He's been tearing up AAA lately

Hayes DFA'd

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>I would think this trade is the beginning of more to come this week. It has to be</p>&mdash; Bob Fescoe (@bobfescoe) <a href="https://twitter.com/bobfescoe/statuses/493897726640521216">July 28, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Colon got traded.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Dayton Moore framed this as maneuver designed to get Christian Colon up to the majors. The team needs a backup IF, so they flipped Valencia.</p>&mdash; Andy McCullough (@McCulloughStar) <a href="https://twitter.com/McCulloughStar/statuses/493897972925493249">July 28, 2014</a></blockquote>
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gee bob, thanks for the insight.... god i hate that guy.

No he didn't

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Dayton Moore framed this as maneuver designed to get Christian Colon up to the majors. The team needs a backup IF, so they flipped Valencia.</p>&mdash; Andy McCullough (@McCulloughStar) <a href="https://twitter.com/McCulloughStar/statuses/493897972925493249">July 28, 2014</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Take this FWIW: Had heard from multiple KC folks in recent;y how the team could use Colon around. Seen as versatile, team-first contributor.</p>&mdash; Andy McCullough (@McCulloughStar) <a href="https://twitter.com/McCulloughStar/statuses/493901561941073920">July 28, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Ok...I read the trade wrong.

I did the same thing, initially :)

I was never a big fan of Valencia. I like Colon. He can actually play SS and 2nd. Plus, at AAA, he's batting over .330 against LHP. The Royals still have their platoon for Moose. Colon is batting about .295 against RHP.

@BHIndepMO: Toronto bats v. LHP: 238/304/390. "Hey team 2 games ahead of us, need some help?"

I think this trade is dumb as hell...you went colon up cut ibanez and don't trade a decent rh bat to a team that needs it

Selling bats for pitching. Sweet.

Danny Valencia wasn't going to be the answer to our playoff push. If we are DH'ing Valencia or Aoki next month sorry fellas but we're focked anyway. If Colon provides more flexibility as a backup IF so be it. Moose, Butler and Hos really have to be our offensive answer in the second half if we are really going to make a run. Hayes blew and the guy we got seemed to be doing ok at Triple A so probably doesn't change much, and it kinda feels like we are going with Guthrie or maybe Chen, and with the fact Ventura or Duffy don't have experience going deep into a season the added depth probably doesn't hurt with a guy that seems to have been performing well in the minors.

Really feels like our only way to improve now would be to add a bat in the OF, which maybe they will try to do in the next couple days.

We really don't have many assets to trade away from our farm system which seems awfully depleted right now. Zimmer being hurt took away our prime chip and they're not going to deal Manea or Dozier or Mondesi because they're future starters. So who's left? Bonafacio and Starling and potentially Lamb. That's not going to buy you much.

i dont think ibanez has gone anywhere...

No they could've just dfa ibanez to free up that spot for Colon

ah want instead of went, got it :)

It's a process

Almost feels like we won the World Series!

You have got to be ****ing kidding me

The more I think about this, the more I like it. Valencia could not hit RHP. A team only faces a LHP about once every 5th or 6th game. And, he played a crappy 2nd base and could not play SS. Colon does not have the terrible split that Valencia does. Plus, he is a true SS and 2nd base sub.

Hayes was almost a guaranteed out when he was at bat. Kratz was the 3rd string catcher only because Thole is Dickey's personal catcher.

I'm glad Colon is up. Kinda sucks we have a day off today. I'm in the mood for some baseball.

This lol

Wonder if GMDM will trade more players to the 2nd wildcard contenders

I'm perfectly OK with Colon back up. He's earned it and they need a backup MI.

Although Valencia mashes LHP, I'm not wedded to him. But we got shit for him, which looks like we dumped him just to open a roster spot when we could've just cut Ibanez. So we lose a guy who does at least one thing well while keeping a guy who does nothing well.

Can only hope that Ibanez is the guy who goes when they make their next move ... Assuming they make one.

Holy shit, I thought you were joking. We give up the guy who should be starting at 3b. I'd be less upset if we had traded Moustakas, but still poed.

Moustakas may be near a bust and a whipping boy for you guys, but he is a better player than Valencia, who is only marginal on his best days.

Exactly. I want Colon up, but there is no reason dealing your best Third Basemen, for quite possibly the worst starting pitchers in the major leagues. You could just DFA Ibanez, bring Colon up.

Valencia is not our best third basemen, GTFO out here with that shit. We traded shit for shit, not that big of deal.

