Gregor Blanco, Do You Care?

The Braves were my “second” team, because they were NL and on TBS all the time, and having seen and heard plenty about Blanco it’s safe to say he’s not good.

I look at him the same as Maier. Not great but they are two young outfielders. We can always get Ankiel and Guillen back if you really want to play the older guys. Might as well see what you have on hand (which I thought was the point of all the moves anyway).

Blanco and Maier are essentially the same type of player but Blanco is a year and a half younger. If you are blah on Blanco I would think by definition you’d be blah on Maier too.

over acquiring Blanco, but it can’t hurt to give him a try in what’s left of this season and in 2011, if he shows he can get on base and field CF. Meanwhile, Maier is having a pretty good season and looks like he can handle the starting job. If Blanco actually works out as a decent player, Dayton has a pleasant dilemma: Who do I trade for more prospects? If not, then not, and we haven’t lost much.

That being said, we could do worse.

He is 26 and has some chance of improving as a major leaguer. Blanco had a good OBP in his time with the Braves while showing good defensive ability. If a player hits their peak level in the late 20’s then he showed get better over the next few years.

No, he won’t be an AS but he could help KC win games. What do they have to lose? Rick Ankiel and Scott Podsednik’s roster spots & multiple million dollar salary. I’d rather have Blanco.

AND I am fairly convinced that, come 2012-14 or so, we will need to have a better CF in place to contend than either one of them.

Perfectly OK for either Maier or Blanco to be the 4th OF – but no need for both to be on a roster once we have assembled a contender.

Mitch has been pretty hot since the Ankiel trade – not sure why he sits and Blanco plays. (Of course, not sure why EITHER should sit so Bloomquist can play – but that’s another argument)

For once, I’m actually glad we have 13 pitchers. Combine that with Yuni out for the weekend, and they won’t be tempted to do something stupid like give up on Kila after 2 games.

As a bonus, if they were to sit Kendall for Brena one game this weekend, with Aviles at SS, we would actually field the best team we could with the given roster for the FIRST AND ONLY time this season!

could help by “augmenting” the influx of young talent by spending some money to fill some apparent holes in the development system. Specifically, I mentioned a middle infielder and a good SP.

I wouldn’t be opposed to adding CF to that list as an alternative. Rany had a nice post today about if the system actually pans out as Goldstein projects, the Royals might legitimately have 20-30m in money to spend. Pick the right 2 guys, and there you go.

Funny how the positions that seem to be (so far) the hardest to fill in the prospect area are the traditional “up the middle” spots of 2B, SS, C, and CF.

I was kindof expecting a .380 OBP (and no power) with some decent speed and decent play in CF. That would have been perfectly competent for me going forward but it just didn’t come to pass.

If the Royals are going to be successful, one of the ways that will happen is running a bunch of league minimum, salary controlled guys in our fourth and fifth OF slots and middle infield backup types. That’s why trading away guys like Keppinger and Matt Diaz was such a mistake for the Royals…we end up having to pay millions more for the Bloomquists of the world.

This is why I wasn’t crazy about the ATL trade. Either way Farnsworth & Ankiel were gone at the end of the yr. Blanco is under team control for a few yrs & we have “Home-grown” OF prospects that could offer the same production & have more club house comradery…ie Dyson, Lough, Parraz, even Jai Miller picked up this yr off waivers. I rather not have our players blocked by another Braves never-was.

we sent $ to ATL in this trade…I rather have just asked for Tim Collins in return & called up 2 of ours.

you should care

Anyone see the picture of the KU linebackers from a couple of years ago?

“Jump around like a bunch of Kansas City faggots”