2010 Kansas City Royals Repository thread

[SPchief]

All Royals All The Time!

After consultation with others who peruse the game threads we decided to create this as a repository for all things Royals. Minor league news, AL (ahem) Central (thanks Vonne) news and anything Royals can be found here.

alnorth, me and atleast 5 others will continue the game threads as usual. But if you locate something of interest.. ANYTHING.. deals on apparel, best ways in/out of the stadium, giveaways, great stories from this season or from seasons gone by, rumors, trades, anything.... feel free to post it here.

If a big story breaks, you can still start a thread about it. There is merely an all inclusive thread that will make a easy for us all to keep up with all things Royals.


Welcome! "Grab a Brew... don't cost nuthin"...[spills beer on feet]

[alnorth]

while looking at the pitchers for today's minor league games, I found out that the Royals quietly promoted Danny Duffy to Advanced A Wilmington, making his first start for the Blue Rocks today.

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by alnorth

while looking at the pitchers for today's minor league games, I found out that the Royals quietly promoted Danny Duffy to Advanced A Wilmington, making his first start for the Blue Rocks today.

I take part of that back, for some reason there was something in the back of my head about Danny Duffy. He wasn't "promoted".

This guy was the highly-touted pitching prospect who flaked on us earlier this year, leaving the minor league camp in spring training to "reassess his life priorities". I'm guessing his reassessment included looking at the economy and how much major league pitchers make, because he recently told the Royals he wanted to come back, so we sent him to advanced A.

[duncan_idaho]

Hosmer homers in his first at-bat at NW Arkansas...

[Sure-Oz]

http://twitter.com/Jamesolamb

jon dad has a twitter

[KevB]

Originally Posted by alnorth

I take part of that back, for some reason there was something in the back of my head about Danny Duffy. He wasn't "promoted".

This guy was the highly-touted pitching prospect who flaked on us earlier this year, leaving the minor league camp in spring training to "reassess his life priorities". I'm guessing his reassessment included looking at the economy and how much major league pitchers make, because he recently told the Royals he wanted to come back, so we sent him to advanced A.

He actually threw a few innings the level below that, so I guess they felt he was ready to get back into a rotation. Looks like he didn't have an especially great outing tonight, but good to see he's back on the horse.

[Sure-Oz]

Preparing to trade soria!111111111111111111

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/07/19...rested-in.html

Posted on Mon, Jul. 19, 2010
Royals reportedly interested in signing pitcher Jason Isringhausen
By DANIEL PAULLING
The Kansas City Star

Jason Isringhausen’s return to the major leagues may come through Kansas City.

The right hander said on KFNS 590 AM in St. Louis that he would be throwing for the Reds on Tuesday. He also mentioned the Royals, Cardinals, Yankees and Rays were teams that have shown some level of interest.

Isringhausen, 37, underwent Tommy John surgery last June and has been throwing from a mound three times a week. A successful return from surgery routinely takes 12 to 18 months, but relief pitchers have been able to come back sooner. He estimates he needs a couple weeks in the minor leagues before being ready.

Isringhausen may likely be a different pitcher if he returns.

“Am I throwing mid-90s?” he said. “Not right now, no. I don’t know (how fast I can throw). I haven’t been on a (radar) gun yet, but I’ll find out soon enough. I could be throwing 85. I don’t know.

“But all my breaking pitches are there. I’ve been working on a changeup so that’s there. I’m a smarter pitcher. That’s the way I look at it. I might not be throwing throw 96-97 again, but I’ll still get people out.”

Isringhausen has 293 major league saves with the Mets, A’s, Cardinals and Rays over 14 seasons. Closing isn’t something he necessarily wanted to do right away.

“I don’t care where I pitch or what inning I pitch,” he said. “It’s about pitching this year. As long as I’m healthy this year, I can pick and choose where I go next year. Everything points to the direction that I will stay intact. I wouldn’t be doing this if I thought I couldn’t do it.”

