Rough week

7 games, 7 days, 4 vs. the Yankees and 3 vs. the Twins; looking at that schedule you probably wouldn't have expected the Royals to fair very well, but the past seven games have been beyond pathetic. Outscored 69-25, we were outscored by almost 20 more runs than we scored; that is to say that we averaged losing by 6 runs over the course of a week. Our best performance by a starting pitcher was Kyle Davies dominant 5 1/3, 4ER performance against a Yankees line-up that included the murderers row of Thames, Curtis and Pena. It was so bad we released a reliever with an ERA of 9.76 to bring up a reliever who had previously posted an ERA of 12.00 at the big league level. The week started off when our best player, having his best year and potentially a very valuable trading chip slammed into a wall and ended all of that immediately. It got even better when we learned that our $12 million pitcher, who has been obviously hurt for over a year now, finally decided to kick the tough-guy act and go under the knife, severely limiting the possibility of him ever again pitching another meaningful inning as a Royal due to the well documented organizational incompetence. It was a historically bad week and if you watched any of the games you know that it is getting pretty painful to be a Royal right now; The K was filled with more Twins than Royals' fans, the team looks to be way more concerned about post game dinner reservations than the outcome and yet through all of this there is actually a silver lining...

The only organization more pathetic than the Royals is coming to town for a four game series

Read this childishly giddy assessment of how help is on the way

Bravo to Dayton for pulling the trigger on the Callaspo & Pods deals, it doesn't really matter who we got in return because we won't miss a step at the Majors and in the process we got Younger, Cheaper and Potentially-er. However, even more encouraging were the words that came from Moore and Yost following the Posednik trade. Hearing this is the one thing that might actually get me to tune in for the rest of the year:

“It allows us to put Alex Gordon in left field and just left him go,” manager Ned Yost said. “It also opens up a spot for Mitch Maier to get more playing time. Both of those things are important.”

You are a DAMN GENIUS Ned! Here is also what Dayton said in regards to moving more players before the deadline:

“Guys in the final year of their contract, we’ll be more aggressive with potentially moving them,” Moore said.

He gets it, cross your fingers, we might be ending the Willie and/or Jose eras in KC. Pretty please with sugar on top! And just to top it off he added this little confirmation that younger players having monster seasons in the minors need to be given a shot:

“It’s important to get Kila on our club and create opportunities,” Moore said. “I’m not saying it going to happen (today), but we expect it to happen very shortly.”

Now if all of this falls into place and we get a completely new look Royals over the next two months of the season how can you not be at least a little bit excited to tune in or log on and view a ball game. I can live with one Rick Ankiel if that means I get to see Gordon and Maier in the outfield, Kila at DH/1B and a new face or even two in the starting rotation.

If Sonny Corleone Ran the Royals

Seeing how the Royals have long since been in the losing rut, sometimes you are forced to do things you are not completely comfortable with. When a person (or organization) is in one of these pinches the answer you might just need to hear is not going to come from where you might suspect. That is when you go ask someone who is crazy enough to give you the answer you really need to hear.

In the Godfather, the Corleone Family is deciding whether or not to jump into the narcotics business and Don Vito is having some moral dilemmas as to whether or not he wants to pull the trigger. Tom Hagen states that if they don’t get in the game, others will and the family will slowly be pushed out.

Don Vito then turns and asks Mr. Sonny Corleone “what he thinks”. This would be like asking Kyle Farnsworth if the US should double up on the surge in Afghanistan and how that might affect future relations with Iran in conjunction with the Chinese currency peg. Sonny Corleone is usually not who you want answering the red phone at 2 am. So while smacking on some macadamia nuts and licking his fingers Sonny replies;

“There’s a lot of money in that white powder, pops”

Well, the Powder Blue Room is going to put on a white muscle undershit, a pair of suspenders, grab a little brandy and “sweat it out a little bit” as Dayton Moore’s Santino Corleone.

