ROYALS ANNOUNCE HITTING COACH KEVIN SEITZER WILL NOT RETURN IN 2013

KANSAS CITY, MO (October 4, 2012) – The Kansas City Royals and Manager Ned Yost announced today that the contract of hitting coach Kevin Seitzer will not be renewed for the 2013 season.  The remainder of the coaching staff will return next season: bench coach Chino Cadahia, pitching coach Dave Eiland, first base coach Rusty Kuntz and third base coach Eddie Rodriguez.  The Royals will also need to fill the bullpen coach position after naming Steve Foster the club’s Special Assistant to GM/Minor League Pitching Coordinator on August 31.

The Royals plan to hire a hitting coach and a bullpen coach as a later date.

Listen, I’m as guilty of this as anyone…probably even more so. But the 2012 Kansas City Royals are who we thought they were, almost exactly. They’re three wins away from the team’s best record in four seasons, and seven away from their best in ten. They are young, volatile, and improving. Their offense is developing into a potent force, their bullpen is the strength of the team, and their starting rotation is every bit as hodge podge as we anticipated. While I certainly hoped for, and predicted, much more from this club, they are pretty much exactly where we should have expected them to be. Sure, a 12 game losing streak in April squashed all hope, and a terrible July brought us back to earth, but at the end of the year this club is going to be in the mid-70s in wins. Not bad considering the injuries to starting pitching, Eric Hosmer’s regression, and the abomination that has been Ned Yost as an in-game manager.

I, as my name suggests, drank too much of the Kool Aid in the preseason, and I’m not apologizing for it. For the past 25 years, Royals fans have had little more than the Kool Aid, and we shouldn’t swear it off just because our dreams didn’t come true once again. Instead, I’m taking it a step farther. Instead of telling you what I hope happens this offseason heading into next, I’m going to outline what would be, in my mind, the best ten things that could happen to the Royals this offseason.

10. Ned Yost resigns. Yost loves his hunting and his hunting buddies; maybe just maybe he decides trying to win with both hands tied behind his back isn’t worth it.

9. Jeff Francoeur pulls a Gil Meche. Meche walked away at the age of 32 because he didn’t want to have surgery. Maybe notorious good-guy Frenchy will retire because he can no longer bare the pain he is causing those who cheer for him.

8. Zack Greinke announces he’ll give the Royals a hometown discount, but only if they sign one additional free agent starter. Dayton Moore signs the hurler to a 5 year $95 million contract shortly after…

7. Jeremy Guthrie signs a two year deal worth $12 million. Yes, I’m drinking the Guthrie Kool Aid. The guy loves it here, and Kauffman Stadium is the perfect place for a fly ball pitcher like Guthrie.

6. Ned Yost is fired. No, this isn’t the same as #10, this is much better. This would involve Dayton Moore admitting a mistake and cutting a loss.

5. Terry Francona is hired as the new manager of the Kansas City Royals. Yeah, I’m dreaming…and yeah, they’d have to sign Greinke and Guthrie first.

4. Joakim Soria re-signs with the club and returns to his old self. I’m not sure Soria would even be our closer at this point, but if we’re going to have the bullpen be our strength, let’s go all out.

3. Jeff Francoeur is cut. See 6, only this time in all caps.

2. Oklahoma Joe’s expands to Detroit. While Fielder didn’t experience quite the drop off I expected, he did see his power numbers dip. Give him one taste of Oklahoma Joe’s and he’ll weigh 400 lbs by spring training.

1. David Glass sells the team to the owners of Sporting KC. Yeah, I know Glass said he won’t sell the team. He also said he only wants the team to break even, and he cares about winning. Let’s just hope this was one more lie.

