Archive for July, 2011

To this point, the Royals haven’t gotten a lot (at the big league level) out of the players they received in December’s trade of Zack Greinke.  Alcides Escobar has played some excellent defense for Kansas City, but he’s been the only regular at the big league level. Jeremy Jeffress began the season with the big league club, but he was shipped down to Omaha to work on his control.  The Royals even toyed with the idea of giving him regular work as a starter. Now, he’s being moved down another level to pitch for Northwest Arkansas in Double A.

After the All-Star Break, there wasn’t a lot of on field action to talk about, but if you follow baseball and the Royals, you know there’s always something to discuss.  Troy and I talked about the minor leagues, Luke Hochevar, the mid-July trade rumors and much more. We were also joined by Eric Edelstein, the General Manager of the Northwest Arkansas Naturals.  I want to thank Eric again for being gracious enough to join us during his busy schedule (Jake Odorizzi was making his first home start while we were talking with him).  He discussed many interesting things including the [...]

*Note: The official scorer has changed a ruling on a play in the ninth inning.  David Lough had been charged with an error, but it has been reversed to a hit, so Mendoza has thrown a one-hitter.  Let the controversy commence. **Follow up: The changed ruling has, apparently, been reversed and Lough is charged with an error, thus making the result a no-hitter for Mendoza.  Weird bunch of rulings, but it was overturned by the Memphis official scorekeeper originally, then reversed afterward.  Memphis appealed the reversal of the overturned decision and it was granted by the PCL – so no [...]

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 [...]

When Eric Hosmer hit his ninth home run on Friday night, I thought he was catching up to the team leaders despite making his major league debut five weeks after the season had begun.  With Jeff Francoeur leading the way with 12 and Alex Gordon and Melky Cabrera right behind him with 11, Hosmer is hot on their trail. My hope is that Hosmer can reach 20 homers by year’s end.  For a 21-year-old, that’s not a bad way to announce your arrival in the big leagues. At the same time, I wondered if it might be possible for all [...]

The one negative thing about attempting a live blog is that I’m consistently 20-30 seconds behind live action because the MLB.tv streaming over the PS3 isn’t the most instant of inventions. But, it will do. The first attempt at the Live Blog was way back on Opening Day, and while it was an enjoyable experience, I didn’t have the guts to commit to another one with the general awfulness that is this year’s Royals have been. But, I’m giving it another shot. If you’re used to watching the game and flooding Twitter with your sarcastic comments about the game or [...]

While Royals fans might read that as “Why, oh why?” and know exactly where I’m headed, please understand that us business nerds take it to mean something completely different. YOY is an acronym for Year Over Year. According to investopedia.com, it is: a method of evaluating two or more measured events to compare the results at one time period with those from another time period (or series of time periods), on an annualized basis. Year-over-year comparisons are a popular way to evaluate the performance of investments. Any measurable events that recur annually can be compared on a year-over-year basis – [...]

In last week’s Fish on the Farm (click here if you missed it), I did a sort of Royals-centric hot sheet and identified the “hottest” starter, reliever and position player at each level from Omaha on down to Burlington. Unfortunately the time I had to invest just to pull the data together left little time for writing up profiles and giving more than just the stats beyond the Storm Chasers. I enjoyed putting it together and it is a format I’d like to continue to use but sadly I don’t have an infinite amount of free time at my disposal. [...]

Yesterday was pretty boring.  Coming out of the All-Star Break, there was no baseball of any kind.  None. That makes it tough to be a baseball fan.  The second half awaits, the fun of the trading deadline lurks around the corner, and then there are potential callups.  Maybe it’s just me, but I was antsy to get things going again. While everyone gets back into baseball rhythm, how about some great things out there in the Royals blogosphere? This could be interesting to watch over the next two-plus weeks.  Dayton Moore has suggested that he may stick with the group [...]

I’m a baseball guy. Some skeptics question what that statement truly means. I believe when you say or hear someone say “baseball guy,” it has to mean there is some underlying passion about the game that the particular person has instilled within themselves. It’s not necessarily some super human trait, or mind capability that can robotically create field plowing franchises. It’s not a talent of any kind. What it’s best defined as is perhaps an obtuse belief towards baseball- a truly different point of view, and how the game is digested. Baseball, in every sense of the word, is perceived [...]

As I watched parts of this year’s Home Run Derby a couple of nights ago, two thoughts crept into my head. The first was how the whole thing has become such a ridiculous spectacle, and the second was that Royals fans have not had a vested interest in this contest for a span of time that is longer than a Prince Fielder moonshot. When I was a kid, I loved to watch the NBA’s All-Star game special events. “All-Star Saturday Night” featured Larry Bird’s long distance shooting in the three-point contest, and I always tried to re-create that setup in [...]

Much has been going on at KoK over the past couple of weeks. Many new and excited things are taking place like the Royalman Report becoming a weekly fixture in our programming and Michael’s conversation with Hall of Famer Rollie Fingers. All of us here really hope all of you out there are enjoying reading and listening and following along just as much as we’re enjoying creating all the content for you. It’s been yet another struggling year and we’re all in this together, but hopefully, this will be the last one for a while. Because it’s been yet another [...]