[petegz28]

Originally Posted by Sure-Oz

Preparing to trade soria!111111111111111111

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/07/19...rested-in.html

Posted on Mon, Jul. 19, 2010
Royals reportedly interested in signing pitcher Jason Isringhausen
By DANIEL PAULLING
The Kansas City Star

Jason Isringhausen’s return to the major leagues may come through Kansas City.

The right hander said on KFNS 590 AM in St. Louis that he would be throwing for the Reds on Tuesday. He also mentioned the Royals, Cardinals, Yankees and Rays were teams that have shown some level of interest.

Isringhausen, 37, underwent Tommy John surgery last June and has been throwing from a mound three times a week. A successful return from surgery routinely takes 12 to 18 months, but relief pitchers have been able to come back sooner. He estimates he needs a couple weeks in the minor leagues before being ready.

Isringhausen may likely be a different pitcher if he returns.

“Am I throwing mid-90s?” he said. “Not right now, no. I don’t know (how fast I can throw). I haven’t been on a (radar) gun yet, but I’ll find out soon enough. I could be throwing 85. I don’t know.

“But all my breaking pitches are there. I’ve been working on a changeup so that’s there. I’m a smarter pitcher. That’s the way I look at it. I might not be throwing throw 96-97 again, but I’ll still get people out.”

Isringhausen has 293 major league saves with the Mets, A’s, Cardinals and Rays over 14 seasons. Closing isn’t something he necessarily wanted to do right away.

“I don’t care where I pitch or what inning I pitch,” he said. “It’s about pitching this year. As long as I’m healthy this year, I can pick and choose where I go next year. Everything points to the direction that I will stay intact. I wouldn’t be doing this if I thought I couldn’t do it.”

WTF would we want this broken, has-benn?

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by Sure-Oz

Preparing to trade soria!111111111111111111

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/07/19...rested-in.html

Posted on Mon, Jul. 19, 2010
Royals reportedly interested in signing pitcher Jason Isringhausen
By DANIEL PAULLING
The Kansas City Star

Jason Isringhausen’s return to the major leagues may come through Kansas City.

The right hander said on KFNS 590 AM in St. Louis that he would be throwing for the Reds on Tuesday. He also mentioned the Royals, Cardinals, Yankees and Rays were teams that have shown some level of interest.

Isringhausen, 37, underwent Tommy John surgery last June and has been throwing from a mound three times a week. A successful return from surgery routinely takes 12 to 18 months, but relief pitchers have been able to come back sooner. He estimates he needs a couple weeks in the minor leagues before being ready.

Isringhausen may likely be a different pitcher if he returns.

“Am I throwing mid-90s?” he said. “Not right now, no. I don’t know (how fast I can throw). I haven’t been on a (radar) gun yet, but I’ll find out soon enough. I could be throwing 85. I don’t know.

“But all my breaking pitches are there. I’ve been working on a changeup so that’s there. I’m a smarter pitcher. That’s the way I look at it. I might not be throwing throw 96-97 again, but I’ll still get people out.”

Isringhausen has 293 major league saves with the Mets, A’s, Cardinals and Rays over 14 seasons. Closing isn’t something he necessarily wanted to do right away.

“I don’t care where I pitch or what inning I pitch,” he said. “It’s about pitching this year. As long as I’m healthy this year, I can pick and choose where I go next year. Everything points to the direction that I will stay intact. I wouldn’t be doing this if I thought I couldn’t do it.”

thanks, I needed the laugh.

A two-year minor league or vet minimum contract until we bridge the gap to 2012-13? I dunno, sure but we sure as hell aren't giving up anything of value for that.

[ChiTown]

My Apologies if this is a repost:

http://joeposnanski.si.com/2010/07/1...atting-champs/

Diary of a Losing Team: Batting Champs

You may or may not know this, but the Kansas City Royals lead all of baseball in hitting. Anyway, that’s how the expression goes. When you lead the league in batting average, people will say you lead the league in hitting. It doesn’t make much sense, really, since the goal of hitting — the offensive goal in baseball — is certainly not to get more hits per at-bat than other teams. But “leading the league in hitting” is what people have called it since the dawn of time.

