It's interesting to see Shealy making the most of his opportunity. With 2 HRs today and 4 in all since his call-up less than 2 weeks ago, he has already surpassed Gload's season total (which only serves to irritate me more, as we see the actual proof that we utterly wasted a season's worth of ABs starting Gload at first base this season). Shealy is also hitting .370 and slugging .815.

While I'm sure we're all in agreement that this hot stretch won't last forever, it does give me pause re. our first base situation for next year and makes me wonder if it does the same thing for Dayton Moore. Is Shealy still regarded by the Royals as a prospect and can he possibly help the big club next year? If Moore is not impressed yet, what would it take for him to reconsider Shealy for next year's KC roster? I'm thinking he'd have to continue tearing the cover off the ball for the balance of the season, then basically do the same in Spring Training to even have a shot. Even then, there is still ol' Ross to compete with, plus Butler, and Ka'aihue...thoughts?

I just watched the end of the White Sox- Angels game. The game ended when Carlos Quentin hit a walk-off HR (his second HR of the game) off John Lackey.

Quentin is now hitting .301 on the year, with 14 HR and 43 RBI. His OBP is .412 and SLG is .588.

It makes me a little angry, to be honest, to watch a young, power-hitting outfielder like Quentin, a player who was obviously available in the offseason and who also happened to be just what the Royals needed, excel for a division rival. It's especially bittersweet as our boys continue to descend to new depths with their offense.

I recall a good bit of discussion on this site last year about how Quentin, a  young player with a lot of upside who likely wouldn't cost a fortune, would be a good trade target for the Royals and how Dayton Moore should pursue him. In fairness, it's possible he did. It just seems hard to believe we couldn't have made a similar or better offer than Kenny Williams did (minor league 1B Chris Carter), an offer that landed Quentin for the White Sox.

I know, hindsight is 20/20, and I'm not pretending to have known that Quentin would bust out like this, especially so quickly (in fact, under Mike Barnett's tutelage, it's likely he'd be at around .200/.300/.400 right now).  But it really burns me up to think that KC likely could have had Quentin and didn't get him. I'd love to know whether we made an offer.

According to Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus, there's a good chance we may be welcoming a pretty promising hitter to the organization on draft day:

3. Kansas City Royals. Multiple sources indicate that the Royals, who have a positive relationship with Boras, will not let [Pedro] Alvarez get past them if he’s available. He’ll cost a lot, but they think he’ll be worth it, and they might be right.

The rest of Goldstein's article profiling what the top ten teams are thinking can be found at the link below:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=7570

Meanwhile, Jim Callis of Baseball America had Alvarez going at #2 to Pittsburgh in his mock draft a week ago (link below) with KC taking Buster Posey:

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/draft/mock-draft/2008/266117.html

No one seems concerned about Alavarez's injury...seems to me that a team had better be 100% confident that it won't diminish his skills long-term before taking him that high.

4/30/08 Traded LHP Jorge De La Rosa and cash to the Colorado Rockies in exchange for a player to be named.

I just stumbled upon this one-line  mention of JDLR going to Colorado at http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/transactions/index.jsp?c_id=kc   It must have just gone down.  I didn't see it mentioned at the Royals' site or the KC Star's.

Strange that it wouldn't say anything about this being part of the earlier Ramon Ramirez deal. Could it be a separate trade? I can't imagine it would be...

Not sure Colorado is going to be the place where Jorge puts it all together...he's sort of starting to remind me of Bruce Chen.

Buster Olney writes that the A's are looking at signing Frank Thomas and speculates that such a move might be at the expense of Mike Sweeney's roster spot.

You'd have to think that it might be the end of the road for Sweeney if Oakland ended up releasing him, no? There could be a team willing to give him a few ABs in a pinch due to a injury, but right now I can't think of one...

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For those of you who may have missed them, below is a collection of some recent Royals-related scouting tidbits from Keith Law, who was in Arizona for ESPN. It'll be interesting to see how accurate some of these thoughts/ assessments (a number of them somewhat negative) end up being. If Yabuta does in fact end up struggling in MLB, that would certainly alter some roles in the back end of the bullpen and make guys like Nunez, Ramirez, and company more important.

