LOL we went the college arms route. Probably about the worst possible strategy in my opinion. I equate it to a flailing college football coach signing JUCOs so they can keep their job for longer.

I just don't have faith in our org's ability to find and develop high talent SPs or any baseball scouts opinion of pitching. I'd rather spend it on bats and flip them later for MLB ready pitching prospects. There may be an argument to virtually NEVER draft pitchers higher than Round 5 because of their unpredictability compared to bats.

Walking Simmons to get that bum Trout to hit into the DP. Well played.

Success rate on hitters in round one since 1965 is practically indistinguishable from success rate on hitters, which invalidates a big part of your argument.

The Royals have drafted a lot of projectable HS arms, which has the biggest boom/bust rate. I’m glad to see them moving away from that.

Premium hitters, then college pitchers, then HS pitchers is a good general order ...

But there were not many premium hitters left for KC. They could have taken Schnell at 18, would have been an overdraft. Other than him, not a true premium hitter/bat between Singer and 33/34.

Why is Ned playing Salvy at catcher and DHing Butera?

ummm...because Salvy is a better catcher?

Sure but is Almonte unavailable to DH for some reason? or Goins or pretty much anyone else?

We've reached the point in the season where Rex is talking about walking into a post and giving himself concussions.

Would be more entertaining than watching our offense.

DHing Butera? Clearly we are in tank mode.

Also, how the hell do you give up that run there in the 5th. That's abysmal.

Is Butera truly better than Cam Gallagher? I dont know but seems we could get the kid major league experience since we are going nowhere.

At least they didn't get no-hit, I guess.

Probably better for him to be getting to play every day in AAA than playing one day a week behind Salvy.

No-Show on offense.

No, he's not. Butera is garbage. He's always been garbage. He had a fluke year with us and we just love him. Look at his career OPS. It's hilarious.

But that one walk though.

*** Official 2018 Royals Repository ***
 

Just enjoy the losses.

This guy appears to be the prize:
https://www.baseballamerica.com/stor...-season-event/

https://www.perfectgame.org/Players/...aspx?ID=386157

https://www.baseballfactory.com/2018...bobby-witt-jr/


https://youtu.be/3L1xk1aI9qc

Problem being, we already have Escobar at short who was granted a lifetime appointment as shortstop.

In my best Harry Doyle voice...
"One hit? That's all we got? One God damn hit?"

So looks like Cincinnati, Chi Sox, Baltimore, and Miami is our main competition for a high pick. I don't know much about the other teams, but I'm confident Chicago will marginally improve with their young players getting more experience. We should get even worse when we trade off our guys.

They got him signed too. He took around $3.5 mil instead of playing football for free at UNC.

What the ...

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Don&#39;t forget - my new website launches mañana! Sign up here <a href="https://t.co/v9GdO55luU">https://t.co/v9GdO55luU</a> for an exclusive first look 👀 <a href="https://t.co/VORlqqzgO9">pic.twitter.com/VORlqqzgO9</a></p>&mdash; Salvador Perez (@SalvadorPerez15) <a href="https://twitter.com/SalvadorPerez15/status/1004438312403206145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 6, 2018</a></blockquote>
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(And yes, I signed up.)

Bye Jon Jay

@FlannyMLB: Royals have traded Jon Jay to Arizona for two Minor League pitchers: 18-year-old righty Elvis Luciano and 23-year-old lefty Gabe Speier. Luciano will report to Burlington, Speier to NW Arkansas.

Jay, we hardly knew ye

Jay seems like a good guy. I enjoyed his at bats. It's easy to see why fans of his former teams seem to have a high regard for him.

Jay would have been great on the 2014 & 2015 teams. He’s going to a good team & the Royals get more pitching. Great trade.

WTF I hate Dayton Moore now.

Salvy next please

Troll harder.

No trolling but a few more nice prospects and the system is damn near rebuilt in less than a year. Very impressive

The Luciano kid looks potentially interesting. Speier is JAG. LH reliever.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Rosell Herrera HAMMERED a baseball to tie it up. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/50maha?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#50maha</a> <a href="https://t.co/kbNNCmjX9x">pic.twitter.com/kbNNCmjX9x</a></p>&mdash; Omaha Storm Chasers (@OMAStormChasers) <a href="https://twitter.com/OMAStormChasers/status/1004533782760906752?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 7, 2018</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">RHP Elvis Luciano, by the way, was the Diamondbacks&#39; No. 26 prospect at just 18 years old, per MLB Pipeline.</p>&mdash; Jeffrey Flanagan (@FlannyMLB) <a href="https://twitter.com/FlannyMLB/status/1004533178000814080?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 7, 2018</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I don&#39;t see Paulo Orlando here in Omaha tonight. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Royals?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Royals</a></p>&mdash; Minda Haas Kuhlmann (@minda33) <a href="https://twitter.com/minda33/status/1004527610200756225?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 7, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Well duh.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Jon Jay fan?

