Jul/100
Eff Steinbrenner and the Yankees. Why I hate the White Sox. The Royals culture (This whole thing is a plot against me isn’t it?).
Posted by: Bertkc01 on July 22, 2010.
First of all… go here and do this.
https://secure.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/fans/moniker_madness/y2010/moniker_madness.jsp
Now on to the reason I’m here.
Baseball lost a man who both made baseball great and demonized for generations to come in George Steinbrenner. You can’t deny his significance on the game and impact he made in New York. Yada yada yada. Everything you can say you put in that last sentence. Point is though I still hate him. Don’t get me wrong I would still share a drink with him and listen to any advice he gives me (or would have if, in my perfect day dream world, we both went to the same golf club). I just happen to hate what he did to the game of baseball. He turned it into a bidding war. I hope the Yankees of his era do not become the model in which to make a baseball team because I admire what the Braves and Twins are doing a whole heck of a lot more. Solid minor league system constantly moving talent through the system that leads to just making sure 4 or 5 guys are happy, producing and winning and surrounding them with young talent that is replaced in 3 years (you know when they get tooexpensive). Thing is you start winning enough then that talent sticks around and you start making money because the fans love it. Then you can trade some of that talent for other guys who are All-Stars or you sign them in offseason. Oh wait… that’s what Steinbrenner did. Guess I can’t be mad. He did it better than anyone else and left behind a $1.1 billion legacy. * Sigh *
I just got to be clear on one thing though. I friggin’ hate the White Sox. I mean hate them. Like remind me of people I didn’t like in high school hate. The way you hate someone when just looking at them makes a little bile shoot into your throat a little bit. *^#)&)&*#)*EG)&(*UDLJKDV. Hate. I hate them so much I typed garbledy gook on my work. Here’s why: They aren’t good yet they are in first place. What they have is the equivalent of 6 dumb jocks, 2 freshman and 1 nerd playing on the team at all times. The freshman are clearly having off years (Pierre and Beckham) and the nerd (pitcher) is basically doing all the work he can and waiting for the dumb jocks (Konerko, Quentin, Ramirez, Kotsay so on and on)to finally start doing their job which is to kick sand in the faces of all the dumb jocks. So what motivates them? The coach starts talking about benching them or trading. IS THAT ALL IT TAKES? I’m stuck in KC waiting for the talent pool to develop and the whole world of division winning and post season play to come to me in 2 years (it’s always 2 years) and all Guillen has to do is mutter something about sending them to the some other cellar dwelling team and then they are like “Oh okay boss huh huh.” and in a month they’re in 1st place. Give me a break. I wish my team was that dumb/good.
Here’s the point of all this. I had planned to write an article about who we could get in trades and I mean I was going to go over everything and everyone. From Pena to Greinke. Everyone is looking at DeJesus and Guillen and Soria to trade then all of the sudden they trade Callaspo. I can only assume this means that they are planning to make room for Moustakas to get in the lineup eventually and get better starting pitching. Hopefully that means that Davies is on the chopping block next. I can hope right? So now we are completely at a loss of what to do. We have developed a legitimate right side of the diamond with Aviles, Billy Butler and David DeJesus we can say that these are legitimate Royals players. They play the way we want them too and they play it well (only 3 players hitting over .300). Then we have the pitching staff. Greinke, Blake Wood, Soria and Dusty Hughes. You can argue D-Hughes but I think he can develop into a great role player. The Dayton Moore 10 year plan (we are in year 4) calls for majority of the players to be home grown. They’re is 25 on a roster.
So that means 7/25 are part of the future. We need 5 more. I am going with Kila Ka’aihue (sp?), Moustakas, Hosmer and Gordon to be added in. That brings us to 11. Another problem comes when we see that we now have three first basemen. Most likely to be out? KK. Moore isn’t giving up a prized 1st round pick like Hosmer and Billy Butler is an excellent DH. So that takes back to 10. We are getting close people to starting to go down the path of White Sox and the Yankees. It’s just a matter of getting the right pieces in place.
Jul/091
Petro's Mid-Season Grades For the Kansas City Royals (pt. 2)
Posted by: photogwingsfan on July 15, 2009.
Mike Jacobs: C
Mike Jacobs was obtained by Dayton Moore and the Kansas City Royals to hit the long ball. He has done that for the most part with 12 home runs but what we hasn’t done is drive in runs (30 RBI’s) and have a respectable batting average (.222).
David DeJesus: C
David DeJesus has rebounded somewhat after having a rough start to the season and I think has a lot to do with him feeling comfortable batting in the lead-off position. I will fill a lot better about DeJesus if he can continue to hit and raise his .256 batting average.
Jose Guillen: C-
Jose Guillen has done what we expected him to do. A poor batting average (.243), not many RBI’s (37) and has sprinkled in a few home runs (9). What he hasn’t done, which almost made bump him up to a “C” rating, is go on one of his tirades…there is still a chance.
Mitch Maier: C-
Mitch Maier hasn’t had a lot of chances to show what he has but when he has been in the game it has been mainly for defensive purposes and not for his batting average (.213).
Zack Greinke: A
Zack Greinke (10-5) has done everything anyone could ask at this point in the season. He is second in E.R.A. (2.12) in the Major Leagues, tied for second in wins (10), tied for fifth in strikeouts (129), first in complete games (5), and tied for first in shutouts (2). Along with a dominate inning in the All-Star Game (two strikeouts and no hits) he is having an amazing year.
