Today's lineup:

Gordon
Hosmer
Butler
Perez
Lough
Tejada
Moustakas
Ell-E-Utt
Dyson

Welcome back, Gordon.

And hopefully when Alcides comes back he's at the bottom of the lineup!

So funny how our fans go ballistic over Fenchy and Getz (rightfully so) but don't seem to mind one bit about that worthless loser over at 3B

Suck it.

Suck it hard.

See what I mean?

Yes, because Frenchy/Getz are in the same situation in their careers as Moose.

You are comparing Getz, who's ceiling has always been low and has never shown to be any good.

Frenchy who is past the point of changing his ceiling and is what he is....shit.

And a young guy who has shown a ceiling that COULD be high given his 20 HR season he demonstrated at a young age and given he is only 24 right now.


Those are piss poor comparisons.

Greg Holland, balls of steel.

I'd let him tea-bag me but I think he'd break my teeth.

You are using reason and intelligence in your post. I suggest refraining in the future. Carry on.

I'm becoming more concerned at DH. Butler is not getting the job done.

Pics

Best advice I've seen in this thread in a while.

He's getting pitched around like crazy. Teams just not giving him much to hit.

Needs to pick up his slugging, but everything else is in line.

Raul ibanez is having a great year and this team desperately needs slugging. Would he be a solid upgrade for us? 21 HR on the year.

I could stand watching Ibanez hit 5th for the Royals again. Hosmer/Butler/Ibanez would be pretty salty.

I think we'd see Butler really start driving the ball again if he had legit protection behind him. Works the same way with Chase Utley, IMO.

Ibanez is likely cheaper to acquire than Utley - and much worse in RF than Utley would be at 2B.

Gordon and Salvy are the Royals all-stars

Good job alex and salvy.

Yeah, I just don't see Utley as an option without severely overpaying.

However, Ibanez seems like a legitimate candidate without giving up too much. He's producing beyond expectations, on a one year deal worth 2.75 mill, and the mariners have to be sellers.

Somebody should tweet at Rany and get his thoughts.

Why do people think Utley is going to fetch much of anything on the trade market? The dude is 36 and in the last year of his contract. It's a half-year rental. He's playing pretty well, but this isn't a James Shields type deal. Also Utley's HALF season will cost 7.5 mill and the Phillies have to find a way to save payroll after that foolish deal they gave Howard.

So the Giants got an out today by hitting out of order. I don't think I have ever seen that before. Such a Royals things to do.

Royals.have.done I before.

I don't think he'll be prohibitively expensive - probably a B prospect and a lotto ticket... but Ibanez would probably be even cheaper. C prospect and a lotto ticket type.

Rany Jazayerli ‏@jazayerli 17m

Greg Holland has struck out 43.8% of the batters he's faced in 2013. That's the best in baseball, and 5th best (min: 25 IP) ALL TIME.

We've done it.
Posted via Mobile Device

So, in terms of royals prospects, what are we looking at?

B prospect: Cheslor Cuthbert, Orlando Calixte, Kyle Smith
C prospect: Jason Adam, Chris Dwyer,
Lotto: Christian Colon, Sam Selman

Nice thanks. I would trade anyone on that list sans kyle smith.

I still really want ibanez, but I will shut up now because it probably won't happen.

Ibanez would probably require playing Alex Gordon in RF, because Ibanez is freakin awful defensively.

Went to the game last night and was a little surprised to see ALL of the HyVee stuff. I love HyVee and spend most of my income at the one a minute up the street from me, but I had no idea that they own half of the Royals/Chiefs. They used to have the HyVee upper-level seats, but now they sponsor almost everything. Crazy.

So given what I think might happen over this next week of road games and the window after the All-star game, are we buyers, sellers or stay puters if we are 7-10 games under .500 at the trade deadline?

7-10 under? Probably sellers. If we stay where we are, then buyers.

What the hell happened to Butler this year?

