KANSAS CITY, MO (December 9, 2012) – The Kansas City Royals tonight acquired right-handed starting pitchers James Shields and Wade Davis and a player to be named or cash considerations from the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for minor league outfielder Wil Myers, right-handed pitcher Jake Odorizzi, left-handed pitcher Mike Montgomery and third baseman Patrick Leonard.

Shields, who will turn 31 on December 20, has established himself as one of the premier pitchers in the American League. He followed up an All-Star campaign in 2011, in which posted a 16-12 record with a 2.82 ERA and finished third in the A.L. Cy Young voting, by posting a 15-10 record with a 3.52 ERA in 33 starts with Tampa Bay last season. In 227.2 innings, Shields allowed 208 hits, walked 58 and struck out 223, just two shy of his career best set in 2011 and the third-most in the league. Shields is joined by the Mariners’ Felix Hernandez, the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw and the Tigers’ Justin Verlander as the only four pitchers in baseball to record at least 220 strikeouts in the last two seasons.

The 6-foot-4, 215-pound right-hander has compiled an 87-73 career record with a 3.89 ERA in 218 games (217 starts) all for the Rays since making his debut in 2006. Since tossing 124.2 innings in 21 starts during his rookie campaign, Shields has won at least 11 games, made at least 31 starts and topped the 200-inning mark in six straight seasons. He joins the Jays’ Mark Buehrle, the Giants’ Matt Cain, the Yankees’ CC Sabathia and Verlander as the only five pitchers in baseball to post at least 200 innings in six straight seasons. In 2011, his 11 complete games were the most by a Major League pitcher since Arizona’s Randy Johnson had 12 in 1999.

Shields and his wife, Ryane, reside in Clearwater, Fla., with their two daughters. The couple is active with a number of charities specifically geared toward foster children and James was the Rays recipient of the Roberto Clemente Award in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

The 27-year-old Davis made a combined 64 starts for the Rays from 2009 to 2011 before pitching exclusively in the bullpen for Tampa Bay in 2012. He went 3-0 with a 2.43 ERA last season, allowing 48 hits and 29 walks with 87 strikeouts in 70.1 innings. The 6-foot-5, 225-pounder made 29 starts in both 2010 and 2011 and finished fourth in the American League Rookie of the Year voting after posting a 12-10 record with a 4.07 ERA in 2010. Davis is 28-22 with a 3.94 ERA in 118 career outings, including 64 starts. He is 25-22 in his career as a starter with a 4.22 ERA, including an 8-2 mark with a 3.38 ERA in 30 games (18 starts) against A.L. Central foes.

Davis and his wife, Katelyn, reside in Lake Wales, Fla. Davis organized the Full Count Foundation to help children who are at risk or have special needs or chronic illnesses.

Myers, who will turn 22 on December 10, was the 2012 Baseball America, USA Today and Topps Minor League Baseball Player of the Year after hitting a combined .314 with 37 home runs and 109 RBI in 134 games for Northwest Arkansas (AA) and Omaha (AAA). He was the Royals’ third round selection in the 2009 June Free Agent Draft.

The 22-year-old Odorizzi went 15-5 with a 3.03 ERA in 26 outings (25 starts) for Northwest Arkansas and Omaha in 2012 before making two starts for the Royals in September, going 0-1. He was acquired by Kansas City in a six-player trade with the Milwaukee Brewers on December 19, 2012.

Montgomery, 23, split his season between Omaha and Northwest Arkansas, posting a 5-12

record with a 6.07 ERA in 27 starts. He was the Royals’ supplemental first round selection (36 th

overall) in 2008.

The 20-year-old Leonard batted .251 with 14 home runs and 46 RBI in 62 games for Burlington (R) in 2012. He was the club’s fifth-round pick in the 2011 Draft.

ROYALS ACQUIRE LEFT-HANDED PITCHERS SANCHEZ AND VERDUGO FROM GIANTS FOR OUTFIELDER Melky Cabrera

Kansas City, MO (November 7, 2011) – The Kansas City Royals have announced that the club has acquired left-handed pitchers Jonathan Sanchez and Ryan Verdugo from the San Francisco Giants in exchange for outfielder Melky Cabrera. Here is a resource for those interested in getting into sports management.

