The Royals took two out of three against the Angels and now stand at 20-17, a game and a half back of the division leading Detroit Tigers. In the midst of a nine game road trip, the Royals will now head to Oakland to take on the A’s in a three game set. Here are three things we can take away from the series in Los Angeles (read: Anaheim).

1. Alex Gordon is raking: After going 6/13 with a double against the Angels, Alex Gordon has now posted a scorching hot  .357/.362/.571 line in 58 plate appearances in May.

2. Jeremy Guthrie is who we thought he was: We couldn’t have expected Jeremy Guthrie to win every start, but he certainly fun to watch, having gone nearly a half season’s worth of starts without registering a loss. It appears Guthrie has begun to regress to his career averages, but he’s still going to be a solid starter who will be able to eat innings and will pitch well enough to the Royals in the game and give them a chance to win.

3. It’s time to panic for Mike Moustakas: Struggling mightily coming into the series, Moustakas’ woes continued as he went 1/14 against the Angels, lowering his line to a meager .194/.266/.339 in 139 plate appearances this season. Moustakas hasn’t shown any signs to suggest that he’s going to figure it out anytime soon and the Royals front office should be thinking about other options at third base, if they aren’t already. I assume the front office would prefer to promote from within, so they might consider giving Anthony Seratelli a shot. Seratelli has put up a solid .326/.423/.516 in 111 plate appearances at AAA Omaha this season.

For several years now the Kansas City Royals have had one of the better farm systems in Major League Baseball.  Most teams should be so lucky.  The Royals haven’t been able to translate this advantage into success on the field and there would seem to be one very good reason for this.

You can’t win the World Series with the AAA Storm Chasers.  It takes time to scout and develop major league talent.  While developing young talent can be exciting, it usually comes with long periods of growing pains while the fans wait for the team to assemble all of the necessary pieces to win consistently.  And if you’re a mid-market team like the Royals, then you hope that you have enough players developed each year to keep costs down.

But the patience may be paying off for Royals fans as they are now getting a glimpse at what a winning, home-grown baseball team looks like in Kansas City.  Mike Moustakas, who was a 1^st round draft pick in 2007, had 20 home runs and 73 RBIs last year in 560+ at bats.  Despite having a slow start in April, Moustakas has shown signs that his bat is coming alive hitting 3 home runs in the last week.  Moustakas isn’t available for arbitration until 2015 and doesn’t become a free agent until 2018.  Moustakas is still far from the player the Royals want him to be though.  He drew only 39 walks and struck out 124 times last year.  However, if Moustakas can learn some discipline at the plate he is sure to be the guy holding down the hot corner for years to come at Kauffman stadium.

There is cause for optimism for Moustakas as his first year stats are not all that dissimilar to the numbers that outfielder Alex Gordon put up in his debut year.  Gordon, another 1^st round pick from 2005 also struck out in excess of 130 times with only 41 walks.  You won’t hear anyone complaining about Alex Gordon though as the Royals have developed him into a player that turns in a 300 plus batting average every year.  Now hitting in the 3^rd spot in the lineup, he is currently batting over .320 this year and already has 6 home runs to go with that average.  Gordon is signed through 2015 with a club option for the 2016 season.

Gordon’s breakout is exactly what the Royal’s front office is hoping will happen for Eric Hosmer this year.  Hosmer, yet another first round pick from 2008 broke into the league in 2011 with 19 home runs and a .293 average.  As with other rookies, the walk rate could have been better but this was certainly a better rookie season than most expected.  Unfortunately it was followed up by a lack luster year in 2012 as his average dipped 60 points.  His average on balls in play (BABIP) for 2012 was a head hanging 255.  Hosmer is still incredibly young and should be able to correct his issues from last year.  Balls in play for 2013 are already up to 326.  Hosmer is available for arbitration next year so this season he is the player to watch as the Royals have been pretty open about how much they expect from him.  In fact, they probably expect him to be Billy Butler…at least by the numbers.

