2013 Kansas City Royals

[BigDDude]

Anyone interested?

Via the Associated Press, two-time Cy Young winner Bret Saberhagen is auctioning off a bunch of his old baseball memorabilia “because it’s gathering dust in a storage shed and the proceeds will be used to benefit others.”
SCPAuctions.com is running the sale and there are a total of 77 items up for bid, including:
- 1985 World Series ring
- Game-worn high school uniforms
- 1985 and 1989 Cy Young awards
- The ball from his first MLB win
- The ball from his 1991 no-hitter
- Rolex watch from winning World Series MVP
- Comeback Player of the Year award
- Gold Glove award
And then all sorts of other random stuff too.
Saberhagen made nearly $50 million during his 16-season career and retired in 2001, but the Associated Press reports that “the proceeds will go to his foundation and four children.”

 

[BigDDude]

Remember the good times Royals fans.

Today marks the 20th anniversary of one of the all-time great managerial meltdowns. It’s so good,that you just have to say the name and most baseball fans old enough to remember can fill in the blanks on their own.

That manager was Hal McRae.

Does this one sound familiar to anyone out there in reader-land yet?

McRae was in the midst of what now sounds like one of the most thankless jobs in baseball: managing the Royals.

However dismal a chore that might sound like to readers in 2013, it must have sounded different to McRae when he landed the position during the 1992 season. After all, it was a place where McRae had played and starred for many years. Now he’d manage before the fans who had cheered for him.

And his memory of the team was of a beautifully run, model franchise. After all, in the 1970s 1980s Kansas City typically contended and seemingly always had a winning record. Please note this wasn’t ancient history, either. They had won 92 games in 1989 and posted a winning record in 1991. In fact, that very season, McRae took over after a slow start and helped them rally to a 82-80 end record. They flopped badly in 1992, 72-90, but hoped to bounce back in 1993.

At any rate, on April 26, 1993, the Royals lost a game 5-3 to the Tigers, dropping their record to 7-12. This wasn’t the Royals record McRae expected.

Then came the post-game conference. It started off fairly generically, with McRae holding court in his office. Then a reporter asked a question McRae didn’t like. And history was made.

The question was whether he’d considered using the aging George Brett as a pinch hitter in the seventh with two outs and the bases loaded. Something inside McRae snapped.

First he called it a “stupid a** f***ing question.” Well, that’s a nice little quote. But before anyone could go on, he got up, and started throwing things. Just whatever was in front of him on the desk. He screamed some more at the reporter, threw some more objects—most notably his phone, which caught a reporter in the face, drawing blood.

McRae chased everyone out of his office, followed them out, and screamed at them some more before concluding, “Put that in your pipe and smoke it!”

It was over—but as it happened, McRae’s managing career wasn’t. He survived the incident and actually led the Royals to a winning record in 1993, and then again in 1994. The club let him go after those back-to-back winning records—and the Royals have had just one winning season since.

McRae even found work managing another team, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. He lasted two years, but after a horrible 106-loss season in 2002, the club let McRae go. He hasn’t managed since, and isn’t likely to ever again.

But he had one moment people won’t forget—and it happened 20 years ago today.

 

[black francis]

greatest managerial meltdown ever

pine tar = greatest player meltdown ever

 

[HammerDown]

 

[Shanemansj13]

How bout those Royals!

 

[BigDDude]

How bout those Royals!

How about James Shields!!! Could today be a game for the ages for him?

 

[BigDDude]

So much for an epic day in K.C today. They may just have to settle for a great start by Shields.

 

[MiamiVice]

Nice win today for the royals.. oh wait...

