and I am a Royals fan.

(“Welcome Cole” response in the context of a support group)

such as the people who will point to Jacobs hitting home runs in another city and that we gave him up and didn’t get anything for him. Trust me, if people can find nostalgia for Leo Nunez, the most generic reliever possible. Then it’s possible. Same goes for people who will bring up trading Affeldt as if it’s a horrible thing. They will keep grinding on anything.

Especially if the person replacing Mike Jacobs doesn’t have a higher batting average and/or more home runs than Mike Jacobs.

Dayton Moore is past the point of no return, but he did manage to inject his own kind of junk into the Royals system. While the pitching seems to be going in the right direction, Moore’s 1970s offensive philosophy has led to the Royals minor league offenses being some of the more feeble in all of minor league baseball.

Runs scored and given up are what separate winners from losers. The 5 tools are not created equal. Some tools are better than others. But this organization prefers to draft track stars and hopes that they can figure out how to swing a bat.

That doesn’t cover the fact that the commentators and media idea of what makes a good team is so ridiculously wrong.

You can have all the pitching and defense that you want, but when you don’t have offense, you do not win. You DO NOT WIN. I’d like more of a balance between offense, pitching and defense, if possible. But anybody suggesting that we trade one of our best bats (Callaspo) to get some no-hit middle infielder is a fucking moron who doesn’t know how baseball games are won.

That being said. It was nice to see S-Key show up for his third good game as a Royal.

Also nice to see Mike Jacobs keep up his trend of reaching on defense fuckups and being involved in weird plays (such as the hit to the wall in Houston). Voodoo Mike strikes again. If only his dad would have taught him to switch hit.

And the day that we fire Trey Hillman and give John Gibbons an audition will be glorious. We wouldn’t have lost by just 1 with Trey running the ship. Did you notice that John Gibbons press conference was conducted in a way that didn’t make you think that he was on downers?

Fundamentally, this farm system is fucked up. We probably wasted several 1st round picks, we lost a shot at a 2nd round pick to get a guy who fucking sucks, we’re keeping John Fucking Bale around for no god damn reason. Jamey Wright’s existence on this club is pointless. On any given night, you can only find 7 or 8 guys that you’d want in a lineup.

But I believe someone wanted to see this?

and what a lot of fans thought was 75-87-Gload+Jake-Gathright+Crisp-TPJ+Aviles=contending team.

A LOT of things have gone wrong this year (and some things have gone right, no doubt) but this team of players should not be this bad. The bottom line is, however that the record is what it is and something needs to change.

I’m going to wait and see what Moore does this offseason. If he takes the same approach to constructing the 2010 roster as he did with 2009, then he probably needs to be let go once his contract is up.

I think there is a significant group of people that have written him off and are ready for him to be fired; I’m not in that camp (yet). People CAN learn and improve their decision-making.

We have the makings of a good rotation, and a bullpen can be re-constructed fairly cheaply. The baserunning issues we’ve had are something that I believe can largely be fixed by replacing Dave Owen. I would assume that Gordon will improve and Butler will continue to improve. There are moves that CAN be easily made that would help, such as non-tendering Jacobs/Olivo.

I’m not being Pollyanna here, because I realize that things aren’t looking too great. But, it can get better, and eventually it will get better, whether it’s with Moore/Hillman or another combo.

I realize that this has absolutely nothing to do with stats, so take it for what you will, but there seems to have been something about this team that goes beyond stats, just a general lifelessness and lack of teamwork. Other than at the very beginning of the year, this team has just lacked energy. I realize that could simply be random variation or how a team with a bad offense looks, but it just seems like there’s a lack of leadership. It reminds me in a lot of ways of the 2004 team, that had a false belief in itself and once things started going bad it went really bad.

2004 39-67
2005 38-68
2006 37-69
2007 47-59
2008 47-59
2009 41-65

But something occurred to me last night during the game…

We aren’t last years Rays (obviously), but we MIGHT be last years Mariners…A team that came in with a lot of expectations, an inflated payroll, a shitty bullpen, a below average offense and a manager that doesn’t exactly inspire greatness.

http://grittyandclutch.blogspot.com/2009/08/getting-your-moneys-worth.html

http://grittyandclutch.blogspot.com/2009/08/getting-your-moneys-worth-punchline.html

If that doesn’t make you angry, you’re not a Royals fan.

Is there a gif for bullpen meltdown or something…..for a perhaps more comedic angle on what is surely to be the highlight of every game. Or the only reason now Royals are featured on ESPN…….how many blown saves/non-holds can the cumulative Royals bullpen incur?

is that many teams virtually never go 41-65. It’s difficult to play sub .400 baseball over a 100-game stretch.

We’re desensitized since we do it pretty much every year.