Billy Butler, if you’re keeping track, is also a 1^st round draft pick, consistently hits for average and power.  In his 7^th year playing for the Royals he has racked up 107 home runs and over 500 RBIs and will probably get his 1,000^th career hit before you finish reading this page.  This is the type of production the Royals want from Hosmer and it’s also why Butler’s 2015 option is starting to look like either the window for a home grown championship team or the year the Royals break out the check book and pay up.

While Butler is the type of player that all teams hope to develop, possibly the most important and likely the most overlooked piece to this young organization is Salvador Perez.  At 23 years old, Perez already holds the Royals franchise pick-off record for a single season.  The Royals believe that he will become one of the game’s best defensive catchers in years to come, something that no championship team can be without.  And the kid can hit as well.  In over 140 career games, Perez is hanging onto a 300 plus average.  The Royals feel so good about Perez that despite his apparent lack of experience, they have him signed through 2016 with options all the way through 2019.

In a weak division, this offensive core might be enough to keep the Royals out of the basement for the foreseeable future but to be yearly contenders we’re still missing something.

Check back tomorrow for a look at the pitching staff.

After a strong start to 2013, the Kansas City Royals ended last week losing a three in a row to the injury plagued New York Yankees.  The Royals finished the week losing six of seven and find themselves two games behind the first place Indians with a record of 18-16.

In the first edition of Royals Weekend Rundown, let’s recap the week that was shall we?

Best of the Week:  Alex Gordon

Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer deserve some credit for getting the monkey off their backs and belting their first home runs of the season (Moustakas hit three this week).  This still doesn’t top Gordon’s monstrous week in which he slugged three homers, scored five runs, drove in eight, and hit .393.

Ned Yost made perhaps his best move as Royals skipper by moving Gordon to the three-hole to generate more run production.  Right now he’s hitting .400 with a 1.108 OPS in that spot.

While the production is over a small sample size, its a testament to Gordon’s growth as a ballplayer and the Royal’s patience the last few years.  Look at the numbers from the two halves of his career to date:

2007-2010:  .244 Avg. / 45 HR / 161 RBI / .320 OBP / .404 SLG

2011-2013:  .301 Avg. / 43 HR / 187 RBI / .365 OBP / .482 SLG

Gordon has gone from the brink of receiving the dreaded “bust” and demotion to making a name for himself as a cornerstone player for the club.  If he keeps this up for another two months, I would be shocked if he isn’t selected to his first All Star team.

Worst of the Week:  Billy Butler and Alcides Escobar

One could argue that this should go to the entire Royals offense except for the aforementioned Alex Gordon.  The team hit an abysmal .233 this week averaging around four runs per game.

While Escobar and Butler don’t deserve all the blame, they stand out because they hit first and fourth in the order respectively and hit a combined .105 (6-for-57) this week.  No need to worry, I expect both will bounce back soon in the next couple weeks against weaker pitching.

The Road Ahead:  Go West Young Men…

Monday night marks the first of a 10-game road West Coast road trip starting in Anaheim against the soul-searching Angels.  The Halos begin the series with a record of 14-23 and have at least found some rhythm on offense.  However, their pitching staff is still a mess.  Kansas City will face Joe Blanton, Jason Vargas, and Barry Enright who are a combined 1-10 and could help the Royals heat up.  After the three game stint in Anaheim, the Royals head to Oakland for a three game set with the A’s.

Probable Pitchers vs. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim:

Monday at 9:05 CT:  Luis Mendoza (0-2, 6.38 ERA) vs. Joe Blanton (0-6, 5.66 ERA)

Tuesday at 9:05 CT:  Jeremy Guthrie (5-0, 2.28 ERA) vs. Jason Vargas (1-3, 4.26 ERA)

Wednesday at 9:05 CT:  Wade Davis (2-3, 5.86 ERA) vs. Barry Enright (0-1, 11.37 ERA)

Follow Adam Rozwadowski on Twitter @adam_roz

It’s week two of the I70 Baseball Royals Power Rankings, and to say this week didn’t go well would be an understatement.  The Royals defense was atrocious and their hitting and pitching weren’t too far behind. Let’s take a look at the power rankings through May 12.