Sanchez, 28 (will turn 29 on November 19), has posted a 3.75 ERA over his last three seasons with the Giants in 85 games, including 81 starts. In 2011, he was 4-7 with a 4.26 ERA in 19 starts before missing the final month and a half with a left ankle sprain. Sanchez posted a breakout 2010 campaign for the World Series champions, going 13-9 with a 3.07 ERA, tossing 5.0 shutout innings in Game 162 vs. San Diego as the Giants clinched the N.L. West division. The 6-foot-2, 198-pounder is 38-46 with a 4.26 ERA in 174 career outings, including 118 starts. He tossed the 13th no-hitter in Giants history on July 10, 2009 vs. San Diego.

Sanchez has posted 736 strikeouts in 708.0 innings, a rate of 9.355 strikeouts per nine innings which ranks as the third-best in baseball (min. 700 IP) since 2006, trailing only the Giants’ Tim Lincecum (9.87) and the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw (9.360). He has allowed 607 hits in his 708.0 innings, allowing opponents to bat just .231. Since the beginning of the 2009 season, Sanchez has allowed 357 hits in 458.0 innings, 7.02 hits per nine innings, which is the second-best ratio in baseball (min. 400 IP) behind Kershaw (6.70).

Sanchez, the Giants’ 27th-round selection in 2004, was born in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico and now resides in Sabana Grande, Puerto Rico. He has one son, Christian.

The 24-year-old Verdugo was 8-6 with a 4.35 ERA in 25 starts for Double-A Richmond in 2011, his first season as a starter in the minor leagues. The 6-foot, 193-pounder is 21-7 with a 3.14 ERA in 101 career minor league appearances, including 26 starts. Verdugo, a resident of Baton Rouge, La., has allowed 185 hits in his 234.1 career innings, striking out 300. The Giants’ ninth-round pick in 2008 out of LSU, where he was a teammate of current Royals reliever Louis Coleman, will be transferred from Richmond to the Omaha (AAA) roster.

Cabrera, 27, hit .305 (201-for-658) with 44 doubles, five triples, 18 home runs, 87 RBI and 102 runs scored for the Royals in 2011.

KEMP UNANIMOUS PICK FOR NL Stan Musial AWARD
Bautista holds off Ellsbury in American League

There were some outstanding performances this year in Major League Baseball. However, one clearly stood out from the pack.

Los Angeles Dodger outfielder Matt Kemp was named the National League Stan Musial Award winner for 2011 in voting held by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance. Kemp received all 15 first place votes and completely dominated the rest of the voting field like he did in putting up almost a 40 HR/40 SB season for the Dodgers this year.

Coming in a distant second was Milwaukee outfielder Ryan Braun, who garnered most of the second place votes from the group. Braun’s teammate, first baseman Prince Fielder, came in third.

Interestingly enough, even though Los Angeles pitcher Clayton Kershaw outpointed Philadelphia hurler Roy Halladay in the BBA’s Walter Johnson Award voting for best pitcher, Halladay received more points for the Stan Musial Award.

Over in the American League, there were more ballots cast, perhaps due to a more intriguing race. When the dust had settled, though, Toronto’s Jose Bautista had held off Boston’s Jacoby Ellsbury by a handful of points.

Bautista received eleven of the 22 first place votes and 225 total points, while Ellsbury received five first place selections and 200 points overall. Detroit Tiger first baseman Miguel Cabrera came in third with 183 points and three first place nods. He was followed by two of his Detroit teammates, including Walter Johnson Award winner Justin Verlander.

The complete voting results are as follows (first place votes in parenthesis):

American League
Jose Bautista, Toronto (11) 225
Jacoby Ellsbury, Boston (5) 200
Miguel Cabrera, Detroit (3) 183
Curtis Granderson, Detroit (1) 135
Justin Verlander, Detroit (2) 126
Adrian Gonzalez, Boston 109
Dustin Pedroia, Boston 68
Robinson Cano, New York 55
Ian Kinsler, Texas 35
Michael Young, Texas 28
Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay 25
Alex Gordon, Kansas City 20
CC Sabathia, New York 13
Paul Konerko, Chicago 12
Adrian Beltre, Texas 10
Alex Avila, Detroit 8
Jered Weaver, Los Angeles of Anaheim 6
Ben Zobrist, Tampa Bay 6
Mike Napoli, Texas 4
James Shields, Tampa Bay 3
Victor Martinez, Cleveland 2
David Oritz, Boston 2
Melky Cabrera, Kansas City 1

