A few thoughts on the Royals 66th win:

1. Guillen looks pretty healthy to me now.  He appears to be running the bases and in the field with significantly more speed.  I think his hip is feeling much better.  And does this have anything to do the fact that he's on a hot streak again?  Before tonight's game:

Last 14 days - .389/.411/.611/1.022

Last 28 days - .310/.333/.500/.833

2. Yeah, I think Mark Teahen can play LF just fine.  He made two really good out of zone catches, showing great range.  I have no idea why he was in LF though, with Guillen in RF.

3. So how does a trade of a two-month rental of Dotel for Kyle Davies look right now?  No, Davies won't be throwing eight shutout innings very often, but he sure does look like a decent #5 starter or a good long reliever right now.  Looks like a good pick up to me.  Wladimir Balentien update: .203/.254/.349 (212 AB's)

With the annual September privilege of expanded rosters, the Royals promoted forgotten savior Ryan Shealy and internet hero Kila Ka'aihue. With supposed prospect Billy Butler and Everyday Ross Gload (who started something like 400 consecutive games for Hillman) the most impotent team of the decade suddenly found itself with four options at 1B/DH.

Lets take a look at how Hillman has divided the playing time thus far.

Sigh.

Although Hillman has somewhat surprisingly relegated Gload to the bench -- though he did start in left on 9/5 -- he's seemingly undermined that partial solution by introducing Guillen into the DH mix. Given the viccisitudes of the Hillman-Guillen relationship, it's impossible for this uinformed outsider to say exactly why this is happening, however the simplest explanation is that Hillman is loath to remove Citizen Hoagy from the lineup for fear of clubhouse eruption #117 of 2008.

Dayton Moore deserves these two, since he brought them together.

With Guillen sliding into semi-regular DH mode, a wider playing time philosophy may be exposing itself:

Now, I know what you're expecting: an impassioned cry of Kila Now! and 2-4 Huber anecdotes. To do so would be to do a disservice to Huber's legacy however. This is still Kila's first callup, not his third or fourth, and we are still dealing with a player who has only seen something like 140 PAs above AA. A large part of Kila's callup is to acclimate him to the off-the-field side of professional baseball and to reward him, emotionally and financially, for his tremendous performance this season. We're stil two years from Kila reaching true Huber status, and unlike, say, Huber v. Minky years ago, there's still some definite upside potential ($1 dollar to Simmons) in Ryan Shealy. It's in the best interests of the franchise to get Shealy more at bats than Kila this month.

The problem is that Shealy isn't playing enough, and may never, given Hillman's desire to keep Guillen and Butler in the lineup every... single... day. Guillen, granted, is possibly a seperate issue, and only a partial member of the 1B/DH club. Yes, he shouldn't be playing, but maybe it's just easier for everyone if he does, even with the cascade effects this creates.

Butler however, as weird as it seems to say this, should not be playing everyday anymore. The Royals have been remarkably patient with Billy this season, on the heels of handig him an everyday role from late June of his rookie year. Yes, Butler remains light years ahead of the other candidates, and indeed of everyone else on the roster, in terms of his potential ceiling. (Light years, ceiling? Yay mixed metaphors.) Nevertheless, the blogosphere is nothing if not the exploration of minor issues in major detail, and Butler's development -- which has been towards Ken Harvey this season -- is not going to be curtailed if he loses 20 September PAs to Ryan Shealy. He's still 22, and to date, he's the owner of 796 Big League PAs. Hillman can take the pedal off the Butler accelerator over the next three weeks. I'm no Shealy fan at this point, but you could make a case that there still might be something there, especially given his injury issues last season. He's certainly not in the Gload zone yet.

The Royals have twenty games left and roughly 180 1B/DH PAs to play with. Trey's been something of a dullard thus far in terms of sneaking guys PAs late in games (Kila in as a PR, wow, that was Buddy-esque) and I'd love to see that change. Overall, here's how I'd like to see those final 180 PAs distributed:

Shealy Now!

Last season the Royals hit only 102 home runs, the lowest total in the Majors by a wide margin (Minnesota was 29th with 118) and 59 below the American League average of 161. (Oddly, the NL out-homered the AL last year, a signal of how many "defense/small ball first" wiseacres now reside in the Junior Circuit.) As I wrote in the 2007 Season Review, that total of 102 round-trippers was the lowest total by an American League team since 1992 (strike years excepted). Despite a few attempts to share this fact with larger audiences, I don't think it really got enough play.

