I had predicted a big year for him, getting to Omaha by mid season and, who knows, getting a cup of coffee in the bigs?

We do not have the infield depth to support injuries to Gordon. Maybe this opens the door for Aviles at 3B? Maybe Callaspo plays 3B? Maybe Bloomquist plays 3B? Who knows what the Royals will do for those 10 or so games, but Gordon didn’t need an injury. I doubt he comes straight to the big league team because he’s going to have missed the time of getting back into the swing of things. The Royals should give him a rehab assignment if possible… Not sure when the MILB season starts at Omaha, but they always will have a boost in attendance when Alex is there. Build some interest in the affiliates.

As far as Duffy is concerned, at least we shut him down before TJ. Hopefully it doesn’t continue to get worse. Do we know anything about Duffy and injury history or is this his first professional injury?

And as far as Bianchi goes, I was excited to watch him in AA this year before he moved up to AAA. I thought he would have a great season this year. This is his 3rd major injury since signing, right? Wrist, back, and TJ…. bad luck.

but a) we still don’t know about Duffy one way or another and b) I think everyone involved needed a normal ST from Gordon…

losing bianchi for a year is unmitigated bad news

so it couldn’t hurt to at least give him some rehab since they’re going to be at home until the 15th. Gordon’s 2010 could get even worse than his 2009 if he’s not ready for action. So putting him out there in KC without any ST could lead to him starting cold and maybe even hurting other parts of himself trying to make up for the rust.

And Gordon is very close to being an obvious pick to never start against LHP. Josh Fields and Callaspo can handle LHPs and occasional starts at third. Gordon has been awful against LHP and Fields is great against LHP.

But then again, Trey doesn’t platoon. He was the kid who kept trying to ram a square peg into a round hole.

i think gordon had made the last out and then the hot dog race started…

it could be taken as a positive sign… lets hope so

They represented that feeling well in Sugar I thought. I don’t know what those players are going thru but I can only imagine it is similar to what the movie depicted.

I don’t have any real information about, beyond the obvious recognition that there are cultural differences that are likely to present issues.

One slice of information, that started me wondering about questions of that type, came when the company that I was with at the time did an environmental training program at a manufacturing facility in southern California. More than half the workforce was Hispanic, we assigned a Puerto Rican secretary project to the team to assist our Spanish-speaking staff.

The team wound up using her to give one part of the presentation, and to assist with some of the classroom mechanics (handling sign-ins, distributing handouts, etc.) So she was visible and present during the training session.

Afterward, she related to the team how many of Hispanic came up to her during breaks to tell her about health and safety issues they had. We found that most of those items had never been reported or suggested to the plant management.

It seemed that having a Spanish speaking female present made it easier for los hombres to talk about their concerns, but they wouldn’t say anything to another man, Spanish-speaking or not.

Who were the two “Spanish speakers” battling for roster spots lost to injury over the past two years?

to bond with his manager

it was weird of Hillman to go off on that little rant like that

maybe he said something earlier in camp about no sliding head first, maybe hedidn’t

more lilely its just some after the fact bitching

that even with a breakout year from Gordon, the Royals are still staring down the barrel of a 90-loss shotgun to the face.

more yuni could very well be part of this

For Gordon, it’s a tough break (although it still makes me furious that he is arrogant enough to think that he could slide hands-first on a steal attempt years after every other pro baseball player stopped doing it) that will only cost him (provided intelligent handling) some goodwill with the rubes, most of whom think he “sucks” already anyway,

As for Bianchi, obviously it’s bad for the organization for all the reasons you mention, but i just feel for him — he loses a year and ages without developing, and that probably drops him way down the list, understandably. I just feel for the guy. Look organizations have to do what they have to do, but this just really, really sucks. There’s a good chance this costs him a chance to ever really make it in the major leagues; I feel for the guy.

Still, I think we can all agree that the sooner the Allard Baird stink is finally washed from this organization the better. There is that.

I thought it was a steal.

But, yes, I am tired of Gordon not heeding Brett’s sage advice to “just do it.”

this was foretold in the great hot dog race