He was going to be the key to their stretch run in September.

He might for the Diamondbacks.

No shit? Must have been dfa'd

Boni ready to come back?

When is Duda coming back? Dozier could play the outfield. Orlando is not part of the future.

Boni's suspension ends June 26th. But, he'll probably spend some time in Omaha since he hasn't played in 2018. They might wait until after the deadline trades to activate him.

Who is this guy? Jag or legit prospect? Never heard of him which doesn’t mean a ton.

Orlando is probably headed to the majors after Jay got traded.

Fox Sports Kansas City said with the trade today, the Royals have added 28 pitchers to their system.

He was a top 100 player a few years back with the Reds but probably is a AAAA player.

Better than Almonte or Goins though, don't ya think?

Got it, thank you sir.

He's gonna get DFA once Boni comes back, though.

Goins for sure. That guy sucks. Chris Getz 2.0.

Almonte is a useful-ish 4th or 5th OF.

More than I thought they'd get for Jay.

After watching some video and seeing some reaction to the Luciano acquisition, I think the initial grade for return on Jay has to be an A+.

Luciano is young and shows good control, with room for his stuff to take a jump. Not saying it will happen, but there’s enough projection left in his lower legs that I would not be surprised if he gets a little stronger and sees his FB jump a tick to sit 94-95 instead of 92-93, and picks up a bit of bite on his slider and depth on his change.

Every year, there are a handful of helium prospects who make those jumps and come seemingly out of nowhere to become elite prospects. Not saying it will happen, but it wouldnt be a shock, either.

Also: just watching the mechanics, the arm action, and the way the ball comes out, I agree with Alex Duvall over at RoyalsReview... visually, he evokes Luis Severino. Not saying he’ll become that by any means, but thought it was cool.

Duncan, what's your opinion on the Luke Heimlech situation? Worth a look or no? Probably a moot point with GMDM

I read the SI piece. If I’m in a front office, I couldn’t pull the trigger on him. Just too much PR risk.

As a human being, I’m really torn on this. On one hand, what he pled guilty to is horrific and awful and if it happened to MY daughter, I don’t know what I’d do.

On the other, I do believe in rehabilitation and second chances. Does that mean, after serving his sentence, he should be able to pursue Baseball again? Or just be able to pursue a life as a productive member of society.

I don’t know.

I know that most abusers are victims of abuse and are broken in a way that makes them a danger to abuse others.

I also know that Heimlich falls into a little different category because of his age and the circumstances.

It’s a lot to wrestle with as a human being, IMO. Baseball decision is fairly easy.

There's nothing to wrestle with Duncan. He pled guilty to molesting a child, then recanted later when it hurt him personally, infuriating the parents of the child.

If that is as it sounds, he's a garbage human. Sorry but they do exist

Generally agree. My wife was a special victims prosecutor for several years, so I’ve seen first-hand how awful the abuse cycle is and how unlikely it is for someone to be OK/fixed.

His age at the time of the incident and the high likelihood of rehabilitation (it’s in the 90s) is the only thing that makes me do something other than automatically drop him in the garbage human being pile.

*** Official 2018 Royals Repository ***
 

I thought you were a no second chance-type guy because of the way you reacted to Tyreek’s situation. Have your thoughts on him changed too?

That’s a good question and something I need to think on. I was surprised by my reaction this situation, being honest and transparent. Not sure what about it gives me pause. Is it because he’s a white kid who plays baseball and was home schooled and I read a story that was intended to show his side as well? Why did I find enough in his side of the story to have some doubts about what should happen?

That’s a question I have to work through. Am I being more sympathetic to Heimlich here because his background is my background? If so, that’s hypocritical and wrong and I need to work through it.

I do generally believe in second chances and I think I stated as much re: Hill. He can get a second chance - just not with my team. It still disgusts me he’s a Chief.

I would be disgusted if the Royals had drafted Heimlich. Even if he became their ace and helped win a title, it would feel wrong.

Second chances and rehab are tough topics. There are some things you just can’t really be rehabbed from - sexual abuse generally is one of those (though recidivism for Heimlich’s specific abuse is generally very low, some of that is due to the low percentages of abuses reported).

Thanks for asking me, though. I need to introspect on this and see if it’s an opportunity I need to work on.