Routinely, in any given season something like a fifth of the teams in the Majors will hit twice as many dingers as that. While scoring runs does depend on more than just home runs (or can) by any relative measure, 102 homers is a pathetically low total, and no matter whatever the other attributes of your lineup if you only hit 102 homers, you're not going to be productive. Basically, having so little power is like having the best band in the world that just happens to have a lead singer who can't sing and can't remember the words to any songs: that killer bassiest doesn't really mean anything.

Heading into this season Dayton Moore acquired Jose Guillen, Miguel Olivo, Alberto Callaspo, brought back Ross Gload and Mark Grudizelanek and handed Billy Butler a full-time slot in the lineup. Despite a considerable amount of chatter about playing like the Angels, the Front Office also acknowledged that the team needed an impact bat in the middle of the lineup, and this appears to have driven the pursuit of Jose Guillen especially.

So are the Royals doing any better this season? This season, through 136 games the Royals have 96 homers and are on pace to hit something like 114 total by season's end. By the standards of WWI land battle success and terrotory acquisition at least, the plan is truly coming along.

As you can see, despite a slight dip in scoring levels this season, home run levels are essentially the same, if not higher. Apparently, steroids destroyed our national innocence to such an extent that math and reality itself is now compromised. Don't let the facts get in the way of the narrative however.

Returning to the Royals, this slight improvement nevertheless still represents a disapointment, especially when we factor in another season of supposed development from Mark Teahen and Alex Gordon was supposed to bolster the offense as well. While Guillen has been a mild disapointment, his 18 homers to date is essentially in line with what he's done throughout his career. Assuming Guillen has a functional final month and ends up with something like 21-24 homers, he'd really only be slightly below his established norm of 25-30. Again, by the pathetic standards established by the fulility of this franchise, he has been an upgrade over Emil Brown.

Nor is Mark Teahen entirely to blame. To put it about strangely, he's neither a part of the solution or the problem. Thanks to a recent flurry he's climbed up to 12 homers and may very well end up with something like 15 on the season, which is an upgrade from his 7 in 2007. Sure, we'd want more, but he is accounting for some other team's modest improvement. Similarly, in spite of other holes in his game, Miguel Olivo has contributed with 11 HRs in part-time duty.

If we really want someone to blame (and isn't that what we always want?) we should look no further than the limp quartet of Joey Gathright, Ross Gload, Tony Pena Jr. and Billy Butler. (Toss an honorable mention to Grudz.) On a team with no true elite hitters, the Royals have wasted too many plate appearances on guys who are, at best, secondary or tertiary contributors to a real lineup.

Although these players come from a number of different positions on the defensive spectrum and career arc, they all represent serious enervating influences on the team's pursuit of potency. That the Royals have 12 homers total out of their primary DH and 1B is a stunning non-achievement, and the kind of failure that would be hard to reach even if directly attempted. But hey, you can't put a measure on Gload's glove. When you mix in Grudz's mere three homers and the donut put up by Callaspo and German, we may be looking at a Royals infield of a truly remarkable vintage.

Of course, in both the long and short views, this has been a chronic, even defining aspect of the Royals franchise, with the Curse of Balboni and all that. The Royals have not had a player top 20 homers since Mike Sweeney did so in 2005 with 21 (bonus power!) and have not eclipsed the modest 25-homer barrier since 2003, when Carlos Beltran inspired a nation with 26 homers. Although its now too late to do, had the 2005-7 renovation plans included a dramatic moving back of the K's fences the team may been drastically helped on the field.

Heck, Mark Teahen might even have more homers right now.

We did it. We broke the vaunted Curse of Will Getting Married. With a heroically crappy effort by Brandon Duckworth and an offensive explosion for seven runs in six innings off former good pitcher Kenny Rogers, your boys in blue are off the 'schneid.

