A sampling of abandoned articles by the Royals Review staff

At Royals Review, your number one source for Royals information, otters, and Harambe hot takes, we seem to present a professional facade. Thanks to our wonderful Managing Editor, Max Rieper, this site buzzes along smoothly and doesn't miss a beat. Articles every day! Tweets every day! What more could you want? Don't say winning. We can't help with that.

But not every idea makes it to the page to be read. Some get started, never leaving editorial purgatory. Some of these were abandoned because life got in the way and they ceased to be topical. Some of these were just bad ideas in general. Some were barely more than titles, others were almost fully-fledged articles that didn't make the final step to Published Glory.

It is now time to reveal some of the abandoned articles floating in the Cybernether, for good or ill. Follow me on a journey through pieces that never themselves journeyed to completion.

Sliders are destroying Alex Gordon

Matthew LaMar, July 17

Facing free agency for the first time, Gordon eventually re-signed with the Royals, his four year, $72 million contract the largest in team history. Gordon had been through seemingly every stage possible for a baseball player: top prospect, hyped rookie, disappointment, injured and ineffective, All-Star, household name, champion.

Now, in 2016, he can add 'terrible veteran' to his list.

...Even after missing a month after a collision with Moustakas near third base, Gordon's return has been...less-than-great. For once, there's one huge problem going on, and it's obvious, and it matches up with the eye-test:

Gordon is getting wrecked by sliders this year.

Gordon's strikeout rate makes Michael Phelps' gold medal rate look wimpy. Gordon's strikeout rate makes George Brett's career batting average look tiny. Gordon's strikeout rate once kicked a small child and attempted a failed coup of a South American government.

But it's not just strikeouts--Gordon has been bad in every facet of the game, and it's because of sliders more than anything. He just can't hit sliders. And because he can't hit sliders, he can't hit lefties now, either. All this happened in an article that just never saw the light of day, but it's real data.

A look back at the 1981 Royals season

Max Rieper, July 8

1981

That's it. Nothing else in the body of the article. Just the date. It's like if you watched a documentary about the Empire State Building and it was just the camera panning over to the famous landmark, the credits rolling afterwards a few swift seconds later. Riveting stuff, I tell you.

Starting pitchers the Royals could target in a trade

Max Rieper, July 8

Off limits: Jake Odorizzi, Drew Pomeranz, Rich Hill, Sonny Gray

Jeremy Hellickson

Matt Moore

Matt Shoemaker

Jon Niese

ERvin Santana?

Matt Garza?

#ERvin?

draft for a sad game

Matthew LaMar, July 7

Other than that, Greinke was completely spectacular. Even without his strikeout stuff working, Greinke tossed eight innings, allowing no other runs other than the one in the third. Moreover, the Angels were unable to get more than one baserunner in a frame.

And yet.

Here's a full list of Royals hitters over the entire game to get a hit or a walk:

• Coco Crisp, single
• Mark Teahen, single
• Jose Guillen, single 
  
• Billy Butler, walk
• Alberto Callaspo, single
• Miguel Olivo, single

Add to the fact that no more than two of those happened in a single inning and, well, you can imagine what a .200 on base percentage does to your offense when randomly strewn about like unneeded Legos over eight innings of baseball. Zero runs. If you're doing the math in your head, that means that, yes, the Royals wasted a Zack Greinke complete game by losing 1-0 to Joe Saunders' first complete game. Greinke's season ERA is now 0.51 and he has not allowed more than two runs in any single game, but now he has a loss.

I wrote an entire recap for a game wherein the Royals looked to waste a Duffy start, just like they wasted so many Greinke starts in 2009. Maybe it will see the light of day, but I had to shelve it when the Royals stormed back to win the game; regardless, draft for a sad game will live on.

Is Joakim Soria bad (in high leverage situations)

Hokius, June 30

There is no text here because it is, sadly, very true so let's all cry, cry some more, and remember good Soria while crying.

Alcides Escobar is having the worst season of his career, and the Royals don't seem to care

Matthew LaMar, June 7

AD

Salt! Look at all this salt!

All of my righteous anger went into the title, which is awfully provocative. The entire text of the piece is, apparently, just two measly letters, standing together in all caps against the cold night that is Moore's approach to shortstop evaluation. Escobar is still having the worst season of his career, and the Royals seem poised to give him more money next year for being real bad. This would be the opposite of good.

