ChiefsPlanet - Royals *** Official Royals Repository, Part 3 ***

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*** Official Royals Repository, Part 3 *** (https://chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=293414)

^ That's where GMDM should be (and I'm assuming) at. Come on guys. Danny Duffy is not a long term "prospect" any more. He's a guy. With Talent. That's it

He's the oldest of the bunch pitching wise, flip him

There's got to be an alternative to improving the staff by flipping Duffy plus other pieces for a half season of Cueto. It's a logical move in a lot of respects. You need an ace or a guy with ace upside to get you through a month of high pressure baseball.

But at the same time, getting a Cueto feels like it would end up a lot like how Lester's stint with the A's went last year.

Surely you can get a good percentage of the upside Cueto gets you with a guy that's more akin to a "dust a guy off from the heap and put him in a position to win with an All-Star defense behind him" type... right?

EDIT: **** it. Get Fiers out of Milwaukee because YOLO.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SPchief (Post 11603049)

He's the oldest of the bunch pitching wise, flip him

That's my thing with him. He's inexperienced on the field but not a youngster anymore...he's 26 & not 23 as his experience would make you think he is with 368 innings.

I don't think I did an adequate job of explaining why I think this trade is not exciting, here lets try again.

We all seem to agree that SP is our biggest problem, and if we are going to improve the team, thats what we need to focus on. We got sidetracked into arguing whether there is something magical about having an ace.

Some of you seem to think our biggest problem is #1, but I believe our biggest problem is good, quality depth #1 through 3/4, and if we don't do anything or if we just replace one of our top guys, then we're not fixing that problem at all. We'd be counting on Medlen in a big way if we either did nothing or made this trade.

Hopefully Medlen will come through, but I don't like counting on that and right now Duffy is not our #4 or #5 starter. I know we have to be careful with removing bad starts because we can play that game all day, but Duffy was terrible in May and then out for a while with an injury. If you presume he's fixed whatever his problem was and take away May, then he's one of our top 3 starting pitchers.

He's probably our #2 right now, and in a 5/7-game series he is probably starting two games. Cueto can't pitch every day, with this trade you are only replacing those 2 Duffy starts, and you are still counting on Volquez and whoever. Whatever you think about Young or Ventura, we are still badly shallow after this hypothetical trade. Replacing a guy who we probably need in the playoffs with someone else is not very exciting, compared to keeping Duffy AND adding someone like Cueto for some VERY badly-needed depth and insurance. If the goal is to win this year, then it makes a lot more sense to deal away one of our "untouchable" prospects to win this year than Duffy.

I agree with al and have been saying as much for a while. I don't think we are going to trade for a pitcher anyways, but I am supremely confident we won't trade Duffy.

If we don't trade Duffy then the Reds will probably want a package of Mondesi, Finnegan & Dozier for Cueto.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tk13 (Post 11603035)

Who says that doesn't count? We had Yordano Ventura pitching like an ace. And I think he's still our best hope. He has to develop if we're going to win.

He pitched 2 games in the World Series, we won both and he had a 1.46 ERA. We had a good rotation last year. Shields and Guthrie were both on fire the last couple months of the season. Who among our starting pitchers is pitching at that level right now? Volquez is our best bet, but he doesn't have the best playoff history either. He's good, but he's not Keuchel, Sale, Kluber good either. Duffy and Ventura have high-4 ERAs. I agree they can still both turn it around. But if they are pitching like 4.75 ERA pitchers in the playoffs we will probably have an uphill road trying to win with Volquez and Young leading the rotation.

Shields sucked in the playoffs. Volquez will almost assuredly be better. Guthrie is pitching pretty well right now and is not showing much drop off, if any, from last season.

I don't care much about ERAs with the starting pitchers on this team. The reason is that the guys with the low ERAs eat lots of innings, while ours are not doing that so much right now. But for this team, especially in the playoffs, an innings eater is almost irrelevant because we are not going to hide our bullpen. We want to feature our bullpen. If any one of our guys pitches to the lead after 5 or 6 innings, we are most likely winning that game.

We don't need a starter who can then pitch the 7th and 8th because those spots are already on lockdown. It would be nice for a starter to do that, but we don't NEED it. Which is why I don't think trading Duffy for Cueto gives us much, if any, benefit or gain. If Cueto goes 7 innings and two runs but Duffy only goes 6 innings for two runs we have not gained much, if anything, by losing Duffy.

Obviously though if we can get Cueto without losing any MLB guys that is fine. I just don't think we will do that because GMDM is going to continue to trust his process and the moves he made, specifically that Medlen will be like our trade for a starting pitcher.

From a MLB writer Richard Justice

Here's the interesting part: Despite all that pitching, Moore is checking to see if there are top-of-the-rotation arms available. His shopping list surely includes Shields, Johnny Cueto and David Price, but it's unclear if any of them will be moved. He also has the depth to add a bat, and if the Padres decide to trade Justin Upton, the Royals almost certainly will be interested.

Quote:

Originally Posted by KChiefs1 (Post 11603198)

If we don't trade Duffy then the Reds will probably want a package of Mondesi, Finnegan & Dozier for Cueto.

That would hurt, but I'd rather do that than trade Duffy, because at least we'd be demoting whoever is our #4 from our playoff rotation.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Royals?src=hash">#Royals</a> recall LHP John Lamb as the 26th man for today's split doubleheader. Lamb is 9-1 with a 2.68 ERA with Omaha this year.</p>— Royals (@Royals) <a href="https://twitter.com/Royals/status/622048610843144192">July 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

My thoughts from the NWA game last night:

1) Raul Mondesi looks really good. Hitting, defense, baserunning - it looks like he has all the tools. He also laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt, so he'll be great for Ned.
2) Terrance Gore is incredibly fast. I can't wait till this guy gets back up just so we can watch him run the bases again. He bunted for a hit and beat the throw by about a full second.
3) Cody Reed got shelled, but he showed some good stuff. He retired the first 10 batters and then collapsed after that. He was hitting 95-96 consistently. I noticed him hit 97 at least once.
4) Bubba Starling had a great night. He had two hard-hit doubles into the gap and showed good speed.

