First, let’s recall the Greinke bullpen move success.  He moved to the bullpen after leaving baseball for awhile and was quite good out of the pen for the Royals in 2007.  He went from a guy with a low 90s fastball to a mid 90s guy who could reach back and get a 97 or 98 when needed.  In 2008 when he headed back into the rotation, Greinke lost some of the velocity that he showed in the pen, which is to be expected, but his overall velocity was improved from his time before the switch.  Now his fastball was sitting 93 or so and he still showed the ability to go up and hit 96 or 97 at times.  Wade Davis showed the velocity gain in his transition to relief, but this year has not been able to maintain any of the gains when starting again.

The Fangraphs velocity chart may show something even worse.  Last year Davis’ fastball averaged 93.7 MPH, and toward the end of the year was sitting above 95 consistently.  This also lead to a massive spike in strike out rate from 5.14K/9 in 2011 to 11.13 last year.  Looking at this year, his velocity is back down to an average fastball just above 91 MPH.  That is his lowest average ever.  Now it does show that his velocity tends to tick up a bit as the season wears on as a starter and as a reliever, so maybe he will be 92 to 93 in the middle of summer.  If that happens though, that would be more in line with 2010 and 11 when he was a back of the rotation guy at best, and his strike out rate this year is showing the same sitting at 6.64 per 9.

There has been a major change to his pitch mix.  He has been using a cutter that he hadn’t thrown in the past.  Davis has thrown the cutter 16 to 19 percent of the time and so his two and four seam fastballs have been used a lot less.  None of his pitches have done very well based on pitch values and most of this comes from an increased line drive and home run rate.  One of the problems with the cutter, in my opinion anyway, is that it might make his change up less effective.  The speed differential between the two pitches is only about 2 MPH, 88 down to 86, so the batters may not be thrown off by the change at all.  Part of that might also be because his change has been on average 1 MPH faster than last year too.

For Davis to be effective like last year something is going to need to change.  Right now he looks way too much like the bad Wade Davis that Tampa Bay took out of their rotation and nothing like the good Wade Davis they had in their bullpen last year.  The answer is probably not as simple as getting away from the cutter, but that may be one place to start.  Hopefully as summer comes his velocity will come back as it has before and help some, but it would be nice to see him show some signs that the successes of 2012 in the pen can be moved into the starting role.

From the chart you can see that the Royals have mostly been scoring well above or well below their average.  With an average of slightly below four and a half and a fairly normal distribution you would expect the most common outcome of a game to be in the four or five run categories, the two closest to average.  That is not the case.  The most common out come is three runs or two runs, and six and nine have happened more often than four and five.  This is a pretty skewed distribution.

Last year the distribution did have some of the same characteristics if you look at the next chart, but there were a lot more four run games, and a maximum of 11, which the Royals have already matched and exceeded this year.  The five, six, and seven run games last year showed up more often than one or two run games, but so far this year they only equal the two run game total.  What this says to the optimist and statistician in me is that as our sample of games for 2013 grows, this distribution will become more normally distributed.  For that to happen it would mean a lot more four to seven run games in lieu of one to three run games.  Also, the Royals have a winning record (dead on their Pythagorean expectation to boot) despite all of the low scoring games, so this could indicate a lot of good to come.

First off, here are heat maps from baseballheatmaps.com of what Billy has been swinging at.  On top is April, and you can see he had a much smaller area of attack versus right handed pitchers.  He was only swinging heavily at pitches in the middle of the strike zone.  This expanded versus southpaws, but remained mostly strikes.  The last two weeks this has changed.  Against left handed pitchers he is swinging the most at pitches that are middle-away and avoiding the inside half of the plate.  Less power since he is not pulling inside pitches, which sounds a lot like Eric Hosmer right now as well.  On right handed pitchers he is swinging at inside and up in the zone, but nothing else.  Both heavy swing areas are smaller the last two weeks.  If you look at Billy’s Fangraphs page this shows up as well.

Butler is swinging at under 40% of pitches he sees for the first time in his career.  His rate is 38.8%, which is almost 4% lower than last year.  He is still swinging at a similar number of strikes, but his rate of swinging outside the zone is down.  This is consistent with him being pitched around some.  The pitch mix he is seeing from opposing pitchers looks about the same as last year.  Nothing in any of his rate stats jumps out as a red flag.

Then comes our old friend BABIP.  Billy’s balls in play average is .247, which is way below his career BABIP of .324, and I would love to point to this and say that he has been unlucky and all is well with the world.  The problem is that I don’t believe it is all luck driven.  I won’t say every team, though it seems that way, is shifting on Billy, but more often than not I have seen the short stop playing much closer to second base this year when Butler is up.  This has been noticeable on several occasions when he hits something hard up the middle and my brain says single only to be let down when the defender barely has to move to make the play.

Overall I’m not sure that anything looks “wrong” with Billy.  He has seen fewer strikes, but it hasn’t seemed to make him expand the strike zone, possibly the opposite in fact.  I would like to see him turn on the ball a little more, and he may need to just to try and move the defense to a more straight-up alignment.  Still, it mostly looks like Billy is still himself and just needs to adjust a bit to the shift.

The longest losing streak so far in 2013 belongs to the team that spent the most money in the off-season.  The Los Angeles Dodgers have wracked up 7 losses in a row, and have a chance to extend that number tonight.  Miami is a good opportunity for a win, but I believe in you LA.  They have not yet won a game this month.  They also have a 6 game losing streak.

All but two major league teams have lost at least three in a row, so the Royals are in good company.  Only the New York Yankees, who everyone was writing off before the season, and the Texas Rangers have not lost 3 in a row yet.  Maybe the Royals can hand the Yanks three in a row over the weekend since they are due.  There are six teams tied with the Royals with a longest streak of 3 (Baltimore, Boston, Colorado, Seattle, and St. Louis), so the Royals have managed to out perform 22 of the 30 teams so far in avoiding losing streaks.  Of the 3 in a row max club, the Royals, Orioles, and Cardinals have only one streak of three, while the Red Sox, Rockies, and Mariners have 2 streaks each.

The leaders for most streaks of 3 losses or more are, unsurprisingly, Miami with 6 such streaks and Houston with 5.

This may seem frivolous, but as I am sure most of you are aware, the Royals kind of have a habit of sustained losing streaks.  Avoiding them feels really good.  Last year the Royals had the brutal 12 game April losing streak and 10 streaks of 3 or more losses in total.  That is one and a third losing streaks per month.  We are over a month in with only one such streak so far, and it is of the shortest variety due to last night’s victory.

Jeremy established himself as a better than average starter beginning in 2007 at 28 years old.  Every year since then he has been a little above or a little below average without ever standing out.  Last year in Colorado he has his first really bad stretch, but he came to Kansas City and looked fantastic so that at the end of the year he had gotten back to slightly below average:

As you can see, this year has been different.  It is not all that likely that he will end up being 74% better than average for all of 2013 since that number is being skewed by his fantastic start on on Saturday.  Still, he was doing really well in the 5 prior starts as well.  The main difference for him this year has been a little better K rate, a career high ground ball rate, and some luck through low BABIP and high strand rate.  Even with the luck though, he has a career best xFIP and SIERA so far at 4.09 and 4.23, so even the metrics that try to strip out luck are showing a possibility that he is going to be better this year than he has in the past.  What if Guthrie has a career year?  I went and looked what that might look like, and what it might mean for the rest of his contract with the Royals.

The bar I set was a bit lower than that sparkling 174 ERA+ up there since I don’t think Guthrie can keep that up, so I looked for starting pitchers who put up 140 or more after the age of 30 for the first time.  There are quite a few players over the past 50 years who are in this group.  First I will talk about a chunk of the guys from a while ago, and then a look at two more recent players.

The first bunch includes Bob Purkey, Bob Veale, Dick Donovan, Elmer Dessens, Gil Heredia, Mike Morgan, Mike Scott, Rick Reed, Tom Candiotti, Vern Law, and Woody Williams.  If you wanted to hear that Guthrie could morph into an ace at this point of his career, I am going to have to disappoint you.  The guys who figure it out later and become dominant, think Cliff Lee or Randy Johnson, tend to have big breakouts in their late 20s.  This group should not make you uncomfortable about Guthrie’s prospects going forward though.  Most of them had 1 to 4 more decent years as a starter after their career year with a couple of them hanging around usefully until their early 40s.  Only Vern Law fell off a cliff.  He had a great year at 35 and then two bad years before

September 20, 2012; Kansas City, MO, USA; Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Jeremy Guthrie (33) gets the out on Chicago White Sox right fielder Alex Rios (51) trying to steal home in the third inning at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

hanging it up.  If Guthrie can be really good for one year, and then give the Royals two more years as an average starting pitcher, then the contract given to him will have been well worth it.

Two more contemporary players really stuck out to me.  The first is Ryan Dempster.  His path is unlike all of the others due to his time in the bullpen.  He went back into the starting rotation at 31 and had a phenomenal year, and has been a consistently good starter since with only one down year in 2011.  A half decade of solid starting pitching.  The other guy is Ted Lilly.  Lilly came up a little younger than Guthrie, but didn’t really establish himself until his late 20s like Jeremy.  Then at 33 Lilly had a really nice year for the Cubs.  His next two seasons he was slightly above then slightly below average.  At 36 he was off to another good start last year before his arm gave out.  He tried to come back this year, but his two starts so far have not been promising.

All of this has made me hopeful for Guthrie’s time in KC.  There is no reason he can’t put together three solid seasons based on history, and we are only going to pay him $25 million for those years.  Typically you have to overspend in the free agent market, but in this case the Royals may have made a very valuable acquisition without needing to.  Of course, the early season returns from Guthrie could also be a mirage, but I really like how he has looked.

I think this is just as important for the fans as well. We all have our rituals that make us feel as if we somehow hold sway over the outcome of a game. There’s the effervescent rally cap, a classic maneuver a fan makes when his team is struggling late in the game.

Down here in Bolivar, there are two bros that watch/follow Royals games with me and we all have our own rituals for coaxing victory out of they guys. We all went on a stadium tour a few months ago and at the end, we got some Royals swag to take with us. The hats we got were a little bit crummy. They weren’t even snap-backs. They were like those lame belt-loop ones that hardly anyone our age wears.

Anyways, after mocking these hats incessantly, my buddy Trev has started rocking his during the game because every time he wears it, we start scoring runs. It’s a little eerie, really.

My other buddy Jake has a bat signed by Amos Otis that he likes to hold during the games. It makes the players play better. For reals.

I, myself have this awesome Royals light that I turn on after each Royals win. Much like, Paul Revere….or something.

What do you guys do?

I want some weird traditions, man.

Last year the Royals rotation was a train wreck.  In descending order by number of starts there was Bruce Chen (34 starts), Luke Hochevar (32), Luis Mendoza (25), Will Smith (16), Jeremy Guthrie (14), Jonathan Sanchez (12), Felipe Paulino (7), Danny Duffy (6), Vin Mazzaro (6), Everett Teaford (5), Nathan Adcock (2), Jake Odorizzi (2), Ryan Verdugo (1).  That is 162 games of suck.  Granted, it would have looked significantly better had Duffy and Paulino not blown out their elbows, but they did.  This led to an average start length of 5.5 innings and a lot of bullpen work.

Only two of the names from last year’s parade of horrors are still a part of the rotation.  That has made Royals games a lot more watchable, and has pushed the innings per start number up to 6.3 innings so far this year.  The starter this year are averaging almost a full inning more per start, or an increase of a little over 14% better than last year.  That’s great, but when I am watching the games there is a pitch counter on the FSN broadcast and I feel like it is still trying to tell me something.  Last night was the worst of them, until the Royals finally got to Alex Cobb in the sixth.  At the end of 5 innings Cobb had thrown only 56 pitches (and only 88 when they pulled him), and despite our pitchers pitching pretty deep into games they still always seem to have higher pitch counts.

Pitchers for the opposing team have combined this year for an average start of just over 6 innings.  So, despite the improved rotation, impatient Royals hitters are giving most of the starting advantage back by failing to knock out the opposition.  If you go look at ESPN’s stats page (expanded batting) there are 99 qualified players right now and eight of them are Royals.  I ranked them all by pitcher per plate appearance, and we have three patient hitters on the team; Billy Butler at 4.13 P/PA(24^th),  Eric Hosmer at 4.11(26^th), and

Apr 30, 2013; Kansas City, MO, USA; Kansas City Royals left fielder Alex Gordon (4) breaks his bat while hitting in the sixth inning of the game against the Tampa Bay Rays at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

Alex Gordon at 4.0(34^th).

Jeff Francoeur and Alcides Escobar are slightly below average in seeing pitches at 3.88 (54^th) and 3.84 (60^th) respectively.  That leaves four very impatient hitters.  Remember I am saying that the rest are impatient with respect to Frenchy.  Lorenzo Cain sees 3.62 (82^nd) pitches on average and right there with him is Salvador Perez at 3.56 (86^th).  Chris Getz would be slightly ahead of those two with a lackluster 3.68, but is not qualified right now.  That leaves the least patient hitter of the bunch, 90^th out of 99 qualified big leaguers this season, Mike Moustakas with a 3.48 P/PA.

This team is unlikely to get significantly better at seeing pitches.  I would love to see upgrades at second and right, but there is no guarantee that whoever took over those spots would be better.  All I know is that the opposing starters are getting deeper into games than I would like, and that the obsession with pitch counts makes running up the opponent’s count a very valuable tool.

Naturally, the worry is how the team will stack up against the rest of the A.L. Central. So far, the results are positive. They’ve played each team this month and, regardless of a win or loss against Cleveland tonight, will only have LOST one series against a division foe. That series loss came in the first three games of the year. Overall in the month of April, they’ve gone 7-4 against the division.* They dropped two out of three to the White Sox, swept the Twins, split with the Tigers and will either take three out of four from the Indians or split with them.

*Again, pending tonight’s game

Let’s take a look at how the rest of the division is faring in-house:

Cleveland Indians - As of yet, the Indians have only played the White Sox and us. They’re 3-2 against the Sox (one game got rained out) and they’re currently 1-2 against us for a record of 4-3 against the division.

Minnesota Twins- The Twins have actually won series over both the division favorite Detroit Tigers and the Chicago White Sox this month. What’s hurt them was getting swept by the Royals earlier in the month. They haven’t played the Indians yet and currently hold a record of 4-4 against the division.

Chicago White Sox- The White Sox won their first series of the season against the Royals, but have struggled against the rest of the division ever since. They have lost series against both the Indians and Twins. They have yet to play the Tigers. Their divisional record is currently 4-6

Detroit Tigers - The (mostly) consensus pick to win the division, the Tigers lost their first series of the year against the Twins and split their series with the Royals for a divisional record of 2-3. They haven’t played the Indians or the White Sox yet.

The Royals are the only A.L. Central team to have played against each of their divisional foes. As stated above, aside from a slight sputter out of the gates against the White Sox, they’ve played well in these games. It’s going to important for them to have continued success against these teams as they push forward into May.

CURRENT STANDINGS

1. Kansas City Royals – (13-9)

2. Detroit Tigers – (13-10)

3. Minnesota Twins – (11-10)

4. Chicago White Sox – (10-14)

5. Cleveland Indians – (9-13)

One of the most important things the Big Game James brings to the table is the 7 innings per game that he is thrown.  Last year we got used to seeing Royal starter after Royal starter bounce in the 5^th and 6^th innings, or 3^rd inning for Jonathan Sanchez.  It is a lot more fun to look at the pitching match-ups each day and feel like the odds are in our favor.  Beyond lasting into games, there is a lot to like so far from Shields.  His 8.23K/9 and 2.31BB/9 are in line historically.  The strike out rate is down slightly from last year, but not in a way to be concerned about and last year was a career high.  These are typically the first thing I look at, and then I moved on to stats that might tell us about how lucky he has been so far.

April 20, 2013; Boston, MA USA; Kansas City Royals starting pitcher James Shields (33) walks to the dugout after pitching in the fourth inning against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Mandatory Credit: Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports

LOB% looks normal, and BABIP was .284 and only slightly below expectation.  The only issue to count on going forward is that Shields will likely give up a few more home runs.  Right now he has a 6.1% HR/FB rate, which is unsustainable and should regress toward 11% over the course of the year.  This has led to a 0.51HR/9 which is about half of James’ historic rate.  So it looks like overall he has been just a bit lucky with batted balls in play and with fly balls staying in the park, but as you will see in a moment that even if those rates were normal, his expected performance would still have been very good.