Three ways the Royals can improve right now

Matthew LaMar, May 10

Move Lorenzo Cain into the leadoff spot

Go back in time and re-sign Ben Zobrist

Make Christian Colon the everyday second baseman

Though I had only written about the first reason, I am unsure whether or not I considered time travel contract negotiations a legitimate way the Royals could improve. Ben Zobrist, by the way, would be by far the best member of this year's Royals team if he had re-signed. I miss Benny Z. Benny Z does not miss us, though, because the Chicago Cubs are the Katie Ledecky of baseball teams right now and, come on, who wouldn't want to be associated with the Katie Ledecky of anything?

Mike Moustakas sure is hitting a bunch of home runs

Matthew LaMar, April 18

If that sounds low, that's because it is. Here is a full list of each team's individual home run leaders are:

1. San Francisco Giants — Barry Bonds 73

...

30. Kansas City Royals – Steve Balboni 36

That's...honestly pretty embarrassing. No other team has fewer than 41 home runs, and it's not like the Royals have 38 or 39. Nope; 36.

And it's not like

Unfortunately, Moustakas has ceased to hit home runs, or do anything else involving the integrity of his knees. More unfortunately, I didn't even have the dignity of ending this draft with a complete sentence. We will never know what it's not like. Is it not like alligator teeth? Not like Teen Spirit? Not like a stick of butter ducktaped to a chicken? The world will never know.

Is Danny Duffy trade bait?

Max Rieper, April 25

Reason to trade Danny Duffy

Frees up salary

Could use him to land an OF (or other hole)

Reasons not to trade Danny Duffy

Nice to have depth

Upside

Because he doesn't have a role

What is his value?

Who would be suitors?

Let's put aside Max' somewhat scandalous idea to use Duffy for another hole. Max lists a number of words, some nouns, others not, to describe the plight of Duffy being trade bait. Then, Max turns from what we know and starts asking the tough-hitting questions at the end. What is Duffy's value? What are any of our values? What does the identity of a suitor mean for human worth and dignity? Groundbreaking.

Five prospect predictions for 2016

Shaun Newkirk, March 1

1. Kyle Zimmer will be more healthy

There are a few other points here, but Shaun's bold move to associate the word 'healthy' with 'Zimmer' is a mistake on par with 'never get involved in a land war in Asia' or 'never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.'

A ranking of Kansas City team uniforms

Matthew LaMar, February 11

Your dad will say too much of a good thing ceases to be a good thing anymore, and that is only mostly true. For instance, have you ever seen a person have too many jetpacks? No. No you have not. Too many jetpacks is the correct number of jetpacks.

But in this case, you've got the KC logo--a nice logo--featured prominently three times. It's on the hat, on the shoulder, and on the breast. Even if you don't have a terribly racist logo (CLEVELAND, NOT YOU AGAIN), that's a bit much. Break up the monotony a bit.

If it seems like a lot of these abandoned pieces are mine, you would be correct. I am the worst in this particular area.

This piece, which features a Khol's joke and discussion about the idiocy of argyle, is a pretty good one that got derailed by the tedium of finding good pictures, resizing them, making Chorus recognize the resize and display it correctly, and realizing that I didn't source any of the pictures' photographers halfway through.

Royals accidentally lose World Series trophy in grocery store

Tim Webber, February 12

"It's not in the protein bar aisle!" interrupted Alex Gordon. "So it must be out of the store by now."

"Have you just been in that section this entire time?" Kennedy asked. "Did you check any of the other sections?"

"What other sections?"

Before Kennedy could press further, Wade Davis walked over to their group, rolling up an extension cord .

"I'm all charged up for the season," Davis said. "What's going on?"

"Thank goodness you're here!" pitcher Edinson Volquez said. "Can you use your X-ray vision to find the World Series trophy? We lost it somewhere in the store."

"Sure, no problem," Davis replied, turning to walk away while appearing to adjust an imperceptible screw next to his eye.

"I'm beginning to think I made a bad choice this offseason," Kennedy said.

I'm not sure if Tim is reporting or writing a satire, because the chances of this happening in real life seem awfully high.

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