#5 Ervin Santana- (Previously: #2) Santana saw his ERA “balloon” to 2.79 with a couple of mediocre starts this week. The right hander gave up seven runs on 15 hits in 12 1/3 innings of work against the Orioles and Yankees. On the positive side he only walked one in the two starts and now sports a 39-6 K-BB ratio.

#4 Lorenzo Cain- (Previously: #1) Cain was due for a cold streak, and boy did he find one. He was just 4/20 on the week with two walks and five strikeouts. Cain is still amongst the team leaders in most every offensive category, but he only has one RBI in his last seven games.

#3 James Shields- (Previously: #5) Shields moves up in the rankings after allowing two runs over 16 innings in two fantastic starts. The week started off in controversy for Shields when he was pulled after 8 shutout innings against the White Sox. Of course, the bullpen lost that game and set the tone for a treacherous week. Shields now sits at 2-3 with a 2.48 ERA and 53 Ks in 58 innings.

#2 Jeremy Guthrie- (Previously: #3) Guthrie didn’t have his best stuff against his former team, but still managed six innings with only one run allowed. He’s now gone 18 starts without a loss and leads the team with a 2.28 ERA. One concern for Guthrie moving forward is his recent control issues. He’s averaged nearly three walks per outing in his last four starts.

#1 Alex Gordon- (Previously: #4) Alex Gordon responded to being moved to the three-hole with a bang and a hot week rose his average from .306 to .320. The 29 year-old right fielder now leads the team in doubles (8), home runs (6), RBI (28), average (.320), and slugging % (.548). Gordon has been the lone bright spot in an increasingly bad offense.

Honorable mention: Luke Hochevar- Before you throw anything at me, yes Hochevar has been terrible at letting inherited runners score BUT he’s been outstanding outside of that. In 12 1/3 innings, Hochevar has allowed 10 baserunners and struck out 13 batters. He has an ERA of 0.73 and a WHIP of 0.81. If we could simply convince Ned Yost not to bring him in with runners on, Hochevar may actually be an asset.

After a good April and keeping up with A.L. Central leading Detroit Tigers, the Kansas City Royals are 3-3 so far this May. But for the rest of the month, they have a tough schedule. They have a game against the Baltimore Orioles, then they play the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Angels, Oakland Athletics, Houston Astros, the Angels again, the St. Louis Cardinals, and the Texas Rangers. Except for the lowly Astros and struggling Angels, the other teams are above .500 and possible playoff contenders.

Despite this month’s 3-3 record, there’s reasons for concern. So far this month, the Royals have six errors, with four of them committed in their two losses against the Orioles. The usually strong Royals bullpen lost a 2-1 decision to the White Sox Monday night and Luke Hochevar‘s errant pickoff throw to first in Tuesday night’s game against the Orioles led to a 4-3 loss. And in four of the six games played this month, the Royals offense scored three or less runs.

But it’s not all bad. It took until May 8 and 30 games into the season for the Royals to lose three games in a row. Last year, they lost three games in a row by April 14, eight games into the 2012 season. The starting rotation is pitching well, especially Jeremy Guthrie and Ervin Santana. Alex Gordon, Lorenzo Cain, Salvador Perez and Alcides Escobar are playing well. If Tim Collins, Kelvin Herrera and Greg Holland cut down their walks and settle into their roles, the defense quits making errors and the offense scores more runs, the Royals could get through May with a .500 or above record. Or they could implode and have losing record. Either way, we’ll know by June 1.

Welcome to a new feature on I70 Baseball, the Royals Power Rankings. Each week we’ll rank the top five Royals in 2013 with a heavy emphasis on their performance in the past seven days. Just moments ago, Alex Gordon topped a 4-1 week with a walk off hit in the tenth inning. The club now sits at 17-10, on pace for 102 victories. As awesome as Gordon’s hit was, the week belonged to Lorenzo Cain, who continues to be the best hitter on the club in 2012.

