Official Royals Repository, Part 5 ***

[duncan_idaho]

This time: With more playoffs

Our beloved Kansas City Royals take on the plucky upstart Houston Astros in the ALDS; Can they remind the Astros that they're supposed to be a year away from this?

Can an AL team manage to beat the Royals this postseason?

Duncan’s Top 20 for 2016:

Spoiler!

1. Raul Adalberto Mondesi, SS, BOTH: Tools, tools, tools. RA has tools galore. At his best, he’s an All-Star SS who plays elite D, hits 15-20 HR, swipes 40 bags, and is an ideal 1, 2 or 3 hitter. At his worst, I think he looks a lot like Alcides Escobar. Plate discipline is his biggest challenge at this point, but evaluators are confident that will come with time. Clear No. 1
2. Kyle Zimmer, RHP: He’s pitching again and staying healthy, which is nice. He’s pitcing out of the bullpen to build back his arm strength, which is less nice. But still has that high upside, just a lower floor now. Ideally, the team will use him as a bullpen weapon in September (because he has earned it) and then give him a chance to transition back to starting for 2016.
3. Miguel Almonte, RHP: Still love the body, FB/CH combo. Results aren’t eye popping, but he’s still low enough and early enough in the development to prize those things over performance. Still a solid No. 3 starter upside, and just a year and some change away from potentially being ready to contribute at the MLB level.
4. Jorge Bonifacio, RF, RH: Emilio’s little brother got off to a horrible start in 2015 but has heated up as the season went on. He also is translating BP power to game power for the first time, with 15 HR just past the mid-way point of his season. Despite his disappointing 2014, he has a chance to build his way back into legit prospect status – and still is only 22. Next challenge for him should be Omaha, but that may wait for the start of the 2014 season.
5. Scott Blewett, RHP: Blewett has a nice two –pitch mix already and is off to a strong start. With his size (6-6) and a good fastball/curveball combo, Blewett could eventually turn into a good No. 3 starter, with a MLB-average changeup.
6. Nolan Watson, RHP: The Royals’ 2015 sandwich pick is a polished prep arm who is adding velocity and explosiveness to a good, polished base. Likely to move quickly.
7. Ashe Russell, RHP: The 2015 top pick probably needs more work than Watson, but the upside is really nice. Again, advanced two-pitch mix that will depend on him adding a changeup. Could be a very good NO. 2 if it all adds up.

Spoiler!

8. Bubba Starling, CF, RH: Starling has been up and down this year but put himself back on the map by greatly improving his K rate while also improving across the slash line as a hitter. His defense and baserunning are MLB ready; if Starling can work himself into a league average hitter, he can be a solid MLB regular who plays great D in CF while hitting 15 HR and swiping 20 bags.
9. Balbino Fuenmayor, 1B/DH, RH: The Balbino came out of basically nowhere in 2015 to earn a Futures Game spot. Big power and an improved two-strike approach have turned the late bloomer into a legit prospect. He’s blocked at the MLB level currently by Eric Hosmer and Kendrys Morales, but Fuenmayor’s combination of power hitting and good average/strike zone control makes him intriguing.
10. Cheslor Cuthbert, 3B, RH: Cheslor probably is not going to be the star KC was hoping for when signing him out of Nicaragua, but he does look like he can be a solid reserve for an MLB club. Good defense at 3B paired with a solid plate approach and some gap power plays fine off the bench. He becomes a lot more interesting if they think he can stick as a 2B, which they have experimented with.
11. Chase Vallot, C/DH/1B: I really like Vallot’s power and plate discipline combo. His bat will probably force him from behind the plate, but he’s held his own despite being extremely young for every level he has faced.
12. Alfredo Escalera-Maldonado, OF, RH: Escalera-Maldonado earned a promotion to Wilmington at age 20, which is pretty advanced movement for that age. He’s an athletic outfielder who has shown some plate discipline at an early age, which is encouraging. Doesn’t sound like he can stick in CF long term for KC, but his bat has become one to watch.
13. Pedro Fernandez, RHP: I haven’t seen much of him, but like the reports I’ve heard on his fastball and general makeup. Could become the next Almonte/Mondesi, though he’s more likely to land in the pen than either of them.
14. Elier Hernandez, OF, RH: Elier Hernanez teamed with Escalera-Maldonado in breaking out at Low-A and earning a promotion to Wilmington. It’s still early for this guy – he is just 20 years old – but he doesn’t take walks and hasn’t developed the prodigious power many thought he had the potential for. Still worth watching.
15. Hunter Dozier, 3B, RH: Dozier is reworking his swing mid-season, which generally will cause production to do what his has done: Nose dive. The changes he made entering the season (seemingly geared towards increasing his power production) were a disaster, and now he’s trying to get back to what he used to be. Still looks great and checks most of the scouting boxes, but the performance hasn’t matched, and it almost knocked him out of the list.
16. Christian Binford, RHP: After a breakthrough 2014, Binford struggled mightily at AAA and suffered a demotion. His upside remains similar – a back-end starter who can eat innings – but Binford’s lack of velocity and reliance on command have caught up to him so far.
17. Marten Gasparini, OF, SH: Gasparini is intriguing because of his speed and athleticism. He’s a LOOOOONG ways from the majors and young for his level, but reports on his bat speed, swing, and speed remain positive enough to keep him on the bubble.

[KChiefs1]

Originally Posted by C3HIEF3S

*calling LoCain and K-MO*

and the Z-Man.

[WilliamTheIrish]

Take 10 minutes out of your day and read the latest from Rany. Then you'll understand why we are fans of this team.

