Season Preview: Kansas City Royals

Well we've got 18 days left until Opening Day, which means it's season preview time. We'll be running it down team by team, with an added new wrinkle this time around: the beer of choice for fans of the team to enjoy whilst watching their team take the field! Nothing like that to help get you through a baseball season, especially if you're from Pittsburgh. Up next: the Kansas City Royals.


Lineup: Billy Butler and average-to-poor hitters. Not a catchy band name, and not a good recipe for an MLB lineup, either. Alex Gordon might still have some talent that he's not shown, Alberto Callaspo might have decent OBP for a second baseman and David DeJesus could be worse, but there is nothing here after that. NL pitchers figured out Rick Ankiel to the tune of a sub-.300 OBP. Jason Kendall hasn't been a viable catcher since 2004. Scott Podsednik had a fluky 2009 that saw him post a career-high OBP, but we doubt that he repeats it. Josh Fields has shown nothing in his time in the majors, and Yuniesky Betancourt is, literally, the worst hitter (non-pitching category, though we'd take Micah Owings, Dontrelle Willis, and Carlos Zambrano over him in a heartbeat) in baseball. Good times!


Rotation: Zack Greinke is probably the odds-on favorite to repeat the AL Cy Young because of how utterly dominant he was last season. After that, you have what's left of Gil Meche after arm and back injuries, the no-strikeout-plenty-walk Kyle Davies, the wildly inconsistent Luke Hochevar, and sabersphere fave Brian Bannister - preferred more for his approach than his actual results. On the bright side, they might make Kyle Farnsworth a starter, which is reason enough for us to buy MLB.tv right there. Because we like making fun of Kyle Farnsworth.


Bullpen: There are two good arms here. Well, one great one and one very good one, to be fair. Joakim Soria - the Mexicutioner - is one of the best in baseball at what he does, and Juan Cruz can miss bats with the best of them. Beyond that...detritus. Phil Humber was a prospect for the Mets once upon a time, but he's not even a sure bet to break camp. Who else would you trust to throw plenty of innings here, Matt Herges? Roman Colon? Bryan Bullington? Josh Rupe? The corpse of Jorge Campillo? No thanks.


Overall: The bright spots - Billy Butler, Zack Greinke, maybe Alex Gordon and David DeJesus, plus prospects Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas - are definitely pieces to build around...but Dayton Moore has surrounded this fondation with trash. They can't hit, they can't field, they can't pitch, they can't run bases...but they sure can finish in last place!


Predicted Record: 62-100, 5th place AL Central


Beer: Negra Modelo. A dunkel, the dark-yet-caramel flavor pairs nicely with barbecue. And considering the state of the Royals, it may be best to watch them over a plate of KC BBQ at a bar than in person. That way you get some enjoyment out of it. Except on days when Kyle Farnsworth is pitching. Get bleacher seats for those fiestas!

Tater Tots

It's been awhile since we've posted, mostly because, well, we have nothing really to say.  We wanted this blog to be a daily thing where we'd talk about the day in baseball and what happened the night before, but that quickly became difficult to maintain with our schedule.  This blogging stuff is hard work, yo.

Anyway, since we failed so miserably in that regard, we decided to try to only write about abstract baseball issues, like why the idea of "closers" sucks, who should trade whom, things like that.  But then we came to realize that there's not a whole lot of that type of story out there.  Failure #2! 

So every so often, we're going to have posts like today's, called Tater Tots after one of my favorite euphemisms for home runs.  Basically it's like a bullet point list of baseball thoughts. Fun!

• Don't buy the Marlins' hot start.  11-1 is great, but 6 games against the Nats will help that record immensely.  Yeah, great teams win the games they're supposed to, but beating up on the Nationals is taking that to a new level.  Plus, they needed 9th-inning comebacks 3 times in the series, and extra innings in two. 

• On a similar note, we hate the early-season power polls and rankings.  No one really believes, for example, that the Marlins are among the top 5 best teams in the league, and no one really thinks the Padres are anywhere near escaping the worst 10.  Why spend an entire offseason analyzing teams only to throw it away in the power rankings that you write in the first week of the season?  

• And, to keep harping, people really love the small sample size results.  Jason Marquis pitches today for the Rockies; he has a 1.98 ERA.  This does not mean that he is a good pitcher, people.  If he were to post a 3-start stretch with a 1.98 ERA in July, no one would notice.  The beginning of the season just puts a bigger microscope on everything.  

