It’s encouraging to see AB has finally found a way to contribute.

Weird factoid in the super early Boston/Chicago game today. White Sox new DH Yermin Mercedes just got brought in to pitch the 7th. He has never played a position in the field before today, so his first defensive appearance as an MLB player is at pitcher. That's going to be a trivia question one day.

FG projections

Pre season: 78-84, 9.7% playoffs
Now: 80-82, 17.9% playoffs


“You can’t win a division in April, but you can lose it”

I’d honestly just like to see the team go .500. That would be the top end of my expectations. Anything beyond that would be gravy.

As I was listening to the post-game shoe on the radio yesterday, I found it amazing that a few callers were discussing paths to the playoffs :rolleyes:. Excitement is good, but should be mixed with 2 parts reality.

Can Dozier, Soler, and Benintendi recapture past glimpses of "goodness"? Can Mondesi play 130 games and hit .280? Will Witt come up and contribute? Will the rotation by mid-july have 1-2 guys that aren't even in KC yet? If a few of these are "yes", then we will be talking playoffs.

Who is this Mondesi you speak of????

They are winning without those, so why are they necessary to continue winning?

Depth may be an issue as the summer goes on, but that also hasn't been an issue yet.

Yeah, no shit, it was early. :D TB I meant.

ROFL You said it would be interesting

So you want them to go below .500 the rest of the way?

Yes. That was clearly the intent of my last post. :rolleyes:

Big early season series against the defending AL Champs.

Games getting ready to start.

We gonna do a game thread or just posting here?






Edit: Nevermind

https://theathletic.com/2521640/2021...-making-a-run/

MLB POWER RANKINGS: APRIL 19, 2021

17. Kansas City Royals
Record as of Monday morning: 9-5
Last Power Ranking: 21

Every winter there is some half-conceived team with no real shot of competing but are in that sweet spot of six-to-10 good players for them that gets declared as “fun” by national observers who have no intent to watch this team more than a dozen times in a six-month span. In a similar vein, there is always a solid cadre of veteran free agents who are neither difference-makers nor on the upswings of their career but are productive enough that they deserve a job somewhere, so we can all say “good pickup for the Jacksonville Jamokes” before forgetting where they signed 15 minutes later.

This spring in Kansas City, these two forces have joined up like a Voltron to produce a hot enough start to make them the current kings of the AL Central. The magical area where Kansas and Missouri meet is the only remaining territory where good, non-superstar players over 30 are not immediately fenced for prospects. Thus it’s the only place where Whit Merrifield and Salvador Pérez could be carrying the Royals with monster starts that, you know, probably won’t last. But they’re helping to keep things positive in Kansas City as we all try to suss out if Jakob Junis’ big turnaround is legitimate, and flip-flop on whether to descriptively refer to Brad Keller as the Opening Day starter or a former Rule 5 pick on a start-to-start basis.

Other teams of note:

1. Los Angeles Dodgers
Record as of Monday morning: 13-3
Last Power Ranking: 1

8. Chicago White Sox
Record as of Monday morning: 8-8
Last Power Ranking: 7

9. Minnesota Twins
Record as of Monday morning: 6-8
Last Power Ranking: 5

11. New York Yankees
Record as of Monday morning: 5-10
Last Power Ranking: 4

13. St. Louis Cardinals
Record as of Monday morning: 7-8
Last Power Ranking: 10

19. Cleveland Indians
Record as of Monday morning: 8-7
Last Power Ranking: 16

27. Detroit Tigers
Record as of Monday morning: 6-10
Last Power Ranking: 26

30. Colorado Rockies
Record as of Monday morning: 4-12
Last Power Ranking: 28

Kind of ironic one of the last times it snowed during baseball season was in May 2013. Guess who the opponent was for the Royals that night - Tampa Bay.

Not saying the Royals are a playoff team or anything like that, but come on, man. This writer should give us at least a LITTLE credit. Not even a damn "good job" or anything.

He probably had the Royals ranked around 17 during the spring of 2015. "Can't trust a team who went only a few games above .500 and got hot in the playoffs when they have no experience. Nothing elite. No stars. All of their success we WILL see regress, because it's not sustainable, yadda yadda"

I, for one, appreciate the Royals stand against trading established, really good players for any prospects they can get.

Teams are hoarding prospects like never before. Remember when Nico Hoerner was “too much” to give up for Merrifield STRAIGHT UP?

That dude actually kind of sucks.

It’s easy to say “trade em” but nearly impossible to find a team willing to trade actual prospects of value.

Yeah, imagine this team without Whit and Salvy ROFL

Those two are now central for our hopes of contention next year.

Who knows how the season will progress, but I don't know why there's reason to believe that Whit and Salvy can't continue what they're doing right now. Their numbers aren't astronomically great or anything, except for Salvy's power numbers maybe, but he's been a different hitter last year, this spring and so far this season.

The real question is can Dozier, Soler and Benintendi get going a little bit.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Nahhh I think actions always speak louder than words �� <a href="https://t.co/OkilMGgwN5">https://t.co/OkilMGgwN5</a></p>&mdash; Tom Brady (@TomBrady) <a href="https://twitter.com/TomBrady/status/1384544984695721987?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Not surprised he responded. What can you say at this point?

Would love a rematch and super excited that the Chiefs have Mahomes for a longtime.

Did he lose a bet or something?

@PatrickMahomes: I guess we will see in 20 years... [emoji2375][emoji41] https://twitter.com/tombrady/status/1384544984695721987

Yes Sal lost a bet to brett phillips

Mahomes taking shots at Brady!!! That’s my QB!!