Yes, yes he is. Hes here to platoon with Moose and hes done so at a 354/386/492/878 clip.

If someone is counting on Valencia to make a run at the playoffs they are more focked than we are.

Moose has had a rough year but he's a better defender than Valencia though. And he's hit for pop lately. If I was forced to keep one 3B at the moment it'd be Moose.

What do you figure the drop is from when Colon fills in at third against lefties (and pitch what, one out of every four or five games?) compared to the bump we should now get when we are able to give Salvy a rest?

Moose is at .4 WAR
Valencia is at -.1 WAR

you guys act like Valencia plays at an above replacement level at third :D

if it's not moose for the future at third fine, but it sure as fock shouldn't be Valencia either. It isn't like this is a big loss fellas. Only cause Royals would this guy ever play DH or ever bat fourth. Sorry.

Some of you act like Valencia was all star this year lol

how about over the last three weeks? I know it's a small sample size, but our only hope is for moose here on out to be the moose of late

Looking like we're about to trade a legit reliever, too.

This is a bit simplistic, but:

Moose's first two months: 40 games - .152, 4 HR, 17 RBI
Moose's last two months: 44 games - .231, 9 HR, 23 RBI

Average is still too low, but we never expected him to hit for high average... hopefully he can at least be a .250/.260 type guy. If he could hit that and put up those kind of power numbers it'd be great.

Who?

Miss something?

This

Valencia is an .878 OPS guy against lefties this season. I'll take that all day. It's not his fault Yost used him too often against right handers, where he's at .467 OPS. Of course Yost didn't have much choice when Moose was in AAA.

If he'd been used in a strict platoon, his WAR would be better and he'd be much more useful.

I don't know why people are freaking out. Kratz is slightly better than Hayes, and Colon was good enough to make me want to see more of him.

If that's ALL we do, I'll be bent. But on its own merit, it's fine.

Tea leaves. I'm speculating.

salt in wound

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Jake Odorizzi&#39;s last 15 starts: 86 IP, 103 K, 2.83 ERA. Abreu&#39;s going to (deservedly) win, but AL RoY class is loaded.</p>&mdash; Jonah Keri (@jonahkeri) <a href="https://twitter.com/jonahkeri/statuses/493945636585086976">July 29, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

like I said a few weeks ago...

Odorizzi has arguably been better than Shields this year...

I mean, those are ELITE numbers his last 15 starts.

It's going to be super fun when Wil Myers comes back next year and hits 35 HR's!!!

now that I look...

Odorizzi 1.1 WAR
Shields 0.6 WAR

and Odorizzi doesn't have the best defense in baseball behind him

...such a pathetic trade

hopefully we can squeeze out 3 good closer years out of Davis, flip Holland for something, and get lucky in the draft with our Shields comp pick

so if you count Shields 4.1 2013 WAR

Shields will end up with about a 5 WAR over 2 years...

it only cost us Myers and Odorizzi, though! Great move Dayton. We may get two above .500 seasons out of it!!

Kansas City Royalsssss baseballllll!!! BE A PART OF IT ALL!

I actually agree... I thought all along losing Odorizzi might be what pushes the trade over the top. It's one thing to trade one position for another... then throw in another player that plays the same position you just traded for.

That said... I do believe there's been an intangible effect of having Shields on the staff. The pitching staff two years ago was beyond terrible. Bruce Chen was our opening day starter. Shields helped give the team direction. I think it's been a positive for both Ventura and Duffy to have a legit top of the rotation starter to learn from.

I wonder sometimes if it would help all of our "elite" hitting prospects to have a veteran to hold them accountable and learn from. This group of hitters has never had that.

Odorizzi ****ing worked the Cardinals in his last start. They had no answer for his split.

That ****ing trade...

Have to get very creative in order to even come close to "winning it" now.

Valencia played 3 games while Moose was in AAA. Two of those three were against left handers. He went 1-13. With RISP? Since everybody loves the slash, Moose has a .236/.310/.431 Valencia has a .182/.263/.212

This team needs runs, right? That's what the consensus is around here? Well, there you go. Not saying we improved at all. But to say you'd rather have a guy on the 25 man roster that plays one position once every 4 or 5 days is absurd.

Shields has served as the Chris Carpenter role to the Wainwright (Duffy and Ace). If he helped right the ship with Duffy or Ventura into potential aces it would be worth it.