KANSAS CITY, MO (September 16, 2012) – On Monday, September 17, fans will have the chance to help provide baseball equipment for Kansas City’s disadvantaged youth at a special Gloves For Kids event presented by the Royals and Ryan Lefebvre’s Footprints Foundation.  Additional support is provided by Rawlings, Rally House and 610 Sports Radio.  The event will be held at Rally House-Kansas City North, located at 8650 N. Boardwalk Ave. in Kansas City, Mo., from 6-8 p.m.

Select Royals players will sign autographs for fans who donate at least $25 toward new baseball gloves and other baseball/softball equipment for underprivileged youth in both the Kansas City area as well as the native countries of some of the event participants, including the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

Royals players scheduled to appear include:

Pitcher Louis Coleman                                    Second Baseman Johnny Giavotella
Pitcher Tim Collins                                          Pitcher Jeremy Guthrie
Pitcher Danny Duffy                                        Pitcher Kelvin Herrera
Shortstop Alcides Escobar                             Catcher Salvador Perez
Second Baseman Chris Getz                         Manager Ned Yost

Session participants will be announced at Rally House at 5 p.m.  One group of players will sign from 6-7 p.m. with the other group to follow from 7-8 p.m.  Please note that a $25 donation is required for each session, and fans will be allowed to have one item autographed by each Royals player participating in that session.  Sales for both sessions will begin at 5 p.m., and each session will be capped at 150 people.  For details, visit www.royals.com/glovesforkids.

The event will also include a Royals Charities silent auction featuring unique Royals memorabilia, including autographed items from players including Billy Butler, Mike Moustakas and George Brett, which will run until 7:45 p.m.  In addition, Bob Fescoe, host of “Fescoe in the Morning” on 610 Sports Radio, the home of the Royals, will be reporting live from Rally House from 5-7 p.m.

Created in 2001 by Lefebvre’s Footprints Foundation, the Gloves For Kids event has raised more than $85,000 to provide new baseball gloves and related equipment for Kansas City area youth.

The Kansas City Royals, coming off wins in ten of their last fifteen games with both great starting pitching and timely productive hitting from the offense, saw a change in the batting order.  Manager Ned Yost seemed to want to change it up in the three spot in the order, which has been a black hole for Royals hitters this season. The third spot in the batting order is supposed to be a position that a guy gets the opportunity to get guys who are on base in to score runs. But the problem is that the offensive production that the Royals lineup has put together this season is just not working.  The Royals are 11th in the American League in runs scored yet they are in the upper half of the league in both hits and batting average.  So what is the problem? A team that gets hits should be able to score runs but if they are not in the right order than the guys getting the hits do not have the opportunity to do so with guys on base.

The third spot in the batting order for the Royals this season is batting .223 with 57 runs batted in and only 30 extra base hits in 466 at bats. Putting that into perspective the nine whole in the lineup has driven in 55 runs.  It would be great for the nine spot to be two RBIs behind the three spot if the fact were that the three spot has lets say 80 RBIs or so.  But that would also mean that the Royals were scoring more runs and winning more games than they have this season.

The Royals have used numerous hitters in the three spot this season including Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain, Billy Butler and most recently Alex Gordon.  Gordon, who seems to be comfortable batting leadoff not only has a good batting average, .291, but it his on base percentage, .367, that makes him such a viable candidate for the number one spot in the order but if the guys behind him are not producing enough to get him in than his getting on base does not truly matter.  Some may say why mess with his psyche since he has had success at the leadoff spot the last two seasons but with the season lost the question to ask is why not? If the Royals truly are playing for the future then why not try out a few guys at the number three spot to see what they can bring to the table. Eric Hosmer proved that in his young career he is not ready for the role of run producer at the top of the lineup.  His production, or lack there of, this season has pushed him all the way to the bottom of the order.  He will turn things around and more that likely end up being the future three hitter for the Royals but something is going to have to change in his approach for that to happen. The Moustakas and Cain experiments were never going to stick because that is not what the future has in store for either of them.  Moustakas projects to be a solid five hitter with power and a batting average of .280 if not a touch under that.  Cain could fit into two different spots in the order.  He could be a six hitter with the pop that he has shown so far in his late entrance to the 2012 season but he seems to look more like a seven or eight guy with speed to get on for the top of the order.  Billy Butler is purely a number four hitter.  This gives the Royals three different guys to get on in front of him throughout the season.  The reason Butler is not a good fit at number three is his lack of speed.  If he gets on base with a double it is not a sure thing that a single will score him.  If he gets a single a double will more than likely never score him.

