitch a nice inning yesterday, striking out two Rangers.
Ryan Shealy looks like he'll begin the year in AAA, although that is probably dependent on Esteban German being on the Opening Day roster, which I think is about a 65% chance right now. Shealy's looked good in ST, but with an option remaining, he is probably the odd man out.
Ramon Ramirez looked good in his one inning Royals debut yesterday, fanning one and giving up nothing. My theory is that its a good pickup because it might be the beginning of a very slow transation to starting for Joakim Soria.
The bullpen is my concern to start the year. Soria has looked pretty good out there. Yabuta has been pretty decent his last few times out, and I like the power from Ramirez and Nunez, but as a whole the unit terrifies me. Maybe I'm shell shocked from all the years of bad bullpens, but how could I not be? Remember 2006 when the bullpen was supposed to be the strength of the team?
I think the offense is primed for a significant improvement. Combine improvement from Billy Butler, Alex Gordon and Mark Teahen with return to the norm from David DeJesus and then add in a 20+ homerun bat in Jose Guillen, and I think this is an offense that can score between 775 and 800 runs. Maybe its the spring kool-aid talking, but I have some confidence in the unit. Look at what the lineup is expected to be:
1. DeJesus
2. Grudzielanek
3. Gordon
4. Guillen
5. Butler
6. Teahen
7. Gload
8. Buck
9. Pena
There are a couple of black holes in there, and I'd much rather see Shealy over Gload, but all in all, that's probably the best lineup since the start of the 2004 season, which isn't saying much, but it is progress.
Speaking of Billy Butler, no one player in Arizona has made as big an impression on me as Big Donkey. All he has done is flat out hit all spring, drawing rave reviews from pretty much everybody. I think he's in a huge year at the plate, even higher than my earlier projections.
Finally, the weather in Detroit looks like it might not be cooperating, so lets hope we hear "Play Ball!" on Monday and don't have to wait until Tuesday. How terrible would that be to have waited all winter for March 31 and then have to wait another day? I shudder at the thought.

Royals Acquire Ramirez

2008-03-26T12:33:00.001-05:00

The Royals acquired Ramon Ramirez from the Rockies today for PTBNL. Seems like that dude gets traded constantly. Ramirez has a high K rate through the minors and in his short time in the majors. He was solid in Colorado in 2006 before imploding in 2007 and spending the year injured. Ramirez is out of options and probably has a spot on the Opening Day roster, but at the expense of who?

Is that the Toyota Kuroda?

2008-03-25T14:29:00.001-05:00

What kind of Royals blogger would I be without posting this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2IRg1n1jTo4

I'm sure you've seen it by now, but so have I and I'm still dumbfounded by it. Athleticism at its finest.

Joel Peralta

2008-03-25T12:04:00.002-05:00

Anyone concerned with Peralta's outing last night? Yes, its just a spring training game but for one of the few guys with an option, last night might have been his ticket to Omaha for a bit. I couldn't really tell if it was him struggling or the Arizona air, but everything he was throwing was very hittable in addition to the Dodgers finding every hole on the field. In the end, I'm sure he'll spend at least 5 months with the big club, if not the whole year, but its a little concerning to have your steadiest guy over the last two years struggle so mightily.

Massive post deleted

2008-03-25T12:03:00.001-05:00

Blogger's just piling it on. I was working on a MASSIVE preview for every team that was supposed to make up for my neglect of you fine folks. I get in to my office today ready to write the Nationals preview only to find that the post was DELETED. 28 teams (I didn't think it was necessary to write up the Royals), all gone. I'm a little angry, a little sad and a little hungry.

Opponent #1: Detroit

2008-03-24T21:57:00.003-05:00

I'll be having a regular feature once the season starts highlighting each team coming up for the Royals with injuries, who's hot, who's not, etc. This is not actually that column, but I'd just like to say this now: I believe the Tigers have the best chance to underachieve of any team out there. Looking at their lineup (now sans Granderson), they're very old, have players coming off career years (Mags, Polanco, Renteria), some players coming off the worst year of their career (Pudge, maybe Jacque Jones) and some injury prone guys (Sheff, Mags). I suppose they could all hit like they have in the past again, but its just not something I'd count on from them.

All that doesn't even take into account their pitching staff. Their rotation has the potential to be excellent. It also has the potential to be absolutely horrendous. Verlander, at this point, is a pretty safe bet to be real good. Bonderman is a crap shoot after last season's second half implosion. Dontrelle Willis was excellent a couple of years ago but has steadily declined since. Now, he's with a better team, so he may be able to bounce back, but I'm not sure we're going to see the 20 game winner of 2005. Kenny Rogers turns 88 this year, so anything goes with him and Nate Robertson is probably one of the best #5 starters in the business, but that's a problem when he's potentially the second best starter. The Tigers setup man to start the year is none other than Denny Bautista. I'll leave the bullpen alone from there.

I think the Tigers will still win 88+ games because a down year for them is still probably better than the Royals could even hope for, but I think all the talk of 1000 runs and 100 wins is way overblown.

Royals Blog of the Week

2008-03-24T09:26:00.004-05:00

I'm terrible to you people, I really am. Today's finally the day that KC Royalty returns to regularly scheduled programming, so be prepared.

This week's blog of the week is none other than...drumroll please...

Royally Speaking

Please step forward and claim your prize.

Coming Up

2008-03-20T01:07:00.002-05:00

To make up for my neglect, I've got something big in store that I should have posted by Friday. Its not an uncommon blog item, but its definitely not Royals-centric. I don't want to give away more because its going to be a LONG ASS post, but I'm thinking it'll be well received.

Apologies

2008-03-19T13:47:00.002-05:00

Sorry everyone for the lack of content here the last few days. I've had some family stuff going on, and unfortunately this blog has suffered because of it. I have a couple things that I'd love to write and get them here. Its just a matter of sitting down and actually doing them, so keep checking back. I promise I'll be back with some new stuff by the end of the week. Thanks for reading everyone!

Royals Blog of the Week

2008-03-17T11:04:00.002-05:00

Without further ado...here is this week's Royals blog of the week!

In Dayton We Trust

Tada!

Happy Reading, folks.

I know, I know

2008-03-16T23:39:00.003-05:00

This is a Royals blog, yes, but I came across a disgusting article this evening that I'd like to bring to everyone's attention. Basically, the author of this article is ripping on Rocco Baldelli for again being on the disabled list in the wake of us finding out that Baldelli has a rare muscular disease that is potentially life threatening. You can find the article here.

FireJoeMorgan.com mentioned this article, so check this out, too, if you'd like.

I usually don't want to spam you guys with a bunch of random articles that have nothing to do about the Royals, but I think stuff like this is important to get out there, so Fox may get enough mail to realize how ridiculous some of their writers are.

Back tomorrow with regularly scheduled programming.

Around the Horn: Outfield

2008-03-14T08:57:00.002-05:00

The third in a five part series highlighting the Royals around the horn. That's why its called "Around the Horn." Clever, I know. To view the catcher's section, click here and click here for the infielders section or scroll down the page.

This section will be fairly short as there doesn't seem to be much competition in the outfield this spring, and I refuse to admit that Damon Hollins is really part of the picture. If, however, you're dying to know more about good ol' Damon, click here to learn about his magical journey.

To the outfielders:

Mark Teahen (26, .285/.353/.410, .301/.373/.505): Obviously I predict a big season for Mark Teahen as I've mentioned a few times on this blog. I know that 2006 was the blip on the radar compared with Mark's other professional seasons, but every time I want to downgrade Teahen and predict him as a future #2 hitter, I keep pulling out #3 hitter numbers. I have a few reasons why I believe he's going to be more 2006 than 2007. One, he's a big guy. I know big guys don't always have power, but the power is most definitely in that body, and we know that for sure because we saw it for three and a half months when he looked as good as any Royals hitter since Sweeney or Beltran. Two, Teahen has tremendous baseball intelligence, which I think will ultimately translate into a long career. Think maybe Luis Gonzalez without the 57 homerun season. The biggest reason why I predict a breakout for Teahen is this: He was flashing power last year from spring training through May and then it all of a sudden stopped. My best guess as to why that was relates to his shoulder surgery. I think his shoulder felt good, felt good, felt good and then it got tired. He wasn't able to work out as much in the offseason, which probably caused problems. So, with all that, I came to the conclusion that I think Teahen is going to have a big 2008. He'll be playing left field where his arm isn't quite as important, but with Guillen in left it gives the Royals two guys who runners should fear.

David DeJesus (28, .260/.351/.372, .290/.365/.450): 2007 saw David DeJesus play a whole season for the first time in his career. 2007 saw David DeJesus put up the worst numbers of his career. Is that a coincidence? Some might argue that DeJesus needs a little time off here and there in order to keep his stroke and that may not be so crazy. After blazing out of the gates in April (.308/.378/.486 with 4 homers to boot), DDJ really cooled off with the exception of a hot June. I think he bounces back to his previous established levels and maybe even bumps his OBP above where I have projected. Right now, its sitting at .533 in the spring as he's struck out once, I believe and walked 7 or 8 times. DeJesus might need a caddy to take over about 25 games a year, but if it makes him more productive, then its worth missing him for essentially a game a week.

Joey Gathright (27, .307/.371/.342, .272/.341/.339): Hello caddy. Gathright is the man that looks to be the Royals fourth outfielder this season. He had a career last year but was it legitimate? I truly do not think so. His BABIP was insanely high last year at .365. League average is right around .300. Given that Gathright's speed might bump his BABIP up a little bit, lets assume that it drops to a speedster's normal level of, say, .315. That alone just lets his average plummet, which in turn effects his OBP, which then changes his game from possible leadoff hitter to lucky to be in on Sundays. Maybe it wasn't luck, but the man has no power and doesn't hit the ball hard. My best guess is Gathright sticks around for awhile, but only because of his speed. He's just not that good.

Jose Guillen (32, .290/.353/.460, .295/.350/.482): I basically have Guillen penciled in for an identical season to last year with a few more points added to his slugging because Kauffman is a bit better hitter's park than Safeco. He's certainly capable of more power, and studies have shown that hitter's tend to generate more power in their low 30s than in their peak. You know the drill with Guillen. Bad attitude, pretty good player. He's already ruffled some feathers in KC with the whole right field/left field issue. He's also the highest paid player in Kansas City Royals history, to be joined by Gil Meche in year 3 of the contract. The numbers may not justify that honor, but for $12 million, the Royals will have ended up paying about market value.

---------------------------------------

Unfortunately, there just isn't much more competition for the outfield. Huber is an outfielder now in camp, so he may be in there if he can crack the roster. Costa looks like he has virtually no shot to ever be a productive player with the Royals. Mitch Maier may get a chance if and when Joey Gathright fails, but I'm not sure that Dayton Moore will be able to cut ties with Gathright that easily. So it looks like these four are going to be the guys, for better or for worse.

Next up: Starting Pitching...

