Game CXIII: Royals at White Sox

Brad Keller was drafted from the Arizona Diamondbacks and traded to the Royals in this years Rule 5 draft. Dylan Covey was drafted from the Oakland Athletics in last year’s Rule 5 draft. They’ll pitch opposite each other this evening.

The Royals’ pick has fared much better than the White Sox’. Covey is 26, now, and has a cumulative major league ERA of 6.82 in 151.2 innings. That’s good for an ERA+ of 61. Keller, on the other hand, is only 22 and has a 3.40 ERA in 95.1 innings good for an ERA+ of 125. Perhaps the scariest part for Chicago is that Covey’s 5.77 FIP indicates he hasn’t been as unlucky as you’d hope while Keller’s 3.73 FIP says he’s also about where you’d expect.

Lineups

I have in my head an ideal rebuilding lineup. The lineups is less about where the batters are than who is batting. If I had my way, based on the current 25-man roster, we’d have:

C Salvador Perez

1B Ryan O’Hearn

2B Whit Merrifield

3B Hunter Dozier

SS Adalberto Mondesi

LF Alex Gordon

CF Rosell Herrera

RF Brett Phillips

DH Jorge Bonifacio

Ned Yost has said the team is going to emphasize playing their young guys more for the remainder of the season. That’s great! That’s what they should have been doing all along! But better late than never. Even after this announcement, though, we can’t get this lineup. My guess is that Ned still feels some need to keep veterans in the lineup. To which I’d point out that Salvador Perez, Whit Merrifield, and Alex Gordon make up a third of that lineup and are all veterans.

There is no point to continuing to play Lucas Duda or Alcides Escobar, anymore. Show me a real rebuilding lineup. If Ned does it even once this year, even if he has those guys playing different spots, I’ll be ecstatic at this point. But until then I’m going to continue to be grumpy because the Royals still just don’t seem to have any kind of plan.