Super 2 status.  Plain and simple.  My feelings for Kila only hinge on the fact that the Royals are going out of their way to give Hosmer more money sooner, just to be rid of Kila.  They couldn't take one more month of Kila (or even Clint Robinson) to save money.  So let's start talking about how much money they just lost to Eric Hosmer, assuming, of course, that he is here to stay.

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Mr. Hosmer, thanks for joining us today

No problem
So you're a badass around here, is that fair to say?
Absolutely, I'm The Hos
Okay, so take us through a day in the life of "The Hos"
Well the first thing I do is...

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Finally, a chance for The Curse of Balboni to be broken. I'm not saying it will happen this year, but I think it's a lock that within 5 years, the Royals HR record for an individual is bigger than 36. 36? What a ridiculous total. Only the Devil Rays had a lower total for team homers, which was promptly surpassed as Carlos Pena broke the 40 barrier for the Rays. Of the modern MLB franchises, no one, except the Royals, has less than 41. Of defunct MLB franchises, even those have the Royals beat. The Kansas City A's had someone hit 38! Assuming 600 ABs, hitting 40 is only 1 every 15 ABs, or roughly 1 every 4 games. 37 is a little easier at 1 every 16.2 ABs. My odds on who is going to break 36, after the jump.

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Looking back Chris Farley actually starred in quite a few films with current day Royals.  As luck would have it, these Royals also made cameo appearances on a little known show that Farley starred in as well called Saturday Night Live.  This is odd, but no more odd than half of the current team being ex-Braves.  I have chosen to tell this tale through photos(hop).

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All this talk lately about how Bruce Chen is a changed man has gotten me thinking maybe I should actually investigate this a little further.  Supposedly he has a new or improved pitch, and McClure has tinkered with his delivery so it is now mostly a three-quarters delivery.  So have the results changed or is this just a Small Sample Size?

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I've noticed some talk recently about how the Royals should take a left handed starter in the upcoming draft.  I don't believe left handed starters should be favored at all and I hope to make my case for avoiding lefties unless they are the best player available.

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To me, and a lot of others, Trey Hillman always seemed to be doing something wrong with his lineup.  While overall lineup construction does not change the output of the team much over the course of the season, it still hurts to see someone like Jason Kendall bat 6th (42 PAs there this year!)  Yost's simple change of moving Kendall to the 9 spot made me curious as to the differences between their choices, and how those might play out over the course of the season.  So let's take a look at what small changes can do for your offense.

First of all, Yost's lineup hasn't changed at all from what Hillman posted in the final 3 games of his tenure.  Besides Brayan Pena starting Hillman's final game (extra offensive push to win?  Greinke doesn't need catcher help?  Smartest move Hillman made all year?), the lineups have been identical except for Kendall moving to the 9th position.  This move smells like an NL bat the pitcher 8th move to me, and put a higher OBP guy at the bottom of the lineup, so the better hitters at 1-3 can drive him in possibly.  So let's take a look at what the 2010 updated ZiPS projections on Fangraphs say about how productive this offense would be over an entire year with these constructions.  Here are the projections:

And now here are the lineups:

For Yost's lineups simply slide MITCH and Yuni up one slot and put Kendall at 9.  The difference in runs per game is .064 Runs per Game.  Doesn't sound like much, but over an entire season .064 x 162 = 10.368 Runs, or using the rule of 10 runs = 1 win, that's +1 Win for Yost already over an entire season.  

So Yost has already demonstrated superior lineup making skills, and in Dayton's world, that means he owns that tool.  He has also shown a consistency so far in having the same lineup for all 3 games.  Yost looks to shake things up with the lineup Monday at Baltimore, but nothing definitive other DDJ in the number 3 spot is confirmed yet.

The rest of Hillman's lineups have essentially the same set up, with a different part here or there.  Hillman really never had Aviles healthy til Ankiel was out, so there's really no way of knowing how those lineups would have looked.  And with Gordon complicating the OF logjam Yost is going to have make some choices, and I suspect this will tell us a lot about what Yost prefers (hopefully an OF gets traded soon, preferably not Gordon and not MITCH).  But for now, with just the lineup as data, Yost is 1 game better than Hillman by making a small change.  Will that matter this season?  Probably not, but in a pennant race that game could be the difference between playoffs and sitting home.  I also think it says something that I no longer fear the Royals are going to go 52-110.  They are currently on a 60 win pace, can Yost bring them back to where we thought they'd be preseason (around 72 wins or so)?

Thanks to Baseball Musings Lineup Analyzer.  If you click the link, it comes pre-loaded with some stats, so you can play around and make your own lineups for the Yost era.  What does everyone else want to see when we have Ankiel, Gordon, Pods, DDJ, and MITCH playing OF for this team (and JoGui at DH)?  I'd like to see Kila come into play, but that obviously isn't going to happen when he just got sent packing again.

And my new favorite catchphrase?  "Boom! Yosted!"

Houston has lost 7 games to start the year, and I see no relief for them. Their run differential is -29, but they've only scored 13 runs in 7 games!!  That might not be so bad, but they gave up 42!  So the average score of their games has been roughly 6-2.  When Berkman comes back this team will be slightly better, but wow are they bad. No doubt about it, the Royals are not the worst team in baseball. That distinction belongs solely to the Astros.

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I had a spot out in the front row of the Pepsi Party Porch in RF for this.  Hung out there all day til I'd had enough after the 8th.  What follows are the pictures that turned out, with a few stories.  I aim for this to be slightly more entertaining than the slideshow you endured on Powerpoint in your business meeting at work for the 2nd time already this week.

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