 

[BigDDude]

Former broadcaster Fred White succumbed Wednesday to complications from melanoma. His death came one day after he officially retired from the Royals following a 40-year association with the club. He was 76.
are no details at this time regarding funeral arrangements. A club statement said White passed away while in hospice care.
White teamed with Denny Matthews as the Royals’ primary broadcast team from 1973 to 1998. White served more recently as the club’s Director of Broadcast Services and Royals Alumni.
The decision by the Royals to replace White in 1998 with Ryan Lefebvre initially drew a strong backlash from the club’s fan base. But White remained with the organization by overseeing the Royals Radio Network.
White spent his baseball offseasons by calling basketball games for the Big Eight and Big 12 television networks. He also regularly drew national assignments with ESPN, CBS Sports, NBC Sports and Turner Sports.
An Illinois native, White was the sports anchor at WIBW-TV in Topeka and the broadcast voice for Kansas State athletics before joining the Royals.
White also began directing activities for former players in the Royals Alumni program, which included coordinating appearances at clinics and the Royals Fantasy Camp

 

[BigDDude]

Bubba Starling was one of the most-hyped high schoolers in recent memory before being drafted by the Royals with the No. 5 pick in 2011, but after a strong debut at rookie-ball last season he’s been terrible this season.
Starling has hit .213 with a .640 OPS and ghastly 41/10 K/BB ratio in 35 games at low Single-A and it turns out maybe he just can’t see the ball.
Bob Dutton of the Kansas City Star reports that Starling has left the low Single-A team and traveled to Kansas City to potentially undergo Lasik eye surgery. Starling apparently complained of not being able to see very well during night games and his vision has gotten worse since the last time he had it checked.
At this point Lasik is a very minor operation and he’d probably be back playing within days, but making eye checks a regular thing seems like a decent idea for teams given how much money they’ve invested in the development of players like Starling.

 

[HammerDown]

 

[HammerDown]

 

[BigRedMoe]

All these one run losses are demoralizing.

On a positive note, Alex Gordon looks like he's living up to his All Star potential.

 

[BigDDude]

Kelvin Herrera was one of the best relievers in baseball last season as a 22-year-old rookie, throwing 84 innings with a 2.35 ERA and 77/21 K/BB ratio while leading MLB with an average fastball velocity of 98.5 miles per hour.
He’s struggled this season, mostly due to serving up eight homers in 20 innings, but with a 4.87 ERA and 24/8 K/BB ratio he’s hardly fallen apart completely. But that didn’t stop the Royals from demoting Herrera to Triple-A today.
Herrera had a 1.92 ERA in 220 innings as a minor leaguer and has a 3.04 ERA in 107 innings as a major leaguer.

 

[BigDDude]

Royals

Graphics

FAIL!!!!!!




If you watch enough baseball games, you’ll see the occasional error with an in-game graphic. You know how it goes, perhaps a player’s name is misspelled or the wrong name is shown with a particular player. However, we hit the jackpot tonight.
In the FOX Sports Kansas City broadcast of the Angels-Royals game, there was an in-game text poll asking fans which young player they would build a team around. The choices? Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, and Matt Harvey. While it was a reasonable question, there were a number of issues with the graphic. See if you can spot them all.

I wonder if Bryce Hunter and Matt Jones ever hang out with Willie Mayes and Carl Ripken, Jr.

 

[BigDDude]

Royals

Graphics

FAIL!!!!!!




If you watch enough baseball games, you’ll see the occasional error with an in-game graphic. You know how it goes, perhaps a player’s name is misspelled or the wrong name is shown with a particular player. However, we hit the jackpot tonight.
In the FOX Sports Kansas City broadcast of the Angels-Royals game, there was an in-game text poll asking fans which young player they would build a team around. The choices? Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, and Matt Harvey. While it was a reasonable question, there were a number of issues with the graphic. See if you can spot them all.

I wonder if Bryce Hunter and Matt Jones ever hang out with Willie Mayes and Carl Ripken, Jr.

 

[guitarmy21b]

Sure would be nice for my team if Shields could get some wins

 

[black francis]

this team is a fucking disgrace

in 7 years, dayton moore has developed 0 major league hitters and 0 starting pitchers

the best players are from the allard baird era, and the best pitchers came from other teams.

 

[HammerDown]

Wow, is this a sign of futility or what?