I'm only interested in buying what also helps us in 2014. Not interested in two-month rentals.

I'm glad Ibanez is having success. I hated to see him playing for the Yanks, but he's home now in Seattle, and deserves a nice end to his career. He's a class act.

Replacing Mendoza and Davis with Duffy and Paulino would be a nice start

He's getting pitched around and he isn't strong enough to hit home runs consistently, or fast enough to hit triples. Billy seriously needs to hit the weight room hard or start juicing because he doesn't have a place on this team if he can't hit homers. You can't be that fat and slow if you can't compensate by hitting it out of the park more often.

Duffy has not had a good return thus far. Dude is getting roughed up in Omaha.

He has a 7+ ERA as a starter in Omaha. Pitched a nice scoreless 5 inning stint as a reliever, but starting......not so good.

It's early, but it would be nicer to see him playing at a higher level in AAA.

Will Smith will likely be the next guy that gets a shot.

Billy Butler is the biggest disappointment on this team this year. We all knew Gordon would be Gordon and the kids would struggle, but Billay has been a huge disappointment. But hey, everytime someone gets a great hit, they show the Butler "hit it a tone" BBQ sauce. I have yet to see Butler hold that up for the camera. I am all in with Gordon, and I was hard on him when he came up. Butler not so much. An unathletic DH (not gonnal call him fat) making that kind of coin with no pop has no place on this team.

I would trade his ass if I could get anything of importance, but that's not happening. He needs to hit. Starting yesterday. Putting him in the 3/4 hole everyday is getting old. Everytime they hold up the "hit it a ton" BBQ sauce I lmao. Billay should feel like a shmuck.

Flame away. You know it's the truth.

I never understood the hype of BB. The BBQ sauce is freaking ignorant.

Billy is having a down year. Still going to drive in 100.

The BBQ sauce raises money for the Bishop Sullivan Center. Billy gives back. I admire him for that.

Is every thread going to devolve into a bash Billy Butler session? What a waste of time.

10th in on base and 8th in the league in walks.

Every thread devolves into a bash someone session. It's just Billy Butler right now.

its bash billy because he had freaking 29 home runs last season, if he was hitting like that we would have won a lot more games.

It's a Billy Bash? I mean, the dude is struggling, but it's simply because we have no one to protect him and he has had to expand his zone.

And if he had any protection in the lineup from any of the other turds who were supposed to have power, things might be different. They aren't. Our power at the plate is pathetic.

Because he had tons of protection last year.

Billy hitting 30 hrs is a fluke. I still see him more of a high 290 hitter with 40-50 doubles and more like 15-20 HR max

He's fat but he won't hit more than 20 hrs that often imo

Bill James has already debunked the "protection" argument.

I don't think he's having as good of a year protection or not, but still... he's on pace for 90-100 walks this year. I don't have the stats up in front of me but he's in or near top 10 in baseball... he's definitely not getting as much to hit. Hopefully he adjusts.

It just kills me though, here's a guy who has a chance to be one of the 3-4 best hitters to ever put on a Royals uniform... he's just entering his prime years, and if he retired tomorrow he'd still probably be top 10, yet it feels like half the fan base is always riding him and doesn't care if he gets shipped out of town.

Billy has around a .780 OPS. He's on pace for 100 RBI's and almost 100 walks this year.

Contrary to popular belief, we still do need Billy, but hey, if everybody is wanting a flashback to an offense worse than our 2010 production, by all means, get rid of country breakfast.

Does it seem to anyone else that Yost is flat out guessing like 90% of the time?

Why sit Salvy twice in one week, especially with Mendoza on the mound?

Also, why sit Escobar two games in a row? Is he hurt?

I don't know what Billy does in the offseason, but I'm pretty sure it has a lot more to do with eating a lot of beef than beefing up for baseball. If he truly wants to be effective for this team, since we lack a prototypical slugger, he really needs to add a ton of muscle so he can crush homers. He can't run first to third, can barely score from second. He's the least athletic player on the team, by far.

