It's is indeed a process..

Gore will not be playing baseball professionally, unless it is for the T-bones after this year.

No shit, at least we can hang our hat on the 2 game win streak!

ROFL

Is Billy Hamilton done for the year?

We have had the lead or been tied going into the 7th inning in 9 of the 12 games we have played.

We are 2-10

Any generational talents at the top of the 2020 draft?

You aren’t helping.

Headed for back to back 100 loss seasons. Congrats Dayton Moore

A successful rebuild, worked for the Astros

If there is, we'll be sure to ruin him.

Yeah that's all fine and dandy until you remember the guy who's drafting and realize you're ****ed. Go back and looks at the 1st round draft picks since 2009;

(Year)(Player)(Yrs in majors W/KC)(WAR)
2009 - Crow 4 2.6
2010 - Colon. 4 1.8
2011 - Starling 0
2012 - Zimmer 1 -0.1
2013 - Dozier. 3 -1.3
2013 - Manaea. 0
2014 - Finnegan 2 0.6
2014 - Foster 0
2014 - Vallot 0
2015 - Watson. 0
2015 - Russel 0
2017- Pratto 0

From Crow to Dozier all of those guys are top 12 picks and everyone besides Crow and Dozier are top 5 picks. Then when you take into account the number of prospects in our system right now that are ranked in the top 100;

Baseball Prospectus 3 in top 100: Matias (52), Lee(61),Melendez(67)

CBS Sports 1 in top 100: Singer(70)

MLB.com 1 in top 100: Singer(53)

Fangraphs and ESPN no idea, don't pay for either.

The farm system really seems shitty. I do think Singer has a chance to be pretty damn good, but with our track record of pitcher development I won't get my hopes up. My favorite prospect is Khalil Lee. Hopefully he can get to triple A this year and then the majors sometime next year, but the most likely scenario is that the Royals sign some shit vet to play in front of him while Lee kills it in the minors and we are all wondering why he hasn't been called up yet.

Im really surprised at how well Alex is playing and hopefully he can keep up this pace until the trade deadline. With his defense, if he can stay at above .750 ops, then we should be able to get something half way decent for him. I love Alex, but it's a business and if you can improve the future you do it.

When it comes to Whit it's a tough decision for me. He just turned 30, which is when a hitter starts to decline in ability. Fangraphs says a hitter on average will lose .5 WAR every year after age 30, but so far Whit looks as good as ever(small sample size I know). Id rather keep Whit, because he can definitely help compete if this next group of guys amounts to anything. Only way I'd trade him is for an absolute haul that forces us to trade him.

On another note Mike Trout has a 1.8 WAR already... Holy shit that is crazy. That guy may go down as the best player ever. The guy already has 5 seasons of 9 or better WAR and he's only 27. So far he has .995 career OPS, that's unbelievable. Just looked up Albert Pujols and God damn, he was just insane at the plate with the Cardinals. 1.037 OPS in 11 years. Talk about consistently being a badass.

Then I typed in Barry Bonds and looked at his stats. How in the **** can anyone argue he wasn't on steroids the last several years of his career. ****ing 39 years old and has an ops of 1.422. At the age most guys aren't even able to competitively play, BB is putting up the highest OPS of his career lol. 122 intentional walks that year. It's so ****ed up.

You appear to be placing NFL draft expectations on the MLB draft. That doesn’t work.

Moore’s draft success with 1st round picks, in totality, is pretty average for MLB GMs. As I’ve said before, a GM in KC needs to be better than average at drafting or the team will suffer.

Let’s start with the worst picks:
Colon, Starling, and Russell

Even in this triumvirate of suck, only one (Colon) was questionable at the time. Starling was expected to go 2nd overall until draft day and slipped to 5. He was a tremendous athlete who had success as part of the national team. And local. He has been a bust (this far, still sticking it out at Omaha and seeing some success). Russell was the top HS pitcher in his draft, who inexplicably lost it once a pro.

Zimmer: Just flat-out shitty luck he couldn’t stay healthy. The guy was exactly what they thought he could be (next Verlander) until his body fell apart. Still may get good value out of him out of the bullpen.

