Allow me to share a story about a friend from highschool. This was a smart guy--a very strong student in math and science and a natural in matters of logic and debate. But he also had a streak of arrogance about his abilities that got him into trouble in certain situations.

One of these situations was online poker. This was at the height of the poker boom a few years back, and he thought he had the psychological state of the online poker player mapped out to a tee and readily manipulable. He'd plot out a flowchart of what to do given XYZ, fire up 10 hands of online poker at a time, and he figured that if he read his opponents properly and played his hands accordingly, over time, he'd come out way ahead.

In practice, players didn't always do what he expected, and the cards didn't turn out the way he thought they should, and the house took a cut of every hand. But he'd make adjustments, chalk poor results up to bad luck, and interpret hot streaks as his true talent. Naturally, he wound up broke.

This, to me, is the story of Ned Yost's steal-happy Royals.

The Royals think that if they do their homework and read the situation right, they’ll beat the house. But the results show that it’s not working and it hasn’t worked for a long time. It’s time for them to accept reality, but instead, they keep trying to game the system, and when they luck into a hot streak, they take that as confirmation that their adjustments have worked, and expect that hot streak to be the norm going forward. Of course, just like my friend wound up broke and believing that he'd been a victim of fate, the Royals will finish the season having given away a ton of outs and convinced that they just had bad luck.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsQ3pbYIhqI&feature=youtu.be
I created this moose hightlight video for his highlights of the year so far. Please like it on youtube or dislike and answer the poll question. I'm a high school video student and love all the feedback I can get! Thanks in advance and Go royals... I need to make this 75 characters long..........................................................................................................

Mike Moustakas Highlight video thru May 8th (via bmcfarlandonw)

Mike Moustakas Highlight video thru May 8th (via bmcfarlandonw)

Last month I got this awesome "The Moose is Loose" t-shirt.

The design is simple, yet attractive and creative. I like the t-shirt so much that I have decided to purchase a few and give them away to Royals fans.

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According to Baseball America blogger Matt Eddy here, One L Wil, "shifted from right field to center on an everyday basis" almost 2 weeks ago on April 26. This was approximately the same time Cain's injury was revealed as considerably worse than the light strain he was initially diagnosed with.

Am I missing something here, or is this potentially huge news? Could he be worse than Melky or say Josh Hamilton in CF? I thought I would hear what you guys had to say on this.

For those who might have missed this development, Mike Moustakas has been good this season. Really good. Really ridiculously good even.

The season is still young, but to date, it's borne witness to the young Moose batting .313 with a solid walk rate and a *.232 isolated slugging percentage*. True to his Royal roots, Moustakas already has 11 doubles over just 27 games played. Taken together, his offensive contributions produce a .398 wOBA, about 56% better than a league average hitter.

While Moose's bat so far has been a very pleasant surprise, we can expect his offensive numbers to regress a bit over the course of the season. Moose is making hard contact, and there's reason to believe that the power is real, but flyball hitters don't maintain a .351 BABIP indefinitely. What's really going to propel Moustakas to the top of the WAR charts all season will be his defenive improvement.

Coming through the minors, everyone believed Mike would hit, but the knock on him was his defense. He had a great arm, but scouts thought his "thick lower half" would limit his agility, and he'd remain a below-average defensive third baseman. But when Moustakas arrived in spring training this season, the "thickness" had disappeared, and we're seeing what happens when you combine a cannon arm with good agility and an indomitable will to improve. His defense to date has passed the eye test with flying colors, registering a number of highlight plays, and the defensive metrics largely agree with what our eyes tell us. In only 27 games, UZR has Moustakas's at 4 runs better than the average third baseman while DRS (aka Dewan's +/-) rates his defense as 2 runs above average.

Like Moose's BABIP, his UZR pace will likely taper off some, so he won't wind up at +30 runs saved by the end of the year, but I think it's fair to expect Moose to continue to be an above average third baseman to the tune of another 3 to 6 runs saved over his next 120 games.

So where will Moose stand among MLB position players if going forward, he maintains his power, posts a normal BABIP in the low .300's and adds another 4 runs saved on defense?

ZiPS did most the math for us--it thinks Moose's BABIP will be .306 the rest of the way with 2 more defensive runs saved, and it largely leaves his power on its current track. If Moose does what ZiPS thinks he'll do, he'll finish the season with 5.1 WAR, among the Top 20 most valuable position players in the Majors. I think he'll outperform that defensive projection by a couple runs, while walk slightly more (~6% BB rate instead of the project 5.5% rate), and I even think he might even knock a few more balls out of the park. ZiPS forecasts 16 more Moustakas HR's this season, but I think his 8.9% HR/FB ratio is due to come up a bit. With as many balls as he's hitting hard in the air (55.6% flyball rate, which is quite high and may regress slightly downward), I see 20 more HR's as a reasonable possibility.

If, like me, you think Moose might outperform his ZiPS projection by a couple defensive runs and a handful of extra walks and HR's, you can expect him to wind up around 6 WAR for the season, which could place him well into the Top 10 position players or even the Top 5. And that's my best guess for his true talent--if he continues to have good BABIP luck, he just might actually win the MVP award.

Sanchez's ERA is now a nice and glossy 6.75. When your ERA is actually above the average innings you give your team per start, you know something's up.

What should the Royals do, though? It's pretty clear that Sanchez is not only a wild pitcher, but a very wild pitcher. Take a look at this list put together by me:

Highest BB/9 innings, pitchers with at least 100 starts and 700 IP, since 1969:

1. Daniel Cabrera 2004-2009 - 5.24 BB/9

2. Oliver Perez 2002-2010 - 5.08

3. Jason Bere 1993-2003 - 5.07

4. Bobby Witt 1986-2001 - 5.02

5. Paul Abbott 1990-2004 - 4.91

6. Bruce Berenyi 1980-1986 - 4.89

7. Jonathan Sanchez 2006-2012 - 4.88

8. Joe Decker 1969-1979 - 4.78

9. Russ Ortiz 1998- 2010 - 4.66

10.Nolan Ryan 1966-1993 - 4.67

Those are the ten wildest starters since 1969 with 100+ career starts.

