Crown Gems: A Step Back, DiamondView, Links, and More

In this edition of Crown Gems:  The Royals officially take a step back in their progress, DiamondView, the world draft, Bryce Harper, Aaron Crow, Royals blogging activity, Wade Davis, Prince Fielder, and random things that have made me happy.

With yesterday’s loss, the 2009 Royals dropped to 60-88 on the year.  The significance of the loss?  After 3 years of improving their overall record, the progression at the ML level has officially taken a step back.

2005:  56-106
2006:  62-100
2007:  69-93
2008:  75-87

Of course this doesn’t come as a shock to anyone that has watched the 2009 Royals since the calendar turned to June.  The fact that they held off this inevitable “landmark” loss for so long in recent weeks is admirable.  Progress in an organization can, of course, be made in a number of ways, but it is disheartening that this season has unfolded in the way that it has.  A step back in record isn’t a complete shock to me.  Even with all the optimism and happy feelings in the air, I still only predicted the team to finish 77-85 when the season got underway.  The record doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the way Dayton and Trey have publicly handled the performance of the team.  As it stands, the Royals have 14 games left to play and need to go 9-5 to equal the performance of the 2007 team, and of course a 100 loss season is still possible if they finish things out 2-12.  On the bright side, they cannot finish with a record worse than 60-102.

With all that in mind, I wanted to share a few things that have made me happy in recent days.  First, iTunes 9.0 allows for library sharing between computers so my music library is finally in sync between my laptop and desktop computers.  Second, a few weeks ago I switched from Internet Explorer to Safari for my web browser, which has been a huge improvement in itself.  The big browser-related joy came when my wife figured out how to do tabs and bookmarks in Safari.  She was not real happy about the switch from IE to Safari in the first place, but undeterred she made the best of it and in the process made my life a little better.  Just one of the many reasons I love her.  I’m sure I would have figured it out when I finally took the time to root around and play with the settings, but clearly that was not high on my priority list.  Third, thanks to Joe Posnanski’s blog, I am now aware of the existence of Baseball Projection.com.  Fourth, Baseball America’s Draft Almanac, which I pre-ordered months ago, should be arriving sometime in October.  When it does arrive on my doorstep, Christmas will have come early for yours truly!

In some other positive news, DiamondView Composite Player Evaluation made its debut over at Beyond the Box Score.  Justin Bopp and Walter Fulbright are really on to something with this and I can’t wait to see how their model evolves going forward.  Even if you aren’t a stat person, this is something that everyone can appreciate and use of colors certainly doesn’t hurt.

Also from Beyond the Box Score came Towards an Understanding of the Worldwide Draft.

Speaking of the draft, MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo wrote this about phenom, and assumed 2010 1st overall pick, Bryce Harper.

Royals Authority’s Craig Brown reacted to the details of the Aaron Crow signing.

Josh Duggan of Royalscentricity, posted The Royals Front Office Has Won the Battle of Who Could Care Less.  How could I not drop a link that includes a reference to Ben Folds Five?  I enjoyed reading his thoughts, and recounting of how the activity of the Royals blogosphere has dropped off as this season has worn on.  However, I for one have not lost steam.  I sit here writing about the Royals while listening to Fenix TX, a great band I recently “discovered,” seven years after they broke up.  One of the good things about coming across their music so late is that they have since reunited and will hopefully be dropping a new CD in 2010.  Anyway, back on point, I have been writing about the team the entire season, at a rate of at least 7 posts a week, and I don’t plan to stop anytime soon unless faced with life-altering events what would prevent me from doing so.  I haven’t done any research to the fact, nor do I want to take the time to track it, but I would imagine that the number of blogs covering the other teams, regardless of record and performance, drops off as the season wears on.  Regardless, there can be no denying that Josh’s point about the 2009 Royals is 100% valid.  Their “performance” and attitude has worn out the fan base.  While all teams probably see their blogging coverage drop off from April to October, the attrition rate amongst the Royals blogs has been significant.  We’ve taken heavy losses, but several of us are still going strong.  Josh mentioned the blogs that have tapered off, but those sites that have stuck with it deserve a mention.  I’m sure I am going to miss some, but here are the Royals blogs that still post pretty much every day:  Kings of Kauffman, Royal Reflections, Royals Authority, Royals Review, and The Pipeline.

John Sickels did a prospect profile of Rays RHP-Wade Davis.  I think it is of note because of the way Tampa handled his progression through their minors and also because Sickels mentions that Davis reminds him of Gil Meche.

Prince Fielder set the Brewers’ single season RBI record.  Check out Reviving the Brew, FanSided.com’s Milwaukee Brewers blog, for more on Prince and his team.

That’s a wrap for this post.  Since I was actually productive and getting projects done around the house yesterday, I plan on today being a double post day.  There is a fairly good chance that I will get something else up tonight, but that post hinges on how much progress I make on my project for work.