Why can't the Royals be the new Twins? How do they do it? We have a better offense and starting pitching this year, so how are they sooo good? The Royals headed up to take a look at the brand-spankin-new Target field this past weekend and but for Alberto Callaspo's power stroke were reminded of how NOT the Twins the Royals are. Here are the notes from this past weekend...
Slider no worky...
Roman Colon was the bullpen's first casualty/scapegoat and though you have to congratulate the Royals on stepping up and making a move you really wonder what was the thinking that made Colon the first to go and not Mendoza; who based on stats, years of service to the club and last name should logically have been the first to go. Josh Rupe has been good so far and appears to have been the right call-up, by the way here is Trey on just why Rupe was the Chosen One...
“He does a good job of monitoring the running game. He’s athletic. He holds runners well with a good pick move. He gets off the mound fast. Hopefully, his stuff will play out.”
Seriously, Trey mentions the all important set-up man pick-off move as the reason for Rupe's call-up and yes Trey HOPEFULLY the stuff will play out
He's Back...
Thanks to a little boo-boo to Chris Getz we get to see Alex Gordon take another crack at that break-out season everyone has been waiting to see. Putting Getz on the DL also allows to the Royals to avoid any further tough decisions about their 25 man roster i.e., getting rid of another middle reliever.
It couldn't last...
John Parrish took his hitless, scoreless and effectiveness streak into 7th inning of the game on Saturday in Minnesota and it ended right there. He gave up a run, two hits and took the loss in the latest bullpen failure. He's no longer blameless.
Gil & Grienke...
These two produced a pair of borderline scary starts. First Zach goes out on Friday and does his best wild thing impersonation by lasting only 5 innings mainly because of 5 walks and then gives a ranting explanation about why this happened that would make even the most loyal fan a little worried that there may be a chink in his armor. Gil follows this up on Saturday by giving up a 5-run second inning that almost made fans give-up, then he miraculously held it together to pitch 6 innings and give us some hope that maybe he just needed a couple of warm-up starts to get his groove back.
Power Surge...
The offense continues to be surprising as Callaspo and Ankiel both had two homer games and all four of the hrs came in important spots in the game; Callaspo carried the team to a sweep-avoiding win on Sunday and Ankiel did his best to give the Royals a chance on Saturday (it didn't work in the end but...).
Visiting old friends...
Now its time for the team to get out their passports and cross the border into Toronto to say hi to old teammate John Buck as the Royals battle the Blue Jays to see if they can't win a series and get to that all important .500 mark.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
The Good The Bad and The Ugly - off-day
Nine games in and believe it or not, its not all bad. The Royals stand at 4-5 with Grienke scheduled to have a shot at getting the Royals to .500 even after some crushing defeats...you know what we'll take it, right? Here's the Good, Bad and Ugly of it all.
STARTING PITCHERS
THE GOOD: Davies, Bannister, Hochevar and Grienke have been solid, no complaints we just want to see more of the same.
THE BAD: Out of the eight GBHD starts they have been rewarded with exactly two wins and its not a stretch to say that they could have eight wins; Hochever had the worst perfomance and actually got the win and the only other non-quality start (what a stat) was Grinke´s horrendous 6 2-3, 4ER game that easily could have been a win. No need to go in to detail of the why (see previous two posts) but an unrewarded starting rotation hurts.
THE UGLY: Gil Meche´s return. After starting the year on the DL only to return a few days later (not sure why) Gil was pounded by the Red Sox. He hadn´t pitched in a long time and it´s strange that he was rushed back so soon but the fact remains he hasn´t seemed like the Gil Meche of his first 2.5 years in KC in a long time. Thus, he has fans wondering if he might actually be done as even a decent starter and will spend the last 2.5 years as a Royal with more DL stints than wins and be $25 mil down the drain.
THE OFFENSE
THE GOOD: It´s all good! You would not have ever imagined you would be saying this about the Royals' offense BUT the fact remains that we have one of the top offenses in the league. We have the league's leading hitter and stolen base threat (Scotty Pods) at the top of the order to go along with one of the top power hitters in the middle (Jose Guillen!). Not to mention Ankiel has shown flashes of Awesomeness, Billy is still rolling from last year, Kendall has been the absolute shocker of the offense, Yuni has been acceptable, and DDJ has looked better than ever.
THE BAD: Other than Jose´s flashes-of-old power streak it has been based on A LOT of singles. However, that this is the only negative makes the BAD much less bad.
THE UGLY: No Royals fan has any hope of this continuing; Guillen on his way to 40hrs HAH! Scotty Pods 100 steals and a .350 hitter, lets check back in a few weeks. Ankiel 100 RBI, might be the most probable of all the long shots, but still I´m not buying it. Kendall AND Yuni both hitting above .260, I´ll give you all the odds you want. But its nice to dream.
THE BULLPEN
THE GOOD: It´s surprising that there is something to write about in this category but, hats off to John Parrish on not allowing either a hit or a run and being a bright spot in a giant pile of... Also, despite batters hitting over .330 against them, Farny and J Cruz both have ERAs under 2.50 (in a category so thin on GOODs this makes the cut but, they could have just as easily been lumped into the bad).
