Yeah, it would have to be an enormous overpay by whoever was doing it, and I don’t think that deal is out there.

The Yankees don’t have a spot for him. The Red Sox don’t really need that from the C spot.

The Dodgers are set at C. So are the Giants. The Angels have a great defensive guy back there.

Hard to find the combination of need and competition and farm system that could pay the piper. Just don’t think it exists.


MJ Melendez, who is four years away, minimum. Chase Vallot and Meibrys Viloria are both higher in the minors than him but neither is performing all that well.

You could probably roll with Gallagher as a stopgap for a year, but two would be a real big stretch.

That's the same problem you had with Hosmer, Moose, etc. The "big money" teams are all developing their own position players now. This isn't 2002. You just aren't going to get the Yankees or Dodgers to trade 3 or 4 great prospects unless it's a very good starting pitcher.

There's still a chance with the Red Sox. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how well we match up with them.

Keep Salvy as your Mike Sweeney except Perez is actually good but trade Duffy ASAP

If you don’t think Sweeney was good you’re a ****ing reerun.

And speaking of good, how about this Jake Junis? If he does this for another few games I’ll start the 2009 Zack Greinke comparisons.

He doesn't seem to be the headcase that Greinke was.

His 2000 season is in the discussion as the best offensively in Royals history.


I love the way/pace that junis works.

His 4 pitch 3 outs inning was not good /prison bitch and fangraphs

Esky makes that play 7 times out of 10.

Very impressed with Junis so far. I wouldn't compare him to Greinke at all. Greinke could overpower people with his stuff. That's not Junis. More of a thinking, outsmart your opponent pitcher. Seems to follow more in the footsteps of a Greg Maddux (not comparing him directly to him) type . . . .

Certainly not a valid comparison in terms of how they pitch, but more the end result. I’ll let him duplicate his dominance a few more times, and until then I’ll go with 2017 Jason Vargas. Either way, it’s fun to watch.

This, with regards to Maddux comparison.

Junis doesn't overpower people like Greinke did. That was more my point.

Current Greinke is actually a lot more like Maddux than 09 Greinke was. He's still one of my favorite pitchers to watch in the game today.

So if Junis is pitching like this at the deadline, what kind of return could we get for him?

Pump the brakes. Likely a #3 starter, maybe, maybe #2.

Not many guys dominate with a 91 mph FB and a 87 MPH slider. Corey Kluber is the exception.

He's so young that you keep him. Hope he's at peak when this team has a chance to be good in 4 years.

Do you think it’s possible the Royals will be good again? Do we have enough legit prospects in our system? I honestly don’t know.

like, ever again? ever ever again? man, I dunno, we'll just literally suck forever.

It’s hard to bitch when you’ve seen them win two World Series in your lifetime but it would be nice to see them compete and consistently make the postseason every couple of years.

If Duffy can get right and you get good Kennedy along with Junis. That's three decent starters. Pair that with a bullpen that's not putting Maurer in pressure situations and you probably have a competitive team right there.

I think the reality of MLB and the current structure of revenue sharing/how teams are built these days stacks against the royals being great consistently. I think they need to be close to perfect while larger markets have a much larger margin of error.

The Royals will be good again. It’s just a mater of when, and whether it will be with Moore and co.

They have a nice group of players at the A and high-A levels that you can dream on (1B Nick Pratto, C MJ Melendez, of Seuly Matias, Of Khalil Lee - whom Moore calls the most talented all-around player they’ve drafted since Hosmer - 3M Emmanuel Rivera, OF Michael Gigliotti, Of Marten Gasparini, SS Jeison Guzman).

If they do well in this draft and can add some pitching star power to that group, you start to build a wave that people can get excited about. They’ve got HS heavy the past few drafts... adding some polished college prospects to this grouping would seem to make sense.

I'm hoping the Royals will be competitive a lot quicker than people think. And, I think it will be based on very solid starting pitching. Right now, they have Duffy and Junis for several years.

If Skoglund does well, that's three of the five starters for years.

Hoping Kennedy and Hammel pitch well in the first half and are gone at the trade deadline.

They are replaced in the rotation by Kellar. Great article on Kellar here;
https://kingsofkauffman.com/2018/04/...d-brad-keller/

And, Trevor Oaks. Great article on Oaks here;
https://kingsofkauffman.com/2018/01/...s-erick-mejia/

Your starting five are all tied up for years.

You build your bullpen around Karns, Hill, and Lovelady.

