Futures Game Photos - Round 2

Here is my second update of Futures Game Photos.  Got some good ones of Yordano Ventura, some more of Wil Myers (notice a trend here?), and some other top prospects you may have heard of.  Enjoy.

Yordano Ventura

Yordano Ventura

Topps should pay me to put this on Ventura's baseball card

Futures Game Photos

For All-Star Sunday I made my way out to the Futures Game where I got to see Jake Odorizzi, Yordano Ventura, and Wil Myers all play and represent KC and the future of the Royals.  My seats were excellent and as such I was able to get a bunch of good pictures.  I got most of them of the Royals prospects but a few others sprinkled in as well.  There will be more to come.

Wil Myers

NEW 610 Post - Kansas City is the Real All-Star

We're officially halfway through All-Star weekend and I think it's safe to say that Kansas City has done incredibly well.  As we all know, I'm a huge fan of my city and love it so it's great to see us handle the national stage so well.  So great, in fact, that I wrote a post about it this week on 610sports.com.

Read it here.

NEW 610 Post - 2012 is Opportunity Time

2012 Seems well on its way to being your average Royals season.  90+ wins and a disappointed fan base seem like they might be in the cards based on recent showings by this team.  Even so, 2012 is a big opportunity for the Royals.  They can buck convention and turn this team into winner, all they need is a little innovation.

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NEW 610 Post - Is Effort Worth the Effort?

In my most recent post for 610 Sports I talked about "effort."  An abstract concept but one that comes up a lot, especially when talking about the Royals under Dayton Moore.  Words like "grit" are thrown around jokingly now, but how important is effort?  It isn't something that is quantifiable but what should be expected from these players in terms of "effort" over a 162 game season?  I explore that a little deeper in my most recent post.

Read It Here

New 610 Post - Royals Need to Adapt

The Royals have remained stagnant as an organization long enough.  They need to hold themselves accountable, step up to the plate and realize that they are not the victims of their circumstance.  They will be able to compete and need to take the proper steps to ensure that happens.

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NEW 610 POST - Royals Need to Stop Making Excuses

The Royals came out this season touting something new and different that the fans could be proud of.  With the All-Star game coming to town, we had a team we could call our own that was supposed to be different that the past iterations that did things like lose 19 games in a row.  A team loaded with young talent only meant that any promise we had seen was just the tip of the iceberg.  There would be more to come. 


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Rexed Out - Royals Fans Need to Relax

Photo - John Sleezer KC Star

The Royals marketing folks decided on “Our Time” as a slogan this year for a few reasons.  This was not to suggest an inevitability of winning after so many years of losing.  Rather, this was to signify the idea that a franchise that couldn’t get out of its on way for a nearly two decades has finally taken ownership of its situation.  The steps to turn this team into a winner have finally been taken.

It’s no mistake that the campaign consists of highlighting many of the young stars on this team.^  These young and talented players represent the changing of the guard.  They are the new faces that are helping to usher in a new era of Royals baseball.  “Our Time” signifies a new direction for the club and one that the fans can be proud of.  What happened in the past is the past but the future is bright here in Kansas City and that is the impetus behind that slogan.

^ Not that there are any old stars on this team with one of the youngest rosters in baseball, but you get my point.

In my most recent post on 610Sports.com I talk about what KC sports fans can look forward to after the Super Bowl:


The bye week in between the Super Bowl always seemed completely arbitrary to me.  After 20 weeks of grueling competition week after week, they league decides to give the teams a free break before the biggest games of their lives.  On the surface this makes a lot of sense, it allows the teams more time to prepare and can give us a better game to watch.  Yet, we all know the real reason is to drum up more publicity and make sure it’s the most watched event of the year (which it usually is).


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Mission 2012: How Do the Royals Pitchers Stack Up?

An interesting idea was proposed to me recently (via @grogg on twitter): how does the front end of the projected Royals 2012 rotation, compare with the playoff teams front end starters from 2011?  Well, there is a lot that goes in to this question. 

