Twins Series Preview

Alright, so here we go. Early season baseball outdoors in the Twin Cities. Should be a riot! Here's some things to keep an eye on.

-Zack Greinke hasn't really looked much like Zack Greinke in his first two starts. He's much better than he's showcased early on. I'm looking for him to kick it into gear tonight and shut down this potent Twins offense.

-Roman Colon has been designated for assignment and Josh Rupe has been called up from Omaha. This is a baby step in the right direction. Dayton Moore has allegedly been shopping Juan Cruz and Kyle Farnsworth as well, saying that the Royals would eat some or most of their remaining salaries.

-Billy Butler has been hitting singles left and right, but hasn't showcased much power yet in 2010. Looking for a big series from Billy Ray simply for the fact that he's due.

-After the news of Jose Guillen's brush with death in the offseason, I'm rooting for this guy big time. Hopefully he keeps it going and murders the ball again this weekend. Only problem is that Jose has struggled in cold weather in his career. First pitch temp tonight in Minny is listed at 58 degrees.

-Can Gil Meche rebound this weekend? I sure hope so. If Gil can turn in solid starts this year like the rest of our rotation, look out.

-Interested to watch extended periods of baseball at Target Field. Haven't gotten a chance to see how the ball plays in the park. Very little foul territory as well.

-The Royals no longer have to dread the Metrodome. Time for a fresh start in Minnesota.

Royals Show Signs of a Good Team, Capitalize on Detroit Mistakes

Sometimes one game can change your outlook for the short term. I really liked what the Royals did today. They had to win today. I remember in 2006, the Royals didn't win a SERIES until mid-June. So we've improved in that department.

Alright, enough with the snarkiness. I loved how the Royals won this game today. Jose Guillen, wow. We all may have to owe you an apology if you continue hitting like this through April. JoGui has 5 taters in 4 games. Pretty impressive. He's playing like he should in a contract year. Good for him. If the Royals are 10 games out in July, then he could get a pretty good return in a trade. But if we aren't 10 games out, then he'll likely be a reason we aren't 10 games out.

John Parrish is everything John Bale wasn't. He's been very reliable these first couple of weeks. A big cheer came from my end when he got the biggest Royal killer, Miguel Cabrera, to ground out to get out of a jam in the 7th inning. An otherwise small victory in what could have been another disastrous bullpen meltdown.

The Royals took care of business when the Tigers made mistakes. Gerald Laird dropped a ball on what should have been an easy out at the plate. Rookie Scott Sizemore let a slow dribbler go under his glove, letting a run score. That is how the Royals are going to win. Simply play better than the other team. If you can do that most of the time, you'll likely be around .500.

Another exciting element of this Detroit series was that the Royals collected 46 hits. Don't know the last time that happened, but man we really shelled them this week.

I'm starting to creep back towards cautious optimism. After nine games it is tough to evaluate a team and whether or not they are streaky, but these guys are swinging the bats well, the starters are doing their job and turning in quality starts and the defense looks better, not good, but better. If we can get this bullpen figured out, then as one Royals blogger infamously wrote: "It's On".

Quick Thoughts on BoSox, Aviles, Bandwagoners and Gil's Mess

Really, the bullpen is awful. Boston's isn't much better, but they have some nice hitters like Jeremy Hermida and a 40 year old Jason Varitek. Glad we could squeak one away from them and not be a total embarassment of a 1 win team. Jose Guillen hit 2 homers today. Sorry Kila, but JoGui Wheelz just bought himself another month of active duty on a major league team. Mike Aviles, if I ran a baseball team named the Kansas City Royals, you would play every day and set the table for Bert and Billy Ray. Yuniesky Betancourt.....thats all. I can't speak on him. It would end up with me writing a run on sentence about first swing pop outs and GIDP. Red Sox "fans" were loud and obnoxious this weekend, per the usual, but on Saturday I actually sat behind a group of people who were ACTUALLY from Boston and they couldn't have been nicer. But most of them seemed to be bandwagoners who paid good hard American money to sit in a chair for 3 hours for the sole purpose of shouting "YOUUUUUUK" whenever Kevin Youkilis breathed or looked like Sloth from The Goonies. Gil Meche, wow. I'm sorry, looks like your career has taken a beating from Trey Hillman and Dayton Moore (starting April 15th, they will be referred to as "Treyton"). Either that, or a five year deal was wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too long for a guy like Gil. Going with the latter as we know Dayton loves signing players within the timetable of their plateau.

10 days of peace now. Royals on the road for 9 games.

**One positive, Rick Ankiel is awesome. If that guy learned some plate discipline, he could be great. I mean, really really great.

We Got 159 More of These to Go...Great.