• According to WPA, the Royals best pitcher in this game was Mudkip Wells. Let it never be said that Dayton Moore doesn't know how to fill out the back end of a pitching staff. To be completely fair to Wells, he actually was good as he K'ed two batters in as many scoreless innings. I wouldn't be surprised if he was in the mix for the back of the rotation next year. That just goes to show you what kind of guys can compete for the back of a rotation. And so on.
• Jose Guillen had a home run. I still dislike him, yes.
• Callaspo had three hits and a walk. The dude has deservedly taken some flak 'round these parts, but give credit where credit is due. Now have a few drinks and drive yourself home, Alberto. Just kidding, just kidding. Performances like tonight are why I was among the Callaspo-for-2B crowd in the first place.
• No one drowned at the pool today, though the hose is not working.
• RamRam and The Mexicutioner were back to their usual selves. I wuv them.
• Butler had a double and a walk, which we like. German continued to play competently with a bingle and walk, which we like. Teahen had 3 RsBI and didn't fall over in the batter's box, which we think is something. The borg is pleased.
• Ross Gload 3oy893gh5q90gh3gh9ehgIHATEHIMga43y3hbvzbvb
• DeJesus and Olivo are not hitting. Oh, well. At least someone hit today.
• We are not the Chiefs, which must count for something. I think. Maybe.
• Next up is Texas, then we go back head-to-head with the Tigers again. Let the excitement build.

I spent the weekend on the road and in the car, and aside from a few desultory employments of my phone for score checking, was decidedly disconnected from the Royals for three days. Sure, by the time I feel asleep each night I had learned if the Royals had defeated the Rays or not that day, but information beyond that was not easily available. In a way, aside from the cell phone utility, it reminded me of being a kid again: basically I was dependent of the ESPN crawler at the bottom of the screen, good timing on hearing scores get read on the radio and interpreting the twenty-second highlight (2.5 plays) of the game on Sportscenter/Baseball Tonight. Essentially, my knowledge of the weekend series boiled down to this: there were some rain delays, I think Carl Crawford hit a triple at some point that scored runs, and yesterday Billy Butler hit the foul pole. I also remember hearing Aviles named as one of the players with a homer, but as I am part of the Aviles Nation, this may or may not be representative.

Of course, should I be asked to do so, I could give a twenty minute explanation of the Brett Favre situation or the current status of Yankees-Red Sox, as well as a fifteen minute talk on the week the Mets have had.

• Late last night and earlier this morning, my master plan was to do a big post on which Royals might get traded, and sometime later this week that may happen. Honestly however, the post was a nonstarter because I kept coming back to the same issue: there actually aren't many guys likely to go. The Major League roster at the moment has, in trade terms, a clear set of untouchables -- although this isn't quite the right word -- such as Soria, Gordon and Butler, who aren't going anywhere. Below them, there's another large pool of the team's attractive players who are lacking either the first group's upside potential and or favorable contract status that make them truly untouchable. Call them "mostly untouchable" I suppose. In that category you've got Greinke, DeJesus, Meche and Guillen. While lots of teams may want those guys, aside from Guillen, it would be a truly bold gesture for Moore to part with one of those fellas. Just below that tier -- you can see why this would have been a fairly terrible post -- are the guys in the sweet spot, players who are both likely to be coveted and are expendable for age or role or contract reasons. These are the actual players who might be traded in most normal scenarios: Grudzielanek, Mahay, Nunez, Tejeda, and Ramon & Horacio Ramirez. Beyond those six mostly spare parts you have the trio of Teahen, Buck and Olivo. Teahen hasn't been good enough for someone to want him really, but he can play a variety of positions passably and someone may try to add him as a late C-level type of acquisition. Hey, someone wanted Affeldt once too. I also have a sneaking suspicion that either Buck or Olivo may be traded as well. So, all told, you have a pool of something like eight to ten guys, depending on your personal preferences, in which, something like three or four will actually be traded. Maybe, maybe you could throw Gathright into the mix for a team looking for an Endy Chavez vibe, but the Royals likely killed that by actually playing Gathright a lot and exposing him as inadequate. Oh, and he's sorta injured or whatever. No one is trading for Ross Gload, Esteban German, Kyle Davies and the like. We'll have plenty of time to talk more about all these matters of course...
• Speaking of trade talk, remember, before posting something, check to see if there isn't already an entry specifically about that player/topic/rumor.
  
