Archive for Kansas City Royals

A player can’t be drafted fifth overall, sign for $7.5 million, and not retain extremely high visibility for his minor league career. This is especially true of a player drafted into a franchise with a recent history of struggles that has sent its fanbase constantly scouring the farm system for signs of hope. Add in the prospect in question being a local high school multi-sport hero, and you have a player who will constantly be under the microscope.

That is the situation Royals outfield prospect Bubba Starling has constantly found himself in in his professional career. He was the fifth overall pick in 2011 and passed up a football scholarship at Nebraska for the massive bonus. Many reported that he had five tools, but like many multi-sport high school hitters, he combined impressive athleticism with rawness.

Two years into his career, Starling has had mixed results that have led many to question whether it’s time to jump off the bandwagon, while others point to his relative youth (he’s still just 21) and hold out hope for stardom. I did get to see Starling three times in the 2013 season, and today I’m going to take my shot at projecting him.

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Royals pitching prospect Miguel Almonte entered the year as the #10 prospect in the Kansas City system according to Baseball America, and it’s hard to argue that he deserves to fall from that perch in the coming ranking season. As a 20-year-old in his first full-season campaign, the Dominican righthander has posted a 3.16 ERA and 2.97 FIP with a 117/36 K/BB in 119 2/3 innings. As with any young arm in the low minors, there’s still a significant amount of mystery and uncertainty surrounding Almonte. He held up quite well in my viewing earlier this season, though, showing a good combination of potential and polish.

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While the non-waiver trade deadline failed to live up to the hype, there were many who suspected that August could be quite busy with a number of players expected to be placed on waivers. With that, fantasy owners were going to have to brace themselves for the impending fallout. A month left to wheel and deal was plenty of time to re-shape the landscape of many a fantasy roster and upset the balance of a few league standings. Alex Rios moved from the South Side of Chicago to Texas and it looked as if we were just getting the ball rolling. But the team that has been most active thus far has been those surprising and surging Royals and with a pair of moves to bolster their suddenly struggling infield, fantasy owners are….bored. After a deal with the Twins and a trade with the Blue Jays, there are nothing but yawns in reality and even less for fantasy owners to get excited about. Read the rest of this entry »

The Kansas City Royals have been one of the most enigmatic teams in the last few years. Not because they’re small market or because they’ve been a perennial punching bag for the rest of the American League, but because expectations have been on the rise for some time now and they consistently fail to deliver. Once the worst farm system in baseball, the Royals were suddenly flush with all of this great, young talent. We saw the debuts of players like Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas and watched as they added key pieces like Lorenzo Cain and Alcides Escobar. They hadn’t quite put it all together over the last two seasons, but this year, with a revamped rotation, the Royals became darlings in the American League and some even thought they could compete for a wild card this year. But while James Shields and Jeremy Guthrie did their part early on, the hitters failed miserably. The young studs were a disaster and after a modest 14-10 April, things spun out of control as the Royals went 8-20 in May and opened June 1-2. Manager Ned Yost was at a loss. He shuffled the lineup dozens of times without success. They fired their hitting coach and replaced him with the legendary George Brett, hoping that some Royals royalty would jump start the offense. But instead, it was the nerds who got things going for the Royals. Yost put the lineup decision into the hands of the sabermetric boys and the next thing we knew, Kansas City was on a six-game winning streak. Read the rest of this entry »

Obviously, if you talk to any legitimate stat junkie, they’d be able to tell you in a heartbeat, but ask any casual baseball fan which team bullpen was the most valuable to their team last year, and very few….probably none….would be able to tell you it was the Royals. With an overall WAR of 7.3 and such solid numbers like a 77.8-percent strand rate, an 8.5-percent HR/FB, a 3.17 ERA and a 8.58 K/9, the Royals pen was one of the team’s strongest assets. And this year probably won’t be much different as most of the components that made it so successful last year are back for more here in 2013. Read the rest of this entry »

More often than not, when a pitcher crosses over from the American League to the National League, he usually finds a little more success than if he were crossing over the other way. Aside from the simple fact of replacing a designated hitter with a light-hitting pitcher in the lineup, there are other nuances, such as simple pitch selection, that usually favor the former AL hurler. But scrolling down Zach Sanders’ Starting Pitcher End of Season Rankings all the way to number 94, you’ll find an exception in Royals’ starter Jeremy Guthrie. He basically crossed over twice in 2012 and in both cases, bucked the stereotype. Read the rest of this entry »

Scroll a little more than halfway down Zach Sanders’ End of Season First Base Rankings, and there at number 31 you’ll find Kansas City Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer with a measly $1 value attached. If you stood by Hosmer this past season, you probably think that Zach was a little too generous with that ranking and perhaps that dollar value is a bit much. After all, as far as disastrous seasons go for over-hyped players, this one may not take the cake, but it definitely ranks up there. Read the rest of this entry »

