Royals Rumblings - News for June 2, 2014

Royals Rumblings - News for June 2 ,2014

As assembled by Royals Review staff:

In case you missed it, Dayton Moore told Fox Sports Kansas City's Jeffrey Flanagan that manager Ned Yost's job is safe and that only one person is to blame for the Royals' failures:

"Here's the bottom line: It's not Ned, it's not Pedro (Grifol), it's me," Moore said.

"I'm responsible. It's all on me. At least that's the way I feel about it. "It's my job to give the managers and the coaching staff the right players to succeed. I have to be able to give them the tools to win. So if we're not succeeding, ultimately the responsibility comes back to me. No one else."

We agree with Dayton! Minda has her take here. Actions speak louder than words, and the only action taken so far this year, is the reassignment of a hitting coach.

Rany Jazayerli took to the pages of the Star to say that if Dayton doesn't field a playoff team this year, enough is enough.

This might be the Royals' best shot with their current group of players. Moore deserves a little more time to turn this season around - if the team goes on a stretch where it wins 15 out of 20, as the Royals did last year, they might lead the wild-card race and quiet their critics.

But that time should be measured in weeks, not years. You can't argue that eight years isn't long enough when other teams routinely rebuild themselves in half the time. If after eight years Moore hasn't been able to fashion a playoff team, it's only reasonable to conclude that he never will.

Royals Review reader Pete Melgren has a piece up at Fangraphs that looks at how much the Royals have underperformed in the home run department, concluding that its probably just a stretch of bad luck and we shouldn't expect them to be quite this bad going forward.

The Star's Vahe Gregorian profiles Greg Holland's rise from self-proclaimed "trailer trash" to the league's best closer.

Local prep star Monte Harrison is expected to be a first round pick in this week's June draft, here's the Star's profile of the young outfielder, although our own KCTiger warns the Royals to stay far away from the multi-sport athlete. Local multi-sport athlete outfielder in the first round? How could that go wrong?

Paul Swydan looks back at the Royals trade of Kyle Farnsworth and Rick Ankiel to the Braves and marvels how many useful players the Royals got out of it.

Lee Judge again argues that Royals pitchers walking hitters is a good thing:

When big league pitchers face hitters who can change the game with one swing, th epichers often decde to pitch those hitters "perfect." That means the pitcher tries to make perfect pitches and if he doesn't - if he falls behind in the count - the pitcher does not give in. The pitcher refuses to throw a pitch over the heart of the plate in order to throw a strike. He either throws a ball off the plate intentionally - working around the hitter - or continues to pitch perfect.

FanGraphs had a piece about the possibly historic moment we all saw this weekend in Infante and Butlers 9-3 putouts by Jose Bautista.

On Thursday night, Bautista just straight up gunned Billy Butler and the following night, capitalized on a mental error by Omar Infante to record two 9-3 putouts on non-pitchers in two games. Jose Bautista himself did in two nights what only three players have done in the last 14 years.

Just ask Aaron Brooks! You stupid nerds don't know what you're talking about!

Doug Fister is the "that's what she said" of Major League Baseball.

Here are your 2014 Yearbook heroes. My senior year quote was "trust the process."

Proof every country music song is the same.

Refresh your palate after that with the song of the day, "Wave of Mutilation" by the Pixies.