And the message is this,

“There’s a lot of money in those closers, Dayton”

Don Dayton needs to move Joquim Soria for whatever he can get for him, now. Dayton needs to get on the phone and make some GM go all Moe Green and make a bad, bad, bad, decision. No closer (save Mariano Rivera) lasts very long, 2-4 years seems to be the going rate, and good closers can be as close to white powder as anything on the baseball market. GM’s pay dearly for something that gets them nothing more than a quick jolt. They are a great quick fix for a team in need. Trade for one on Tuesday and get a save on Wednesday (look fans your GM is such a wheeler dealer). A quick fix you really regret next season.

In fact, Don Dayton knows this powder business pretty well. He unloaded Octavio Dotel on the Braves right before his pitching arm fell off. He basically received nothing more than a long term option on Kyle Davies, but in the crapshoot of baseball, Kyle Davies could have hit paydirt. Octavio Dotel really didn't do anything for the Royals at that point and Don Dayton made one the better pulls during his tenure as head of the Royals Family.

The reality is that very few pitchers are good enough to fool hitters as a closer for over 2-4 years. The trick is to flip the value before everyone else figures this out. The Powder Blue Room would like to go on the record and say that Soria will begin to fade big time by the middle of next year. Bill James figured out long ago what happens when a player or pitcher looses a step (or mph). If you throw 98 mph and loose a couple of miles on the old speedball you can reinvent yourself as some who throws 92 mph, heck even 88 mph. The moral being you still have a major league fastball.

This is similar to an overhyped sophomore college basketball player who has to listen to Dick Vitale tell him “he’s not ready for the NBA” and that “another year of school” would do this and that. But what Dick doesn’t like to admit is that you leave school when the scouts think you are ready. If you stick around long enough you lose all the glory and financial promise that accompanies “potential”. You better get into the league before they realize you aren’t going to get any better.

Soria has some mechanical flaws that we will not Tom Emanski you to death with right now, but they do certainly exist. The right arm of the Mexicutioner is treading on thin ice. But the bottom line is that the Royals need three-run homers, two-out doubles and outfielders that run down balls in the gap way more than they need Saturday afternoon 7-4 trash saves. The Royals “needing” a good closer is like a person on food stamps having a Monet “Waterlillies”. The piece of art is nice, it certainly has value, is dang pretty but doesn’t do you a whole lot of good when you are hungry. The Monet is probably better off on the Sotheby’s trading block and money in your pocket. If and when the Royals are in a position that a Monet (closer) would look good on the wall, they can quickly assume the roll of purchaser of Sonny Corleone’s powder.

Dayton, pops, my man, trust your wartime consigliere, The Powder Blue Room, and move the Mexicutioner. When Team Corleone was discussing what would happen after the shooting and possible death of Don Vito, Tom Hagan said “if we loose the old man, we will slowly loose all our power”.

Well, Kansas City lost their old man (Ewing Kauffman) a while ago. Don Kauffman didn’t need to get into the white powder because he made his own legal kind with Marion Laboratories. The Royals don’t have the Don around anymore and Dan or David Glass, ahem, do not qualify. Dayton, you don’t have much, and Joakim Soria isn’t going to do you anything next year. Just move him for biggest sucker bet you can and hope you’ve got a Micheal Corleone somewhere in the organization to figure it out later.

Adios Alberto

Normally reading the morning round-up of Royals' news is about as exciting as doing your laundry, however yesterday might be one of the most action filled days that I remember the Royals having in quite some time. First of all we here at the PBR would like to give a send-off to one of our favorites; Mr. Alberto Callaspo we wish you the best out there with the California Los Angeles/Anehiem Angels. Shortly after the Callaspo trade, DeJesus slammed into the CF wall putting him on the DL, effectively killing all trade rumors associated with him and in turn leading to the recall of Alex Gordon. Of course, this was all in addition to the glorious return of slick Rick Ankiel so lets sort it all out...