Gordon Going Oppo

2008-03-13T10:39:00.003-05:00

Not a real long post here, but I'd like to point out that Alex Gordon is looking (or sounding, I guess) real good so far this spring. the big difference is it seems like he is significantly less pull happy as his two singles yesterday were well struck to left and his double against the Cubs on Sunday was a long drive to left center. This is very encouraging stuff from a guy who pulled so many of his hits last season. If he can settle in as a guy that uses the whole field, I think we may be in for the season we expected last year. I might even have to adjust my predictions.

Another quick note, for people up in arms about Huber and Teahen both not playing yesterday, they simply didn't make the trip, and instead stayed back with some staff to work on a few things.

Since there's not much going on this morning, lets maybe open up a little discussion in the comments.

Some possible topics:
- Gordon's hitting
- DDJ's OBP
- Olivo vs. Buck
- Shealy vs. Huber vs. German (because we have to)
- Ross Gload in a starting role, even hitting third
- Anything else you guys want to talk about

I'll be in and out to contribute if we really get something going today.

Justin Huber Part Deux

2008-03-12T09:29:00.006-05:00

I know I wrote a Justin Huber post a little while ago, but he's becoming quite the HOT topic on the message boards. And yes, I'm trying a foray into the picture world. And yes, I know that is an old picture of Huber, but I'm trying here. Credit to scout.com for the picture.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Justin Huber is out of options. If the Royals choose not to carry him on their opening day roster, I could see a scenario in which they could sneak him through waivers, but I could also see a scenario in which some team snatches him and makes him an integral part of their roster.

Here are the possibilities:

Kansas City: With just 12 at bats so far this spring, Justin Huber appears to have offended both Buddy Bell and Trey Hillman, not to mention Dayton Moore. Perhaps he has bad breath or something, but regardless he has never gotten the playing time to prove himself. Maybe the Royals know something we don't and Justin Huber will never be a Major League hitter, but its pretty hard to make the assumption like that having seen is 98 thrilling at bats over 3 years.
Odds of being with KC Opening Day: 15%

Florida Marlins: The Marlins have a fair first baseman in Mike Jacobs and they have a pretty decent left fielder in Josh Willingham, but Huber would be a pretty good fit here as Jacobs hits left handed and isn't all that great to start. I think the Marlins like Jacobs for some odd reason, but Huber might be the type of player they'd like to stockpile as it looks like they're building for 2011 or 2012 when Huber will be in his late 20s and firmly in his prime while still really cheap. But what could the Royals get from the Marlins for Huber? It probably wouldn't be a huge return, but I think the Royals could, in good conscience, ask for someone like Sean West, a lefty with some health problems or the Royals could offer to take a problem off the Marlins hands like Scott Olsen.
Odds: 6%

San Francisco Giants: This one'll be short. The Giants could potentially be really bad this year. Their saving grace is their two stud pitchers. They need offense badly and Huber would probably be their cleanup hitter. Problem is they don't have much to trade. I don't see much in the Giants system that they'd actually give up for Huber that would be much of a benefit to the Royals. Still, they need him bad.
Odds: 3%

Seattle Mariners: The Mariners interest in Huber depends a lot on Richie Sexson, but not entirely I'm not sure that they'll be ready to commit to Sexson for 2008 or move on from Sexson in 2008 before its time for some action with Huber, but they do have Jose Vidro DHing for them. If they expect to contend, Jose Vidro is not the man you want manning your hitter only position. The Mariners have some interesting prospects like Kuo Hui Lo and Nick Hill that the Royals might be able to pry away.
Odds: 10%

St. Louis Cardinals: The Cardinals have a pretty decent first baseman already, if you like those sort of numbers, but he could go down for the year at any time, so the Cardinals are my sleeper for Justin Huber's services. In addition, they are in dire need of some offense in the outfield, so much so that one Juan Gonzalez is in their camp fighting for a job. You don't think they could use a guy like Huber? The Cards have a decent system and a guy like Jose Martinez or David Kopp might be a good return for Huber. If it was guaranteed that Huber was going to be traded, I'd have a hard time picking between the Mariners and the Cardinals when betting where he goes.
Odds: 10%

Texas Rangers: The Rangers may have no need for Huber if they end up converting Saltalamacchia to first base, but if they don't, their cupboard is pretty bare at the position. The Rangers also have a LOADED farm system, even with some players that could really help the Royals down the road. Max Ramirez is very blocked in their system as a catcher with some potential, or if you like the toolsy pitchers, maybe Armando Galarraga tickles your fancy. Either way, the Rangers would be the team the Royals would probably love to deal with.
Odds: 7%

Omaha Royals: The most likely destination for Huber. Best case for Huber is that he he rocks AAA pitching and either forces the Royals hand or catches another team's eye. I'd just love to see him get a chance.
Odds: 49%

Nomo to start?

2008-03-11T08:58:00.004-05:00

Well the big news is that The Kansas City Star had an article this morning discussing Hideo Nomo's increased chances to win a job as the 4th or 5th starter with the Royals. Nomo's been good in spring training. He hasn't been great, but he's been pretty good. Lets take that with a bit of a caveat. He's spent 6 of his 8 innings (yes, he's only thrown 8 innings before the feel good articles start coming out) pitching against the San Francisco Giants. Neither of his appearances against the Giants have come in games in which Aaron Rowand, Omar Vizquel and Ray Durham have played, sadly three of San Fran's top hitters. Second of all, its 8 innings! Denny Bautista baffled a good Angels team for 8 innings once. How's he doing?

The point is that if Hideo Nomo is starting games for the Royals, something has gone terribly awry. I suppose if he is one of the five best starters then he should be starting, but that's more an indication of the team's quality rather than Nomo's good work. My best guess right now is that Nomo does not win a spot on the team, but rather is assigned to Omaha. He may or may not take that assignment, but I'd much rather he put up Elarton-esque numbers in the minors than taking the hill every fifth day for the boys in blue.

Did I say Elarton-esque? Oh yes, I did. His last two MLB seasons (2004 and 2005) saw him put up ERAs of 8.25 and 7.24 respectively. His K:BB ratio was about 1.2:1. His BB/9 was 4.5 and he gave up 232 hits in about 185 innings. Lets just say the ERAs weren't bad luck. The man had a nice career, very good in many seasons, great in his rookie year, but he's done. Please Dayton and Trey, don't make the mistake of making us watch and find out what we already know. It will be a disaster.

Around the Horn: Infield

2008-03-10T11:20:00.003-05:00

The second in a five part series highlighting the Royals around the horn. That's why its called "Around the Horn." Clever, I know. To view the catcher's section, click here or scroll down the page.

First Basemen
Billy Butler (22, .292/.347/.447, .294/.366/.485): Until he proves he absolutely can't, the Royals appear set on Billy Butler being a first baseman, which I am more than ok with. You guys know about Butler. The kid can flat out rake and putting up those numbers as a 21 year old in a bad lineup is impressive as all get out. Butler has the potential to be an RBI machine much like Mike Sweeney was before his injury precipitated decline. He becomes even more valuable if he can play an average first base, but his bat alone makes him a cornerstone of this young team.

Ross Gload (32, .288/.318/.441, .301/.344/.428): Gload is a teacher's pet. For some reason, every manager absolutely loves this guy. I suppose he plays the game hard and puts up a pretty good batting average, but a .759 OPS is not what you need out of your starting first baseman. As a bat off the bench that can play first base and all three outfield positions (yes, even center in a pinch), Ross Gload is an extremely valuable player. As a starter, he's extremely miscast. Let's hope Hillman gets over his already irrational love of Gload and puts him in the role he was meant to be in.

Justin Huber (25, .276/.336/.517 (AAA), .285/.340/.481): Probably the biggest cause for concern in Justin Huber is his patience or new found lack thereof. A player who has had OBPs in the .400s before should not be putting up a .336 OBP when repeating a league. Was he trying to hit for more power in order to impress the big club or was it something else? I'm personally not too worried about it, rather 2007 was more of anomaly. Obviously the Royals handling of Huber the past few years borders on criminal, but I think he breaks through this year and Gordon, Butler and Huber become offensive forces.

Ryan Shealy (27, .221/.286/.308, .238/.312/.399): As you can see, I don't have a whole lot of faith in Ryan Shealy to become a force in the middle of the order. He has looked pretty good so far this spring with much better bat speed than he displayed last year, but I just think he has too many holes to ever be a consistent .290/.350/.475 guy that he'd need to be to be a productive Major League first baseman. This year is probably his last chance before he's destined to a career as a backup/AAA player.

Second Baseman
Mark Grudzielanek (38, .302/.346/.426, .288/.329/.371): Putting up his best numbers since 2003, the Royals triggered Grudziealanek's 2008 option to be the Royals starting second baseman. In hindsight, that was probably a poor decision as Grudz is a good bet to decline across the board in addition to lose more range than he has already lost. He'll make it one more year, but then it's probably time to move on for the 2006 Gold Glover.

Shortstop
Tony Pena, Jr. (27, .267/.284/.356, .271/.292/.380): They say that immitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I guess TJ is really flattering his dad by never walking. The man had 10 walks in 523 plate appearances last season. That is truly difficult to do, so I guess we should commend Tony for showing up even Mark Quinn. I don't see much of an improvement for him this season although his OPS should sniff .700 this year. The kid can really play great D at short, though, so there is some value there. Long term, though, if Tony Pena, Jr. is the Royals shortstop they're in big trouble, but for 2008 his defense should carry him to be a relatively useful player for the team.

Third Baseman
Alex Gordon (24, .247/.314/.411, .283/.355/.490): Simply put, Alex Gordon is the future of the Kansas City Royals. If he fails, so do the Royals, but if he does what he is fully capable of and becomes a superstar, the Royals are probably going to be in pretty good shape. We all know the struggles Gordon faced last year and we all know his .285 average over the last few months. In 2008, Gordon takes the step to good, but be prepared for 2009 when Gordon becomes a full blown superstar. I'm talking .320/.420/.580 seasons. He's that good. And to boot, he can pick it pretty well at third base, too. Folks, we have a stud on our hands, don't let 2007 trick you.

Utility Infielders
Alberto Callaspo (25, .341/.406/.491 (AAA), .304/.372/.412): Acquired in the off-season for Billy Buckner, Alberto Callaspo is slated to be the Royals second baseman of the future. When does the future begin, though? My guess is sometime during 2008. Possessing a contact oriented swing, Callaspo hardly ever strikes out and has excellent plate discipline as evidenced by his 1.5:1 BB:K ratio throughout his minor league career. He hasn't hit all that well in two brief Major League exposures, but he projects to be a quality #2 hitter with a little speed. He can play both second and shortstop, but is better at 2nd base, and that's where he'll most likely play for the Royals for the next 5+ years.

Esteban German (30, .264/.351/.376, .293/.366/.430): After a stellar 2006, the Royals brass assumed Esteban would be the Royals starting second baseman after Grudzielanek's departure, but German came back to earth a bit when given more regular playing time last season. The real Esteban is probably somewhere between his '06 and '07 totals and will prove to be a fine backup infielder garnering about 300 at bats per year. While his defense his nothing to write home about, its passable at both second and third and he can provide a spark off the bench with his speed. Plus, who has a cooler bat flip than Esteban?