#5 James Shields- Big Game James was brought in to be the ace and I seriously doubt the Royals thought his 3.00 ERA would rank third on the starting staff more than a month into the season. Shields picked up a victory off his old team with a gutsy performance on Tuesday night. After surrendering two runs in the first, Shields proceeded to pitch six shutout innings and notch his second victory of the season. It was the third time this season Shields has pitched 6+ innings and given up two runs of less.

#4 Alex Gordon- Sunday’s big hit aside, it was a rough week for the Royals’ left fielder. Gordon was 3/23 on the week before his 10^th inning stroke and saw his average slide from .337 to .303 this week. Still, he leads the team with 20 RBI and is tied for the team lead in both home runs (3) and doubles (6)

#3 Jeremy Guthrie- The performance of the week goes to Guthrie for his complete game shutout of the White Sox on Saturday night. Guthrie completely owns the Sox, and has now gone a club-record 17 straight starts without a loss. Guthrie hasn’t given up a run in his last two starts.

#2 Ervin Santana- The official stats will tell you that Ervin Santana didn’t even pitch last week, but of course we all know that’s not true. Santana continued his dominance on Thursday afternoon before a snow out erased his efforts. To say Santana has been great this year would be underselling it. He’s struck out 31 batters in 36 innings and sports a 2.00 ERA.

#1 Lorenzo Cain- Cain was one of the biggest question marks heading into the 2013 campaign and so far he’s been incredible. He leads the club with a .341 average and didn’t do anything to hurt that this week. We was 8/20 with five runs scored and five RBI on the week (including the only two RBI in the team’s 2-0 win on Saturday night. Through five weeks Cain has been the best player on the team and one of the best in the league.

Honorable mention: Bruce Chen- Chen picked up his second victory of the season with two shutout innings against the Rays on Wednesday night. Chen has now made five appearances out of the pen without allowing an earned run. Perhaps more impressively, he’s struck out 11 batters in only 9 2/3 innings.

We might be watching a #Royals team consisting of 2 of the best 5 players to ever don the blue and white for KC

April 28, 2013 2:51 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@PCBearcat

Ross Martin

The tweet above was referencing Billy Butler and Alex Gordon, and more specifically their climb up the Kansas City Royals’ historical hierarchy. It led, as most thought-provoking tweets do, to a lengthy discussion about who are the ten best Royals ever, a debate which has no concrete resolution. While that discussion in itself can be fascinating, what I want to focus on today is whether Butler and Gordon really are on pace to join the all-time Royals greats, and what kind of production they’ll need to get there.

Maybe it’s because I so thoroughly enjoyed his barbecue sauce last night, but I’d like to start with Butler. In Royals history there are two very good comps for Butler in my opinion, Hal McRae and Mike Sweeney. Like Butler, both were doubles machines that were best suited to play DH. Since Butler has just crossed over 3500 career plate appearances, I thought we’d take a look at all three after approximately that much time with the Royals. It should be noted that while Sweeney’s career with the Royals also started at age 21, McRae was a 27-year-old that had spent four part-time seasons with Cincinnati. As a final disclaimer, I would place McRae in my top ten Royals of all-time while I believe Sweeney falls just short. Here is the production for the three up to this point in Butler’s career.

As you can see, Butler matches up pretty well through approximately 3500 plate appearances with the main difference being the era that Sweeney played in and WAR.  Now let’s look at what Sweeney and McRae did over the next five seasons…

This takes us to the end of Mike Sweeney’s career with the Royals while McRae had four seasons left as mostly a part-time DH. While their raw numbers are fairly similar, McRae’s OPS+ accounts for the differences in era and the difference in WAR reveals how much time Sweeney spent on the DL. Both players saw a slight dip in their OBP% but McRae’s SLG% jumped while Sweeney’s lagged. Butler is at the beginning of his prime as a power hitter, which means we could see a slight dip in OBP% and an increase in SLG%, but I thought it would be interesting to look at how Butler would compare  like if he simply had five more seasons with similar statistics to his previous five. Here are the numbers for McRae and Butler in their Royals’ careers compared to what Butler’s numbers could look like five years from now:

What the chart above shows, I believe, is that Butler is on pace to be in this discussion for the best DH in club history, and one of the ten greatest Royals of all-time. The encouraging thing for Butler is that he is just at the beginning of his prime and could very well improve upon his numbers over the last five years. The final factor may well come down to winning. As you can see also see above, there is not much difference between Hal McRae and Mike Sweeney’s Royals’ career numbers. The difference is something you can’t see above, winning. If Butler matches these totals and the team loses another 450 games over the next five years I would say he’ll be looked at much more like Sweeney. If he leads this club back to the postseason for the first time since McRae was actually playing, there is little doubt he will be viewed amongst the Royals’ greats.

Comparisons are a little bit harder to find for Alex Gordon simply because he’s a very unique player. Offensively, Gordon does not have one skill that stands out but he’s seemingly “good” at everything. He’s not a base swiper on the level of Willie Wilson, he doesn’t have the power numbers of Danny Tartabull, but he has turned into one of the most valuable players in baseball because of his ability to do everything well. I’ve chosen two players to compare Gordon with, Amos Otis and Carlos Beltran. Otis is, in my book, a lock for the top ten Royals ever, while Beltran is just on the outside simply because he falls short in the areas of longevity and contributions to a winner. I stuck with the same statistics for this comparison but it bears mentioning that both Beltran and Otis were much more proficient base stealers than Gordon.

At first glance it looks like Gordon is well behind Beltran after nearly 3200 at bats, but a quick glance at OPS+ shows that Gordon compares to his era just as well if not better. It also bears mentioning that both Beltran and Otis played for better offensive teams than Gordon ever has and played a more premium defensive position (at least for this portion of their careers) than does Gordon. Beltran played only another half season with the Royals before being traded to the Houston Astros, and in my book one reason he’s not amongst the Royals’ greats. Otis, on the other hand, still had his best offensive season ahead of him (1978) and spent another ten years in a Royals’ uniform. With Gordon likely to be much more expensive than Butler when he hits free agency, I’m only going to project him out until he’s no longer under club control. Here’s what his numbers could look like assuming he comes close to his production from the last two years.

With Gordon being two years older it isn’t quite as likely that he maintains this level of production for the next four seasons, but I’m not sure he has to to pass Beltran and Otis. Of course, much like Sweeney, Butler and Beltran, Gordon has yet to sniff the postseason while Otis played in 22 postseason games in blue and hit .478 in the 1980 World Series. Otis also had three Gold Gloves at age 27 while Gordon has two at 29, but I think there’s a good chance Gordon catches him this season.

If there’s any conclusions I can draw from all of this it’s that:

A) Ross was spot on with his tweet last Sunday (although not quite as right as he was when he coined the nickname Country Breakfast) especially if either or both of these players finish their career in Kansas City.

and

B) Gordon is much closer to joining the greatest Royals of all-time than is Butler, which is something no one would have thought three years ago.

For arguments sake, my Top Ten Royals of All-Time read like this: George Brett, Willie Wilson, Amos Otis, Frank White, Bret Saberhagen, Kevin Appier, Hal McRae, Dan Quisenberry, Mark Gubicza, and Zack Greinke. Feel free to tell me why I’m wrong below.

Bob Fescoe spent last week in Surprise, Arizona interviewing Kansas City Royals players and coaches for his morning show on Kansas City’s 610 Sports Radio.

When he was not on the air, he was taking in the sites of early Spring Training and snapping pics that he would later tweet out to his followers.

With Bob’s permission, we share those pics with you below:

Billy Butler BP

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Billy Butler takes BP with Frenchy and Hosmer looking on

Bill Ivie is the editor here at I-70 Baseball
Follow him on Twitter here.

