FanShot

Royals 2011 ZiPS posted

41

Happy Real Thankgiving. Gotta love Dan's way with words (even if MS Paint Billy is absent): "What the Royals do have is an amazing farm system, up-and-down, there are a number of potential stars, starters, and even an impressive slate of guys who should be solid role players. The biggest question facing the Royals in the near future is how Moore will handle transitioning these players into major league roles. For example, Mike Montgomery or John Lamb are likely to force their way into the rotation, but what happens to the players that can contribute but whose impact in the majors is less than utterly and completely obvious? Butler and Greinke were treated well by the organization, but Moore's management style towards non-stars under 30 seems to be best described as hostile indifference. So in recent years, there's been a situation in which useful players like Ka'aihue, Aviles, Gordon, Maier, and others are just kind of "hanging around." Sure, they'll keep getting at-bats when they play well, but they're always bad road trip from being benched and their opportunities never seem to follow any logical train-of-thought derived from the organizations strengths or weaknesses. So you end up with situations in which Willie Bloomquist ends up being a starting corner outfielder because Moore's played Sgt. Schulz with talent, despite corner outfielders better than Bloomquist being easier to find than abandoned houses in Detroit." After the BLF goes to sleep, I'll spend some more time looking at these and converting into wOBA/FIP/WAR/etc. and convincing myself that people care.