National League
Matt Kemp, Los Angeles (15) 195
Ryan Braun, Milwaukee 134
Prince Fielder, Milwaukee 83
Joey Votto, Cincinnati 79
Justin Upton, Arizona 77
Roy Halladay, Philadelphia 49
Troy Tulowitski, Colorado 49
Albert Pujols, St. Louis 46
Jose Reyes, New York 42
Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles 31
Lance Berkman, St. Louis 28
Dan Uggla, Atlanta 14
Pablo Sandoval, San Francisco 13
Cliff Lee, Philadelphia 11
Hunter Pence, Philadelphia 6
Michael Morse, Washington 5
Brandon Phillips, Cincinnati 3
Ian Kennedy, Arizona 2
Andrew McCutchen, Pittsburgh 2
Carlos Gonzalez, Colorado 1

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance was formed in the fall of 2009 to encourage cooperation and collaboration between baseball bloggers of all major league teams as well as those that follow baseball more generally. As of this writing, the organization consists of 316 blogs spanning all 30 major league squads as well as general baseball writing.

The BBA is organized under a similar structure as the Baseball Writers of America, where blogs that follow the same team are combined into “chapters” and only two votes from the chapter on an award are counted. The blog chapters that are focused on general baseball were allowed two votes as well, which they could use both on the same league or split between the two leagues.

Chapters generally followed one of two methods when casting their ballot. Either representatives of the chapter were given the ballots for voting or a “group ballot” was posted, accounting for both of their votes.

Notably, though the Alliance’s awards come out well before their official counterparts, the BBA selections have matched those of the Baseball Writers of America in all but two instances in the past two years. This, of course, does not include the Goose Gossage Award that is exclusive to the BBA.

Ballots are posted on the respective blogs and for this award, were tabulated on a 13-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 point scale for first through tenth place. In the interest of transparency, links are given below for the ballots. Chapter affiliation is in parenthesis. Those chapters that decided on the group method are noted with an asterisk.

American League
Advanced Fantasy Baseball (Fantasy)
Baltimore Life and Sports (Baltimore)
The Bat Shatters (Minnesota)
The Blue Jay Hunter (Toronto)
Boston Red Thoughts (Boston)*
Camden Crazies (Baltimore)
Contract Year (Oakland)*
Detroit Tigers Scorecard Blog (Detroit)
The Flagrant Fan (General)
Kings of Kauffman (Kansas City)*
Lady At The Bat (New York)
Misc. Baseball (History)
The Next Level Ballplayer (Other)
Seattle Mariners Musings (Seattle)
Some Thoughts On Baseball (Toronto)
Tigers Amateur Analysis (Detroit)
The Tribe Daily (Cleveland)*
Twins On Twins (Minnesota)

National League
Advanced Fantasy Baseball (Fantasy)
Appy Astros (Houston)
Blog Red Machine (Cincinnati)
Cincinnati Reds Blog (Cincinnati)
Dugger Sports (Philadelphia)
The Flagrant Fan (General)
Fungoes (St. Louis)
Misc. Baseball (History)
The Next Level Ballplayer (Other)
North Side Notch (Pittsburgh)
Phils Baseball (Philadelphia)
Rockies Woman (Colorado)
22 Gigantes (San Francisco)
Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke? (Pittsburgh)

Prior Winners: 2010: Josh Hamilton, Texas; Joey Votto, Cincinnati
2009: Joe Mauer, Minnesota; Albert Pujols, St. Louis

The official website of the BBA is located atbaseballbloggersalliance.wordpress.com. The BBA can be found on Twitter by the handle @baseballblogs and by the hashmark #bbba. For more information, contact Daniel Shoptaw at founder@baseballbloggersalliance.com.

You can debate whether Justin Verlander should be win the “best player in the league” award. There was no debate on if he’d win the “best pitcher” version.

The Birds won 6 games on a 10 game road trip and are back at .500. Only late inning mishaps have kept this team from winning more. Their bats are definitely awake.

The Cardinals are off Monday then have Washington and Cincinnati coming to town for three apiece. The Nationals send lefty Lannan, righty Zimmerman, and lefty Gorzelanny to the bump. Then, the rival Reds will counter with Volquez, Wood (L), and Arroyo. These starting pitchers will be a little tougher than last week and they will have their work cut out for them against a team who is hitting on all cylinders.

Injury Front:

Jaime Garcia had some issues with nerves in his foot during his last outing. He should be good to go on Wednesday.

Playing Time:

Both Allen Craig and Daniel Descalso continue to get regular at-bats for Berkman and Freese respectively. If you are digging deep in NL leagues, Craig’s not a bad guy to have on your bench as he has a little pop and smacked a three run homer Saturday against the Dodgers.