Sure, he's a great hitter and he might be the first Royal to take 100+ walks in a season since 1989. But for a great hitter, he's less than useless on the basepaths. He needs to hit more homers, period. I don't care if his strikeouts go up (and they have already this year), he's got to hit 35+ to make up for his spare tire.

Nobody gives a crap about a cleanup hitter DH taking walks, gmafb. He's got a 0.5 WAR past the halfway point. He's not even worth 1 game above a replacement guy in 2013. Pathetic.


He sucks this year, it's ok to say it.

He had been much better as of late. The Royals are treating his time in Omaha as spring training, as he starts working in different pitches his numbers are improving.

He was Baseball Prospectus MiLB pitcher of the week just two weeks ago. His most recent start was not great, but he also was cruising through 5 IP as he got touched for two runs in the 6th inning. I'm sure they're trying to stretch him out.

Also, keep in mind that his first outing at AAA was a 7 ER, 2.1 IP disaster that is skewing the rest of the numbers a bit. Since that first start, he's pitched 23 2/3 innings with 25 K, just 9 walks (2.63 BB/9, which is solid and GOOD for Duffy) and 10 ER (3.80 ERA). He has a 1.23 WHIP in that time span.

He hasn't lit AAA on fire, but he's trending positive.

This is why, though, I've been cautious about penciling Duffy into the rotation and expecting him to pick up exactly where he left off. TJ surgery is not always predictable. His velocity is back...now he needs to regain his command.

Was that before or after he debunked the Joe Paterno argument?

Re: Billy Butler...

The guy is never going to be a consistent, 35+ HR hitter in Kaufman Stadium. That isn't his deal. And people should really stop expecting that.

He SHOULD be a .300 hitter who draws a ton of walks and posts an OBP in the .375-.400 range, while also slugging around .475-.500.

What's concerning this year isn't just the HR gap... it's that he isn't hitting doubles to pick up the slack. Last year, his double rate fell off by about 50 percent as he turned a lot of 2Bs into HRs.

This year, he's 2Bing at the same lower rate but without the increased HR power.

And actually, looking at his splits, it looks like the high number of day games has really affected him. Billy is hitting .304/.381/.462 at night. Pretty standard line for him.

He's been terrible in day games this year, though. .211/.358/.266. He typically has been a little bit better at night than during day games, but this season is the first time he's been drastically worse in day games.

It's probably a fluke/small sample size thing, but it's also possible that his eyes have changed a little bit and he needs to think about trying something out. Possibly trying those orange glasses/contacts that many players use during day games...

The day game SLG line is amazingly atrocious.

Billy has a great eye for the ball that most of our guys seem to lack. He just doesn't have the other tools that make a great ballplayer, especially as a DH. On this team, he can't afford to be as unathletic as he is.

According to the Royals website, he's 6'1" 240lbs. I'd put him at 5'11" 245 in real life. He's gotta drop at least 40lbs of fat (anyone who has seen his selfie KNOWS that's all dough and no go) to be in reasonably good shape. His relationship with food outside the game (rumors about his binge eating fetish notwithstanding) has to be brought under control, because it hurts his game if he's not pumping iron. Hell, Jason Giambi is 42 and is a better baserunner. Salvy can run circles around him. Adam Dunn could probably run circles around him and he's 6'6" ~285-300lb. In 2010, he got out-jumped by Joel Goldberg. JOEL GOLDBERG.

I like Billy, but to be effective on this team, he HAS to do something different. There are too many question marks in the lineup for him to not make the best of the opportunity he has (e.g. not being the Eric Cartman of baseball).

http://www.sabernomics.com/sabernomi...-doesnt-exist/


Not only is "protection" a myth, some studies have found having a very slight harmful effect having a good hitter behind you. In an effort to keep the batter off base while Mr. Big stands in the on-deck circle, the pitcher may in fact try harder and use his best stuff to retire the guy so he's not on base when Big comes to the plate.