I'm a bit surprised no one to this point has tried Sanchez as a reliever. There is no doubt he has great stuff, but he just laaaaaaaabors through innings. If he could concentrate his stuff to one inning, might he experience better results? It wouldn't be totally surprising to me to see him turn into a Jeremy Affeldt or even a Sean Marshall. But with the Royals having a pretty good pen, and such a weak rotation, can we afford to make him a reliever? On the flip side, isn't he essentially a three-inning reliever now, just one that happens to start games?

So. What should the Royals do with Sanchez?

falling in the black, slipping through the cracks

The Royals are in a freefall. Not the kind of freefall associated with a losing streak of 12 games or so, which, hypothetically of course, would be horrible to endure. No, the Royals are in a freefall of another kind, a more dangerous kind. This is the kind of freefall that obliterates, a crushing freefall into the abyss where the building pressures and darkness encroach and consume.

A bleak metaphor, to be sure. But the Royals and their fans are used to bleakness. What is unfortunate is that it wasn't supposed to be this way now. The Royals last year debuted a dozen prospects, supposedly leading into a year in which the Royals would be interesting, at the least. At the time of its reveal, the marketing slogan 'Our Time' was deemed as not quite accurate but laudable enough in its attempt to rally the public around what was assured to be a better team. Well, he were are, 28 games into the season, and the Royals are ten games below .500 already. #ourtime?

The marketing team probably feels really bad about that one, but you can't really blame them; they did their job, which was to create a catchy slogan and cohesive marketing campaign. Carl from management can't swing the bat or pitch, and neither can the rest of the team. It is up to the Royals to do the winning, but they are accomplishing a whole lot of losing. Free falling, down to the depths. We are in the middle of baseball hell.

The worst part is that it has been this way for years. By the front office's own admission, this was the supposed second phase in which the Royals needed to move from building to winning. They've failed. They've failed miserably. It's #ourtime to realize this once and for all.

Dayton Moore needs to be fired immediately.

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Royals Lose Again, [Insert Score], on (choose one) Bad Start/Relief Effort/Defensive Miscue by [Insert Player(s)]

Well, not much to say about this one. The Royals lost today/tonight on yet another [Copy from above] despite having a good showing from [insert one player who performed well. If none, then omit]. Alas, it was not enough, as the mighty [insert antiquated name of team] of [insert opposing team's city] managed to take advantage of [insert bad thing that happened]. Really, it's the same old song and dance for this team. They don't have the pitching to get it done, especially when the offense/defense doesn't show up/performs poorly.

Ned Yost made another peculiar move this game, bringing in [insert name of reliever] to face [insert name of same-handed hitter] only to leave him in to face [insert name of off-handed hitter]. Of course, that didn't pan out too well, as the [off-handed hitter] smoked a [insert hit type] that plated [insert number of runs], thus sealing the game.

The bright spots on this team are few and far between, with the recent struggles of [insert starting pitcher], who just can't seem to find the strike zone anymore. And when he does, it scarcely matters, as the ball is usually deposited beyond the outfield wall. [Insert name of hitter] continues to struggle at the plate, hitting [insert triple slash]. The Royals policy on which players receive the healing powers of the "day off to work with Seitzer" treatment and the ones who are left (almost begrudgingly) in the lineup to fend for themselves remains a mystery.

[Insert name of hitter] continues to rend the ball with wooden bat, even as his fellow base-mates struggle with the lauded, almost mythical ability to hit the ball out of the infield.

As the [insert name of author] penned, "[insert quote from said author]." Perhaps we can find comfort in that, because we clearly won't find any in this team.

Myers is showing all the signs of becoming a star at the major league level. He is tearing through AA this year with 9 Homeruns and an OPS of 1.081. He just transitioned to Right Field from catcher and is still very young. he is coming off a injury riddled 2011 but has bounced back this year. He has been rated as high as the #10 prospect in the minors by Baseball America and I wouldn't be surprised if hes in the top 5 by the end of the year. He may earn a September call up this year and could be on the MLB team by 2013.

He has the potential to become a perennial all star in Kansas City and would make a nice addition to a lineup including Hosmer, Gordon, Moustakas and Butler.

HOWEVER what is the point of having an elite offense if your starters can't make it out of the third inning??

The answer is NONE. Ask the Rangers of the early 2000's

The future for our rotation looks grimm to say the least. Duffy has great stuff and looks to be coming into his own. But after him we have a pair of #5 starters in Paulino and Chen. And then there is Hochevar and Sanchez who don't belong on a major league roster.

This is why we need to trade Myers for pitching. there is no doubt in my mind that we could get a front line starter in return for Myers he is just that talented.

via cdn2.sbnation.com

What once was proclaimed the greatest Minor League system in the history of baseball, now seems less promising. That's to be expected when a number of the most promising prospects depart from the Minor Leagues. As we all know, Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Danny Duffy, and Salvador Perez have already joined the big leagues, and, really, with quite a bit of success. But who else is left? At this time last year, most fans were ecstatic about the promising young starting pitchers in the Royals' farm system. Mike Montgomery and John Lamb were supposedly aces in the making, and getting close to joining the big league club. Mike Montgomery regressed considerably, finishing last year with a 5.32 ERA inOmaha. After eightstarts in NW-Arkansas, John Lamb had Tommy John surgery on his elbow. The two most promising pitchers in the farm system suddenly became not quite as promising.

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