Archive for March, 2011

No, that’s not a repeat of last night’s announcement – Kings of Kauffman is growing in every possible way. With the season approaching, I don’t want to miss anything and I want to present multiple perspectives to Royals news and goings-on. Hence, I want to welcome the second of our new writers, Jeff Herr. I hope you enjoy his stuff and Gage, Kevin, myself and newly-added Ryan Wood are glad to have him aboard. We’re also expanding beyond mere pages, as evidenced by Sunday’s new podcast – the Royalman Report co-hosted by Troy “Royalman” Olsen and myself. But I don’t [...]

(Note: Due to a server change in May, this episode is unavailable indefinitely. We apologize for the inconvenience, but you can always check out new episodes and guests at RoyalmanReport.com.) If you follow the Royals on Twitter, you have to know about KC Royalman. Occasionally you’ll see him highlighted on a Royals broadcast – he’s the guy in the blue tights and the cape who loves the Royals. For a while now, he and I have been kicking around the idea of putting together a podcast and the time is now to introduce you to the show. You can download [...]

While the Royals are cutting players, we’re going to add to our roster. I’ve been looking to expand for a while now and thankfully that opportunity has arrived. Ladies and gents, let’s all welcome Ryan Wood to Kings of Kauffman as our newest contributing writer. As is tradition here at Kings of Kauffman, I’ll let Ryan tell you where he’s coming from: Hi everyone, my name is Ryan Wood and I am excited to be the newest contributing writer for Kings of Kauffman.  Baseball has been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember, so [...]

The Royals were rained out this afternoon in Surprise but the front office was busy setting things up for the season. As expected, Luke Hochevar will be the opening day starter.  Whether or not he’s an ace, he gets the nod on March 31st against the Angels.  Jeff Francis, Bruce Chen and Kyle Davies round out the rotation for the first couple weeks of the season and Vin Mazzaro will be the fifth starter once the Royals need one. That puts Sean O’Sullivan into a long-relief role to start the season.  With Joakim Soria and Robinson Tejeda as the only [...]

I really hope I’m not tempting fate by writing this tonight, but after nearly a full spring and a few months deliberation, I have to say that we’ve won the Zack Greinke trade. With the performance of Jeremy Jeffress (3.38 ERA, 1.250 WHIP in 8 IP), Lorenzo Cain (.273/.400/.364 and some great defense in spring), Alcides Escobar (.361/.400/.528 and ONE strikeout in 36 at bats) the Royals got some good players who will contribute at the big league level at some point this summer.  That they also got a solid starting pitching prospect in Jake Odorizzi only sweetens the deal. [...]

Look, I know you’re probably going to be watching basketball all day, but if you get a chance to turn away from March Madness, you really ought to do yourself a favor and read a few links from way out in the Royals universe. By the way, while I’ve watched the NCAA coverage all weekend, a few things jump out at me: Advertising executives are the most overpaid people on earth.  I am about to tear down every NAPA Auto Parts store I find brick by brick because of this stupid NAPA Know How campaign.  I guess it does its [...]

After today’s game against the Giants, the Royals have ten spring training games left before opening day.  The usual spring platitudes have been going around, with some players drawing attention from their solid numbers. Unfortunately, you can’t just transfer spring stats to the regular season.  A player who burns up Arizona in March has to keep it up in April.  And May.  And June, and so on. But hypothetically, if you could just project seasonal production from spring stats, what might it look like for the Royals?

I can’t exactly say the Royals bullpen situation is more clear than yesterday since there are still a lot of prospective arms, but after cuts to Danny Duffy (sent to minor league camp) and Jesse Chavez (optioned to Triple A), it’s, well, less fuzzy than before. Duffy had made five appearances during spring training, giving up 8 earned runs in 8 innings.  He struggled with his control, walking eight batters but gave up just five hits (though two were homers).  He was discussed as a potential bullpen candidate but should get more seasoning in Triple A. Chavez gave up two [...]

Let me propose something to you: the Royals will be better than most folks expect this year. I’m not saying they’ll win the World Series or even the AL Central, but I really think they have more potential than they get credit for. Part of that comes from simply countering the overwhelming pessimism that (sometimes rightly) flows rampant across the internet. That’s fine. The team has done nothing to suggest it’s any better than it has been over the last couple of years. The Royals haven’t truly done much this offseason to instill any optimism in an increasingly critical and [...]

Bob Dutton reported that seven more players have been cut from major league camp and reassigned to minor league camp prior to tonight’s game with the Reds. The moves signify the Royals focusing their attention towards opening day after getting a look at prospects and players who might contribute at the big league level in 2011.  They have 42 players in major league camp competing for spots. The seven non-roster invitees who were sent to minor league camp today were Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer, Salvador Perez, Joaquin Arias, Blaine Hardy, Cody Clark and Brett Carroll.

What you notice first is that he’s big.  Big-as-a-house big.  Standing at 6’4″ and an eighth of a ton, he’s an imposing figure.  Seeing him turn a fastball into vapor is just proof of what you’d expected – you don’t wanna mess with this guy. Minor league pitchers found this out as he went to the plate in Double A and hit nearly everything out of the park.  A promotion to Triple A didn’t slow him down either.  he just kept chugging along, mashing everything in his path. This hulking left-handed hitting first baseman had turned the minor leagues into [...]

“Has Alex Gordon turned the corner?” That’s how Dick Kaegal started his report from Surprise a couple of days ago. In the interest of time – but really out of general laziness – I won’t go around looking to see if this is a first time occurrence. There’s probably been what, three such stories written about this same time of year that could have all started the same way? That could have been “ctrl+c’d”/ “ctrl+v’d” only with to have a different players name inserted? This, is the Sounds of Royals’ Spring. The Sounds of Spring usually means the poetic nonsense [...]