When any draft nears–MLB, NFL, NBA, whatever–the phrase “best player available” immediately takes root as a central tenet of the discourse. All the professional and amateur pundits shout from the rooftops about the wisdom of taking the best player available and foolishness of drafting for need. And I get. I completely understand the reasoning behind…
Uh, we may have a problem. Recently, I was looking through this excellent draft rankings comparison from Alex Duvall and day dreaming about who I want the Royals to draft when it occurred to me that the Royals’ system might be light on outfielders … specifically center fielders. I thought I must be forgetting someone…
In the broad scope, this is as much a debate of old media ideas versus new ones. Traditionally, media companies maximized profits through vigorous and rigid control of access to their content, but young people grew up in a world of flexible and free media content. And they aren’t going back. Most of them will give up on baseball and find something else before they give up on cheap, flexible media.
Whit Merrifield is the Royals’ best player and has been for a few years. As a result, commentators fixate on him as a model for any player who kinda, sorta fits a similar mold. Good at a few positions, not great at any. Some pop, not great pop. Good baseball know-how. Really good hit tool.…
To be clear, most people are wrong about Jackson Kowar. They try to fit him into a well-worn narrative about pitcher development that contradicts every bit of information we have on him. As is the narrative for so many young pitchers, the conventional wisdom on Kowar holds that an underdeveloped breaking ball is all that…
It’s baseball season, and people approach that in different ways. Some dive head first into spring training hope. Some ignore it until the regular seasons starts. Some make up increasingly elaborate stories to coverup cheating scandals. To each his own. I’m starting this spring by thinking about which prospects I want to follow this season.…
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think someone is going to trade for Homer Bailey. It seems crazy to say since he was a train wreck of injury and ineffectiveness for four years, but he’s found some glimmer of his old self in Kansas City. And it looks like that might pay off…
Day three of the MLB draft is where teams make serious money plucking gems from obscurity. Nolan Ryan, Albert Pujols, Kenny Loften, Brett Saberhagen, Ryne Sandberg, and so many more (including the fabled Jarrod Dyson) were taken after the 10th round. For teams like the Royals, small-market teams that need to excel at drafting to…
Royals fans don’t have a lot of faith in the front office to make bold, innovative, and ultimately effective decisions, especially when it comes to the draft. Sure, they won a World Series, but the Dayton Moore front office has spent more years below .500 than they have competing for rings. And the origin for…
With the 44th pick in the 2019 MLB Draft, the Royals selected Brady McConnell, a shortstop from the University of Florida. McConnell is a very Royals pick, an athletic up-the-middle defender who, despite being a college player, has plenty of upside. As a draft eligible sophomore who missed most of his freshman season, McConnell doesn’t…
Bubba Starling has received plenty of attention from Royals commentators wondering if this is the year he makes it to the big leagues. It makes sense that Starling is a frequent topic. He’s a hometown kid. A top-5 pick. A former, future superstar. So, naturally, the media and fans root for him as a comeback…
The Royals are Cactus League champions. Hooray! But Spring Training isn’t about winning; it’s about getting ready. The players get themselves ready, and the general manager gets the team ready. Dayton Moore still has a couple of difficult decisions to make before Opening Day on Thursday. How many starters to carry. Final bullpen guys. What…
If you remember the wise words of Kunu, Paul Rudd’s character from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, you know sometimes it’s better to “do less.” As I was perusing the recently released MLB Pipeline rankings of Royals prospects and bemoaning how conservative and traditional they are, while envying the excellent way they’re presented, I decided commentators’ assessments that…
Leading up to the 2014 and 2015 World Series runs, the Royals faithful heard a lot about “the process.” It was a way of explaining the slow timeline of a rebuild and eventually, like all things on the Internet, became a joke, a way to poke fun at some of the team’s head scratching decisions.…
The numbers game playing out in the Royals’ bullpen doesn’t look great for Royals fans or farmhands. Not great for the farmhands because it may mean a trip back to AAA. Not great for the fans because it may mean another season watching horrid relief pitching cost the team wins. In fact, it’s entirely possible…
