Just have to hope we get to the point we just have one of those 10 game losing type streaks instead of having three or four of them like we do most years. Who knows what the Royals wouldn't ended up if we didn't start the season off like a single A team.

I get the feeling James Shields won't allow a 10 gamer.

If this starting rotation keeps up the good play, I agree we may not even see one of those 10 game losing streaks. Big difference from having Luke as your #1 and Shields as your #1.

I bought a really good deal on tickets today at the Overland Park home and garden show. Royals had a booth there. For $45 we get two tickets to two separate games of our choosing up to field box seats. Also got five coupons for by one get one free on tickets to five more games, field box or better. If we want better seats we just pay the difference. Also came with a $20 food and drink voucher. I asked why the good deal to try and find a catch and he just said they were excited about the team and wanted to let as many people come to the games as possible.

I don't like to read to much into spring training but this year really does feel different. From all accounts Shields is not only a great pitcher but a great leader in the clubhouse. I think the Royals have a punchers chance of winning the division.

This team has had great springs before and then shit the bed. Hell, we've even led the league in HRs in ST.

That said, Shields is a very, very good pitcher. Don't let my disdain for the trade that brought him here suggest differently. Our rotation is definitively better with him in it.

The question is whether the team is better with Shields, Davis, and Frenchy than it would be with FA + Mendoza + Myers.

I'm betting the latter. However, this still doesn't mean that I'm not going to be ****ing ready for the start of the season.

P.S.: **** the White Sox.

It is just a hunch. I just feel like with the amount of talent that's been stockpiled, things have to start going the Royals way at some point. Maybe just maybe getting Shields pushes us into contention. I think our young guys being more seasoned is going to be huge.

I'll go on record, KC ( 95 - 67 )wins the division.

Look for the Royals to actually have consistency all year and avoid major losing streaks, 3 games max at anytime, only twice all year.

9-0 is an incredible way to start spring ball. What a great confidence boost. Hope we don't blow our load in spring, though.

It is, I hope it does not go to their heads.

Tops is 90-92 wins if we play out of our minds. I say 82-85 is more realistic if we play to our potential. 70-75 if we play like the Royals normally do.

I expect a .500 season anything less would not be acceptable.

.500 season is a failure.

You don't trade a premium player in Myers for .500.

That's exactly where I'm at.
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Fist bump.

We always kick ass in Arizona.

These trades have really deflated me. First Myers and odo, then Alex Smith.
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I would agree under normal circumstances. These aren't normal circumstances. Playing .500 ball would sadly be like playing for the division. Now once that has been accomplished, yeah, time to take the next step.

But it would be down right awesome to see them just skip a step.

I'm not sure we know enough about either trade to be too upset. Justin Smoak says hey.

Mark Quinn is will meyers

And Betancourt says hi right back, with Frenchy waving in the background.

Made the mistake of reading a bleacher report article about 2013 predictions and they think the royals will have the worst starting rotation ERA in the AL. I didn't even realize it was bleacher report until it was to late.

If it isn't playoffs, the trade was an absolute failure.

I agree with this under one condition: we don't make it during the two years we have Shields.

Nope. Cannot bring "real" expectations into a Royals thread.

81 wins = success! What, you think they can really make a 20-game jump?!!!? Forget that DM is essentially betting the same thing.

i think you're supporting my point; prospects should always be viewed with skepticism, especially when comparing them with legitimate major-league talent (shields).

I'd be somewhat disappointed if we don't get a wild card spot, but I'll be very, very disappointed if we don't have a winning record.

Kind of. I thought you were ripping on Rany for "missing" on Kila. However, one cannot compare those two prospects (Kila and Myers) in any way, shape, or form.

Kila was far older, to the point that he was running out of "prospect" designation. Furthermore, we had jack and shit at the ML level. Myers, on the other hand, is a legit prospect by anyone's standards. Far easier to project, and in a completely different stratosphere than Kila.

