You may find it hard to believe, but we may have one other bright spot in the 2009 season other than the impressive Zack Greinke. Billy Butler is currently on pace to hit 49 Doubles. He is only 23 years old. Would you like to know what other Major League Players have hit such a lofty number of doubles at such a young age? It's a short list according to Baseball-Reference.com...(Players were 23 years old or younger as of June 30 of the year in question)...
1934 - Hank Greenberg - 23 Years Old - OPS 1.004
1939 - Enos Slaughter - 23 Years Old - OPS .853
1944 - Stan Musial - 23 Years Old - OPS .989
1996 - Alex Rodriguez - 20 Years Old (!) - OPS 1.045
2003 - Albert Pujols - 23 Years Old - OPS 1.106
2006 - Miguel Cabrera - 23 Years Old - OPS .998
2006 - Grady Sizemore - 23 Years Old - OPS .908
So far, in his season of age 23 has posted an OPS of 'just' .795, so I think it is a bit premature to start comparing him to A-Rod or Stan Musial, which isn't my intention in this post. I think my point is simply that Billy Butler is still really young to be in KC at all, let alone putting up good numbers. A quick scan of the prospects in the Royals organization brings up a bevy of guys that we are hoping contribute to KC in the future, but they are already older than Billy including Kila Ka'aihue, Carlos Rosa, Chris Hayes, Jordan Parraz, David Lough, Jose Duarte, ...