Streaming pitchers here at the end of the season can often be a treacherous affair.  You scout the pitcher, you check the match-ups, you pore over the data and then you bite your lip, close your eyes and pray that you didn’t make a mistake.  Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes…it rains.  But the bottom line is that the risk involved is usually pretty high because, well, if these guys that you’re sifting through were really that good, they wouldn’t be sitting out on your waiver wire here in mid-September.  So why not tap into some new blood?  Cast aside the tired, lower-tiered starters with their low-5.00 ERA and grab yourself something young; something fresh and exciting.  Get yourself some Jake Odorizzi. Read the rest of this entry »

It was supposed to be a breakout season for Lorenzo Cain, the 26-year old centerfielder acquired by the Royals as part of the return package for Zack Greinke. He was basically told that the centerfield job was his to lose during spring training and it was actually a little exciting watching him run away with it as he hit .371 with five home runs, 11 doubles, and five stolen bases. Not to mention, a 12.9% walk rate, something the Royals desperately hoped he would retain from his minor league numbers. He was slated to bat second in the order and was primed to be a serious fantasy asset this year.

But then the injury bug swooped in and bit poor Lorenzo in the groin after he went crashing into the wall during the first week of the season. He landed on the disabled list and then, to make matters worse, ended up tearing his hip flexor during his rehab stint which put him on the shelf for the rest of the first half. Some fantasy owners have been able to stash him on their DL this whole time, while others were just forced to cut bait and send him back to the player pool. Well, now as the second half is about to begin, you have your chance to run with Cain as he is back and ready to finish what he started.

If you’re looking for some outfield help and he’s out there on your waiver wire, Cain is definitely worth a look. The Royals will likely start him off easy and keep him hitting out of the seven or eight-hole to start — keep the pressure off and let him do his thing.  He’s got a little bit of pop in his bat and has good speed on the bases, so if he starts off strongly, there’s a good chance that Ned Yost starts to test him out in the two-hole, depending on the performance of Alcides Escobar. Obviously a move up in the order would boost his value, but baby steps are needed here. He appeared to be getting better during his rehab outing as he went from batting .208 at Double-A Northwest Arkansas for the first half of the session to .321 for Triple-A Omaha in the second. He dropped his strikeout rate, started taking some walks, and was just more productive overall. But while that is definitely encouraging, there’s no need to rush him with lofty expectations.

One caveat here with regard to the speed game which could be a little discouraging. Not only did Cain miss a few games towards the end of his rehab stint with sore legs, but he also never attempted a stolen base at any point. Obviously, early on in the rehab you don’t want to push it, but you would have liked to have seen him at least attempt a stolen base at some point — see what kind of a jump he gets, what kind of burst of speed he’s got right now, but nothing. It’s not certain if he was being tentative or if the coaches and trainers were just being cautious.

Now Cain’s return has more of an impact than just saying goodbye to Jarrod Dyson until September. His return also means that the promotion of Wil Myers, something everyone has been clamoring for, is on hold indefinitely. The team has already said that they will not bring Myers up unless he has the opportunity to play every day. With Cain taking over centerfield, Alex Gordon and Jeff Francoeur handling the corners and Jason Bourgeois holding down the fourth outfielder responsibilities, there’s just no room for Myers to play regularly, regardless of how well he is hitting in Omaha. Fantasy owners that have Myers stashed will simply have to wait patiently and hope that the team can find a way to pawn off Francoeur. The market for him right now is not strong, but perhaps when we’re a little closer to the trade deadline, some contending team will be looking for a right-handed bat to come off the bench. For now though, he will continue to patrol right field.

The Royals situation is definitely worth watching over the next month to see if they can recapture that spark we saw back in spring training. If they can all click as they did then you could find yourself with some strong fantasy performers for your second half run. If they don’t, then all you Myers owners will finally reap the benefits of stashing him away as the Royals would then become sellers on the market. Either way, there should be a good amount of second-half fantasy help coming out of Kansas City this year.

It’s been somewhat of a bittersweet spring for the Kansas City Royals.  On one hand, Eric Hosmer and Alex Gordon are off to great starts and look like they’re going to build on last year’s success while Lorenzo Cain has emerged as a strong force both with the glove and the bat.  On the other, you’ve got Salvador Perez down with knee surgery for 12 to 14 weeks and Joakim Soria likely headed for Tommy John surgery…again.  The first hand?  Music to fantasy owners ears.  The second?  Not so much.   The closer situation will be handled in-house so hopefully you handcuffed your Soria pick to the pair of Jonathan Broxton and Greg Holland.  The catching situation, though, forced the Royals to go outside.

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