Ha, basically.

All of those things are things a Pro would do, so I'm not sure he's as much a Pro as he is a kid.

I'm just at a loss for what could be taught to him at this point that ANY batting coach hasn't tried/suggested. He's evidently just dumb or something. Lard knows almost any pitcher can jack with him and get him to ground-out.

But he'll get a hit in the coming days, and the Royals will swallowing his baby badder again..

You have to keep in mind that Butler is the same guy that Jose Guillen accused of being a "baby in the locker room" when Billy was throwing temper tantrums about not playing 1st base enough. That was the year he was sent down, I believe.

Point being, the kid has an ego.

They could play Butler at 1st more if they wanted more lineup flexibility. There were stories in spring training they were going to give him some more time there during the regular season.

http://www.kansascity.com/2014/04/13...ly-butler.html

ROYALS NOTEBOOK
Royals sticking with Billy Butler despite early-season hitting slump


MINNEAPOLIS — A few days ago, as Billy Butler ventured deeper into an early-season funk, Royals hitting coach Pedro Grifol approached him with a suggestion. Grifol instructed Butler to back up off the plate so he can better combat inside pitching and cease producing a slew of ground balls.

Butler can be stubborn in defending his mechanics, but he was open to the suggestion by Grifol.

“I have to be able to hit the inside pitch, too,” Butler said. “And whenever I stand too close to the plate, I can’t. It locks me up.”

Butler blames himself for inching too close to the plate during spring training. He considered it an unconscious consequence of his desire to hit balls to the opposite field. Grifol was merely moving him back to his natural position at the plate.

Butler has only six hits in 39 at-bats this season. He has yet to produce an extra-base hit. Heading into Sunday’s game, he was hitting the ball on the ground 70 percent of the time when he put the ball in play. He grounded out in his first two at-bats on Sunday, then struck out in his latter two.

The Royals still believe Butler will flourish as a hitter this season. But manager Ned Yost did not sugarcoat his struggles thus far. When asked whether he saw positive signs with Butler, Yost laughed. “Not really,” he said.

Still, Yost does not intend to shuffle his lineup. Butler will remain his No. 4 hitter, sandwiched between Eric Hosmer and Alex Gordon, with catcher Salvador Perez still batting sixth.

“Of course I’ve considered it,” Yost said. “But it’s too early to do it. Way too early.”

Yost then added, “It’s more of a groupwide thing. Than it is one guy that you move down in the lineup, or two guys. It doesn’t much of an effect, in my opinion, when you do that type of stuff. It’s just a matter of time before these guys get going.”

In time, Butler and team officials believe, his hits will come. Butler insisted his mental approach was fine. But his mechanical approach needed some maintenance.

“It’s all timing,” Butler said. “And if I’m hitting the ball on the ground like I am now, my timing is not where it needs to be yet.”

Not to mention one hall of an appetite... And a bad barber...

There should be absolutely no player "stubborn at defending his (swing) mechanics" on this team right now, minus maybe Aoki and Infante. None.

WE WANT SEITZER

This might be one more thing they could try in order to change their attitudes...

http://www.imcdb.org/i045614.jpg

If Billy Butler bats under .280 for the year, and gets at least 570 at bats, I'll give someone all my casino cash. The hate is so strong for Billy. The dude is like 4th in hits in the last 4 years of baseball. You don't do that by not being any good. And trading Billy is asinine because Billy is more valuable to the Royals then about any other team in baseball. If you get rid of Billy, what are you going to do? Put Maxwell there everyday? If he has to face both right and left handed pitchers everyday hes going to bat like .235. You can't put Perez there because you have no real effective back up catcher. So basically your only option is Danny Valencia, who also is a guy that has to be platooned to be effective at all.

LOL @ the headline. "STICKING" with Billy Butler. Suggesting that the Royals would consider benching him. Never in a million years would they do that. 39 freaking at bats. THIRTY NINE. Every single player in the majors goes thru a 39 at bat slump. Good grief.

I've heard Billy ask the hitting coaches "How many Major League hits did you get your way? Before... He has a point.

PB's idea is to platoon Maxwell and DYSON. LMAO I'm not joking

This should be more of a "Royals offense hate thread" imo.

Most of our players are AVG to below average...Gordon and Butler don't look like 40+ doubles guys anymore. Hosmer is the only guy that remotely could be a star at this point,

Moose, ****ing toast.