Ned Yost has a tough task of putting together a line up with the guys that he has on his roster this season.  With guys struggling and having three players, Alex Gordon, Alcides Escobar and Billy Butler, being the only to stay consistent all season long it is hard to put a line up together This all being said here would be the lineup for both the current and the future Royals that I would put together if I was signing the lineup card every night:

1.Current- Chris Getz (2B)                   Future- Alex Gordon (LF)

2.Current- Alcides Escobar (SS)         Future-Alcides Escobar (SS)

3.Current- Alex Gordon (LF)               Future- Eric Hosmer (1B)

4.Current- Billy Butler (DH)                Future- Billy Butler (DH)

5.Current- Mike Moustakas (3B)       Future- Mike Moustakas (3B)

6.Current- Salvador Perez (C)             Future- Wil Myers (RF)

7.Current- Eric Homer (1B)                 Future- Salvador Perez (C)

8.Current- Jeff Franceour (RF)          Future- Lorenzo Cain (CF)

9.Current- Lorenzo Cain (CF)             Future- Chris Getz (2B)

The problem that the Royals have faced this season is that the guys producing are not in the right spots.  Gordon may be the guy who leads off for this team in the future but if he can give this season a boost from the three hole that is all Ned Yost is trying to do.  Nothing from the three spot seems to have been working so why not put the guy who is hot in that spot.  Some will say if it not the future than why try it but if he continues to put a guy who is continually slumping in that spot there people will still be upset.  The players for the Royals have put their manager in a tight spot by not allowing him to put them in the three hole.  He is just trying something new and just because it may not work once does not mean it will not work over the rest of the season.  Trying something new that does not work once is better than leaving something old that has not worked for 117 games so far this season.

In an unexpected move last Sunday, the Royals designated infielder Yuniesky Betancourt for assignment. I’m sure there’s some Royals fans who think this is an elaborate joke being played on them and the Yunibomber will be back. But it’s true. Yuni is no longer a Royal. Really! (I think.)

Remember when the Royals signed Betancourt to a one-year, two million dollar contract, telling shocked and disappointed Royals fans Yuni was going to be a part-time utility infielder? So what happened? Yuni got more playing time than fans wanted and he even had a decent June. But then Yuni became Yuni and went back to his worst everyday player in baseball self.

No team wanted to trade for him or claim him on waivers, so the Royals let Yuni go. Was it for his lack of defensive range? No. Was it for his .228 batting average? No. Was it for his -1.2 WAR? No. Yuni wanted more playing time, so the Royals cut him loose. According to Manager Ned Yost, one of the reasons Yuni was let go was to change the Royals losing culture. Are they serious? Did the Royals think signing Yuni would bring in a winning culture?

It’s things like this which frustrate Royals fans to no end. Never mind the team could have used infielder Tony Abreu, who they signed as a non-roster invitee, as a low-cost utility infielder. Or longtime Royals farmhand Irving Falu, who’s toiled ten seasons in the team’s minor league system. Instead, the Royals signed Yuni for two million and he performed like Yuni.

And the kicker? Abreu, the player who replaced Yuni, has some offensive pop but his defense is suspect. That sounds like a player the Royals just designated for assignment. Oh well, better late than never.

