Archive for December, 2011

On the surface, the Royals’ recent acquisition of lefty reliever Jose Mijares is pretty vanilla. The 27-year old Mijares is a serviceable reliever, sure, but he’s not going to be swinging any playoff races. While Mijares owns a lifetime 3.16 ERA, it’s important to note that his ERA has risen exponentially in each of his four big league seasons. He first appeared in the majors 2008, when he posted a 0.87 ERA in 10 appearances for the Minnesota Twins. The next season was his best, as Mijares recorded a 2.34 ERA in 61.2 innings, while striking out 55. But that [...]

Hey, another year in review article! In all seriousness, 2011 was a remarkable season for the Royals. Sure, they only finished fourth in the AL Central, but enthusiasm for the team hasn’t been higher since the summer of 2003. Unlike that crazy year, this time the excitement is based on something beyond smoke and mirrors (or at least we hope so). It’s made for an exciting time in writing about the team, and as I reflect on the last 12 months, I’ve been reminded of many past articles that have shaped the narrative of the year, offseason and all. I [...]

You hear a lot about curses when it comes to some of the most storied franchises in baseball. For 86 years, the Boston Red Sox were tormented by the Curse of the Bambino. The Hapless Cubs blame The Curse of the Billy Goat for their 103 year championship drought. Even the Cleveland Indians lay claim to the Curse of Rocky Colavito for being the reason that they haven’t won a World Series since 1948. Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that The Royals are under the Curse of Don Denkinger.

While I’m glad you visit Kings of Kauffman every day (you have us bookmarked, yes? loaded our RSS feed? follow us on Twitter and Facebook?), the internet makes it easy to catch all sorts of sources and articles about our favorite team. Now and again, I like to pass some along that you may have missed. This batch of articles focus on the 2011 season, Yuniesky Betancourt, Wil Myers and remembering Paul Splittorff:

Recently, we’ve showcased the work of two new writers on Kings of Kauffman – Alan Barrington and Mike Vamosi – and I’m glad to announce a third new writer, Paul Thompson. As is KoK tradition, I’ll let him introduce himself: I was born in August of 1986; 10 months after the Kansas City Royals won their last World Series title. In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that it was also the last time the Royals went the playoffs. In the subsequent years, especially after my fandom began in earnest during the mid 1990’s, I grew to love [...]

Al Hrabosky – The Mad Hungarian (Sports Illustrated) #2 on our Royals All-Time Name Team   The middle of Christmas / New Years week is no time for hard hitting news or brain strain caused by disagreements over year end organizational moves.   We’ve had several days now to dissect the Yuniesky Betancourt signing and consider what it means to the organization.  Half of Royal Nation has been calling for Dayton Moore’s head on a platter over this decision, and the other half have yawned and scoffed at all the silly fuss over a part-time utility player. Just since last week, we signed [...]

There was no regular show in studio this week due to Christmas, but we have two never-before-released bonus interviews for you from the Royalman Report. First, Chris Kamler talks with minor league signee Tommy Hottovy who signed with the Royals in November. He’s from Kansas City and made his major league debut last year with Boston. Second, Troy Olsen got a couple of minutes with former World Series hero Joe Carter. The interview is from the Buck O’Neil birthday celebration last month. We finish up with a collection of segments from Joel Goldberg, Sam Mellinger and Rustin Dodd discussing Frank [...]

I don’t know about you, but it was a busy weekend of travel, family and food for me. You might just be getting back into your Royals-new-update-finding mode, so if you missed any content on Kings of Kauffman over the holiday, allow me to consolidate the most recent articles for your perusal: Royals Prospect Review: Danny Duffy Royals Prospect Review: Chris Dwyer Trading the Farm to Mortgage the Future? - Mike Vamosi’s debut article on Kings of Kauffman. Airing of Grievances - Kevin Scobee enjoys Festivus and discusses Yuniesky Betancourt. Christmas Wishes - Ryan Wood with a letter to Santa for the upcoming [...]

It’s been a while since I’ve answered some questions from our loyal readers, and it’s about time I fix that problem. Since the last edition, many things have happened on the Royals landscape including the trade for Jonathan Sanchez, and the signing of free agent Yuniesky Betancourt. Both created quite the stir among the fan base for their own reasons, but one thing was clear with both of them: The 2012 season cannot start soon enough. There’s still plenty of offseason to go though, and even though all Royals fans would rather be watching Eric Hosmer‘s first swings of the [...]

If you’re looking for a pitcher with more upside in the Royals system, Chris Dwyer might be it. If you’re looking for the most bustable, Dwyer holds that distinction as well. Dwyer, 4th round pick in 2009, ranked among Baseball America’s top 100 prospects before 2011. His performance assures that he can’t rank in that group again this year. In 141.1 innings in 2011, Dwyer put up a 5.60 ERA and 1.429 WHIP while walking more than five batters per nine innings for Double A Northwest Arkansas. For Dwyer, who turns 24 in April, it’s not the performance that he’d [...]

As we suffer through the cold The light no longer staying late We muse on days of old When the Boys in Blue were great

After a brief stint of  idleness, the Royals and General Manager Dayton Moore made a move that I’m quite certain is the exact reason why Twitter was invented. As you know the Boys in Blue added old friend Yunieski Bettancourt Dec. 20 and the internet went all Jerry Seinfeld on the move and rightfully so. I’m not going to completely delve into my feelings on the move, as our team has done an expansive job of covering it: Read: Michael Engel Our polished newcomer: Alan Barrington And the always animated: Kevin Scobee I’ll simply state that I was less than thrilled with acquisition—similar [...]