DM, however, has proven himself to be incredibly flawed in his ability to assess ML talent, as the names in my last post note.

Brandon Wood more like it

Get back to me 10 months from now

I agree 100000%

esp when you have the WORST PLAYER IN MLB starting in RF

We are a shoe in for the Cactus League Championship!!!!!!!!!111111111111111111!!!!!!!!!!!

Dayton = Geeeneeus

Myers I get - and agree with.

But it became clear in the past year or so that Odorizzi was never going to be a stud unless one of his secondary pitches jumped up to be a true out pitch, or unless his fastball velocity took a big jump.

Davis is, at worst, going to be as good as Odorizzi. Even if he doesn't bring back any of the lessons he picked up in the bullpen. Even if he's just a nice, solid No. 4 pitcher who eats innings.

Davis has already answered some of the questions -workload, can he maintain his stuff from the 75-100 pitch level, which Odo has struggled with - that will make or break Odo as even a MLB-contributor.

I guess I missed this last year, but while looking up our draft position, I found out that we won the new "competitive balance" draft lottery for 2013. One of our ping-pong balls was drawn first, so we were awarded the first of the 6 bonus 1st-round picks out of 13 teams who were in the drawing.

So, in the draft this year, we'll have 3 of the first 46 picks. (#8, #33, #46)

Oddly, the Yankees will have 3 of the first 32 picks, they got 2 comp picks for losing Soriano and Swisher.

As for the Royals... a 20-game jump would be a large surprise. I think my expectations as of Day 1 break in around 84-85 wins. Which is probably enough to keep them in the wild card race all season.

If they don't make the playoffs in 2013 or 2014, the trade is a failure.

Reasons for optimism:

1) Better than their record a year ago. The Royals were unlucky, winning about 4-5 games fewer than their pythag suggested was normal.

2) Salvador Perez for 120 games as C and likely 15-20 as DH, rather than 75.

3) Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas improvement/rebound potential. The huge upside is still there for both. Early reports are good, and they're focused on things they should be - what pitches they're taking, what pitches they're driving, etc.

4) Stronger overall pitching staff. It's not likely to all work out as sunshine and roses. If it does, the Royals will challenge the Tigers legitimately. But it's still going to be a massive improvement, even if Davis is just league average, Santana is only OK, and Guthrie and Shields take small steps back from their performances last year.

(Of course, it could go south. Guthrie could pitch an entire season like he did in Colorado, Santana could be just as bad, Davis could get hurt, and Shields could do what he did in 2010)

5) Strengths are still strengths. The bullpen is still young, strong, and stacked with hard-throwing, strikeout artists. The defense is still young, and good (And could be much improved with Perez and Cain healthy).

This means if a player LIKE Mark Appel were to slip to No. 8, KC might have the financial flexibility to take him and pay him what he wants.

Do the competitive balance picks come out before the other comp picks? I think that's the way those work, but it's been a while since I looked at that.

comp picks come before the competitive balance picks.

So....how long in April until we get the double digit losing streak?

Your mouth, shut it you must.

I'm in my own Royals spring training.
You know, I have to work on my pessimism. Try out some new stuff, work on my delivery. I'll only throw out a couple of insults, then I'll go get my stretching in. I promise I'll be good to go by opening day.

We kinda got screwed on our schedule a little bit. Each team this year plays each division opponent 19 times, which means 9/10 games at home/away in some order. So, some teams will get an extra home game vs some of their division rivals, no big deal but you'd figure you'd get the extra home game against 2 division rivals.

The Royals have 9 home/10 away against everybody but the Indians. 3 teams have the advantage on us, instead of just 2. Also, you play each non-division AL team either 6 or 7 times. We get both the Yankees and Red Sox 7 times. We also get the Rays and Angels 7 times. The really bad teams in the AL, we generally only get 6 games. (Oakland, Houston) We do get the Orioles 7 times if you count them as "probably bad" or mediocre. The only tough team we get 6 against is Texas.