So far Shields has an ERA of 3.09 and WHIP of 1.09, which is pretty great.  Even better though, the stats that try to correct for the luck issues look good too.  His FIP is 2.68, xFIP is 3.23, and SIERA is 3.40, so nothing about his performance to this point is pointing to major drop off.  What the stats are saying is that as the HR rates come back to normal we would expect his ERA to move up by only a tenth of a point or two.

Next I looked at his pitch mix to see if he is attacking hitters any differently than in past years.  It seems that he is using his cut fastball much more often than in he had any previous year, this being offset by fewer curves and change-ups.  The pitch values (runs above average by pitch type) say that his cutter has been his best pitch, so he or Salvador Perez calling the game seem to be managing the pitch selection well.

Finally, I went back to the PITCHf/x charts and ZONE% to see if the injury risks discussed  (see link to previous article above, link to Zimmerman’s article is in there if you don’t know what I am referring to) last year are still hanging around.

The velocity chart from Fangraphs shows no issues, and really wasn’t an issue last year, but is still nice to see.

James seems to be hitting the strike zone well.  Baseball Info Solutions has his ZONE% at 48.3% and PITCHf/x has it at 47.3%.  Both numbers are up significantly from last year.  The BIS number is in line with his 2010 and 2011 performances.  Prior to 2012 his PITCHf/x ZONE% were in the low 50s, so that is still slightly below historic rates, but not far enough off for me to be too concerned due to the increase from last year to this.

The horizontal release point was the last concern, and it still seems to move around horizontally more than I would like.  In the first four games especially this was true.  This chart is from yesterday though, and aside from a couple of pitches, the mass of points shows much more consistency.  I will continue to keep an eye on this, and hopefully the consistency will follow last game and continue to get better.

Overall James Shields has been a huge upgrade over any of the “Aces” the Royals have had leading their starting rotation for the last decade with the exception of Zack Greinke’s couple of good years.  This still hasn’t made me forget Wil Myers, but I have to admit that the success so far has dulled the pain a little.  Shields has been fun to watch, and has lived up to every expectation to this point.  So far, so good.

The run environment of baseball has been a topic of conversation for several years.  Over time the number of runs per game has been dropping, and many people have speculated that this is due to things like increased PED testing or increased quality of pitching.  Whatever the reason(s), the last three years have seen this trend stagnate.

As you can see, the runs scored in 2010, 11, and 12 were basically identical per game in the American League.  So far this year the runs have been slightly less per game.  This is not surprising since run production tends to be suppressed due to things like cold weather early in the season.  The overall run production this year is down 3.9% per game from last year, so the Royals run production being down 4.1% from last year is right in line with the league drop.  This is not comforting in that it says the offense has not progressed, but I wanted to start by at least showing that it has not regressed before pressing on.

Another thing to pay attention to is who the Royals have faced.  Their overall strength of schedule is 12^th according to ESPN (last year they ended up at 17^th), so their schedule has been a little tougher than average.  Not only that, but over half their games have come against some pretty tough starting pitching (Chris Sale, Jake Peavy, Cole Hamels, R.A. Dickey, Brandon Morrow, Kris Medlen, Mike Minor, Clay Buchholz, and Ryan Dempster).  Don’t be surprised if the Detroit series does not help the offense bring its numbers up as they will add Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, and Anibal Sanchez to the tally.  Tough competition and low scoring games sounds like playoff baseball, and so far the Royals are above .500 in that situation.  This to me is a good sign.

Now to the actual player performance and composition.  Due to Ned’s love of changing the line-up and two trips to National League parks it is hard to say what the typical starting 9 in order are, but roughly it is this:

Alex Gordon

Alcides Escobar

Billy Butler

Mike Moustakas

Lorenzo Cain

Eric Hosmer

Salvador Perez

Jeff Francoeur

Chris Getz

Only one of these players does not belong on any major league team as a starter, and my assumption is that Francoeur will get less playing time as the season goes on and more will go to Jarrod Dyson (or David Lough who is raking in Omaha).  Less Frenchy over time will help this offense.  Also, only one player is at a level that is unsustainably good, Lorenzo Cain, but I don’t expect him to fall off of a cliff, just come back to Earth.  That leaves two groups, those doing as expected and those under-performing.

The expected group includes Gordon, Escobar, and Getz.  Gordon might not continue quite at the level he is at, but he has produced at a similar clip for a whole season before.  His OPS+ is 141 and in 2011 his season OPS+ was 140, so he is at or only a tiny bit above what he should be.  Alcides is continuing what he did last year only with slightly more power.  If he develops a little above last year no one should be shocked as that is fairly common of 26 year old players.  Chris Getz is a mediocre hitter, and will probably continue to be a mediocre hitter.  His average will likely come up and his slug will likely come down with no discernible change in team performance due to him.  That is fine since he bats ninth.

Now the under-performers.  Billy Butler will be fine, and as he rises back to his level the offense will improve.  I would move Lorenzo

Apr 14, 2013; Kansas City, MO, USA; Kansas City Royals players Eric Hosmer (left) and Mike Moustakas (right) during batting practice before a game against the Toronto Blue Jays at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports

Cain behind him to try and keep pitchers from walking him so much, but either way this is not a concern.  That leaves the young guys.  Salvador Perez is the only one nobody has been vocally down on.  Sal is hitting .258/.269/.348, so I’m not sure why he has been ignored by those concerned, but whatever.  He is a stud defensively and I guess his last two partial seasons are enough that everyone is giving him the benefit of the doubt.  Hosmer and Moose on the other hand are struggling mightily and every Royals fan knows it.  There is more concern here due to their performances last year, Hosmer the entire 2012 campaign and Moustakas’ second half.

Eric Hosmer is doing poorly, but there are signs that he is going to get right because he is still getting on base.  The power is the major concern here.  Way too many ground balls and only one extra base hit, and only a double at that, are keeping his numbers from being okay.  I am still optimistic that he will have a decent season, especially since one good game, say a double and home run in the same day, would make everything look a lot better very quickly.

Mike Moustakas is another story.  His line, .158/.226/.193, is atrocious.  There is no sugar coating the results when you aren’t hitting, or getting base, or showing any power.  His past and age make me think that it is just a slump at a bad time, but that doesn’t mean I am not concerned about the short term.  Worst case scenario is that he needs a remedial session in AAA to get back on track if in a couple of weeks he is still looking this bad at the plate.  Gordon and Butler, among others, have had to do this sort of thing so don’t freak out if Moose gets sent down it does not mean he is never going to be any good.  There is no way that the final line for all third basemen ends up looking that bad by the end of the year, and up is really the only possible direction.

What I take from the players themselves is that there are a lot more players or positions to expect improvement from as the year goes on than there are expected regressions.  In other words, despite the struggles of a significant portion of the offense, this team has pretty much replicated last year’s offensive output.  This offense should therefore be better than last year’s once all 162 have been played.  We already know how much better the starting pitching has been, and should be expecting them to come backward a little bit due to a pretty fantastic start.  Hopefully as the starting pitching starts to find their level, which still should be pretty good, this offense can do the same and we can continue to watch good baseball.  Then come June we can start talking about trades and such to bolster any continuing weaknesses.

The main components to this are projecting the WAR values from each player for the contracts/player control time that was traded.  Then coming up with a discount rate, that would approximate the win inflation over the time period, to make sure wins this year are worth more than subsequent years.  The rest of it is just simple math.  As you can see I am not including Elliot Johnson, Mike Montgomery, or Patrick Leonardas I believe there value to the teams is either zero or close enough to zero that I can ignore

December 12, 2012; Kansas City, MO, USA; Kansas City Royals general manager Dayton Moore (left to right), newly acquired pitchers James Shields and Wade Davis, and manager Ned Yoast pose for photos after the press conference at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

them.  I put James Shields down for two seasons similar to last year at 4 WAR each, and then zero from then on out since his contract will end.  Then I projected Wil Myers and Jake Odorizzi and played with what Wade Davis would have to do to make the trade somewhat even.  You can quibble a lot with these projections, but whatever they are, Davis is going to have to be pretty good to make this trade valuable for the Royals.  TWins are a sum of all WAR for the year for that side of the trade (Shields + Davis or Myers + Odorizzi), and DWins use the discount rate to present value the wins in terms of now.  As I go on I will be discussing how to make a model like this better since this one is pretty simple.

First, the projections need to be better.  I am pretty comfortable with Shields, but the others are much harder to project.  My preference would be to crowd source these win values to get expectations from multiple fan bases both biased and unbiased, but that would require me having a significant amount more power in the blogosphere.  In lieu of that I will probably need to go look at scouting expectations and then use aging curves for the three players who are younger and going to be around for a while.  Once you have those it is just a matter of setting a discount rate.  A win this year is more valuable than a win next year, and though you could argue for specific times and specific teams this could change a lot, I think this is still a good assumption.  How to set the actual discount rate could go several ways though.

You could try and set a league wide discount rate using win inflation, meaning look at what team payrolls are per WAR year over year recently, and then project an inflation rate from there.  This could be a good way to set the rate, but it is not what I was thinking.  You could also do this on a team by team basis since the Tampa Bay way won’t allow it to grow payroll at the same rate as the Dodgers or Yankees.  Personally, I would prefer to set inflation rates separately for the players.  The model above assumes one discount rate, consistent with a league-wide win inflation rate, but I think each player’s risk profile might give better results.  That way we could use what we know about the players to set the rate.  Prospects are riskier, so their discount rate should be higher than established big leaguers (we are more confident in what James Shields will be than the other three so his discount rate should be lower).  Also, pitchers should probably have a higher discount rate than position players due to higher injury risk and year to year variation.  Once you have done all this, a good estimate of each trading team’s expected present value of wins should be formulated, and then you move on to money.

One team or the other (or for multi-team trades you could compare more) is going to have an edge in WAR expectancy, but that is not the only factor.  Payroll should be used as well.  In the case of this trade the Royals have a lower win expectancy and took on more payroll with Shields’ contract, which is why most stat heads gave the clear victory to the Rays on the trade.  Anyway, that is an introduction to the method I would like to develop.  If you like it or have any questions or modifications I should consider let me know.

In his rookie season, we see that Hosmer swung mostly at inside pitches from lefties, and had a more center driven approach to right handed pitchers while still preferring inside over outside.  Against right handed pitchers he swung most at pitches up and across the middle.  The following year, which was a disaster, he swung a lot at pitches up above the strike zone again, and his swing rates on outside pitches increased.  This year so far, Eric has managed to reduce the number of pitches he is swinging at up above the strike zone.  In fact you can see the fatter blue portions, and green surrounding the strike zone pretty clearly.  Hosmer has managed to avoid swinging outside of the zone a lot in the early part of 2013.  His fangraphs page backs this up.  Eric’s baseball info solutions O-Swing% (% of the time swinging at pitches outside of the strike zone) is just 25.8% compared to 36.7 and 33.5 in 2011 and 2012 respectively.  The PITCHf/x O-Swing% shows a less drastic drop, but still the lowest of his career.

It seems that Hosmer is being a lot more picky this year when taking the bat off of his shoulder.  This has lead to a solid 12.8% walk rate.  The other thing that you can see on the heat maps is that the highest swing rates are middle/middle of the strike zone versus left and right handed pitchers.  He is swinging less at pitches on the inner half of the plate where he had been swinging a lot over the last two years.  At the same time he is swinging more at pitches low in the strike zone against righties, and not swinging at all at low pitches versus lefties.  Granted that might be a sample size issue.

There is still a lot of concern about Eric, and rightfully so, from the fan base.  Until he starts turning on mistakes and driving them into the stands we will all be a little bit nervous that he is destined to break our hearts.  These heat maps do make me a little more optimistic though.  If he can consistently swing at strikes and lay off of the high pitches out of the zone, it can only help him.  Also, if this is the effect of the hitting coach changes in the off season, then it may be showing better selection with better results to follow as he gets used to the adjustments that have been made.

Team batting has gone somewhat as expected in my opinion.  They are right in the middle of the pack in runs and the main concern is the lack of home runs and walks.  The usual pattern of recent years where they rank very well in average and significantly worse in OBP is still there, once again due to really low walk rates, but this year OBP is slightly higher than normal due mostly to avoiding strike outs.

Apr 14, 2013; Kansas City, MO, USA; Kansas City Royals center fielder Jarrod Dyson (1) slides into third base with a lead off triple against the Toronto Blue Jays during the third inning at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports

There is a very good sign that should not be ignored here.  Only two players have been good enough that I don’t think their rates are sustainable, Alex Gordon and Chris Getz.  If some of the struggling bats can start hitting a bit, mostly Alcides Escobar and Mike Moustakas but almost everyone else can do more too, then these ranks might be a little low come seasons end.  Both runs rank and WAR rank show a nice average offense, so growth would be welcome.  On to pitching:

That is beautiful, and not something we have seen as Royals fans in a long time.  Very high K rates and low walk rates are a very good way to be successful as a pitching staff.  The middle of the road home run rate has kept this from being a stellar beginning.  ERA is nearing top-5 status and the FIP and XFIP numbers back up the ERA so far.  My preseason belief once they set the rotation was that this was a slightly above average starting rotation and a fantastic bullpen.  This is a sustainable start from a rankings perspective.  I doubt Ervin Santana can keep being as good as he has been, but I also believe Wade Davis and Luis Mendoza can be quite a bit better.

The combined WAR total of pitching and hitting ranks 12^th in the majors, and that puts them right on the edge of contention with 10 teams making the playoffs.  Most of this does not look like unsustainable luck like 2003 was, so I am really starting to get excited about a long summer of meaningful baseball games.  It’s still far from a done deal that this team will contend, but the early returns are not hurting the preseason optimism.

First, and most obvious, are his peripherals.  The 9.6K per nine is probably not going to stay quite that high, but it is nice to see a lot of strike outs.  His career high in K/9 is 8.79 back in 2008, which was his career year.  To go along with that his walk rate so far is 1.3 per nine, which is also likely to come up toward normal over time but is also showing some solid command early.  These are nice, but most of my optimism is being derived from PITCHf/x of game 2, so let’s take a look at that.

The PITCHf/x data shows two really good indicators that Ervin is in good form for this year.  Velocity may be the most promising indicator.  Last year he saw a dip in his fastball velocity:

Mar 18, 2013; Surprise, AZ, USA; Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Ervin Santana (54) pitches during the fourth inning against the Texas Rangers at Surprise Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

Then in the first game of 2013 his fastball averaged 90.1 and I have to admit I was a little nervous that either he was headed toward another injury or going to need to become a new pitcher.  It was only one start though, and sometimes velocity comes up a bit over the first few starts of the year.  In game two it certainly did in this case.  He posted an average velocity of 93.1, which matches his high annual average,  and his high watermark for velocity on July 21^st.  There is a big difference between last year’s and this year’s game though, in that last year when Ervin matched the 93.1 average velocity he only went an inning and two thirds, gave up 3 HRs, and was yanked.  This year he sustained it for 8 innings and only one run.

Another thing PITCHf/x showed that makes me excited is his slider movement.  The horizontal slider movement in game one for Ervin was 2.77, and then it jumped to 4.41 in game two.  Last year’s best slider article from Fangraphs will give you an idea of what a great slider looks like (Santana’s made the list at an average horizontal movement of 4.2).  His out pitch is in mid-season form.  This is leading to more strike outs, and a lot of optimism on my part.

Yes, Santana left a couple of balls up in the zone in the first inning yesterday that got tagged for singles.  He also got a little lucky that Justin Morneau hit one to dead center and came up a few feet short.  It was not a perfect outing yesterday, but Ervin is starting to look pretty good.  Improved velocity and a deadly out pitch are a nice combination.  Remember that this is a guy who was 6^th in the Cy Young vote back in 2008, so his best is pretty good.  I don’t expect him to be in the running for the Cy Young, but so far the early returns are pointing more toward Cy Young contention than the struggles of last year.

