Archive for July, 2010

So this really started as a way to look at what the Royals lineup might look like if they’d retained either of Miguel Olivo or John Buck and thus, never signing Jason Kendall.  There’s a fun little gadget out there at Baseball Musings – a lineup analyzer that allows you to put in a player’s name, OBP and SLG and when you fill it out for a full nine man lineup, it projects an average runs per game for that lineup and also projects the 30 most optimal lineups and 30 worst lineups. But back to our catchers of days [...]

If you check out Baseball America’s Midseason Update of their Top 25 prospect list, you will find our Kansas City Royals well represented.  Mike Moustakas leads the way at #12 with Eric Hosmer right behind him at #13.  Mike Montgomery comes in at #18 on the list. They also give prospects 26-50 but list them alphabetically.  John Lamb and Wil Myers are in that group giving the Royals 5 of the top 50 prospects in all of baseball. When was the last time we could make that claim?

It looked bleak for a while. Yuniesky Betancourt gave up an out and threw the ball into right field. Kyle Davies gave up two home runs to Casey Kotchman who entered the game with four all year. The Royals had scored only one run through the first six innings. Then the Royals worked some late-inning magic and turned it around.

This is completely unconfirmed and hasn’t been announced by any official team sources, but it’s also one of the worst kept secrets in minor league baseball: Mike Moustakas is very possibly potentially being promoted to Triple A Omaha.  Very soon. Earlier today, Rany Jazayerli tweeted that “sources” were telling him that Moustakas was headed to Triple A.  How likely would that scenario be?  Let’s dig deeper.

Royals RHP-Freddy Rodriguez (19) was one of five minor league players to receive a 50-game suspension today after testing positive for a performance enhancing drug.  He tested positive for metabolites of Stanozolol and will begin serving his suspension immediately. Rodriguez was signed out of the Dominican Republic as a 16-year old back in 2007 and was in pitching in the Dominican Summer League for the third straight season. Year ERA G GS IP WHIP H/9 BB/9 SO/9 SO/BB 2008 2.59 15 7 62.2 1.13 8.2 2.0 4.6 2.29 2009 4.75 13 3 36.0 1.50 11.5 2.0 4.8 2.38 2010 0.79 [...]

The Royals must be living right, because it seems like they’re getting all the big breaks right now. Tuesday night’s 3-2 win over the Mariners was another close call, but manager Ned Yost’s crew found a way to hold on — with an assist from the greatest baseball fan in Seattle (at least from my point of view) — to win their ninth game in their last twelve contests.

With the prospect of Felix Hernandez facing them in the opening game of the series, I had some fears that the Royals might be a little punch drunk after their 11-0 drubbing on ESPN. Piling on, King Felix had gone the distance in each of his last three starts, which didn’t bode well for the impatient Royals…

The Royals front office has been active this past week shifting players around and you may recognize some of the names on the move.

I took a break from the 7/2 edition of Roster Moves over on Call to the Pen to share something I just noticed about Miguel Olivo.  It came about because one of my friends, and fellow FanSided MLB writer, Nathaniel Stoltz sent me a message that Brennan Boesch* walked 4 times in a game today. *Our discussions on Boesch go back many months but I will save you all from the details on that. Four walks in a game from such a free swinger as Boesch is certainly noteworthy and elicited the following response from me, “I remember a game [...]

The Royals have picked it up a bit as of late, and this past week, they went 4-2 and won both series against the White Sox and Angels, though they didn’t finish up very well by taking an 11-0 beating on their way out of Los Angeles.  Still, they’re 24-23 under Ned Yost and if only they could find a few power hitters (*cough cough* Kila and Gordon *cough cough*) they might be able to build some momentum over the last half of the season and carry it into next year.

You know, it’s funny.  I looked all over the field and checked both rosters and didn’t see Joey Votto on either team on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball, and yet, that’s all Jon Miller and Joe Morgan seemed to talk about. In between the chatter, there was (technically) a baseball game, though the Royals must have been told the wrong time and date because they didn’t show up.

Bruce Chen was the chief beneficiary of some great defense in an old fashioned pitcher’s duel on Saturday, retiring the first 18 batters he faced until an Erick Aybar single to lead off the seventh broke up the perfect game.