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The infield is anchored by the young guns, Billy Butler and Alex Gordon, but Grudziealanek and Gload provide some veteran leadership to the kids. What's the value of that? Probably not much, but it looks like that's the way the team will line up in Detroit on March 31. If Butler can take the first base reigns from Ross Gload, the Royals will have the power they so covet at the corners and be pretty strong up the middle, although Grudz could become obsolete at any time. The infield is probably a strength of the Royals despite holding the team's biggest weakness, Tony Pena. It'll be interesting to see how different the infield looks in August after trades, injuries and decline occur.

Next up: The Outfield...

Royals Blog of the Week - The Dugout

2008-03-10T09:48:00.002-05:00

People will say that things always work out for the best. I came into work this morning ready to do some high quality procrastinating and work on this blog a little bit when I realized it was Monday. Monday means Royals Blog of the Week day. Well, I had quite a conundrum. I normally peruse the blogs over the weekend and then decide who I want to highlight for my ever faithful readers. This weekend was unlike other weekends, though, for the KC Royalty clan. This weekend was internet free for a good portion of it due to Time Warner Cable. So, when it came time to pick a blog to pimp (yeah, I said pimp), I didn't know what to do. Until I noticed a comment in my Around the Horn post from Friday mentioning this blog:

The Dugout

I highly recommend you check it out. J-Ray's got six posts up so far, and I have to say that I've enjoyed reading them, so be sure to head over to that corner of the web. There's plenty of Royals news to go around!

Around the Horn: Catchers

2008-03-07T13:30:00.003-06:00

I'm going to steal a little bit from the preview series posted on mlb.com and go around the horn every Friday (and one Monday) from now until the start of the season.

Today: Catchers
March 10: Infield
March 14: Outifeld
March 21: Starting Pitchers
March 28: Bullpen

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Its a little bit unorthodox, but we have four Fridays left before the Royals take their show on the road to Detroit to get things underway, so that's how I broke 'em down. Plus, that's how I teach my mother the numbers of the players, so the categories work for me. Let's get rolling before Hillman calls a meeting on me at the plate for not getting through this fast enough.

Next to the player will be their 2008 playing age followed by last year's stats, followed by my projected stats from the KCRPs.

Catchers
John Buck (27, .222/.308/.429, .249/.321/.440): Buck is the starter...for now. You all know the story. He's a guy that has spurts of looking like the next great hitting catcher, but then he has spurts that make Jason LaRue look almost passable. Buck possesses a strong throwing arm, but a well documented slow release. While that is improving, Buck had a below average year throwing out baserunners in 2007. I think John Buck is definitely at a crossroads with the Royals, and I think he'll begin to develop into Mike MacFarlane, which is actually a compliment. Expect a similar year to last year, but his boost in average will bring up his OBP and SLG. If that doesn't happen, expect Buck to lose playing time to...

Miguel Olivo (29, .237/.262/.405, .232/.287/.429): Olivo enters the season as the backup to Mr. Buck. Not known for much plate discipline, Olivo brings a hacker's approach to the plate that I doubt will sit well with Trey Hillman. Against lefties, Olivo is a different hitter to the tune of a career .291/.319/.524 line. Unfortunately, Buck is also a better hitter against LHPs, so a platoon is probably out of the question. Hillman has mentioned ways to get Olivo's bat into the lineup against lefties which include DHing and playing...ready for this?...Left field. Oy. I guess we'll see how it plays out. I expect Olivo to put up Olivo type numbers this year, which would be pretty solid for a backup catcher who has a cannon for an arm.

Matt Tupman (28, .281/.361/.344 (AAA), .285/.366/.380 (AAA)): Matt Tupman at this point is pretty much AAA fodder although I think he would probably make a better backup to John Buck than Olivo. Tupman has good on base skills and bats left handed, but the powers that be either determined that he wasn't good enough or that snagging Olivo as a backup catcher was too good of an opportunity to pass up. Either way, Tupman won't do much for the Royals unless one of the big dogs get hurt. Maybe next year for Matt.

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When the Royals signed Miguel Olivo, Dayton Moore proclaimed that the Royals would have one of the most powerful catching duos in the Majors. That may be true as Buck and Olivo combined for 34 homeruns last year. Of course, both were starting the lion's share of games, so expect that number to decrease significantly this year. If Olivo provides for Buck what LaRue was thought to provide, and that's competition, and is able to help Buck become a .260/.340/.450 catcher, then he's worth every penny. If not, then it seems redundant to have the two of them on the roster together. It seems that Dayton and his people are not at all concerned with the catching position as it looks about as set as anywhere else on the diamond at this point in the spring.

Next up: The Infield...

Damon Hollins

2008-03-06T13:47:00.002-06:00

Well, he's playing a lot and its starting to get to that time of the spring when players hitting 3rd have at least a moderate shot of making the roster, so lets get to know Damon Hollins!

Drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 4th round of the 1992 entry draft as an outfielder, Hollins started his career by playing 49 games of rookie league ball with very little success. In 1993, the Braves moved him to the advanced rookie league where he began to display a little power to go along with pretty decent speed and pretty decent plate discipline. Damon Hollins was a prospect. Hollins steadily worked his way up the Braves organization playing at one level per year before making his big league debut in 1998 getting one hit in six at bats with the Braves before being traded to the Dodgers for Jose Pimental (I don't think any relation to our Pimental). With the Dodgers, Hollins played in five games with the Dodgers, hitting a robust .222 in nine whole at bats.

That offseason, Hollins was released by the Dodgers and signed to a minor league deal by the Cincinatti Reds. He played the year in Indianapolis, the Reds AAA affiliate and was excessively mediocre. He was then granted free agency and signed with the Brewers.

Unfortunately, Hollins didn't get to add any frequent flyer miles as the Brewers AAA affiliate would now be in Indianpolis providing the Indy fans a rare treat of two years of Damon Hollins baseball.

After another thorougly mediocre season, Hollins was again a free man, choosing to sign with the Twins. He played half the season with their AAA affiliate proving again that mediocre play is not a given, its a skill.

He was then traded to the Braves for the ever popular future considerations and was in the Braves organization through the 2004 season.

Signed by the Devil Rays in the winter of 2004 proved to be the sparkplug Damon Hollins needed to jumpstart his MVP career. After spending a month or so in AAA in 2005, Hollins forced the Devil Rays' hand with a .296/.414/.432 line and they called him up where he hit to the tune of .249/.296/.418 for an OPS+ of 89. Buoyed by injuries and legal troubles, Hollins was allowed to play in 121 for the D'Rays in 2006, "hitting" .228/.269/.423. For you Aaron Guiel loves out there, his age 32 comp is none other than the gone but not forgotten fan favorite.

Hollins spent 2007 with the Yomiuri Giants, rocking Japanese pitching to the tune of .257/.318/.422.

That brings us to today, March 6, 2008. Damon Hollins has had an excellent spring thus far with the Royals and is actually hitting third in the spring training lineup. Hopefully its not a sign of things to come.

New Look

2008-03-05T18:59:00.002-06:00

I promise, this is the last change. This is much easier to read, so hopefully you all enjoy the new look.

What do this post and The Legend of Zelda have in common? Both of 'em have links.

2008-03-05T08:40:00.007-06:00

That was terrible, but I think it might be time to give you some linky links for your enjoyment, plus I'm going to be lazy this morning.

- Royals Review remembers Emil Brown. Vlademil...we hardly knew ye.

- Royals Authority looks at Joey Gathright's speed and what it means for the team. I'll give you a hint...it means nothing unless he can actually steal bases and pull the ball like he has so far this spring

- The Kansas City Star looks at the potential surprises in Royals camp. Could Damon Hollins really make the team? And what would a Star online story be without the obscenely large picture? John Bale, you have a big head.

- In a shocking statement, Brett Tomko has announced that he would like to be a part of the rotation.

- Brian Bannister chatted on kcroyals.com yesterday. Here's the transcript.

- Rany on the Royals gives Reason #14 why he's excited about the Royals this season, Brian Bannister.

- Undying Royalty looks at the Royals newfound approach and sees a running game in the 2008 plans.

- Sam Mellinger sat down with Rany Jazayerli and asked a few questions about stuff.

- Joe Posnanski is crazy about Haikus.

I hope that quenches your Royals thirst for awhile. Have a good one guys!

Send your questions in...

2008-03-05T08:38:00.002-06:00

Everybody's favorite sabermetric pitcher, Brian Bannister, will be doing a mailbag style chat on royals.com twice a month. Send your questions to infocus@royals.com.

Update: I just sent a question in via e-mail and I got it bounced back to me saying the user was unknown, so if anybody else had this problem, let me know. Otherwise, I'll just try to send it again later.

Handling Luke Hochevar

2008-03-04T13:46:00.003-06:00

On one hand, Luke Hochevar was just drafted in June of 2006. On the other hand, Hochevar is already entering his age 24 season. He's a month older than Zack Greinke who's pitched in parts of four Major League seasons (2006 shouldn't count, but I'm using it for effect).

So what do the Royals do with him?

There are three options:
1. Open the year with him in the KC rotation
2. Open the year with him in the KC bullpen
3. Open the year with him in AAA

All three have their merits and all three have their drawbacks.

By starting Luke in the KC rotation, his service clock starts now meaning he is under Royals control through the 2013 season before he is eligible for free agency, assuming he isn't signed long term before then. Also, he's continuing his development at the Major League level, rather than in AAA where he can try a few things. On the other hand, though, he looked good for the Royals in a very brief stint in September and has been excellent through two outings in the spring, although the words sample size come to mind for each. Of course, if he's good, the Royals would hopefully have four very solid starters, a claim only a few teams can make.

By starting Luke in the KC bullpen, you give him a chance to pitch in Major League games, but with a little less stress than having to throw 100 pitches and pacing himself. This is a technique that has been used for a long time, but the Royals have apparently never been big proponents of it for whatever reason. Back to Greinke, he seemed to find himself after pitching dominantly at times in the bullpen. He said it gave him a chance to trust his stuff, which may be an issue Hochevar has, although I've never heard anything to make me believe that. The downside, though, is that in the bullpen, you begin eating away at Hochevar's service clock while he's pitching 1-2 innings three times a week. Plus, as I mentioned before, he's not a young kid, so he should be ready to start right away.

If you send Luke to AAA, you pretty much take the easy way out, which is not always a bad thing. In theory, he goes down and dominates AAA and gets called up in June after going 10-1 with a 1.72 ERA and is on top of the world and then hopefully throws 120 innings with a 3.50 ERA or so on the Major League level. There's not a whole lot of downside to the AAA route except for if he gets bombed again. Then, he might be lost forever.

----------------------------

What I would do is start Hochevar in AAA for 6-8 weeks. If you have to give him a set call-up date, do it and just let him know that these are purely for development reasons to make sure he's ready to be a Major League starter. Once he comes up, Tomko can shift to the bullpen and be an excellent swingman. This way, also, Hochevar's under control through 2014 now rather than 2013.

