The gents over at the Nats Blog’s tour around the Winter Meetings and the offseason continues, and your intrepid reporter here contributed once more, writing on the Kansas City Royals. Check it out and enjoy the dulcet tones of my writing.
Posts Tagged ‘Kansas City Royals
21
Dec
09
Read My Words Elsewheres
In a stunning near-unanimous voice, the BBWAA actually looked past win totals in order to award the AL Cy Young to the rightful winner, Zack Greinke. The 26-year-old ace, who briefly left the Kansas City Royals several years ago after battling Social Anxiety Disorder was absolutely the best pitcher in the AL, if not all of baseball this year, and it would have been an absolute TRAVESTY had he not won it because of his low win totals. Put Greinke on the Yankees (please don’t EVER EVER EVER allow this to happen) and he’d likely have won 22-24 games, it wasn’t his fault that the anemic Royals offense scored 2 runs or less in 12 of his 33 starts.
Normally a player would be overwhelmed with excitement at winning his first (of several to come) Cy Young awards, but Greinke, who much prefers not to be in the spotlight is a bit more understated.
“Back in Orlando, I haven’t really got a whole lot of attention from people, which has been nice,” he said. “So I hope it doesn’t get that way, where everyone is like, ‘Oh, hey, Zack, hi.’ In that way, it’s kind of like a negative for me.”
This is quite the week for Greinke, first he wins the Cy Young and on Saturday he is getting married to his high school girlfriend, Emily Kuchar, who was once a Dallas Cowboy’s Cheerleader. Lucky man. Toss in the 4-year $38 million contract extension he signed in January and everything seems to be coming up Greinke.
Of course, he’s non-plussed about it all: A lot of stuff going on today,” he said, “when I usually just like doing nothing. But just part of life.”
[ESPN]
Undrafted out of Northwestern, Chris Hayes paid his own way to Arizona for the possibility of some open tryouts with a few MLB teams and living his dream of playing in the big leagues. Someone mentioned to him that the Royals were also having a try-out.
“Where?” Hayes asked.
“Surprise,” the guy said.
“What’s the surprise?” Hayes asked.
“The town,” the guy said.
“The tryout is going to be in a surprise town?” Hayes asked.
“Exactly,” the guy said.
Amazingly, he went to the try-out and the Royals offered him a minor-league contract. Hayes, nicknamed “Disco” because his sidearm-flung fastballs all are in the 70s, doesn’t light up the radar gun, obviously, and had never in his life ever made an all-star team, at any level of baseball.
After his first year in Single A, Hayes finished the season with three times as many strikeouts as walks, and a 2.66 ERA. The Royals were unimpressed and sent him back to A ball the next year. His numbers were again impressive, again he struck out 3 times as many as he walked. They offered him a job in the front office but he wanted to keep trying for his dream. Finally, they promoted him. He pitched with a 1.64 ERA and again 3 times as many strikeouts as walks. They didn’t believe in the numbers and so held him at AA for another year. He repeated his stellar numbers AGAIN. Continue reading ‘Disco Hayes Coming to a Big League Park Near You?’
03
Aug
09
Farewell to Sidney Ponson
Yesterday the Kansas City Royals released portly right-hander Sidney Ponson. Considering he has a 1-7 record in nine starts with a 7.36 ERA and an ERA+ of 59, this shouldn’t be a big surprise. Even for a team as miserable as the Royals, those numbers are simply too awful to ignore.
Unless you’re Royals manager Trey Hillman who apparently is watching a completely different pitcher then everyone else. “He did everything that we asked him to do,” Hillman said. “Honestly, I still like his stuff, I really do. It’s a matter of location.”
Yeah, location is kind of like SUPER important if you’re a pitcher. Call me crazy, but if you can’t throw strikes by the batter you’re not going to have any success, something Ponson hasn’t seen since approximately 2003.
03
Apr
09
We’re Going to Kansas City!
Yesterday the Kansas City Royals and their new food provider — and minority Red Sox owners — Aramark held a press conference to show off some of the new food options available this season at Kauffman Stadium. The new fare looks delicious, none more so than this 24 ounce bone-in buffalo rib-eye with onion rings. Yum!
The rest of the new options all look delicious too, and with many analysts projecting a leap forward for the Royals, who knows, maybe the awesome food dishes will match up with the play on the field. In the meantime, I like my buffalo steak medium rare.
23
Mar
09
A Royal Doppelganger
Willie Bloomquist is a super-scrubby utility man who can field a little bit and run fast, but has some issues with that old “hitting the baseball” skill that most professional baseball players need. So, of course he gets a 2-year $3.1 million contract over the off-season from the Kansas City Royals to leave the Seattle Mariners. When he entered the clubhouse the first time he might have gotten very confused to see that he was already there. That would have been Royals catcher John Buck, best remembered by me as the guy who took Hideki Okajima deep on the first pitch Oki threw in the majors. I can only hope they utilize both men’s physical similarities for some incredibly awesome trick play.
And of course, please vote in the poll below in order to send these doppelgangers on to their final resting place, and make sure to check out all the other doppelgangers we’ve assembled by clicking here.
Spring training received an extra bit of greatness on Friday when two of the greatest athletes of all time, Muhammad Ali and Wayne Gretzky, came by to watch some of the game between the Royals and Dodgers. Unfortunately, we’ve grown accustomed to seeing Ali not as the world knew him as an athlete but now more a victim of his Parkinson’s.
At least Ali has a horribly debilitating illness as an excuse, Gretzky also looked awful, and all he’s been doing is owning an NHL team and hanging out. He certainly looks well-past his playing weight of 185; now the Great One looks more like the Great Buffet Eater. Look at that belly, is running the Phoenix Coyotes really that stressful? I get that you’ve been retired for 10 years now, but c’mon, get on the ol’ elliptical machine once in a while, Wayne, because this is NOT your best look. It’s a long ways from the Pro Stars days I suppose…
26
Mar
08
Joey Gathright Has Some Ups
Joey Gathright has long tantalized fantasy baseball owners with his incredible speed. Unfortunately, he is not allowed to steal first base and his hitting ability is not stellar. Now with the Kansas City Royals, Gathright the other day managed an interesting way to get on base.
This is not the most impressive leap I’ve seen from Gathright, who in the video after the jump jumps over a car, but still, to do that, while trying to run down the line and so suddenly is pretty goddamn impressive. I can usually touch the bottom of a basketball backboard, so,we’re basically the same…
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