There are some pretty obvious differences to this team that have been beaten to death.  Mostly it boils down to a rotation at the beginning of the season where the pitcher who opened on the road and at home were not good enough to make the rotation.  Let me say that again in case it didn’t sink in.  Last year Bruce Chen and Luke Hochevar started opening day and the home opener and neither could crack the rotation this year.  That is a huge difference, setting aside the huge price paid to pull this feat off, and makes it significantly less likely that this team will fall apart for an extended period of time.  Better talent leads to good outcomes.  Usually this is the biggest thing that leads to winning.

Still, I felt like something else was contributing.  During the early part of the season last year when the team was in a double digit losing streak a deficit felt like a loss long before the 27th out was made.  This year the fans seem to still feel it, as 20+ years of conditioning has primed them to feel.  The team did not look like it felt that way at all though.  Batters were still approaching the game normally rather than flailing and striking out at ridiculous rates like they did when pressing last year.  Eventually this lead to runners, and then to a Country Breakfast slam (how has Denny’s not signed Billy to a deal yet?).  The bats did not roll over and die, they carried the day along with James Shields being perfect after the early problems.  Everyone pointed to a better rotation as a reason for optimism, and maybe that has carried over to the batters who now believe that they have a chance even when down four runs in the first.  Oh yeah, we just did this on Friday, down four, roar back and win it, no problem.

Apr 07, 2013; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Kansas City Royals right fielder Jeff Francoeur (21) celebrates defeating the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park. The Royals defeated the Phillies 9-8. Mandatory Credit: Howard Smith-USA TODAY Sports

The bullpen almost coughed it up and spoiled  everything.  That could be a point of concern, but should it be?  J.C. Gutierrez struggled, which we all are expecting.  No one thought he should make the team, outside of the Royals front office.  We didn’t get too worked up about it because it still the last bullpen spot, but there are options hanging out in Omaha to replace J.C.  This is not a concern going forward as he will be replaced given more struggles.  The second part is more concerning.  For the second time in as many days Greg Holland came in and struggled.  He was really, really good last year, and I would love to see him have another year like that, but if he doesn’t the Royals will be fine.  Bullpens vary a lot from year to year and one reliever having a down year is to be expected.  Herrera came in a bailed him out, Tim Collins was good again, and there is still Aaron Crow.  A down year from Holland will not sink this team, especially with guys like Donnie Joseph hanging out ready to get their shot.

The opening road trip was really uneven, but at the end of it I am very encouraged.  The offense scored 5 runs a game after two really bad games out of the gate.  The Royals ended up even, 3 and 3.  The rotation got off to a pretty darn good start mostly.  Is this team different?  Should we stop worrying about the inevitable collapse.  I believe the answers are yes to both of those questions.  My lifetime of Royals fandom keeps me from completely letting go of the worry of collapse, but this team feels different.  There is a long time to go to prove if my faith is misplaced, but for now I can’t wait for the game to start each and every day.

Only 303 seasons come back from Baseball-Reference (BR) if you look at pitcher seasons from 1901 to 2013 where a starter went 150 innings or more at a weight at or below 160 pounds.  How accurate the weight of the pitchers is, especially going back that far, is highly questionable, but that shows just how rare small starters are.  It has become even rare over time, and only 6 of those seasons have happened from 2000 until now, or only once every couple of years.

Last year 99 starting pitchers went 150+ innings according to BR.  The average weight of these 99 was 216.5 pounds, and the smallest was Tim Lincecum at 170 pounds.  In the current era starting pitchers are big.  Tall tends to be related to velocity, and big is associated with durability.  That has made projections of Ventura ending up in the bullpen fairly common.  Can the Royals really expect to start this youngster in the bigs, or is he just too little?

The good news is that Yordano does not seem to be as small this year.  I had heard reports that he had gained some weight, and now Fangraphs and BR have him listed at 178 and 180 pounds respectively.  Other places still have him significantly below this (Scoutingbook.com at 150), but it looks like he has gained something.  If it was 40 pounds it raises fitness questions that I would love someone who can get to a minor league game of his to answer (or it raises PED questions in this day and age).  That amount would take him out of small, and quickly into a weight range that is appropriate for a 5’11’’ frame.  His velocity is still huge, and reports of 102 MPH were given during the spring.  Yes, this would still put Yordano significantly below average for a starter as far as weight goes, but there are several sub-200 pound starters that have had success recently such as the aforementioned Lincecum, Wandy Rodriguez, and Cole Hamels.

If true, this weight gain should raise Yordano’s stock as a prospect.  Being able to start instead of relieve would be a huge boon to his overall value.  How quickly he can move to Omaha and start knocking on the door remains to be seen, but I would love to see a power arm like that in this rotation in the next couple of years.

The rankings for the Royals are mostly fair, but before I discuss where I think they are off I want to talk about the win projection.  In the end this system has a projection of 80 wins for the Royals.  This is exactly what I predicted in the Kings of Kauffman prediction article earlier this week.  You would think having projections systems along with some good writers over at Fangraphs agree with me would lead to a greater confidence in my original prediction, but that is not the case.

There are a couple of things that I disagree with a little, but can’t argue too much with, in that I think projections are a little low on Alex Gordon and Billy Butler.  These don’t change my mind though, since I think the optimism on Salvador Perez is probably a little too high.  Where this really affected my thinking was in two spots, right field and starting pitching.  The right field WAR is calculated with Jeff Francoeur receiving 630 plate appearances at a total WAR of 0.4, and that is almost surely not going to happen.  If Francoeur is bad then the platooning being discussed will likely become a reality quickly in some form, either acquisition, David Lough coming up, or Jarrod Dyson playing more in center with Lorenzo Cain moving over to play right.  The only other option is that Frenchy does get a full season of PAs, and that will likely only happen if he is producing at a better clip than 0.4 WAR per season.  It would surprise me a lot of the Royals don’t get better production out of right than is being predicted by Fangraphs, so that should add a win.  Possibly more, but I’ll call it one.

The second part, starting pitching, will likely be an even bigger deal.  Here are their projections:

They have James Shieldsat 4.4 WAR, which is fair and possibly even a little too high sinc

September 20, 2012; Kansas City, MO, USA; Kansas City Royals center fielder Jarrod Dyson (1) and team mates celebrate with first baseman Eric Hosmer (35) after the game against the Chicago White Sox at Kauffman Stadium. The Royals won the game 4-3. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

e 4.5 is his career high even if his ERA and FIP could end up better than what is shown.  I would be shocked if Jeremy Guthrie, Ervin Santana, and Wade Davis all end up in the four and half ERA/FIP range, and that is the first part of my disagreement.  Obviously, since they did this things have changed too.  Luis Mendoza is now the number five starter, and will not be getting 40IP.  He will be an upgrade over Bruce Chen, which is why everyone has been hoping for Mendoza to get the spot and the Royals evidently agree as well.  My guess is that this staff will end up with another 2+ wins worth of value at the least.  Especially when I look at rotations like the Rockies getting a better projection.  Jeff Francis got projected at 2 WAR, and I would rather have anyone in the Royals staff, and Jon Garland got 1.4 WAR in projection in 90 IPs which is just plain crazy.  The only way that rotation is better is if guys like Drew Pomeranz bump Garland out of the rotation.

Just adding Mendoza and making it clear that the Francoeur is not going to be given much leash has made this Royals team better than I, and Fangraphs, originally thought a couple of weeks ago.  That is probably another 3 or 4 wins, which is starting to push the Royals toward an expectation of contention.  If they can move into the mid-80s for wins, then I think we are in for a fun September.  Sure, Detroit was projected as the best team in this same article at 94 wins, but Detroit has failed to live up to their hype a couple of times in the past few years.  Monday cannot get here fast enough.

If you follow the Royals’ minor league system at all, there is one theme.  Wilmington is a tough place to hit.  Being a position player in the system and getting a promotion to high A ball is the equivalent of the Royals Brass telling you that they would like to see how you handle failure.  It is a pitchers park of nearly epic proportions.  Cuthbert’s 2012 line of .240/.296/.322 is definitely scary, and maybe completely meaningless as well.  I went back and looked for Royals in Wilmington going back to 1994 to see who hit well there.  Plenty of players, including Johnny Damon, Mike Sweeney, and even Ken Harvey had nice seasons for the Blue Rocks, but there is a consistent similarity among them all, and that is that they were all in their early 20s.  Only one player under age 20 had a significant amount of playing time in Wilmington and had good hitting numbers.  Wil Myershad a nice half season in is age 19 season.

Cheslor Cuthbert via Jen Nevius

The best parallel for Cheslor is Carlos Beltran.  Beltran was actually a year older at each stop, but had a similar path of decent rookie ball year and a pretty good line between low A and A ball.  Then he arrived in Wilmington and struggled to a line of .229/.311/.363 as a 20 year old.  The following year he repeated his time at high A, and did much better, getting a promotion to AA where his numbers exploded.  That is the hope for someone like Cuthbert in 2013.  Getting a chance to age and repeat could lead to similar growth as a player.  Not only that, but the fact that he is following a similar path at a younger age means that the ceiling for him may be very high.

Digging into last season there were some good signs.  Away from his home park, Cuthbert’s average was similar, but his OBP was 20 points higher and his slugging was 60 points higher.  Also, after three really awful months, his OBP in the last two months (a little over 100 PAs) of the season were .343 and .364 with the usual small sample size caveats.  Everyone is loving up Adalberto Mondesi this spring, and for good reason, but don’t forget about Cheslor Cuthbert.  It would not at all be surprising to me if next year he was in AA and/or AAA and creating questions about how to handle the log jam at third base.

Let’s look at the main reasons Escobar is being tabbed for regression first.  His walk rate did not change last year, but his strike out rate went from 12.2% in 2011 up to 15.4%.  That is not generally what you would like to see.  Additionally, he posted a BABIP of .344 after being below .300 in his first two full seasons.  This is actually in line with his minor league BABIP results, but maintaining that high of a number at the major league level takes a lot of skill.  Finally, one of the main factors that contributed to this high BABIP and the increase in power, mostly due to more doubles, is his line drive rate.  Alcides’ LD% increased from 18.1 up to 23 in 2012, and that’s a good thing.  The problem is that line drive rate has a very low correlation year to year.  In fact, of all the hitting metrics tested, it has the lowest correlation at 0.293, which means we can’t count on it being sustained.  The last piece here is the increased strike out rate that came from lower contact rates, and just keep in mind that his swing rates and pitches per plate appearance, so he wasn’t more selective.

That is a lot of evidence that suggests Alcides Escobar’s 2012 was partially luck driven, but there are a couple of things he did a lot better.  One thing that makes me think he is getting better is that last year he maintained his ground ball rate while increasing his line drive rate.  That means that he avoided fly balls posting his best FB% ever at 23.7%, and that is highly correlated year to year.  If he

March 6, 2013; Scottsdale, AZ, USA; Kansas City Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar (2) hits a double in the first inning during a spring training game against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick. Mandatory Credit: Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

hits fewer line drives this year it may mean his number of ground balls may increase rather than them turning into fly balls.  This is imperative for a hitter with so little home run power because almost all of his fly balls will end up being outs.  The second thing in Escobar’s season that stands out to me is his change in pitch values.  Last year he crushed fast balls compared to prior seasons, and he has been getting better at this over time.

In case you are unfamiliar with these, wFB is runs above on fastballs, while the wFT is two seem fastballs, wFC is cutters, and wFA is four seam and unclassified fastballs.  What these show is that Alcides was an above average hitter on fastballs last year for the first time in a full season, and that he improved from 2010 to 2011 as well.  Just for reference sake, Billy Butler’s wFB last year was 27, and Billy saw a fastball about 53.5% of the time last year versus Escobar’s 58.6%.  That means pitchers could start throwing fewer fastballs to Alcides, but even extreme fastball hitters still see a fastball 45% of the time.  He does not fit this category as these tend to be dead pull hitters with lots of power, think Ryan Howard.

At his age, Alcides Escobar’s improvement last year could be mostly due to development as a player through hitting the fastball well and avoiding fly balls.  If that development continues in his 26 year-old season this summer it could offset the regression from a little luck last year, and keep in mind that his BABIP and such don’t point to a crazy amount of luck either.  There is no reason that he cannot repeat, or even better, what he produced at the plate last summer

First, there are 4 players in the Detroit line-up that could end up as liabilities:

Andy Dirks just turned 27 and has only two partial years in the majors.  Last year he looked good in the 344 plate appearances he received.  Two things jump out at me though.  A BABIP of .365 is probably not sustainable, but more importantly how he has been used.  Of those plate appearances 261 came against righties and 83 against lefties.  They plan to platoon him due to his splits, but the other side of the platoon is uncertain.   Also, his power is limited with a career high of 15 homers between AA and AAA in 2010 and he rates out negatively defensively as well.

Torii Hunter had an incredibly lucky year at the plate last year with a BABIP of .389, and he is now 37 years old.  His aging has been showing slowly with power ticking down over time.  His average is likely to drop back to the .260s or 70s and 15 HRs is likely the max.  His walk rates and K rates got significantly worse last year.  He was always a defensive stud, but his legs aren’t what they used to be although he rated out very well last year by UZR for the first time in a number of years.

Victor Martinez is now 34 and just sat out a whole year.  His power looked diminished two years ago even though he put up a stellar batting average.  Projections see him taking a big step back overall this year.  He will probably still be useful as a hitter, but not a significant piece you want in the middle of your line-up.

Jhonny Peralta hit .239/.305/.384 last year.  He used to hit for power, but those years seem behind him.  His average will probably come back a little, but the rest of what he offers is pretty mediocre.

Based on these the Royals are obviously better than Detroit at Left Field, DH, and Short Stop.  Jeff Francoeur is still worse than a diminished Torii Hunter.  It would not surprise me if Second Base was similar for both teams as Omar Infante is nothing special, and Salvador Perez should be significantly better than Alex Avilatoo.  Those six positions will need to be decidedly in the favor of the Royals for run production between the two teams to be similar because the other three positions are solidly in Detroit’s favor.

February 22, 2013; Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA; Detroit Tigers third baseman Miguel Cabrera (24) at bat against the Atlanta Braves during spring training at Disney Wide World of Sports complex, Champion Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

In the last nine seasons Miguel Cabrera has been very, very good.  Good enough that he is heading toward certain Hall of Fame territory and that Triple Crown is quite a feat.  Prince Fielder is pretty good too in case no one had noticed.  Austin Jackson is not in that rarefied air, but he is better than Lorenzo Cain unless Cain takes a large step forward.  Still, a big year out of Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer, which is not out of the question, could make the offensive difference between the Royals and Tigers negligible.  Just to clarify though, this means the Royals would need to close up a 50 run gap from last year, which means the Royals need to take a big step forward (as they should) and the Tigers take a small step back.

On to the second problem for the Tigers, defense:

Over the years I have gone from loving the new defensive metrics, to looking at them askance, to checking multiple sources hoping to find a consensus.  The Tigers corner infielders are Miggy and Prince, and their defense last year, and every year, has been bad.  For some reason though, UZR has like Jhonny Peralta the last two years at short after making him look terrible for most of his career.  At the same time UZR hates Alcides Escobar in 2012.  I have no idea how to process Jhonny Peralta being two WAR better than Escobar based on defense.  Baseball Reference had them closer to the same last year, but I am starting to believe Jeff Zimmerman’s  theory on shifting helping out Moose and hurting Alcides in the advanced stats.  Everything I see tells me Omar Infante is the only decent defender in the infield for Detroit.  In the outfield, Dirks had negatives last year, for what it’s worth, and Hunter is not what he used to be due to age, so center is the only place with a plus defender.  Avila seems to be a decent catcher, but catcher fielding is even harder to quantify than the others, so I won’t try and give a sweeping pronouncement.  Here I think the Royals have a significant advantage in LF, 3B, SS, 1B, and Catcher.