First, it will have to be determined who the front end starters for the Royals are.  That, in and of itself, is pretty much the issue, but I digress.  Right now, most will agree that the locks for the rotation are Luke Hochevar, Jonathan Sanchez, and Bruce Chen.  Felipe Paulino and Danny Duffy are the leaders in the clubhouse for the other two spots but Mike Montgomery, Aaron Crow, and possibly Everett Teaford and Luis Mendoza will also factor in.  If Montgomery or Crow show they’re ready for the rotation the Royals will not hesitate to move Duffy or Paulino to the pen or down to the minors.

That said, I think the front end of the rotation has Hochevar and Sanchez and locks and that 3^rd front end spot will probably go to Chen but if Paulino pitches as he did last year it’s possible he could snatch up that spot.  In order to move forward with this exercise we will have to determine who gets that #3 slot. 

In 2011, Bruce Chen had, by all accounts, a pretty good year.  With a 3.77 ERA, and a 12-8 record Chen was the best pitcher on staff, statistically.  That is assuming you are just looking at the “surface level” stats.  While I don’t ever purport to be a SABRMetrics expert or a snob, at this point I think we can all agree that peripheral numbers are just as important as ERA.  Looking at those, the case for Chen begins to dissipate. 

The Melk-man Goeth

You know it’s gonna be a legit post when I have not one but two hyphenated play on words in the title.  Oh yeah, that’s right Royals fans our GM made a move we can all be proud of.  Technically, he made two moves that should make us proud.  The signing of Melky Cabrera in December of 2010 was universally panned.  Even as low risk as it was, nearly everybody saw no value in bringing in a traditionally overweight, underachieving center fielder, who isn’t really a center fielder.  Not to mention, no more than 10 days later the Royals acquired a bright young center field talent through the Zack Greinke trade in Lorenzo Cain.

Eventually Melky won the starting job, Cain was relegated to AAA and the season began.  What happened was a career year for Cabrera.  The Melk-man put up a line of (BA/OBP/SLG/OPS) .305/.339/.470/.809 with 18 HRs and 87 RBIs.  This was a career year for Cabrera and makes him look like a borderline all-star.  He didn’t walk much, but his strike rate wasn’t outlandish either, he made a lot of contact and got a lot of hits.  Having a .332 BABIP showed that it wasn’t as much luck as you would think.  It’s not unheard of for a good hitter to pull off that kind of BABIP for an extended period of time.  However, someone like Cabrera gives you doubts in that department.  All in all, Cabrera was near the top of the team while accumulating a 4.2 WAR.

This proved to be a valuable signing.  By all accounts Melky was a positive influence in the clubhouse and he was a positive influence on the field.  He is not a “true” center fielder, he lacks the range and athleticism the position requires, but he did an adequate job.  He didn’t make a lot of plays but there weren’t many plays he didn’t make either (that he should have).  He legitimately was worth the solid WAR he put up for the 2011 season.

My Apology to Alex Gordon

I have to say it.  This goes out to Alex Gordon; I am sorry.  There were people who had given up on the man we lovingly now call A1 (thanks to his text-in all star vote tag as well as the solid compliment to Billy Butlers “Country Breakfast” nickname).  I was one of them.  I said we should have traded Gordon before this year while there was still hope for him.  He still had some value because you could convince a team that he still might figure it out.  One more season of subpar play and that ship would have sailed.

The question is did I really have reason to think differently of any of this?  Gordon was the epitome of what we had been promised for years as Royals fans.  Somebody was going to come along and save this franchise.  Somebody was going to come along and the George Brett for a new generation.  Enter Alex Gordon.  He played 3^rd base, he threw with his right hand, and he hit with his left hand, all just like Brett.

Gordon was college player of the year in 2005 when he was drafted.  In 2006, his first full year in the minors, Gordon dominated in a way we had never seen.  He had a line of (BA/OBP/SLG/OPS) .325/.427/.588/1.015 with 29 HRs and 101 RBIs.  This was enough to make him Minor League Player of the year.  He was going to be the guy who could put up the same numbers in the pros and be the legit superstar to bring this franchise back to its greatness.