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• Royals right-hander Yasuhiko Yabuta has gotten good reviews for his changeup, but after seeing him several times this spring, I'm not optimistic about his chances to get big-league hitters out. Yabuta's stuff is barely average, with a 90-91 mph fastball and an average changeup that's straight but on which he maintains his arm speed. His slider is very flat with minimal break, and he works up in the zone. He gets some deception due to his funky delivery, but over the long haul I think he's going to be very hittable.

• Alex Gordon still has the talent to become a star in the majors, but it's a little frustrating to see him fail to make adjustments against offspeed stuff. He's very vulnerable to changeups away, and isn't much better at hitting breaking stuff (or laying off it) from left-handed pitchers. He has great bat speed and plus raw power -- comfortably a 65 on the 20-80 scale -- and if he gets a fastball he can pull, the ball flies off his bat. But a guy who doesn't recognize offspeed stuff is going to see a lot of offspeed stuff, not fastballs, and given the mediocre pitching hitters get to face in spring training, this is the time for Gordon to work on his pitch recognition.

• Brian Bannister started for Kansas City and was his usual self. Bannister has received a fair amount of attention this offseason because of the fact that he recognizes and understands the concept that a pitcher's ability to limit hits on balls in play is somewhat limited. He's talked about trying to improve his odds by getting ahead of hitters and putting them in counts where hitters tend to perform worse. Bannister did have one vintage Bannister inning Monday (the fourth), inducing three weak field outs, but otherwise gave up plenty of hard-hit balls. Bannister's fastball topped out at 85, and I've only seen him up to 87 during past regular seasons; it's hard to get hitters out or even get ahead of them in the count when they know you can't put your fastball by them.

• Moving over to the minor league games in Surprise, I saw Royals' pitching prospect Dan Cortes start in a Double-A game. Cortes worked with his fastball and curve, sitting at 90-93 mph with a lot of life to it and decent downhill plane. His curve flashes plus, but it's very inconsistent. His best curves have a sharp break near 12-to-6 but with a little bit of angle. His command was hit or miss today, and he does seem to struggle to hit the outside corner to right-handers because he releases his fastball late and gets good run on it. His arm works very well and the velocity is easy; he also stays upright well during his delivery, which is a good sign for possible improvements in his command. Cortes is still just 21 years old and has plenty of time to improve, but right now he profiles a bit better as a reliever than as a starter, but I'll bet you a steak that he makes the big leagues.

• Cortes was succeeded by Rowdy Hardy, who posted a 2.48 ERA and went 15-5 in the Carolina League last year. He is riveting to watch. His fastball, if we can legally call it that, sat at 75-76 mph today, and his changeup came in around 70-71. Hardy throws from a sidearm slot with less effort than any pitcher you're likely to see, and he gets great movement on all of his pitches, even if they defy conventional definitions. He also pounds the lower half of the strike zone. All that said, it's hard to envision a role where Hardy can contribute in the big leagues, because even if his control remains this good and he can continue to get groundballs, he's going to be extremely homer-prone and probably just plain hit-prone as well because he can't miss many bats. He was born a century too late; in the 1900s or 1910s, he probably would have thrown 350 innings in a season, struck out 80 guys, and posted a sub-2 ERA.

Keith Law of ESPN filed this report after watching Mike Moustakas the other day:

"Mike Moustakas had a bit of a tough day, striking out against [Neftali] Feliz on a pair of changeups. Moustakas has a very smooth, sweet left-handed swing and should make a ton of contact and spray the field with hard line drives. To get the ball out in BP, he had to come out of that swing, creating some loop length and an upward finish that's going to reduce his contact rates. He's best off going for contact and hitting a ton of doubles rather than trying to play the longball game. He's still rough at shortstop and will have to move, probably to third base."

It seems as though everyone but the KC management is of the opinion that Moustakas will never be a SS in the bigs. It will be interesting to see what the Royals do there...

Also interesting what Law thought of his swing. You would think that in paying out the kind of coin they did and drafting him as high as they did, the Royals are expecting major HR production down the road from Moose. Sounds like one way or the other he is going to be a legit masher in the bigs.