• It is very nice to see Billy Butler heat up like this.  You can break Billy's season down in all sorts of ways, but roughly you have this: pre-demotion he hit .263/.330/.339 in 206 PAs, post-demotion-to-ASB he struggled to a .191/.224/.298 line in 49 PAs and since the ASB he's hit .314/.385/.686 in 39 trips to the plate.
• Jose Guillen's OPS peaked at .817 on June 17th, when he was hitting .291/.312/.505. Since then, he's completely cratered, hitting .184/.225/.281, over his last 120 PAs while ensconced in the middle of the lineup. Thanks to just 10 walks drawn all season, his OBP is a measly .286.
• The Buck/Olivo catching tandem. Redundant or double tasty? One has an OPS+ of 89, the other, 92. Can Buck stay above .250 in batting average this season? His career high is .245... a nation watches nervously.
• Seriously Teahen, what the hell man? .285 with middling power and decent patience is one thing, but .248 really kills the formula. Ask Joey Gathright (actually, Gathright has so little power that there is no formula). Sure, bad batting average stretches or seasons will happen, but this is getting bad. In his last 113 PAs, Teahen is hitting .210/.257/.333. Indubitably, those two games he hit leadoff are surely to blame. Indubitably.
• Ron Mahay is a rough Zack Greinke start away from leading team pitchers in VORP. Mahay's 20.1 VORP currently ranks above Soria's 18.8 total, as well as Meche's 17.0.
  
• Although I gave him love earlier today in a fanshot, Tejeda's been merely a replacement level pitcher according to VORP. Then again, a generic starter with control problems but some interesting stuff is essentially the prototype for an average reliever, isn't it?
• At 20,346 fans per game, the Royals are 28th in baseball in raw attendance. The 2007 average was 19.961 and in 2006 it was 17,158.

With the trade deadline looming and the continued pursuit of the roster/organization on everyone's mind  it's worthwhile to take a look at the moves Dayton Moore has already made. Part I takes a look at how the position players with the big club. Stay tuned for Part II (big league pitchers) and Part III (minor leaguers).

It was 2006, Lebanon and Israel were doing their thing, FEMA did a "heckuva job" in New Orleans and the Royals were supposedly beginning an era of competence (as per Posnanski after Opening Day) thanks to a bizarre December spending spree that brought in Mark Grudzielanek, Doug Mientkiewicz, Joe Mays, Paul Bako and Reggie Sanders. (Vintage RR posts here and here.) Meanwhile, the franchise was a full season behind the Beltran trade and preparing for the Jackson County Stadium Tax Subsidy Vote. In a stunning coincidence, Bud Selig "promised" Kansas City an All-Star game pending a proper allocation of JC's limitless public monies.

To a surprising extent, the 2006 lineup, as Moore more or less inherited it, remains the 2008 edition. You can find good teams that have had more turnover than this:

The 2006 Royals went 62-100.

You can quibble with some of these slots as they are crudely defined here -- for example, I'm considering Gathright a bench player in the table above, although he's actually played more innings in CF than anyone else -- but for quick and dirty purposes these are the positions according to the organizational masterplan for the two seasons. As in Gathright's case, for some of the players "bench" may not be quite the right label, but more or less it works, and I've included only the additional players who logged significant playing time.

What stands out is how much holdover there has been. Three of the positions are exactly the same, although perhaps not without some controversy. Buck is still the primary catcher, Grudzielanek is still at second base and DeJesus is still in center. Moreover, Mark Teahen remains an everyday fixture in the lineup, although he's shifted from third base to the outfield, and Esteban German is still a utility player. When you factor in that Alex Gordon and Billy Butler, lineup cornerstones if everything goes well, are also Baird-era draftees, the 2008 lineup remains a very Allard creation.

Subjectively and intuitively, the 2008 edition should be better than their 2006 progenitor: the holdovers (Buck, Teahen, DeJesus) should be hitting their peaks, Emil Brown has been upgraded to Jose Guillen and a decline-phase Mike Sweeney has been converted to supposed prospect and pure hitter Billy Butler. Miguel Olivo is a huge upgrade over Paul Bako. Unfortunately, the sum of their parts just hasn't quite added up to being much more better than the Minky era. The 2006 team ended up averaging 4.67 runs per game, better than the current squad's 4.06 average.

Huh?

