Archive for June, 2011

Following a six inning, six strikeout performance on Thursday, Jake Odorizzi was promoted to Northwest Arkansas. A Carolina League All-Star, Odorizzi compiled a 2.87 ERA over 78.1 High A innings and had a 103/22 K/BB ratio.  He’s been dominant all season in Wilmington, so this promotion isn’t much of a surprise. Odorizzi, our #8 prospect entering the season, leaves the Carolina League as its leader in strikeouts on the season and was in the top 10 of ERA leaders among starters. Of course, Odorizzi was part of the Zack Greinke trade last December and has launched himself into the spot [...]

Johnny Giavotella and Clint Robinson are having incredible seasons in Omaha so far, and they’re both being rewarded with starts in the Pacific Coast League All-Star Game on July 13. Giavotella, our #13 prospect entering 2011, is hitting .323/.377/.443/.820 this season with 22 doubles and nine stolen bases.  He’s had an amazing June, racking up a .390 average and .995 OPS this month, including the most hits of any professional player at any level (45).  For the year, he has 105 hits. Robinson has carried on from his 2010 Texas League Triple Crown winning season by hitting .330/.404/.573/.977 all season [...]

We’re at the halfway point in the season now, but with the trading deadline, potential call-ups and a few teams who may make the minor league playoffs in their respective leagues, there’s still plenty of news updates and discussions to take place as a Royals fan. And after the season, there’s the winter meetings and all the craziness included in that. Staff Writer Jeff Herr has been promoted to site editor of the newly-rebranded ThroughThePhog.com to cover Kansas Jayhawks sports on the FanSided Network.  Everyone here at Kings of Kauffman would like to congratulate Jeff on this move, but it [...]

Outfielders Jose Bautista of the Toronto Blue Jays and Matt Kemp from the Los Angeles Dodgers led their respective leagues in balloting for Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game as conducted by members of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance and announced today. Bautista, who has an American League-leading 1.133 OPS to go along with his 24 home runs, was named on 50 ballots, not including one ballot that placed him at third base.  Bautista was joined in the outfield by Curtis Granderson of the New York Yankees, who received 48 votes, and Jacoby Ellsbury of the Boston Red Sox, who tallied 23 [...]

It seemed inevitable with both Kyle Davies and Bruce Chen making returns from the disabled list, that Danny Duffy would end up back in Omaha.  He’d struggled with command and had trouble managing his pitch counts and a few more starts in Triple A might be the response by the organization to right that ship. Instead, the Royals will make it work, going with a six man rotation. At least for now.

Kings of Kauffman is a proud member of the Baseball Blogger’s Alliance – a website founded to foster community among baseball blogs.  One of the activities we do every year is formally announce an All-Star lineup, compiled from votes by all blogs within the BBA. This is that ballot for Kings of Kauffman.  Instead of a full roster, top to bottom, we’ll submit a starting American League lineup as our vote.  My rationale behind the choices wasn’t based much on deep regression models and variable ratios or other big mathematical figures. I just looked at who’s been the best at [...]

On this week’s Royalman Report, we were joined by guest Lee Warren (@omahabaseball on Twitter) of OmahaBaseball360.com.  Lee provided his perspective on such topics as Omaha baseball post-Rosenblatt, AAAA players, specific players on the Omaha Storm Chasers and more. We were joined in studio by Chris Kamler (best known as @fakenedyost on Twitter) and hilarity, predictably, ensued. Click the embedded player below to listen or you can download the mp3 here. The Royalman Report is hosted by Troy “Royalman” Olsen with co-host Michael Engel and airs  live Sundays at 7 p.m. central time at RoyalmanReport.com as well as on Livestream.com/RoyalmanReport. You can also subscribe [...]

Joakim Soria. (Insert tired/overused Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde reference here) I don’t pretend to know what the guy did to get back in the swing of things, but it’s working. Maybe he’s changed his approach or maybe he just needed to be relieved of the pressure of his closer role via “vacation” (courtesy of Aaron Crow). Whatever he did to get things squared away, I’m thankful for it and it presents interesting options as we approach the trade deadline.

Numbers don’t lie. In baseball, it’s how you keep score and how players are judged. Sure, with sabermetrics taking a more mainstream role in baseball writing and analysis, the jargon can get a bit crazy.  It’s a deeper way to look at the game and results of the games themselves and can tell us a lot. Sometimes, though, I like to step back and look at the basics, free from the noise of ballpark factors and leverage indices and the like.  Who’s doing what, and where does it rank in the rest of the league? I found a few encouraging [...]

On May 3rd, Jeff Francoeur hit a game-winning sacrifice fly in the 10th inning and the Royals beat the Orioles 6-5 at Kauffman Stadium. It was the team’s fourth win in a row and bumped the team’s record up to 16-13. After having weathered a recent six game losing streak and seeing their record drop below .500 for the first time in the young season, the Royals promptly swept Minnesota and took game one from the Orioles. Good stuff. Since that day, the Royals have endured losing streaks of 5, 5, 3, 4, and are in the middle of another [...]

By many accounts Wil Myers is the best prospect the Royals currently have in their farm system.  Assuming that Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas will both lose prospect status with their time in the majors, Myers becomes the leader of the bevy of young talent the Royals have.  Myers was a special talent coming out of high school and projects to be a special talent at all levels going forward.  He got off to a slow start this year and battled some injuries, but he has picked it up in May and June and looks to be getting things back [...]

Your weekly minor league update has arrived.  It will be noted that the shortened league rookie ball seasons have started and I will track their records for you all but I won’t be doing game recaps as, quite frankly, it would take more time than I am allotted for my blogging tasks.  Regardless, we have another solid week for the affiliates.  Despite a bomb of a night by Mike Montgomery, there were some good showings by some solid players and all the teams appear to be making strides heading to the midway point of the season.  Here are where they [...]