Louis Coleman up, Will Smith down.

Gio back in lineup at 2B.

Escobar back batting second.

Sigh.

If Billay's average drops below .240, I'll start calling him "Cartman." That's the same deal I have with Gordon as to whether he's "Alice" or not....

No doubt, Billy and Moose came into the year as obese lard asses because they thought they were better than they were and guaranteed starters. In billy's case you can understand it as he was an AS and a top-20 hitter last year in the AL. But it's a lesson: take the offseason seriously. Piling down breakfast burritos every morning and sleeping all winter doesn't make for a good year. These guys are WAY too young to be this fat.

Bob Dutton ‏@Royals_Report 10m
#Royals making change in rotation. LHP Bruce Chen will replace RHP Luis Mendoza, who becomes the long reliever.

At this point I’m hoping Escobar’s avg drops like a rock. I’d rather have him go through a 1-14 slump now and get dropped to 9th than to have him at .249 and bat 2nd the rest of the year.

I'm cool with that, but Ned needs to yank Chen after about 5 innings since that's when things usually go bad with him.

Do we win any in the Bronx?

When is the last time anyone can remember a .247 hitter (with .279 OBP and on pace for 6 HR) who batted 2nd permanently?

While I don't wish or hope anyone slumps (other than Frenchy when he was with the team) with this current team something has to happen to get Alcides out of the two hole.

I vote for trading Chase Utley.

I'm sure there were a plethora of them in the 80s.

The Indians also batted Omar Vizquel second for a portion of the mid-90s... when Eddie MUrray, Carlos Baerga, Albert Belle, Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez (not to mention Travis Fryman, Kevin Seitzer, Paul Sorrento) were all batting further down the order.

Side note:

BA released its mid-season top 50 today.

Yordano Ventura checks in at No. 26, the highest-rated Royal. Zimmer is No. 28 despite his results. And Mondesi checks in at No. 50.

I'd imagine Sean Manaea, Bubba Starling, Cheslor Cuthbert, Hunter Dozier, and Jorge Bonifacio, all have a shot at cracking their top 100, as does Miguel Almonte.

Alexis Rivera is an off-radar name to keep an eye on as well. Nice corner OF profile who raked in rookie ball last year and has put up pretty good numbers as Dozier's teammate so far.

Petro claimed that Escobar at #2 is damn near a fireable-level offense for Moore and Hillman, and it's hard not to agree to a certain extent. Simply baffling stupidity.

Meanwhile, it's time to try to move Ventura and Zimmer because the Royals cannot develop pitchers for shit. Sell high(ish).

Freudian slip?

I agree that if you can move Zimmer for a valuable piece that can be controlled for multiple years, you do that. Hitter or pitcher.

Ventura is good enough that I don't think they can really screw him up. And he has already cracked the level where it seems the Royals' development folks have been lacking (The AA jump).

He is right.

LMAO.

Yeah, start talking about epic levels of dumbassery and I go to the gold standard, apparently.

Hitting Escobar second is an excellent example of Ned Yost's old-school dumbassery.

Putting a speedy bat handler in that spot was common baseball logic for a LONG time (just like the thought that a .300 hitter who never walked and posted a .325 OBP was better than a .280 hitter who walked enough to post a .350 OBP). Most of the smarter teams have moved away from that thought process.

But I'm sure in Ned's baseball brain, have a "classic" 2 hitter is important. Just like he thinks Tim Collins and Bruce Chen give him an advantage against LHHs.

While we're on the subject of "new school 2 hitters"... Johnny Giavotella, if he could be a .280/.330/.450 hitter, is a great example of what a modern 2 hitter/2B can look like. I wish they'd give him a legitimate shot in that spot and give him the chance to hit in the middle of a lineup/with men on base a little more often.