Buck 100

New 610 Post alert.  Recently, I had the pleasure of talking to Bob Kendrick, President of the Negro League Baseball Museum while on the Royalman Report.  Bob was able to share some stories about Buck and give us the heads up on events coming up this weekend for the Buck 100 events they are planning on having.  It was a special show and the Buck 100 events are going to be great for the Negro League Baseball Museum and Kansas City itself.  Head on over to 610 to read the post here:

http://www.610sports.com/pages/11209444.php?pid=179876

You can listen to the podcast and find all you want to know about the Royalman Report and how to follow the podcast here:

http://kingsofkauffman.com/podcast/

The 3x3 Pitching Method and How it Will Help the Royals

In my Royals 2011 season in review I talked about how going in to 2012, the concerns are not with the offense as the Royals were in the top 10 in nearly every important statistical category, they lie with the starting pitching.  Ranking no higher than 25^th in any meaningful pitching statistical category the Royals have a lot of work to do before next season if they want to truly compete for a playoff sport or division championship (and with 3 elite teams in the East, they pretty much have to win the division to make the playoffs).

How the Royals are going to solve their pitching problem is up in the air right now, and I have a suggestion for how the Royals should approach their conundrum.  This is going out on a bit of a limb, but follow with me here and I may be able to put up some convincing arguments, although there are just as many that will probably say I’m an idiot, this will still be a fun exercise.

Kansas City Royals 2011 Season Review

Well it’s in the books.  The 2011 Royals season, the most exciting one since 2003, has ended with the Royals at a solid if not unspectacular 71-91.  The usual “thank God it’s over” attitude has been displaced with the “I can’t wait till next season,” attitude.  The Royals have had 20,000+ fans at nearly all the September games all this while we are still having football season.  The reason for this is the youthful air of excitement around the Royals team and players that are making us all think that the future in Kansas City is extremely bright. 

Looking back on this season, with the exception of a small blip around June, I really don’t remember having a negative thought about this team.  We all knew what this was when we came in to this season, the Royals weren’t going to compete for anything meaningful but they were going to bring a lot of players up from the minors and they needed to develop.  Both those suppositions became reality as the Royals started the season with an incredibly young bullpen with players such as Aaron Crow, Tim Collins, Greg Holland, and Blake Wood, then bringing up players like Louis Coleman and Everett Teaford. 

2012 The Year of Kansas City

It is a tortured existence to be a Kansas City sports fan.  I know places like Cleveland, Boston, and Philadelphia feel like they are some of the most tortured cities, but right now, in 2011, they don’t measure up to KC.  Philadelphia just won the World series in 2008 and is in the midst of a burgeoning dynasty, so they’re out.  After years of coming up short the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 and 2007, oh yeah and the Patriots won in 2001, 2003, and 2004 with an appearance in 2007, with the cherry on top of the Celtics winning in 2008 and having a championship appearance in 2010; so Boston’s out.  Cleveland is the closest but they had Lebron and a NBA finals appearance, not to mention those Indian teams in the ‘90’s that got them a World Series appearance and they have made the playoffs in the last 5 years.  The Royals haven’t made the playoffs since 1985 and haven’t come close, the Chiefs haven’t been to the Super Bowl since 1970 and haven’t won a playoff game in 17 years.  No sports town is more tortured than Kansas City.

I am here to say that Kansas City sports can start to get excited because the arrow is pointing up.  With the Royals seemingly headed towards another 100 loss season and the Chiefs season ending horrifically, why would I say such a thing?  Well as it turns out both the Royals and Chiefs may not have great seasons in 2011, but this year is but a stepping stone towards the greatness that lies ahead in 2012.

Why do I have such an optimistic attitude about 2012 with seemingly no evidence to help my theory?  Well that’s why The Jeff Report is here, to point out the evidence as to why enduring this coming sports year will make the next one so special.