Saturday, April 3, 2010

Thoughts on the 25-man Roster

The Royals have decided to keep Mike Aviles on the big league team in favor of perennial non-roster invitee Wilson Betemit. Thank God.

I can't speak intelligently on the current "battle" going on between Dusty Hughes, John Parrish and Anthony Lerew because I don't know anything about them. I will wish them all the best of luck though and I hope they enjoy their stint on the 25-man roster as they will inevitably be sent down or released sometime before July.

Obviously the biggest shocker of the last few days, besides Trey Hillman cutting his mullet off, has been the decision by outfielder Brian Anderson to become a pitcher after not making the team as the 4th outfielder. Anderson was a former pitcher at Arizona in his collegiate career, so maybe it'll work out for him. He's going to start off in Idaho Falls and will probably be forgotten about soon enough.

I'm glad to see Mitch Maier make the team. After the spring he had, there was no option but to keep him around. I can see him getting pretty decent reps in the outfield until Josh Fields comes back. I think Maier's ceiling is around David DeJesus level, which makes the signings of Podsednik, Ankiel and Goldilocks Anderson even more confusing. Without Pods on the team, I would have pegged Maier's numbers at .270/.345/.450 with around 10 homers and a handful of stolen bases. Maybe an injury will allow him to showcase his ability.

Word is beginning to spread about the improvement of Roman Colon. I'm cheering for the guy, he's had a pretty rocky career. I'm looking for him to put up similar numbers to Ramon Ramirez in 2008 and be a steady bridge to Soria.

Back to Aviles, man I hope he can beat out Yuni for the starting spot. I think Mike is a special player. People are saying he's faster, leaner and stronger since coming back from surgery. A 20/20 season is out of reach, but maybe he'll surprise us this year. If Yuni is knocked off his perch (and he should after the stellar .283 average he posted this spring, which is up against Aviles' near .500 average) at shortstop, then I will put Aviles in the same category as Butler, Soria, Greinke as players that this team can rely on. His bat is better, his defense is tremendously better and he is faster than Betancourt. It should be pretty easy to make this decision.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Happy April!

It may as well be the greatest month in all of sports. So to kick it off, I planned to write the usual silly, unbelievable, far-fetched, outlandish, fake Royals story that many bloggers write on this day of foolery.

But then I thought, what if it actually happened? What if I reported this fake, ridiculously stupid story, and the Royals actually did it? So I compiled a list of possible April fools stories and I just couldn't be comfortable with writing these fake stories when in the back of my mind, I thought that they actually may come true some day. (I included some "quotes" from Dayton Moore as well)

-Royals trade Billy Butler for Juan Pierre. "We really like where Juanny is headed in his career. We thought with the speed aspect of our ballclub, he really fits in here. We'll probably have him bat third to start the season. Since our outfield is already full of major league quality winners, we're going to see how he fares in the DH role and put Josey back out in right field and see where this goes. We are incredibly lucky to have him in Kansas City and the fans should feel that way too."

-Royals trade Zack Greinke for Alfonso Soriano and Kevin Gregg. "Alfie and Greggie will absolutely make us better. Both defensively and increase our grit factor. Plus, I really think that those glasses that Greggie wears are super badass. We'll probably start Soriano at shortstop and option Mike Aviles to the Japanese league to make room for them on the roster."

-Royals fire Trey Hillman, re-hire Tony Muser. "Trey came into my office yesterday and slammed a book called "Baseball Probetus" or something like that on my desk and asked me if I had ever read it. Of course I think the math is the devil and immediately the scar on my forehead began to burn as the book stared me down like some evil scroll full of fuzzy math. I then decided that Trey should be let go, and I hired a true grit warrior who had success with gritty players like Jeff King, Roberto Hernandez, Jeff Austin and Joe Vitiello in the past with this organization. For me, it was a no brainer. That and I prefer managers with mustaches."

-Dayton Moore tries to hire Ken Caminiti as hitting coach. "Oh, he is? Oh, my bad."

-Dayton Moore destroys all video equipment in the clubhouse. "We thought from an organizational standpoint, that technology and new age statistics are evil. We needed to cleanse ourselves of the evil that is sabermythics and begin using the best stats like runs created and runs scored. We also have hired more scouts to replace this silly video system. We have branded them 'scout specialists' and if you want to meet with them, just look for the 'SS' emblem on their collar. We in the front office could never wrap our heads around these so-called advanced statistics. If there was a stat that told me how many wins a player would be worth, then I would have invented it by now."