A lot of people complain about Hochevar's advanced age in relation to other pitching prospects, but it might actually be a blessing in disguise for the Royals. He is now past the injury nexus and looks like he's going to be a pretty healthy big leaguer. Plus, the Royals shouldn't have to muddle through his growing pains as many young pitchers have, ala Zack Greinke. The likelihood that the Royals keep Hochevar after he becomes a free agent is probably pretty slim with Scott Boras as his agent, so its kind of nice that the Royals would be getting his age 24-30 seasons before he probably bolts as a free agent in the winter of 2014.

Royals Blog of the Week - Royal Tower

2008-03-03T12:36:00.002-06:00

Check out this site if you're interested in learning more about the guy wearing #76 at a spring training game. Royal Tower focuses mainly on Royals prospects and does a great job at it.

Royal Tower

Napalm, silly putty, HGH and Justin Huber

2008-03-02T22:58:00.003-06:00

A recent si.com article has brought Jose Guillen and Jay Gibbons into the spotlight once again for their 15 day suspensions for purchasing HGH. Apparently, per George Mitchell's request in his report, Bud Selig may be considering lifting the suspensions for the two players out of 89 that he suspended for their appearance in the Mitchell Report. Ok, to be fair, he suspended them before the report came out, but come on.

Pretty soon before the suspensions for the two were handed down, the news came out about Paul Byrd and his association with the dreaded HGH. At the time, Byrd said that he had been prescribed it for a medical problem that MLB not only knew about, but approved his use of the drug. Within days, MLB came out and said that they had never given Byrd permission to use HGH and we then found out that he had purchased it from the same dentist in Florida who prescribed HGH to other athletes. Did Byrd get suspended? Of course not. So my question is why Guillens and Gibbons. Did Selig open up his big book of baseball players and happen to open it to the "G" section? Could be. I just don't understand why these two were singled out.

If it was up to me, they'd either all be suspended or none of them be suspended, and I'd most certainly lean toward the latter. My best guess is that Guillen's suspension is lifted and he opens the season as the Royals starting right fielder and cleanup hitter. Now lets bring it back to the Royals. What does this mean for Justin Huber?

My original belief was that Huber would actually finally get a chance because of Guillen's suspension, filling in as the right fielder (or left fielder with Teahen shifting over) until Guillen's suspension was up and hopefully hitting enough to warrant staying on the roster as the team's DH. Well now there's a chance that Guillen will be on the roster from day 1 which means that Huber has to really, really, really, really, really, really hit to make the OD roster and probably begin the year as the DH. Now, it seems that Huber's journey to the roster is more dependent on Billy Butler becoming a legitimate first baseman opening up the DH slot for him. This is definitely something worth watching as Spring Training unfolds...you know, after the flu bug finishes working its way around the roster.

Long-Term Deals

2008-02-28T10:32:00.002-06:00

Who are the players that should be getting long term deals from the Royals and when? That's what I'm taking a look at today.

Here are Royals players who are currently going year to year, whether its through arbitration or they are a 1-3 player. I've only listed players that have at least one year of service time, or at least close to it in some cases.

Pitchers
Brian Bannister
Ryan Braun
Kyle Davies
Jorge De La Rosa
Jimmy Gobble
Zack Greinke
Luke Hochever
Luke Hudson
Neal Musser
Leo Nunez
Joel Peralta
Joakim Soria

Catcher
John Buck

Infielders
Billy Butler
Alberto Callaspo
Esteban German
Alex Gordon
Justin Huber
Tony Pena, Jr.
Ryan Shealy

Outfielders
Shane Costa
Joey Gathright
Mark Teahen

That's more than half of the 40 man roster. The next step is evaluating the players that are a part of the future, the next good Royals team. From that list, I see six players that maybe should get contracts to buy out their arbitration years. They are Brian Bannister, Zack Greinke, Joakim Soria, John Buck, Billy Butler, Alex Gordon and Mark Teahen. A few more like Alberto Callaspo, Luke Hochever, Leo Nunez or Kyle Davies remain to be seen.

The next step after evaluating the players to sign is when to do it and for how much. It all depends on their clock. I'll go player by player of when I think they should be locked up.

Brian Bannister - Pre-2009 season, 5 year, $20 million; 6th year option at $10 million
Zack Greinke - Pre-2009 season, 4 year, $24 milion, 3 years of options at $9 million, $11 million and $14 million (could be a 7 year, $58 million deal)
Joakim Soria - Mid-2008 season, 5 year, $15 million, 1 option at $9 million
John Buck - Pre-2009 season, 4 years, $18 million
Alex Gordon - If he has a big 2008, it should be done right after that. If he struggles again, pre-2010 season. I'll give 2 numbers since it changes: Pre-2009: 6 years, $35 million, 2 option years at $10 million and $12 million
Billy Butler - I'd do him pre-2009 but he could wait until pre-2010. Either way, I'd go 4 years, $18 million with 3 option years at $9, $11, $15 million. Total contract could end up at 7 years, $53 million.
Mark Teahen - pre-2009, but if he has another year like 2007, I think you just let him walk after he hits free agency. Assuming he bounces back, I'd say something like 5 years, $40 million. You buy out 3 years after arbitration at a reasonable cost as long as he's at least .290/.360/.475.

Lets get it started

2008-02-27T13:41:00.001-06:00

Here we go. Game 1 of Spring Training.

1. DeJesus, CF
2. German, 2B
3. Teahen, LF
4. Shealy, DH
5. Gordon, 3B
6. Butler, 1B
7. Costa, RF
8. Buck, C
9. Pena, SS

SP Bale

I don't really expect the regulars to stay out there too long, but I think our first homerun of the spring belongs to Alex Gordon and Hochever (also scheduled to pitch) goes 2 innings, gives up 1 hit, 0 runs, 0 walks and strikes out 3.

So...close

2008-02-26T13:44:00.002-06:00

Here we sit, a mere day away from finally having a game to discuss and analyze, and I realize that baseball has the ability to turn grown men into little kids, in awe of everything. I know that every time I enter Kauffman Stadium, I'm amazed at its size and how truly impressive it is. I'm amazed that the grass is so green (August not withstanding) and how white the bases are. I'm amazed at the players all warming up in unison and at the five year old girl singing the national anthem.

This year, when I enter Kauffman for the first time in 2008 on April 8, I'll be in awe of a giant scoreboard that's the biggest in the nation...for a year anyway. I'll also be in awe of the moat in front of the stadium, a promise of better things to come.

But before we can get there, we go through the Spring Training schedule. Its really a test of fans patience if you think about it. The team plays 30+ games, sometimes two squads from the team play on the same day, both in games that count. Roughly half are broadcast on the radio. Its a time to reintroduce yourself to Denny Matthews and all the classic ads that you know mean baseball. But its a long time. Its a whole month of baseball that really doesn't mean anything. We get geared up for that first game, that first pitch, the first single to the hole in right, but in reality, it still means absolutely nothing until March 31.

Sure, we find things to talk about. "Did you see where Huber hit 2 dingers yesterday? They have to find a spot for him." "Man, Berroa sure looks good out there, maybe he is better than Pena after all." "Butler looked pretty good at first base today. That second error wasn't even half of his own fault."

Inevitably, somebody will surprise and hit about 8 homeruns in the spring and force the Royals hand. Nine times out of 10, that player will then hit about .125 in the first three weeks and earn a ticket to Omaha, or worse, Newark. But its baseball, its finally baseball.

In one day, the Royals take the field for the first time under Trey Hillman. Its a charity game, but the stats count in the Cactus League official statistics. In 33 days, the Royals take the field in Tiger Stadium, probably against Justin Verlander, and we'll be ready. We'll be waiting to be awed.

Grading Dayton Moore

2008-02-26T11:39:00.002-06:00

Averaging the grades together and weighting the bigger moves (eg. Meche) heavier than the lesser moves (eg. LaRue) gives Dayton Moore a solid B so far as GM of the Royals. He's done a nice job stockpiling arms in the farm system and bringing respectability back to the Royals Major League team. His biggest test remains, and that is getting the franchise back to the postseason. If he can do that, he'll be revered in Kansas City for as long as he holds the post. I hope you enjoyed the little series about Dayton Moore. Thanks for reading.

Dayton Moore - 2007/2008

2008-02-26T11:01:00.002-06:00

If you don't want to scroll down, here's the 2006 breakdown: Dayton Moore - 2006.

3/23/07
Acquired SS Tony Pena Jr. from the Atlanta Braves for RHP Erik Cordier.

Finally tiring of Angel Berroa, the Royals decided to go on a shortstop hunt to finally bring in someone better than Berroa. They hit a bit of a roadblock when they realized that it was late March and there wasn't too much available, so Dayton Moore called up his old buddy in Atlanta and talked trade. What they came up with was a no hit, great glove SS for a no pitch, great potential P. Cordier had arguably as high a ceiling as anybody in the organization but he couldn't get on the field. He was drafted in 2004 and has since pitched 21 games as a professional, all starts, with pretty good results. This trade hinges on Cordier's return from injury and subsequent development as he just turned 22 yesterday. Pena will probably never be much of a hitter. I think the ceiling we can expect from him is .280/.300/.400, and even that may be a stretch. He's a stopgap, and one that will hold back the next good Royals team.

Grade: D+

7/31/07
Acquired RHP Kyle Davies from the Atlanta Braves in exchange for RHP Octavio Dotel.

Boy, Dayton was quiet for a long time in 2007. When the trading deadline came, Moore held one of the biggest chips on the market: a Proven Closer (TM). Rumors were flying that the Mariners offered Adam Jones or Wladimir Balentien (that's a fantastic name, by the way). Well, the offer that Moore selected was another from his old boss, Kyle Davies. Davies is a young right hander who had pitched parts of three seasons with the Braves before even turning 24. Never truly dominant in the minors, Davies was looked at as a pitcher with great stuff but unable to convert that to results. Many expected Bob McClure to instantly work his magic with Davies, but he didn't with Davies posting a 6.66 ERA in 11 starts with the Royals. He's maddening to watch as one game he'll go out and dominate for 7 innings and then the next he'll get lit up. Dotel was injured almost immediately following the trade, which made it easier to swallow for the Royals. If McClure can turn Davies into a competent #3 or #4 starter, then the Royals got a steal. If not, then its just another trade that didn't really help either team.

Grade: D

The following transactions are difficult to truly grade because we've yet to see game action, so when I tally through with my final grades, these will be weighted far less than those we've had time to evaluate.

10/19/07
Hired Trey Hillman as manager.

I liked this move a lot when he was hired, and I still do, although as I mentioned in a post below, I'm getting a tad worried. Hillman brings a positive attitude and a tireless work ethic to the Royals. His mantra is to play 181 games, which is a breath of fresh air after Buddy Bell. His evaluation cannot happen yet, but this is a transaction that has a huge impact on the franchise. I'll give it a very preliminary grade.

Grade: B-

11/28/07
Signed RHP Yasuhiko Yabuta to a two-year contract with an option for 2010.

