Fanpost Roundup One: Season Preview Edition

One month ago, I wrote an article introducing the idea of a weekly fanpost roundup.  In it, I tossed out an idea into the universe that I compile all fanposts in a given week.  From my mouth/fingers/keyboard:

I believe that reader content is a vital part of the personality of this site, and a weekly fanpost roundup will help with that.  The plan, as of right now, is to feature a few articles and quote a snippet of them Royals Rumblings style.  The rest will be linked at the bottom of the article.  Perhaps there will be a poll for fanpost of the week.  It's also up to the community to determine whether or not discussion of said posts will continue on each individual article or whether the roundup will function as the 'hub' for fanpost discussion.

This is a trial run here, so this could turn out somewhere between Alex Gordon moving from third base to left field to Eric Hosmer moving from first base to right field.  The community as a whole seems to endorse such an experiement, for what it's worth.  In the poll I attached to the fanpost roundup idea post, 76% of you thought it was a good idea and 10% of you didn't even know what a fanpost is.  So, that's a thing.

This week was a particularly active one, with many fanposts focusing on previews of this season WHICH STARTS ON MONDAY.  Thus, here be the fanposts from the past week.

Note: I reserve the judgment to exclude fanposts which are merely snippets of thoughts, incomprehensible, or particularly poorly written.

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On March 26, user zyzzyva98 posted an article titled Fatal Flaws: The Detroit Tigers.  In it, he examined how the Royals could defeat the Tigers this season.

There is some good news. The Tigers lost Max Scherzer to the Nationals and Porcello to the Red Sox. Their replacements are Shane Green and Alfredo Simon, neither of which figures to be as effective as their predecessors.

If Justin Verlander and David Price continue to stymie the Royals, maybe they can muster some offense against the new Tigers. The Royals scored just 3.47 runs per game against the Tigers last year, which simply isn’t enough to beat them.

But if the runs don’t come against the starters, the Royals will need to make sure the Tigers’ bullpen makes appearances as often as possible. Detroit continued to turn a blind eye to their glaring weakness this offseason, making no effective moves to shore up their incredibly leaky bullpen.

Also on March 26, just_another_fan wrote about the minor leaguers who give the Royals depth in a post titled 2015 Royals minor league watch list. It looked at under-the-radar prospects who could make impacts at the minor league level.

1. Jake Newberry (11/20/1994) RHP, drafted in the 37th Round (2012). This will be his fourth year in the system. He has always been extremely young for his level, even in rookie ball because of his November birthday. He should finally get to full season this year. Last year he had a 4.50 ERA, 1.41 WHIP, 8.6 K/9 and 2.9 BB/9. He's at a point where he could still be a starter, or could be in line to become another bullpen weapon. Right now, the hope is that (of course) he sticks as a starter in the Sally. He K'd 22.4% of batters faced last season, while walking just 7.6%. If those numbers hold up, he could improve on his numbers from last year quite a bit.

On March 31, Austin Casel wrote Why Omar Infante won't bounce back, a post examining why Infante isn't likely to return to previous production levels

Yes, this is a simple analysis only concerning extra-base hits across the strike zone, but it weighs heavily in Infante's value as a player. It does not tell everything about Infante's game, though it raises huge red flags. The issue is that Infante probably will not produce more. He may be able to heal his shoulder and his new elbow injury. He may be able to cut down on swinging at terrible pitches outside. He may be able to raise his BABIP. But he probably will not be able to generate more power in his swing, given the pitches he receives, his sweet-spots, and inability to hit perfectly normal strikes for extra-base hits.

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The fanpost roundup is dependent upon fanposts being written, so this will not necessarily be a regular thing.  Still--write those fanposts! More opinions are always a good thing.