THE BAD: See THE UGLY, its soooo BAD that bad is too good of a word.
THE UGLY: Colon, Tejada, Dusty and Mendoza. The best of them has an ERA of 9.00, I could go on with bad stats but I started to feel nauseous. Here are my nicknames for the crew, and please feel free to add anything you´ve got in the comments.
Colon: "Charcol", the base of a good KC pen BBQ.
Tejada: "Lighter Fluid", highly flammable and overused but a must to get the fire started.
Dusty: "Mesquite", he's the wood chips that add the special smoky flavor to good BBQ.
Mendoza: "The Match", throw him on top of equal parts Colon, Tejada and Dusty and you've got your perfect KC bullpen BBQ, one that makes (insert favorite KC BBQ spot here) jealous.
Will Grinke start the Royals on a big streak up in Minnesota or will Grienke continue an improbable steak of bad luck amongst the starters? Will the Royals offense go flat and come back to earth or will we all have to congratulate Dayton Moore on his great offseason finds? Will the bullpen right the ship and go on to have a decent year or will the tires continue to come off and keep the Royals from even being respectable?
STARTING PITCHERS
THE GOOD: Davies, Bannister, Hochevar and Grienke have been solid, no complaints we just want to see more of the same.
THE BAD: Out of the eight GBHD starts they have been rewarded with exactly two wins and its not a stretch to say that they could have eight wins; Hochever had the worst perfomance and actually got the win and the only other non-quality start (what a stat) was Grinke´s horrendous 6 2-3, 4ER game that easily could have been a win. No need to go in to detail of the why (see previous two posts) but an unrewarded starting rotation hurts.
THE UGLY: Gil Meche´s return. After starting the year on the DL only to return a few days later (not sure why) Gil was pounded by the Red Sox. He hadn´t pitched in a long time and it´s strange that he was rushed back so soon but the fact remains he hasn´t seemed like the Gil Meche of his first 2.5 years in KC in a long time. Thus, he has fans wondering if he might actually be done as even a decent starter and will spend the last 2.5 years as a Royal with more DL stints than wins and be $25 mil down the drain.
THE OFFENSE
THE GOOD: It´s all good! You would not have ever imagined you would be saying this about the Royals' offense BUT the fact remains that we have one of the top offenses in the league. We have the league's leading hitter and stolen base threat (Scotty Pods) at the top of the order to go along with one of the top power hitters in the middle (Jose Guillen!). Not to mention Ankiel has shown flashes of Awesomeness, Billy is still rolling from last year, Kendall has been the absolute shocker of the offense, Yuni has been acceptable, and DDJ has looked better than ever.
THE BAD: Other than Jose´s flashes-of-old power streak it has been based on A LOT of singles. However, that this is the only negative makes the BAD much less bad.
THE UGLY: No Royals fan has any hope of this continuing; Guillen on his way to 40hrs HAH! Scotty Pods 100 steals and a .350 hitter, lets check back in a few weeks. Ankiel 100 RBI, might be the most probable of all the long shots, but still I´m not buying it. Kendall AND Yuni both hitting above .260, I´ll give you all the odds you want. But its nice to dream.
THE BULLPEN
THE GOOD: It´s surprising that there is something to write about in this category but, hats off to John Parrish on not allowing either a hit or a run and being a bright spot in a giant pile of... Also, despite batters hitting over .330 against them, Farny and J Cruz both have ERAs under 2.50 (in a category so thin on GOODs this makes the cut but, they could have just as easily been lumped into the bad).
THE BAD: See THE UGLY, its soooo BAD that bad is too good of a word.
THE UGLY: Colon, Tejada, Dusty and Mendoza. The best of them has an ERA of 9.00, I could go on with bad stats but I started to feel nauseous. Here are my nicknames for the crew, and please feel free to add anything you´ve got in the comments.
Colon: "Charcol", the base of a good KC pen BBQ.
Tejada: "Lighter Fluid", highly flammable and overused but a must to get the fire started.
Dusty: "Mesquite", he's the wood chips that add the special smoky flavor to good BBQ.
Mendoza: "The Match", throw him on top of equal parts Colon, Tejada and Dusty and you've got your perfect KC bullpen BBQ, one that makes (insert favorite KC BBQ spot here) jealous.
Will Grinke start the Royals on a big streak up in Minnesota or will Grienke continue an improbable steak of bad luck amongst the starters? Will the Royals offense go flat and come back to earth or will we all have to congratulate Dayton Moore on his great offseason finds? Will the bullpen right the ship and go on to have a decent year or will the tires continue to come off and keep the Royals from even being respectable?
Friday, April 9, 2010
ohh Trey
This may be Tokyo Trey´s most confused and ranting quote ever (and that´s saying a lot), read big T's explanation for the latest Royals bullpen disater, the contradictions embedded in this are numerous and jaw-droppingly funny....