Finnegan, Manaea: Traded for key pieces in a WS winner. Who gives a **** what they did afterwards? They were cashed in for huge value.

Dozier was a top 10 pick, but only because of them taking a safer sign to save money for Manaea. That wasn’t a case of taking best player available. His value will always be tied to Manaea, so this is a + for me.

Chase Vallot, Foster Griffin, Nolan Watson:
All were comp picks at the end of the first round. The Royals swing big on projectable Hs arms and got burned with Griffin and Watson (and Russell, too).

The failures in 15 with Watson and Russell seem to have changed the Royals draft strategy. They’ve moved away from those projectable HS guys since, which is a good thing for hit rates.

It’s way too early to say anything about Prato, other than he was good last year and still on track to be a good player. He’s in the next 100-250 of prospect lists and could pop into the top 100 with a good season. His defensive position will always hurt him there.

What’s the point? You gotta apply MLB expectations and context.

The Royals have done really well in the past two drafts. They need a few more really good ones to get things built up. They need to nail this year’s pick and add some premium talent to the system. I think they’ll do that.

The system isn’t shitty. It’s a top 20ish system a year after being bottom 3, with the arrow pointed up and likely to add a top 100 player in the draft.

Draft note:

The Royals are being connected more to Cal 1B (May be able to play LF or 3B) Andrew Vaughn, which is a great thing IMO.

Vaughn’s college career tracks nicely with Kris Bryant’s, though Vaughn has fewer swing and miss tendencies.

This is critical. Vaughn and Oregon St C Adley Rutschman are separating hemselves as a clear top 2 in this draft. Vaughn is not a traditional toolsy Royals choice, but he can rake. There’s uncertainty on whether the O’s will tAke Rutschman 1st overall due to his position, but if they do, Vaughn is a clear #2.

I expect Rutschman to be a top 30 prospect in baseball as soon as he’s drafted. Vaughn is probably more likely a 50-100 guy.

The posters in the thread or the organization?

So I was watching the game via game cast yesterday and just assumed Boxberger gave up the lead on a legit triple to center, but there was nothing legit about it. Hamilton flat out dropped that ball. That was about a routine for a center fielder as it gets. Bad teams find ways to lose games..

Baloney. He put 2 guys on and gave up a blast that ran Hamilton to the wall, where he crashed into it. Don’t let Boxberger avoid the blame, it’s 100% on him

Not necessarily absolving Boxberger for the situation, but Hamilton misplayed that ball. He tensed up and braced for impact with the wall, thinking he was closer to the wall than he actually was. He only crashed in to the wall unnecessarily after he botched the catch. It was a pathetic attempt for a major league center fielder.

Nice. What's the deal with Bobby Witt Jr? Thought he was fairly solid 1st pick.

He’s a HS guy, so more volatile than college players.

Main knocks are that he is old for his class and his hit tool has some questions. Athleticism and power and speed are legit.

He’s actually very similar in profile/risk to Bubba Starling (except Witt grew up in a warm weather state and has played a lot more baseball).

At the time I was scared to death that would happen.

Now I agree with you.

No thanks. With our recent failures I want nothing to do with anything that remotely resembles Bubba Starling.

Duncan,

Royals moving to Vegas?

Betcha they'll have better attendance out there.


:rolleyes:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Tonight’s lineup. <a href="https://t.co/fdDKCcqKzU">pic.twitter.com/fdDKCcqKzU</a></p>&mdash; Jeffrey Flanagan (@FlannyMLB) <a href="https://twitter.com/FlannyMLB/status/1116792094293520384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 12, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

What makes you think that?

The Rays would be the first candidate to move if a team was moving. Then the A’s.

He resembles him in that he’s a freakish athlete who is old for his class and has elite speed, power, and defensive ability, with a very, very high ceiling.

Biggest difference is Witt is a one-sport guy from an area that plays a ton of baseball. He’s got a lot more experience than Starling.