The Royals are hitting .281 as a team, which is three points better than the Texas Rangers, and it’s 22 points better than the major league average of .259. A couple of guys in the lineup — David DeJesus (.320) and Billy Butler (.317) — are among the top 10 in the American League hitting, and others like Scott Podsednik (.302) and Mike Aviles (.300) are right around .300.

So… with all that… why is it that the Royals are a pretty lousy offensive baseball team?


Well, they are well below average. They are 10th in the American League in runs scored and going backward. The last month or so they are averaging about three and a half runs per game. Toronto, the Royals’ opponent for three games starting on Monday, is hitting 38 points worse than the Royals. The Blue Jays have scored more runs.

The easiest and most obvious answer here is that batting average is a bad way to judge a team’s offensive production. And it is. After all, you don’t have to be a statistical wizard to look at the Royals’ numbers and understand why they aren’t scoring runs. Sure, they’re leading the league in batting average and are second in hits… but they are dead last in walks, which blunts the advantage. Dead last. So, even with all those hits, the Royals are still only in the middle of the pack when it comes to getting on-base. They are seventh in the league in on-base percentage.

The Royals also don’t hit with power — they are 12th in the league with only 62 home runs (and they have hit only 21 homers in their last 42 games). They are ninth in slugging percentage. So — mediocre on-base percentage with below average power, yeah, you’re not going to score many runs. You can top that off with the fact that the Royals are also once again a dreadful base-running team — according to the Bill James base-running system they are -35 bases, worst in the American League, and they have been caught 33 of the 88 times they have tried to steal a base,* which means they’re just giving away outs.

*They are being caught stealing 37.5% of the time, much higher than the league average of 27.6%. I think even the most aggressive of baseball people would admit that when you’re getting caught about four out of 10 times, it’s past time to quit trying to steal bases.

But I think there’s something else going on here beyond the numbers. It seems to me that the Royals have a motivation problem. I think the problem is not that the Royals lead the league in hitting — it is that they seem to WANT to lead the league in hitting, like it is their goal. And that would be a real problem.

I think back to the Dick Vermeil Kansas City Chiefs of the early 2000s. Vermeil loved offense. He lived for offense. He was the coach of the original “Greatest Show On Turf” St. Louis Rams, who bludgeoned teams with their preposterous speed and fast-break attack — and it seemed like Vermeil’s main goal was to recreate that in Kansas City. And, to a surprising degree, he was successful. His Chiefs, after many years of offensive stagnation, scored a bajillion points, amassed a bajillion yards, set a bajillion team records.

The one thing they didn’t do, however, was win. They only made the playoffs once in the Vermeil years, and they were outscored by Peyton Manning in that playoff game. The main problem (some would say the only problem) was a historically awful defense that Vermeil and his coaches did not know how to fix. Now, this is not exactly like the Royals’ situation because scoring a lot of points (unlike getting a lot of hits) IS a viable strategy for winning football games. The similarity comes from the last couple of years of the Vermeil era, when the team missed the playoffs but he would give us daily updates of the offense’s success. It just seemed like the Chiefs’ main focus was not so much on winning games but, instead, on having a great offense.

That seems like the Royals to me… like they are more interested in having a good batting average than in having a good offense.

What makes me say this? Well, there are a few things. One has been the Kila Conundrum. For years now, Kila Ka’aihue has been one of the more interesting and argued-about prospects in baseball. The reason: He walks. A lot. That’s his most obvious skill. He has walked 100 times in each of his last two minor league seasons, and he walked 97 times as a 21-year-old. He is closing in on 700 minor league walks.

Different people see those walks in different ways. Some think Kila’s plate discipline make him an outstanding prospect, especially because he’s a big guy (6-foot-3, 233 pounds) who has shown some signs of big-time power (he hit 37 homers in 124 minor league games in 2008). The feeling — and I’m in this camp — is that his great pitch recognition would translate really well to the big leagues… a younger Travis Hafner comes to mind.

Others, though, think that Kila is TOO patient, TOO passive, not aggressive enough, and that lack of aggression, combined with a slowish bat, does not project as an every-day first baseman (especially because his glove seems quite a bit below average).