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Yep. Just read up on the situation. I'd feel every bit as disappointed with the Royals as I do with the Chiefs for drafting Tyreek. The nail in the coffin was his garbage denial when asked about the issue - which to me, was even worse than Tyreek's flippant responses to his personal situation in the months leading up to the draft.

What denial was that? I haven’t seen anything but the SI story on it, and there wasn’t a denial that jumped out at me. I was reading while supervising the kids, though, so maybe I missed it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/07/s...imes&smtyp=cur

Most of the where you'll find people falling on the situation comes down to how credible you find the denial.

I've told clients on several occasions that they have a 60/40 or 70/30 shot at a win but they're getting offered X and the X is good enough that they should just take the settlement and walk. They had a better case than the other guy, but a non-zero chance of losing and getting nothing.

Now I'd have a more difficult time doing that in a criminal situation but I can see a whole slew of situations where I'd at least consider that advice. And I have a hard time saying it's even 'bad' advice - had the information stayed private the kid would've almost unquestionably been better off for it and by all accounts this information was supposed to remain sealed.

And his former attorney would never be likely to come out and corroborate any of that even if it's true - it would paint him in a terrible light.

But I think a key difference that's perhaps being overlooked here, and it applies to Duncan's question regarding the distinction between his case and Hill's, is the legal and moral distinction between adult and juvenile offenders. We as a society have pretty much universally agreed that young kids ought not be held to the same standard as adults. It's the entire foundation of our juvenile justice system and that's the system that he was processed through and held accountable in.

So if we're going to hold someone morally accountable (or perhaps 'practically accountable' would be a better term) to the same level as someone who was adjudicated as an adult, why bother with a juvenile justice system at all? Societally we recognize the distinction and its benefit but when asked to actually practice what we preach here, we suddenly disregard the distinction?

Ultimately I'm not privy to any more information than has been made publicly available so I have no real way to make a credibility assessment here. Perhaps MLB teams have done interviews and simply don't buy his story, in which case the denial is troubling and maybe he shouldn't get a second bite. Then again, maybe several of them do believe him and simply don't want to put up with the backlash from their fans.

But even if you don't believe him, it does seem odd to me that people are treating a guy who committed this act as a juvenile, an act with an exceptionally high rate of rehabilitation, as though he was an adult when he did it and refusing to consider any additional nuance.

I've not sat down and really formed an opinion as to whether or not I'd want him in the Cardinals organization specifically because that's just not something I imagine Bill DeWitt would ever sign off on. But to say it poorly, I do kinda think that I think I would want some team to give him a shot. He truly might have been told to take a guilty plea and get his records sealed as a part of it; it's not beyond the pale at all. And even if he did do it, he was a juvenile who was was not actually guilty of a crime (that's not how it works in the juvenile system), who almost certainly presents no risk of recidivism and based strictly on merit has earned a shot.

:shrug: I dunno - I think it's worth more discussion than simply "**** that guy..."

Your analogy doesn't apply here DJ. Child molestation isn't a 60/40 proposition you need to calculate a probability of winning on. ROI, etc.


It's 100% either/or. You did it or you didn't. And if you didn't you go full-bore into court and plead innocence. And do so until you die, outcome independent. Nobody will EVER accuse me of that crap.

I will concede it's a different environment entirely (in fact I believe I started from that very point). But even in criminal cases we will acknowledge the possibility of 'no win situations' with Nolo Contendere pleas. And there are absolutely situations where people will take one of those because it's the path of least resistance.

It isn't a 'ROI' analysis in question here but rather a risk/reward one. I can't speak to what the actual possibilities were here - I have no idea what the law in his state was at the time (was it Washington?). But let's say he has a 25% chance of being convicted and spending the rest of his HS days in a juvenile detention center before being released into society without a HS degree and one hell of a problem on his resume to explain. Or he takes the plea, keeps moving forward with his life and 5 years later the records are sealed. An attorney would be committing malpractice to simply not discuss that sequence of events with him and insist he consider the potentially catostrophic downside of digging his heels in. The lawyer doesn't ultimately make the call, but there's no way he should have gone into a room with him and that family and said what you're saying "Screw even thinking about the offer man - if you didn't do it, fight it".

A lot of people will naturally come to that conclusion on their own, no doubt. I'd suggest a majority would. But some absolutely wouldn't. What Heimlich did was almost certainly the path of least resistance and presented by far and away the least amount of risk. There's an argument, even if a fairly tenuous one, in favor of exactly what he claims he did and it happens in offices and courtrooms around the country daily. Because in the end, you know 100% whether you did or didn't do it, but the finder of fact doesn't. And even if you know you didn't do it, you can never be 100% certain that the folks that are about to decide whether your life is effectively obliterated are going to comet o that same conclusion.