I’m still team Vaughn/Rutschman at this point. But if I were picking third, Witt would be my best bet.

After those two, he’s the next-bet bet to be a true star.

Read a “confidential “ Amazon HQ2/WSJ report. Senators from Missouri have report.

Going to the Royals game, it will be my 4 1/2 month old daughter's first Royals game. We'll be in aisle seats near home dugout. I fully expect a win today, damnit.

GDT?

I thjnk everyone agrees this g*damn team is struggling.

Until we get a win no GdT is going up

Just think we’d be 8-4 with a decent bullpen

Thank goodness Ned found a spot for fan favorite Chris Owings.

Can't wait to watch Owings put his gritty intangibles to good use in the outfield.

Alex Gordon.

Current AL MVP.

:)

Why would you ever take a 4 1/2 month old to a game? This is just bizzare to me

I always felt like Gordon would have a resurgence. He just works too hard. We'll see how long it lasts.

If you're going to give anyone a long term contract imo it should be someone like that with work ethic coming out the wazoo.

I'm pretty sure that was the thinking when they did it in the first place. The guy is probably going to be in better shape at 45 than most people at 35.

It's definitely helped him maintain as an elite defender, which is something the Royals obviously value more than most teams. It's not going to feel right when he's not the left fielder anymore.

You can't tell me all of that about it being too early to judge and then tell me that they did really well in the last 2 drafts. I never really cared for Finnegan, but even if I thought he was great I wouldn't be upset because of what we got back for him. The one thing that really bothers me about those trades is that we kept Almonte over Manaea.

The Royals have ruined tons of talented pitching prospects. You'd think just pure luck would allow one pitcher to be good.

I think the farm system is definitely shitty. Our top prospect is someone that didn't even pitch an inning of pro baseball last year. With our track record of ruining pitchers im trying not to get too excited about Singer, although I do like him alot. It took us having the best farm system in all of baseball and one of the best bull pens ever to win a WS. I just don't see us having a farm system like that in the next 5 years. I can almost say im 100% positive we will never see a bullpen like that.

It just sucks because we are going to waste Whits best years and Mondesi is going to be signing a $300+ million contract with the Dodgers the first chance he gets. If im the Royals im offering him a 10 yr $150 million contract at the end of the year if he keeps this up. Lock him up for as long as possible lol.

I’d said it’s too early on Prato to say anything other than... early returns on those two drafts are really positive. It’s not too early to say that.

Singer didn’t pitch in pro ball last year because of his work load at UF as they drove through the college season. He threw a lot of innings last year and they rested him.

The concept of TINSTAAPP exists for a reason. You say the Royals have ruined a bunch of prospects. Like who? Let’s not act like they’ve had a series guys taken at the top end who were ready made and never panned out. HS pitchers bust at the highest rate because of how much development they have left. They have the highest upside for the same reason. KC has moved away from those types since the Watson/Griffin disaster draft.

They also have developed 3 good pitchers in Junis, Duffy, and Ventura. They haven’t developed a true ace, but that’s ****ing hard to do. The early work with Keller has been great, too.

Re: the system overall, I think you’re just way too pessimistic and not thinking about how great systems are built. It’s a top 20 system preseason with very few players who will graduate to the majors.theyre going to add a surefire top 100 player with one of Rutschman, Vaughn, or Witt in the draft and are positioned to add additional quality talent. Once IFA opens on July 2, they’re expected to sign one of the premium talents there as well. That’s two elite talents filtering in, which will raise the system ranking quite a bit. Add one more draft where they’re picking high in 2020, and by the 2021 preseason rankings, you’re looking at a system that will again have the depth and high end talent to be considered a top 5, elite system.

Will it hit the 2011 Royals system ranking. Maybe not, but it does t have to for them to compete again. Not all contenders have to be built based on “deepest system ever” starting blocks.

The 2011 Royals didn’t have a pair of young SPs with the combination of youth and early success as Junis and Keller, either, or a guy with budding superstar upside talent at SS.

