Royals Primacy A Kansas City Royals blog

A New Moon! (or) Growing up Royal! (or) Why we have no phenom’s!

Posted by: Bertkc01 on July 6, 2010.

The future of Kansas City is growing to a crescendo. To anyone that has access to mlb.com or listens to Royals game you can see the development of the farm system. I never in my life have spent so much time following so many teams as I have following the Royals minor league system. That’s how desperate I have become as a fan. Losing seasons don’t sit well after a while and we begin to hope for a savior. No savior comes into place without the form of a need for rebellion. In this case it’s the draft.

I say the Royals farm system will climb because in the most recent years I’ve noticed a pattern in performance. Early picks that tend to take their time. Royals don’t like a Strasburg. Nothing wrong with that it’s just that when we pick we want to make sure the players comply with the batting philosophy and pitching philosophy and to be a dynasty you have to have guys that buy in.

Buy in to the Kevin Seitzer Philosophy on hitting and McClure Philosophy on hitting.

K Seitz philosophy is simple. Work the count. Work for your pitch and hit it up the middle. This leads to long AB with full counts and the starting pitchers being taken out early because they’ve been overworked and the bullpen (mainly one inning guys) open to multiple run scoring innings (View what we’ve done to Felix Hernandex, Strasburg and Wakefield). A walk is as good as a single and a strikeout is the worst thing you could do to help your TEAM. Team. It’s all about helping the next guy succeed. Butler works a walk so Guillen can work the pitcher for Callaspo. This philosophy is in full effect at NW Arkansas and would be in AAA Omaha if it weren’t for a lesser overall talent level. Seriously the Naturals are freaks at working this philosophy. You can tell the newer guys by their batting averages. 6 of the 9 batting lineup made the lineup the other 3 were promoted starting this year so they’re a year behind. It’s actually scary to think that if 2/3 of your guys buy in. Betancourt and Kendall and Callaspo are in the top 10 of hardest to strike out and we lead the Majors in hitting. We will revisit this analysis in the future but I will give you a chance to naysay on what I just said. Alliteration anyone?

The Bob McClure philosophy is maybe contrary to what other commentators have said but it’s a simple pitch to contact for ground ball philosophy with an 0-2 count go for the strike out.twist. The early season problem (and what may have gotten Trey Hillman fired) was the decision for the pitcher to do all pitching off the mound and on flat ground. I suppose the intent was to provide the pitchers with an extra boost of speed or confidence standing above it all with the mound but what we found was the bullpen was awful. Pitches we’re left over the plate and homerun’s ensued. The pitchers couldn’t hit their spots and they led the league in walks and had the worst ERA. Then a new manager comes in and says “No, throw off the mound for practice and warm up” and we are 2 games above .500 with that guy. Only time will tell if that was the right decision.

The point to all of this is don’t worry about a first rookie in the farm system. Look at them next year. These philosophies take time to assimilate to an athlete’s head.

Don’t worry about Crow or Colon. You’ll see their true selves next year.

Moustakas in 2009: BA .250

in 2010 (7/2010 ish) BA .358

Hosmer in 2009: BA .241

in 2010 (7/2010 ish) BA .350

Kila Ka’aihue 2009: BA .252

in 2010 (7/2010 ish) BA .313

Chris Dwyer 2009: ERA 4.15

in 2010 (7/2010 ish) ERA 2.99 (and promoted to Moustakas team(yes it is his team))

Do you believe yet?