Most of this lineup has underachieved including Billy but atleast he has a solid body of work in the majors.

Butler is 27 years old. He's in the prime of his career. I would expect him to have a career year. Gordon might be one year past his prime, but I doubt his production will be any worse this year than it was last year.

I agree that he should put those #'s but def disappointing if he does. He should be excelling and leading the charge, i still think it's dumb to hate him.

Butler is the Dwayne Bowe of the Royals.

I thought I read someone say Gordon is on pace for 60 doubles this year...
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I LOL'd when I heard the stat that says the Astros have 15-times more HRs then the Royals... Billy should take that personally...

Fat ass still doesn't have it quite figured out.

Heh,somewhat but with butler the hate is more justified. There are alot more variables involved as to why a WR has poor stats. Baseball is basically a 1 on 1 matchup hitter vs. Pitcher. and Butler is technically only half a player.
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Well it's not like its a real hate thread just a strong dislike of the guy like teetering on hating him.

**** Billy Fatty! He sucks balls!

Haha exactly. Maybe I should rename the thread

Creepy obsession u have

Hardly an obsession, just a healthy dislike for the piece of shit.

hate that he's still batting between hos and gordo


at least switch him with Salvy

Switch him for 'here' - it'll be a great move.. We'll do flips over THAT move!

http://assets.knowledge.allianz.com/...ge_q_48794.jpg

Ned needs to get him the F*** out of the 4 spot.

Just a true waste of a bat there (for the time being). Currently there's almost zero production coming from that spot...the spot that's supposed to move runners in to score....which is the main problem this Royals team has offensively.

But it won't happen anytime soon I'm afraid. We have Ned Yost...a softy small ball manager who's afraid to hurt someone's feelings w/ his blind loyalty to players who just aboslutely suck.

I'm still here. Still think we couldn't get the same production out of that platoon and use the $8m in savings elsewhere? Let's use last year's numbers:

Butler: 582ab 62r 168h 27d 0t 15hr 82rbi 0sb 79/102 .289 .787 OPS
Platoon 310ab 44r 81h 15d 5t 7hr 34rbi 36sb 32/78 .265 .747 OPS

In just over 1/2 the AB, that platoon didn't produce all that differently and they are CHEAP. They also play the field and they don't clog the bases.

Billay Butter is going to go Oh for April in the HR dept. Sad sad sad for a full time DH.

In one of his ABs today, he hit a pitch through the right side of the infield for a single. The problem here is that it was early in the count and the pitch was middle in. Why on earth is he not trying to clear his hips, pull his hands in, and crush that pitch to left field?

His approach is what you use with 2 strikes. If he keeps this up, he might not hit a homer......

My problem with Bummly Butler.

No power for a Dh, for a fatass or for his lineup spot, especially this year.

He basically doubles as a slap hitter right now. At least when he was good he was going to get you a double or put you in a double play. Now it is just double plays, weak grounders and wasted at bats. I think that is what infuriates me the most. Some of his at bats piss me off. At least eat up pitches. This ****er gets out in one or two pitches a lot it seems.

And his speed, holy shit. He might be the slowest person in the league. Maybe in all of baseball counting the minors. How the **** is someone that slow? He hit a grounder one game I was at, he was flaying around and bustling like a track star for the top half of his body, bottom half? yeah, his ass barely made it 45ft before being thrown out. Anyone else would of made a close play at the plate. He looks way slower than years previous. I think he is just collecting a pay check now.

Everyone rides on his laurels of past seasons, well it started getting worse last year. And has been a huge disappointment this year. Which you know we might tolerate. But if you are trying to get in the playoffs and win. His at bats at this rate are not going to help.

Maybe something can change, but right now. That is not the same player from a couple years ago.

Bat him 9th until he gets his average up past escobar and has more HRs than him.

He looks way ****ing off. He's definitely pressing as he's reaching for balls out of the zone frequently, especially today. The pitches he should be crushing he's getting on top of and he's not even close to looking like he's about to find it at the plate.

I'm at the worried stage now after defending him to start the year.

I am guessing it is because he is fatter and slower with slower reaction time.

Dude has 0 plate discipline and isn't even hitting hard outs. It's one thing to say "dude knocked the piss out of the ball, just right at someone" but you can't even say that about him save maybe twice in the last 7 games and not much more than that for the entire season.