The third problem for the Tigers is the bullpen:

Let’s get the good out of the way first.  Joaquin Benoit and Brayan Vilarreal are probably pretty good.  I only say probably because Vilarreal only has 54 2/3 innings of quality relief to his name in the bigs.  Even last year, when Vilarreal established himself, his xFIP was 3.96, so he may not actually be good.  Benoit, on the other hand, has been good for the last three years and is their best relief pitcher.  After those two you have a lot of questions.  Bruce Rondon is supposed to be the closer, but he has major control problems and is probably not going to be taking care of the 9^th inning this year if his spring continues as at began.  Phil Coke and Darin Downs are not impressive in any way along with Octavio Dotel who is 49 and has been consistently middle of the road.  Maybe Al Alburquerque is a stud, but he still hasn’t done it over a whole season.  This is a bullpen that would be lucky to have three really solid guys.  The Royals have Greg Holland, Aaron Crow, Tim Collins, and Kelvin Herrera at the back end, and this is a huge advantage.

Now for Detroit’s huge advantage:

The rotation for the Tigers is much, much better than the Royals.  In fact, it is better at each of the five rotation spots.  Justin Verlander is better than pretty much everyone, Royal or not, and James Shields is not in that stratosphere.  Then Detroit has three somewhat indistinguishable guys in Max Scherzer, Doug Fister, and Anibal Sanchez.  Scherzer is probably the riskiest since he has been inconsistent.  Fister has had solid seasons the last two years.  He is likely to be good again, but without the upside of Scherzer.  Anibal Sanchez has put up sub-4 ERAs in the past three seasons, four seasons if you include a partial season in 2009.  Sanchez puts people on base at too high of a rate to be dominant, but he has been consistently good.  I think the Royals could match these three with Jeremy Guthrie, Ervin Santana, and Wade Davis, but that will take some luck and on an expectation basis the Tigers are well ahead.  If I were ranking these six I would probably go Fister, Sanchez, Guthrie, Scherzer, Santana, and Davis.  The first three are the most solid, and the other three have the highest upside.  Finally, the fifth spot.  The Royals are bound and determined to make Luke Hochevar fifth, while Detroit has Drew Smyly and Rick Porcello.  I will be honest. I hate Porcello, and always have.  In my opinion he is only marginally better than Hochevar, so I hope that’s who gets the job.  He cannot strike anyone out, and is not a great control pitcher either.  Drew Smyly on the other hand is a giant ball of potential.  He blew through the minors and struck out everyone on the way.  There are still some control issues, but nearly a K per inning can make up for some walks.  He is a question mark due to the limited time at the major league level, but he is likely better than anything the Royals can put in the 5^thspot.

September 26, 2012; Detroit, MI, USA; Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Luis Mendoza (39) pitches during the first inning against the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

It is unlikely that the Kansas City rotation will find a way to outperform Detroit’s.  The main hope will be trying to match their starters and hope to take advantage of the other weaknesses.  For that to happen, Ervin Santana will need to be like his last couple of months last year rather than the atrocious start.  Hopefully being in Kauffman will help him keep the home runs down a bit.  On the bright side it is unlikely he will have an 18.9% HR/FB rate again…unless he is done as a major league pitcher.  KC will also need Davis to smoothly transfer back to the rotation and post an ERA near or below four.  Those are both possible, and coupled with Shields being what he has been and Guthrie doing the same, minus the Coors Field Experience, that would be a decent front four.  The fifth spot being Luis Mendoza would make me feel like this is an average rotation with some upside.  Instead we will likely see Hochevar, and that makes this a slightly below average rotation, so any of the other pieces breaking down could lead to a lot of problems, at least until Danny Duffy and Felipe Paulino get back.  Those two make me very optimistic about next year’s rotation.

Overall the Tigers are the favorite due to their top end talent, which is second to none.  There are enough questions on this Detroit team though, that I don’t think they will go out and win 100 games and run away with the division  That means the Royals have a shot, but they will need to have a few things go their way with the rotation, and have the hitting disappointments of last year turn into positives.

The Royals are spending more on payroll this year. A lack of willingness to shell out the cash is typically a mainstay complaint for most Royals fans. They move from just under 61 million dollars (27th out of 30 MLB teams) in 2012 to app. 78 million dollars (20th out of 30 MLB teams).

Many people will look at this as a step in the right direction for the Royals as they’re shelling out more money than they ever have before. In fact, as the above Yahoo article states, the Royals were the #5 overall team in positive payroll percent change at +28.04%.

However, if you look back at the Royals payroll ranking in the past 5 years before 2012, you may find that the jump is not very awe-inspiring.

2011: 30th in the MLB (36,126,400)

2010: 20th in the MLB (72,267,710)

2009: 21st in the MLB (70,908,333)

2008: 24th in the MLB (58,245,500)

2007: 22nd in the MLB (67,116,500)

So while many less-informed fans may be excited about more money being spent than ever before, it once again comes down to one thing:

Allocation, allocation, allocation.

Seriously. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that spending money pales in comparison to spending money wisely. And yet, when I and other Royals fans I’m familiar with complain about the way the club spends money, I continually get the same response.

“Well, at least they’re finally spending money.”

No, you idiot. That doesn’t guarantee you a winner.

Okay, I’m not naive enough to believe that JUST spending a crapload of money doesn’t always get you very far in professional sports. But wasting money makes me even angrier than not having any to spend. That’s why, to me, paying over 4 million dollars to Luke Hochevar is a waste. That’s why I can’t figure out the Miguel Tejada contract.

You can tell me it’s good that the Royals are spending a little more money and I will agree with you, but it’s hard to fully back Dayton Moore on some of the ways he chooses to spend that money.

I’m not saying that being the Royals’ G.M. is an easy job. I’m sure it’s more difficult than I can even imagine, but without a legitimate explanation for moves like these, I continue to be wary.

Spring Training starts in a month and there are a lot of hopes riding on this season. I’m just not sure how these recent moves have helped the team.

On a last note, The Los Angeles Dodgers’ estimated 2013 payroll is increased 123.9% from their 2012 payroll. That figure is mind-boggling to me. The combined payrolls of all 30 MLB teams this season will surpass 3 billion dollars.

That is insane.

*I’ve forgotten the exact amount of days. It’s written on the board in my classroom.

This means that in just over a month, I will be able to watch the Royals play again and despite all the oft-questioned moves of Dayton Moore in the last month, I’m very excited to watch this new team. I’m also very aware that the whole thing could blow up in my face, but nonetheless, I’m excited. I can’t help it.

This is causing me to come to two very important realizations for the coming year.

• I’m becoming more and more confident that Jeff Francoeur is going to be our everyday right-fielder this year. I’d much rather there be some sort of platooning option, much like the Dyson-esque idea put out there on the site a few days ago. I don’t know that Dyson will ever establish himself as a serious contender for consistent MLB time, but at this point I don’t think Francoeur should be garner a starter’s portion of at-bats. Unfortunately, it’s looking more and more an inability to find some way to cut ties with Frenchy’s contract, means the Royals are going to play him consistently in right.
• I’m resolved to being disappointed about the production from the 2nd base, both offensively and defensively. I really don’t know why we signed Miguel Tejada, but I’m thinking that whether it’s Getz, Gio, or even the old man, there’s a lot more that could go worse at that position than positive.

Hmmmmmm

It’s easy to have high expectations going into a new baseball season. Everyone is on the same page. However, I feel like I’m going to treat this year’s team like I treat that movie everyone says is awful. I’ll go into it with severely low expectations and that way I can possibly end up pleasantly surprised. The same mentality goes towards the two aforementioned positions. I will not expect much production from either and if and when some modicrum of production appears, I will be pleasantly surprised.

40-ish days until baseball, People!

And….Gasp! Your Royals fan wants a jersey! But how will you know what player’s jersey to invest in? Royals players seem to zoom in and out of Kansas City as if Kauffman Stadium was a giant revolving door. And buying a Royals player’s jersey is like trying to keep up with the most current Iphone. You’re gonna have to trade it in next year for a new one. Well, fear not, procrastinating shopper! I will help you acquire a jersey that will (hopefully) last for awhile. The trick is to disregard guys you don’t think will be around for much longer…..or guys that stink…unless you’re trying to make a point. Well, we’ll get to that.

I hope this gives you some direction in your holiday jersey-acquiring endeavors. And seriously. If you find an Jose Offerman jersey somewhere in the Large to X-large range, you let me know and we will figure out a way for you to get that to me. (You’ll see what I’m talking about in a minute.)

Let’s get started:

1. George Brett – Okay, this is kind of a cop-out, but…I mean…you can be assured that he’s never going to be traded. So there’s that.
2. Salvador Perez – Once he was back from injury last year, it looked like the Royals made one of the smartest moves in history by extending him right before Spring Training last year. This guy’s jersey is a long-term investment. It’s a smart buy.
3. Alex Gordon – Those who bought his jersey right after we drafted him have spent a couple of years sweating out the purchase, but he’s finally come up spades as a baseball player in the last few years. I think this would be a safe buy.
4. Carlos Beltran – Being that I was hardly alive the last time the Royals played a significant game in September/October, I can say that the first Royal I really followed with vigor was one Carlos Beltran. That guy was a great Royal. Heck, he was one of the few people who put on a Cardinal uniform last season that I didn’t loathe. I didn’t like him….but I didn’t loathe him either. Incidentally, please buy the ROYALS Beltran jersey and not the Cardinals one, unless you want to break your special Royals fan’s little heart.
5. (Insert Super Obscure Jersey Here) – I am a gentleman who loves an obscure jersey. A couple of years ago, I went to Chiefs training camp and saw a guy in a Dustin Colquitt PRO BOWL JERSEY! Mad respect goes to that guy for laying down lettuce for that outerwear. How many of those do you think have been sold. 3?….5?….It can’t be double digits. Anyways. I love when someone snags an obscure jersey to wear to games. I’m talking about your Jose Offerman jerseys, your Doug Mientkiewicz* jerseys and the like. If your Royals fan likes obscurity as much as I do, this may be the path for you to take. You may have to do a little research to figure out which obscure player would be best, but trust me….the overjoyed look on your loved one’s face will be well worth it. (*I just Googled Mientkiewicz’s name to see how to spell it. Did you know that guy is managing the Minnesota Class-A advanced team now? Wasn’t expecting that. Interesting.)

My high school was small enough that there was not a baseball team. We had track, cross-country, basketball, and eight-man football, but no baseball. I really started following the Royals passionately during my freshman year of high school. It wasn’t long before I felt I had the authority to act supremely snobbish whenever someone started talking about the team. I knew who Alex Gordon was. I knew Hochevar was going to be the next coming of Zack Greinke.*

*I didn’t know as much as I thought.

It wasn’t long before I realized that judging and mocking people who I think are “lesser fans” than myself was a waste of time.* Anymore, I think are willing to call yourself a Royals fan, you deserve no mockery from people who have, perhaps, followed the team for a couple more years than you have. You’re not really jumping on the bandwagon of a winning team. Heck, when and if the Royals ever amount to anything, I’m going to be so ecstatic about the state of things, I don’t think I’ll have time to get annoyed by “Royals fans” suddenly appearing out of the woodwork.

*Unless it’s a fan of another team telling me about how dumb Royals management is. Look, the Royals often make foolish decisions. But if I hear the “the Royals traded Carlos Beltran and Jermaine Dye!” argument, I will ignore you. It proves to me that you haven’t been tuning in for about ten years.

Anyways, this spiel actually comes from watching that new Dick’s Sporting Goods commercial that was released a few weeks ago. If you haven’t seen it, watch it here.

This reminds me of why I love sports in general and specifically, baseball. As an individual who majored in English and is currently a high school English teacher, I enjoy things for the stories they tell.

The reason I’m a fan of baseball? All the stories I’ve gotten to be a part of. Each game I’ve watched was a story. Each game I’ve attended was a story. Stories that I experienced with family and people close to me and that makes each story special.

The reason I love baseball is because when I’m sitting in the stands watching Alex Gordon lace a double into the corner to drive in two runs, I am immensely happy. And when Hochever gives up 7 earned runs in the first inning of a game, I am sick to my stomach.

“Well, uh….Luke has got good stuff…..and toughness….grit….words.” (Don McPeak-USA Today Sports)

Baseball tells a story and that is why I come back to the Royals year after year. The stories may not always be happy. But they are MY stories and that’s a connection that can’t be broken by how well the team plays.

Although, it’d be nice if the team could be good.

1) The first news article I saw was entitled “Getz returns to Royals with one-year deal.” This isn’t necessarily so funny in and of itself, but a quote by Chris Getz regarding his injury-plagued season made me chuckle:

You kind of know if you’re going to be around .300 and there are other years where you’re kind of inconsistent and battling to be around .250,” he said. “That was the hardest part, because I felt I was having one of those around-.300 years, but I just kept being knocked down by injuries.

I don’t exactly know where Getz is coming from. I find it doubtful that a player comes into a year thinking, “Man, it feels like a .250 year,” or “Man, there’s no way I’m hitting anything less that .300 this year.” Mostly this is funny because in all the years Getz has been in the league, he only sniffed .300 in 2008 as a member of the White Sox where he batted .286. So here’s to hoping that Getz “feels like it’s another .300 type of year.”

2) The next article that caught my eye was entitled “Glass keeps future in mind as Royals eye upgrades.” There are plenty of amusing quotes to tickle your innards as you read, but I chose this one:

What we’ve said is we need to be in the $70 million range to break even, and our goal is to try to continue to break even,” Glass said. “We’re not interested in making money, but we don’t want to subsidize it to any great extent.

I could sit here and discuss with you the issues with this statement, but as luck would have it, Rany just posted an article that discusses the budget and he does it in a much more knowledgeable way than I ever could. The article doesn’t strictly deal with the financial straits of the franchise, but he does hit on it at the end and his posts are always worth a read. Take a look at it here and smirk cynically at the idea of “breaking even” with me.

3) The final article I’m taking a look at is “Royals uniform numbers a Powerball coincidence.” I’m originally from St. Joseph, Missouri, which is near Dearborn and when I originally heard that one of the Powerball winners up there had used Royals uniform numbers to pick numbers, I thought it was a pretty good story and was hoping that it proved true. My hopes were, however, dashed:

The Hills, from Dearborn, Mo. (pop. 496), near Kansas City, did not pick their winning Powerball Lottery numbers by summoning up the uniform numbers of Royals stars of the past. It was a nice theory bounced around the Internet for a while on Friday.

Apparently these guys are Royals fans, though, so maybe they’ll donate some of their winnings to payroll?

I don’t think that’s unreasonable.

Obviously, Jake Odorizzi has arisen as the primary pitcher to make a splash at the big league level in the upcoming season. After spending the primary part of the 2012 season in (AAA) Omaha, where he went 11-3 with a 2.93 ERA, Odorizzi got a brief glimpse of the majors to the tune of 7.1 innings pitched with 4 earned runs, 4 strikeouts and 4 walks.

This year, hopes are riding pretty high on Odorizzi’s success. But what about the farm’s now tarnished former golden boys, Mike Montgomery and John Lamb?

Montgomery is coming off a fairly ugly year split between (AA) NW Arkansas and (AAA) Omaha. He went 2-6 with a 6.67 ERA at (AA) ball and 3-6 with a 5.69 ERA at the (AAA) level. Maybe he’ll come to spring training and blow everyone away. Maybe he will continue to be awful. He seems to have taken a giant step back and I will be surprised if he makes any kind of noise this season. I’m hoping he’ll surprise me anyways.

I don’t want this guy to fall off the map. (Kyle Terada-US PRESSWIRE)

I’m really intrigued by John Lamb, though. Spring training in 2013 will mark just under 2 years since Lamb went down with Tommy John. It’d be wonderful if he came out and pitched adequately enough to make the big league squad.

It’s true that the only reason Lamb looks better at this point is due to the fact that he didn’t have the chance to be as bad as Montgomery was. It’s possible that given the same opportunities that Montgomery had last year, Lamb might have tanked as well. Fate saw differently, though, and now I’m ready to see if Lamb is up to the task.

In my mind, it’s likely that Lamb and (definitely) Montgomery will probably need some more time honing their stuff in the minors, (if they don’t completely flop that is) but if one of them could shoot out of the gates this year and prove themselves worthy of a spot in the rotation, how great would that be?

I think we are in desperate need of some solid arms moving up the pipe to the big leagues and I think Montgomery, Lamb, and Odorizzi are the closest to making a splash. If 2 out of 3 can surprise us in 2013. That’d be huge.

