Crown Gems on a Sunday (Links, News, and Notes)

Cleaning up some odds and ends from the last several days.  In this issue of Crown Gems you will find:  RSS feed reminder, Jose Guillen to the DL, a link to a Joe Posnanski post, more TPJ news, Omaha Royals stadium news (a bit late), and an update on Ka’aihue.  I have opted to go with “Crown Gems” as my working title for my posts that cover many news items, but I may change it to something else in the future.  I’m not sold on Crown Gems, but I liked it better than Crown Visions and Link-O-Rama has already been taken for quite some time.  Anyway on to the meat, such as it is, of the post.

• First, if you haven’t already done so, please take a moment and subscribe to the Kings of Kauffman RSS feed by clicking here.  With that out of the way, lets move on to the Royals
• On Thursday, the Royals placed OF-Jose Guillen on the DL with a tear of the LCL (Lateral Collateral Ligament) in his right knee.  He is expected to be out 6-8 weeks.  OF-Mitch Maier has been called back up to take his place on the Royals 25 man roster.  While Maier is, at best, a 4th outfielder at the ML level, Jose Guillen’s career is clearly in decline so the on field results will probably wind up a wash.  The major impact of Guillen’s injury is that it eliminates any hope of Dayton Moore being able to trade him before either of the trade deadlines.  Personally I didn’t see any way the Royals were going to be able to trade Guillen due to his contract and lack of production, but I was hoping for a miracle.  I was hoping Jose would get white-hot, put the Royals on his back the week leading up to the July 31st deadline, and that would be enough to convince another team to take a chance on him.  Get excited folks, it’s Maier time!
• When I posted Dayton’s Delusion and Historic Ineptitude on Friday, I neglected to link Joe Posnanski’s Thursday post titled What 18-11 Means which fits in with the other links I provided.
• Tony Pena Jr. cleared waivers and was outrighted to the Omaha Royals on Friday 7/24.  Today the news came out through multiple sources that TPJ will be heading to the Royals Spring Training complex in Arizona to work on his new role as a relief pitcher.  You can read the AP article over on ESPN.com by clicking here.  While he may hit like a pitcher, I’m not a fan of this move.  Sure he probably has a better chance at a career as a RP than as a SS, but that is only because he has already failed miserably as a SS.  The reality is that he is 28, and while he can throw in the 90s today, by the time he develops into a pitcher who knows if he will still be able to throw that hard.  This experiment also takes coaching and development time away from guys who are generally 8-10 years younger and have a more legitimate chance to provide the Royals a return on their investment.  This is a waste of time, and if Betancourt gets injured I have no doubt that they would entertain scrapping the RP experiment to put TPJ back on the ML roster as a SS.  Even if Pena Jr. succeeds in his new role, does anyone expect him to be reliable as a set-up man pitching for the Royals?  I’d rather Kyle Farnsworth be put back into pressure situations than TPJ.  He couldn’t field as a SS so logic tells us that he’s not going to be able to field as a pitcher.
• Turning our attention to some positive news, earlier this month, the Omaha Royals finalized their new stadium deal.  Click here to read the official release posted on the Omaha Royals website.
• 1B-Kila Ka’aihue’s numbers 0.247/.362/.364 in 77 AB during the month of July have been less than impressive, but it appears he is starting to heat back up.  In his last 25 AB during his current 7 game hit streak he has collected 10 hits for a 0.400 BA.  He has still walked more times on the year (73) than he has struck out (70).