“We’ve got to give guys an opportunity to settle into roles,” manager Trey Hillman said. “Sometimes, it takes a few days. We don’t have guys with a long history of being effective in the seventh and eighth innings. We’re going to have to develop it.
“Hopefully, we can get them in the right situations and get to the backside.”
“It’s disappointing, but I’ve seen a couple of other games on TV. There have been some other bullpens blow up with a lot higher payroll than ours and with a lot more guys established in the roles that they’re in.”
First off T-money claims that we just need some time for the guys to "settle in" because of course if you give a bunch of unsucessful relievers time, eventually they will be good. Right, it happens all the time.
He then moves on to point out that our guys don´t exactly have a long track record of "effectiveness" in the 7th & 8th. Now either this is a blunt reference to the fact that we suck or as Trey points out we just need to "develop it". Again, there is some force that chess master Trey just hasn´t unlocked yet, he´ll be brushing up on his Jedi training and motivational speeches to get all of our guys to that happy place where pressure just rolls off their sleeve. It´s all in the HIPS, Happy.
He further fleshes-out his award-winning bullpen development theory with a reference to finding the "right situations" for the gang. I think his next move will be to blow everyone's mind by starting the game out with relievers and closing it with starters. They are obviously not cutting it in the 7th and 8th so why not try the 1st and 2nd? BINGO, Trey, problem solved!
Then he takes a sligt turn and really gets to the heart of the problem. It´s the economy stupid! First, Trey lets us know that he watches TV and keeps tabs on all of those Richie Rich teams with their big payrolls and mind you they too get shelled. First off, Trey my dear boy, niether the Yanks nor the BoSox have one let alone a pair of set-up men as expensive as our beloved duo of Kyle Farnsworth and Juan Cruz. Not to mention - Trey goes on to explain - those guys are all "established" in their roles. So apparently at nearly 20 combined years in the bigs J Cruz and Farny are still trying to get it into their heads that they should be ready to pith when the starter leaves the game; i.e., be a 'relief' pitcher. Bullpen 101 is also still lost on Colon and Tejada who after an entire year of this last year just need a quick refresher course. Professor Trey, what was that again? Runs in the 7th and 8th with your team leading are bad? You're learning my boys, your "development" is progressing and soon you will be "established."
Okay, granted bullpen work is hard and its highly magnified but this opening series was too much and Trey could have just said nothing but he chose his words like a drunken sailor. According to him either we just need time or he has picked bad situations for his relievers or we need to spend spend spend or we need even older relievers (come back Ron Mahay you were so established).
My apologies to the combo of Grienke, Hochevar and Bannister; you guys tried to make it a nice opening series at the K. Develop it Trey!
“We’ve got to give guys an opportunity to settle into roles,” manager Trey Hillman said. “Sometimes, it takes a few days. We don’t have guys with a long history of being effective in the seventh and eighth innings. We’re going to have to develop it.
“Hopefully, we can get them in the right situations and get to the backside.”
“It’s disappointing, but I’ve seen a couple of other games on TV. There have been some other bullpens blow up with a lot higher payroll than ours and with a lot more guys established in the roles that they’re in.”
First off T-money claims that we just need some time for the guys to "settle in" because of course if you give a bunch of unsucessful relievers time, eventually they will be good. Right, it happens all the time.
He then moves on to point out that our guys don´t exactly have a long track record of "effectiveness" in the 7th & 8th. Now either this is a blunt reference to the fact that we suck or as Trey points out we just need to "develop it". Again, there is some force that chess master Trey just hasn´t unlocked yet, he´ll be brushing up on his Jedi training and motivational speeches to get all of our guys to that happy place where pressure just rolls off their sleeve. It´s all in the HIPS, Happy.
He further fleshes-out his award-winning bullpen development theory with a reference to finding the "right situations" for the gang. I think his next move will be to blow everyone's mind by starting the game out with relievers and closing it with starters. They are obviously not cutting it in the 7th and 8th so why not try the 1st and 2nd? BINGO, Trey, problem solved!
Then he takes a sligt turn and really gets to the heart of the problem. It´s the economy stupid! First, Trey lets us know that he watches TV and keeps tabs on all of those Richie Rich teams with their big payrolls and mind you they too get shelled. First off, Trey my dear boy, niether the Yanks nor the BoSox have one let alone a pair of set-up men as expensive as our beloved duo of Kyle Farnsworth and Juan Cruz. Not to mention - Trey goes on to explain - those guys are all "established" in their roles. So apparently at nearly 20 combined years in the bigs J Cruz and Farny are still trying to get it into their heads that they should be ready to pith when the starter leaves the game; i.e., be a 'relief' pitcher. Bullpen 101 is also still lost on Colon and Tejada who after an entire year of this last year just need a quick refresher course. Professor Trey, what was that again? Runs in the 7th and 8th with your team leading are bad? You're learning my boys, your "development" is progressing and soon you will be "established."
Okay, granted bullpen work is hard and its highly magnified but this opening series was too much and Trey could have just said nothing but he chose his words like a drunken sailor. According to him either we just need time or he has picked bad situations for his relievers or we need to spend spend spend or we need even older relievers (come back Ron Mahay you were so established).
