SB Nation User Blog: playingwithfire

How would you go about rebuilding the Royals...

playingwithfire — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 10:12:11 -0000

...in a fantasy world?

I know this is a bit off topic(and let's be honest, besides the Zack Cy Young run and Butler actually starting to hit with authority, we don't have THAT much to look forward to the rest of the season), but I just took over the Royals in a huge(28 teams) dynasty league that tries to mimic the MLB(but since it's fantasy baseball, defense and grits don't matter, I will probably try to trade Bloomy first chance I get). As the Royals I get everybody that's in the Royals system right now besides 2009 draft picks(which will go into an amateur draft). Well, I was going through the roster and things don't look promising...

Besides Zack Greinke, Gil Meche, Luke Hochevar, Brian Bannister, Joakim Soria, Billy Butler and Alberto Callaspo under team control with reasonable contracts until at least 2012. This team doesn't have much to build on, certainly not to win anything anytime soon. A league rule that does benefit the Royals is the fact that we use real life contract and the salary cap will be 100 millions, effective immediately, which means teams like the Red Sox and Yankees will have to cut some of their decent players to fit under 100 millions while Marlins and the Royals has the cap room to acquire those talents. I have already made my first move, but I figure RR is about the most knowledgeable Royals fanbase anywhere, you guys certainly have good ideas on how to build the Royals(who I should trade for? should I be on the 3 year plan or the 5 year plan? should I trust the process(TM)?...) And that it would be an interesting discussion and will undoubtedly inspire.

The first trade that I made since I took over the team is below.

Royals trade: Alex Gordon who makes 457k(until 2012) and Jose Guillen 12mil until 2010

to the Red Sox for JD Drew 14 mils until 2011, as well as Red Sox prospect Josh Reddick, Ryan Kalish and Che-Hsuan Lin, all of them OF, all of them has "tools" and fill the "upper level position player prospect" void that the Royals have. While I still have faith in Alex to be league average/above league average, I don't have faith in my Royals to be any good anytime soon, probably not until 2012 when his contract expires anyway. And if 2/3 of the Reddick/Kalish/Lin pays off, I would have some decent bat(which the Royals have real problem developing) and the addition of JD Drew can simply be future trade chip.

So what would you guys do next for rebuilding if you are in my shoes?

Landon Powell's future

playingwithfire — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 06:30:16 -0000

Landon Powell was one of my(and I'm sure a lot of other people's) favorite prospect in baseball 2 years ago. When the A's were still running the over the hill Jason Kendall out there every day and Kurt Suzuki wasn't doing anything to separate himself from Powell.

We all know what happened, his knee gave up on him. At the time a lot of people think the A's will convert him into a 1B because there didn't seems to be a way that he can possibly stay behind the plate with those knees. But he came back and stayed at C. The contact ability isn't there but the patience as well as the power are still there last year in AAA.

In honor of him getting his first MLB hit and ribbie today. I post the question below.

So what do you make of Landon Powell? Is he going to stay a backup catcher until his knee blow out again? Or can he start somewhere and produce similar numbers offensively to guys like Mike Napoli(probably best case) or Chris Snyder?

Poll

What would Landon Powell's peak be?

Victor Martinez

5 votes

Mike Napoli

23 votes

Chris Snyder

16 votes

John Buck/Miguel Olivo(as a Royals fan, I still can't tell the two apart)

35 votes

Jeremy Brown

17 votes

96 votes | Poll has closed

Favorite Music from 2008

playingwithfire — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 21:39:59 -0000

Since the super bowl thread got some of us talking about Springsteen and his music. I got curious as to what kind of music RR users listens to. For starters, if you have to go to a deserted island with an album released in 2008, which one would it be? 2008 can be considered a down year for music, but there has been a few excellent new bands coming out as well as Lil Wayne of the world releasing some nice materials.

Discuss away...

Their Grade Now

playingwithfire — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:03:06 -0000

Let's do some group thinking. Post prospects in the comment section who has seen their stock raise/drop this year and let the rest of the community decide what grade he should be right now. This should be fun.

FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER

really, the content of this post will be in the comment section.

Please no!

playingwithfire — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 18:06:18 -0000

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2008/07/yankees-eyein-1.html

Should the Jarrod Washburn deal fall apart, the Yankees are exploring an alternative in Brian Bannister for Melky Cabrera. Bob Dutton of the Kansas City Star writes,

"Nothing appears imminent, but the framework for a deal seems to exist because New York has already shown a willingness to part with [Melky] Cabrera. Add this: The Royals nearly obtained Cabrera in a trade-deadline swap two years ago for veteran outfielder Reggie Sanders before Sanders suffered an injury."

In this scenario, David Dejesus moves to left to make room for Cabrera in center. And Mark Teahen would get back to his natural position at first base. Cabrera is making $461,200, only $40,200 more than Bannister, and both are set to reach arbitration after this season.

The Yanks prefer Washburn but are in negotiations after the Mariners rejected an offer of Cabrera and Kei Igawa for the lefty veteran. Seattle might want Brett Gardner as well as for the Yankees to take on all of Washburn's $14MM contract through next year.

