2012 Kansas City Royals Repository Thread

[alnorth]

2012 Slogan: Our Time

A better, more accurate 2012 Slogan: It is Finally Next Year
(from Great Expectations)

An alternative slogan if you don't like that one: Someone has to win this crappy division
(from alnorth)

With the beginning of a new year, it is time for the 2012 version of the Royals Repository Thread. We've got Hosmer, we've got a 2011-dominating Gordon, we've got Moose, we've got hopefully a killer bullpen, we've got a stereotypical slow slugging DH, we've got easily one of the best defensive shortstops in the AL, we've got a promising catcher in Salvador Perez. Hell, we've got offense and promising prospects galore.

We do not have starting pitching.

Oh yeah, we've also got this:



Get ready for, (as of January 2012 anyway), one of the most confusing puzzles of a baseball season in recent Royals history. Will they suck? Maybe, I don't know. Will we be given a year of 0.500 baseball? Possibly, I don't know. Will they win the division and go to the playoffs for the first time in 27 years? For the first time in a long time, it could happen, I don't know. 92 losses, 92 wins, or anything in between would not surprise a lot of us.

Everything goes here except Gameday threads and really big news. If a giant story breaks, the Royals achieve some awesome milestone, or we sign/lose a highly significant player/coach/mascot/whatever, then it might also deserve its own thread. This being Chiefs Planet, please do not clutter the board with new threads about trivial Royals news or you will only annoy those who come here for just Chiefs football. If you aren't sure and its not a Gameday thread, it goes here.

What sort of stuff often goes here? SPchief explained it well, so I'll just copy that:

If you locate something of interest.. ANYTHING.. deals on apparel, best ways in/out of the stadium, giveaways, great stories from this season or from seasons gone by, rumors, trades, anything.... feel free to post it here.

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by Prison Bitch

How so? We won 72 games last year. Shields had a 2.2 WAR. That implies we are now what, 75 wins? Davis was a 1.0 WAR player. So now 76 wins. That's not even close to competitive. We are worse than Detroit at almost every position on the 25-man roster.

Well, if you look at pythag, we underperformed by a game and the Tigers overperformed by half a game. So a couple months ago the gap really stood at about 14.5 games. Thats still a yawning chasm.

Hosmer and Moose should both improve. Frenchy is probably not a -2.7 WAR player, if you normalize his luck he's probably a shade over replacement. That could be 5 or 6 wins. Then our pitching upgrades could add several more games. If we are on paper a few games worse than the Tigers, that is close enough to get lucky.

The trade was probably ill-advised because we just aren't close enough, but DM decided to rashly go all-in, so OK fine, here we are. We can optimistically hope to get lucky, but thats what it would take because if we play out 2013 1,000 times Detroit probably wins well over 500 of those seasons.

On the other side, to put a bit of a damper on it, Gordon has now hit over .350 babip 2 seasons in a row. It would be neat if he could do that a 3rd time, but probably not. Sal Perez and Escobar could both regress as well. We probably also need Butler to erupt, and exceed 2012.

[JohnnyV13]

http://thevirilview.com/royals/2012/...e-magic-beans/

Awful trade.

[Mr. Laz]

Hopefully this instills some confidence and pride into the team. If these 2 pitchers make the team 'feel' worthy it will probably be worth it.

culture of losing is a tough thing to break

[Mr. Laz]

Hopefully this instills some confidence and pride into the team. If these 2 pitchers make the team 'feel' worthy it will probably be worth it.

culture of losing is a tough thing to break

[Prison Bitch]

Originally Posted by alnorth

On the other side, to put a bit of a damper on it, Gordon has now hit over .350 babip 2 seasons in a row. It would be neat if he could do that a 3rd time, but probably not. Sal Perez and Escobar could both regress as well. We probably also need Butler to erupt, and exceed 2012.

I still like Cain, and if he can stay healthy (if!) I think he can give us .270-15-70 and play a damn good CF. Not worried about Gordon & Butler at all. Sal being in the lineup is critical as witnessed by our horrendous 0-10 home start without him. Hosmer was unlucky so normalizing his data and assuming hte 3rd year breakout tendency should be nice. Moose will be fine.


I'd love to get something out of 2B. Getz, if he learns how to walk 70x, would be great. Just get on base.

[Hootie]

offensively, we have two weak spots (RF, 2nd)

that's not bad by any means

[Hootie]

offensively, we have two weak spots (RF, 2nd)

that's not bad by any means

[Mr. Laz]

Originally Posted by Capt Tasty Cheeks

offensively, we have two weak spots (RF, 2nd)

that's not bad by any means

somebody needs to squeeze Frenchy about his plate discipline. He gets lazy and just starts hacking.

platoon Gio and Getz ... hopefully Gio clicks.

[KC_Connection]

Joe Posnanski ‏@JPosnanski
@jeffpassan likes KC trade a lot more than I do. Last time we disagreed, he liked Royals signing Jose Lima. Maybe this time he's right.

Jeff Passan ‏@JeffPassan
@JPosnanski Actually, last time we disagreed was about Joe Paterno.


...wow.

[Hootie]

hilarious

[WilliamTheIrish]

Oh shit! That's a great snipe by Passan.

[mr. tegu]

On 610 DM did say something interesting about the trade. He mentioned how the major league players like Butler, Gordon, Escobar, etc. want to stay here as long as possible but that they want to know the organization is committed to winning. This certainly lets them know that.

As players they probably aren't nearly as enamored with Myers as everyone else is. They probably are thinking that, yeah another bat is nice but it doesn't do a ton of good when our top of the rotation pitchers put us in a 5-0 whole after two innings. Its interesting to think of this from a ML players perspective. Did any of our current roster ever really play with Myers?

[stevenidol]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

Joe Posnanski ‏@JPosnanski
@jeffpassan likes KC trade a lot more than I do. Last time we disagreed, he liked Royals signing Jose Lima. Maybe this time he's right.

Jeff Passan ‏@JeffPassan
@JPosnanski Actually, last time we disagreed was about Joe Paterno.

Boom roasted!

[The Franchise]

Dodgers fan here.

What should I know about Greinke?

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by KevB

That's clearly the argument in support of the trade; your window is now, so go for it. I still don't like the trade for a number of reasons, but it's done so I'm ready to move on. As Deez said, winning our division (or more) one of the next two years is how this trade will be measured, so it's very black and white. We'll see.

It's a somewhat similar move to the one the Jays made a few weeks ago for Johnson/Reyes/Buerhle, except instead of receiving massive public praise it has receive massive public criticism. That has something to do with Myers' pedigree obviously, the Rays' reputation as geniuses, and that the Royals are perceived to be a little bit further from contention, but it's odd.

I'm pissed we lost Myers, but I am looking forward to having a real, live major league rotation for the first time in 25 years. Shields is a horse, and hopefully Davis found something in the pen that he can take back with him to the rotation. SP to RP back to SP has worked for some other pitchers, Greinke and Halladay to name a couple (and no, of course I'm not suggesting Davis will be at the level of either of those guys).

I had forgotten that about Halladay. I guess he was a reliever for a while before he had to go back down to the minors and came back a completely different guy.

As I said earlier in the thread, I still like Davis as a starter. I think he can be effective there as a 4/5.