My apologies to the combo of Grienke, Hochevar and Bannister; you guys tried to make it a nice opening series at the K. Develop it Trey!
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Déjà F#@&
If there were anything else new to say about the Royals opening day laugher I'd probably be writing for something other than a not-yet-recognized Royals' blog. So with that disclaimer lets have a laugh and re-live the aches and pains of Monday's foreshadowing to a long season.
So we start the year off by somehow going through an amazing three third basemen - along with second base the one place you might actually say the Royals have under control - to end up with Willie Bloomquist in the starting line-up. If you were a Royals fan, one thing that would lead you to believe that we were in trouble, would be this, he obviously played too much last year and did so because of injuries and such. So to see him anchoring 3B and the six-hole in the line-up on opening day was cringe-worthy indeed but then to have him commit an error in the first inning thus giving up an unearned run for Grienke was flat-out hysterical.
Moving along, DDJ leads off the game for us with a hit and then promptly Tokio Trey, master of the head-scratchers, has one of our new acquisitions bunt in his first AB of the year. Predictably, following the sac bunt neither Butler nor Ankiel drove in the run and you're saying to yourself, a $2 million bunter is what we got this off-season...actually I thought it was because he gets on base and scores runs.
Then this is where it gets good (not sarcastic good but hopeful good): Grienke rights the ship and Yuniesky hits an out-of-nowhere bomb and suddenly you're like I might actually watch a few more innings. Then it seems as if they are doing things like a real baseball team: Grienke puts it on cruise-control and in the fifth a two-out rally that gives fans and coaches orgasms; our new pick-up singles and steals a base, our veteran leader does the same, previously mentioned new addition that gets on base coaxes a walk and our bright young star delivers a two-out, two-RBI single off opposing teams number one starter. This is baseball, this is why fans are so loyal, 4-1 lead with Grienke rolling, ball game over, Right?
Grinke follows by getting tapped around a bit and you're on pins and needles until he reminds us of his Wooderson-like cool and all is well, 4-2 heading to the 7th.
Then you would have been rightfully struck by surprise in the seventh inning when chess master Hilman elected not to send out Grienke. But on the other hand...its a long year and you too have been reading about this new un-hittable slider that Roman Colon has, so you say lets test our new and improved bullpen. Colon was well...still hittable. Okay Tejada, lets see that guy from last September...guess what he's still on vacation. J Cruz, bounce back year...not exactly. Dust settles and the Royals go to bat in the bottom of the seventh down 8-4 and are quickly reminded of how meager their offense is. As a side note, our $4.5 mil power reliever/starter had a nice inning of clean-up duty.
Was this as bad as it could be for an opening day? Pretty much. Do we still have hope for this year? Much, much less. Completely crushed? Not quite. I think that about five more games like this would do the trick.
So we start the year off by somehow going through an amazing three third basemen - along with second base the one place you might actually say the Royals have under control - to end up with Willie Bloomquist in the starting line-up. If you were a Royals fan, one thing that would lead you to believe that we were in trouble, would be this, he obviously played too much last year and did so because of injuries and such. So to see him anchoring 3B and the six-hole in the line-up on opening day was cringe-worthy indeed but then to have him commit an error in the first inning thus giving up an unearned run for Grienke was flat-out hysterical.
Moving along, DDJ leads off the game for us with a hit and then promptly Tokio Trey, master of the head-scratchers, has one of our new acquisitions bunt in his first AB of the year. Predictably, following the sac bunt neither Butler nor Ankiel drove in the run and you're saying to yourself, a $2 million bunter is what we got this off-season...actually I thought it was because he gets on base and scores runs.
Then this is where it gets good (not sarcastic good but hopeful good): Grienke rights the ship and Yuniesky hits an out-of-nowhere bomb and suddenly you're like I might actually watch a few more innings. Then it seems as if they are doing things like a real baseball team: Grienke puts it on cruise-control and in the fifth a two-out rally that gives fans and coaches orgasms; our new pick-up singles and steals a base, our veteran leader does the same, previously mentioned new addition that gets on base coaxes a walk and our bright young star delivers a two-out, two-RBI single off opposing teams number one starter. This is baseball, this is why fans are so loyal, 4-1 lead with Grienke rolling, ball game over, Right?
Grinke follows by getting tapped around a bit and you're on pins and needles until he reminds us of his Wooderson-like cool and all is well, 4-2 heading to the 7th.
Then you would have been rightfully struck by surprise in the seventh inning when chess master Hilman elected not to send out Grienke. But on the other hand...its a long year and you too have been reading about this new un-hittable slider that Roman Colon has, so you say lets test our new and improved bullpen. Colon was well...still hittable. Okay Tejada, lets see that guy from last September...guess what he's still on vacation. J Cruz, bounce back year...not exactly. Dust settles and the Royals go to bat in the bottom of the seventh down 8-4 and are quickly reminded of how meager their offense is. As a side note, our $4.5 mil power reliever/starter had a nice inning of clean-up duty.
