Fresh Fish: Welcome Brett Christie to Kings of Kauffman

I put out the call for additional writers after Jeff Herr left to be the lead writer at Through The Phog and I’m pleased to announce our newest writer: Brett Christie, a lifelong Royals fan, is joining the squad.

As is tradition around here, I’m going to let him tell you what he’s about:

"Hi all, my name is Brett Christie and I am a recent journalism graduate of the University of Missouri. I am now a  sports editor/writer for the Christian County Headliner in Ozark, Mo. and I currently reside in nearby Springfield.I am from Saint Joseph, Mo. and spent the first 18 years of my life there. With the close proximity to Kansas City, naturally I grew up a fan of both the Royals and Chiefs. I had plenty of options to choose from, as does any young fan, but to me there is something special about rooting for the hometown team and I suppose I am just a sucker for optimism.I feel my generation of Royals fans represents a uniqueness that many fans can’t relate to, in that we haven’t seen postseason baseball in the entirety of our existence. The Royals went 92-70 in 1989—the year I was born—since then they have had three winning seasons (four if you count the 1994 strike season). Two of the three seasons came before my 5th birthday, thus 2003 was really the only year that I’ve watched decent Royals baseball. Side note—I’ve seen more 100-loss seasons than above .500 baseball in my lifetime. That is even more sad when I see it typed out in front of me.Anyway, I will digress from the misery that I’m sure all of us currently share with our beloved franchise. My approach to baseball is as ever-changing as the statistical analysis of the game. I am a big believer in the sabermetric statistical categories that do an excellent job of determining a player’s worth in terms of WAR, as well as the advanced statistics that help measure how good a pitcher is beyond wins and ERA. I will try to incorporate some of these statistical measures into my posts, however, I am still learning their intricate values and do not want to inappropriately use them, so they will not overload my writing. And lets be honest, while I find the statistics fascinating, they generally don’t make for very entertaining posts.I love the direction that this franchise is going and I feel Dayton Moore has done an excellent job in scouting, drafting and developing talent within the system. However, I am still concerned with his ability to perform the other duties of a General Manager. Specifically, his ability to acquire talent via free agency and his ability to make good trades. His track record in those departments are average at best and mark my words, his ability to successfully perform both these tasks will make or break the Royals playoff chances, at least for next season. The Royals have a ton of young talent, but what they don’t have is enough starting pitching. At some point, in my opinion, Moore will have to part ways with some of his prospects in order to acquire a proven starting pitcher. Whether he will be willing to do that and if he does, whether he will be able to make the correct move, is yet to be determined. I’m excited to find out."