If it makes you feel any better, it's not just the Royals. Appears the Mariners are having the same problem. Of course, they sent down Montero and just sent down Ackley. Eric Wedge blames sabermetrics for Ackley's struggles:
Wedge was talking about Ackley's demotion to Triple-A and his mental approach, and he intimated that Ackley might have been too concerned with pitch selectivity and high on-base percentage, leading to a one-liner that hit on one of baseball's most intriguing ongoing philosophical battles.
"It's the new generation. It's all this sabermetrics stuff, for lack of a better term, you know what I mean?" Wedge said. "People who haven't played since they were 9 years old think they have it figured out. It gets in these kids' heads."
http://deadspin.com/mariners-manager...ey-s-510150363
Then ESPN's David Schoenfeld says it's time to fire Eric Wedge. Why? "Seattle's failure to consistently develop prospects could soon cost manager Eric Wedge his job" :
But the list of Mariners position players besides Jones and Choo once rated in Baseball America's top 100 prospects is a sad list:
...
How does this happen? How can one organization fail so miserably? Certainly, there's been a system-wide failure -- again, through different regimes and thus different major and minor league coaches and instructors -- to develop hitters with the ability to control the strike zone. Is that just bad luck? Bad coaching? Bad Safeco Field karma?
http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/po...ire-eric-wedge
Me again: Does that sound familiar, Royals fans?