I'm not going to profess to know a whole lot about Yabuta other than that he struck out the side in the 2006 World Baseball Classic against Alex Rodriguez, Johnny Damon and Derek Lee. These stats are from Royals Authority:

2004: 2.79 ERA, 8.3 K/9 IP
2005: 3.07 ERA, 8.7 K/9 IP
2006: 2.62 ERA, 7.8 K/9 IP
2007: 2.73 ERA, 6.5 K/9 IP

Solid ERA, declining K rate, but the history is for Japanese relievers to come here and pitch very well for at least a couple of years. I think this deal will make Moore look very good for awhile before the league can adjust to Yabuta. I would expect a decent ERA and a pretty good K rate, maybe more in line with his 2004/2005 seasons.

Grade: B

12/6/07
Signed OF Jose Guillen to a three-year contract.

This is the second time in as many winters that Dayton Moore has targeted a player and then paid what it took to get him. Guillen's 3 year, $36 million contract has been scrutinized, but I'll defer to Moore on this one because he's been right so many times before. Of course, that could change come mid-May if Guillen's hitting .255 with 4 homeruns. We all know Guillen's history and his inclusion in the Mitchell Report. If he can put up .290/.350/.500 lines, then this signing is well worth it.

Grade: B+

12/14/07
Acquired INF Alberto Callaspo from the Arizona Diamondbacks in exchange for RHP Billy Buckner.

Opinions are very mixed about this trade. Some saw Billy Buckner as a future pillar in the Royals rotation while some saw a middle reliever. My guess is that Moore saw a middle reliever or he wouldn't have made this deal. Callaspo is a second baseman by trade who can work his way around the field, but in a much better way than Esteban German. He can be counted on for some outfield work and plays what is reported to be a very servicable shortstop. Oh yeah, he can really hit. He is a career .317/.369/.437 hitter in the minors and has put up .400+ OBPs each of the last two years. He has a little speed and a little pop in his bat. He also never strikes out, just 161 times in over 2800 professional at bats.

Grade: B-

12/27/07
Signed C Miguel Olivo to a one-year contract with a mutual option for 2009.

Really there's not much to say about this deal as long as Olivo and his sub-.300 OBP doesn't play everyday either at catcher or left field. He's a solid backup and has a great arm.

Grade: C

1/21/08
Signed RHP Brett Tomko to a one-year contract.

This is a pretty uninspiring deal for a chronic underachiever. Tomko is always labeled as a guy with great stuff, but the results have never corroborated that. He's on a one-year deal, so the risk is minimized greatly, but I'd probably rather see someone take the reigns and win Tomko's spot in the rotation.

Grade: D+

Other players have signed minor league deals such as Tsao and Maroth that may very well play a big role in the Royals 2008, but I was focusing on the guys we know will be there or that were there. I'll have my final grade and evalutation up shortly.

To pass the time

2008-02-26T09:14:00.003-06:00

Here are a couple of baseball anecdotes to pass the time while I'm working on Dayton Moore - 2007/2008.

A reporter wanted to know where Alex Johnson's power surge came from. "Last year, you hit two homers and this year you have seven. What's the difference?"
"Five," Johnson replied.
---------------------------------------
A rookie sat next to his manager and watched Roger Maris gun down a runner trying to go from first to third.
"Kid, you won't see a throw like that again in a million years."
Three innings later, Maris duplicated the feat.
The rookie turned to the manager and said, "Time sure flies up here in the Majors."
---------------------------------------
Los Angeles third baseman Pedro Guerrero committed several hard-to-believe fielding errors during one game. This was during the same time that Dodgers' second baseman Steve Sax was undergoing his horrendous and well-publicized fielding slump in which he couldn't throw the most routine ball to first without trouble.
In the post-game meeting, Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda was at a loss with Guerrero. "What are you thinking out there," Lasorda asked.
"Two things," Guerrero said.
"What's the first thing?"
"God, don't let them hit the ball to me."
"And what's the other thing," Lasorda said.
"Don't let them hit the ball to (Steve) Sax."

Is Hillman scaring anyone else?

2008-02-25T16:03:00.002-06:00

Trey Hillman likes to talk. Scratch that. Trey Hillman loves to talk. Does he talk too much? I'm wondering if the confusion that Guillen and Olivo had regarding their role with the team wasn't because of Trey Hillman yapping away at them about who knows what. Maybe they're sitting back in the clubhouse, braiding Hillman's mullet when TH casually says, "Hey Olivo, can't wait for you to be the starting catcher."

Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about Trey Hillman. I'm just not sure that flapping your gums (I love that expression) is the best course of action.

Now Hillman is talking about hitting Ross Gload third because he likes his swing. If Gload hits third for any extended period of time, the Royals may challenge for 100 losses again. I like Ross Gload as a player, although I think he's a little overexposed as a starter. He is not the best hitter on the team. Again, with conviction! ROSS GLOAD IS NOT THE BEST HITTER ON THE TEAM AND SHOULD NOT BE HITTING THIRD. Whew, that feels better. Sorry for the extra noise there, readers.

I'm not going to judge Trey Hillman yet. If he doesn't do something tremendously stupid, I'll probably re-evaluate him around the All-Star Break. However, if on April 20, he puts out a lineup with Olivo in left hitting cleanup, Teahen at first and Gload DHing while butler sits, then I'll probably start evaluating him there, and its hard to dig out of a hole with fans.

Royals Blog of the Week - Undying Royalty

2008-02-25T15:08:00.002-06:00

With so many good blogs out there, I think its a disservice to not pass along a website when I come across one that is really good.

I just linked this site to my sidebar, but its really one of the truly good Royals blog that people may not know about, so be sure to check out Undying Royalty.

Dayton Moore - 2006

2008-02-25T10:57:00.005-06:00

The Royals hired Dayton Moore to be the general manager of the Royals in June of 2006 to replace the recently fired Allard Baird. In that time, Moore has made a plethora of moves in an effort to first bring the Royals back to respectability, and then into contention. My initial belief is that he has done that and then some, adding valuable pitching depth to a system that badly, badly needed it. Upon reviewing all the Royals transactions since Moore's arrival, I have found that my initial instincts were right (duh!), but that the Royals organization is sorely lacking in offensive punch from the Major League level all the way to the bottom of the organization. I'm going to list all his transactions and provide comments where I have opinions and they're worth commenting on, and give letter grades for what I thought about the transaction. I'm going to go through by year in order to keep the posts a little shorter. Tomorrow I'll probably get 2007 and 2008 as there's not too much in 2008 to report about. At the end I'll give my grade of Dayton Moore in his 21 months on the job.

6/9/06
Claimed RHP Todd Wellemeyer off waivers from the Marlins; designated RHP Steve Andrade for assignment.

Wellemeyer was a useful addition for a bad 2006 pitching staff. Obviously flamed out in 2007, signed by the Cards and was useful for them, too.

Grade: C

6/10/06
Obtained RHP Brandon Duckworth from the Pirates for cash considerations.

Second move in as many days to shore up the bullpen. Ducky's still with the team and definitely has his role and he's pretty decent in it.

Grade: C+

6/20/06
Obtained OF Joey Gathright and 2B Fernando Cortez from the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for LHP J.P. Howell.

The first big trade of the Dayton Moore era. He traded the Royals top pitching prospect for a speedy outfielder and a potential utility infielder who has some weird premonitions (he apparently visioned getting traded with Gathright, creepy). In J.P. Howell, Dayton Moore traded a young left handed pitcher that many compared to the White Sox Mark Buehrle. Howell was able to strike people out and if he could ever truly harness his control would probably become a solid #3 starter and a fringe #2 starter. Since being traded, Howell has put up some bad numbers as a Devil Ray, but his peripherals have been pretty good, striking out 82 in 93 innings while walking 35.

Gathright appears to be equally loved as he is hated among Royals fans. His speed can change a game, but he hasn't used it effectively all that often as a Royal, stealing 19 bases in 33 tries and often looking lost in the outfield. On the other hand, he did just up a nice .307/.371 season which gives hope to fans that he may one day be a leadoff hitter in the mold of an Otis Nixon. This trade hinges on Howell's ability to put it together because if he does, trading him for a slap hitting probably 4th outfielder would go in the fail category. At this point, though, the trade probably benefits the Royals slightly, especially if Gathright can learn to use his speed.

Grade: C

7/19/06
Acquired 2B Jeff Keppinger from the Mets in exchange for 2B Ruben Gotay.

Somewhat of a challenge trade here. Gotay was the Royals second baseman of the future after a decent stint at the end of 2004, but he screwed the pooch in 2005, falling out of favor with the old regime. The Royals signed Mark Grudzielanek in the winter leading to the 2006 season and that spelled the end for Gotay even though he had yet to turn 23 even. Moore traded him to the Mets for a second baseman in the mold of Grudzielanek, hoping to maybe find the future there. Keppinger was fine for the Royals, not doing anything to stand out from the pack. Keep in mind, each trade is not being graded as part of the big picture.

Grade: C

7/24/06
Traded RHP Mike MacDougal to the Chicago White Sox in exchange for LHP Tyler Lumsden and RHP Daniel Cortes.

How could Dayton Moore trade our one-time all-star closer at his lowest value, just coming off injury for two minor leaguers? Lumsden was the prize of the deal, a lefty with velocity and projection. He was pretty decent for Wichita in 2006 before being moved up to Omaha in 2007 and doing his best Jose Lima impression. MacDougal was nothing short of fantastic for the White Sox in 2006, but was nothing short of terrible in 2007, the inconsistency Royals fans had grown weary of.

As we would soon find out, though, Moore got himself a STEAL. Daniel Cortes, the young A-ball pitcher in the deal established himself as the best pitching prospect in the system in 2007 and has scouts talking about him as a future ace. Its looking like Cortes might get a cup of coffee in September of this year and compete for a role in 2009. He has a classic starter's physique, and unfortunate myspace pictures aside, looks like a good bet to be pretty good.

Grade: A

7/25/06
Acquired LHP Odalis Perez, nonroster RHPs Blake Johnson and Julio Pimentel and cash considerations for RHP Elmer Dessens.

This is one of two trades Moore made that day, both of which had some effect on the Royals future. In this trade, the Royals traded away non-descript middle reliever Elmer Dessens for three players from the Dodgers, two of whom nobody had ever heard of and one of whom was gaining a reputation you don't want to gain. Odalis Perez was the signature player in the deal, a lefty who had won 15 games before, had solid ERAs and solid peripherals over his career, but looked like he was starting to fade. Maybe Moore felt he could help him regain some of his early career magic or maybe he just wanted an innings eater. Or maybe he wanted the two young pitchers from LA and the only way he could get them was to take on a large, expiring contract. Yeah, that's the ticket!

Because I'm convinced the point of the trade was to get Johnson and Pimental, I'll gloss over Perez's subpar year and a half with the Royals and mention that the two minor leaguers are now vital cogs in the Royals minor league system with Pimental getting many of the accolades after a very solid 2007. He's not without his warts, though, as his K rate plummeted while his GB/FB rate went up significantly. He's looking like he might be an excellent weapon out of the pen. Blake Johnson is a tougher nut to crack. He's seen his K rates decrease every stop of the way in the minors but has seen his overall numbers improve. Most likely, his lack of a true out pitch will keep him from being a key contributor to a big league club.