To start, the holdovers, DeJesus somewhat excepted, have failed to truly break out. Grudz and German are still around and are, as the man sang, still the same. We wait still on Gordon and Butler to truly arrive. Seemingly really easy upgrades at SS and 1B have turned into, umm... Tony Pena Jr. and Ross Gload. This bears repeating. Just find someone better than the worst overall player in the game (Berroa) and one of the weakest first basemen (Minky). He couldn't do it. Where have you gone Doug Mientkiewicz? Jose Guillen has had one insanely awesome month and two bad ones. Finally, although Miguel Olivo has out-hit Paul Bako, Dayton Moore's first big league pickup, Joey Gathright, has eaten up a ton of playing time over the last three seasons and consistently failed to hit. In 237 plate appearances this year, Gator has three extra-base hits. Three. In 248 last year, he had eight. Gains like the Bako/Olivo and the Brown/Guillen exchanges have been mitigated by players like Gathright.

Over the last few months there's been a persistent meme that Moore is focused on rebuilding -- really, "building" should be used throughout this post, since it was so long ago that anything around here was actually built -- the organization's pitching coffers, and that the lineup will be more of a patchwork project. And while it isn't yet clear that the team's lineup core is actually enough of one to bother building around, it was certainly more than there was among the hurlers. Sure, in 2008, Butler and Gordon are disappointments, but they are near locks to improve, at least a little bit. There are problems however, and Moore is not immune criticism for his utter failure to upgrade the roster at two slots, SS and 1B, that looked to be no-brainer/any AAA lifer would have been better. He hasn't found better bench options than what Allard managed in Stairs/Costa/Graffy and it's possible he's done worse.

Lastly, there's the large but mysterious issue of defense. The quality of the team's defense is harder to definitively pin-down, but according to BP's defensive efficiency data, the 2008 squad is, relative to competition, an improvement. Then again, the 2006 team was terrible, posted a D-Eff of .682, good for 28th best in baseball and 13th in the AL. The current team stands at 19th overall and 9th in baseball. (Although the pure number, .698, is not much different.) So regarding defense, Moore has taken a terrible team and produced a below-average one.

The Royals hired Moore on May 31, 2006 and after over two years of his stewardship, the offense is worse than the bad one he inherited.  Considering that he also had nothing to do with Butler or Gordon, and with no notable position prospects in the system, we must conclude that Dayton's handling of the position players in blue and white has been akin to Argentina's performance in the Falklands War: at best, a disappointment, and at worst an abject failure.

Thaaaaaaaaa Yankees win.

Helluva game, and a revenge contest for Johnny Damon, who went 6-6 (although in effect 5-6, as he was gunned down trying to stretch a single into a double).

Lots to discuss, but maybe not much to say?

• Huge day by Guillen. Two homers, two guys thrown out on the bases and a single to boot.
  
• Another long day for the bullpen (after a rough May).
• A tough outing for Banny (even though it was a day game).
• More flukey excellence for Aviles, who I now believe leads the team in extra base hits.
• Royals drew two walks in a 12-11 marathon. I believe this ties a season high in walks drawn. (kidding)
• Your Tomko ERA update: 6.34
• Your Ramirez ERA update: 3.49.

The Royals finished April with a 12-15 record and ended the fifth month of the year with a 22-34 mark (now 23-34). Considering the month contained the team's epic losing streak, an overall record of 10-19 in May wasn't a total disaster, and could have been much worse.

Let's take a look at how the boys in blue did at the plate in May. First, the team totals:

101 runs is actually not last in the league, it's tied for 11th. The Angels also scored 101 (in one fewer game) and the Mariners and Indians were worse, scoring 99 and 98 runs respectively, as the new deadball era sweeps across the American League. Despite the advantage of the DH, scoring in the American League is lower than in the NL, which of course can 100% be attributed to PEDs testing. 100%. Everyone who used PEDs was a hitter in the AL. Moving on... The Royals only hit 12 homers in May, which is remarkable. Not surprisingly, no team in the AL was anywhere close to this number, as the league average was 24 homers.It isn't anything like a full consolation, but the Royals did rip 65 doubles in May, second-most in the American League. Weirdly, the Royals continue to not hit triples, despite having some decent triplers getting regular playing time. They hit just 2 in May. Then again, no one ever got poor betting against Joey Gathright's extra base hit totals.