I got a kick out of the comment below from Jonathan Papelbon, who signed a $775,000, one-year deal with the Red Sox. According to the AP story posted at espn.com, Paps said:

"I feel a certain obligation not only to myself and my family to make the money that I deserve but for the game of baseball," he said Tuesday. "Mariano Rivera has been doing it for the past 10 years and with me coming up behind him I feel a certain obligation to do the same."

Sorry, but does anyone else find this comment just slightly disingenuous? Guess he needed an unprecedented Ryan Howard-like contract not so much for himself, but for the good of the game?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but where does it say that the Red Sox were under some sort of obligation to throw out the usual rules for young players and hand him a blank check? Apparently he was seeking a multi-year deal or $900,000 for this year.

I'm getting tired of the young stars (Fielder, Hamels, etc.) whining lately about being disrepected, insulted, etc. because they are not making the truly big dollars before they are arbitration-eligible. Sure, relative to a lot of veterans, some of these guys are obviously underpaid. But this is your collective bargaining agreement, fellas! Should teams not take advantage of a small amount of leverage where they have it? Must every new non-record-breaking contract for a young, decent player now be regarded as a diss or betrayal of some kind on the part of the club? Ridiculous...

Very interesting tidbit from Bob Dutton's article about DeJesus in today's Star:

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/royals/story/518807.html

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That speaks, loudly, to new manager Trey Hillman's relentless devotion to on-base percentage. OBP is a mantra with Hillman, who stresses its importance at every opportunity.

"I've spoken to all of them about eliminating batting average and going to OBP," he said. "Because OBP really is the statistic that tells you what your chances are of scoring runs."

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Hallelujah! Something tells me we wouldn't have heard a comment like this from Buddy...

From the diaries... -RR

Another warm body is coming to camp: Mike Maroth.
It's amazing how many guys Moore is collecting and inviting to camp...but it makes sense.

I kind of like this move...obviously he was awful last year, but if healthy, the guy has had a little success in the A.L. in the past and, what the heck, he is a lefty. If he can't make the rotation (which I'd have to think he has an outside chance of doing, at least), maybe he could be a decent relief option, or at least insurance. If he pitched well it could free up someone (Gobble, etc.) to potentially be put in a deal. All in all, since this is a minor-league deal, it's a no-brainer signing.

Full story (excerpted below) at KC Star:

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/story/481989.html

Royals sign Maroth to minor-league deal
By BOB DUTTON
The Kansas City Star

The quest to find a left-handed starting pitcher prompted the Royals to sign veteran Mike Maroth to a minor-league contract that includes an invitation to big-league camp.

Maroth, 30, was a combined 5-7 with a 6.89 ERA last season while splitting time with Detroit and St. Louis. He pitched just 13 games for the Tigers in 2006 before suffering season-ending elbow surgery to remove bone chips.

I just saw this:

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OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- Outfielder Emil Brown and the Oakland Athletics agreed Friday to a one-year, $1.45 million deal.

Brown, a former A's amateur draft pick who spent the last three seasons with Kansas City, also could make up to $1.5 million in performance bonuses.

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Looks like Emil will at least partly fill Swisher's role in Oakland.

Also, did anyone else note that D.J. Carrasco signed with the White Sox?  If I recall he pitched in Japan (or was scheduled to) after he left KC...I couldn't find any MLB data on him for the past two seasons.

When I saw his name, it immediately brought back memories of some awful, awful Royals teams...he wasn't nearly as awful as some of his teammates, though, in fairness.

I'm surprised no one has yet started some sort of a Clemens thread. It seems of late that the situation changes daily...today's press conference truly felt like a freakin' reality show...so where does this leave us?

My two cents: After watching and listening to Clemens (and now McNamee) over the last day, I have to say that I still sincerely believe that he used PEDs. He's clearly very angry- it's no act- but I believe the anger comes from being caught, at being "outed" as a user by someone he clearly felt he could trust, not from being falsely accused. I'm sure he's also very concerned about his legacy (rightly so) and of course the disruption to his family's lives.

For me, among other things I still can't get past the fact that, if he was truly, completely innocent, we would have heard from him immediately.

I also thought secretly taping the phone call was (though effective) on the sleazy side. It was kind of painful listening to McNamee pour his heart out about his ill son in a "private" conversation while Rog sat there next to his lawyer.

Who knows if we'll ever know the real story (doubtful)...so what does everyone else think of this mess?