Was this as bad as it could be for an opening day? Pretty much. Do we still have hope for this year? Much, much less. Completely crushed? Not quite. I think that about five more games like this would do the trick.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Warning Signs & Rays of Hope
Spring training is all about finding hidden gems, filling out rosters and hoping that your studs stay healthy and don´t report to camp packing an extra 30lbs of offseason downtime. So far the Royals camp has been filled with both good news and bad news...
First, the things to like:
1. Grienke is still be Awsome! No signs of straying from the meds, no random elbow injury and no fluke season thoughts to ponder, the guy is here to stay. Also, in one game the Royals actually scored runs for him, a few four run leads for Grienke and he´s an easy 20 game winnner this year.
2. Arron Crow is awesome too, it appears that one of the Royals "can´t miss" picks might actually be that and the big bonous with him is that it might happen sooner than later...Grienke and Crow, the best one-two punch in the majors, lead the Royals to a sweep of the Yankees in the Division series...who doesn´t like the sound of that.
3. Mike Aviles might be back, this is a hold your breath statement, but the guy has been hitting in Spring Training and was (and hopefully still will be) one of those out-of-nowhere bright spots that the Roayls desperately need to suceed.
4. Mich Maier, Alberto Callaspo and Kila Ka'aihue are raking - while these are the bright spots offesnsively, they are also a double-edged sword because they were cast away by the Royals and no matter what they do they´re long shots to be full-timers. This is the kind of stick-it-to-the-man story you like to hear about; Maier was thrice informed that his services were no longer needed in the offseason (signings or OFs Anderson, Posednik and then Ankiel), Callaspo was arguably our non-Grienke MVP last season and then was told sorry we traded for the speedy slap hitter with Tom Emanski-like fundamentals and now maybe we can squeeze you in at DH and you can help Lil´Willie give guys days off. Ka'aihue is probably a victim of that old baseball fallacy that guys don´t hit as well when they aren´t playing in the field and thus to keep Butler happy and due to a log jam at DH he´ll be sent to the minors again and at best might be traded in the future.
5. Niether Meche, Bannister nor Hochevar have tweaked anything yet. These are the candidates to stand in the rather large shadow of Grienke and vie for that #2 spot in the rotation. Solid seasons are absolutely fundamental for these guys; no backiatomies for Meche, a whole season from Banny and something resembling the merit of a #1 overall pick from Hoch. If this has any chance to be an interesting year for the Royals not one, not two but all three of these guys have to make 30+ starts with ERAs under or around 4.00.
Now for the 4 horsemen of the Apocolypse:
1. Alex Gordon went out and broke his hand just a few games into the spring training schedule and when I read the headline it seemed like nothing surprising, just part of the box-score; Butler 1/3, Callaspo 2/3 and Gordon Broken Thumb. There was no way he could just be the George Brett we´ve been waiting for, this seems like as ominous of a start as you could get.
2. Ankiel´s Ankle, who thinks this is the last time we´re going to see this problem surface? Not me either, on a lot of teams you might be reading about the resurgence of Ankiel, but for the Royals it will be one nagging injury after another until the final "shut down" or "season ending surgery" or "tear in the (insert muscle here)" ends another failed gamble in the free agent market for the Royals. Forcast for raining frogs in the KC area.
3. Kendall has been hitting in the two hole, I read about it somewhere, then I saw it in the box score and immediately phoned the KC Star to ask if there was mistake. It just can't be true. If I´m not mistaken I thought I saw Coach Trey hitting fungo with a trident the other day.
4. Almost all of the offseason moves are proving to be worthless or more accurately put counter-productive and unnecessary: Ankiel goes down and his backup is some speed burning natural CF that, on paper at least, looks ready for a shot. If you strictly went by the numbers Maier wins a starting spot in the OF easily and the Teahen trade netted us a second baseman (already had one-Callaspo) and a back-up 3B/outfielder (traded one to get one-Teahen) who may back-up at first (had one-Ka'aihue). Could Posednik really be better than Maier? Only the Royals think so. Was Ankiel going to be the first Royal with 30 hrs in 10yrs? Outlook was doubtful. Do you give up on a .300 switch hitting secondbasemen for a rookie? It doesn't even make sense to try. Dayton Moore will be residing somewhere between the 3rd and 4th rings of the Inferno.
5. The 5th starter situation: other than Crow - and it's impossible to imagine Hilman and Moore not using the "seasoning in the minors" cop-out with him - there is nothing to be hopeful for. Kyle Davis has been throwing batting practice, Tejada has been shelled, The Farny experiment hasn't blossomed and the best sky-is-falling news is that Dr. Bruce Chen is still in the mix. Say your prayers.
Let's hope the rays of light outshine the dark clouds floating above the Royals dugout and fans can have something to at least be interested in this year.
First, the things to like:
1. Grienke is still be Awsome! No signs of straying from the meds, no random elbow injury and no fluke season thoughts to ponder, the guy is here to stay. Also, in one game the Royals actually scored runs for him, a few four run leads for Grienke and he´s an easy 20 game winnner this year.