I'm optimistic.

It's good that the Royals didn't get completely boned regarding competitive balance picks (again).

A new era dawns:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Royals have activated Abraham Almonte and placed Alex Gordon on the disabled list.</p>&mdash; Rustin Dodd (@rustindodd) <a href="https://twitter.com/rustindodd/status/983805166729203712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 10, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Hmmm, this sounds worse than "a bit of a groin":

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Royals OF Alex Gordon has been placed on the 10-day DL with a left hip labral tear. OF Abraham Almonte has been recalled from Omaha.</p>&mdash; Maria Torres (@maria_torres3) <a href="https://twitter.com/maria_torres3/status/983804643124961283?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 10, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

https://www.royalsreview.com/2018/4/...ip-labral-tear

I'm surprised we haven't seen more injuries like that with the cold weather.

Does this suddenly make the Royals contenders?

Ned doesn't seem too concerned:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Gordon has a left hip labral tear. Ned Yost says it could be 10 days to two weeks. They’ll re-evaluate in five days or so. In the meantime, Abraham Almonte could play some center.</p>&mdash; Rustin Dodd (@rustindodd) <a href="https://twitter.com/rustindodd/status/983809206926172161?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 10, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

of course he isn't... Gordon is an almost automatic out.

If this has been a chronic problem, suddenly a lot more makes sense. Chronic hip issues are debilitating, especially in sports that require sudden ranges of movement like swinging a bat.

He's just happy to not have to bat a pitcher playing in the outfield every night.

Hip and wrist injuries makes a lot of sense with his batting struggles.

Retire Alex. You’re done.

Just shut him down the rest of the year. Let his body heal fully, and then see what he has next spring. If he's truly done, bite the bullet and DFA him. He'll be in the Royals' HoF one day, there's no shame in walking away from him if his body is toast or if he has completely lost his bat.

Lol he's not going to give up $30 mill

This team is in purgatory.

That's the Chiefs.

Royals are in a down cycle. Already liking what I'm seeing from the farm - if they're competing again by 2021, I really have no complaints at all.

Take your own advice

How many straight post are there about the Royals before you posted this gem to shit up the thread?

Are the Royals in a down cycle or was the two-year run over the past 20 to 25 years an uptick?

Judging from GMDM's tenure, that was an up cycle/up-tick, and now he's back to the reload/rebuild phase.

If we don't start seeing gains by 2021 it'd benefit us to start thinking about moving on.

I’d say it was more of a 4-5 year uptick. 2013-2017 was the contention window.

It took seven years to build to that point (and five to get the guys they used for that window to the majors).

You’d hope to shave 2-3 years off the build/re-build timeframe at this point, but not sure that’s realistic.

I think it was easily 5 years. They've been in the playoff chase each of the last 5 years. They faded a little bit earlier last year but it was the end of July and they were in great position. That's a pretty decent run.

Gonna have a great draft pick this year. Come on Dayton move some guys let's gets some pieces.

Duncan out of your list I like Casas the best if he pans out sounds like he could be something Hosmer never was

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Looking good, <a href="https://twitter.com/SalvadorPerez15?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SalvadorPerez15</a>! �� <a href="https://t.co/iz4D5UxsBR">pic.twitter.com/iz4D5UxsBR</a></p>&mdash; Kansas City Royals (@Royals) <a href="https://twitter.com/Royals/status/984115833415880705?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 11, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

This downtown ballpark stuff should **** itself in the neck.

Should I request your yearly banning from this thread now or wait until next week?

Enjoy the season bud were going to get a very good pick and Dayton isn't going to **** this one up.

Watching the Red Sox and Yankees game. Carlos Febles is the 3rd base coach for the Red Sox now. Yes that Carlos Febles. I had no idea.

It’s gonna be awesome.

I can do without the random giant parking lots in the middle of Eastern Jack.

Reported.

The great news is this is the best Ned has felt about a 3-7 team.

Didn’t take that long for Houston did it?

Pretty much the same.

Actually was very similar. Their three straight 100+ loss seasons were probably worse, even, than the Royals 2005-2007 stretch.

Houston did a better job drafting and developing during that timeframe than Moore’s group. And even they had the colossal miss of drafting Mark Appel instead of Kris Bryant.

Luhnow is a wizard. Which I think Cardinals fans (and maybe the former Cardinals employee who hacked the Astros) are realizing.

Sure, helps to have a lotto ticket like Altuve become a HOF level player also.