You did mention criminality.

But even there, diff levels of crime. Someone accuses me of theft, I'd plea down to avoid a felony, pay the fine, and move on. But some, I'll fight to the death. Child molestation is one.

Genuinely curious how folks would view a less 'icky' but more tragic fact pattern.

A lot of us drank in High School, right? Many of us more than we should have. And at 15 yrs old many of us had access to a car for permit driving, etc... So if the parents are out of town, our buddies come over and we get lit on Boone's farm. Then I get in the car for a fast food run, blow a light and kill a little girl in a car accident.

Your distinctions are pretty clear here - one was technically an accident, but legally there are a lot of 'voluntary' acts that went into it. You're almost certainly still going to be subject to a juvenile system because again - as a society we recognize that at that age you just don't have the cognitive development to make as fully formed of a decision as you'll make as an adult; basic human physiology at work there. But you've also killed someone.

I think most people would be more inclined to call that a 'tragic accident' and allow the kid another shot under that fact pattern. Not all, maybe not most. But I don't think the guy goes undrafted in that situation. And while the key distinction is that the molestation required an overt, intentional act at the time it was done - the drunk driving did as well. And in both circumstances we subject a person to juvenile penalties because we recognize that the judgment that went into both of those decisions was from a person who simply isn't mature enough to exercise adult decision-making.

And I'll admit my own hypocrisy here in that I've not really been impacted by either kinds of situations in my life and I'd be more inclined to get behind the car accident kid in the Cardinals organization myself. But I do think I'm engaging in some logical inconsistency there.

Like I said - I have no reason to doubt you would. And I think most would.

But I think it's naive to say everyone would. That's simply not the case.

If you'll acknowledge that you have your own gradient as to when/where you'd consider taking a rap for something you didn't do because the risk/reward worked out that way, then surely you have to also acknowledge that not everyone has the same rubric you do.

I think he should be able to work and move forward but not in MLB not being a role model or potential to be around kids for sure. Personally hope no team signs him. Jmo

Wouldn't a drunk driving analogue to Heimlich's situation be as follows:

1) You were drunk.
2) You drive a vehicle that matches a witness' description of one which was driving erratically and caused another driver to fatally crash in a place not watched by cameras.
3) You were apprehended in the vicinity of the crash though not currently driving the vehicle, the vehicle showed signs of being in operation recently, had a BAC which suggests you were drunk at the time of the crash of the other car as well as being defined as an impaired driver at the time of the crash.

?

In trying to have the 'morality' conversation I simply set aside the question of 'credibility'. I'm assuming for the sake of the dialogue on this particular question anyway that he DID commit both offenses.

And if he did, would you view the drunk driving situation in a different light as the molestation one? I think virtually all would and most would be lighter on the drunk driver despite his more dire consequences. I think I probably would be.

And I'm not entirely certain I'd be justified in doing so.

It's definitely a fair talking point. I think the difference may lie in what you pointed out in the beginning. Almost all of us(certainly me)probably, idiotically, drove at least somewhat inebriated in our younger days. While this is a vile act(and I'm forever grateful I didn't hurt or kill anyone), the intent to harm someone isn't there. Nobody gets behind the wheel when drunk and thinks "lemme go kill some folks." Molesting a child is a purposeful, disgraceful act. Many people drive at least buzzed daily with no negative consequences. A child's life is 100% of the time damaged or ruined if they get molested.

To be clear, I'm certainly not saying driving intoxicated is anywhere close to okay. If a drunk driver killed one of my kids, somebody would certainly go to prison for years and I assure you, it wouldn't be the driver. I'm just saying, sometimes intent does matter.

That's what has me thinking. Did he and his folks sit down and decide that it was better to take the plea knowing it Should be sealed and then xpunged be better long term for have career vs fighting it the whole way?

I just remember how dead set you were on not drafting Hill. I believe in 2nd chances because everyone makes mistakes here & there. I’m willing to give everyone another chance even though some aren’t able to change their ways.

Since this is now a drunk thread...

Andy is HAMMERED...

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Should the Royals take a chance and sign Luke Heimlich?

Worth the backlash? Worked for the Chiefs with Tyreek.

Fans will forgive if the results show up on the field. Or was the crime too heinous?

Have you met Dayton "Real men don't use porn" Moore?

6-year-olds dude.

I can cheer for a guy who lost his temper in the heat of the moment, hasn't repeated his mistake, and shows real remorse and contrition. You don't molest a child in the heat of the moment.

Same reason the Chiefs don't play that Gary Glitter song anymore.