2. Arron Crow is awesome too, it appears that one of the Royals "can´t miss" picks might actually be that and the big bonous with him is that it might happen sooner than later...Grienke and Crow, the best one-two punch in the majors, lead the Royals to a sweep of the Yankees in the Division series...who doesn´t like the sound of that.
3. Mike Aviles might be back, this is a hold your breath statement, but the guy has been hitting in Spring Training and was (and hopefully still will be) one of those out-of-nowhere bright spots that the Roayls desperately need to suceed.
4. Mich Maier, Alberto Callaspo and Kila Ka'aihue are raking - while these are the bright spots offesnsively, they are also a double-edged sword because they were cast away by the Royals and no matter what they do they´re long shots to be full-timers. This is the kind of stick-it-to-the-man story you like to hear about; Maier was thrice informed that his services were no longer needed in the offseason (signings or OFs Anderson, Posednik and then Ankiel), Callaspo was arguably our non-Grienke MVP last season and then was told sorry we traded for the speedy slap hitter with Tom Emanski-like fundamentals and now maybe we can squeeze you in at DH and you can help Lil´Willie give guys days off. Ka'aihue is probably a victim of that old baseball fallacy that guys don´t hit as well when they aren´t playing in the field and thus to keep Butler happy and due to a log jam at DH he´ll be sent to the minors again and at best might be traded in the future.
5. Niether Meche, Bannister nor Hochevar have tweaked anything yet. These are the candidates to stand in the rather large shadow of Grienke and vie for that #2 spot in the rotation. Solid seasons are absolutely fundamental for these guys; no backiatomies for Meche, a whole season from Banny and something resembling the merit of a #1 overall pick from Hoch. If this has any chance to be an interesting year for the Royals not one, not two but all three of these guys have to make 30+ starts with ERAs under or around 4.00.
Now for the 4 horsemen of the Apocolypse:
1. Alex Gordon went out and broke his hand just a few games into the spring training schedule and when I read the headline it seemed like nothing surprising, just part of the box-score; Butler 1/3, Callaspo 2/3 and Gordon Broken Thumb. There was no way he could just be the George Brett we´ve been waiting for, this seems like as ominous of a start as you could get.
2. Ankiel´s Ankle, who thinks this is the last time we´re going to see this problem surface? Not me either, on a lot of teams you might be reading about the resurgence of Ankiel, but for the Royals it will be one nagging injury after another until the final "shut down" or "season ending surgery" or "tear in the (insert muscle here)" ends another failed gamble in the free agent market for the Royals. Forcast for raining frogs in the KC area.
3. Kendall has been hitting in the two hole, I read about it somewhere, then I saw it in the box score and immediately phoned the KC Star to ask if there was mistake. It just can't be true. If I´m not mistaken I thought I saw Coach Trey hitting fungo with a trident the other day.
4. Almost all of the offseason moves are proving to be worthless or more accurately put counter-productive and unnecessary: Ankiel goes down and his backup is some speed burning natural CF that, on paper at least, looks ready for a shot. If you strictly went by the numbers Maier wins a starting spot in the OF easily and the Teahen trade netted us a second baseman (already had one-Callaspo) and a back-up 3B/outfielder (traded one to get one-Teahen) who may back-up at first (had one-Ka'aihue). Could Posednik really be better than Maier? Only the Royals think so. Was Ankiel going to be the first Royal with 30 hrs in 10yrs? Outlook was doubtful. Do you give up on a .300 switch hitting secondbasemen for a rookie? It doesn't even make sense to try. Dayton Moore will be residing somewhere between the 3rd and 4th rings of the Inferno.
5. The 5th starter situation: other than Crow - and it's impossible to imagine Hilman and Moore not using the "seasoning in the minors" cop-out with him - there is nothing to be hopeful for. Kyle Davis has been throwing batting practice, Tejada has been shelled, The Farny experiment hasn't blossomed and the best sky-is-falling news is that Dr. Bruce Chen is still in the mix. Say your prayers.
Let's hope the rays of light outshine the dark clouds floating above the Royals dugout and fans can have something to at least be interested in this year.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Fare thee Well...
The Royals are getting ready to roll into the lovely Phoenix retirement community of Surprise, AZ which they will call home for the next couple of months. However, this year they will be without a few notable fixtures over the past few years and we thought it would be a good time to give them a final PowderBlueRoom sendoff.