I'm mad at that trade again. Surprised Montgomery didn't turn out good tol

The Shields trade was made with the interest of saving Moore's job for a few years. That's the thing that blows about sports: the GMs almost always put saving their jobs ahead of the best long-term interests of the team. Coaches do the same.

I get that argument, and front office people definitely do that... but Moore did kind of stick his neck out. If the Royals do not make the playoffs this year, there's going to be a ton of pressure to fire Moore.

If this team had a losing record, but Odorizzi and Myers were showing flashes, some people would be saying that they're finally "this" close, like the Royals always are, give him one more year.

The Cardinals lineup isn't exactly tearing it up this year.

I have no doubts that Shields is a great, great, fantastic clubhouse guy. I don't even have anything against him. I love his competitiveness even if he's been league average, at best this year.

However...we have the best ****ing defense I've ever seen. They literally make every one of our pitchers have numbers that are better than they should be.

I can't ****ing imagine what Shields, Vargas, and Guthrie's numbers would look like without our defense out there.

I play DFS on FanDuel and read advanced pitching stats every day and our defense is hilarious...

Look at our team defense compared to everyone else:

http://rotogrinders.com/articles/Adv...ri_7_25-341649

Uhh, the Rays have the least amount of errors in the MLB and the third best fielding percentage in the AL. The Royals? 7th best in the AL for errors and fielding percentage.

Odorizzi was a throw in from the Greinke trade. That was just extra ammo used to get Shields.

I don't know if the average fan is sophisticated or patient enough to buy that line of thinking, especially with a team that has struggled as much as the Royals. They look at the here and now.

If the Royals win 86 games this year, then he can point to an upward trajectory and secure some extra years despite hurting their long-term viability.

That Shields trade is gonna look awesome when we finish runner-up to the final wild card spot this year!

that means absolutely nothing

the Royals make up for all of that with the crazy insane amount of runs they save

the advanced metrics for our team defense are ridiculous

Could be. We don't know what the Royals record would've been these last two years... or if Myers would've even panned out. They could've lost 100 games and Moore would be gone.

can't wait for the ticker tape parade through P&L

FP and errors tell a small portion of the story. Every ball that you don't get to is just as bad as an error.

I'd rather have a shortstop that gets to 30 extra balls a year and commits 15 errors than a guy with telephone booth range who picks every ball that hits his glove.

Derek Jeter won like 5 gold gloves being [amongst] the worst defensive shortstop in the AL LMAO

Our defense is great... but I guarantee you even with that defense, a rotation of Chen, Hochevar, Luis Mendoza, Will Smith and Jonathan Sanchez isn't setting the world on fire. It certainly didn't two years ago, with many of these same guys... albeit younger. And for all his faults I'd rather have Francoeur in RF than Aoki.

Certainly. That's why I think he made the trade. He improved his odds of being in KC in 2015 at the cost of a better chance to compete.

It's the personnel equivalent of living off a home equity line of credit.

those is how much better our defense is than even the #2 defense in baseball right now:

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.asp...ers=0&sort=8,d

that was 2013

this is 2014

(still the best, by a pretty decent margin)

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.asp...ter=&players=0

Odorizzi was a hell of a lot more than a throw in. At the time of the Greinke trade, Rany talked about what a great prospect Odo was and said he had the potential to develop into a top of the rotation guy. Throwing Odo into the Shields trade was the thing that made it truly horrible.

throw ins like Odorizzi when you're already losing the deal is why teams like the Rays and A's are good small market teams...and teams like the Royals suck.

Lol at the deal being bad. Shields is at 6.8 WAR now and Davis is at 3.4. Yeah, picking up 10+ WAR is so easy any GM could do it! These are factored for defense anyway. Last year Myers was so awesome he put up the same war Dyson did and about what Lough did.


Dayton stole Myers in the 3rd anyway by money whipping him. Doesn't e get credit for drafting and then developing him into the currency he was? (Myers has been a total zero this year by the by). DM got everything he wanted from this deal. The Bermuda Triangle of Hos-Moose-Fatass is what sunk us. Period.

where are you getting those outrageous WAR numbers?

oh, and...uhm what?

There is a chance Shields and Davis are both gone next year.

Tampa will still have many cost controlled years of Myers and Odorizzi.

Odorizzi is already looking like a definite #2 starter for years to come...

and if you want to give up on Wil Myers that's your prerogative...I think he's still going to go to several all-star games.

we got totally raped in that trade. to a laughable extent.

Fangraphs

And they're easily the best in the biz on metrics.