Matt Sulentic

playingwithfire — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 05:54:28 -0000

After a horrible 2007 in the low As. Matt Sulentic got promoted to A+ nonetheless this year. And the hitter friendly Cal league seems to really help as he's hitting a solid .294/.367/.477 line so far this year for Stockton. Strikeout is still a tad high for Matt. But after being downgraded to a C this year, what do you think, assuming he keeps this up, his grade should be by the end of the year?

and other general thoughts.

Petition to (at least try to) Sign Barry Bonds

playingwithfire — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 16:32:45 -0000

I mean I know all of the steroid/bad teammate/not good for news yada yada. But hey, look at it this way.

Steroid list include guys like Giambi, Paul Byrd, whoever that good RP for the Indians is who keeps trying to kill baby Jesus, Miguel Tejada... they are all still in the league

Bad teammate include guys like Milton Bradley/Gary Sheffield/Jose Guillen, they are all still in the league

Not good for the press crew include any international player that don't speak good English, the rare white guy that's too shy to speak(looking at you Greinke) and the "you know" crew, you know? They all still have a job.

Now, counting out low PA folks like Tupman(2.000 OPS!), Greinke(1.667 OPS), Aviles and Bannister(1.000OPS). Our team leader in OPS is Miguel Olivo(who I'd argue to this point hasn't been a consistent regular) at .299/.326/.555. If you want to set a AB limit to 150 or above, it goes all the way down to Teahen at .258/.339/.409. Which is (cough) below league average for a corner OF.

Now Bonds' LOWEST OPS tracing back all the way to his last year with the Pirates(1992) was .999 in 2006 when he hits 26 HRs in less than 400 ab. And you know even with a little regression, he can still get on base quite a bit. And if he can handle 110 games last year at LF, I'll be darned if he can't handle 120-130 at DH for the Royals when he doesn't have to run on what used to be his legs half the game.

Now I know all the negative press we could be getting. But Bonds will 1. help the team win more games 2. draw more fans. And if he's desperate, he might sign for the rest of the year for about 5-7 millions, and that's tremendous value. And it's not like he's blocking anybody at DH.

Discuss?

Berroa traded

playingwithfire — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 11:32:12 -0000

"Dodgers acquired infielder Angel Berroa and cash from the Royals for infielder Juan Rivera.

Berroa will head to Triple-A Las Vegas for now. The 30-year-old former Rookie of the Year was hitting .291/.323/.519 with 10 homers for Triple-A Omaha. He'll be an option as a part-timer if the Dodgers' infield doesn't get healthy soon. The cash picked up by the Dodgers in the deal will likely cover the vast majority of the approx. $3.5 million he was still owed under the teams of his four-year deal. In Rivera, the Royals are picking up a non-prospect. The 21-year-old was hitting .241/.267/.345 in 10 games for low Single-A Great Lakes."

I mean I'm all for getting rid of Angel Berroa, but come on, if we are covering a lot of the salary, at least get a prospect for him, it's not like the Dodgers has a bad farm system(cough cough Astros). I can't find anything too positive about this Juan Rivera character besides the fact that he shares a name with a former Expos(BEST baseball organization ever! And yes, I was that Royal Expos fan if you are wondering) OF and he's a SS. His career number certainly don't look good, looks like a minor league fodder to me.

-1 for Dayton for not getting a spec out of Angel.

Kyle Davies up, replacing Tomko in the rotation

playingwithfire — Fri, 30 May 2008 19:30:18 -0000

Tomko to the pen.

Honestly, I don't think Davies with his laser straight fastball and his confidence level at Greinke's level 2 years ago is going to change anything. But then again, it'll be pretty hard to do worse than Tomko/Bale/whoever else we threw out there for our #5 starter. And he's still young and has decent stuff(though I'd argue that both Tomko and Bale has above average stuff). At this point, with our #5 starter a crapshoot all year, why not? Here's hoping I'm wrong and that Davies' mediocre k rate/high walk rate/flyball tendency don't get to him this time around. Seriously, 4.8ish ERA would be awesome from him.

Why doesn't Costa get a chance?

playingwithfire — Mon, 26 May 2008 19:28:09 -0000

http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?n=Shane%20Costa&pos=OF&sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=430573

Shane Costa is hitting .304/.348/.527 with 9 HRs in AAA, our offense

Our offense is: Last in runs, last in HR, 2nd to last in Slg(Nationals slug worse), that's 3 things that Costa could potentially improve over somebody like Gathright or Gload. Now we probably should keep Gathright because of his speed and as a backup OF. Gload on the other hand, isn't that great of a bat for 1B or corner OF at his best and is putrid this year. Butler has yet to make an error at 1B this year, now watching him play, he's not ever going to be an all star defender at first, but as long is he's not absolutely horrible(think Frank Thomas, Dimitri Young or David Ortiz) his bat should(I hope) more than make up for his range at first.

What do you guys think?