John Buck: Oh Big Buck Hunter...your swing reminded us of Tony Gwynn and your ability to gun down runners was vintage Pudge, but somehow it just didn´t work out for you here in KC. Maybe you were a victim of over inflated arbitration salaries, which is a shame because KC really seemed liked the place for you. The calm midwest atmosphere would have suited you well, we would have liked to have seen you behind the plate for the next 10 years with your jersey out in Left Field next to the likes of George Brett and Frank White. However, due to the fact that you would have made more than you were worth through arbitration we are now left with someone who in the last 6 years has hit as many HRs (8) as you did last year in 186 ABs!!! Now its off to Toronto, I wish I could say that things might be better for you there but, when hockey is a more popular sport and instead of squaring off against the likes of the Twins and ChiSox you now have to try and overtake the Yanks and BoSox the year after your team traded away the best pitcher in Baseball, I don´t have much confidence for improvement. None the less, we wish you the best across the border, hopefully its just the right environment for you. In KC you were the Guy we got for Beltran but up there you´re just some guy who was picked-up off the scrap pile to fill a hole at a reasonable price, so maybe you can just shock some folks and put up 25HRs and get yourself a nice multi-year deal in 2011.
Mark Teahen: Mr. Marcus you briefly looked like a star-in-the-making but unfortunately you never even came close to that 2006 promise again. We were patient as fans, but basically you never even did anything to make us realize that you were on the field. You couldn´t find a position and as a leadoff hitter David DeJesus had more RBIs than you did in each of the past two seasons. I am happy to hear that the White Sox want you back at your former position of 3B and they´ve signed you up for a few years, you need stability after your time in KC. You really coluld have saved the Royals a lot of headaches if you were just a little bit better (never having to sign Mr. Guillen) however, we´re not here for complaints you did your job year in and year out for an extremely depressing baseball team and by no means were you one of the leading culprits or scapegoats. So we bid you adieu and by the way please don´t go all Michael Corleone on us next season when we square off against one another.
Miguel Olivo: Miggy, at least you were interesting; watching you strike out on curve balls in the left-handed batters box only to later hit a 400ft homerun was fun. Unfortunately, patience wasn´t your strong suit and a few too many passed balls last year sealed your fate as a Royal. Hindsight being 20-20, if asked, I would bet that few Royals fans would choose Jason Kendall over you as their starter this year, its just not fun to see someone who can take a few extra walks and who "blocks the ball" slightly better. So what if you couldn´t ever hit that .300 OBP mark, you could probably bench press Jason Kendall at least 20 times and you caught Greinke last year - why break-up a good thing. Not to mention that Kendall hasn´t topped your OPS from last season since 2004 and his homerun total from 2002-2009 (20) is less than yours from last year (23). Of all the losses, I think I will shed more tears for you than anyone as I´m watching the Royals this coming year. Here´s me raising a Coors Silver Bullet hoping that the thin air in Denver carries you to 30hrs this year.
Good luck to all - we´ll throw in an honorable mention to bullben stalwarts Yasuhiko Yabuta, Ron Mahay and John Bale - you can be semi-assured that wherever you end-up it has a good chance of sucking less than if KC had retained your services. Here´s to new beginnings in 2010! Pitchers and Catchers report to duty.
John Buck: Oh Big Buck Hunter...your swing reminded us of Tony Gwynn and your ability to gun down runners was vintage Pudge, but somehow it just didn´t work out for you here in KC. Maybe you were a victim of over inflated arbitration salaries, which is a shame because KC really seemed liked the place for you. The calm midwest atmosphere would have suited you well, we would have liked to have seen you behind the plate for the next 10 years with your jersey out in Left Field next to the likes of George Brett and Frank White. However, due to the fact that you would have made more than you were worth through arbitration we are now left with someone who in the last 6 years has hit as many HRs (8) as you did last year in 186 ABs!!! Now its off to Toronto, I wish I could say that things might be better for you there but, when hockey is a more popular sport and instead of squaring off against the likes of the Twins and ChiSox you now have to try and overtake the Yanks and BoSox the year after your team traded away the best pitcher in Baseball, I don´t have much confidence for improvement. None the less, we wish you the best across the border, hopefully its just the right environment for you. In KC you were the Guy we got for Beltran but up there you´re just some guy who was picked-up off the scrap pile to fill a hole at a reasonable price, so maybe you can just shock some folks and put up 25HRs and get yourself a nice multi-year deal in 2011.
Mark Teahen: Mr. Marcus you briefly looked like a star-in-the-making but unfortunately you never even came close to that 2006 promise again. We were patient as fans, but basically you never even did anything to make us realize that you were on the field. You couldn´t find a position and as a leadoff hitter David DeJesus had more RBIs than you did in each of the past two seasons. I am happy to hear that the White Sox want you back at your former position of 3B and they´ve signed you up for a few years, you need stability after your time in KC. You really coluld have saved the Royals a lot of headaches if you were just a little bit better (never having to sign Mr. Guillen) however, we´re not here for complaints you did your job year in and year out for an extremely depressing baseball team and by no means were you one of the leading culprits or scapegoats. So we bid you adieu and by the way please don´t go all Michael Corleone on us next season when we square off against one another.
