My Thoughts On The Royals

I'm going to go ahead and use this first posting for a little intro and my current thoughts about the Royals'.

I LOVE the Royals' and I'm going to give my opinion right off the bat on the "youth movement". I completely understand what Allard was doing when he brings in the likes of Minky, Gruds, Reggie, and the plethora of "old' pitching that was brought in. Theoretically, these guys "weren't in the way of a prospect". That's fine by me. However, the other day when the lineup consisted of NOT ONE PLAYER under 30, that kind of makes me wonder where are these young guys? Bako, Minky, Gruds, Berroa (he's not 28), Graff, Brown, Robinson, Guiel and Stairs.

Let's take a look at our current core of young position players. Berroa - he's got to...insert learn plate discipline, learn focus in the field, etc. Teahan - well, he's been sent down to O to work on the swinging part. Late last year we thought he had learned to drive the ball and end the Ichiro-esque opposite field flares. This year he showed some promise by hitting the ball hard early in the year but obviously not hard enough. JohnBuck (does anybody remember how Tony Pena used to say JohnBuck. Classic. Not as classic as Yimmy Yobble though) I like. He's shortened that elongated swing of his and that swing doesn't freak me out too much anymore.

Pitching wise Runelvys, Grienke, Gobble, Howell, Sisco, Burgos and MacDougal are all pretty solid pitchers. There would be no number one starters on any other team but they aren't that bad. Especially the well documented bullpen. I know that Burgos has been terrible of late but he's got too good of stuff for him not to become at least a quality Major League Pitcher. It's who we fill those holes with is where we have gotten into problems. Elarton is working on becoming the hard luck pitcher of the year. However Redman and the now departed Mays aren't rock stars.

I understand Baird's position here. We've got a handful of "youths" here in the Major's that aren't playing too well - maybe with the exception of DeJesus and we needed some veterans to fill the holes. So, in summary the current youth movement is getting very close to nonexistant (and that's fine if we don't have any quality "youths" to bring up. I would like one of two things to happen.

1. First is start to bring up the "next youth movement". Pull a Marlins and bring everybody up and have service time start ticking away but at least we'd know what we have and we'd have some fun watching these kids. Granted, this is probably not a good idea. I'm guessing A God (I left the "r" off on purpose it's sounds cool) isn't ready for the Santana changeup or the Zito curveball. Maybe. However, I would like to see Gordon, Maier, Lubanski, Butler, etc. up here just to get me excited about the Royals. As far as Huber goes that is the largest travesty in sports. I understand it is a power struggle but everyone needs to remove their heads from their asses and send him back down where he can continue to learn to play first base and get some at bats.

2. Continue with the status quo for a year or two where we can keep getting these high draft picks. FOR THE SAKE OF THE TEAM, TAKE ANDREW MILLER and pay him what he wants. I don't care if he isn't the typical far and away #1. Everyone (except Derek Ladnier) agrees that he should be #1. So, in this situation we continue signing the Elartons, Mays and the like, lose 95 games a year (and that's assuming we start winning this year) and suck for long enough that no matter how poorly we draft we can field of team of legitimate players.

Still no news on the changes with the Royals. I'm skeptical if a change to the GM would fix anything. I do say that Buddy has got to go. I disagree with the "book" that he's going by that says you've got to bring your closer in (or anyone in) when the guy on the bump is lights out.

On a Cubs note, did anyone see Neifi Perez's bunt yesterday? First and third, two out bottom of the ninth. Hey Neifi, Let's bunt. I understand the suprise thing but I'm not sure how the runner of first is going to score on a bunt. I know I know, he's hoping to get Mabry up who's got some power. I don't know, just seemed crazy to me. He sucked here and he sucked in SF. I think that whole Coors Field thing helped him out.