Grade: B (we had to watch ODP pitch for way too long)

7/25/06
Acquired LHP Jorge De La Rosa from the Brewers in exchange for INF Tony Graffanino.

There's not a whole lot to this trade. The Royals traded off a solid, but replaceable middle infielder in Graffanino for a lefty with potential. Always the right move, but often doesn't work out at all. I've always said that I believe De La Rosa is Spanish for Affeldt, and he's done nothing to make me change that viewpoint with the exception of about 1/3 of a season of excellent work to start off 2007.

Grade: C

7/31/06
Acquired RHP Jose Diaz from the Texas Rangers in exchange for 1B/DH Matt Stairs.

Big ol' waste of space to write anything, but it happened. The Royals wanted to get something for Stairs and they didn't.

Grade: D (trade meant almost nothing to the Royals or Rangers, though)

7/31/06
Acquired 1B/DH Ryan Shealy and RHP Scott Dohmann from the Colorado Rockies in exchange for LHP Jeremy Affeldt and RHP Denny Bautista.
We all know about this one. The Royals traded their two biggest remaining enigmas in Number 1 Starter stuff, but AAA results pitchers Affeldt and Bautista for a slugging first baseman that was blocked by the great Todd Helton. Shealy had a decent 51 game stretch for the Royals at the end of 2006, but was beyond terrible in 2007. Affeldt, on the other hand, had a nice season as a LOOGY for the Rockies during their run to the World Series last year. If Shealy does anything for the Royals close to .280/.350/.450, the Royals have to be considered the winner of this trade because of how little the Rockies got from the two players they received, but as of now, the Rockies are the clear winners.

Grade: D

11/20/06
Obtained C Jason LaRue from the Reds in exchange for a Minor League player to be named.
Worst. Hitter. In. Royals. History. I'll take the PTBNL.

Grade: F

11/28/06
Traded INF Donnie Murphy to the A's for cash considerations.
A lot of people got worked up over this trade. I personally just see Donnie Murphy as another dime a dozen utility guy, so depending on the cash, the Royals may have come out as big winners.

Grade: C

December 2006 might be Dayton Moore's finest month as GM of the Royals.

12/6/06
Acquired RHP Brian Bannister in exchange for RHP Ambiorix Burgos from the New York Mets.
Once considered the future of the bullpen, Ambiorix Burgos flamed out in 2006, posting an ERA after 5 and blowing countless saves (You actually can count them, but I can't find the number anywhere. 8 maybe?). Dayton Moore continued his purging of Allard Baird pitchers when he traded Burgos to the Mets for soft-tossing right hander, Brian Bannister. Brian, son of former Royal Floyd Bannister, had success at every level, but scouting reports indicated that he'd be hard pressed to continue that success, especially in the AL Central.

Bannister did more than just continue his success. He was, for about three months, the best pitcher on the staff until fading a little down the stretch. Bannister is known as one of the more cerebral pitchers in the game today, and is now focusing on striking out more batters in an effort to continue his effectiveness for the Royals. Burgos is out after having Tommy John Surgery.

Grade: A+

12/7/06
Selected RHP Joakim Soria from the San Diego Padres in the Rule 5 Draft.
Joakim Soria

Grade: A+

12/7/06
Signed free agent RHP Gil Meche to a five-year contract
This is the signature move of Dayton Moore's tenure to this point. Gil Meche always was a good stuff, mediocre results pitcher, but Moore saw something and overpaid to get his man. He added 1 year and $15 million to what was reported to be the best offer out there for Gilgamesh and stood by his convictions even when criticisms were flying at him. Meche responded with an excellent season posting career highs in almost every category but wins, which was really no fault of his own. The contract still runs 4 more years, though, so it remains to be seen how great this deal is in 2011.

Grade: B+

12/8/06
Signed LHP John Bale to a two-year contract.
Pretty basic bullpen arm. He might start this year, but he probably won't. He's a good to weapon to have in the pen to give you 2 or 3 good innings.

Grade: B

12/8/06
Signed RHP Octavio Dotel to a one-year contract.
Remember, I'm only focusing on the individual trade itself, not the future ramifications. For $5 million (prorated to about $3.5 million due to being traded) Dotel did a lot for the Royals. He stabilized the bullpen upon his return from a strained oblique (that's a topic for a full entry...when did the oblique strain become so popular?) by shifting the relievers into roles they were fully comfortable with and for the two and a half months that he was healthy and pitching, the Royals had one of the best units in the American League all while letting Joakim Soria and Zack Greinke continue their development in slightly lesser roles. He was then traded for Kyle Davies on July 31, 2007.

Grade: B

12/16/06
Acquired 1B/OF Ross Gload from the Chicago White Sox in exchange for LHP Andrew Sisco.
One of the last of the Baird guys to go, Sisco got busted for eating tacos during a game in his Mexican Winter League. Shortly after, Moore traded him to the White Sox for Gload, who was miscast as the Royals starting first baseman after Shealy went down with his injury. Gload is a useful player who should get about 250 at bats in a season at first base and in the outfield, but when he's an every day player, the team is hurting for production. That the Royals could get anything for Sisco is a coup in itself. Sisco backed up Kenny Williams faith in him in 2007 by being even worse than in 2006.

Grade: C+

12/20/06
Signed RHP David Riske to a one-year deal with an option for 2008.
David Riske was probably not quite as good as his numbers indicate in 2007. He blew a couple of saves and made a couple of questionable pitches when he thought the player was going to bunt, but all in all, Riske was a steadying influence on the young Royals pitching staff. Zack Greinke even goes as far as to laud Riske for helping him develop into the power pitcher he now is. His role of setup man is not one that gets too many accolades, but he did his job well, and if he really did play that big of a role in turning Greinke into an ace, then it might be one of the 3 or 4 best signings in Royals history.

Grade: A

KCRPs...the pitchers

2008-02-25T10:41:00.002-06:00

Sorry for the delay in this. Our internet went out yesterday (still not back, I hate you Time Warner) and we got our brand new plasma TV delivered which should have taken half an hour to set up, but it took 6 hours instead. Don't even ask

Anyway, here are my pitcher projections in the format of:
W/L/ERA/IP/K/BB/H/GS/G for the starters
W/L/ERA/IP/K/BB/H/G/S for the relievers

Gil Meche: 13/10/3.88/204/168/57/199/34/34
Brian Bannister: 12/14/4.31/198/113/46/214/32/32
Zack Greinke: 13/11/3.47/188/162/53/173/33/33
Brett Tomko: 9/11/4.77/133/109/65/166/17/44
Jorge De La Rosa: 3/5/5.69/93/71/48/134/8/29
Luke Hochever: 8/4/4.12/127/120/34/131/20/20
Mike Maroth: 6/5/4.68/118/53/38/141/18/18

Joakim Soria: 2/3/2.39/74/84/21/51/61/37
Ron Mahay: 1/5/3.54/68/61/33/65/70/2
Yasuhiko Yabuta: 2/7/3.19/93/70/21/80/85/1
Jimmy Gobble: 4/0/2.87/54/50/19/55/71/1
John Bale: 0/2/3.44/88/71/39/101/51/0
Joel Perlta: 2/4/3.74/78/69/28/91/66/1
Chin-hui Tsao: 1/3/2.66/31/43/11/30/21/0
Neil Musser: 0/1/3.56/28/21/10/33/20/0
Ryan Braun: 0/1/5.21/11/10/8/18/9/0
Carlos Rosa: 0/0/4.50/2/1/0/1/1/0
Daniel Cortes: 0/0/3.00/3/4/1/3/1/0

Coming up this week

2008-02-23T22:25:00.002-06:00

Throughout the week (no more schedules, can't stick to 'em), I'm planning a couple posts that I think will be pretty interesting. The first one that I'm actually currently working on is a Dayton Moore trade history, which may or may not get broken up into two depending on the length. My plan is to look at each trade and give a small evaluation, which will hopefully be pretty thought provoking. The other thing I'd like to do was a suggestion from the comments of my last schedule which is to give my views on Trey Hillman and what kind of impact he'll have on the team for the foreseeable future. On Wednesday we'll finally have some baseball, and it looks like we'll get Tomko, Lawrence and Hochever, so there should probably be something to talk about there. Leave comments with anything else you might like to see.

Thanks for reading, guys. Its a pleasure writing to an audience, and I'm more than happy to accommodate suggestions to keep you coming back.

Pitcher KCRPs Coming Tomorrow

2008-02-23T22:24:00.002-06:00

As it appears I actually have a few readers, I just wanted to give you an apology and an update. I had planned to put out my pitching projections today, but I haven't had a chance to get anything done through no fault other than my lazy self. They'll be up tomorrow, hopefully in the morning, but definitely by the time you kind folks are sitting down to your dinner. Unless you're over 80. Then I can't promise anything because they might not be up by 3.

KCRPs

2008-02-22T09:18:00.003-06:00

Its here. The long awaited KC Royalty Projections are here. I can guarantee you'll be disappointed. This is the order they'll go in which I'm telling you because I can't figure out formatting for the life of me:

Avg/OBP/SLG/HR/RBI/SB/CS

My starters are in italics. Things have changed since my lineup prediction thread, by the way.

C
John Buck: .249/.321/.440/19/61/1/3
Miguel Olivo: .232/.287/.429/8/33/4/2
Matt Tupman: .300/.300/.400/0/1/0/0

1B
Billy Butler: .294/.366/.485/22/101/0/0
Justin Huber: .285/.340/.481/20/83/1/0 (DH)
Ross Gload: .301/.344/.428/6/41/2/1
Ryan Shealy: .238/.312/.399/5/20/0/0

2B
Mark Grudzielanek: .288/.329/.371/4/53/3/2
Alberto Callaspo: .304/.372/.412/3/29/6/1
Esteban German: .293/.366/.430/5/30/12/3

3B
Alex Gordon: .283/.355/.490/24/107/18/3
Mario Lisson: No Stats

SS
Tony Pena, Jr.: .271/.292/.380/2/50/7/8
Angel Sanchez: .201/.244/.300/1/6/3/2

LF
Mark Teahen: .301/.373/.505/26/98/21/5
Shane Costa: .272/.312/.430/2/11/1/1

CF
David DeJesus: .290/.365/.450/11/64/12/7
Joey Gathright: .272/.341/.339/0/21/19/8
Mitch Maier: .250/.350/.250/0/1/2/1

RF
Jose Guillen: .295/.350/.482/24/100/5/0

Pitchers coming up a little later.

Link Me

2008-02-21T20:44:00.003-06:00

Some might say lazy, others might say...well, no there's pretty much just the lazy explanation.