I just want to see one of these highly touted arms actually come to the major league team and have success.

In 2011, Escobar hit: .254/.290/.343/.633. He also had 73 SO, 25 BB, stole 25 bases and was caught 9 times.

In 2012, Escobar hit: .293/.331/.390/.721. This was coupled with 100 SO, 27 BB and 35 stolen bases while being caught only 5 times.

I don’t consider myself a player-analysis guru. Far from it, in fact. I originally thought that Escobar’s improvement must have come from a increased amount of patience at the plate. However, I don’t know that that’s true. Escobar only walked 2 more times in 2012. I generally look and see if there was a significant change on the kinds of counts a player swung on throughout the season.

Alcides’ “first-pitch swinging” percentage went up from 24% in 2011 to 25% in 2012. His “swinging-strike percentage” went up as well from 12% to 14%. I don’t know if these are stats that are big factors or what the league average of such statistics is, but I expected to see significant change in these advanced statistics and others, and I”m not seeing much of a bump.

One reason for the uptick in production probably has something to do with Alcides’ somewhat inflated BABIP of .344. The traditional idea is that a BABIP should average out around .300. Escobar’s BABIP from 2011 was .285, so, if you believe in sabermetrics, it’s reasonable to imagine that Esky’s production should be expected to fall somewhere near the median of the 2011 and 2012 seasons.

Even if that’s so, and Escobar hits somewhere in the “.270″ area, his ability to steal bases has shown growth and that makes him even more of a danger. Stealing 10 more bases in 2012 while getting caught 4 FEWER times is nothing to sniff at.

Escobar has shown an increased ability to steal bases. Or Yost just sent him more in 2012. You make the call. (John Rieger-US PRESSWIRE)

In my opinion, Escobar’s ability to swing the lumber and become an offensive threat is merely gravy upon the meat and potatoes of my estimation of him as a player.

Escobar has great range and is capable of making highlight-reel plays. He is, in my opinion, one of the best defensive shortstops in the A.L., if not baseball. He made a few more errors in 2012 than he did in 2011, but his incredible ability to get to the baseball makes up for that slight bump.

And if he is somehow able to maintain this sudden outburst of offensive prowess?

It’s gravy, Baby. Gravy.

The Tampa Bay Rays are a team that have been connected with the Royals as possible player-swap partners. There’s a wealth of pitching talent in the southeast and it’s been postulated that the Royals could afford to give up a bat which said Rays have indicated they’re in need of.

I’ve been thinking a lot regarding how I would feel about shipping Billy Butler somewhere. I love Billy. He’s a great hitter and he’s a long-standing statesmen on this team, but he’s also a designated hitter that doesn’t really have the ability to excel at any other position. This makes it easier for me to see us parting with him. But that fact also lessens his value to other teams, particularly of the N.L. persuasion.

You can sit there deciding the happy medium where the Royals can give up something valuable but gain something valuable in return, or you can completely ignore it and resign yourself to heartache.

I generally am pretty intimate with resignation, but find it increasingly hard to be so when prestigious sports magazines comment on trade possibilities for Kansas City. That happened in this week’s copy of Sports Illustrated Magazine. A cousin of mine asked me if I’d read the article about the Royals getting David Price. I assured him I hadn’t and proceeded to do so.

It was one of those “5 Deals That Should Happen” type of lists and the #1 deal was David Price for Alex Gordon, Johnny Giovatella, and Mike Montgomery.

Are you kidding me? I think you pull the trigger on that deal in a heartbeat.

Gordo is one of my favorite Royals, but considering management’s refusal to utilize Giovatella, Montgomery’s struggles, and the Royals desperate need for an ace , I think this is a no-brainer.

Now, obviously this is just some sportswriter’s analysis of what HE thinks would be a good deal for both teams. I believe the likelihood of this happening is embarrassingly low. That being said, apparently one writer finds it worthwhile enough to list it in Sports Illustrated.

I know better than to be hopeful. The off-season is a time for wild possibilities. I honestly don’t think the proposed situation would be a good deal for the Rays.

What do you think about that idea? Would you put your stamp of approval on that trade for the sake of acquiring David Price?

That’s why I’m interested in what fans have to say about Hosmer after the season he’s had this year. Here’s a link to a year-old article about Hosmer’s extension candidacy. Look at the first comment. It’s crazy how a year can change things, huh?

During last year’s offseason, we here at Kings Of Kauffman wrote various articles about ways the Royals could attempt to entice Hosmer to sign an extension and attempt to buy out years of Hosmer’s arbitration and maybe a year or two of free-agency. Now, it remains to be seen whether Hosmer’s sophomore slump is a fluke or a sign of things to come.

Looking at Hosmer’s slash line runs the risk of melting your face a la “Raiders of the Last Ark,” but I’m willing to do it anyways.

.232/.304/.359/.663

I’m still able to draw a few positives from his season. He took more walks this season. He took 56 walks this year compared to 34 last year. And it wasn’t like that stat is swollen based on more plate appearances this season. He only had 35 more PA’s in 2012 than he did in 2011.

His BABIP was also significantly lower in 2012 (.255) as opposed to 2011 (.314). Using that .300 benchmark that most individuals like to use for an average BABIP, it seems safe to say that Hosmer could be due for a bit of a bounce-back.

I hope this happens because honestly, I think I’ve finally come to the conclusion that it’s unlikely that Hosmer will sign an extension with the Royals. He’s a Boras client with huge, if somewhat tarnished, potential and as we don’t and likely never will have the monetary capacity to retain Hosmer’s services in the long-term, I’m fairly sure he will migrate to a wealthier climate when his indentured servitude is complete.

Now, if the Royals somehow prove that they have some remote shot at contending between now and his release date, I think it’s possible that we may have more of a shot at keeping him around. He has seemed to jell with his teammates and winning makes everyone happy.

Either way, I want Eric Hosmer to make paper.

If the Royals actually make good on their promises of contention in the short-term, it will raise the possibility that Hosmer will want to post up in Kansas City for the long-term. I’m betting that if the Royals are successful next year, it will be partly a result of Hosmer having a comeback year.

However, I’m okay with the other scenario as well. Hosmer could turn things around and make it clear that he has no intention of sticking around, regardless of the Royals’ success or lack thereof. If this happens, it will mean that (hopefully) the Royals will be able to spin Hosmer for a wealth of talent.

So, in my mind, Hosmer making  money will be a win-win situation. It means that he broke out of this crummy slump. Whether it’s a (reasonable) amount of dough coming from us in the form of an extension or whether it comes from another team that we trade him to in the next few years, I think I’ll be at peace.

Unless we trade him for a Jermaine Dye-like return.

Then….there will be no peace in this heart.

The Royals were underwhelming throughout the 2012 season. After a heart-breaking losing streak early in the year that completely deflated the already laughable “Our Time” moniker, I suspected that these Royals were, in all likelihood, going to shoot far below the expectations that had been placed on them before the season started. Part of that was the unrealistic belief that many Royals fans had about the team and the “weak” division, but this team seems to struggle even meeting fans in the middle. They didn’t have the pitching from the get-go and were soon crippled by injury and sub-par performances by expected breakout stars.

There were bright spots. Sal Perez made his contract look like an absolute steal for the organization and the bullpen had another solid year overall, but aside from looking vaguely threatening as we approached the All-Star Break just before getting swept by the Tigers and spiraling once again, we were disappointing.

Fast-forward to football season and I was hearing the same pre-season hopes regarding the Chiefs. They were a team with a lot of young talent that seemed poised for a breakout year. They were in what was considered a weak division and looked like they had a great shot to win the A.F.C. West.

Then they remembered that they’re a Kansas City sports team. They are so bad they are making the headaches of the Royals’ season look desirable.

I hate whining sports fans, so I’m trying to avoid that, but good grief, what do I have to do to get a successful franchise to root for? The Royals are bad, the Chiefs are bad, Mizzou football is dashing my hopes of at least being passable in its S.E.C. debut. (Laughable mementos like THIS don’t help any.)

I’m not a soccer fan, so I don’t really feel qualified to rejoice in the success of the Sporting.

That leaves Mizzou basketball.* My one last hope at glory. I think if they struggle, I may go off the deep end. I don’t believe it’s too much to ask that one of my teams actually have a successful season.

*Cue Michael Engel arguing that I should be a Jayhawk fan……..Cringe.

I’m desperately clinging to the hope that the basketball Tigers can carry my sanity for this sports year and I’m adamantly hoping that Dayton Moore and David Glass deliver on these promises, half-promises, and/or somewhat retracted promises that they’re spouting.

I, like many people I’m sure, am sick of my teams being consistently bad. Something’s got to change and if there aren’t some fairly drastic things happening during the Royals offseason, it looks like we’re in for more of the same.

Oct 28, 2012; Detroit, MI, USA; The San Francisco Giants celebrate defeating the Detroit Tigers to in the World Series in game four of the 2012 World Series at Comerica Park. The Giants won 4-3. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

As a Royals fan, it’s always tough to celebrate another team’s win, because I want to see my team win, but the drama is always interesting. Then, thoughts turn to how the Royals can be in the locker room, dousing each other with champagne in their brand new championship shirts and hats.

Maybe it even gives some validation to the idea of sticking with a general manager, as Sabean has, at times, been criticized for the contracts he’s offered, the trades he’s made and the moves he hasn’t made. While other GMs like Theo Epstein and Billy Beane are touted as geniuses, Sabean has had a bounty on his head even as recently as in the middle of 2010 as they were on their way to the World Series title. Maybe we should lighten up on Dayton Moore?

Okay, probably not, but there may be a lesson there.

Now, the offseason officially starts. Trades will be made (and in Moore’s recent history, it’ll probably happen pretty soon). Players will leave, new ones will take their place. The countdown to pitchers and catchers reporting starts now.

People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring. – Rogers Hornsby

Whenever the World Series ends, I always remember one of the more dramatic series in history. In 1991, the storylines were ripe with magic as both the Braves and Twins went from worst to first and met in the World Series. Of course, the game went a full seven games, capped off by an extra innings masterpiece by Jack Morris.

After that series, which featured so much great baseball, CBS ran the credits and a narration of prose by former MLB Commissioner Bart Giamatti in his piece “The Green Fields of the Mind”. Over the last few years, I’ve tracked it down to read it as soon as the World Series – and the season – comes to an end.

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. – “The Green Fields of the Mind“

I recommend that you read the full piece. It’s melancholy, but that’s how sports turn out. Only one team wins the title, and 29 others exit off the stage. Their fans sigh and look towards next year. We all know it going in and yet it still surprises me how much of a void there is when there isn’t a game on that night or when you have to wait months to see the players hit the field again.

I’m jealous of Giants fans. I’m jealous of Tigers fans. But it’s not time for jealousy. It’s time to look out the window and wait out winter.

Only about 109 days until pitchers and catchers report.

(I want to thank Twitter follower @jvpeter for the find of this video. It hadn’t even occurred to me to look for a reading by Giamatti of his work.)

Jul 4, 2012; Toronto, ON, Canada; Kansas City Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer (35) reacts after striking out for the third time in the sixth inning against the Toronto Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre. The Blue Jays beat the Royals 4-1. Mandatory Credit: Tom Szczerbowski-US PRESSWIRE

Sophomore slumps aren’t new to Royals fans. We’ve seen some of the most talented players in franchise history succumb to it’s vile ways (I’m looking at you, Carlos Beltran and Zack Greinke). I’m fairly confident Hosmer will bounce back and have a great season next year. Baseball history also suggests a bounce back season. Players who put up a similar OPS+ as Hosmer produced at age 21, and then struggled at 22, went on to productive, and in some cases Hall of Fame, careers.

What I was curious the most about was age 23 and how these players performed the year after their season long slump. So I fired up play index and looked at all the players since 1901 who put up an OPS+ in the 110-125 range as a 21 year old in their first or second season (min. 502 plate appearances). I added the second season to account for players who may have been September call ups at age 20. Anyway, PI spit out 21 seasons, not counting Hosmer’s 2011. I then divided the 21 players into two categories – those above league average at age 22 and those below. I ended up with 8 players in the below average group, 7 of which rebounded at age 23. I think you’re going to like some of these names.

Richie Ashburn – Age 21, 123 OPS+ | Age 22, 88 OPS+

Ashburn hit .333/.410/.400 as a 21 year old rookie and finished 3rd in ROY and 11th in MVP voting. He followed his first season with a disappointing .284/.343/.349 line his sophomore campaign. Ashburn rebounded his third year hitting .302/.372/.403 as a 23 year old. Those numbers were good for a 105 OPS+. Now, a 105 OPS+ isn’t particularly impressive in any era but it did get Ashburn back on track to an eventual Hall of Fame career. A Veteran’s Committee selection, but still.

Ron Santo – Age 21, 122 OPS+ | Age 22, 74 OPS+

Santo’s age 22 slash stats were as close to Hosmer’s as you will find.

Santo – .227/.304/.358
Hosmer – .232/.304/.359

Santo simply shook off the terrible season and put up a 128 OPS+ at age 23. He hit .297/.339/.481 with 25 home runs, 99 RBIs and was a first time All Star selection. Another Veteran’s Committee selection, Santo’s long overdue induction into the Hall of Fame occurred this past summer.

George Burns – Age 21, 119 OPS+ | Age 22, 91 OPS+

No, not that George Burns. Burns, the baseball player, put up a 110 OPS+ at 23 in 1916. He was pretty bad at 24 too (78 OPS+) but he posted a 158 OPS+ at 25 and won an MVP award in 1926 when he hit an an impressive 64 doubles. It was actually called the League Award then and an American League player could only win it once. That’s why, despite 47 home runs and a 225 OPS+, Babe Ruth was ineligible. He won the award in 1923.

Delino DeShields – Age 21, 116 OPS+ | Age 22, 94 OPS+

DeShields hit .292/.359/.398 with a 115 OPS+ at age 23. He walked 95 times and stole 56 bases the year before so his age 22 season wasn’t as disappointing as some of the others. If Hosmer had walked that many times we’d view his 2012 season much differently.

Rod Carew – Age 21, 113 OPS+ | Age 22, 95 OPS+

Carew won the Rookie of the Year award at 21 when he hit .292/.341/.409, numbers fairly close to the .293/.334/.465 line Hosmer put up his rookie season. Carew’s .312/.347 OBP/SLG at 22 also were fairly close to Hosmer’s. To say Carew rebounded is an understatement. He wouldn’t post an OPS+ below 100 again until his final season at age 38. At age 23 he hit .332/.386/.467 with a 134 OPS+ and won the first of his seven batting titles. Carew batted over .300 every year from 1969-1983 and ended his career with 3,053 hits and a 134 OPS+. He was a 1991 Hall of Fame selection. I think Hosmer is potentially more Santo than Carew but this is my favorite comp.

Gary Carter – Age 21, 112 OPS+ | Age 22, 66 OPS+

The fourth Hall of Famer on this list (2003) Carter hit 31 home runs with a 138 OPS+ at 23. This was the start of a ten year run where he averaged 25 home runs and a 128 OPS+ a season. Those are phenomenal numbers for a catcher then and now. The 66 OPS+ at age 22 would go down as the second worst of his career.

Garry Templeton – Age 21, 110 OPS+ | Age 22, 91 OPS+

A few years before wearing out his welcome in St. Louis, Templeton put up a 112 OPS+ in 1979 at age 23. He led the NL in hits with 211 and also led in triples for the third consecutive year. After being traded for Ozzie Smith after the 1981 season he apparently forgot how to hit. He had a 104 career OPS+ before the trade but managed a meager 76 OPS+ for the remainder of his career.

And then, there was….

Rick Manning – Age 21, 116 OPS+ | Age 22, 71 OPS+

Manning played 13 seasons in the big leagues but the only seasons with a 100 or higher OPS+ came in his first two (101 at age 20). I suppose this is Hosmer’s worst case scenario but then this would be a lot of players worst case scenario. Manning just wasn’t a very good hitter.