I know it's early, but after seeing Benintendi look quite lost at the plate it makes me wish they would have just let Lee have at it instead. So weird how he's turned into a pumpkin since being thought of as one of the rising stars in the game back in 2017.

How does someone look so promising coming out of the gates, turn 24 and regress? He's like the much shittier version of Bryce Harper.

Yeah that's the part that got me, picking those two, it's not like Whit has led the league in hits twice or anything.

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I think he'll be ok. The way he griped after getting skull ****ed by the ump for the third time last night made me think he's thinking too much and he'll pull through.

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Benintendi put on a bunch of muscle to try to hit more HR and lost some of what made him special. He's trying to get back to the lean, explosive guy he once was. I'd rate it inconclusive right now. He wouldn't be the first guy to bulk up and kind of ruin himself (Victor Robles also falls into that category at present - also trying to slim back down and having trouble doing it).

Bryce Harper is an offensive performer who has been 39 percent above average for his career and has never been lower than 11 percent (as a 21-year-old) above average.

Almost every player out there is a shittier version of Bryce Harper. Because he's a superstar.

Haha,good point about Harper.I didnt realize Beni is kind of short,not that it matters i guess.

I dropped Soler from my fantasy team.

He’s going to explode now.

I did this for all of us!!!

So apparently Mondesi is still possibly a month away, was a 6-8 week injury. Yuck.

Put more balls in the zone Keller.

:facepalm:

Tsk tsk. Merrifield

Should have been out of the inning with no damage. Keller's getting ground balls. Just haven't converted.

Damn it, Whit! Get your head out of your ass! That's twice this game 3 times in the last 2.

Sharp they're not.

This is a repeat of last night.....

Ugly first couple innings. Keller wasn’t good but the defense was pretty bad too.

Keller relies on inducing weird / weak contact. Runs absurd Babips


Not this year. The Magic looks to be gone thus far

Nice outing, Keller. Nice defense, Whit.

Way to help your team out, guys.


Time to stick Whit back in RF. He’s been sucking it up at 2B. But alas, brokedick Mondesi isn’t around or coming back anytime soon so we don’t even have the option of moving Lopez to 2B. And we know they’re not gonna call up Witt Jr. anytime soon. Frustrating.

What a shit show so far.

Woof

Ridiculous, throw some freaking strikes.

If it was July, that was probably a HR for Soler.

5 runs on 3 hits. That’s pretty damn hard to do.

Well, they are the defending AL Champs. Guess we know where we stand now.

Still a long ways to go . . . . . .

Here we go Royals here we go!!!!

That's better, 5-2

Here we go!

Let’s score faster than Billay with a hog!

This pitcher is *ahem* over the Hill

Make that 5-4.

And I never believed Keller is really that good, to be honest.

Two more for the good guys, 5-4 nobody out still.

Defense has been super awesome this series . . . . . . like really . . . . . . just top notch. :facepalm:

Santana gets one back.

That's the Santana shot that we always seem to see with the Indians.

No way Salvy just forced a Zobrist like walk

Hud must read CP because I just said Santana always killed us from the left.

That's a great AB Dozier.... especially after being in a 0-2 hole.

****. Big opportunity

I’d rather have Dyson playing LF than Benny

AB is ****ing worthless.

I wish we'd have acquired a box of crab legs instead.

GD IT!

Nice job, Beni. Guys been wild and all over the place and you swing at the first pitch.

And one at the bottom of the zone, at that. :facepalm:

Good God Whit

What in the actual **** are you doing Benintendi?

this team is ass the last 2 days....

Terrible

Benny needs to ride the bench

The Rays are Alex Smithing us to death.

Nicky Lopez is hitting. Up to a .311 average and an OPS over 750.

And defense to complement his offense.

Too bad the rest of the team forgot how to play defense.

Our newest bullpen arm, Hanser Alberto.

Are we going to score 8 here and walk it off lol

14 runs allowed

Nice pitching

Keller needs an ass reaming

I thought all you guys said that was a great trade?

Great trade huh?

The AB trade really kinda pissed me off. I really liked Khalil Lee and to trade him away for 2 years of AB seemed stupid as ****.

When the **** is Mondesi supposed to be back?

I was rather surprised when they made the trade with Lee involved because he is a left handed hitter with a similar skill set to Benintendi, but a stronger arm and more power and 21 years old and had a high walk rate, so did they just sour on him or was there another factor, and again let me say, I have no idea, this is just a theory or a wild speculative guess, but I remember last year when they said that Metheny gives people books to read and they will give him one back to read and lee gave him a book called, Race Matters. Is it possible that knowing how the Royals value Character and team chemistry and family that they might have thought he could be an issue in there club house and even with the fan base if he is some big social justice warrior type, I mean they see how divisive it is in society, just food for thought.

I always liked Lee too. I haven't seen how he is doing with the Mets but it wouldn't surprise me if he was doing well.

They got a close look at Lee last year against more advanced arms. You’d like to believe that if they were comfortable moving him, they saw something (or failed to see something) in that up-close look that changed their mind on him. And that they saw something with Benintendi that made them think he’d get back to the player he was in 18.

But if that book swap story is true, I could see that potentially being a reason they decided to move on. Wouldn’t be happy about it from a talent management or social perspective.

Pitching was not good last night, but defense was atrocious and set up the pitching to fail.

If Royals play solid defense, you can probably take at least 7 runs off the board, they don't go as deep into their bullpen, don't burn so many bullpen arms earlier in the game, etc.

Just a bad all around performance by pitching and defense, but defense set the table last night. Merrifield looks awful at 2B right now, not sure WTF is going on with him.

Can't believe I'm saying this, but we could really use Mondi right now. Too bad he's a brokedick and probably gonna miss like another month. :facepalm: