Royals Review, a Kansas City Royals community

The crux of Manley's argument: "If you are making the assumption that taking a walk is less a function of patience and more a function of pitcher fear, I can see where you care coming from. So, I decided to evaluate that question." You can guess what he finds. The Royals simply do not value taking pitches, walks, and OBP. And you can't blame it on pitchers fearing the Royals obvious lack of power. Novel? No. Not at all. We've all been arguing this for years here (and elsewhere). But Manley's critique is devastating nonetheless. Why? Because it's coming from the KC Star, which (other than Posnanski) has generally shilled KC success stories or unfounded hope. - TL

In thinking about OBP and current or prospective Royals players, perhaps we should think more about the virtues of near-HOFer Andre Dawson. Perhaps having a few Dawsons is what Dayton Moore sees when he pursues a line-up of mixed OBP guys? Here's an interesting quote from Rosenthal: Among more recently elected Hall of Famers, Eddie Murray was at .359, Reggie Jackson .356 and Dave Winfield .353 — OBPs that would not rank them among the top 50 active players. Meanwhile, Ryne Sandberg was at .344, Robin Yount .342, Cal Ripken .340 and Gary Carter .335 — not that much better than Dawson. - TL