You know you want to feel an ice breeze on a hot summer day in KC, Francouer can give us a temp. drop of about 5 degrees with the light winds err wiffs from homeplate.

9 million off the Royals books next year too.

Trade DDJ and cut Banny?

wow...

welp they both suck IMO

You said he had "fringe stuff." That's not accurate if you read any of the scouting reports on him from his minor league days. A low 90s fastball with good movement - especially good late movement - is an effective pitch. He's got at least usable changeup and breaking pitches. His upside actually is that of a #3 if you read any of that stuff on him.

He's 24. A year and a half ago, he was extremely highly thought of. Generally isn't a good idea to give up on pitchers QUITE that early.

Sykes is exactly the type of person you get with a sandwich pick.

The compensation for Type B free agents, quite honestly, really isn't worth the risk of offering arbitration that is required to receive the compensation.

If DeJesus comes out like he did this season and puts up similar offensive numbers, Mazzaro and Sykes aren't enough compared to what his value would be. But if he struggles with the bat at all - or even just has a .280/10/60/80/5 campaign - it's better than the alternative.

Should have an idea by midseason how good or bad this trade was. Right now, it's too early.

DDJ is a #7 hitter on a good team...

He was more valuable to us than anyone one else. That said he will add to a championship team (which isnt the A's). I think this may be one of the better deals we couldve gotten for him. Too bad he got hurt, im sure he wouldve been a Giant

Scott Pioli>Dayton Moore

DM has the #1 minor league system, i'd say things are on the up for the Royals big time...

The outrage for DDJ being traded is like as if he traded Beltran.

Can we at least wait until these guys do soemthing at the Major league level??

This is the equalivent of saying the Chiefs won the draft in April.

No reason NOT to get excited about the future...i mean wtf else do we have at this point? We know we'll lose 100 games this year and have sucked for 25 years or so

I am ready to see these kids play

True, but its not like there's no objective reason to be excited, given history.

The Royals are a lock to be declared as the #1 farm system in baseball next season. Not only will we have the best farm system in baseball, but it is arguably one of the best "#1 farm systems" in recent history comparable to the Rays a few years ago, much better than a typical "#1 farm system". If I remember right, of the last 10 or 20 teams (dont remember which) who were given that designation, almost every single one of them (only except one) made the playoffs within 3 or 4 years.

The royals are going to suck next season, but by 2013 this is going to be a good team. It is possible that enough players will disappoint to the point that we don't become a "great" team, but the Royals will be "good" at a minimum. We simply have far too many class-A and solid class-B+ prospects to miss.

(edit: In the last decade, EVERY #1 farm system has made the playoffs within 5 years.)

Not sad to see DDJ go. I never liked him. I can't stand a guy and almost appears happy after he strikes out with a runner on third and no outs. He was a solid player but not someone I really cared to see play.

Look for more shiny objects coming soon to Kauffman Stadium.
Bring the whole family...it's fun!
And there's a baseball game going on too.... who knew???

Who the hell is Sykes?

I assume you mean Marks? And no - he's nothing like what you'd get in the sandwich rounds. He's a 22 year old 3rd round pick that spent most of the year struggling in A ball. If that's your sandwich pick - fire your scouting department.

You know how you can tell that Mazzaro's stuff isn't that good? His results. Even in the minors, his groundball rate wasn't actually that good (below average, in fact).

For a guy that doesn't have any decent secondary offerings, doesn't miss bats and doesn't throw particularly hard, his groundball rate pretty much sucks. He seems to generate outs by throwing 92 mph 'heat' somewhere near the zone and hoping hitter hit the ball at someone. A 'usable changeup' doesn't come in 6 mph slower than his fastball unless the bottom drops out of it, Mazzaro's doesn't.

If he's a lefthander, he has good stuff. But as a 6'2'' righthander without a plus secondary offering of any sort, a 92 mph fastball that doesn't generate grounders is nothing. His stuff, scouting reports be damned, is mediocre at best.

His 'low 90's fastball with movement' has actually had a worse value/100 than Bannister's. That 'movement' by the way? It was almost exactly the same as Bannister's, with an average vertical Z axis of about 9.6, compared to 9.5 for Bannister (meaning that Bannister's actually has a little more drop; Lowe was 3.4 for comparison). The drop on his changeup was also the exact same as Banny's. But hey, at least he makes up for it by getting half as much horizontal movement on his slider as Bannister.

Mazzaro isn't good. He's better than Bannister only because his fastball is about a MPH faster, so there's room for growth there. But that very same fastball was actually a less effective pitch than Bannister's was last season.

Unless Mazzaro can about 3 times the drop he had on his fastball last season, he's just another 5th starter.

Congrats. I'd have taken my chances on the sandwich pick.

Oh please. And I'm sure you'd be begging to get rid of Hines Ward if he was on the Chiefs - "He smiled after he couldn't cath that pass - he must not care"

If anyone was paying attention, you just saw a team that did something similar to what the Royals are doing play in the World Series. They did it through their farm system and trades (with the Braves no less). The Texas Rangers had the best farm system in the majors. They made trades (Cliff Lee) and build up their team.

The Royals are doing it the right way under a small market style. The Royals have a Who's who of minor league players at almost every position in the Minors. They have the best 3rd base prospect (Moose Tacos). They have 3 of the best pitching prospects. However, these kids are 2 years away from being stars. Baseball America is considering 11 players for minor league player of the year and four of them were Royals. It used to be that the Royals had 1 or 2 big time prospects in the minors, now they have 9 big time prospects. They have those Moos, Hosmer, Colon, Duffy, Lamb, Montgomery, Will Myers (maybe the best prospect, better numbers at C position than Joe Mauer and Buster Posey in minors and is only 19).

Most of these players spent last year in the A/AA league. They will need another year in AA/AAA before they jump to the Majors, but don't let that fool you, scouts are gushing over some of these propects. The Royals will try to get all of them in the Majors for a couple years together.

My last point, it seems like Greinke would be gone or in the last year of his contract when these kids make it to the bigs, so the Royals are looking to shop him.

If you are a Royals fan, here is what you want:
You want Cliff Lee to go to the Yankees. The teams that want Greinke are the Colorado Rockies and the Texas Rangers. The Rangers have exceptional prospects.

The Royals would want 2 top shelf prospects and a Major League ready player. The Rangers would supposedly look to offer Derek Holland (LH pitcher) and 2 of their top prospects (1 is Tanner Scheppers RH fireballer, who the Royals want). The Royals are in a really good position, it will just take a couple years to get there.

As for the extra money saved by the Royals, I want them to sign one player to a longer term contract and I am thinking to keep him for 7-9 more years. He is the best at his position in the Major Leagues, the Mexicutioner Joakim Soria.