“Mooses?” (more…)

Connie Mack Award (Manager of the Year, awarded October 15)

• Bob Melvin (Oakland Athletics)
• Buck Showalter (Baltimore Orioles)
• Joe Maddon (Tampa Bay Rays)

Willie Mays Award (Rookie of the Year, awarded October 16)

• Mike Trout (Los Angeles Angels)
• Yoenis Cespedes (Oakland Athletics)
• Tommy Milone (Oakland Athletics)

Goose Gossage Award (Top Relief Pitcher, awarded October 17)

• Fernando Rodney (Tampa Bay Rays)
• Ryan Cook (Oakland Athletics)
• Jim Johnson (Baltimore Orioles)

Walter Johnson Award (Pitcher of the Year, awarded October 18)

• Justin Verlander (Detroit Tigers)
• David Price (Tampa Bay Rays)
• Felix Hernandez (Seattle Mariners)

Stan Musial Award (Most Valuable Player, awarded October 19)

• Mike Trout (Los Angeles Angels)
• Miguel Cabrera (Detroit Tigers)
• Robinson Cano (New York Yankees)

The Royals Fell Flat as the Month of September Ended.(Rick Osentoski-US PRESSWIRE)

Going into the last full month of the season, the Royals had some nice momentum and the phrase “.500″ was even starting to creep back into some people’s vocabulary. They had just swept the Detroit Tigers and put together their best month of the season. Any momentum was quickly halted with a disappointing doubleheader defeat at the hands of the Minnesota Twins on September 1st. They continued with their poor start to the month, losing 5 of their first 7 games. They also ended the month with a thud, losing 7 out of their last 8. However, sandwiched nicely in-between disappointing streaks was a pretty good stretch. They beat up on the first place White Sox and won 9 out of 14 through the middle of the month. They looked like a different team during that stretch, one that could beat anyone. However, towards the end of the month, the Royals seemed to be falling apart at the seams. An influx of injuries, mental mistakes, multiple errors, and mindless mishaps were all signs that pointed to a team that looked to be completely exhausted. Here’s a look at what happened in the Month of September…
I. Record/Standings
a. September Overall Record: 12-17 (.414)
Season Record: 71-88 (.447)
AL Central: 3rd (of 5)
American League: 10th (of 14)
Major League: 22nd (of 30)
b. September Home Record
7-9 (.438)
Season Home Record: 36-42 (.462)
c. September Road Record
5-8 (.385)
Season Road Record: 35-46 (.432)
d. September Streaks
Winning: 4 (9/19-9/22: White Sox, Indians)
Losing: 6 (9/23-9/28: Indians, Tigers, Indians)
Current: Lost 1
e. September Opponents
Twins: 3-3
Rangers: 1-3
White Sox: 4-2
Angels: 1-2
Indians: 3-3
Tigers: 0-4
II. Ned Yost Quote of the Month
9/12-after being “determined” to get Luke Hochevar his first win since July 31st. Hochevar gave up 5 ER in 5 IP, but the offense gave him a lead and the Royals ended up winning 10-5.
“He hasn’t won a game in his last seven starts and I wanted to get him over that hump,” Yost said. “He was working hard out there, maybe a little too hard, but he was trying with everything he had to get over that hump, too. I was bound and determined to give him every opportunity to do it. Part of my job is to get guys in a frame of mind so they can go out and compete and be successful. Sometimes you’ve got to let ‘em work through some things.”
III. High Point
Beating the Angels with Late Inning Power on 9/15
Zack Greinke took the mound to face his old team in his old stadium and kept the Royals in check for 8 1/3 innings. Jeremy Guthrie nearly matched him, pitching 8 full innings but giving up a single run in two separate innings. The Royals had scattered just 5 hits throughout the game, and things looked bleak. However, after a leadoff strikeout by Alcides Escobar in the 9th, Alex Gordon stroked a single and chased the former Cy Young Winner. Ernesto Frieri replaced Greinke and on the first pitch he threw, Billy Butler hit a long home run to the deepest part of the park. Just like that, it was a tie game. Salvador Perez came up next, and three pitches later, hit a walk-off home run to end the game. Like a skilled ninja, the Royals lured the Angels deep into their lair, then swiftly dispatched their opponent in dramatic fashion.
IV. Low Point
Getting swept in a four game series by the Tigers on 9/27
After playing tough against the first place White Sox, the Royals went to Detroit to take on another contender. I saw it as a chance to see how the Royals could stack up against the Tigers. Well, it turns out that they really didn’t. The Tigers won the first 3 games, then in the 4th, the Royals looked completely worthless. In the game, the Royals made 5 errors, including 3 by the usually slick-fielding Mike Moustakas. Doug Fister tied an American League record by striking out 9 Royals in a row. It was just embarrassing. The loss meant a rare 4-game sweep, and a 5-game losing streak for the Royals.
V. Surprises and Disappointments
1) Hosmer’s Forgettable Season.(Disappointment) Things just never really got going for our talented first baseman in 2012. His early struggles that everyone thought he’d be able to shake have refused to go away. Hosmer hit .179 during the month of September and ended the month, and maybe his season, by diving for a ball and partially tearing his rotator cuff. Here’s hoping that the disappointment of 2012 serves as motivation for him to work harder than he ever has during this offseason so he can try to redeem himself next year.
2) Going Streaking. (Surprise) During September, the Royals went streaking in both directions. While this might be fun to watch on a college campus, it can be frustrating as a baseball fan. The disappointment in this is that the losing streaks outweighed the winning. They had a losing streak of 6 in a row that came immediately on the heels of a 4-game winning streak. While the losing streak seemed long, it was still only half as long as their losing streak in April. They’ve got to find ways to not lose so many games in a row.
3) Picking Favorites. (Disappointment) I know it’s not over yet, but the Royals can be credited with giving the Detroit Tigers the AL Central crown. They played with a vengeance against the then-first place White Sox, and then rolled over against Detroit. It’s got to infuriate the White Sox, who have imploded over the past month or so. Losing to the Royals is never a good thing, but it’s something they’ll be thinking about all winter. Did the Royals decide that they wanted the Tigers to win the division? Maybe – I mean, wouldn’t you rather see the Tigers win than the White Sox?
4) No Walking. (Disappointment) The Royals drew just 59 walks for the month of September. That’s almost half the number of walks that the Yankees drew and the least in the Major Leagues. This contributed to the Royals having the 2nd worst OBP in the AL, better only than the Boston Red Sox. Going into Saturday’s win at Cleveland, the 5-game road trip had produced just 1 walk and 45 strikeouts. That must have been brought to their attention, because they drew 5 walks in that Saturday game.
VI. Transactions
1) 9/1: Recalled OF David Lough from AAA Omaha and C Manny Pina from AA Northwest Arkansas.
2) 9/4: Recalled RHP Jeremy Jeffress from AA Northwest Arkansas.
3) 9/14: Recalled OF Jason Bourgeois from AAA Omaha.
4) 9/16: Called Up RHP Jake Odorizzi from AAA Omaha. Recalled RHP Nathan Adcock, INF Irving Falu, C Adam Moore, and LHP Tommy Hottovy from AAA Omaha.

Billy Butler Continues to Mash in 2012. (Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-US PRESSWIRE)

VII. Player of the Month
Billy Butler
Billy just continues to have a great season. He played in every game during the month of September, and hit .336 with 11 doubles and 24 RBI. Billy had 8 multi-hit games in September, including 5 games where he had 3 hits. His consistent bat hammered out streaks of 6, 10, and just ended another 10 game hitting streak. All in all, he hit in every one but three games during the month. He’s putting up numbers comparable to those that he put up in 2010, but with 30 more RBI and almost double the amount of Home Runs. He heads into the final homestand of the year hitting .312, slugging .511, and with 107 RBI. He has filled the team’s need for a full-time designated hitter, and is definitely one position that won’t be in question going into 2013. It will be nice to stand up and applaud Billy for his finest season this coming week.
Honorable Mention: Alex Gordon. Despite being moved out of his leadoff spot, Gordon has continued to hit – and field. While Alex’s average was down in September, he continued to hit doubles. He’s now got 51 on the season, which ties him with Butler in 2010 & is just 3 behind Hal McRae’s club record of 54. Gordon also gets kudos for drawing 11 walks in a month where it seemed like the Royals forgot how to do so.

The Results Were Usually Good When Kelvin Herrera Took the Ball in September. (Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-US PRESSWIRE)

VIII. Pitcher of the Month
Kelvin Herrera
Herrera was the most opportunistic pitcher out of the Royals bullpen in September. He appeared in 14 games throughout the month, and the Royals won 8 of those games. Herrera walked away with a 3-1 record and a 1.84 ERA. He collected Saves in both opportunities on September 22nd & September 29th. In the latter, he got to come in and pitch the bottom of the 14th inning after the Royals were able to break the tie in the top of the inning. Herrera has been a solid Right-Handed arm for the Royals in 2012. His 2.38 ERA over 83 1/3 innings is impressive. Also impressive is his Walk to Strikeout ration of 21/75. In a month where the starting pitching wasn’t all that great, the bullpen has had to carry the weight. That’s something that isn’t solely a September issue, and we’ve got to give credit to the guys in the bullpen for helping out the starters all year. For Herrera, he earned his spot on 2013′s roster in September.
Honorable Mention: Jeremy Guthrie. Despite only having a 1-0 record in 5 outings, the Royals won 4 of those games. He pitched at least 7 innings in four of those outings, and never gave up more than 4 earned runs. His ERA for the month was an impressive 2.25. He’s gotten better as the season has progressed & he’ll get one more start on Tuesday night.
IX. Compare to September 2011
The 2011 Royals came together to form their “team of the future” by the time September hit. As a result, they wowed Kansas City fans by playing well and having their best month of the entire season. At 15-10, they outscored their opponents by 29 runs. The month also included their longest winning streak of the season (7 games). The Royals lost their final home game of 2011 on September 21st before going on the road for the final 6 games of the year. They won 3 of those games before dropping the final 2 games of the season in Minnesota. The games in September were heavily weighted to AL Central opponents, and the Royals were 2-1 against division-winning Detroit. They were good against Chicago again, going 5-2 against the White Sox. They also went to the West Coast to play the Mariners and A’s, going 4-3.
Royals starters had a good month, with several guys compiling good records, good ERAs, good walk-to-strikeout ratios, yada, yada, yada. Joakim Soria (remember him?) had 4 saves, Greg Holland had 2. Offensively, Salvador Perez had arrived in full, and hit .375 with a .513 Slugging %. Mike Moustakas had figured things out, and hit .352 with 4 HR. Eric Hosmer hit .349 with 19 RBI. Even Jeff Francoeur was on fire, hitting .329 for the month and pounding 5 HR.
September 2011 saw just one call-up by the Royals, probably because everyone else was already in Kansas City. Kelvin Herrera took to the mound in the top of the 8th against the Tigers on September 21st. He promptly hit Ryan Raburn with the first pitch. He’d proceed to give up a double and a home run, allowing 3 runs in his 1 inning of work. He pitched just one other time 5 days later and would fare much better, not allowing a hit.
X. October Outlook
The Royals have just three games left, a final series at the K against the First Place Detroit Tigers. The Tigers dominated the Royals last week, sweeping a four game series. The two teams have swept each other in each of their last four series. We’ll see what everyone has left in the tank, and if they can top their win total from 2011. They currently sit at 71 wins on the season, which is exactly how many they won a year ago. With just one win against the Tigers, the organization can claim that “progress” is being made. If the Tigers can beat the Royals just once, they’ll win the AL Central, so they’ll definitely have something to play for.
During this final homestand, there’s really only one promotion left in October at the K: They’ll be handing out Early Bird Schedules and Team Photos at all three games.
XI. Summary
There are three games left in a season that began with such hope, such promise. A lot has happened in 2012, including having the nation’s eyes focused on our stadium for the All-Star Game. There have been many ups and downs as we’ve gone. There were signs of success and signs of strife, but we mostly saw signs of a young and inconsistent team. Hopefully, with another year of experience under their belt, they will come back stronger and more seasoned in 2013. For now though, they should focust on these remaining three games. We’ll see how Ned Yost is able to motivate them for this final homestand. I know that they don’t really have anything to play for, but I hope that pride still exists, and the guys will come out and give the home fans something to cheer for this week.

My first prediction had Greg Holland being named the full time closer and notching 30 saves.  Well, it took Jonathan Broxton getting traded to Cincinnati, but Greg Holland is the team’s full time closer and has racked up 15 saves as we head into the final series against the Tigers.  My prediction was a little high, but for the most part, my prediction was on point.

September 24, 2012; Detroit, MI, USA; Detroit Tigers first baseman Prince Fielder (28) runs the bases after hitting a home run off Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Luke Hochevar (44) during the second inning at Comerica Park. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-US PRESSWIRE

I’m not sure what I was drinking when I made my next prediction about Luke Hochevar.  I stated he will have an ERA under 4 for the first time in his major league career and he will win 15 games.  Boy, was I wrong!  Hochevar has collected 8 wins and is putting together one of the 25 worst pitching seasons ever for players who have thrown 185 innings or more, with his 5.73 ERA.  Needless to say, I was still very optimistic that Hochevar could somehow turn the corner and perform to the level of a first round pick, number one overall at that.  I think we can all agree that Hochevar will never live up to that pick and the Royals should not have him around for 2013.

I predicted that we would see more power from Mike Moustakas, but he will still also struggle at the plate this year.  I think it can be agreed upon that we saw just that.  Moose is second on the team in home runs, with 20, which is the most home run production we have seen from a Royals third baseman since 1998.  I stated Moose will hover around the .260 mark, which is a little high as he currently is hitting at a .242 clip.

With my next prediction, I had Lorenzo Cain one stolen base shy of a 20/20 campaign.  An injury early in the season kept Cain on the shelf for most of the first half of the season.  When healthy, Cain has shown he can be a very productive outfielder.  The question remains though, if Cain can truly ever be a reliable option based on his injury history.  All that being said, in limited action this season, Cain did put together a respectable line of 7 homers, 31 RBI, and a .266 average.

My final prediction was the one I was really hoping would come true.  I claimed Billy Butler would turn some of his infamous doubles into more home runs and that he would take 3rd in the American League batting title race.  I said he would end up with a .331 average and he is currently hitting .312 which is good for 6th in the league.  While I might have been a little off on the average, I am glad to see Butler swing it so well this year.  He has 107 RBI and is one home run shy of 30 on the season.

I believe 3 out of my 5 predictions were fairly accurate and those 3 predictions could lead to this team becoming a more solid bunch and possibly a contender as we head into next season.  However, the two that I swung and missed at were two reasons as to why this team did struggle as much as they did this year.  Inconsistent starting pitching and injuries were the achilles heel to this 2012 Royals season.  Let’s just hope we can find some answers in the off season to these problems.

Adam Moore behind the plate in Omaha (Photo Courtesy of Minda Haas)

After being on the roster for twelve days, Adam Moore has caught only once and Manny Pina hasn’t played at all.

Adam Moore made quite an impact in his Royals debut. He was tabbed to catch Jake Odorizzi in his big league debut last Sunday. This was primarily because he’d been catching Jake in Omaha for a good chunk of the summer. After leading Odorizzi through three scoreless innings against the Indians, Moore stepped to the plate for his first Royals at-bat in the bottom of the third.

He promptly deposited the third pitch he saw over the Left Field wall.

He became just the fourth Royal ever to accomplish the feat in their first at-bat. He was the first to do it since Calvin Pickering back in 2004. We all know how his career panned out. I actually got to witness Pickering’s debut & can remember thinking that he was a monster who was going to hit a million home runs for the Royals. He ended up hitting eight.

That bomb last week was Moore’s first major league home run since September 7, 2010. In all fairness, it was his first major league at-bat since April 6, 2011.

He also walked, grounded out, and struck out to go 1-3 on the afternoon. Not a bad debut, but he hasn’t seen the field since. I’m of the opinion that if you call them up, you play them. At this point, we’ve seen enough of Salvador Perez to know that he’s a stud, and after missing the first part of the season with an injury, it might not be a bad idea to give the kid some rest. We also know everything we need to know about Bryan Pena. We know that he’s a servicable backup, but not much of a first baseman. Either way, if Pena, Pina, and Moore are going to compete to backup Salvy in 2013, this is a good chance to start the competition.