In another move, Doug Sisson was fired last Saturday. Doug who? You know, Doug Sisson, the former first base, base-running, outfield and bunting coach. Taking his place is Rusty Kuntz, who spent the last year and a half as a special assistant to the general manager while Sisson was first base coach. Now Kuntz is back, taking over Sisson’s duties. Why was Sisson fired? It’s hard to say. Maybe the players didn’t like him or his coaching, or perhaps Sisson and Yost weren’t on the same page.

Will this make a difference? Doubtful. It’s true Kuntz helped Alex Gordon convert to left field and he’s worked with outfielders Jarrod Dyson and Lorenzo Cain. But the Royals changing their first base coach in the middle of the season is just a symbolic blip in a long, disappointing season.

Then last Monday afternoon the Royals allowed the San Francisco Giants to claim situational lefty Jose Mijares off waivers. In return, the Royals got a $20,000 waiver claim fee. In other words, the Royals let Mijares go for next to nothing. The Royals did try to trade Mijares, but there wasn’t any takers.

Mijares wasn’t a bad pitcher. He had a 2-2 record with a 2.56 ERA, pitching 38.2 innings in 51 games. But the Royals didn’t see Mijares in their long-term plans. Even though he wasn’t eligible for free agency until 2014, it’s possible Mijares would make $2.5 million in arbitration. The Royals felt that was too much money for a situational lefty.

Taking his place is lefty Francisley Bueno, who the Royals signed as a non-roster invitee. For AAA Omaha, Bueno had a 1-4 record with a 2.75 ERA, pitching 55.2 innings over 35 games. He also appeared in three games for the Royals.

The Royals believe Bueno is more of a long-term fit and could be more effective against right-handers than Mijares. Ok, fair enough. But if that’s the case, why did the Royals sign Mijares in the first place? I’m sure Bueno would be more affordable and if he was good, the Royals would have better luck signing him than Mijares. And if Bueno wasn’t bueno, the Royals could cut him loose with minimum fuss.

The Royals 2012 season is sinking into oblivion and these moves aren’t going to turn the team around or reverse what Yost calls a “losing culture.” But it’s doing something, and for the Royals, doing something is better than doing nothing.

Sometimes it’s fun to say “I told you so.”

Now, no one wants to read a punk blogger who goes around trying to act like he could run a major league team. So I don’t want to go there.

But after writing five articles in the past year and a half about how the Royals butchered any chance of having a useful utility infielder on their team, they finally parted ways with the primary antagonist in the saga – Yuniesky Betancourt.

Any feelings of vindication are of no use, however. The situation is worse than ever. Say what you want about the team’s attachment to Jeff Francoeur, it’s inability to successfully trade for starting pitchers, or its many other shortcomings. In my mind the bungling of the utility infielder role stands as the most inept series of moves on Dayton Moore’s resume in KC.

The other things, the signing of Jeff Francis, the trade of Melky Cabrera for Jonathan Sanchez, etc. Those things at least made some sense when they were attempted. They just didn’t work.

But when the Royals sent Mike Aviles packing, abandoned Yamaico Navarro, and relegated Johnny Giavotella to the minors, it became apparent that Ned Yost was putting a lot of eggs in the Betancourt basket.

“Perhaps I don’t see what the trained baseball eye sees in Betancourt,” I kept thinking. Surely there is more to this guy than a slow, lazy, hot dog who hits into double plays at the worst possible times. Otherwise Moore and Yost wouldn’t keep running him out there.

Well I guess I was right and they were wrong. The Royals gave Betancourt the boot last week and it was none too soon for my taste.

Obviously there was some reason why the Brewers let him go when they had no other real option at shortstop. They must have felt they were better off with no shortstop than a malcontent at shortstop.

Now, while the utility situation in KC seems even more mismanaged than ever, perhaps there is hope. At present, the Royals are running 27-year-old Tony Abreu out as their utility man. Previously, they tried 29-year-old Irving Falu in the role, with some success.  But there’s a reason it’s taken those guys as long as it did to reach the majors.