HOT:

The Puma has become big in St. Louis. Lance Berkman led a scoring barrage for the Cards and hit six out last week. He is scorching hot right now going 10-24 this past week while knocking in twelve and scoring nine runs. There were some questions regarding Berkman coming into the season in regards to his bat and his power. Now that he is healthy, Berkman is starting to show that last year’s decline could mostly be chalked up to being banged up.

If you took my advice last week, Colby Rasmus paid off again. He is seeing the ball well and a breakout year seems to be here. He was 13-35 and he is scoring runs like crazy (tied for MLB lead with 15). He’s played in all 16 games, including games against tough lefties such as Clayton Kershaw. This will up his plate appearances over any of his previous years and push him closer to 100-28-85.

NOT:

Jake Westbrook continues to struggle. His strikeouts are down, his walks are up and he’s giving up the long ball. All these should begin to correct themselves as Jake will regress (in a good way) back to what he has been in the past. He’s a two start pitcher this week, if he were not facing the Reds, he’d be a decent option, but you’ll want to wait another week for him to come around.

Ryan Franklin= 5 save opportunities, 4 blown saves. Enough said.

The Redbirds have squandered away several wins and sit at 3-6. Let’s see what’s in store for your fantasy needs in week 2.

The Cardinals are doing a little west coast swing. They will visit Chase Field in Arizona for three and then head to Chavez and visit the Dodgers for four. In Arizona, the Birds draw Barry Enright, Armando Galarraga, and Ian Kennedy. In L.A., they get to face Hiroki Kuroda, Jon Garland, Clayton Kershaw and Chad Billingsley.

Matt Holliday returned from his appendectomy on Sunday and should be good to go for period 2. Expect Allen Craig and John Jay to return to the bench and offer little fantasy value. The Redbirds offense has had a hard time getting going early on. Facing the Dodgers pitching staff might deter you from playing their better bats. However, the lineup has actually fared pretty well against them.

Both Chris Carpenter and Kyle McClellan are two start pitchers this week. They both have been sharp this spring and now into the second week in the season. Feel free to go with both of them, especially Carp.

Who’s Hot and Who’s Not:

HOT:

Even though he botched a play that cost the Cardinals a game on Saturday, Colby Rasmus has been the best bat for the Redbirds thus far into the 2011 season. He’s 11-31 for a .355 average including a monstrous home run Saturday. He has a career .371 average hitting at Chase with a 1.177 OPS so that hot hitting should continue.

Jaime Garcia is still sizzling. This week he stymied the Giants striking out 9 through six innings. What’s even better is that LaRussa kept his pitch count at 82. Little things like this will help ensure Garcia has gas in the tank at the end of the season.

NOT:

Jake Westbrook has surrendered 11 runs in 10 innings through two starts. His control is to blame as has walked 9 and struck out 5. He should turn things around but you’ll want him sitting until he does.

After blowing only 2 saves all last season, Ryan Franklin has already blown three in the first 9 games. If Motte or any other viable option were ready to take over, Franklin would have lost his job. However, LaRussa, Mozeliak and the leadership still have confidence in him. It may take 2-3 more blow ups for him to lose his role.

Albert Pujols hit into his 6^th double play Sunday. He has five hits in 9 games. Matt Holliday has four hits in two games. Albert is suffering from terrible luck with a .143 BABIP. He also is hitting a ton of ground balls. He has a 1.60 GB/FB rate nearly doubling last years average. At the plate he seems to be lunging a bit and he is rolling over on a lot of outside pitches. As soon as you see him correct it by hitting the ball the other way, then this slump will come to an end. There is no way you can consider benching him. If there ever were a time you could wrestle him away from another owner, this would be it.

After the three-day layoff, baseball is finally back as the St. Louis Cardinals (47-41) host the Los Angeles Dodgers (49-39) in a four-game set at Busch.

Clayton Kershaw, in a much shorter career than Carpenter’s, has done quite a bit of damage to the Cardinals. In 96 plate appearances against the southpaw, the Cardinals as a team are batting .214 (18-for-84) with no home runs and 27 strikeouts. However, Albert Pujols will certainly be in the lineup (*shocker*), as he is batting .444 with two doubles and five walks in nine at bats against Kershaw.

Game Two – Friday, July 16 – 7:15 pm CST
Chad Billingsley (7-4, 4.14 ERA) vs Jaime Garcia (8-4, 2.17 ERA)
Unlike Carpenter and Kershaw, Jaime Garcia is going to have a much shorter scouting report to go by this week. Garcia has pitched in one relief inning against the Dodgers and has only faced one player on their current roster, Casey Blake. That being said, it would probably be a good idea for Jaime to stick to what he’s been doing. On the year, Garcia has the league’s third-best ERA (2.17) and has a 1.46 ERA in his past two starts.

