Who Was Your Least Favorite Royal of 2009?

and his noodle arm. Watching Mike Jacobs strikeout while chewing wood was entertaining at least. So was watching Olivo strikeout and allow 1 passed ball per game.

What about Alex Gordon. He sucked too.

He can throw..but since he can’t run or catch, it doesn’t do him any good.

12 million is the deciding factor. Lots of really bad moves, but Guillen and Farnsworth top the list.

Coco as well. We threw away a lot of cash and a prospect only to have him hurt the whole season.

Juan Cruise who cost more then Farnsworth due to losing our 2nd round pick and was the only decent sabermetric pick up for Moore and even he was terrible.

Coco Crisp as both of his arms fell off

Aviles, who only had one arm fell off but he was villified even though Coco was playing with one arm as well.

Trey go ahead and let Meche throw 132 pitches when he has a bad back Hillman

The Royals rub in some dirt medical staff

Dayton the guy who made all these moves Moore

John go ahead and stay with the team instead of retiring with dignity Bale

Costa and Lewbanski who had a shot at the majors but ….see medical staff.

The list goes on…

I have hope for the guy…..but watching him get rocked every other game….and then seeing him miss a runner going from 2nd to 3rd right in front of him while he walked to the mound, staring at the dirt was brutal….but since the aStache was gone, Gibbons was there to caress him in the dugout….as he hung his head even lower in shame.

but I’ll try.

1. Guillén
2. Farnsy
3. Betancourt
4. Ponson
5. Jake

I really wanted to give #1 to “Mad Dog” Farnsy, but he’s merely a lousy reliever, while Guillén is supposed to be a power-hitting everyday right fielder and is the highest-paid player on the team.

This really is a tough one, so many players to hate.

Farnsworth had the inexplicably big contract and was awful.
Betancourt signing made no sense whatsoever and he may have been worse than TPJ
Jacobs predictably was awful and left a city on base sucking up the 4 hole

I’d have to go with Betancourt, mostly because his signing went against everything Moore said he wanted to do with the team yet he defended the move constantly. At least we didn’t have to see Farnsworth everyday, but when I did he was extremely aggravating.

I have no reason to hate guys like Anderson, Freel, Ponson, Wright, Bloomquist. None of those guys are anything more than warm bodies and it’s not their fault they were used differently.

I hated the fact that he was a Royals since the second I heard we signed him, and his contract just makes it worse. I was in Yankee Stadium in September and watched 8 innings of a Royals victory, and then he came in to blow the game…I hope he gets his (I use this term loosely) pitching arm chewed off by badgers.

Rabid badgers.

Shouldn’t this have been a poll?

I guess it would be Betancourt, because of what it revealed to me about our GM. I didn’t hate the trades of Jacobs and signing of Farnsworth. Those were gambles, big gambles even, but there was a small chance they could have worked out. I don’t remember the exact quote, but it was something like “Dayton replaced the worst shortstop in baseball and didn’t actually fix the problem. He still has the worst shortstop in baseball.”. And the blind defense of the move has really bugged me too.

Surprised there’s not one TPJ vote in here.

SO many candidates. Hard to pick just one.

I’ll attempt some logic:

Jacobs, Farnsworth, Betancourt, Ponson, Bloomquist, T Pena, H Ramirez: all of their performances were not all that different than what any reasonable person would have expected, right? So picking one of them is really misdirected anger that should be pointed at Moore.

Anderson, Freel: These two were merely reflections of a misguided fetish of the GM to acquire speedy, defensive- oriented outfield types REGARDLESS of their offensive skills. (or even if their perceived defense was a myth)

Wright: Not that horrible, IF, and I mean IF, the manager recognized him and used him in the proper role; i.e., 12th man/long reliever out of the bullpen. Instead, Hillman decided this was the guy to use in high leverage, need-a-groundball situations, DESPITE the fact that was only a perceived strength of Wright’s, not an actual one.