Alberto's departure: This can be looked at a number of different ways, but I like to stick to the positives. Not that I like seeing him go, but this is what he deserves, he will fit right in out there with the Angels and be able to fill the role that he is most capable of: a solid piece on a good team. The Royals needed or asked him to be something that he just wasn't quite capable of, due to their complete lack of power Al was asked to be one of the main run-producers and this just isn't his role. What the Royals got is pretty much irrelevant; two pitchers who aren't great but might fill a need now or at some point in the future. The best part of all of this is that the "coming of Moustakas" is on track, we are basically being told that by next year he is expected to man the hot corner and in the meantime Wilson Betimet can get some playing time to see if somehow he can fully realize his once-upon-a-time superstar potential. As I see it there is really no down side to any of this; Albert is in a good place where he might just win some games, the Royals are looking ahead and unlike DeJesus it didn't really matter what we got for Callaspo.

DeJesus' injury: As long as he is not really hurt too bad and is able to come back and be the same, this is actually a very good thing. Number one, it finally gets Alex Gordon back to the majors to see if he can carry his minor league powers numbers into the bigs and finally be a part of the team's future. Number two, we were never going to get exactly what we wanted for DeJesus, there were too many other names out there among outfielders who hit for powers so it is just as well that he doesn't get traded and assuming he recovers from the injury he will be nearly as valuable this offseason or at the same time next year if you really want to trade him. Also, picking up his option and keeping hime will prevent Dayton from signing next offseason's Rick Ankiel. Number three, it will focus all of Dayton Moore's GM-ing skills on trading the people who really need to be traded. I'm sure Dayton was having blast actually being on the receiving end of so many phone calls from other GMs asking for DeJesus, but he needs to be calling them back to say "what about this Guillen kid" and "lets talk a Pods AND Bloomy package" long before he needed to be asking other teams for their entire AA team in exchange for DeJesus.

Gordon & Ankiel's Return: While this gives us a really crowded outfield along with Mitch Maier it is nice to see Gordon back. If Rick continues his return the same way he started it last night then he should quickly find himself receiving one of those awkward phone calls letting him know that his services are no longer needed and the overcrowding problem is solved. JASON KENALL WAS INTENTIONALLY WALKED TO GET TO ANKIEL LAST NIGHT. This was not to set up a double play this was CC Sabathia saying I've got a much better chance against Rick than against the man who is slugging .318. By the way Rick proved CC made the correct decision by striking out, one of his three (in 3 ABs) on the night.

I'm excited, I don't really know why, given that two of the most likable and productive Royals are no longer on the team (for now in the case of DDJ). However, at this point in a long losing season any kind of change is good.

I like the enthusiasm Ned

“We’re in it,” Yost insisted. “We’re eight games out. We’re a week out of first place as we sit today. I mean, really. Eight days. If things happen. Yeah, I really believe it.”


Milwaukee Ned has the boys headed in the right direction and we're now on a 9-3 streak, 8 games out of first and only 8 games under .500.  As you can see from the quote above, Ned strongly believes that we are right in the middle of a pennant chase in the AL Central and while  my first reaction was to laugh and ridicule this comment, you know what...I have to say that Ned's got the right idea.  While the 8-day week Ned mentions would be one helluva week (the Tigers, White Sox and Twins lose every game and we win every game), still anything positive for KC is a good thing.  


First, I'll start off by apologizing profusely to Wilson Betemit and Bruce Chen; Wilson is the power bat that we have been looking for and Chen is the missing #2 starter behind a rejuvenated Greinke.  I can't explain it but I'll give credit where credit is due and these two have been big contributors to the recent success of the Royals.


