Quote:
Originally Posted by siberian khatru
Do you think the Royals place too much emphasis on clubhouse, chemistry, attitude? Is that one reason we have the cliqueish Hosmer/Moose atmosphere where everybody's supposed to feel good about themselves and live by the power of positive thinking?
Valencia crushes LHP and is a good platoon partner for Moose, who is worthless vs. lefties. Yet we dump him, allegedly because he's a cancer, and keep Ibanez, who brings nothing to the table, because Raul is a good teammate.
Now, maybe Colon will be a good platoon partner with Moose (he WAS mashing lefties in AAA). I HOPE they at least try to platoon him with Moose; I'm skeered that they believe "Moose is fixed" and therefore warrants more ABs vs. LHP, despite zero evidence that he can or has ever hit them worth a crap.
But we basically broke up a decent platoon (while boosting a WC rival's platoon situation) and got virtually nothing in return -- AAA depth and a backup C who might not get 50 ABs the rest of the way. When we could've just cut Ibanez and brought Colon up.
Was Valencia THAT BAD in the clubhouse? A.J. Pierzynski bad? Or do Moore/Yost have a too-low tolerance for different personalities?
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Yes. I think it's yet another one of those old school things the Royals "brain trust" (and I use that term loosely at this point) thinks is important but really doesn't effing matter.
I think the goal with this move was to improve at several backup spots (2B, SS, C) at the expense of one. I suspect they think Colon can handle what Valencia was doing at 3B, and do so without being a pain in the ass.
It's a weird move if they don't make another one, and I agree that Ibanez should have simply been cut to bring up Colon.