Archive for November, 2010

To nobody’s surprise, Brian Bannister and Brian Anderson were both cut from the Royals 40 man roster today to make room for David DeJesus and Jason Kendal, both of whom needed to be reinstated off the 60 day disabled list.  Anderson was designated for assignment, so he could still end up in Triple A to continue pitching, but Bannister refused assignment and became a free agent. Bannister made $2.3 million in 2010 and was eligible for salary arbitration.  After posting a 6.34 ERA in 127.2 innings, the decision was easy to let him go.

This is more of an exercise in calming myself.  See, back in 2007, I treated myself to a nine-game Royals ticket package (maybe treated isn’t the right word, but anyway).  Of those nine games, I’m pretty sure five were started by Jorge de la Rosa, three by Odalis Perez and maybe one by Gil Meche. That’s a rough year. So as I browsed through MLB Trade Rumors, I groaned reading their list of the top 50 free agents and their predicted destinations. Number twelve? Jorge de la Rosa to the Royals.

Billy Butler was just named as the Les Milgram Player of the Year for the Royals. It was well-deserved, too, as Billy hit .318/.388/.469 this season – definitely his best season yet – at the ripe young age of 24.* It wasn’t even particularly close, either, though David Dejesus might’ve made it competitive had he not injured his thumb. Mike just had a great rundown of Billy’s season, and you should check it out if you haven’t yet. *He and guys like Madison Bumgarner make me feel like I’ve accomplished nothing in the same span of time as they have [...]

After a .318/.388/.469/.857 season in 2010, Billy Butler earned the Les Milgram Award as Kansas City’s best player.  He was the 2009 recipient as well*, becoming the first back-to-back winner since George Brett won in 1979 and 1980. *The Milgram Award goes to position players, not pitchers, as Zack Greinke would have been the best overall player last season, of course.  The best Royals pitcher each season is awarded the Bruce Rice Award, won by Joakim Soria in 2010. Some may point to his reduced extra base hits and his grounding into a league-leading 32 double plays and question the [...]

My goal this offseason is to cover all the bases.  There are winter meetings, winter leagues, hot stove chatter, roster changes, spring training battles to preview, and tons of other information to process and pontificate on.  That being the case, I’m looking for a crew of contributors to join Kings of Kauffman. One of my favorite things about working on this blog is being able to share my opinions on my favorite team with a wide audience of readers.  Additionally, I like to get discussion going in our comments section or on Twitter.  I know my opinion isn’t the only [...]

Over the past couple of days, we’ve trimmed the Royals current 40 man roster down to 34 players.  There were some tough cuts to make but with a large number of talented players getting closer to the big leagues, you have to make room somewhere. A look at the pitching staff is here. The hitters are examined here. Today, we’ll look at who should fill those vacant spots and why.

Perhaps for some of the players listed “hitters” is quite generous, but no matter. When last we joined our Royal blue crusaders, we were examining the current 40 man roster and I was offering potential solutions to managing it.  The first installment focused on pitchers.  This installment features the position players. Let’s dig in.

Didn’t think the week would get any more exciting? Well, you were wrong! The Royals upped the ante by acquiring another middle infield type in Lance Zawadzki on Friday. I’m going to call him Lance so I don’t have to write that last name (and misspell it) any more than I have to. Lance was picked in the 48th round of the 2003 draft by the Expos. He was taken right out of high school in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. Instead, he decided to be a smart guy and go to college. So, after one semester at LSU and three seasons at [...]

I wanted to try something and run through new Royals as they join the club. Hopefully, this will be useful for giving you an idea of just what the Royals are getting themselves into. I’ll start off by discussing newly-acquired Royal Joaquin Arias. Arias is a 26-year-old native of the Dominican Republic. He was originally signed by the Yankees in 2001, but was famously a part of the Alex Rodriguez trade that sent Arias and Alfonso Soriano to Texas in 2004. Interestingly enough, the Rangers selected Arias for that trade rather than Robinson Cano. Oh, what could have been. Two [...]

The Royals currently have 43 men on their 40 man roster.  Clearly, that will change because, well, it has to. Some of those players are eligible for arbitration and will be non-tendered during the winter.  Gage checked in to discuss some of those options yesterday.  Bruce Chen is officially a free agent, so he’s included in that number because the Royals do have an exclusive window in which to negotiate an extension or new contract for him, but he’s unlikely to sign anything in the near future so that trims a spot. Jason Kendall and David DeJesus are both currently [...]

We’re just days removed from the World Series and the action has begun. The Royals have a relatively light set of decisions early on in the offseason.  David DeJesus’s option for 2011 has already been exercised.  They have some decisions to make as far as who to tender contracts to and who to let go as Gage examined already.  They only had one automatic free agent at the conclusion of the World Series – Bruce Chen. The news today: Chen reportedly wants a multi-year deal starting in 2011.  After leading the Royals in wins with 12 and posting a 4.17 [...]

I can’t sleep.  Can’t eat.  I have a queasy feeling at the pit of my stomach.  The Royals arrived in St. Louis down two games to zero in the World Series after scoring just three runs despite leaving 14 runners on base and knocking out 17 hits. Royals starters Danny Jackson and Charlie Leibrandt have combined for 15.2 innings and until Jack Clark’s RBI single with two outs in the ninth on 10/20, they’d given up a combined two runs and thrown 11 perfect innings.  And still the Royals are down two games. So now what? Now we call on [...]