Manny Pina saw some time in Kansas City last summer. He caught four games in August and had 15 ABs. He had two hits (including a double) in his debut, and then went back to Omaha for the remainder of the season. After a knee injury in February of this year, he spent most of the season at AA Northwest Arkansas. He hit .260 with 5 HR. Before spring training, he was expected to compete for the backup job.

As far as Adam Moore goes, he caught for Odorizzi last week – will he catch for him again on Saturday? I sure hope so. I’m interested to see some more at-bats out of him so we can see if it’s worth trying to keep him around for next year. With just five games left in the season, it will be interesting who gets the starts behind the dish.

The Royals Celebrated 12 Wins over Division-Leading Chicago in 2012.(Peter G. Aiken-US PRESSWIRE)

Not as a contender of course, but as the pesky underachievers who could spoil the party. Their play over the next 10 days will determine the winner of the American League Central Division.

To the Chicago White Sox fan’s relief, they and the Royals are done seeing each other for the season. The Royals beat up on the Sox again this year, going 12-6 against the self-proclaimed “Good Guys”. (The Royals were 11-7 against them in 2011) The Royals played a big part in Detroit’s run at the Division Title by winning these games, and by winning 4 of 6 against the Sox in September. Going into today, Chicago finds themselves at just 9-12 for the month, in the middle of a five-game losing streak, and clinging to a one-game lead in the Division.

Of the Royals’ remaining 10 games, seven of those will be against the team that has been chasing the White Sox for most of 2012 – the Detroit Tigers. This could either be good news or bad news for Tigers fans. Up to this point, the Tigers hold a 7-4 advantage over the Royals this season. However, in their most recent matchup, the Royals swept Detroit in a three-game series at Kauffman Stadium. Before that, the Tigers were the ones doing the sweeping, winning their three-game series in Detroit back in July. All in all, the Tigers are 4-1 vs. the Royals at home and 3-3 at Kauffman.

It shapes up to be an advantage for Detroit, considering that the first four games are in Detroit, with tonight’s game being a make-up of a rainout on April 30th. Justin Verlander will face the Royals tonight, and if the rotation holds true, the Royals would not have to face him again. However, it’s likely that if Detroit’s playoff chances come down to needing a win on the final day of the season, they’d move the Cy Young winner up a day to face KC on October 3rd. Verlander on the hill does not mean an automatic win for the Tigers though – the last time he faced the Royals, he was roughed up about as bad as he ever has been. You know that will be on his mind when he takes the ball tonight.

While the Royals & Tigers are battling in Detroit, Chicago will be facing Cleveland for three at home, then will welcome in the Tampa Bay Rays for a four-game set. Chicago is a healthy 8-4 against Cleveland this year, and are 3-0 against Tampa Bay. With seven straight home games, they’ve got to like their odds. Advantage Chicago?

After this first four-game set between the Tigers and Royals, Detroit will travel to Minnesota for a three-game series. The Tigers are just 8-7 against Minnesota this year, but are 5-1 in the Twin Cities.

The final three games of the year will come down to Chicago at Cleveland and Detroit at Kansas City. Depending on what happens over the next week, the race could come down to these three games. Royals fans should treat this as our World Series. These will be games that Detroit will HAVE to win, so they’ll be all business. It will be great experience for the Royals to strap it on and go toe to toe with the Tigers to see how they match up. In a season of disappointment and underwhelming achievements, it will be good to see how our guys measure up against a team in the hunt for the playoffs.

Chicago definitely has the home field advantage going into this final stretch, getting to play 7 of 10 at home. Detroit is playing better baseball right now, but not by much. They’re just 10-11 in September and have lost 3 of 4. As a matter of fact, at 11-11, the Royals record for September is better than both contending teams. If they’re able to keep it up, Chicago will win the division.

As for the Royals, they’ll finish in third place, their best finish since 2003. That was also their last winning season. They won’t break the .500 mark again this year, but they will have a say in which team raises a banner as the 2012 AL Central Champions.

"We've Made the Big Time - Omaha!" (Matt Ryerson-US PRESSWIRE)

The Royals should put all of their effort into making the Omaha Storm Chasers the most dominant Minor League Baseball team in History. Forget about the Royals. Let them be the doormat of the American League for the foreseeable future. Put forth zero effort into their success.

Now, I’m not ignorant. I know that the purpose of the minor league system is to develop future major league talent. However, it’s also to entertain. Within the Royals organization, Omaha is where our players perform best. Once they make it to Kansas City, something happens and they are all of a sudden not the player that we thought they were. What’s worse, if they are that good of a player, the Kansas City Royals are often considered the minor league team for MLB’s big spenders. Good players pack their bags and move on to better things. Mediocre players spend their careers being mediocre in Kansas City or driving back and forth to Omaha.

It’s a Jeckyl & Hyde situation for the Royals. In Omaha, they are world beaters. In Kansas City, they are beaten by the world. (See: Kila Ka’aihue)

So, my proposition is to turn things on their head and just try to win as many games in Omaha as possible. Even Ned Yost said earlier this week that they weren’t going to pull any players up to Kansas City until after the AAA Playoffs are over. “We don’t want to take away from their chances of winning.”

So why do we ever? Why don’t we beef up their roster instead? That way, the Royals could be a roster filled with experienced, underachieving, aging Major League players, and the Storm Chasers could be filled with our best and brightest talent. Make Omaha the goal, not Kansas City. Leave them there in AAA, let them win championships year after year, and pay them accordingly. It would take a change in philosophy, some understanding by all involved, but I think that it would ultimately be embraced by the fans and the players.

What you would avoid is the annual frustration that we experience here in Kansas City. Instead, in the Storm Chasers, you have a team that is currently plowing their way through the 2012 Season. They are the defending Pacific Coast League Champions. They’ve got the second-best record in the entire PCL and are just two games behind Sacramento for that mark. With just four games to go before the playoffs begin, they are 82-58. 24 games over .500 and Back to Back American Northern Division Champions.

That kind of success is unfathomable here in Kansas City. Instead, we’re questioning Jeff Francoeur’s existence, complaining about the price of parking, and counting the number of fans at the K each night. In Omaha, they’re playing in front of sell-out crowds in a new stadium, prepping for a “Blue Out” for the first two games of the playoffs, and headlining the All-PCL team. They’re finishing with their third straight winning record. Manager Mike Jirschele is in his 10th straight season at the helm. He’s secure in his job and surely would never want to manage the Royals. The players need to follow his lead.

And all of this success comes without their best stars from recent years.

I’m talking first of all about Moustakas and Hosmer. These are two guys who could do no wrong in Omaha. They have shown flashes of brilliance over just about two seasons in Kansas City, but it’s nothing compared to how good they were at AAA. So why not send them back? Think about how stacked that team would be with just those two guys added to the roster. Mike Moustakas hit .290 with a .531 slugging percentage in parts of two seasons in Omaha. In 107 games, he hit 25 HR & drove in 92 runs. With his improved defense over the past couple of seasons, he’d enable Wil Myers to go back to playing the outfield where he belongs. And, on that note, the stress & wondering that Myers is going through right now over when he’d be called up to KC would immediately dissipate. He would be right where he needed and wanted to be.

For Eric Hosmer, he played just 26 games in Omaha, but hit .439. He’s hitting .241 in Kansas City this year.

Keep going down the list. Guys like Salvador Perez and Billy Butler had great experiences in Omaha. Let’s get them back there so the Storm Chasers can dominate. What’s so great about keeping them in Kansas City? Their greatest hope is that they might be selected for an All-Star Game (one guy per year) or that they might be able to hit over .500. Wouldn’t playing for a Pacific Coast League Championship on a yearly basis be more exhilirating?

Ned Yost thinks so. He said earlier this week that, “winning a championship is probably a greater experience than coming up here and playing in the big leagues.”

I could not agree more.

Eric Hosmer Watches 2012 Fly Past Him (Bob DeChiara-US PRESSWIRE)

Has anyone seen the Royals today? Nope – because they’re hiding again. Oh – wait…there they are! Taking the first two games from the Tigers as they try to fight their way back into first place.

All year long, this team has been playing Peek-a-Boo baseball. Plain & simple – when the stakes are low and all is lost, the Royals play their best. When people start paying attention, they coil up and run for the hills.

You know the trend. The team gets off to a promising start, then craps out quickly, struggles to find an identity, struggles with a youth movement, falls miles out of first place, then rallies in September to give you hope for next year. I know it’s not in the same exact order every season, but in general, this is the fate we are dealt on a yearly basis.

I’m tired of it. And I say that as I watch it all happen again.

This year seems to be even more harsh than usual. I’m sure it has something to do with the way we all bought into the youth movement, thinking that these guys had accumulated enough major league experience over the second half of last year to show up in 2012 and dominate the AL Central. I admit, I was on board. Like everyone else, I want SO BADLY to see a winner in this city.

With the precursor of “Our Time”, I sat in the upper deck during the Home Opener and watched the Cleveland Indians score seven runs in the top of the first inning. My first Opening Day landed with a gigantic thud. That loss helped spiral the team into a 12 game losing streak and an 0-10 start at home. The bullpen struggled, the much hyped offense sputtered, and just like that, Royals fans had to laugh at everything they’d been sold and call the season a loss.

The Royals sat at 6-15 after the first month of the season. After everyone else went searching for another team to root for in 2012, the team came out of hiding and started to figure things out. Alex Gordon started hitting again out of the leadoff spot, the bullpen found its good stuff, and we even got good starts out of the rotation from time to time. While nobody was watching, the Royals put together back to back winning months in May and June.

I wrote an article on June 28th because I had been awoken from my 2012 slumber and noticed that the team was playing good baseball. In this article, I saw a path to where the Royals, just five games under .500 and five games out of first place could be both of those things in time for the All-Star Game. I believe that everyone woke up around this time and the excitement for the All-Star Game and the potential of what the team could accomplish by then had the city buzzing. The team must have sensed this, because they promptly dove underneath the bed.

The team went just 3-8 over their next 11 games and found themselves watching the festivities 9 1/2 games out of first place. The losing continued, and the team finished the month of July with a 7-19 record. The team found themselves with the worst record in the American League. They were 13 1/2 games out of first and sat 18 games under .500. Frustrated fans were joyous for the start of football season, for school to start up, or for anything else that would help them forget about the so-called baseball team that occupied the K.

Once again, sensing that the coast was clear, the Royals showed up again. We’re almost to the end of what has been a fantastic month of August for this team. A couple of personnel changes has rid the roster of most of their black holes. The starting pitching has come around with the help of Dave Eiland. The team has fought hard and pulled out some amazing wins. With two games left, the Royals are 16-11 this month and find themselves in 3rd place in the AL Central. Are they within striking distance of the White Sox & Tigers? No. But they have a chance to finish in a respectable manner.

This will be the team’s first winning August since the year 2000.

So what will happen in September? We all know the trend. Typically, the Royals play well enough during September to raise some eyebrows and generate a lot of buzz heading into next season. There are tons of possibilities as to why – people are watching football, the young guys figure things out, or we’re playing more games against other young guys who are just now making their way to the major leagues.

In the past four seasons, the Royals have put together records over .500 in three of those. They are a combined 58-48 over those four seasons. In 2008, they went 18-8 to close out a season in which they only played .500 baseball in one other month. All four were losing seasons, but three of them ended on a high note. It was enough to keep people hanging on for high hopes when Spring Training rolls around.

Any way you slice it, it is incredibly frustrating. You see glimpses this year of a team that is good enough to compete, but those possibilities are overshadowed by horrendous failures at the times where it matters most. If these guys were able to avoid the gigantic pits that they so predictably fall into each year, they’d be right in the hunt for what all of a sudden is a winnable division.

Was this the year? Was it “Our Time”? It’s possible. If the team had not played .382 baseball for two months of the season, they’d be gunning for 1st place right now. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter. I was raised on “ifs” when it comes to the Royals. “If…Johnny Damon“. “If…Ewing Kauffman”. “If…National League Central”. It only matters what they DO. If they DO finish strong this year, hopefully it will bring improvement in next year’s team in the same way that we saw over last year’s team and the hiccups and hiding won’t be as prominent in 2013.

Color me hopeful…or just a sucker for hide & seek.

Aug 10, 2012; London, United Kingdom; Solar panels on top of house boats on River Lee during the London 2012 Olympic Games. The boats where forced to move due to Olympic Park restrictions. Mandatory Credit: Andrew Weber-USA TODAY Sports

It’s odd how in the offseason there is very little news and yet we still find stuff to talk and write about. Roster analysis, trade rumors, free-agent signings, yada, yada, yada, the season starts.

But earlier this season a bit of actual, important news came from the Royals and was covered only briefly by local news outlets and some of the sports blogs. Did you catch it? There was an article by Steve Everly in the Kansas City Star about the Royals’ installation of solar panels as a way to help control energy consumption and benefit sustainability.

I actually wrote this post right after the article came out and sat on it. I wasn’t sure if it was something that people wanted to read about. But the other day I heard a radio advertisement form KCP&L touting their work on this project, and I got to thinking. Sport’s, and maybe especially baseball’s, position at the forefront of cultural and societal progress is extremely important, and that makes it important to talk about. So, I’m going to talk about it. The Royals’ installation of solar panels is a part of that.

What? Does that not seem important to you? I hope it does. It’s extremely important to me. I might be an idealist, but think about the conversations that this could start.

Child: Daddy. What are those things out there?

Father: Well, those are solar panels. They capture the sun’s energy and help run these lights and all the other stuff this stadium needs.

Child: Why do they need those though? We don’t have those.

Father: It’s a little better for the environment and a little less expensive I guess.

Child: Why don’t we have those?

Father: I don’t know. Maybe we should.

This is a little bit of a stretch, but the point is every kid who walks into Kauffman will now see that his/her favorite team tries to be environmentally conscious. That type of impression can reverberate for years as another drop in the bucket that turns the tide of an issue.

Sports have been at the forefront of progress in America for a long time. Think back to Jackie Robinson and racial integration. Think back to the conversation a father or mother and child might have had about the guy playing second who looked different than everyone else. Robinson helped create that dialogue, as did a number of other black players of that era. These breakthroughs preceded even the Civil Rights Movement (the mainstream “Civil Rights Movement” as it’s taught in many history classes anyway).

Sports operate in this interesting space of autonomy in some ways. Politicians, regardless of personal judgment, must lend an ear to those interests that fund their political campaigns. Often those interests are more apt to choose the status quo. But David Glass has no reason to care about the status quo of energy (if we’re thinking of him simply as a baseball owner). It’s more beneficial to him to save money on the light bills and enhance his image. Not many entities outside of sports influence those sports because the MLB, NFL, NBA are pretty self-sustaining enterprises (Turf industry? Is there a turf industry?). The fans do the funding in this arena, which is one reason why sports try to stay ahead of the populist ideal.

When obesity was just starting to become an issue, the NFL came out with its Play 60 campaign. Major League Baseball hopped onto he breast cancer cause as well, with the pink day that they do every year. I’m sure the NBA does some stuff too (I’m not a huge NBA fan. When they start rebounding and playing defense, I’ll start watching again.)

The cynical among us may cry that these things are only done to build each sports image. I can’t be sure if that’s true or not. I’m inclined to believe that these causes allow different sports to kill two birds with one stone. 1) Help people and progress. 2) Build an image. But even if it’s just to build an image, does that matter? Not really. The good is still being done. The messages, equality, charity, sustainability, compassion, are still being passed to future generations. Whether or not these messages were constructed for the right reasons doesn’t really matter.

I like the idea that sports can hold the position of autonomous vehicles for good. I like that they seemingly stand alone, in some ways the most democratic entities of our less-than-democratic society (we live in a republic people, always have). I’d like to see more ballparks do what the Royals did, and I think they will (I think the article mentions five teams now have solar panels including the Royals). It’s not necessarily the responsibility of sports to drive progress, but it may be in there best interest. And it may be their most important legacy.

Nate Adcock took the loss, as he allowed those six runs on seven hits in just the 2nd inning. After that, he only allowed two hits.

Jake Odorizzi was named the Pacific Coast League’s Player of the Week. Infielder Christian Colon, who fouled a ball off his face after a promotion to Triple-A, will miss the rest of the season.

NW Arkansas scored a run in the first inning, but went on to lose to Frisco, 6-1. Mike Montgomery was in trouble in every inning but the third, and lasted just five innings. The five walks and a three-run homerun did him in.