Rany on the Royals gives Reason #19 why he's excited to be a Royal fan at this point in time. I have to say that I completely agree with him. Bob McClure has been a blessing to this organization. Hopefully Moore found his Mazzone
Rany's sporadic partner in crime, Rob Neyer, wrote his last Rob & Rany on the Royals and Rob has a decidedly negative outlook. What's new?
Always a good read, The Royal Tower continues its review of Royals prospects with the young kids in the organization.
I mentioned the Royals Authority post below, but its worth mentioning again. Really good read.
John Buck almost throws Buddy Bell under the bus for causing his hitting problems last year. He almost blamed him, but didn't, so I'll go ahead and do it for him. I hate you, Buddy Bell.
Within this Royals notes section, Dick Kaegel discusses Justin Huber's versatility as a plus. He brought his catcher's mitt with him to show and tell this year.
JoePo reviews some crazy predictions of the past and talks about his crazy predictions for this year.
Gary Sheffield calls out Scott Boras. Somewhere an angel got its wings.

That's what I got for you for now. Tomorrow we'll be back with regularly scheduled programming unless another one of the bigger, better blogs beats me to it again.

National Media

2008-02-21T10:54:00.003-06:00

I was going to do a post about the national media and their thoughts on the Royals, but Craig over at Royals Authority has said just about everything I would have, so check out www.mvn.com/mlb-royals for his thoughts. Maybe I'll go link style later today and just direct you guys around the World Wide Interweb.

Apologies

2008-02-21T10:39:00.002-06:00

I'm off schedule. I've let you down. I'm sorry. Work got really busy and now I have a big meeting today, so hopefully I'll be able to catch up tonight. Don't worry, we're still on for the KCRPs (KC Royalty Projections) tomorrow. I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Is there still hope for Alex Gordon?

2008-02-19T09:37:00.002-06:00

The answer to that question is very simple...OF COURSE!

Which of these lines stands out to you?

.319/.426/.495
.365/.493/.754
.325/.427/.588
.247/.314/.411

A player that was able to put up the numbers Alex Gordon put up in college and in the minors does not simply forget how to hit.

So the question becomes: Why did Alex Gordon not hit when all he's done everywhere is hit?

There are a number of explanations for that. Many people believe that if in that first at bat against Curt Schilling on Opening Day with the bases loaded that if he had come through and driven home a run that he would have had a different season. That's one school of thought. Another thought is that he was a rookie. Rookies struggle, especially those who have had one year of professional baseball and that year was only at AA. I'd tend to agree more with the second one, although the first argument might have some merit. That can't be the whole story, though. A hitter that talented doesn't have troubles like that, rookie or not.

I believe its a combination of a number of factors. Inexperience, as mentioned above, obviously played a big role. My guess is that Alex had never really had prolongued periods of struggle in his baseball life. Major League caliber hitters don't struggle in little league or in high school or in college. Gordon struggled a little early on in the year in AA, but even that was just a relative struggle. Once Gordon hit a tailspin, he didn't really know how to get out, and he's admitted as much in interviews since the season ended. The good news is that he was willing to try new things, which bodes well for the future.

The other aspect which played a big role in the slow start of Alex Gordon was luck. The Major League average for Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) is usually somewhere between .290 and .300 over the course of the season. Through May, Gordon's BABIP sat at .240 even though he was hitting line drives at a 22.5% rate which is usually good for a BABIP of .360+. Had he been where he "should" have been, Gordon would have been hitting about 100 points higher and his line probably would have been closer to .273/.377/.470. If Alex Gordon was doing that through May, he would have easily been the Royals best hitter, especially knowing improvement was coming.

The problem with Gordon is that when he started to hit in June (.327/.383/.500) was when he started to end his nasty habit of taking walks (and getting hit). In his worst month, April, Gordon took 11 walks and got hit 6 times in 98 plate appearances, so while he was hitting below .200, his OBP was above .300, which is quite a split. When his walk rate fell below 8% that flashed a warning light to me that he's pressing too hard to get hits. What could turn out to be the worst thing is that he tore the cover off the ball using that approach. My inquiring mind wonders if Buddy Bell had something to do with that and now that he's gone if Gordon will go back to being the selected hitter that we all expected when he came up and what we saw in April and May. Everyone knows the rest of the story, he had a couple good months, saw his average creep close to .260 for awhile before slumping in the final month of the season, his first playing 162 games.

Using all this information, what could we see from Gordon next season? Well, I certainly expect improvement. I truly expect a huge jump. Its been mentioned here on KC radio, but for whatever reason in this camp, Gordon and Butler have been having fun and taking on a sort of leadership role. I think Gordon and Butler really break out this year and we have a legitimate 3-4 punch for the first time since Beltran and Sweeney.

My 2008 AG Prediction:
.292/.361/.483 22 HR 93 RBI
An impressive improvement, but I think the big jump comes in year 3 when he truly becomes elite.
2009:
.314/.409/.550 30 HR 110 RBI

Think a pre-injury Mike Sweeney while playing premium defense and stealing bases.

Joakim "Mexican Tough" Soria

2008-02-18T14:35:00.004-06:00

The Royals have been one of the more successful organizations in terms of getting competent seasons out of Rule V draft picks. They lack the star power that Minnesota (Santana) or Pittsburgh (Clemente) got for their picks, but a few players have actually put in some really solid seasons. Way back in 1995 Jon Nunnaly hit 14 homeruns and garnered some attention in the ROY voting. DJ Carrasco a few years later and Andy "Tacos" Sisco are two more highly successful (albeit for a short time) Rule V picks.

The man with the most potential of all of them to actually continue his success is one Joakim Soria. Soria was signed by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2001 as a raw 17 year old from Mexico. He was released by the Dodgers three years later and picked up by the Padres after a year on the scrap heap. The Padres had control of him for just under a year before the Royals selected Soria in the Rule V draft.

With Major League organizations for four seasons, Soria managed to pitch 16.2 innings, all in Class A or lower. No, that number was not a typo. He didn't even pitch the equivalent of two complete games in four seasons. He had that many injuries.

Royals scouts spotted Soria in the Mexican Winter League where he was working as a starter. After Rene Francisco adamantly preached to Royals brass his immense faith in Soria and after the Royals listened to their scout and took Soria, the young right hander threw a perfect game. It was as if Soria was thanking the Royals and justifying their faith in a man who had great stuff but just as much, if not more, injury trouble.

It was fairly common knowledge that the Royals would keep Soria on their active roster knowing that they'd never be able to keep him in any kind of deal that is usually common with Rule V'ers. He was expected to be in a swingman type role, pitching in in mostly low stress games and just getting work. One thing led to another and Soria began the season in a middle relief role after injuries, most notably to Octavio Dotel. When Dotel was injured in Spring Training, David Riske was named the man who most of the saves would go to.

Soria began the year with five straight scoreless outings spanning six innings while walking two and striking out six. He had a rough outing against Detroit following his excellent start, but after that, he seemed to wrestle the closer's role away from Riske. It was truly a meteoric rise for a young pitcher, especially one with the history of Soria. He seemed to relish the role of closer, and though he doesn't have a blazing fastball, he has such excellent command and movement that he became a nightmare for hitters at the end of games.

On May 22, Soria picked up his 10th save of the season. On May 23, Soria was placed on the DL, basically replaced by Octavio Dotel coming off the DL. Once Soria returned on June 8, he formed with Zack Greinke to become arguably the best setup tandem in the American League. Riske was also in the middle of a career year out of the pen with Gobble and Peralta pitching effectively as well. The Royals bullpen really went 6 or 7 deep for the first time in years. That setup lasted until July 31 when Dotel was traded to the Braves for Kyle Davies and Soria was inserted back into the closer's role. Back in his early season role, Soria saved his first chance and then notched six more to finish with 17 saves and just four blown saves.

All in all, Soria finished with a 2.48 ERA (flirting with a sub 2 ERA for awhile) in 69 innings while walking 19 and striking out 75. He was truly a shut down closer. Perhaps the most impressive stat is that in his 62 games he allowed more than one run just four times and in only 14 games did he even allow any runs.

In the future, Soria could possibly be a starter for the Royals, but that's a discussion for another time. For 2008, my best guess is that he stays the closer all year unless the Royals attempt to start stretching him out in the second half in preparation of starting in 2009.

My projection:
2-3 2.39 ERA 74 IP 84 K 21 BB 51 H 37 SV 0.97 WHIP

Mike Sweeney, we knew thee really well

2008-02-18T08:59:00.005-06:00

Mike Sweeney was a Kansas City Royal for parts of 13 seasons. For four of those seasons, he looked like he might be the best right handed hitter in baseball and certainly the best right handed hitter ever to wear a Royals uniform. Had he kept up that four year pace over his 13 year Royal career, he would have arguably bested the best, George Brett, but unfortunately, injuries took their toll. Sweeney will have to settle for merely being one of the top 10 players in Royals history.

From 1999-2002 Sweeney hit .323/.401/.535. Unfortunately, 2002 was the first year Mike missed significant time appearing in only 126 games. To prorate his statistics over a 13 year career would give him those numbers with counting stats of 2,343 hits, 510 doubles, 10 triples, 338 homeruns and 1,401 runs batted in. In short, Sweeney was on his way to becoming what Vladimir Guerrero has but with slightly less power. Unfortunately, as everyone knows, injuries hit and Sweeney morphed from a great hitter for four years to a merely good hitter for the next three.

After that 2002, he signed what I'll refer to as "The Contract." Up until that point, though he was garnering MVP attention on a bad team, three times finishing in the top 21 in the voting. As everyone knows by now, the contract was 5 years/$55 million, but the last three years only automatically vested if the Royals finished above .500 in either 2003 or 2004. Everyone knows about 2003. There was the magical start, young players emerged, the Royals had finally locked up a superstar. It really seemed like things were about to turn for the better. Each win closer to 81 was more than just a .500 finish for a franchise that really needed it. It was a win closer to actually keeping the superstar first baseman and proving some sort of legitimacy for a franchise dearly in need. That year, Sweeney missed over 50 games, but still was very effective in the batter's box hitting .293/.391/.467. Those are hardly world beating numbers, but he was still feared greatly, and who can forget his game winning hit on Father's Day against the Giants. That was Lima's first game that year, if I recall. And now I'd like to apologize for making you all vomit a little while reading Lima's name. Ahh, I did it again. Well, the Royals finished with 83 wins with the help of 2/3 of a season from Mike Sweeney, ensuring Sweeney's stay in Kansas City would be at least through 2007.

2004 brought more of the same for Mike individually, but the team, while expected to contend, tanked terribly. Rather than discuss that, I'll just talk about Sweeney so as not to induce more vomiting. A funny thing happened to Sweeney in 2004. He was still a good hitter, but his plate discipline went from world class to fair. For five years, his worst K:BB ratio was 1:1, but in 2004 it was 1:1.25. It wasn't that he was striking out more, but rather simply walking less. If that was the type of hitter he'd become in his later years as a ball player, then that was probably ok, provided he could still hit for power, which he proved he could in both 2004 and 2005 with SLG% higher than .500 both years.

2006 and 2007 signaled the beginning of the end, at least in Sweeney's Royals chapter. He played 134 games combined those two years. hitting .258/.349/.438 with a 102 OPS+ in 2006 before diving to .260/.315/.404. Unfortunately that kind of bat doesn't play as a DH and Sweeney's health didn't allow him to play the field. Not that his defense would have made up for the lack of punch, but it would have been nice to get something else out of him.