I think someone a while back asked about 2020 draft prospects. It’s still way early, but there are several college pitchers who would be in contention for top 5 pick status, where the Royals will almost assuredly be picking. He’s an early breakdown, borrowing f from Fangraphs and PerfectGame:

HS guys

I won’t talk about arms right now because so much can change based on hs seasons, but OF Dylan Crews and Austin Hedrick look worthwhile to watch. Crews is considered a very advanced approach guy, perhaps the most advanced approach in the draft. When that’s said about a HS hitter, it’s worth paying attention to. Hendrik is a little older for the draft class but has the best power projection.

College guys
There’s not a Rutschman or Vaughn-look bat here (right now), but there are a pair of RHp at Georgia (Emerson Hancock and Cole Wilcox) who look like top 5-10 guys and fit KC’s profile.

I’ll probably be out most of the next 2-3 days. I’m in NYC with Mrs. Idaho for a kid-free get away. Let’s go Royals in the meantime...

I like vaughn. Could be the next mike sweeney

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">What do Mike Trout, Cody Bellinger, Anthony Rendon and Christian Yelich have in common? They’re the only position players in baseball with more fWAR than 35-year-old Alex Gordon. <br><br>How Gordon has turned back time: <a href="https://t.co/Q7siQN7OsU">https://t.co/Q7siQN7OsU</a></p>&mdash; Rustin Dodd (@rustindodd) <a href="https://twitter.com/rustindodd/status/1117146785863151618?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 13, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

What kind of return could we expect for Alex if he keeps this up? Would they trade him even? I could only imagine the up roar from this idiotic fan base.

It would be a disservice to him not to let him go out in a pennant race if this is his last year.

He will end the year batting .245

Last year? Gordon is like Mahomes. He will be a member for life

Im ready to bounce Owings, put Starling in center and let Whit play 2B.

I mean, what difference is it going to make? At least itll be fun.

Oh and bounce Homer Bailey, Gore, Duda & Hamilton while we're at it.

I want to lose watching young guys even if they are JAGS like Gutierrez, Schwindel and Starling

Everyone wants to bitch about the offense but we would be in first place right now if we just had a decent bullpen

I doubt it. Nonetheless this team IS NOT good enough to compete this year. So there is absolutely no reason to try to win and use vet jags. We arent getting shit for trade value from any of these guys sans for Alex Gordon.

In 9 of 13 games this year we have had a lead going into the 7th. We win 5 of those and we are in first place

Imagine how good our lineup would be if we could have kept Hos, Cain, and Moose, and Perez weren't injured.

Oh well, here's to hoping Lopez, Pratto, Mondesi, Lee, Matias, can be the next core. Plus whoever we get at 2 this year and 1 next year (lol)

Hos sucked ass since he left.

If, If,If

Hot damn, if we had not lost any we would be undefeated!

I guess we could us "If" you were not bitching about the Royals bull pen we could assume you might be busy sucking your own dick?

It's a feel good story, the Royals being competitive this tear for a division title or WC game. But this team is not ready to compete consistently night in/night out for that. Just not, MAYBE next year. Depends on how our young arms have developed by the end of the year.

Yep, have not missed him and his BIG $$$

Bailey has thrown 44 pitches with 30 being strikes!:)

Good hit Maldonado

Owings almost had a homer.

Owings has improved

Wow attendance looks sad

Yep,other than last night, team not winning is already showing.

Okay Soler swing at one over your Head

O'Hearn bomb.

O HEARN!!!!!!

Duda is straight garbage.

Is Bailey good or not?

Comeon Bailey

Baileys splitter is nasty

I dunno man go back and look at his last 3 years of results and tell us what you think

He is on tonight, 83 pitches with 52 strikes, splitter is nasty, 6K's in 6 innings!

A VERY GOOD outing by Bailey!

7.0 2 0 6 102-64

Two back to back solid outings by Keller and Bailey

No GDT. I am disappoint. Just checking in.
#AlwaysRoyal.

Owings still sucking

Duda you slow pos

Come on Kennedy!

Yep, 2 outs, 1 more!

Kennedy has actually been a beast in the bullpen