Yeah, he was back in Springfield with NWA last night. Hoping he's still here.

As to why our farm should be looked at with more of a mid 2010's optimism than a mid 2000's mirage.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">How absurd is this? Royals pitchers from 2018 MLB Draft:<br><br>Brady Singer (MLB): 3.96 ERA<br>Kris Bubic (MLB): 0.96 ERA<br>Jackson Kowar (Triple A): 1.15 ERA<br>Jonathan Bowlan (Double A): 1.65 ERA<br>Jon Heasley (Double A): 1.93 ERA<br>Josh Dye (Double A): 1.13 ERA<br>Zach Haake (High A): 1.69 ERA</p>&mdash; Alec Lewis (@alec_lewis) <a href="https://twitter.com/alec_lewis/status/1395443259309281281?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 20, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

To be fair, we need a higher percentage of our young talent to "hit", than the 2010's pipeline. The understated thing about our farm system of a century was how many busts we had (basically all of our stud pitching - Monty, Lamb, Dwyer & Arguelles). Duffy was literally the biggest pitching success story we had from that time. Our system was so deep then that it didn't matter how many busts we had or that none of our bats became MVP caliber players (Cain is an exception, but he emerged a bit later than the 2011 class I’m thinking of and also got there from his D).. That depth allowed us to trade even our flame-outs (Lamb and Monty) to give our young talent on offense the extra pieces they need for a World Series.

Admittedly, our current system isn't as deep and can't afford that high of a bust percentage. We'd also be hugely benefitted by finally developing a star player on offense (Looking at you, Witt and Mondesi) But, if we're more fortunate with our pitching prospects this time around (and our pitching prospects now have more potential than ours from the Mid-2010's), we can easily become a force and be in contention again.

Monty Lamb Odorizzi Finnegan Reed led us to

Shields
Davis
Cueto

IOW: smashing success

Absolutely.

Cody Reed, Brandon Finnegan and John Lamb led us to an ace who pitched two two hitters in the 2015 playoffs. The fact that Sean Manaea has been the most successful piece we parted with in that run should be an endorsement to always put the chips in to win a title when you can.

Hosmer In 4th year has been worth +0.7fWAR total for SD. Zips projects him to be worth 0.0 over the next 3.


That would be 7 years, $126 million, not even 1 win. Woof!

Just got mine for June 18. Gonna be vacationing in Missouri to visit family. Will be my first time in Kauffman since 2009.

However San Diego is a legit contender and fun as hell to watch. I doubt they'll give 2 shits about that contract if he's part of a winner.

By far GMDM's best move as a GM.

But did he ruin MLB? He’s the one who introduced extreme heat into the sport with his 2014 team, which relied heavily on the last 3 innings where heat was the focus. Everyone copied him since.


For those who forget: 97+ mph pitches this season: Royals 2,287, Twins 1


https://mlb.nbcsports.com/wp-content...ph-pitches.jpg



TLDR: more than #2 and #3 combined.



https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2014/10/29...-2287-twins-1/

My take? He exploited an inefficiency. It's now up to the game to adjust.

They'll adjust by moving the mound back, most likely.

They’ll lower the mound before they do that

Great move by accident, they wanted Hosmer and listed him as the top priority to re-sign long term.

Also made two stupid cost cutting trades to try to lock him up.

Yes - we have strong pitching but we need to flip these guys for some offense. Outside of the potential of Witt Jr, I can't recall the organization having more of a barren offensive MiLB system.