Archive for June, 2010

It’s been a bittersweet 2010 for top Royals prospect Michael Montgomery so far.  He’s started out destroying High A Wilmington and earning a quick promotion to Double A Northwest Arkansas.  Then on May 27, he left after only 3 innings mentioning soreness in his throwing elbow. He came back and made another start on June 15, throwing 3.2 innings and giving up one run, two hits and a walk along with three strikeouts.  He was held to a pitch count and left after 56 pitches.  Now today he’s back on the 7-day minor league DL with the same soreness. Scouting [...]

It’s not often a player can play goat and hero in the same game, but Scott Podsednik did just that on Thursday.

Following their 20-hit , 15-run explosion from the night before, the Royals turned around to face Roy Oswalt. Not a great prescription to maintain offensive output. The Royals sent Bruce Chen to the mound, who’s been effective since filling in for Gil Meche. The game nearly didn’t happen, as a huge system of storms went across northeast Kansas and northwest Missouri, dumping heavy rain over everything. However, after a 90 minute delay, the field was ready for baseball.

Royals starter Luke Hochevar was placed on the 15-day DL yesterday prior to last night’s game. His injury is noted as a grade 1 strain in his right elbow – the lowest level of strain. On 610, Ned Yost mentioned that Hochevar had noticed some stiffness in the elbow and an MRI showed the strain. He’ll likely miss at least two starts. To replace him on the roster, and fill in for his start tonight against Houston, Anthony Lerew was brought up from Omaha. Lerew is 5-3 in 11 starts for Omaha, carrying a 2.84 ERA over 70 innings. He [...]

The Royals hosted their second National League team at Kauffman Stadium, welcoming the Houston Astros and Felipe Paulino. The Royals countered with Kyle Davies. Kansas City struck first, turning three singles by Scott Podsednik, David DeJesus and Billy Butler into the first run of the game. The Astros countered with a one out RBI double by Pedro Feliz that scored Hunter Pence.

The Royals signed seven more draftees on Tuesday, bringing the total of new first-year signees to 24. I touched upon the first wave of signings on Saturday. The newest signings are (by round):

Three levels of Minor League Baseball have started announcing their All-Star teams and the Royals system is well represented, especially by the most important prospects in the system. Triple A voting doesn’t end until June 25th, but so far, the Royals have 14 minor league all-stars in their midst. Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer‘s fine seasons have earned them All-Star honors, but what other prospects will represent the Royals? Read on.

So first off, the structure and pattern of the Rewind is going to be changing.  To be honest, it’s a little bit of a grind deciphering my notes from games and plugging them into a large post.  So moving forward (god I hate that phrase — too much time in the corporate retail world makes it grate on me), I’ll be posting the typical game recaps you’re accustomed to after each game with a sprinkling of stat-geek-ness.  The actual “Rewind” will still come on Sunday/Monday to hit the trends and follow up on prior observations and also take a look [...]

At this time, I would like to announce that Jon Twibell has decided to resign from his contributor position with Kings of Kauffman to pursue other activities.  He had a good run with us, and he’s certainly welcome back in the future if he decides he gets the itch to write again. And if not, all of us at Kings of Kauffman wish him good luck on his future endeavors and hopefully, down the line, that includes witnessing the Royals making the playoffs. And as a thank you to Jon for his service, I present the Jon Twibell retrospective.  A [...]

The 2010 MLB First-Year Player Draft wrapped up on Thursday and the Royals have started their early wave of signings.  So far 14 selections have signed (along with two undrafted players), with 6th round pick, LHP Scott Alexander of Sonoma State as the highest pick to sign so far.

I despise the designated hitter rule. It deprives us fans of American League teams of exciting games like Friday night’s contest against the Reds. We used all of our bullpen, and all but one position player. Now that was fun to watch. The number of tactical moves required to navigate a close game under National League rules far exceeds what is typical when pitchers don’t bat. Analyzing trade-offs and match-ups on the fly becomes more critical. Baseball is so much more interesting when pitchers have to swing the bat, for the fans and for the players.

In what I find to be a wildly exciting announcement, Bud Selig is scheduled to be in Kansas City next week (Wednesday, according to Sam Mellinger) to award Kauffman Stadium with its first All-Star game since 1973, its opening season.