GO ROYALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[KCMax]

We'll give him time if he needs it, but I am not of the opinion that you ruin good hitters by bringing them up too early.  The best hitters don't require coddling.  They figure it out eventually.  Moos will come around, and 16 games isn't a fair look at him.  I don't think the Cardinals ruined Albert Pujols by bringing him up and bypassing AA.  Heck, he only played three games in AAA.  Bad example, I know.

If we can finally get Kila up to the majors, we can start trickling our youngsters to AAA.  AA is packed right now, and AAA is filled mostly with guys who have no shot at the majors.  I'd like to see us bring Hosmer to this level soon.  He really can't prove more offensively in AA, and defense can be practiced at any level.  Guillen remains the impediment to both Kila and Hosmer.

I agree that good hitters will become good hitters, but when you're the Royals, you only have these guys for six years, and you want to make it the six years they're going to be good. You don't to waste a year and a half of their service time having them "figure it out at the big league level."

Hosmer has only played 13 games in AA - I'd leave him there at least a big longer - probably for the remainder of the year.

[LenexatoKCMO]

Yeah, I haven't seen any detailed reviews on these two prospects but just based on their stats alone, they look like a pretty good haul for three months worth of S. Podsednik that we didn't really need/want anymore.  

[Boognish]

The thing is, Double A is a better place to determine the mettle of your prospects. Triple A is mostly a good place to see how they'll fair against veteran journeymen who are waiting to be an injury replacement.

[phuqueue]

For whatever it's worth, Keith Law likes this Ankiel/Farnsworth trade for the Royals.  Two will-be-27-year-old major leaguers and a minor leaguer.  Says the MLB reliever (Jesse Chavez) is below replacement level for the Braves (as his stat line will tell you) but should be better here as the 11th or 12th pitcher.  Doesn't really say anything about the outfielder (Gregor Blanco) that you can't already see in his stats -- good OBP, absolutely no power whatsoever.  Evidently he'll play anywhere in the outfielder though.  I guess he's basically like a better version of Mitch Maier.  Sees the minor league pitcher (Tim Collins, currently at AA, turning 21 in a few weeks) as a setup man in the future unless he improves his walk rate and his breaking ball, but really likes the kid -- he's the reason Law is high on this trade.  Law also noted that Collins only faced 29 batters while in the Braves system (just came over from the Blue Jays a couple weeks ago) but struck out 14 of them, so that's promising (albeit in a very small sample, but the kid's got good numbers across all levels of the minors so far).

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/blog?nam ... id=5426674

[dublin]

Does this mean we have an outfield of Gordon/Maier/Guillen? With Blanco and Bloomey as our backups and Kila\Butler as our 1B\DH?

[KansasCityCraka]

With as much as we have gotten rid of, I am starting to think Harry might be right in saying Glass wants to sell the team. I know we are in no position to win but we have gotten rid of a lot of players.

[phuqueue]

Does this mean we have an outfield of Gordon/Maier/Guillen? With Blanco and Bloomey as our backups and Kila\Butler as our 1B\DH?

Kila hasn't been brought up yet, has he?  In any case, if all the other spots are set and it's a choice between Maier or Blanco, I'd rather see what Blanco can do.  Maier only hits for marginally more power, but Blanco's OBP is way higher.  They're both no-power guys so go for the guy with some other discernible skill.  Blanco's compiled his great OBP in only 58 at bats so far this season, so no telling how well he'll be able to keep it up, but we already know that Maier is a thoroughly whatever player anyway.  With the utter lack of power, neither of these guys is really ideal except as a fourth outfielder, but we've got to make the most of what we've got and Blanco's OBP is sixty points higher (plus Blanco is also a year and a half younger, not that it matters a ton here since he's basically already entering his prime and his prime isn't very impressive).

But as long as Kila's still in the minors, it doesn't matter anyway.  Billy at 1B, Guillen at DH, and I guess both Maier and Blanco in the outfield, with Bloomquist getting in there far more than he reasonably should with his OBP that would be a merely okay batting average.  I won't miss Ankiel or Podsednik at all, but this outfield picture is looking pretty bleak for the immediate future with DeJesus gone.  Nice to clear out some dead weight, though.  Even though we've very rapidly become very thin in the outfield, there's almost something liberating about it -- like when Dayton Moore inevitably goes out and makes an awful signing in the offseason, you know he's at least not pushing someone else out of the picture.  At least this time it won't be like trading for Mike Jacobs when we already had Kila and Butler and Guillen as 1B/DH types because now all we've got is Gordon, DeJesus, and several fourth outfielders.

