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EDIT: Complete waste of time so far. They asked one question about Moustakas, Dayton danced around it and now it's on to questions about how great the team is. These guys stink. |
Lee Judges take on the Moose incident. Grain of Salt, hes a big time "homer"
The media made Kansas City Royals' third baseman Mike Moustakas mad -- and if someone publicly called for our demotion, we probably wouldn’t enjoy that either -- and now it seems Mike Moustakas has made the media mad. Mike hit two doubles and drove a third baseball to the warning track on Wednesday. People have been talking about Mike being sent back to the minors, so after a game like Wednesday’s, some of those same people wanted to talk to Mike. But if someone was burying you on Tuesday and wanted to talk to about the great game you had on Wednesday, you might not feel like doing so. The media gathered around his locker, but Mike wasn’t there. After a while, he showed up, did something at his locker, then walked off again. At that point I decided to punt. It looked like Mike was going to make everyone wait some more -- so I went back to the press box, grabbed my backpack and returned to the clubhouse. Moustakas was still not at his locker so I started talking to one of his teammates. I said forcing the media to wait was kinda funny, but he probably wasn’t helping himself. We’d get sulky about being put on hold while deadlines approached and look for payback opportunities ... just wait until the next time Mike takes an 0-fer. And once he got back to his locker he deflected questions about his performance and repeatedly talked about the pitching performance of Jason Vargas. So not only were the members of the media forced to stand around staring at each other while their deadlines approached, once Moustakas showed up, we couldn’t get the quotes we wanted. However you decide to feel about this -- and it’s America, no matter how little information we possess, we have to have opinions about everything -- give Mike Moustakas credit: in one of the biggest at-bats of his career, he came through. Moustakas came to the plate in the second inning with one out and the bases loaded. The game was still scoreless. Strike out, pop up or hit into a double play and Mike would get booed. People would be saying his critics were right. Mike Moustakas should be sent to the minor leagues. Instead, he roped a bases-clearing double down into the right field corner, giving Jason Vargas and the Royals bullpen all the runs they’d need for a 3-2 victory. On Wednesday the Royals third baseman was the hero, but if the media gets another chance to be negative about Mike Moustakas, don’t be surprised if we take it. Royals 3, Rockies 2. Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/05/14...#storylink=cpy |
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Aww... Did the big bad KC media beat up on the worse everyday player in baseball.... Poor guy. |
810 wants to make this Moose thing into a big deal SO bad
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But fluff questions may be your thing and so be it. |
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Ventura has performed quite well. Zimmer is a week behind the plan that has been in place for him from the start of the season. If he keeps getting pushed, I think you start worrying. RA Mondesi must have slumped over the last week to 10 days, because 2 weeks ago he was putting up insane numbers at age 18 in a terrible hitting environment at High A. Scouting reports on him have been glowing, so I don't think he's disappointing at all. He's faster and BETTER at SS than expected. Good combo. He's a bad stretch away from vastly exceeding expectations. Miguel Almonte has also received glowing in person reports from people outside the organization who think he's more advanced at that age than Yordano Ventura was. He doesn't have the velocity but has a better changeup and breaking pitch at that age. It's kind of hard to believe his ERA is as high as it is... his K/BB rate is great (3:1), he's not giving up a ton of hits (31 in 38 innings), and his HR rate isn't sky high. Might just be a case of some bad luck on balls in play. I'm still very excited about him. Dozier's in-person reports have been great. I think he's struggling due to Wilmington/Carolina league. Shows good plate discipline at least, which is something this organization tends to lack. Christian Binford is probably having the best season of any Royals minor leaguer. He has 48k in 40 IP versus just 7 BB, which is pretty great. His stuff isn't overwhelming, but he's tall and has three good pitches, and he misses bats. Kind of similar to Chris Tillman in Baltimore (6-5/6-5, 90-91, extreme downhill plane on pitches, big-breaking slider, changeup). He's exceeding expectations by quite a bit. Cheslor Cuthbert and Bonifacio are interesting at AA. Boni has scuffled a bit (OPS around .700). He's young for that league, but I'd prefer to see him hitting better. Cuthbert has kind of made himself interesting again because he has started hitting with some pop and still is showing excellent plate discipline (5 HR, OBP something like .090 points higher than his AVG). Orlando Calixte has only played in 4 games at AA, but he has 2 HR so far. That's encouraging (would be nice if he continues to hit well, because his glove is good enough to stick at SS. 1) Makes him great trade bait as Mondesi continues to push him; 2) He and Mondesi could be a very good-fielding and cheap and plus offensive MI for a long time) Elier Hernandez and Samir Duenez haven't done much with the bat yet, but they're so much younger than the average age for their levels (an 18 year old playing against 21-22 year olds and a 19 year old playing against 22-23), it's hard to know much without scouting reports (which I've not seen nor heard). Adam has been disappointing. Stuff has slid back and I don't think he moves quickly. Manaea's raw numbers are bad, but he's on a pretty strict pitch count (limited to 75, I believe) and that has hurt him in a few very short, very bad outings. remember, this is a guy who sat out all of the second half of last season due to a hip surgery. Scouting reports have been highly positive, and he has missed a ton of bats (32 K in 22 1/3 IP, 4:1 K:BB) with good control. Eibner has also fallen off after a torrid start... he's mired in a terrible slump. If he doesn't pull out of it, we're probably talking about him as a reliever next season. |
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This is like one of those "got pulled over by a cop" situations where you may have some rights or whatever, but you have to be smart. If you are polite maybe you get off with a warning, and if you get out of your car waving your hands walking to the cop screaming "hey I wasn't speeding you a-hole", you may wind up on the curb in zip ties getting ready to defend yourself from some kind of trumped-up attempted assault charges, assuming you didn't get shot first. Maybe you have a constitutional right to be a jerk, but sometimes you gotta realize when your up against someone with the power to ruin your day, and you gotta be smart. Similarly, Moose is not Barry freaking Bonds. He may have wanted to stick it to them after getting 2 doubles but even in the age of the internet, the newspaper, TV, and radio guys still have a lot of power to sway public opinion, and as an athlete it is in your best interest to try to get them to like you and defend you when the fans start grumbling. Once you put up hall of fame stats and get enough love from the fans so that they won't be swayed by the media, then feel free to be an ass if you want. |
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Baltimore has a left handed pitcher starting today. We'll probably see Valencia at third for the Royals. Maybe Maxwell in RF.
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Andy McCullough @McCulloughStar 1h
Do What We Do Lineup: Aoki 9, Hosmer 3, Butler DH, Perez 2, Gordon 7, Valencia 5, Giavotella 4, Cain 8, Escobar 6, Ventura 1. #royals |
Mondesi and Almonte were the two I figured were meeting expectations going into the season, maybe you could throw Cuthbert in there as well.
Zimmer and Calixte are too incomplete to begin to assess, although I am nervous about Zimmer. Binford wasn't on your prospect list, but he has been very good. Not top of the rotation prospect good from what I read, but middle of the rotation ceiling (and I'll take that). Dozier, Manea, Hernandez and Duenez are still very early in their careers and/or young, so not too worked up. I'd hoped that Hernandez would be putting up a few numbers by now though. Boni has been a bit disappointing. Bubba, Adam and Eibner are probably done as starter level prospects. Ultimately, my point was that as a fan, it's frustrating not to have a single "top" prospect playing at a very high level so far this season. Still early, still some young guys playing up, perhaps some bad luck, etc. I'm sure a few will get hot, and we'll have a couple of off the radar guys jump up as the season goes along. |
I actually think it would be funny if Moose just offered up Crash Davis nuggets to every question.
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