Speaking of Gathright, now about those individual numbers, sorted by OPS:

This is how you have a bad month. For a guy who probably won't be in the Major Leagues in 2010, Tony Pena Jr. has generated a ton of discussion this month, but he isn't standing alone in the forest of horribleness. Considering defensive value and where they play, it's certain that Ross Gload (another Dayton pickup) was the worse player in May, and Alberto Callaspo wasn't far behind. You can say the same for Billy Butler, who slugged .302 with no value on defense.

Other than Miguel Olivo's studliness and a decent month from Jose Guillen (characteristically a lack of walks drags down his performance, even when he's hitting over .300) nobody else stepped into the void. Although Gordon (and Teahen) continued to get his walks and John Buck tossed in his annual random month of hitting .300, there isn't much good displayed here. (Expect a .210 average from Buck in June.)

Pitching numbers will be up tomorrow.

Last night was apparently one hell of a game to miss. I remember, while watching the Celtics-Pistons post-game, seeing the final score on the ESPN Bottomline and saying something to the effect of "that stinks." It looked like it had turned out to be a close slugfest, one that, given it went into extra innings, could have gone either way. It was only when "KC Greinke - 8.1 IP, 3 ER" scrolled across the bottom of the screen that I began to suspect that it had been a painful loss, and even then I really didn't know until I checked the box score this morning. ESPN, as everyone here knows, would prefer to show the Red Sox failing to hit Erik Bedard all night than show Twins-Royals highlights. However, I think that might be a good thing in this particular case. Anyhow, the "earned run" tag meant I had no idea exactly how much the Royals had been leading by going into the ninth. Of course, that Greinke was still in the game indicated that they had been leading, and so my first thought was that Soria had actually had a bit of a meltdown.

Of course, that's not the way it went. You all know as well as I know what happened in the ninth inning last night, with Ramon Ramirez getting singled out of the game and giving way to the now-thoroughly dejected Joel Peralta.

One thing that would not change this night, though, was the despair felt by Peralta -- not for himself, he said, but because he let his teammates down.

"I won't sleep tonight, for sure," he said.

Yes, that definitely sound like a pitcher who gave two home runs in the span of three betters to heavily contribute to what I have little doubt will be the Royals most memorable loss of the year. I should make it clear I'm not attempting to get everyone blaming manager Trey Hillman rather than Peralta by evoking pathos, as I find it hard to blame Hillman for Peralta not being able to get Craig Monroe out. Really, with Nunez now hurting, and with Soria having pitched two games in a row, the decision last night came down to Mahay, Peralta, Yabuta, or keeping Ramon Ramirez in the game. Ramirez wasn't pitching well, so it's easy to see why Hillman turned elsewhere. Yabuta has a 6.00 ERA with no good peripherals. Craig Monroe historically hits lefties better than righties, to the tune of more power and a better OBP. Ron Mahay is left-handed, so assuming Soria wasn't ready to go, Peralta was left as the best choice for a high leverage situation. He blew it, he knows, let's move on.

We've already discussed this game at length, anyway. I'm just pointing this out because I've been critical of Trey, and others here have been a lot more critical of our fearless leader, but I don't think he takes the fall for the ninth inning. You can, as loyal2sdad pointed out, make an argument that Hillman should have just pitched either Peralta or Ramirez through the whole inning. You can also wonder why Greinke was allowed to start the inning with such a high pitch count and a 5-run lead. But either way, it's speculation that really isn't an indictment of the moves that were really made. If we all want something to complain about in regard to Hillman, it's much more debatable whether Peralta should have remained in to pitch to Justin Morneau with Mahay on the roster. Or the Gload in the outfield thing.

But I didn't write this whole thing to bury Hillman anyway. I didn't write to praise him either, because this entire team is in a funk that you usually only see once a year. If you want the bare bones consolation, we will probably go the entire year without the Royals ever playing this badly for this long. Feel better? Yeah, me neither. Maybe I'll just shut up about last night and get to the stuff I really wanted to touch on.