[shinatoo]

With as much as we have gotten rid of, I am starting to think Harry might be right in saying Glass wants to sell the team. I know we are in no position to win but we have gotten rid of a lot of players.

Actually the opposite is true. We "spent" the last half year of four players that really had no future on this team to "buy" 8-10 players that will probably be in this organization for the next 5 to 8 years. Hopefully 1 of those player will be an impact major leaguer and 2-3 will be every day players. If he is planning on selling in two years he just increased his teams value for 2012.

So we lose 5 more games this season because we dumped some major league talent. Who cares if we finish 60-102 or 65-97?

Almost everyone is saying we have the best minor league system and these trades just solidified that. Look for the Royals to be in the post season in 2013. (Unless they find a way to futz it up, which they will. Or the curse of Don Denkinger will smite us.)

[szazzy]

Is there anything more depressing than a 316 page thread documenting the Royals history over the last 4 years? Reading that "20 years is a long time to not win your division" is only more depressing when you realize that was written years ago.

Still it is a good time to be a Royals fan. I no longer have to ignore that Kyle Farnsworth was on the team. Ankiel will probably blow up with the Braves, but he was never a good fit here. I'm glad he's gone too.

[bobbyhawks]

http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2010/07 ... team-hope/

Great Joe Pos read as per usual.

[KCMax]

http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2010/07 ... team-hope/

Great Joe Pos read as per usual.

Great read. Summed up my thoughts nicely. Nice set of trades by Dayton this week. We get rid of three players we were going to get rid of anyway this winter, and Callaspo was a nice player, but didn't really have a spot here. In return we don't get any studs, but we get seven players 26 or younger and 1 or 2 of them have a decent shot at being impact players, with some nice role players as well.

[KCMax]

Royals designated Jose Guillen for assignment meaning they have to trade or release him within the next ten days.

[phuqueue]

How I've dreamed about this day

[bobbyhawks]

Pretty amazing, especially since we will give Kila a chance to sink or float.  Not that I'm a huge DMGM fan, but I hope those who have been slamming him for the past few years give him propers for making his last few moves.  If you had to ask his biggest haters which moves they would make a month ago, I think they would have said almost exactly what he has done.

Move, trade, or release the older guys with no place in our future:

-Ankiel
-Guillen
-Podsednik

Look for offers for overperforming players:

-DeJesus
-Callaspo
-Farnsworth

Allow yourself to be won over by spectacular deals for current stars (never materialized, but the meat was on the table):

-Butler
-Soria
-Greinke

[MidtownCat]

Greinke questions if Royals can compete soon, might want out

"There's no reason for me to get real excited about it," Greinke said. "Because the chance of more than one of them making a major impact by the time my contract is up is pretty slim."

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/story/1371 ... y-want-out

[bobbyhawks]

Greinke questions if Royals can compete soon, might want out

"There's no reason for me to get real excited about it," Greinke said. "Because the chance of more than one of them making a major impact by the time my contract is up is pretty slim."

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/story/1371 ... y-want-out

Tough stuff, Zack.  We aren't letting you go just because you are unhappy.  Now if you play a bit better during the second half and increase your trade value, we'll talk.  I think the story is a bit overblown anyhow.

[phuqueue]

Headline: "Greinke questions if Royals can compete soon, might want out"
Very first line: "Zack Greinke says he does not necessarily want out of Kansas City."

JOURNALISM

[MidtownCat]

Greinke?  More like Zach Stinky am I right?

Another gem of an outing, dumbass.  

This guy needs an attitude adjustment.  And he can start by quitting the pouting about his teammates not being good enough and instead worrying about throwing some effing strikes and doing the job like a professional that he is being paid to do.

[KCMax]

Cool article about the Hallmark employee who designed the original Royals logo.

http://www.foxsportskansascity.com/page ... 35&feedID=

[bobbyhawks]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... gD9HINSS02

Guillen to the Giants for a sack of peanuts and a PTBNL.

This was a smart move for the Royals.  They forced the hand of teams that wanted Guillen, since (I may be wrong) the Giants would need to pay the remainder of his entire contract if he was a free agent, or whatever they call released players.  Even if we paid 90% of his contract and get one single A prospect in return, it would be a bonus for the Royals.  The other options were let him go, then pay for everything and get nothing; or let him go, someone picks him up at a much less attractive full $4+ million for 1/3 of a season and we clear that from the books.