Now Sweeney is an Oakland Athletic, hoping to revive his career the way Frank Thomas did a couple years ago and avoid flopping the way Mike Piazza did last year. While the Mike Sweeney era will be remembered as the worst stretch of baseball the Royals have ever known, I am certain that Sweeney will be remembered more and more fondly as time passes, most likely culminating with his induction into the Royals Hall of Fame. He deserves it.

Coming Up...

2008-02-17T16:49:00.005-06:00

I'm going to go a little Sickels-esque here and give you all a schedule of what's coming this week, keeping in mind that the odds of me sticking to it are slim and that I'll probably add various thoughts throughout the days as well not on the schedule.

Monday: Joakim Soria, A Look Back at Mike Sweeney

Tuesday: Thoughts on Alex Gordon, A Look Back at Emil Brown

Wednesday: The double B's, Billy Butler and Brian Bannister

Thursday: National thoughts on the Royals

Friday: My full Royals projections, ZiPS style

New Looks

2008-02-17T00:53:00.003-06:00

I'll be trying out a few new looks over the next few days just to see what I like the best. Any of you blogspot members, feel free to chime in with your favorite templates. I'm hoping to find a format I like within the next few days and stick with it, but I'd love some input.

Donald Zachary Greinke

2008-02-17T00:08:00.006-06:00

I'd like to take a look back at the historic baseball season of 2007. Let me paint you a picture of life in 2007. A gallon of milk was $3.39, a gallon of gas was $2.93 here in Kansas City, and the Kansas City Royals were an improving team.

So what was the biggest surprise in 2007? Some would say Alex Gordon's struggles were the biggest surprise. Some might argue that Brian Bannister's big year was as much surprise as it was fluke. Others might say that the biggest surprise was the combined downfall of David DeJesus and Mark Teahen. While all of these were somewhat surprising to me, the biggest surprise of the 2007 Royals was the pitching of Zack Greinke and Joakim Soria who for a short time paired to form one of the best late inning duos in the American League, maybe even the entire Major Leagues. Today I'll focus on Greinke. Tomorrow or Monday I'll get to Soria's story.

We all know Greinke's story, but nobody quite knew what kind of season we'd get from him. When he made the rotation out of Spring Training, I think it was assumed he'd fill the role of 4th or 5th starter. But with Luke Hudson's injury in the spring, Zack was bumped up and was slated to pitch against some guy with very little hype, Daisuke Matsuzaka. Well, he turned in a fantastic game allowing two runs (one earned) and one walk while striking out seven in seven strong innings. We thought he was back and maybe even better than his great rookie season. He took the loss, but Dice-K pitched a great game as well, a little better than Zack. Then came another very solid start against the Blue Jays in which Greinke picked up the win with another solid six inning outing. That's when the wheels fell off. Save for one start against Minnesota, Greinke laid eggs in all his starts until mercifully being removed from the rotation and being put in the bullpen for awhile.

In Greinke's first game in the pen, he gave up a run on three hits in an inning of work. After that a funny thing happened. Zack Greinke who was lauded for his ability to change speeds and work the corners began throwing hard. I mean really hard. He ran off five consecutive scoreless innings spanning 8.1 innings. From there, he was nothing short of spectacular out of the bullpen, running his fastball to the upper 90's and flashing an intensity that we had never seen out of the sometimes spacey young pitcher. After 38 games in the bullpen, the Royals decided to put Greinke back in the rotation to see if his newfound intensity, velocity and success would translate back into starting. He started slowly, pitching 3, 4 and 5 innings respectively in his first three starts back, allowing no runs and striking out 11. It seemed like everything was finally clicking with the 23 year old hurler. He hit a bump in the road in his next start in the form of the red hot New York Yankees.* Then came "The Start," which I have capitalized and put in quotes because it highlighted everything that everybody ever thought Zack Greinke could accomplish. 8 innings, 2 hits, 0 runs, 0 walks, 10 strikeouts and a gamescore of 88. For those of you who aren't familiar with gamescore, that's REALLY good. It just showed his awesome potential that we all hope can carry on into 2008 when Greinke is, get ready, entering his age 24 season.

One of the things the Royals were interested in with Greinke as a starter at the end of the year was if he could sustain his K rate, and he most certainly can. In his seven starts, he went 34 innings, walked 10 and struck out 31. If he could possibly maintain that, in a 33 start season averaging 6 innings per start, Greinke would strike out 180 batters. When's the last time we had K production like that?

Next season, I see this sort of line for Greinke:

13-11 3.47 ERA, 188 IP, 162K, 53BB, 173H, 2CG, 1SO, 1.20 WHIP

In short, I think he's well on his way to being the ace of the staff.

*They were hot forever. Can anyone remember that long of a run of offensive excellence. It was just incredible.

Next up: Joakim "Mexican Tough" Soria

What makes a successful offense?

2008-02-15T11:28:00.003-06:00

For the sake of this argument, I'll call a successful offense one that scores 800 runs or more. Last season, the Mets were baseball's 10th most prolific offense and they scored 804 runs, so 800 should get a team within shouting distance of the top 10. Pythag record-wise, a team that scores 800 runs and gives up an average number of runs (roughly 780 based on 2007) should finish with about 83 wins. If the Royals can get there, they are obviously one step closer to a 90 win team. In fact, a team scoring 850 and allowing 750 should win 91 games. But I digress.

How do the Royals go from 706 runs to 800. That's an obviously large jump. Its a little over 1/2 a run per game more.

Well, a good start is bounce back seasons from DeJesus and Teahen. If those two play at 2006 levels, rather than 2007 levels.

A lineup scoring 800 runs should look something like this (I've related it to the Royals skill set players using the lineup I posted previously):

1. .290/.365/.440 - 650 PA's
2. .290/.330/.390 - 620 PA's
3. .300/.370/.500 - 620 PA's
4. .290/.345/.480 - 615 PA's
5. .300/.330/.450 - 610 PA's
6. .300/.350/.500 - 600 PA's
7. .280/.360/.475 - 600 PA's
8. .240/.305/.415 - 500 PA's
9. .270/.295/.350 - 530 PA's

Obviously, these are very rough numbers, but here are those lines runs created.

1. 91
2. 72
3. 105
4. 90
5. 82
6. 90
7. 90
8. 57
9. 48

Lineup's Grand Total: 725

Add in a bench's contribution which should be about a full season of baseball at about 75 runs and you have your magical number of 800. Basically, if Royals hitters can replicate those lines I have posted above, this team should score 800 runs. If the pitching can hold steady from last year and give up 778 runs again, we're looking at an 83 win ballclub. Will it happen? I really don't think so, but its certainly possible. In my opinion, the pitching will slightly regress while the offense will dramatically improve, but not enough to get us over the .500 hump.

2008 MLB Standings

2008-02-15T10:02:00.004-06:00

Here's my scientific look at how I think things'll shake out in the coming season. By scientific I mean that I am guessing more than Sammy Sosa on an inside fastball.

American League Central
1. Tigers, 94-68
2. Indians, 88-74
3. Royals, 76-86
4. White Sox, 71-91
5. Twins, 68-94

American League East
1. Red Sox, 99-63
2. Yankess, 93-69
3. Blue Jays, 85-77
4. Rays, 80-82
5. Orioles, 64-98

American League West
1. Angels, 95-67
2. Mariners, 83-79
3. Rangers, 76-86
4. Athletics, 70-92

National League Central
1. Brewers, 89-73
2. Cubs, 86-76
3. Reds, 81-81
4. Cardinals, 73-89
5. Astros, 72-90
6. Pirates, 67-95

National League East
1. Mets, 96-76
2. Phillies, 93-69
3. Braves, 88-74
4. Nationals, 72-90
5. Marlins, 68-94

National League West
1. D'Backs, 94-68
2. Dodgers, 86-76
3. Rockies, 83-79
4. Padres, 81-81
5. Giants, 59-103

Next up: What makes a good lineup?

2008 Royals Preview

2008-02-15T09:37:00.003-06:00

What blog with its debut coming right at the start of Spring Training would be complete without a 2008 Preview. Its been done to death, but I'm going to go ahead and just attack that horse that's been dead for a month or so.

2007 Record: 69-93, Fifth Place American League Central

Comings: Alberto Callaspo, Jose Guillen, Ron Mahay, Mike Maroth (yes, he's an NRI, but I think he has a great shot to make the team), Miguel Olivo, Brett Tomko, Yasuhiko Yabuta

Goings: Emil Brown, Odalis Perez, Mike Sweeney, Jason LaRue, Reggie Sanders, David Riske, Billy Buckner

Projected Lineup and Bench

(Before trading deadline)
1. David DeJesus, CF
2. Mark Grudzielanek, 2B
3. Mark Teahen, LF
4. Jose Guillen, RF
5. Ross Gload, 1B
6. Billy Butler, DH
7. Alex Gordon, 3B
8. John Buck, C
9. Tony Pena, Jr., SS

OF Joey Gathright
UTIL Alberto Callaspo
UTIL Esteban German
C Miguel Olivo

(After trading deadline)
1. David DeJesus, CF
2. Alberto Callaspo, 2B
3. Alex Gordon, 3B
4. Billy Butler, DH
5. Jose Guillen, RF
6. Mark Teahen, LF
7. John Buck, C
8. Ross Gload, 1B
9. Tony Pena, Jr., SS

OF Chris Lubanski
UTIL Esteban German
1B/OF Justin Huber
C Miguel Olivo

Pitching Staff

(Before trading deadline)
1. Gil Meche
2. Brian Bannister
3. Zack Greinke
4. Brett Tomko
5. Mike Maroth

CL Joakim Soria
SU Yasuhiko Yabuta
SU Ron Mahay
MR Jimmy Gobble
MR Joel Peralta
MR John Bale
LR Leo Nunez

(After trading deadline)
1. Gil Meche
2. Zack reinke
3. Luke Hochever
4. Brian Bannister
5. John Bale

CL Joakim Soria
SU Yasuhiko Yabuta
SU Ron Mahay
MR Jimmy Gobble
MR Joel Peralta
MR Leo Nunez
LR Brett Tomko

As you can see, I expect a few changes to occur during the season. I think Gordon comes on exceptionally strong in his second year, as does Butler and they become the 3/4 combo we all figured they would be. I think Hochever breaks into the rotation actually around June 1 and within a month or so establishes himself as a solid #3 starter.

With this team, the Royals can expect to win more than 70 games for the first time in five years. While its not quite the level of contending, its certainly a step in the right direction.

My prediction: 76-86, 3rd place, American League Central

Next up: Predicted Standings

Welcome

2008-02-15T09:20:00.001-06:00

Hello everyone. Welcome to my little corner of the web. I figure that I love talking about the Royals and I am the exact opposite of busy at work, so what better way to pass the time then to share some of my thoughts and beliefs with you, my loyal follower. I'd love to add an "s" to that word eventually, but I'm not unrealistic! Anyway, I'm going to try to post every weekday and random weekend days and hopefully I'll end up with some fans who read my work.