The long-term answer may be a year away in Christian Colon. He’s not impressed anyone so far. He’s 23 years old and was barely adequate at his stops in Single and Double A. Improvement this season, his second at Northwest Arkansas, finally earned Colon a promotion to Triple A Omaha, two days after Betancourt was designated for assignment.

Though drafted as a shortstop, Colon has been used extensively at both short and second for the past year, as it appears the Royals are grooming for a versatile role. He told me a year ago, that he had some experience at third in the amateur ranks, but at that point, he wasn’t anticipating a switch from short.

Though you’d like to get more out of the number four draft pick KC used on Colon, it may not turn out all bad. The guy’s bio just sounds like a utility infielder: consummate team player, unselfish, a leader, solid in all areas, but spectacular in none of them.

Colon has garnered little fan interest since his drafting. But with Betancourt gone, he will be getting a lot more attention as he becomes the team’s best option for the utility role.

For the last 2 years, the Kansas City Royals have been masquerading as an organization that is finally headed in the right direction, only to be ultimately exposed once again as the disgraceful Royals we have known for the better part of the last 20 years.

Everyone outside of the Kansas City Royals fanbase has been able to see it for years, so why do Royals fans themselves continue to allow themselves to be fooled by this organization? While the blame for another horrendous season ultimately starts at the top, it most certainly does not end there.

The Royals are now 48-63 and 12.5 games out of first place. Coaches are getting fired, players are getting tossed away for nothing, Ned Yost is beginning to show his true colors, and of course the Royals continue to lose baseball games. The season is once again lost. Royals fans are left with no reason to watch, other than perhaps to see Wil Myers get called up, or who gets fired or DFA’d next.

Let’s start with ownership…nobody can be sure what kind of restrictions the Glass family is placing on Dayton Moore and the rest of the front office. We know that there of course are some restrictions, and probably a bit of meddling, but to what extent nobody except Dayton Moore can be sure. It is known though that despite the Royals glaring need for starting pitching last off-season, it was not in the budget to add any more starting pitchers through free agency. And while the Glasses can be blamed for much of the Royals failures throughout their tenure, it is most certainly not on them.

General Manager Dayton Moore is having a bad year. And that is putting it lightly. Some things are out of his control, such as pitcher injuries, which have been plentiful. However, since this time last year, here is a list of some of the transactions Dayton Moore has made:

-Traded Wilson Betemit to the Detroit Tigers for absolutely nothing
-Traded Mike Aviles to the Boston Red Sox for absolutely nothing
-Signed Jeff Francoeur to a 2 year, $13 million contract
-Traded Melky Cabrera for Jonathan Sanchez
-Signed Bruce Chen to a 2 year/$9 million contract
-Signed Yuniesky Betancourt to a 1 year/$2 million contract
-Signed Aaron Guiel as a free agent (this is here more for humor, as I have no idea how this fell under the radar. Seriously?!?!)
-Traded Kevin Chapman and D’Andre Toney to the Houston Astros for Humberto Quintero & Jason Bourgeois
-Signed Jason Kendall as a free agent (only to have him retire 5 days later)
-Designate Yuniesky Betancourt for Assignment
-Lose Jose Mijares on waivers getting nothing in return

Now, that is only the bad stuff, but if the decent deals were included, the list would not be much longer. And outside of the Jonathan Broxton signing, there has not been much good done by Mr. Moore in the major league transaction category over the past 12 months. One could almost look at the list of transactions over that period of time and wonder if the guy is trying to get himself fired.

As for Ned Yost, the guy is clearly beginning to lose his mind. In his 2 years with the ball club, he has fired more coaches than most managers do in 10 years. And it is not likely that he’s finished there. He continues to call for bunts in odd situations, untimely stolen base attempts by players who should not be stealing bases, and head-scratching pitching and lineup decisions on a daily basis.

Things are spinning out of control in Kansas City once again. If there is a silver lining here, it is that at least this is very familiar territory for Royals fans.