Weren't the Royals better on the road than at home last year?

I'm really excited about the season!

This team seems to pass the eye test in terms of being competitive (and no, not Trey's eye test). Whereas before people knew that our lack of talent would sabotage this team, this year's level of talent ought to keep us competitive throughout the season.

And man, do I need that.

Just checked. 37-44 at home and 35-46 away. With better pitching we should do really good at home in this big park.

Except LeadHead Ned wants the team to become more of a power hitting team. Doesn't match well for the stadium we play half our games in

except we play in the American League, so we probably should try to be a power-hitting team if possible. I completely agree with the change in hitting philosophy.

I agree. A middle of the pack HR team is going to score more than the team that leads the league in singles.

You will like it when Hosmer and Moose actually swing at first pitch strikes right down the middle of plate and send it over the fence. :D

As long as it makes Ned forget the bunt sign, I’m cool with it.

I think you're right on here. I think our starting pitching was so historically bad that making up 20 games by having even an average starting pitching is not as crazy as it seems. It would seem, barring injury, that we've done better than that. This projects as a better than average starting staff. We should have a better than average pen. If Hosmer, Moose, and Escobar all improve (which they should) and Perez and Cain play a full season, I see no reason at all why this team shouldn't be 20 games better than last year.

I think Francoeur will have a bounce back year. Very exciting times to be a Royals & Chiefs fan!

I think Francouer will suck worse than last year. But that's just me.

And hopefully released.

Maybe that would finally get him off the field. But I am hoping he reverts to two years ago or at least plays at replacement level. I don't really hate the guy, I just hate that he goes up there to the plate with the same amount of grace and rythym that a lumberjack goes up to a giant redwood.

Brett's comment to Francouer was awesome:

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It would be hard for a player to be statistically worse than Francoeur was last year. His negative 2.7 WAR is one of the worst totals in recent memory. Amazingly, a big portion of this negative value was driven by his defense, not his bat.

It's not out of the realm of possibility. But Francoeur was especially awful last year, even for him.

Even a rebound to replacement level adds 3 Ws of value...

I don't hate Jeff Francoeur individually. What I hated was the stubborn reliance they showed with him last year. Way too slow to sit him. Way too slow to move him out of a critical spot in the batting order.

That's more about Ned and Dayton than anything else, though.

I can't hate too much... I agree with the decision to extend him at that time, even though I figured he would regress some. I didn't expect a complete fall off the cliff, though.

I was wondering why they didn't bring up Myers last year? Maybe to keep his value as high as possible? Shields better be good!

That and even if he was still with us he wouldn't have been up for the first few months to keep him that extra year.

Royals are winning again, up 7-2 in the 8th inning

and won.

ballin!

Who pitched today?

Frenchy should be in the cage hitting off a tee?

Guarantee you set that tee up 24inches lower than normal and in the opposite batter's box and he'd still swing at it.

Chen and Hoch.

Tejada went 4-6 with 2 rbi's against the Phillies for the DR.

Chen and Hochevar were both "sharp" per Bob Dutton's Twitter.

Chen and Hochevar.

Dutton tweeted that there were so many scouts from other teams that they ran out of food in their box area.

I think Chen and Hochevar pitched. I'm not sure though, might need 3 more people to confirm.

:)

Thanks.

I'd like to reconfirm that Chen and Hochevar pitched today.

I'm feeling good about this team!

Sounds like we found our 5th starter. Chen/Hochevar

We still haven't lost...I know it's st but damn...

The Royals are pitching-rich?

How many teams have an opening day starter as their #5 starter. :D

How many teams have given a butthole like Hochevar that many chances?

Hey, if Butthole-o Colon is still in the league..

We have a runs scored to runs allowed differential of +39 so far

Hos just got added to the USA WBC Team. YOOOOOOOOOOOO