The Kansas City Royals 2012 season started with a lot of hope and optimism. But after April’s 12 game losing streak, it turned into despair and pessimism. And in some ways, it wasn’t a surprise. Most of the rookies of 2011 were in their sophomore campaigns and the League caught up to them, with Eric Hosmer‘s disappointing season as an example. The weak starting rotation wasn’t improved during the offseason. And when the team’s main offseason moves included trading for a back of the rotation starter who didn’t like being a Royal (Jonathan Sanchez), a closer who had success in the past and recovering from injuries (Jonathan Broxton) and injuries to key players during Spring Training and the regular season, it’s not a surprise the team finished 72-91, third in the A.L. Central.

With all the moves the Royals made so far this offseason and increasing payroll, you’d think fans believe the Royals will have a better season and a chance to make the playoffs. But looking around the Royals blogosphere and comments from some fans, there’s less optimism than this time in 2012, when the roster wasn’t as good.

On paper, the Royals are better. Trading for James Shields, Wade Davis and Ervin Santana and resigning Jeremy Guthrie dramatically improves the rotation. Bruce Chen and Luke Hochevar will likely fight for the fifth spot in the rotation. And it’s possible Luis Mendoza or Will Smith gets the fifth spot. The bullpen is still good and the improved rotation means they pitch less innings. A full, healthy season of Lorenzo Cain and Salvador Perez, Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer bouncing back and solid performances by Alex Gordon, Billy Butler and Alcides Escobar should score more runs.

But it doesn’t mean anything until the team wins more games. And there’s plenty of reasons the Royals could have another disappointing season. Shields and Davis could get injured. Santana might end up pitching like, well, Santana. Guthrie could pitch like he did in Colorado. The bullpen may regress, giving up more late-inning runs. Moustakas and Hosmer could continue their struggles or become injured. Gordon, Butler and Escobar could have disappointing seasons. Jeff Francoeur could make 2012 look like an All-Star season. And with the Royals, that’s usually the rule, not the exception.

And it’s understandable. Being a Royals fan is like being Charlie Brown when Lucy pulls away the football. Fans expect the team to lose or fail because many times the Royals lose and fail. Some fans believe the team spends too little money on players, or too much money on the wrong players. Or the team relies too much on prospects who fail, or if they’re traded, they don’t bring enough value and succeed with other teams. Can’t miss prospects many times miss. The strained relationship of fans and ownership doesn’t help either. This creates and environment of skepticism, followed by cynicism. Until the Royals win more games and contend in their division, it’s warranted.

It’s hard to say what 2013 will bring for the Royals. Will they turn a corner, or turn right into a wall and come crashing down? And if Royals lose like they did early in the 2012 season, how much more will the fan base take?

For the Royals to succeed, many things have to go their way. They’re still a young team and the Detroit Tigers, Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians aren’t pushovers. There’s more reason for hope and optimism in 2013, but until the Royals become winners, that’s all it will be.

We have all been embarrassed by our own family. Whether it’s an overzealous parent, a misbehaving kid, a drunken uncle, or a senile grandparent…we all know the feeling. It’s uncomfortable because we love our family and we understand them better than anyone. It’s also uncomfortable because it usually happens in public, in front of people that don’t love or understand the offending party. That’s exactly how I’ve felt on Twitter the past 24 hours.

I get it, I really do. Wil Myers is going to be Dale Murphy, at least. Just like Alex Gordon was George Brett (I wrote that), Eric Hosmer was Albert Pujols (me again), and Luke Hochevar was a right handed Tom Glavine (okay, no one really said that). Baseball loves prospects and nowhere is that more true than in Kansas City. There are several reasons for that, not the least of which is the fact that prospects are seemingly all we ever have.

Another reason is that we have an incredible network of bloggers in this town that have a great grasp on talent evaluation and advanced metrics. This reason gets overlooked because for the most part these bloggers are looked down upon. They’re seen as cynical, all-knowing nerds that eat pop tarts in their parent’s basement. I’m obviously not in the business of disparaging bloggers, and I love reading what they write. I truly believe we have one of the most knowledgeable networks of baseball bloggers in MLB. That being said, their reaction to the Kansas City Royals’ trade for James Shields has been embarrassing.

For 25 years now we’ve watched and bemoaned the fact that the Royals are always on the opposite side of this trade. Even as recently as two years ago we were trading away Zack Greinke for a wheel barrow full of prospects and jokes about this franchise as a farm club for the rest of MLB remained alive and well. Well, that farm club has been extremely productive recently and we find ourselves with an abundance of position players with potential and nary a pitcher.

The obvious answer in a small market like Kansas City is to turn those prospects into the missing piece(s) for your ball club. Dayton Moore did just that…and he’s being crucified for it. Now I know my community of bloggers and I know that they value being right more than just about anything else. The whole pursuit of advanced statistics is just a pursuit to see who can find the truest “right”. Unfortunately, Dayton Moore has been wrong so many times that in second guessing him, we now always think we’re right. Here are the three main arguments, and my problems with them.

James Shields is not an ace. This is the one that’s gotten me most fired up this week, but it’s also the easiest to debate. After all, what is an “ace”? There is no standard definition. You could say that it’s the #1 starter for a major league team, but that would mean that Bruce Chen and Luke Hochevar have both been aces. You could say that it’s an exclusive club of Cy Young winners I suppose, but that seems too stringent. I don’t really care how you choose to define it, Shields is an ace. John Lowe of the Detroit Free Press thinks so. So does Jeff Passan at Yahoo! Sports. Whether he fits your definition of ace or not, there’s no denying he’s one of the 20 best pitchers in baseball, meaning for the first time since Greinke left our ace would also be an ace on several other teams.

We gave up too much. Wil Myers may be a Hall of Famer…but the odds are against it. Jake Odorizzi may turn into James Shields, but no one is predicting that. The Rays are going to fix Mike Montgomery…well we sure couldn’t. The fact that all of these things are still possibilities is precisely because none of these players have done anything at the major league level. We may one day come to find that we did give too much, but it’s ridiculous to presume you know that now. How many times have we been on the flip side of this? How many times have we complained that we’re always giving up something real for something hoped for? We got the real side this time guys, get excited!

We can’t compete with the Tigers even after this move. This may be the most reasonable of the arguments, but it still irks me. If you truly believe this (of course I don’t) then nothing Dayton Moore does matters. The Royals weren’t going to compete with Wil Myers, no matter how awesome he is, and the current pitching staff. Jake Odorizzi could have maybe been a #3 starter, Mike Montgomery was going nowhere fast in this organization. I’ve heard several say we should have picked up Anibal Sanchez and kept Myers. That works except Sanchez is MUCH more expensive, may not even want to play in KC, and IS NOWHERE CLOSE TO THE PITCHER JAMES SHIELDS IS!

The fact is we gave up a lot of potential for two starting pitchers. One of those starting pitchers ranks ninth in WAR over the last two seasons (slightly ahead of Zack Greinke) and struck out 15 batters while walking NONE in the last game he started. This same pitcher has postseason experience, eats up innings like Prince Fielder eats bratwursts, and seems genuinely happy to be a Royal. We also go a guy that just turned 27 that is markedly better than Luke Hochevar will ever be.

The other fact is we reacted as if Dayton Moore had just traded Ed Hearn for David Cone. While some national pundits are praising Moore for taking a chance…While baseball executives are saying they liked the deal for the Royals…we threw a hissy fit for everyone to see. We diminished Shields’ possible impact to the point of saying that Wil Myers would have made as much of an impact as Shields will….in 2013!

I’ve often said that Kansas City is a great baseball town, and that if we built a winner we would support them as well as any city in America. Well, David Glass has spent the money. Dayton Moore has put his job on the line. Are we going to sit around and complain about losing a prospect or get excited about our new ace? There’s been plenty of time to complain and second guess. We’ve been right plenty of those times too. Now it’s time to support our new pitcher, support our new contender, and go win a damn division!