Miguel Olivo: Miggy, at least you were interesting; watching you strike out on curve balls in the left-handed batters box only to later hit a 400ft homerun was fun. Unfortunately, patience wasn´t your strong suit and a few too many passed balls last year sealed your fate as a Royal. Hindsight being 20-20, if asked, I would bet that few Royals fans would choose Jason Kendall over you as their starter this year, its just not fun to see someone who can take a few extra walks and who "blocks the ball" slightly better. So what if you couldn´t ever hit that .300 OBP mark, you could probably bench press Jason Kendall at least 20 times and you caught Greinke last year - why break-up a good thing. Not to mention that Kendall hasn´t topped your OPS from last season since 2004 and his homerun total from 2002-2009 (20) is less than yours from last year (23). Of all the losses, I think I will shed more tears for you than anyone as I´m watching the Royals this coming year. Here´s me raising a Coors Silver Bullet hoping that the thin air in Denver carries you to 30hrs this year.
Good luck to all - we´ll throw in an honorable mention to bullben stalwarts Yasuhiko Yabuta, Ron Mahay and John Bale - you can be semi-assured that wherever you end-up it has a good chance of sucking less than if KC had retained your services. Here´s to new beginnings in 2010! Pitchers and Catchers report to duty.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Square peg, round hole
You could call it depth, but the Royals aren´t actually good enough for that compliment. If you thought last year was fun watching chess master Trey Hilman play around with the the line-up then this year is a dream come true. On the other hand, if you cringed everytime you saw Lil´Willie in RF hitting second then this year has the potential to give you a brain aneurysm by the end of the first month.
Being that winning teams have stability and Dayton Moore is a winning GM, he cleared up all of the confusion immediately with a somewhat ambiguous statement which led us to believe that this is our 2010 outfield: LF=S. Pods, CF=Slick Rick, RF=DDJ. Quote me all of the UZR-150 stats you like, however this would all be fine and dandy if indeed you thought that each would play anywhere near 130 games at said positions. However, what people in the know - and by in the know I mean anyone who watched 10 games last year - see coming is an outfield that will have more odd pairings than a Haiti benefit concert. The Royals right now have 6 players on the 40-man who could conciveably play all three positions (Ankiel, DDJ, Anderson, Maier, Posednik, Bloomquist) add-in Guillen, Fields and Callaspo at the corners and you have permutations that would make for a great Click and Clack puzzler.
The infield is only slightly better; at 3B you have 4 possibilities, 2 at SS, 3 at 2B and 3 at 1B, add one more at each position for Willie and top it off with something like 5 different DHs. All of this leads to Trey´s favorite place for expermienting; the batting order, which will probably start out the year with Billy, Rick and Jose hitting 3-4-5 and no team has ever had two more obvious candidates for brining up the 8-9 hole than Kendall and Betancourt - a past-his-prime catcher and a free swinging SS who might not combine for 10hrs all year. The rest of the guys are at best good 2-hole hitters and otherwise fitting for the 6&7th spots in the line-up.
With Trey´s penchant to handle his team as if he were day-trading with Jimmy Johnson (Willie's stock is UP Scott's stock is Down!! Defensive Sub!! Batting order flip!! BUY!! SELL!!) and a team rife with possible injuries, I contend that the Royals will set a new MLB record for different starting line-ups (Including batting order) this year. If anyone can find this statistic please pass it along and lets start tracking (it wouldn't surprise me if we already hold the record) the 2010 Royals line-up cards aka Tokyo Trey's Fun with Exel Spreadsheets.
Being that winning teams have stability and Dayton Moore is a winning GM, he cleared up all of the confusion immediately with a somewhat ambiguous statement which led us to believe that this is our 2010 outfield: LF=S. Pods, CF=Slick Rick, RF=DDJ. Quote me all of the UZR-150 stats you like, however this would all be fine and dandy if indeed you thought that each would play anywhere near 130 games at said positions. However, what people in the know - and by in the know I mean anyone who watched 10 games last year - see coming is an outfield that will have more odd pairings than a Haiti benefit concert. The Royals right now have 6 players on the 40-man who could conciveably play all three positions (Ankiel, DDJ, Anderson, Maier, Posednik, Bloomquist) add-in Guillen, Fields and Callaspo at the corners and you have permutations that would make for a great Click and Clack puzzler.
The infield is only slightly better; at 3B you have 4 possibilities, 2 at SS, 3 at 2B and 3 at 1B, add one more at each position for Willie and top it off with something like 5 different DHs. All of this leads to Trey´s favorite place for expermienting; the batting order, which will probably start out the year with Billy, Rick and Jose hitting 3-4-5 and no team has ever had two more obvious candidates for brining up the 8-9 hole than Kendall and Betancourt - a past-his-prime catcher and a free swinging SS who might not combine for 10hrs all year. The rest of the guys are at best good 2-hole hitters and otherwise fitting for the 6&7th spots in the line-up.
With Trey´s penchant to handle his team as if he were day-trading with Jimmy Johnson (Willie's stock is UP Scott's stock is Down!! Defensive Sub!! Batting order flip!! BUY!! SELL!!) and a team rife with possible injuries, I contend that the Royals will set a new MLB record for different starting line-ups (Including batting order) this year. If anyone can find this statistic please pass it along and lets start tracking (it wouldn't surprise me if we already hold the record) the 2010 Royals line-up cards aka Tokyo Trey's Fun with Exel Spreadsheets.
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