*** Official Royals Repository, Part 3 ***

http://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybro...r-programming/

Quote:

Prime Time TV Ratings For All 29 U.S. MLB Teams Show Baseball Ruling Summer Programming

Prime time television ratings for each of the Major League Baseball up to a week before the All-Star break show an increase over the same period last year, according to data from Nielsen. Using data for each of the 29 domestic U.S. clubs (Nielsen does not track ratings in Canada so the Toronto Blue Jays are excluded), 13 clubs are seeing gains, compared to 12 seeing losses. The 2014 World Series Champion San Francisco Giants see an average household rating the same as a year ago (4.86).

The percentage of gain is approximate based on teams playing uneven numbers of games during the same span up to the week before the All-Star Game from last year to this. A single ratings point represents 1 percent of the total number of television households in a given designated market area. This is why the Royals can have a much higher rating, but the viewership numbers will be lower.

On top of this, MLB at the local level is dominating summer programming. Each RSN televises an average of 148 MLB game per season, most in prime time (7p-11p), when the television audience is the greatest.

Ten teams are the highest-rated, most-viewed programming in prime time beating the competition in both broadcast and cable. These teams include the Kansas Royals, St. Louis Cardinals, Detroit Tigers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Seattle Mariners, Boston Red Sox, Baltimore Orioles, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, and Arizona Diamondbacks.

Another 6 teams rank no. 2 or no. 3 in local prime time TV, including the Cincinnati Reds, Milwaukee Brewers, Tampa Bay Rays, Cleveland Indians, Minnesota Twins, and New York Yankees. While another 11 teams rank no. 4 – no. 7 in local prime time TV ratings, including the Chicago Cubs, Philadelphia Phillies, Washington Nationals, Colorado Rockies, New York Mets, Texas Rangers, Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Angels, Miami Marlins, Houston Astros, and Oakland Athletics.

When excluding broadcast television, 25 of 30 clubs are ranked the #1 rated program on cable since the season started.

Leading the charge is the 2014 American League Champion Kansas City Royals. The team that has captured not only the heart of KC but many in markets that do not host MLB teams due to their break in futility last season and the management style of Ned Yost who puts on the steal more than most in recent memory. The Royals on FS Kansas City sees a whopping 114 percent increase in ratings over the same period prior from a 5.93 to a scorching 12.69. They are followed by the St. Louis Cardinals (10.17 rating, up 35 percent from last year), the Detroit Tigers (a 7.68 rating down 8 percent from 2014), the Pittsburgh Pirates (a 7.61 which was nearly flat from last season at the All-Star Game break), and the Seattle Mariners with a 6.29, up 10 percent from the 5.72 at this point last year.

While the numbers appear small in the listings, the Houston Astros 1.85 rating is a significant achievement. Last year at this time they were mired in the CSN Houston bankruptcy battle and had no carriage outside of Comcast in the Houston market. This caused rating numbers to be virtually useless (on more than one occasion the Astros on CSN Houston registered a 0.00 rating during the tumultuous period). After getting out from underneath the bankruptcy and onto the new ROOT Sports SW, the Astros see a 1.85 viewership average. While the numbers were not made available for this report, according to the SportsBusiness Daily, the increase was four-fold over 2014.

The Los Angeles Dodgers continue to be buried under the weight of their $8.35 billion television deal with Time Warner Cable-owned SportsNet LA. While they got some relief by getting a deal done with Charter Communications in the LA area (Charter is in the midst of a $55 billion cash-and-stock merger acquisition of Time Warner Cable), getting play on distributors such as DirecTV,Verizon FiOS, Cox Communications has been problematic due to the want by SportsNet LA for a reported $4.90 per subscriber fee to get the channel listed with carriers. That’s why you see the Dodgers second-to-last in TV ratings, something of an embarrassment not only for the Dodgers but MLB given the storied name of the club and being in the nation’s second-largest market.

But if there’s a team that seems to not be able to gain traction of any sort, it is the Chicago White Sox. Last year they ranked last in ratings at this time, and they do so again this year. The difference is that they have dropped 42 percent to a 0.8 average rating one week leading up to the All-Star Game. The White Sox currently rank 27th out of 30 in attendance and are last in the AL Central with a 41-45, 11 games out of first.

Below shows prime time ratings and viewership numbers for the season leading up to one week prior to the All-Star Game along with numbers for approx. the same period prior last season. It is important to note that there can be minor deviations in the percentage of increase year-over-year due to teams playing uneven numbers of games prior to the All-Star break in each of the seasons.

Duffy is a good comp to Danny Jackson in terms of style and stuff. But not even close in terms of actual production. DJ was 23 in 1985 and in the playoffs he threw 26 IP of 1.07 ERA ball, 19-6 ratio. He tossed the huge 2-0 shutout in Game 5 vs Toronto (down 3-1) and then a complete game in the 6-1 win over STL also in Game 5. I'd eat my own vomit if Danny Duffy ever threw a single complete game, let alone pitching like that.

DJ avg 206 IP his 3 years here with an avg WAR of 4.1. Duffy in his 4 years avg 75 IP (with a TJ surgery the main cause) and he ha a total WAR of 3.8 including 2015, his fifth year. He isn't remotely close to DJ in durability and that's a big reason he's really not 1/10th as valuable as many of you think

Quote:

Originally Posted by siberian khatru (Post 11603210)

So he probably won't actually pitch, right?