I don’t know who is right and who is wrong — but I do know this: The Royals refuse to give Ka’aihue a chance. They SAY he’s part of their future (and say it, and say it), but he’s 26 years old and absolutely nothing they DO suggests that they really feel that way. In 2008 Kila hit .314/.456/.628 with those 37 home runs — one of the great minor league seasons in Royals history — and the Royals went out and got Mike Jacobs to play first base instead. A depressed Ka’aihue went back to the minors, struggled (though he walked 100 times), and he did not get a single big league at-bat in 2009.

Then, Ka’aihue had a great spring training this year (.347/.448/.673 with four homers) and was sent back down. He crushed the ball in Omaha and finally got a callup — at which point he was given all of four major league at-bats before getting sent back down again. Four at-bats. He is now hitting .304/.459/.570 in Omaha.

The Royals will tell you that they simply don’t have a spot in the lineup for him — Billy Butler already plays first base and the Royals are paying Jose Guillen a lot of money to be the team’s DH. But my point here is not the Royals’ roster management, but their judgment. My point here is that the Royals simply do not value Ka’aihue’s talent for getting on base, certainly not enough to find out what they have. They see those walks as more of a negative than a positive. They do not value his talents.

You know whose talents the Royals value? Scott Podsednik’s. He has been their left fielder and leadoff hitter all year. HIS OPS+ is 98, making him one of only two American League left fielders with a sub-100 OPS+. He has been caught stealing 11 times. He has only three homers all year and he has struck out almost twice as often as he has walked (54 strikeouts, 29 walks). His UZR and the John Dewan plus/minus both suggest that he has been well below average defensively in left.

But… well, as mentioned, he’s hitting .300. Meanwhile, down in Omaha, one-time Royals savior and newly minted left fielder Alex Gordon is hitting .320/.447/.577, has 13 homers in 66 games, has played well enough defensively that everyone seems to feel he would be fine in the big leagues… and even though he’s 26, and (you would hope) a part of this team’s future, and he cannot get the call up.

Then, there’s Jason Kendall. Oh. Jason Kendall. There is a Royals theme that has never quite become clear to me until Jason Kendall. Through all the years that I have followed the Kansas City Royals, they have had a knack for finding veterans who seem to intimidate everyone in the organization. Jason Kendall, at age 36, is on pace to start 155 games at catcher this year. I’m going to repeat that in italic letters just so you will know I’m not joking:

Jason Kendall, at age 36, is on pace to start 155 games at catcher this year.



As far as I can tell, the last player to catch more than 150 games in a season was Benito Santiago in 1991. The last to start 155 games at catcher? That would be Randy Hundley in 1968.

Now, this says two things. One, it says that Kendall really is a marvel of fitness and stubbornness… to physically be able to play that much and to mentally want to play that much is both remarkable and admirable. How can you not admire a 36-year-old man playing for a team going nowhere who refuses to come out of the lineup? It is inspiring in a way.

Two, though: What could the Royals possibly be thinking? Jason Kendall has an 80 OPS+. He has now gone 354 plate appearances without hitting a home run OR a triple… and if he can keep that up he will be in rarified air.

Most plate appearances in a season without a triple or home run (live ball era):

1. Frank Taveras, 598, 1980
2. Jo-Jo Morrissey, 568, 1933
3. Woody Williams, 534, 1945
4. Mike Tresh, 532, 1945
5. Ron Hunt, 531, 1972

Jason Kendall, 638, 2010 (projected)

Kendall’s on-base percentage is a barely league average .334, and yet he is now hitting second in the lineup. He has made nine errors, is barely throwing out a quarter of would-be base stealers and the Royals’ team ERA is 13th in the league, which may not be his fault, but he sure isn’t helping. And still he plays every… single… day. So what is it that Jason Kendall offers this team?