Farewell to Mitch Maier.

Frankly, I’m surprised it took this long.

The Royals designated Maier for assignment Thursday, stocking up on pitchers during the dog-days leading up to the All Star Game. It looks like this is the end of the road for Maier, who has spent most of the past six seasons with the big league team.

I actually thought this might happen a couple of years earlier, but Maier just kept hanging around. He played good defense, was a positive presence, and even pitched a few times when the team was in a pinch.

But he just wasn’t good enough. Not for a team that wants to contend.

I take this as a positive sign.

The fact that Maier was on the team at all the last several years told me that the Royals just weren’t any good. But Maier kept working his way onto the roster because the old guys who were supposed to start got hurt, or the young guys weren’t quite ready.

Something must be different now, because the Royals finally deem Maier expendable.

“We’ve got so many young outfielders we want to look at,” said manager Ned Yost about the decision to let Maier go. “He was a great guy to have on your team as your fourth or fifth outfielder. But being mostly left-handed in the outfield, we needed a right-handed bat in [Jason] Bourgeois and we’ve got [Jarrod] Dyson, [Lorenzo] Cain’s coming back soon and we’ve got [Wil] Myers on the horizon.”

The Royals carried just four outfielders into Thursday’s game in Toronto. But Bourgeois can play all three outfield spots, so they seem to be comfortable with a lighter bench. Bourgeois has a much higher ceiling than does Maier, and apparently Cain and Myers could be coming to KC shortly.

To improve as a team, you need to have a roster full of good players. Cain and Myers have more talent in their pinky than Maier has on his best day. To get better, the team has no room for someone like Maier.

I know that sounds harsh. I’ve talked to Mitch Maier, and he seems like a good guy. By all accounts he’s a great teammate. But when someone is described as “the consummate professional,” it’s like saying that a girl has a great personality. Maier was doing all he could with his limited skills, but that girl isn’t someone you invite to the prom.

Good luck Mitch. I hope you land somewhere and continue your career. I’m surprised how many other Royals are able to find a place in the league.

But this move can only be seen as a sign of progress, and it was high time for you to go.

You can’t blame Ned Yost for trying. At least I won’t on this one.

He’s got a super athletic 22-year-old phenom, a rangy veteran with a great arm, and a run-producing doubles hitter. All of who were hitting relatively well at the time. Who wouldn’t want all three of them on the field at the same time?

And when you’re six to eight games below .500 and in danger of sliding into last place in your division, you could argue that there’s nothing you shouldn’t try.

I was nervous when the Royals announced that they would try Jeff Francoeur in centerfield, Billy Butler at first base, and allow the untested Eric Hosmer to learn on the job in right field.

I don’t think I was worried about the short-term results. What I was more worried about was that the position change would somehow unsettle Hosmer just as his bat was finally beginning to wake up.

I don’t know much about the psyche of big leaguers in general, or Hosmer specifically, but I was concerned that flailing around in unfamiliar territory would send the slick-fielding first baseman back into the funk that plagued him the first two months of the year.

Yost, on the other hand, overplayed his confidence to the media. He acted like the move was no big deal. He seemed to think that a few afternoons shagging balls in pregame would prepare Hosmer to play the position. Perhaps Yost thought, like all Little League coaches, that he could hide a poor fielder in right and he could somehow avoid having to make any plays.

But as the old saying goes, the ball will find you.

Pittsburg Experiment, Game 1: It didn’t take long for Hosmer to boot the first ball hit to him in right. “It was just a bad read on my part,” he said. That turned a single into a double, which resulted in the game’s first run.

Then in the third inning, Butler helped to botch a rundown, blindly chasing a base runner toward second while another snuck home. After the game, Yost tried to blame that one on Hochevar, but his analysis rang hollow.

Yost’s summary of the lineup after game one:

“I wouldn’t call it sloppy,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “We’ve got guys playing out of position in a National League park and it’s going to take them a day or two to get acclimated.”

