17 Comments

When Whit was pulled yesterday, I honestly thought it was because of an impending trade and KC didn't want to risk injury.

Wouldn't think a nagging toe injury would be something that benches a modern day ironman.

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If Benny gets traded before the All-Star game , do the Royals lose their representative in the game? Or worse, would Benny lose his all-star slot?

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Jul 11, 2022·edited Jul 11, 2022

The trade with the Braves was certainly an unusual one. I won't pretend to know anything about the players they acquired. What I do know is that it seems more and more that Soren Petro's theory is spot on: Dayton's biggest fear, or at least one of them, is of trading a player and then having that guy improve when he goes elsewhere.

To the point where he trades a first-round draft pick (a compensatory pick, #35 overall) rather than one of his pet "our guys," who may go elsewhere and - God forbid - play better than they did while they were here.

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Triston McKenzie is going to be a real force for Cleveland, a team that has developed a lot of fine pitchers, so it was an opportunity to check out some of the people that are new to the team. I still think that with better team management the Royals could have won more than one game against the Astros. Their hitting has substantially improved with the new coach.

In my opinion, this year's team has more talented players than at any time in the last 5 years but has the worst record. It is clear to me that Matheny is the problem and it's the same problem he had with the Cardinals. He talked about a "quiet dugout" and the Royals in the past were anything but. He comes from a military family as did I. In the military you can be a drill sergeant with a bunch of recruits who have to do what you say or face severe consequences. In civilian life you can just "go along to get along" and wait for a more desirable job opening--in this case to be traded. Why risk a career ending injury for a manager who will eventually lose the game?

Another comment I have is the fixation with fantasy sports where all the focus is on trading players. In real life, trading players is not so easy, and you really don't know how a minor leaguer will eventually pan out. I thought trading Carlos Santana along with some money to a team whose greatest moment in history was knocking Cleveland out of the ALCS in exchange for a couple pitchers they didn't want was a mistake. He still has some years left and was a good mentor for the younger players.

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Jul 11, 2022·edited Jul 11, 2022

Per Baseball Reference, Drew Waters has 37 HR's - an average of one for every 53 PA's - in his minor league career. Perhaps that's why my heart isn't all aflutter. Against AAA pitching this year his OPS is .722, and I certainly know of no reason to expect him to maintain anything close to that against MLB-caliber pitching. If Alex Zumwalt has any extra-special miracles in his back pocket, now might be the time to start reaching for them.

There's also absolutely no reason to expect them to be able to develop the pitcher they received, and the infielder appears to be nothing more than organizational depth.

I'm beginning to understand exactly why Keith Law is most definitely not a fan of this transaction.

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Jul 12, 2022·edited Jul 12, 2022

What an odd position the Royals are in. Even though pitching is obviously the biggest problem, they absolutely should not trade for or draft or otherwise acquire any more pitchers as long as the current pitching coaches and development people are in place. They would simply be expending capital on commodities that will never provide a return on that investment.

The only exception to that would be if they've already decided to make changes in that area - at all levels from Eldred on down - once the offseason comes. It's going to be mighty hard to find a group of people who can do for the pitchers what Zumwalt, Tosar, DiRenne & company have done and are doing for the hitters. But if they can pull that off, we may find that we have a legit MLB-caliber pitching staff after all, even if not a particularly outstanding one.

Unfortunately it could take as long as two full years for those changes to become significantly evident on the field.... The class of 2018, along with the pitchers drafted since then, just seems to have so much to unlearn before any tangible progress can be made.

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I was among those who wasn't happy seeing the Royals bench laughing it up when Taylor came in to pitch. But it didn't last long because I remembered... it's the Royals. It is what it is. Maybe one of these days I'll see the same response when one of our heralded starters throws a complete game shutout. But I won't hold my breath for that.

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