 

[BigDDude]

Wow, is this a sign of futility or what?

Here is more on the K.C power outage of late.

The Kansas City Royals did not hit a home run again on Tuesday — heck, they only managed two hits against the Cardinals, a hard double and soft single by Billy Butler — and so that means they have two home runs since May 15, both by 439-year-old Miguel Tejada. How bad is this power outage? Well, I’ve been keeping up with this a bit on my personal blog but just as a quick point of reference:
– No Royals regular has hit a home run in 13 straight games (though Miggy Tejada is looking more and more like a regular with the astounding struggles of Mike Moustakas, who is now hitting .178 on the season). The last Royals regular to hit a home run was Billy Butler on May 14.
– The Royals have not had a left-handed batter hit a home run since the aforementioned Mike Moustakas on May 10. To give you an idea how long ago that was, the hockey playoffs were still in the first round, the Heat was playing at Chicago having just lost to the Bulls, and the IRS story had only just broken.
– The Chicago Cubs have outhomered the Royals since May 15 and, no, wait, that’s not it. Oh yeah, The Chicago Cubs PITCHING STAFF has outhomered the Royals since May 15.
– The St. Louis Cardinals hit three homers more home runs against the Royals Tuesday night, which is more than the Royals have hit since May 15.
Actually, this is a point worth expanding upon: The wind was blowing out at Kauffman Stadium Tuesday for the Royals-Cardinals game. The Cardinals sent rookie lefty Tyler Lyons to the mound. Lyons is a promising prospect but he’s still a rookie, and he’s a lefty, and the wind was blowing out. The Royals still didn’t even come close to homering. They never really do.
And this gets to the heart of something else. The Royals have not exactly been facing the 1965 Dodgers pitching staff during this absurd power outage. A look at the starting pitchers the Royals have faced during this streak makes the thing even more impossible:
5/28: Tyler Lyons (rookie making his second big-league start)
5/27: Adam Wainwright
5/26: Jerome Williams
5/25: Billy Buckner (former Royal, making his first big league start in three years)
5/24: Jason Vargas (30-year-old who was second in homers allowed last year, giving up 35)
5/23: Joe Blanton (who came into game 0-7, 6.62 ERA, with league slugging .562 against him)
5/22: Jordan Lyles (22-year-old who came into game with 6.63 ERA with league slugging .524 against him)
5/21: Bud Norris
5/20: Dallas Keuchel (who came in having given up 19 homers in 113 career innings)
5/19: A.J. Griffin (who had allowed eight homers in 51 innings, he gave up three more in his next start)
5/18: Tommy Malone (31 homers in his previous 241 innings)
5/17: Jarrod Parker (nine homers in 40 innings coming — also a 6.64 ERA)
5/15: Barry Enright (second start in more than two years)
You know who is not on that list? Justin Verlander. And CC Sabathia. And Felix Hernandez. And really any of the, say, 40 best pitchers in the American League. Other than Wainwright, you would have thought the Royals would hit home runs BY ACCDIDENT.
By the way, the Royals loss was their 18th in 22 games, and their 10th straight home defeat, tying a club record. The other day, I predicted that the Royals and their connections would spend a lot of time talking about the little things — which they seem to be doing — but I did not make the equally obvious prediction that soon Royals manager Ned Yost would make a bizarre and hilarious statement that would show him beginning to lose his mind. Hey, it happens to all of them. The Royals drove Tony Muser to his make his locally famous quote about how the Royals needed to pray less and drink more tequila. The Royals drove Tony Pena to guarantee a pennant and jump in the shower with his clothes on. The Royals drove Trey Hillman to all sorts of craziness. You can’t blame them — they’re only human.
And so is Ned Yost, only human:
“What are you asking me to do?” he told reporters after Tuesday’s game. “Take my belt off and spank them? Yell at them? Scream at them? What do you want?”
Yep, Ned Yost is out of ideas. Every Royals manager gets there sooner or later.