(New NEW) 2014 Royals Repository

[SPchief]

Let's get back sole possession tonight.

[Pitt Gorilla]

One does not simply win 8 playoff games in a row by being lucky.

[Prison Bitch]

His article was complete shit. DM is a real life GM with decades of scouting experience, a team of pro scouts, and access to scouting reports Cameron doesn't. DM knew his team wasn't a 71/72 team the prior two years but Py-Thag'd at 77/74. And that was with complete dreck in the rotation. (In 2012 the Royals gave 103 starts to Chen (5.07), Hoch (5.73), Mendoza (4.23) and Sanchez (6.77). A Detroit Tigers fan blog accurately noted that by simply replacing them with average joes would give them 5-7 more wins. Getting Shields, Santana & Davis would likely add a few more.


Which is precisely what happened. Royals brass addressed their fatal weakness and by doing so, garnered a "double impact" of replacing terrible with good.


Dave, it's ok to admit you were completely wrong. I certainly have. As someone noted the Angels went 41-44 vs winning teams while we went 44-45. And we went into the playoffs 13-8 vs Ana/Balt/Oak.

[KChiefs1]

Originally Posted by Mr. Laz

Sal still needs to stop swinging at pitches in the dirt. If just to help to drive the pitch count up.

Maybe 6 days off will help him.

[ChiefsCountry]

If the Royals were just close to .500 against Detroit and Boston. They would have been a 95 win team.

[Prison Bitch]

It's criminal for Dave to omit two things: (1) the non-performance of Myers this year, and (2) the fact Detroit tried to trade for Shields in 2011 and again right before we did....and were bothered enough that we got him.


Why would Detroit have been bothered that the Royals did that deal, if Dave was correct the Royals weren't a threat? Does he know more than Dombrowski?

[Bearcat]

Outside of any agenda against the guy, he's obviously not just another subjective rationalizing fan with a blog... he's trying to make sense of it and is obviously willing to admit he's wrong, but overvalues star power and seems to have a narrow view between "great team" and mediocrity.

Agree with tk13, there's more to discuss there than randomness and James Shields... but, he falls into the same trap as many other people, associating or outright failing to realize that a scrappy, good defensive team can actually be pretty good and not just a mediocre team on some impossible run for the ages. The example that comes to mind is the NCAA tournament, where people are always quick to throw around 'choke' without ever thinking a low seed could actually be pretty solid.

And the example of that would be when Bradley won a few games over a couple of years, one against the Jayhawks, and I mentioned something along the lines of let's not think Bradley could actually have something to do with this....

[Coach]

Since it's been 10 years now, looking at the 2004 Kansas City Royals roster....

Christ almighty....

C John Buck
1B Ken Harvey
2B Tony Graffanino
SS Angel Berroa
3B Joe Randa
LF Dee Brown
CF David DeJesus
RF Abraham Nunez
DH Mike Sweeney

SP Darrell May
SP Brian Anderson
SP Jimmy Gobble
SP Zack Greinke
SP Mike Wood
CL Jeremy Affeldt
RP Shawn Camp
RP Scott Sullivan
RP Jaime Cerda
RP Nate Field

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/KCR/2004.shtml

[Bearcat]

Heh, surprise Angel Berroa sighting a couple years ago at a T-Bones game when he played for the New Jersey Jackals.

[tk13]

That was the team that started with Beltran and Juan Gonzalez in the OF, and Benito Santiago at catcher. Plus Matt Stairs played a lot of games at DH. A lot of people picked them to win the division.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by tk13

That was the team that started with Beltran and Juan Gonzalez in the OF, and Benito Santiago at catcher. Plus Matt Stairs played a lot of games at DH. A lot of people picked them to win the division.

Because of a fluky run in 2003.

There's also this...

Eduardo Villacis. 1 L, 13.50 ERA, 3.1 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 1 HR, 4 BB, 0 K's, with a outstanding WHIP of 3.000.

[Mama Hip Rockets]

Originally Posted by tk13

That was the team that started with Beltran and Juan Gonzalez in the OF, and Benito Santiago at catcher. Plus Matt Stairs played a lot of games at DH. A lot of people picked them to win the division.

I picked them to win the World Series that year.

[Prison Bitch]

The Royals "only" won 89 games because of massive turds laid by their 3 biggest offensive positions: DH, 1B, and 3B. Dave should stop and ask: "they won 89 with massive down years from those spots? The rest of the team must've been awesome"


I said all year those 3 ruined DMs plan. But we got in, and damn if they didn't turn it on. The SABRs all squeal "LUCK!", but the intelligent man says "Maybe they were unlucky all regular season!"

[Prison Bitch]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

Outside of any agenda against the guy, he's obviously not just another subjective rationalizing fan with a blog... he's trying to make sense of it and is obviously willing to admit he's wrong, but overvalues star power and seems to have a narrow view between "great team" and mediocrity. ..[/i].

But that's the problem: he won't admit he's wrong. He still claims he was right about the Royals not being ready to win. Yet DM thought they were. It's easy to see who was right and who was wrong.

DM made no moves at the trade deadline. Meanwhile Dave's Mariners made awful trades for Morales and Jackson which actually subtracted 2+ WAr from their team and may have cost them oakland's playoff spot.

He says he agreed with Oaks decision to "go for it" by dumping Russell for Samardjia on the basis they were in a position to win. But he doesn't admit Oak was playing above their heads and their record wasn't indicative of who they really were. Even before the WC game on his chat he said Oakland would beat us since, i quote, they're "the superior team". Based on what? Their good first half?

[Coach]

I would also argue that the Royals had a better 2nd half of the season. Same thing happened in 2013 as well. It was only a matter of time before they got it.

First Half: 48 wins, 46 losses .511 winning %.
Second Half: 41 wins, 27 losses .603 winning %.

And I have always maintained my argument that if the Royals (2013) didn't had a god-awful month of May (they went 8-20 during that time frame), they would have gotten a wild card bid, had they played .500 ball in that month alone.

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by Coach

I would also argue that the Royals had a better 2nd half of the season. Same thing happened in 2013 as well. It was only a matter of time before they got it.

First Half: 48 wins, 46 losses .511 winning %.
Second Half: 41 wins, 27 losses .603 winning %.

And I have always maintained my argument that if the Royals (2013) didn't had a god-awful month of May (they went 8-20 during that time frame), they would have gotten a wild card bid, had they played .500 ball in that month alone.

Well yeah, but May did happen. Teams have hot and cold stretches all the time, you can't really throw out the horrible months without also tossing the good ones.

If we didn't set the world on fire with that crazy stretch in late July through August, we'd be out.