His opposition on Friday, Chad Billingsley, is 1-2 in five career starts against the Cardinals with a 4.40 ERA. Billingsley will likely Randy Winn tomorrow evening, which is rarely a good thing. Winn is 11-for-25 in his career against Billingsley with five RBI. Believe it or not, Pujols has the worst history of any Cardinal versus the Dodgers starter (2-for-12).

Game Three – Saturday, July 17 – 3:10 pm CST
Hiroki Kuroda (7-7, 3.87 ERA) vs Adam Wainwright (13-5, 2.11 ERA)
Wainwright will take the mound to continue his remarkable season Saturday afternoon. What most people do not realize is that, even though Ubaldo Jimenez and Josh Johnson are having great seasons, Adam Wainwright has had the best statistical season of any pitcher in the Majors and is as hot as ever right now. I think it is important to point out that, even though Wainwright has been fantastic in 2010, James Loney, Russell Martin, Andre Ethier, and Rafael Furcal have a combined .403 lifetime batting average against Waino. As a team, the Dodgers are hitting at a .331 clip when facing the Cardinal ace.

Oddly enough, Kuroda and Billingsley have a very similar history against the Cards. Just like Billingsley, Kuroda has pretty much controlled Albert Pujols, yet he seems to have a very hard time with Randy Winn and Matt Holliday. El Hombre is 1-for-6 against Hiroki while Winn and Holliday are a combined 13-for-33. Aside from those 13 hits from Winn and Holliday, the Cardinal roster has three hits in 34 at bats.

Game Four – Sunday, July 18 – 1:15 pm CST
Vicente Padilla (4-2, 4.04 ERA) vs Jeff Suppan (0-5, 6.55 ERA)
Jeff Suppan has definitely pitched better with the Cardinals than he did with the Milwaukee Brewers, but I think I speak for all fans when I say that he is nothing more than an experiment. Soup has a 4.88 ERA as a Cardinal in 2010, which is better than his 7.84 mark with the Brew-Crew, but he has yet to record a quality start, cannot make it past the sixth inning, and most importantly, hasn’t gotten his first win of the season. In Suppan’s career against Los Angeles, he is 4-4 with a 4.02 ERA.

Vicente Padilla does not have a ton of experience pitching against the Cards (only 22 innings pitched), but there are several Cardinal players who have had a great amount of success against the hot-headed pitcher. Randy Winn (I’ve mentioned him a lot, eh?), Felipe Lopez, and Albert Pujols have a combined batting average of .325 in 35 at bats with six RBI and only two strikeouts. Padilla will be making his fourth start against St. Louis, even while pitching most of his career in the National League.

Who’s Hot?

Cardinals
Colby Rasmus: .355 (11-for-31), four runs, three doubles, two RBI
Jon Jay: .500 (13-for-26), five runs, three doubles, two home runs, five RBI, two walks
Adam Wainwright: 2-0, 17 innings pitched, 11 hits, one run, 13 strikeouts, three walks
Jaime Garcia: 1-0, 12 1/3 innings pitched, 12 hits, two runs, 10 strikeouts, three walks

Dodgers
Andre Ethier: .390 (16-for-41), six runs, two doubles, two home runs, seven RBI, three walks
James Loney: .447 (17-for-38), six runs, three doubles, one home run, nine RBI, five walks
Vicente Padilla: 2-0, 14 2/3 innings pitched, eight hits, two runs, 15 strikeouts, one walk
Clayton Kershaw: 2-0, 13 2/3 innings pitched, 11 hits, two runs, 20 strikeouts, two walks

Who’s Not?

Cardinals
Yadier Molina: .129 (4-for-31), two runs, 1 double, three RBI
Skip Schumaker: .174 (4-for-23), three runs, one RBI, four strikeouts
Chris Carpenter: 0-2, nine innings pitched, 18 hits, 11 runs, eight strikeouts, four walks

Dodgers
Matt Kemp: .214 (9-for-42), five runs, two doubles, three home runs, 8 RBI, 11 strikeouts
Casey Blake: .161 (5-for-31), six runs, two doubles, one home run, three RBI, eight strikeouts
Hiroki Kuroda: 0-2, 8 2/3 innings pitched, 14 hits, 10 runs, seven strikeouts, two walks
John Ely: 0-2, 5 innings pitched, 14 hits, 11 runs, four strikeouts, four walks