Notes on the Red Sox-Royals Series

Thanks to the heroic intervention of the MLB Extra Innings package, very soon I'll have the opportunity to follow more KC games without having to enlist the highlight reels and gameday. However, the four game set between the Red Sox and the Royals allowed me for the first time this year to actually see more than one Royals game in a row. It was pretty cool despite the obviously disappointing results. And yes, they were disappointing. Those of you who have been on this blog for awhile are well aware of my "split loyalties," but I was really hoping that the series would be a split so both "my teams" could have their moments. Well, I suppose I don't feel that bad that the Red Sox kind of beat up the Royals now that the Royals are getting beat up by everyone, if that makes sense to anyone. Anyhow, I have other places to go in this article, so onto the stuff that I jotted down during the series:

1. The improvements that Alex Gordon has made over last year were evident through the entire series, during which he was one of the few Royals offensive players who distinguished themselves. He looked more patient, more comfortable, and more disciplined than when I got to see him play last year.
2. Gil Meche looked as if he was starting to get turned around, K'ing 9 over seven innings and taking the hard luck loss in the second game of the series. Say what you will about the opposing points of view in the field of pitch count general pitcher workload research, but I think that poor Meche was suffering from a 200-inning, high-pitch count hangover that seems to finally be clearing up. It's like that time where I drank Ice 101 during finals week and didn't begin to function until approximately 2 PM the next morning. My god, that stuff is evil. Thanks to my friend Buddy, who recommended taking more shots of it than were necessary.
3. Joakim Soria - great man, or greatest man? Even though Soria only appeared in one game...and stuggled with his control...in the rain, I could still see the awesome stuff that he has. I was sitting next to a rather skeptical Red Sox fan during his outing, who made fun of me for saying that Soria had great control because Joakim walked two people in the rain. I had a good chuckle when Soria escaped the jam and then Mike Timlin struggled with his control and walked one in the rain on his way to creating his own save situation in the ninth. Funny stuff.
4. Contrary to whenever I saw him in the "highlights" earlier in the year, Jose Guillen had his timing down and more closely resembled the decent power hitter he's been in the past. You know this, but the difference was clearly visible.
5. Brett Tomko is not a victim of bad luck when it comes to his hittablility. After seeing his stuff, I don't think he's got enough to keep his BABIP at league average. I just bring this up because, other than his H/9, he looks like he is underperforming his peripheral numbers. After seeing how mediocre his stuff is, I don't think he's playing by the "normal" .290-.300 BABIP rule.
6. Billy Butler is sitting too far back in his stance, and almost never seems to get his weight forward into his swings. I know I'm not a scout, but it's odd to see a man that muscular trying to fight off pitch after pitch. In any case, he's a data point against the pitching coach. He looked completely lost in the Sox-Royals series.
7. Ross Gload is done. He doesn't look capable of hitting major league pitching. His numbers are terrible, and he's older than you think.
8. Leo Nunez and Ramon Ramirez both looked impressive in their outings. It's hard to believe that Nunez has come full circle and become a very good reliever, but he has. Ramirez looks like a good find, as if you look at his line in 2006 he was quite good before getting hurt last year.

Continue reading this post »

I Learned It By Watching You!!!*

Many here in Kansas City voiced their outrage this week that the Royals have stooped to sign Jose Guillen, a purported user of performance-enhancing drugs, and thus a destroyer of our sacred national pastime -- now brought to you in HD by Levitra, Coors Light and Starbucks -- and a ruiner of thousands of golden-lit father-son moments.

However, if you look closer, you find that Dayton Moore is not to blame, nor even Guillen himself. Rather, the font of evil by Lake Erie is to blame.

Consider the following:

• Jose Guillen played with Alex Escobar for the 2006 Washington Nationals and Alex Escobar played with Rafael Betancourt for the 2003 Cleveland Indians.

• Jose Guillen played with Rick White for the 2000 Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Rick White played with Rafael Betancourt for the 2004 Cleveland Indians.

• Jose Guillen played with Nick Bierbrodt for the 2001 Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Nick Bierbrodt played with Rafael Betancourt for the 2003 Cleveland Indians.

• Jose Guillen played with Scott Sauerbeck for the 1999 Pittsburgh Pirates and Scott Sauerbeck played with Rafael Betancourt for the 2005 Cleveland Indians.

• Jose Guillen played with Mark Little for the 2002 Arizona Diamondbacks and Mark Little played with Rafael Betancourt for the 2004 Cleveland Indians.

• Jose Guillen played with Jason Davis for the 2007 Seattle Mariners and Jason Davis played with Rafael Betancourt for the 2003 Cleveland Indians.

And as you know...

And lets not even mention Paul Byrd. Clearly it is a Game of Shadows buuuaaaa scary!!

* Classic anti-drug PSA. Link here.