First off, I'm going to save the Trey bashing for later. Like when it becomes a real question of whether or not he should be fired, which I am going to guess shows up sometime in late May.

You can't fault Trey for the fact that our league-worst-in-2009 bullpen was not improved (no, Luis Mendoza is not an improvement, Dayton). What you can fault him on is his impeccable need to start Jason Kendall and keep him on the basepaths in the late innings. He was good for two baserunning gaffes late in games during this series. I won't say that I didn't see it coming. Also, Kendall was allegedly acquired for his defense, yet in these three games he was also good for a couple of miscues behind the plate that let runners advance. Also, I really enjoy seeing him hit slow dribblers and soft liners with runners in scoring position.

But the main issue that I have with this opening week is that it has become obvious that Treyton (yep, thats what I'm calling them now) seem to be content with trying to "compete" with veterans rather that lose the "right way" with young talent that is in our system. Instead of calling up Kila Ka'aihue to DH, we watch Jose Guillen loaf around the batters box and hit TPJ-esque ground balls with runners on. Instead of letting Mitch Maier prove he can hit .300 outside of Arizona, we allow Scott Podsednik to throw three-hoppers to the cutoff man. Yeah, but he hit 3 singles today! Instead of letting Carlos Rosa learn how to become a setup man in the big leagues, we get to enjoy Roman Colon and Luis Mendoza feed Miguel Cabrera batting practice fastballs in the 7th inning.

I am positive that Treyton plan to keep using this anemic lineup well into May. Then they will finally "realize" that this crap that they are putting on the field isn't as great as they thought it would be! Its crap. This offense is crap, this defense is crap, this bullpen is atrocious and I can't believe I'm saying this only 3 games into the season, but it is the truth. I have zero faith that this team can accomplish anything positive. We will lead the league in no-decisions, errors, passed balls, blown saves, BB/9 and just about every other category that crap teams lead the league in.

It is so disheartening for me to write a post about this so early in the season, but I've seen this trainwreck before. Yeah, it's the 2005 Kansas City Royals. Rick Ankiel is Reggie Sanders. Scott Podsednik is Terrence Long. Jason Kendall is Paul Bako or whatever craptastic "defensive guru" we had behind the plate that season.

The only difference is that the starting rotation looks to be amazing. Luke really impressed me on Wednesday, Banny looked like Banny today, and Zack probably pitched the worst he'll pitch in the first half of the season, yet still turned in a quality start.

That is the most depressing part. The Royals have slowly decayed into an offensive blackhole, while we've seen the starting rotation blossom into one of the best in the American League.

While Treyton has been beating the "pitching and defense" war drum, the offense, which has the core of an outstanding run producing lineup, has been neglected and turned into a disaster. Betancourt, Kendall, Guillen, etc. Its all going to be a disaster.

My only hope is that sometime before the Trade Deadline is that Treyton is no more and Dayton Moore can make us remember why we all had so much hope in him when he took over a franchise that is starting to look like it once was in the darkest of times. But I'm not holding my breath.

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.

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."

Quick Thoughts on Danny Duffy

Earlier today, the Royals announced that AA pitcher Danny Duffy will be taking a leave from baseball. They didn't say how long or why, but some have reported that it is because he has lost his love for the game and wanted to reassess his life.

This is discouraging for Royals fans. Duffy, ranked as a top 10 prospect in the Royals system by most outlets, is 22 years old. My guess is that the kid just wants to pursue other options. I can't blame him. As much as I want to be mad at him and pull the whole "every boy and man in America would kill to be in your position" argument, I just can't.

Danny is only a year younger than I am. I've been blessed to live the typical college life. I was in a fraternity, I drank, I made stupid decisions, made tons of friends, ate Top Ramen five times a week, etc. Meanwhile, Danny was riding buses all over the Midwest, living off of $20/day, eating fast food for every meal and trying not to give into the temptation of blowing his nearly half a million dollar signing bonus.

The point is, maybe Danny wants what I had. Lord knows I want what he had. Sure college life isn't glamorous, but it isn't supposed to be. Its what normal kids do when their away from their parents with little to no rules. Who cares what he wants though? I could've played ball in High School, who knows maybe I would have been great and got drafted in the first 5 rounds, got hundreds of thousands of dollars and a couple of months later was living in Arizona, away from my friends and family, knowing that my life would be miserable for the next few years until I MAYBE got to the big leagues. Meanwhile, I've got a half a million bucks sitting in some bank account somewhere that is just begging to be spent on stupid stuff that a 22 year old doesn't need.

My point is, give the kid a break. At 18 years old, he was thrown into a man's world, with out the buffer of college. He should do whatever he wants to do.