That leaves our winner: GUILLEN. Why Guillen? Well, to me, he is the one guy on this list who missed his potential by the farthest. Mind you, I’m not saying he could or should have been good – but he at least should have been above replacement value, at least offensively. We all knew his legs were gone on defense, and that Hillman should NOT have been playing him in RF at all – but I honestly think he should have been capable of putting up a 275/320/450 line. HE WASN’T EVEN CLOSE! Throw in the budget crippling effect of his contract, and we have our runaway winner.

It is really stunning how many legit candidates there are to discuss on this topic.

I’m going to go ahead and take Trey Hillman… or Dayton Moore. I have come to despise both after having high hopes that they would do good things for the organization. But Moore continues to chase bad players (Juan Pierre and Jason Kendall were/are targets, really???) and Hillman mis-uses the crap he’s given to work with. It is sad, but I think I preferred the days when the Royals sucked because they wouldn’t spend money to the current days when the Royals suck because they spend money on all of the wrong players.

And everybody gets Greinke, Soria, Butler, and DDJ as free plays.

I agree with the sentiment that it says something about your favorite team when there are more guys to dislike than like.

I have to go with Wright and Maier. I agree that if there were a vote, considering contract and production, it would be Guillen. I also have to admit that my votes are tainted by Hillman’s use of these two guys.

It seems, on the rare occasion we would have a 2 or 3 run lead in the 6th or 7th, in would come Wright to walk someone. His inability to throw a strike when that was all he had to do earned my vote. To the posts above, he would come in sometimes with men on to get the ground ball. He would promptly walk one or two and then we would be in a real jam. 44 walks in 79 innings. When he threw that double play ball into center field in Anaheim, I was ready to cut him on the spot.

I also agree that Maier is not the worst player on this team, but I don’t understand what he was giving the team? He can’t hit. He has no power (other than the one week he hit all of his career home runs). He had a few assists, but often took the wrong route on balls and air-mailed throws. Again, not the worst player, but 397 PAs is too much exposure for me. The fact that he got this much PT just highlighted how bad the R’s are.

This is a great topic.as I love to hate and love to express my hateness.
Jacobs - I actually liked, it’s unfortuante he was horrible but he was certainly not my least favorite Royal. Probably my favorite in this list.
Guillen – wasn’t even on the field for me to hate. He was a no-show. He didn’t have any off the field antics for me to hate on.
Josh Anderson/Ryan Freel - I hate what they represent but I don’t think I hate them.
Yu Bet - From the day I saw that name I was repulsed. I hate his face, his play on the field, everything. I hate the fact he’ll be here for a while.
Willie Bloomquist – I cringed when we signed him but he’s a decent backup player, unfortuantely he was forced to actually you know, start. Not his fault but after watching him play he’s not too bad, just made more appearences than I had hoped for.
Jamey Wright – Don’t hate him because he would actually come through with some double play balls that are defense couldn’t handle.
TPJ – He gets an E for effort. Was actually rooting for him to make it s a pitcher.
Sidney – Oh you mean Kenny Powers? hate him.
Horacio - I hated him with an incredibly strong passion but after the first week of the seaosn he never even showed up for me to hate more of. Probably would have won the honor.
Kyle Farnsworth - I hate his name, the fact he did that tackle 8 years ago, I hate his truck, his goofy glasses, the fact he’s going to be here again. I didn’t care if it was the 6th inning while we were up or down 8 runs, he was one of my least favorite players.

The winner – Yu-Bet - just like in any other metric playing every day does count and although he didn’t make it here until July – he played everyday and I hate everything about him and what he represents in this organization.
Runner up was Farnsworth. With shout outs to Sidney Ponson and Horacio Ramirez.

He’s hilarious. If you’re not going to win you might as well laugh.

Can we make a poll on this question because the comments are endless!! I vote Ryan Freel, he made 4mil last yr & was pathetic!!!

of the ones who are listed – Betancourt for what he represents as a whole about the team

Guillen has to be a consideration but the guy I absolutely grew to hate was Sabrtrey Hillman

Even if he sucks, he’s giving it all he’s got fighting to stay in the Show. Now, a guy making twelve million a year, who doesn’t seem to give a rat’s ass, that’s something different.