Brian Bannister: C
Brian Bannister started the season off with a promising 4-2 start in his first eight starts, but since then he is 2-5 in his last eight. A good amount of that can be attributed to a lack of run support but he still needs to show consistency in the second half and maintain his respectable E.R.A. (3.66).
Gil Meche: C
Gil Meche (4-9) has had an off year so far. His E.R.A. (4.50) is not where you would like it to be and he has given up too many home runs (11). Some would say his high pitch count (132) on June 16 against Arizona would is part of the reason he has done poorly in his past starts, but as in past seasons he has rebounded and I believe he will.
Luke Hochevar: C-
I might be harsh with Luke Hochevar, and even though it wasn’t his fault he was the top draft pick in 2006, more is expected of him in what will be his second full season. He has shown flashes, once he finally made his season debut in the second week in May, but he isn’t striking out enough and is still giving up too many home runs.
Kyle Davies: D
Kyle Davies started the season off giving Royals fans an exciting look but that didn’t last long and he was sent to the minors before June ended. Not much has worked for him collectively so far this season so myself and Royals fans hope he can turn things around in the minor leagues and help the big league team as soon as possible.
Jamey Wright: D
Jamey Wright has done what I expected. Eat some innings and pitch below average. It was hard for me to give him much of a grade but when he has gotten into the game it isn’t much to look at.
Kyle Farnsworth: C+
Kyle Farnsworth didn’t start the season off well in the minds of Royals fans when he blew a save against the Chicago White Sox to start the season, but he picked it up after that and has pitched pretty well since then. I am not as much of a Farnsworth hater than others but he does need to try and limit the amount of hits he is giving up with 24 hits and 23.1 innings pitched.
Juan Cruz: C
Juan Cruz has been electric at times and way off as well so far this season. He has been a nice setup man for Joakim Soria and unless something drastic happens and he loses his role to Farnsworth he will continue to be a worthy asset.
Joakim Soria: B
The Mexicutioner has done what is expected of him with a good E.R.A. (1.88) and save total (14) but what is holding me back to giving him a better grade is that he was injured for part of the first half. If he would have been healthy there is no doubt he would have better numbers and could have even been elected to the Major League All-Star game.
John Bale, Bruce Chen, Roman Colon, Ron Mahay, Robinson Tejeda: None of these guys have pitched enough innings in my opinion during the season to really warrant a season grade. Once the season is done it will be easier to see what they have meant to the team.
Jul/090
Royals Stun Sox
Posted by: Casey on July 9, 2009.
The Royal Dance (aka, we aren't use to dramatic, clutch hits)
How about them Royals? Hoch goes 6 innings, allowing 5 runs, and gets the victory. Normally I would make a wise-ass remark relating to how much we suck. No, not tonight, tonight is the time to celebrate and drink some blue Kool Aid.
After being down 4-0, I can honestly say I didn’t give us much of a chance at winning that ball game. But as I said on twitter, we were fighting. I made a tweet remarking: “Regardless of how this inning turns out, props to DDJ, Bloomquist and Butler for making Penny work.” That was the first time I thought we might have a chance, and even though we didn’t score that inning (believe it was the 3rd), I thought it was a critical juncture in the game. DeJesus came up with 2 outs, Penny was rolling. The next 3 hitters all had solid plate appearances, and even though Butler didn’t get a hit, we still showed some life.
Then we continue to do a great job battling.. Why Callaspo was hitting 8th, I have no freaking idea. But it turned out pretty well today, he had a couple of clutch doubles, and this team really gave us a glimpse of how they can play if they play to their potential. Even with a poor starting pitching effort, we didn’t give up, and we kept battling.
Then we get the game-tying hit. Yes, Ryan freakin Freel with the clutch warning-track-power bloop. I don’t think he could be any more similar to Bloomquist, fighting off all of those pitches, being as versatile as he is as well. He had a hit, a walk, scored two runs, and his average is now over the Mendoza. Congratulations to Freel.
Okay, so we tie the game. I’m was really happy with the effort this team had showed up to that point. Freel’s on first, and DeJesus comes up to the plate. I’m not even contemplating the possibility of DDJ coming through with a big hit, I was already thinking ahead about the possibilities of scoring another run. But no, DeJesus decides to hit the damn ball for once this year.. And I didn’t believe it was going to get out of the park, but it did.
And can someone teach this team how to celebrate? Either be a Yankee and act like you expected to hit a go-ahead two run home-run, or do something more exciting than a “Royal Dance“.
lol @ Nick Green’s at bat with runners on 1st and 3rd with 2 outs in the 8th facing Soria.. For those who missed it:
- 1st pitch – Swings out of his shoes, literally as hard as you can swing at a 78 mph curve
- 2nd pitch – Fastball, high and tight, he thought it was another curve, check-swing fouls it off his bat
- 3rd pitch – The nasty curve, yet again, this time he didn’t even swing, and had a classic reaction to striking out on three nasty nasty pitches
Great job to the team, I tip my hats off to them. Let’s feel good for a night, forget about the record, the expectations, the past scars. Just wait for the game to show up on FSN on Royals Replay tonight. I’ll be there friends, yes, I’ll be there.
/celebrate! No negative comments tonight
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