Next, now that we're back in the race we can finally stop all of this cooky trade talk and start talking about who we are going to pick-up for the stretch run.  Previously the discussions involved our veteran players going to contenders but now we can get down to the business of which of our prospects we use to get us into the playoffs.  So much has been made about our improved minor league system and now is the time to capitalize on all the hype:  boys and girls there is a new name in the Cliff Lee sweepstakes.  Probably any two of our top prospects would fetch us Cliff Lee and KC is hungry for a pennant so lets throw Hosmer and Montgomery at Seattle and see what they have to say.  I'll bet we could have this deal done overnight and Lee starting behind Greinke after the All Start break.


Thankfully we have Rick Ankiel coming back soon from the DL, so we have no need to go out and get a big-name slugger. Rick has been resting-up for a couple of months and now that quad/hammy/ankle is surely ready to go.  This is, of course, not to mention Betemit who, if only he had enough at bats to qualify would be leading the league in slugging and OPS. These two guys really balance out our line-up and offer the added pop we've needed to go along with our league leading singles attack.


Bullpen?  Check. No need to look for help here, we just had to find the right situations for the guys we already had and like that we've got a shut down group of relievers.  Good luck finding a stingier group than the feared trio of Farny, Robby and Mexy;  7th, 8th, 9th Game Over Man!    


Once we acquire Lee, our staring rotation is going to be dominant.  The Yankees are having nightmares right now just thinking about Grienke, Lee and then Chen.  Of course I almost forgot that THIS time when Gil and Hochevar return from the DL they will be at the top of their game and then the rest of the AL can just forget about even playing the Royals.  


It's a tough leap of faith for a bitter Royals fan, but lets all have two of  what Ned is drinking and get behind this bunch.  Being a Royals critic is easy and quite frankly we should all be a bit bored of it by now, so lets try our hand and being believers for once.  Ned for president!

Sunday Night Baseball

You might be thinking there is an error on your Royals calender which says that the boys in blue will be playing tonight Sunday, July 4th at 8:15.  However, you would be mistaken because for the first time since June 16, 1996 your KC Royals will be taking part in ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball.  After a 14 year hiatus we're back showcasing our #2 starter Anthony Lerew and surprisingly in 14 years not much has changed.  Basically, the best we can do is point to 2003 as the only thing resembling a successful season during our 14 year ban from ESPN Sunday Night games.  Let's take a look back a see who's the 1996 version of today's Royals squad....

The 1996 Jason Kendall:  I actually wish we had the 1996 Jason Kendall, it has been so long ago that it was Kendall's rookie year the last time we were on ESPN SNB.  The starting catcher in '96 for KC was Mike Macfarlane and he was very un-Kendall like that year with an OPS of .838, 19HRS in 419PA and gunned down 39% of would be base stealers.  So the better comparison would be to the '96 back-up Sal Fasano who put up on OPS of .626 which is much closer to Kendall's .640.  Yes, Jason you are this year's Sal Fasano, only you catch way more games.

The 1996 Willie Bloomquist:  Bip Roberts is a very easy comparison to Willie, no power, a little speed, plays multiple positions, nearing the end of an undistinguished career and probably occupying a roster spot best suited for someone much younger.  Willie you are the 2010 Bip Roberts, in 2024 I will probably think about your name in the same way I'm trying to picture Bip on the 1996 team, the image just isn't there.

The 1996 Scott Posednik:  Tom Goodwin - SPOT ON.  No power, decent average, steals a lot of bases but also gets thrown out way too much and despite the speed can't play CF.  But based on that speed they will always have a home.

The 1996 Zach Greinke:  Kevin Appier, just a great Royal name and one fans won't forget because he was one of the few bright spots in some pretty pathetic rotations.

The 1996 Bruce Chen:  Doug Linton. Who? Yeah, this is probably pretty hard on Bruce Chen and it appears that the PBR might soon have to write a formal apology to Mr. Chen but I hope I forget the name of Bruce Chen just as easily as I have the name Doug Linton, sorry.

Who is this year's Jose Offerman, Michael Tucker, Tim Belcher, Joe Vitiello, Craig Paqette...?  If you've got any suggestions pass them on and enjoy Sunday Night Baseball, because it really doesn't come around that often.