• Boy, those three things probably could've been made into a coherent post, huh?

• Schadenfreude: Emilio Bonifacio, he of the .500 flirting, was hitting .485 a week ago.  He's gone 1-20 since, with 9 K's.  Thanks, Jayson Stark!

• New Yankee Stadium has been quite a launching pad.  We're sure you've heard this elsewhere, too, but...11 HR in 4 games?  Goodness.  We watched their debacle against the Indians on Saturday and balls that looked like bloop hits were carrying to the wall.  Some people say the ball is juiced, some people say it's a random statistical fluctuation - you know, the kind we've been talking about for this entire post.  We hate to accuse MLB of anything untoward, but it sure looks to us like they're doing something with the balls.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is basically proof positive that there's tampering going on: we, one of the least-read blogs ever, kinda sorta accused them of it!

• Elijah Dukes.  That's really all you need to see to know that some kind of craziness is going on.  But hey, this time, it's not some bizarre death threat or assault or impregnation!  No, Dukes is actually the victim in this one.  He showed up 5 minutes late to the pregame stretching - a critical part of any routine, as anyone who's ever gone to a game knows from watching a couple of dudes randomly wave their legs around - and was summarily benched for the day and fined.  But why was he late, you might ask?  He needs to learn that he has responsibilities to the team, right?  To which we would answer: no.  Elijah Dukes is beholden to no man, and you'd best not forget that.  But seriously - dude was late because he was out playing with little kids.  Er...working with the Little League team that he helps coach and organize.  Sorry to mislead.  Manny Acta said that they need to maintain a culture of timeliness and organization, and that there's zero tolerance for stuff like being tardy to meetings.  Because you were working with a Little League team.  C'mon, Manny.  Oh, and the guy who played in Dukes' place?  Yeah, he broke his ankle.  

• That's all we've got for now.  Here bringing in Kyle Farnsworth to relieve us.  Which means, of course, that there's going to be another tater tot to follow.  Hey oh!

• Seriously, though.  Farnsworth gave up another game-losing bomb.  He has 3 L's.  The Royals have 5.

Yesterday's Players of Note

Every day we're going to mention 5 or so players (we're not much for hard and fast rules around here) whose performance in the day before warrants mention. They aren't listed in any particular order, and it could be for reasons good or bad; the only caveat is that it has to be on the field work. Players of Note will not, for example, cover dudes who get trashed and get arrested for peeing in the street (here's looking at you, Jake!). You know, unless it's a really fun story. Like we said: hard and fast...not so much.

Trevor Cahill: The highly touted Cahill made his major league debut yesterday against the Angels, and...well, he sorta disappointed.  He went 5, allowing 5 hits and surrendering 5 walks.  Someone get the man a footlong!  He did record his first ever K, though it was his only one of the game.  Only 2 ER, but 57 strikes in 103 pitches isn't gonna get the job done, kid. 

Ubaldo Jimenez: How about Ubaldo!  7 strong, allowing 4 H, 3 BB, and 0 ER, while fanning 8.  This is what we should be getting used to seeing from the kid with the electric arm; if he can harness the kind of talent that he displayed in the second half of '07 for an entire season...well, the Rockies still won't be very good, but he'll get plenty of attention.  Props to his counterpart as well; Dan Haren K'd 9 while allowing only 3 hits and 1 run over 7.

Tim Lincecum: Just when you think you know a guy, he goes and does something like this: 3 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 3 BB, 5 K.  78 pitches for Timmy in this go-round.  The reason why we're mentioning hin here is the fact that he only went 3.  Yeah, he was struggling, but why pull the best pitcher in the NL after 78 pitches?  Give him a chance to sort it out.  We're just hoping that it's not an injury concern; the Giants say that it wasn't, but giants are notoriously untrustworthy. Not that that has anything to do with Brian Sabean; we just felt it warranted mentioning.

Chipper Jones: Perhaps this is a bit of self-indulgence here, but we are the ones who write this blog.  The KCSD Hero was 2-4 with a flapjack and a double, putting him at a nifty .500/.500/1.125 line for the season.  MVP-caliber numbers?  We think so.  And we dare you to disagree.

Kyle Farnsworth: The Farns is at it again, serving up an 8th inning four-bagger to Big Jim Thome to secure the loss for the Royals.  Good thing they gave him $9.25 mil over 2 years; in no way will they regret feeling the need to justify that contract by giving him crucial 8th-inning appearances that could go to Juan Cruz and Joakim Soria.