.200 avg, 0 HR's, 8 RBI's.....that's our #4 hitter

But he grimaces with each plate appearance failure because the stupid bat didn't lift the ball and send it over the fence, in this organization that's all you need to do.

This really should be a 'The Royals offense hate thread'...cause no one except Omar Infante is doing much.

Butler is sucking, Gordon, HOS, MOOSE, Perez, aren't even consistent. Butler is concerning but he has been a pretty good player, and probably the best hitter the past 5 years. What happend to Gordons power? The 40+ doubles days are over now?

I say give Butler a couple days off or sit him once or twice a week and let Maxwell DH.

April numbers:

Frenchy 2013: 88ab 10r 23h 5d 1t 1hr 7rbi .263avg 86ops+
Fatty 2014 : 86ab 7r 18h 3d 0t 0hr 8rbi .209avg 45ops+

Ouch.

No one buy Billays BBQ sauce until he raises his average to .280

He didn't even hit a home run in spring training. Shouldn't that have been a clue what his season was going to be?

Ditto, at least Maxwell is more of a HR threat, and probably cant produce any worse right now with RBI, than Butler.

I've never tried it, I'm sure it would end up on the ground.

Don't buy it until he hits his weight... 305!

It's going to be really interesting to see how DM handles Fatty. On one hand, he's had a very good career here and deserves some leeway to find his way back. On the other, he might just be done and playing him might end up costing us a few games we really can't afford to lose in the WC chase. DM stuck with Frenchy a long time but eventually had to move on. Fatty isn't all that popular so that's probably why they were trying to dump his lard ass this Winter.

Christ

Seeing his numbers compared to Frenchy's really, I mean, ouch.

April numbers:

Getz 2013: 66ab14r15h 4d 1t 1hr 8rbi .227avg 69ops+
Fatz 2014: 86ab 7r 18h 3d 0t 0hr 8rbi .209avg 45ops+

We put on our homer shades forgive us.

Time for him to "Man Up"

Or for him to stop being a "genderqueer".

I think you're onto something here,...pun aside.

I think when the Royals start their upcoming home stand, the crowd should hold up signs that says:

"Hey, Billy...
YOU PLAY BALL LIKE A GIRL!!!!"

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ae6K6TvKHr0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Even Getz and his wife had better numbers than Fat Belly. Jeebus.

That's both perfect and awesome!

Billy's a lesbian!

Dude is gonna catch fire!!!

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/J91ti_MpdHA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

He's trying too hard!

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/i...8xNmbK5CoJhZSA

Would (if I could get her to shut up).

Worst song ever. Just horrible.

Dale Sveum!

472

1 hit doesn't change anything



troll bump

Gawd I hope this gets him going. Our chances of winning would greatly increase

Dale Sveum!!

Flash that power a little more often? Please?

:(
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index..._copy_34806645

Did anyone notice billy had his hand on sals ass almost all the way off the field?
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That was easily the hardest he's ever hit a ball

For his career, Butler has 121 home runs against 164 GiDP. He averages 18 hr/yr against 24 DP/yr.

Frankly that's much closer than I thought it would be. I assumed his GiDP were much higher.

That is a lot though. I'd guess that's up or near the all time high average for GiDP.

Let's put it this way, of the top 300 players on the all-time GiDP list, if I'm reading the list right.... Butler is the only one with less than 10 years of service time. He's currently at 219th.

His next DP will tie him with a group that includes Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Jim Thome, and Raul Ibanez on the all time list. Unless Ibanez hits one first.

That's pathetic

don't we all


If Butler,Moose and Hos all stop sucking at the plate then the Royals have a legit chance to win their first playoff game in 20 years.

We've given Belly a lot of grief this year, deservedly so. I think that was one of the hardest hit homers to left I've seen at Kauffman. I saw Bench hit his monster in the 1973 ASG, and saw Ripken hit one almost over the top of seats before the renovation. Saw Reggie hit one to right that almost cleared the wall of the old bullpen. That one last night was a moon shot. Better late than never I suppose, but it doesn't make up for the total shit year he's had. Every dog has his day. We'll see how he does over the next week.

Do you think that they might have brough Ibanez in more to challenge Butler for the DH spot? He's starting to hit decently and at his age, he can't be a daily position player, but he could be an effective DH given enough opportunities at the plate.

"Is billy starting tomorrow?"

-naw. (Ned last night)

433

I still hope they don't pick up his option :'(