1. That much acclaimed “veteran leadership”
2. A tolerable looking .271 batting average

The other day, on the Royals television broadcast, I heard my friends Ryan Lefebvre and Frank White say that, hey, in a tough season it’s a nice thing to be able to say that at least Kansas City leads the league in hitting. I understand and appreciate the point, but I disagree. I think a good batting average is empty if you don’t back it up with other skills (such as taking walks, hitting with power, not giving away outs). I think batting average can be a very selfish stat. I think leading the league in hitting, if you allow it, will cover up a harsh reality*.

*The Royals — and maybe all bad teams are like this — have an amazing knack for closing their eyes to reality. For instance, they had a 50-game stretch this year in which they won 27 and lost 23, a nice run that coincided with the hiring of new manager Ned Yost, which seemed to give it added weight.


The trouble is… winning 27 of 50, while nice, doesn’t mean a whole lot in the larger picture. In 2007 the Royals had a 28-22 stretch… and lost 93 games. In 2002 the Royals had a 50-game stretch in which they played .500 ball… and they lost 100 games. Bad teams still have stretches when they play moderately good baseball. Even the putrid 2005 Royals had a 52-game stretch in which they went 25-27.

But the Royals took that 50-game stretch as a sign that this team is emerging… even leading Yost to say that the Royals can contend this year. I understand that you are always looking to build on success — and you have to BELIEVE that you are contenders even if you aren’t — but it does seem that the Royals have a long history of declaring victory based on very shaky and minimal evidence. They have now lost six in a row and are trying to hold off the fifth-place Indians.

The Royals’ future has some real promise — they have numerous players in the minor leagues who can, over the next two or three years, change the face of this franchise. I think Yost has energized this team… and I think his history of working with young players makes him a good candidate to become the Royals’ full-time manager.

But it seems to me that to get to the future, they have to leave behind the past. They need to get a lot younger. They need to walk more, hit with more power, give away fewer outs, and worry a whole lot less about their batting averages.

[Reaper16]

Just when you think that there is a glimmer of hope in what Moore's done with the minors, Poz comes in and lays the smack down about what Moore's done with the big league club.

He's pretty much calling out Kevin Seitzer without saying it directly, isn't he?

[DeezNutz]

Originally Posted by Reaper16

Just when you think that there is a glimmer of hope in what Moore's done with the minors, Poz comes in and lays the smack down about what Moore's done with the big league club.

He's pretty much calling out Kevin Seitzer without saying it directly, isn't he?

I don't think so.

Seitzer's offensive philosophy has been hard up the middle and gap-to-gap. This is sound. I also think he's been a proponent of patience at the plate. In short, he's been an exemplary chicken-salad chef.

OBP, along with a lot of fundamental skills, cannot be taught at the ML level.

Want more scariness? Scroll down and listen to the Dayton Moore interview from 7/19. Patience, Royals fans. "The Process" is setting up a date of 2014-15. Sweet.

http://www.810whb.com/podcasts

[alnorth]

Looking at the MiLB box scores this morning, I notice that Gordon walked and hit a homer, and Ka'aihue hit 2 homers. Both of them have an OPS above 1.100.

If no one wants to trade for Podsednik or Guillen, then just bench them.

[MVChiefFan]

Originally Posted by alnorth

Looking at the MiLB box scores this morning, I notice that Gordon walked and hit a homer, and Ka'aihue hit 2 homers. Both of them have an OPS above 1.100.

If no one wants to trade for Podsednik or Guillen, then just bench them.

I like the nice win streak we went on but honestly I'm glad to see us slide a little bit. Maybe now the false sense of hope will fade and we'll actually move these guys and call up some people.

[Sure-Oz]

Originally Posted by alnorth

Looking at the MiLB box scores this morning, I notice that Gordon walked and hit a homer, and Ka'aihue hit 2 homers. Both of them have an OPS above 1.100.

If no one wants to trade for Podsednik or Guillen, then just bench them.

Exactly, the trade deadline can't get here fast enough. It will actually be more exciting to see both of them up and playing, even if gordon is the same

[ChiTown]

Originally Posted by Sure-Oz

Exactly, the trade deadline can't get here fast enough. It will actually be more exciting to see both of them up and playing, even if gordon is the same

Prepare thyself for a THUD at the trade deadline.