Pittsburg Experiment, Game 2: Ok, so on day two?  Well with the Royals leading and the bases full of Pirates, Hosmer allowed a seemingly catch-able ball to drop in, opening the floodgates to a five-run Pittsburg inning.

“I was playing pretty deep and got a bad read on it,” Hosmer said.

Pittsburg Experiment, Game 3: Stop now before we really embarrass ourselves.

The results of the experiment were so dreadful that Yost called it off a day early.

So you might argue that Yost shouldn’t give up on the alignment just because it didn’t work the first time out. After all, the logic behind it hasn’t changed, and Hosmer is certainly athletic enough to play right field.

Or you might argue that the results were so overwhelming that it should be scrapped without hesitation. Hosmer was bad in right. Butler shouldn’t be a regular first baseman. Francouer is a natural in right, not center. There’s no use trying to fit square pegs into round holes.

I’m not sure which is the right side of the argument. Yost will have six more games in National League parks to decide if the experiment is worth continuing.

All I know is that I don’t blame Yost for trying.

If you had been asleep since March and woke up and looked at the Major League Baseball standings, you would see that the Kansas City Royals are currently sitting in 4th place with a record of 24-34, 1/2 game out of last place in the American League Central, with only the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres having fewer wins in all of Major League Baseball. And if this was all you saw, your reaction would be “same old Royals”. However, it isn’t quite that simple.

In 2011, the Royals as a team stayed remarkably healthy. No everyday position player spent any considerable amount of time on the Disabled List. Danny Duffy got shut down early, but otherwise the starting rotation stayed relatively healthy.

2012 has been an entirely different story. 2 key position players that were penciled into the starting lineup for the entire season, Catcher Salvador Perez and CF Lorenzo Cain, have been out all and most of the season respectively. Starting 2nd baseman Chris Getz has been on the DL for about a month. Closer Joakim Soria was diagnosed with a torn elbow ligament in Spring Training and is out for the season with Tommy John surgery. SP Danny Duffy was diagnosed with the same a month ago and is finished for the year. SP Felipe Paulino, sandwiched around a very impressive month in the rotation, has 2 stints on the DL, the 2nd of which he is currently serving. And even though he wasn’t very good before the injury, SP Jonathan Sanchez is also serving time on the DL.

Even in their worst of nightmares, Dayton Moore and Ned Yost couldn’t have planned for this sort of contingency. 4 out of every 5 nights (Bruce Chen‘s outings being the lone exception), the Royals are bringing a knife to a gun fight with the starting pitchers they are sending out there. Of the 5 pitchers in the Royals current starting rotation (Bruce Chen, Luke Hochevar, Vin Mazzaro, Nate Adcock, and Luis Mendoza), only Chen figures at this point to be a sure thing in next year’s rotation, and none of the 5 would figure to be in the rotation beyond next year unless something goes terribly wrong. So what are we supposed to be watching? This is basically a competition between a bunch of guys who would all figure to be 5th starters at best, to determine who is worth keeping around at AAA for an emergency spot start in 2013.

So Royals fans, it is time to quit paying attention to the standings. Things to pay attention to going forward would include:

-Eric Hosmer‘s ability to continue to break out of his extended early season slump
-Alex Gordon as he continues to recover from his slow start to the year
-Mike Moustakas as he emerges as one of the best offensive and defensive 3rd basemen in the game much earlier than anyone anticipated
-Salvador Perez as he returns from the Disabled List this week
-Alcides Escobar as he continues to establish himself as the premier defensive SS in the game
-The development of SP Jake Odorizzi as he continues to excel at AAA Omaha
-And of course, the inevitable call-up of the later “golden boy” of the organization, Wil Myers.

There are plenty of things to be excited about the rest of this Royals season. Unfortunately, contending for the playoffs is no longer one of them. Perhaps 2013 will be “Our Time”