FanPost

My Favorite Royals Prospect

I've never been much of a prospect-watcher. I've had a more-than-passing interest in minor league baseball for a long time...but not for who was going to make the majors. I bought their cards to complete my Royals card collection (in 1987, when I discovered them, I needed the Omaha Royals set for Mike Macfarlane and Scotti Madison). I read USA Today and Baseball America, and relished the sheer geography of minor league baseball. One of my favorite books, to this day, is Stolen Season, by David Lamb, which chronicles the author's road trip around the United States, relishing the omnipresence of professional baseball at all levels and its importance in the fabric of American life. When the first month of the 1995 major league season was cancelled, killing plan A for my and my wife's spring break/Passover plans (Royals game at Yankee Stadium), we went with Plan B - the New Haven Ravens in nearby Connecticut.

Prospects? I saw Baseball America gush over Gregg Jefferies for two years, only to see him flop as a major leaguer. I saw Johnny Damon marketed as a rival to George Brett for the hearts and minds of Kansas Citians. Hype, that's all they were. I paid no attention.

Until one day in the middle of the winter of 2006, when I read that a minor leaguer that the Royals had just picked up in the Rule 5 draft pitched a perfect game in the Mexican Winter League. Suddenly, after four years of 100-loss seasons, it looked like the Royals had a real chance at a turnaround. After decade of abysmal pitching, we had, in the space of two days, landed a top free-agent starting pitcher (Gil Meche) and a young starting pitching prospect who'd just thrown a perfect game - Joakim Soria.

Joakim, though, wasn't in the starting rotation the next year...understandable, due to the fact that he hadn't pitched above single-A level in a USA-based league, and keeping him required that he be on the major league roster all year long. He was kept in the bullpen, and even though he exhausted his rookie eligibility by the end of the year, he still seemed like a prospect, as a starter-in-waiting. Things didn't quite turn out that way, though. Though the Royals had signed veteran free-agent Octavio Dotel to close out games, he started the year on the disabled list, forcing the Royals to use the Mexican rookie with the nasty curveball in that role. He filled the role admirably in Dotel's absence, and when the veteran was traded away at the deadline, the role became the rookie's permanent assignment.

And why not? As frustrating as it was for years to be a Royals fan in many aspects of the game, there's little that can break one's heart like seeing a lead get blown. 2006 might well have been the nadir of a decade of bad bullpens - out of 66 save opportunities, the Royals bullpen blew 31 of them, and the Royals record in games that were tied at the start of the 7th inning was an abysmal 5-14. As bad as other aspects of the Royals' game were that year - that their All-Star representative was a starting pitcher with a 5.27 ERA should be a clue - if the bullpen that year had saved games at the rate Soria did in 2007, they would have 18 more wins, which would have made them a near-.500 team! So, a closer Joakim remained.

But that hardly dimmed my excitement about him. In 2008, he locked down the 9th inning of Royals leads with great regularity, and by the time I made my second trip ever to Kauffman Stadium, he had saved 20 of his 21 save opportunities. I was privileged to see him get into the game I attended, and it was marvelous to hear the thunderous applause as he took the mound and retired three Colorado Rockies (striking out two of them) for save # 21. My excitement in him from the moment he became a Royals prospect was not misplaced.

Although a counter-example isn't really needed, I'll provide one anyway. The following September, I attended the Royals game at Yankee stadium started by Anthony Lerew, who is probably second only to Eduardo Villacis on the "Royals starters not really prepared to take on the Yankees" list. Nonetheless, Lerew held the Yankees to two runs through six innings, and the score, as of the middle of the ninth, was Royals 3, Yankees 2. I was three outs from seeing my first ever Royals win in Yankee Stadium. The bullpen opened, and a Royals reliever walked to the mound, a two-digit number beginning with "4" on his back. I cheered - surely my favorite prospect, who wore #48, would nail down this victory and I could go home a happy Royals fan!

No such luck. The second digit was a "0" - Kyle Farnsworth. The Yankee fans around me, having experienced Farnsworth's suckitude the prior three seasons, actually expressed their sympathies to me before the first pitch was even thrown. Sure enough, the Yankees scored two and walked off with the win. Oh, Joakim, the degre of elation at watching you close a game was matched only by the degree of depression of watching "not-you" close a game. From Bottalico to Burgos, that's what we suffered before Joakim came on board, and now that we had a taste of real closer again, it was hard to stomach those days when someone other than you came into close games.

Joakim, no matter what happened after that point, you'll forever be "my" Royals prospect.

This FanPost was written by a member of the Royals Review community. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the editors and writers of this site.