To be fair, Yordano was very much that for us. When we signed him he was a 5'6 kid who had an 85 mph heater.

Still hurts to watch him in 2014-2015. RIP, bud.

@RoyalsFarm: Seuly Matias was compared to Ronald Acuna Jr., and seemingly no one*noticed http://royalsfarmreport.com/2018/04/...o-one-noticed/ https://twitter.com/RoyalsFarm/statu...986176/photo/1

Matias is very, very talented naturally. Early returns on him tapping into that talent are great.

I was a little cautious about him coming into the year, because the Royals’ track record with LA bats isn’t tremendous.

I’m very interested in Kennedy’s start tonight. I’m hoping his good start to the year isn’t because of the frigid temps.

The Royals need him to be very good in the first half. Or, no one will be willing to take that salary on.

https://www.royalsreview.com/2018/4/...st-round-draft

The Royals have been awful at drafting for a surprising amount of time

Only exception I'd take with that article is at the end about 3 years of losing because they were in contention most of the year those past few years but yea. The draft part is accurate and alarming.

That was a bomb by Mike Trout.

Jesus Esky. Swinging first pitch at a pitcher that hadn’t hit a barn that inning


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Man.. Jorge Soler is shit.

The whole team is shit.

The Royals are now 0-10 when the other team scores

Jorge Solerror

Team is a total disaster. Which isn't even the biggest problem. What players are building blocks for the future? Soler and Amendola are garbage. Starling and Dozier look like they aren't going to pan out. Gordon is done. Moustakis and Escobar will either be traded or elsewhere. Perez is breaking down. Is Mondesi ever going to make it?

Junis looks to be legit. Merrifield, Cuthbert, Bonafacio, and Orlando are ok but not franchise type players.

It has tended to fall completely apart without Salvador Perez in the past, so that isn’t surprising.

The building blocks for the future are Perez, Duffy, Mondesi, Merrifield, and Junis, if he keeps this up.

They need to figure Jorge Soler out, and that means playing him every goddamn day. It’s not looking promising.

Of guys at the high minors, I could see Griffin perhaps being a solid starter in the back end of the rotation. Maybe they eventually give Dozier a shot. But the interesting names to watch and dream on are all at A+ and below.

Building blocks if they are kept. I think Perez and Duffy are probably here for the long run. Junis is a candidate too. I would be shocked if Whit is here long-term.

Merrifield is going to have to start hitting and showing some pop again to get traded. If he’s more of what he looked like in 2016 than 2017, not sure the return would be enough to trade him.

It's all a mess. It's as if they committed to going young and starting over, but at the eleventh hour they panicked and decided to bring in the Lucas Dudas and John Jays and Moustakas just in an effort to not look like they were admitting they were rebuilding. Those three guys alone bring nothing to the future of this team, unless all of them got hot before the trade deadline and net us legit talent in the minors after being traded. It's frustrating to watch. I'm becoming less and less of a GMDM fan by the day, which makes me sad after he gave us those WS teams.

And yeah, it's April 15. But don't tell me this team has it in them to rebound and contend for a wild card or something.

Yikes idk about Duffy. I'd dump him before his arm falls off.

It's fine and while the team is bad it's not like the 2005 days. Now in 3 years if Moore has nothing to show for on this rebuild it will be time for him to go. Given the draft record the past several years I am a bit skeptical.

To go young and start over, you have to have guys ready you want to start over with. I’d like to see Dozier, but he was apparently a disaster at first base and didn’t play much last year. Letting him season at AAA a little doesn’t hurt you.

Who does Jay block? No one.

Moustakas doesn’t block anyone, either, with Bonifacio suspended 80 games.

Duda blocks - maybe - Dozier or Schwindel.

Those are all guys you can move at the trade deadline, too, and even getting useful bullpen pieces or lotto arms can be valuable.

If you want to criticize Moore, criticize the drop-off in draft performance (they did a bad job adjusting to the slotting system). Though I’d still say, on the whole, that their draft performance in the first round has been about average.

To win in KC and sustain it, you have to perform above average in the draft and development pools.

The Royals have a 3-4 year period where that just didn’t happen. Some of it s bad choices, some of it is bad luck (ie Kyle Zimmer, Ashe Russell), some of it is moving pieces for present value.

I think their biggest problem has been falling in love with high upside Hs arms and going heavy in that arena. Lowest rate of return, and Junis and Duffy are the only real successes.