In the loss, Paulo Orlando went 3-for-4.

Blue Rocks first baseman Matt Fields

With big league GM Dayton Moore in attendance in Frederick, Wilmington lost both games of their doubleheader. Their lead in the Northern Division in the Carolina League dropped to just a 1/2 game. The games got started late, as rain pushed back the start time by about an hour.

Game 1 was picked up in the 3rd inning, as it was suspended from a July game in Wilmington (in which Dylan Bundy started). Anyway, it was a back-and-forth affair late and the Blue Rocks had a chance in the bottom of the 9th inning. With a run in, a runner on first base, and just one out, Angel Franco grounded into a game-ending double play.

Matt Fields went 2-for-4 with two RBIs and a run scored.

Game 2 was so much worse. The long ball once again came back to haunt Blue Rocks starter Jason Adam. The Keys scored five runs in the first inning as Adam allowed back-to-back homeruns, one was a three-run shot. He was in-and-out of trouble throughout his five innings of work.

Shortstop Orlando Calixte was hit by a pitch in the 4th inning and immediately was replaced.

Brooks Pounders was named the Carolina League’s Pitcher of the Week.

Kane County was the only KC Royals affiliate to win on Monday night, as they defeated Burlington, 5-4. Down 3-1 heading into the top of the 8th inning, the Cougars scored four runs and held on. Chris Elder hit a grand slam, just his second homerun of the season (first with the Cougars).

Alex Llanos and Tim Ferguson each collected two hits in the win. Angel Baez made the start and allowed an unearned run over five innings of work. He gave up four hits and three walks, but struck out six.

Bubba Watch: Bubba Starling went 1-for-5 with a solo homerun in Burlington’s 5-4 win in 12 innings. The second game of their doubleheader was postponed. He reached on a fielding error in the 12th inning and scored the winning run.

The Royals’ Patrick Conroy was named the Appalachian League’s Pitcher of the Week.

Burlington

Mark Threlkheld has cracked the top ten in hitting in the Appy League (tenth) with a .294 batting average. He has 33 RBIs, which ranks him ninth (in a tie). He went 6-for-23 (.261) with five runs scored and four RBIs. Patrick Leonard is tied for second in the Appy League in RBIs with 42 and dropped to second place in homeruns with 13 (he hit just one last week). He did hit .333 (8-for-24) last week. Fred Ford is third with 12 homeruns (one of his three hits last week).

It was another tough week for prospect Bubba Starling. He went 4-for-23 (.174) with 12 strikeouts.

Daniel Hernandez is ninth in the Appy League in ERA (3.64) and he leads the Royals in innings pitched (59.1 innings). He’s been getting roughed up a bit as of late. Last week, he allowed six runs on 11 hits over two starts (12.2 innings). The strikeout to walk ratio still continues to be great (13 to 2 last week). Yender Caramo is right behind Hernandez in innings pitched (59). Last week, he made one start and allowed just one run over six innings. He did allow nine hits, but did not walk a batter while striking out four.

Reliever Daniel Stumpf has been dominant throughout the 2012 season for the Royals. It was no different in his two appearances last week. Over four innings, he allowed just two hits and two walks while striking out four.

Idaho Falls went 3-4 last week. The Chukars are tied for second place in the South Division of the Pioneer League at 11-10. They also return home for a nine-game homestand (around an off day). Of the Chukars losses last week, only one was by more than three runs.

The top offensive performers for the Chukars have cooled off a bit. Ethan Chapman dropped to .322, as he only played in three games (3-for-11 with four RBIs). Nick DelGuidice dropped his average to .298, as he 4-for-17 with three RBIs. Adalberto Mondesi‘s average dropped to .285 after going just 4-for-26 with 13 strikeouts.

The one positive on offense for the Chukars last week was third baseman Diego Goris. He went 7-for-20 (.350) with seven runs scored and six RBIs.

Check out MiLB’s feature on 2012 second round draft pick Sam Selman, who leads the Pioneer League in ERA (1.31) and strikeouts (73). In his one start last week (August 14th), he allowed one run on five hits and a walk over six innings. He struck out 11.

Cory Hall made two relief appearances last week and allowed three hits over 2.1 scoreless innings. He struck out three.

July 8, 2012; Kansas City, MO, USA; USA pitcher Jake Odorizzi delivers a pitch during the first inning of the 2012 All Star Futures Game at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-US PRESSWIRE

They also rode the arm of Jake Odorizzi, who improved to 10-2 in Triple-A. He allowed one run on four hits and two walks over seven innings.

If you’re interested in checking out the Storm Chasers celebration on Saturday night, check out Minda Haas’ site Royal Blues for photos.

NW Arkansas lost the first game of their doubleheader in Frisco, 3-0. The Naturals collected just two hits.

Noel Arguelles waited three days to make his next start (after two rainouts). He took the loss, as he allowed two runs on four hits and three walks over five innings. He struck out six.

The Naturals also lost the second game, 3-1. They actually out-hit Frisco 6-4, but went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position. They had a chance to win the game (or at least tie it) in the top of the 7th inning. They had the bases loaded and one run already in, but Carlo Testa grounded out to end the game.

Whit Merrifield went 2-for-4 with a triple. Justin Marks took the loss, as he allowed all three runs on four hits and a walk over four innings.

Wilmington couldn’t complete the sweep over Lynchburg, as they lost 3-2. The Blue Rocks scored both of their runs in the first inning. Three of their four hits came in that first inning.

With the game tied at 2-2 in the top of the 9th inning, Braeden Schlehuber reached on a fielding error in center field and moved all the way to third base. He came around to score when the Blue Rocks middle infielders tried to turn a double play (but couldn’t).

The Blue Rocks had the tying run on third base with two outs in the bottom of the 9th inning, but Murray Watts flied out to end the game (he ended up 2-for-4).

The Wilmington loss dropped them to just 2.5 games ahead of both the Hillcats and Frederick. The Blue Rocks now head to Frederick for five games and then to Lynchburg for three more games.

Kane County led 4-3 heading into the 8th inning, but lost 7-4 in Burlington. The Bees scored four runs in the bottom of the 8th inning aided by three singles, three walks, and a wild pitch.

Alex Llanos went 3-for-4 and Chris Elder went 2-for-4 with two RBIs in the loss.

Bubba Watch: Bubba Starling went 0-for-4 with a walk and two strikeouts in Burlington’s 8-4 loss in Greenville.

Tonight, superfans collide, as the Baltimore Orioles version of a superfan will be a guest via Skype on the Royalman Report. Tune in to see what happens when Carne Cabeza aka the LuchadOriole (aka Neal Moorhouse) joins the show as a guest. Will he be friend or foe? Will team alliances create conflict or will the two find common costumed ground? Tune in to the Royalman Report – same Royalman time, same Royalman channel!

Also, the Royals managed to win a few games, going 5-1 on the homestand and Jeremy Guthrie flirted with a no-hitter. It’s been a pretty good August, so maybe there’s some good feeling still to be had.

Finally, we’ll have an announcement about the future status of the podcast.

The chat room and livestream broadcast will be below for you to chime in and interact with us in the studio as well as fellow listeners:

The Royalman Report is brought to you by Kelly’s Westport Inn at 500 Westport Road in Kansas City, Missouri.  Tell them the Royalman Report sent you.

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Blue Rocks shortstop Orlando Calixte

Saturday night’s Wilmington Blue Rocks game was considered boring for the first eight innings. Well, boring for those who do not like pitcher’s duels. It got exciting quick in the bottom of the 9th inning when Cheslor Cuthbert led off the inning with a single off Lynchburg reliever Juan Jamie. He moved to second base on a wild pitch and Nick Van Stratten moved him to third base on a ground out. Van Stratten had squared to bunt but pulled back and slapped it up the middle.

The Hillcats elected to intentionally walk the next two batters to load the bases with one out. Luis Piterson hit into a force out (the out came at the plate), which brought up shortstop Orlando Calixte with two outs and the bases loaded.

The 2-2 pitch was VERY close. So close that the entire Lynchburg infield began exiting the field. The catcher triple-clutched his throw because he couldn’t believe the home plate umpire did not call the pitch a strike.

Anyway, with new life and a 3-2 pitch, Calixte took the fastball into left field, just out of reach of the diving left fielder for the game winner. While the Blue Rocks were celebrating and chasing Calixte around the field, the Hillcats coaching staff was going nuts at the umpire. I don’t blame them and I’m pretty sure any other coaching staff in baseball would have been freaking out (the pitch looked that good).

After the game, Calixte talked (through interpreter Angel Franco, the Blue Rocks utility fielder) about the game winning hit, facing a pitcher who throws so hard, how many game winning hits he has had in his career, and how he took that 2-2 pitch. He, like Pounders, was also pied in the face during the interview, but kept on going. Pounders was kind enough to wipe some of the shaving cream out of his face.

Following all the shaving cream pies, Blue Rocks manager Vance Wilson wanted to make sure he was facing the hallway just in case a pie was coming his way. He talked about the throws by Brett Eibner, the start from Pounders, his bullpen duo of Chase Boruff and Robinson Yambati, the defensive abilities of Lynchburg shortstop Nick Ahmed, and how well his team is finally playing with the playoffs about two weeks away.

Jul 17, 2012; Kansas City, MO, USA; Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Ryan Verdugo (62) delivers a pitch in the first inning against the Seattle Mariners at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: John Rieger-US PRESSWIRE

Omaha returned home and beat Nashville, 5-3. The Storm Chasers also clinched the American Northern Division of the Pacific Coast League.

Ryan Verdugo was solid yet again, as he allowed two runs on seven hits and a walk over seven innings. He struck out seven.

Anthony Seratelli went 4-for-4 in the win. Rey Navarro made his Triple-A debut at second base and went 1-for-2 with a walk and a stolen base.

NW Arkansas was postponed for the second straight night. They will make up Saturday night’s game as part of a doubleheader on Sunday in Frisco.

The game of night in the KC Royals farm system was in Wilmington, as they walked off 1-0 winners over Lynchburg. They increased their lead to 3.5 games in the Northern Division of the Carolina League in the second half.

It was a well-pitched game between Brooks Pounders of Wilmington and Dimasther Delgado of Lynchburg. Pounders lasted seven innings for the second straight start and allowed just three hits and one walk while striking out seven. When he did get into trouble, he was bailed out by two GREAT throws from centerfielder Brett Eibner to end back-to-back innings. Delgado allowed just four hits and a walk over six innings.

It came down to the bottom of the 9th inning with hard-throwing Juan Jamie on the mound for the Hillcats. With the bases loaded and two outs, shortstop Orlando Calixte came to the plate. With a 3-2 count, he ripped the fastball just out of the reach of the diving Dan Brewer in left field and the Blue Rocks began celebrating and chasing Calixte all over the field.

Pounders talked after the game about his back-to-back great starts, the throws from Eibner, and his pickoff move. He was then pied in the face to end the interview by catcher Juan Graterol.

Kane County pounded out 14 hits and beat Burlington, 7-3. Five different Cougars had multi-hit games. Only one of those hits went for extra bases.

Kyle Smith picked up his fourth win, as he allowed an unearned run on three hits and two walks over 5.1 innings. He struck out nine. Cody Fassold followed with 2.2 perfect innings of relief. He struck out five.

Bubba Watch: Bubba Starling went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts in Burlington’s 2-0 loss at Greenville.

Judy Johnson is a Hall of Famer and the namesake of the field at Frawley Stadium. His statue stands outside the ballpark. He was a key member to some of the best teams in Negro League history. You can find out more about Johnson HERE .

The thing that disappoints me is that they have dropped the ball over the years with honoring the Negro Leagues in Wilmington (just like they have in Kansas City). Back in the day, both teams used to wear Negro League uniforms (I am a sucker for old school uniforms). Then their game worn hats would be auctioned off to support the Negro Leagues. They do have auctions going on throughout the concourse of autographed memorabilia tonight (which are drawing some crowds).

This year is no different. It is also Star Wars Night, with Star Wars characters set to be in attendance. It seems as if the promotional team is more interested in pushing that than the history of the Negro Leagues and Judy Johnson.

Anyway, to the game (and enough of my rambling).

First half Northern Division champion Lynchburg (the High-A affiliate of the Atlanta Braves) is in town and the Hillcats are 2.5 games back of the Blue Rocks in the second half standings. The Blue Rocks have taken the first two games of the four-game series, as the pitchers have allowed just two runs to the Hillcats. In Game 1, the Blue Rocks won 2-1 and walked off on a bases loaded walk in the bottom of the 10^th inning. In Game 2, the Blue Rocks scored ten runs in the bottom of the 2^nd inning and rode the arm of Matt Ridings to another victory.

Taking the mound for the Blue Rocks tonight is Brooks Pounders, who the Royals acquired this past offseason from the Pittsburgh Pirates. Despite the fact that Pounders has been with Wilmington since June, this will be the first time I will be seeing him pitch. With the Blue Rocks, he is 5-4 with a 4.83 ERA in 13 games (12 starts). He has allowed more hits (74) than innings pitched (63.1). His last start at Potomac was a great one: 7IP, 4H, 1R, 0ER, 0BB, 5K.

The Hillcats will be sending Dimasther Delgado to the mound. Overall he is 6-6 with a 4.35 ERA in 20 starts. He, like Pounders, allows more hits than innings pitched (125 hits in 107.2 innings). Delgado faced the Blue Rocks in back-to-back-starts (June 29 and July 5) and allowed three runs in each game.

Lineups:

HILLCATS: Mycal Jones (CF), Nick Ahmed (SS), Dan Brewer (LF), Chris Garcia (1B), Edward Salcedo (3B), Adam Milligan (RF), David Rohm (DH), Emerson Landoni (2B), and Chad Comer (C).

BLUE ROCKS: Orlando Calixte (SS), Brett Eibner (CF), Lane Adams (RF), Matt Fields (1B), Cheslor Cuthbert (3B), Nick Van Stratten (DH), Geulin Beltre (LF), Juan Graterol (C), and Luis Piterson (2B).

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August 16, 2012; Kansas City, MO, USA; Kansas City Royals second baseman Chris Getz (17) gets the force out on Oakland Athletics right fielder Josh Reddick (not pictured) at second base and throws to first for a double play in the fourth inning at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-US PRESSWIRE

Getz was having his best year as a big leaguer in 2012, despite two previous trips to the disabled list during the season. His season ends with his batting average, slugging percentage and OPS all being career highs and, had he been healthy most of the year, would have likely been able to reach career highs in hits and doubles.

Instead, it’s cut short.

There hasn’t been a move to replace Getz on the roster yet, but all signs point to Johnny Giavotella replacing him. Giavotella was hitting .323/.404/.472 in Omaha. After the Royals announced that Getz would miss the rest of the year, Giavotella was pulled from Omaha’s lineup against Las Vegas. Earlier this season, Giavotella  spent a month with Kansas City and hit .217/.260/.261.

The Getz versus Giavotella debate has worn on all season, going back to spring training. Giavotella didn’t take advantage of the first opportunity to win the job and went to Omaha to continue to work on his defense. He was also working back from offseason hip surgery and as the months have gotten warmer, so has his bat. With Getz performing adequately at the plate and displaying good defense, the Royals hadn’t been compelled to make a change.

Since being drafted in the second round in 2008, Giavotella has drawn questions about his defense. Despite extensive work in Triple A, he’s probably only going to be average at his very best at the position. The Royals will accept that if he hits. Despite hitting everything in the minors, he hasn’t been able to translate it to major league success and the Royals have seemed timid about giving him an opportunity to sink or swim. If he hits like many scouts think he can, he’ll be a good offensive weapon in the lineup and should balance out any problems with the glove. If he doesn’t hit, the next man in line is Christian Colon, who was recently promoted to Omaha and got seven hits in his first 17 at bats, including a double and a homer. He recently fouled a ball that hit the ground and then hit him in the eye, so he’s currently on the DL.

I see it playing out with Giavotella getting the rest of this year to see if he can hit big league pitching. If not, we may see more of the Getz/Giavotella merry-go-round while Colon spends some time in Omaha waiting to step in (assuming the Royals don’t involve Giavotella or Colon in a deal this offseason).