[B]The Value Of The Struggle In Kansas City[/B]

For an entire Lost Generation who had lived (and mostly died) with the Royals, the surprise wasn’t that the Royals would average barely 11,000 fans a night in a series against Toronto in April, or that their TV ratings were the sort of number you didn’t bring up in polite company. The surprise was that the Royals had even as many fans as they did. I can’t tell you how many times during the really lean years, when the Royals lost 100 games four times in five years, when they lost 19 games in a row in 2005, I became angry with myself for caring so much about this godforsaken team. I began to question whether being a Royals fan was really a test of my loyalty and character or simply a sign of mental illness, perhaps listed under the “Masochism” heading in the DSM-IV. Why would I willingly subject myself to this torture? Why would anyone?

[ChiefsCountry]

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/th...n-kansas-city/

The Value of the Struggle in Kansas City

The first paragraph of the first article I ever wrote for Grantland went like this:

There aren’t a lot of benefits to being a Royals fan, but this is unquestionably one of them: No one will ever question your sincerity. If ever there was such a thing as a “bandwagon Royals fan,” a quarter-century of escalating irrelevance hounded it into extinction.

That was written in July 2011, but if I had written it in July 2014, I wouldn’t have had to change a word. Not when the Royals lost their first four games after the All-Star break to fall to 48-50, putting them eight games out of first in the AL Central and sixth in the wild-card race. Not with a fan base that responded exactly as expected to what looked like a 29th straight year without sniffing the playoffs: After drawing a sellout crowd of 40,103 on Opening Day, the Royals had drawn one more crowd of even 36,000 all season.

For an entire Lost Generation who had lived (and mostly died) with the Royals, the surprise wasn’t that the Royals would average barely 11,000 fans a night in a series against Toronto in April, or that their TV ratings were the sort of number you didn’t bring up in polite company. The surprise was that the Royals had even as many fans as they did. I can’t tell you how many times during the really lean years, when the Royals lost 100 games four times in five years, when they lost 19 games in a row in 2005, I became angry with myself for caring so much about this godforsaken team. I began to question whether being a Royals fan was really a test of my loyalty and character or simply a sign of mental illness, perhaps listed under the “Masochism” heading in the DSM-IV. Why would I willingly subject myself to this torture? Why would anyone?

And then Twitter arrived, and I found that I wasn’t alone. There were lots of people out there who suffered from the same affliction that I did, who cared about the Royals seemingly more than the Royals cared about themselves. Some of them even had season tickets, but most of them — check the attendance figures — watched from afar, just waiting for the Royals to give them a reason to lavish even more attention on the team.

Twitter may be the greatest community-building invention ever, and certainly fans of all sports teams use it to congregate online. But even early on it seemed like Royals Twitter was special. Maybe it’s because so many Royals fans, like me, were just so damn surprised to find out that they weren’t alone — but what was once a source of mild embarrassment now became a badge of honor. Logging in to Royals Twitter was like Norm walking into Cheers — everyone knew your name, no one judged you, no one cared what you did when you weren’t there, and while you were there you were treated like family. That didn’t make the team any better, and it didn’t make us bitch about the team any less — quite the opposite, actually — but it made the losing more tolerable. Misery loves company because every experience is better when shared with others.

And in the Cheers bar that was Royals Twitter, SungWoo Lee was Vera: a near-mythical figure whom everyone knew existed, but was rarely heard from and never seen. A Royals fan who’s lived in South Korea his entire life? And he’s as die-hard as the rest of us? Almost all of us root for this team for reasons of either genetics or geography; we were either born or indoctrinated into the Royal Blue. It felt like SungWoo was the only person since 1985 to choose to be a Royals fan out of his own free will.

That’s why, last June, before the Royals started winning, before they started attracting attention, before architectural plans for the bandwagon had even been drawn up, so many of us were excited by the news that SungWoo was finally coming to America, to Kansas City, and to Kauffman Stadium to see the Royals play. No one in the history of sports had ever been less of a bandwagon fan than him. After two decades of being a Royals fan, the team had yet to reciprocate his kindness; the least we could do is show him a good time and let him know that we appreciated that he was one of us.

And then … well, it turns out that in addition to being a really useful tool to build online communities, Twitter is also really good at making things go viral. Around the time that SungWoo’s plane departed South Korea, #SungWooToKC started trending. By the time he landed at the airport on August 5, it seemed like half the city had come out to greet him. Within 72 hours he was a national sports story. And the Royals started winning. And winning. And winning.

The Royals would eventually win one of the most important games in their franchise’s history, and then sweep their way to the World Series, and then Royals Twitter united again to #BringBackSungWoo, and he returned to watch as the Royals came one swing away from the perfect Cinderella season. And then the Royals returned this year to prove that last year wasn’t a fluke, that it was just something to build on, winning the AL Central practically wire-to-wire and finishing with the best record in the American League for the first time since 1977. Being a Royals fan right now is just about the coolest thing in the world for anyone within 300 miles of Kansas City. They set an all-time attendance record this year. Local TV ratings of 12.3 — up 84 percent over last year, more than tripling their 3.8 rating in 2012 — were the highest any team had recorded in 13 years. Chart-topping rappers want to hang with them. Jimmy Kimmel is bringing on Royals players to serenade their famous fans.

It would be tempting for the diehards who suffered for so long to be a little miffed that their favorite little indie band is now more overplayed than U2 — 70 percent of the people watching a Royals game this year weren’t watching them three years ago. But after waiting 29 years to make the playoffs, how do you complain when your team follows a World Series Game 7 by having the best record in the league? Complaining about the bandwagon that follows a winning team is like complaining about the water bill on your dream home.

But it’s more than that. What I’ve learned from the past 15 months of being a Royals fan is that being a die-hard supporter is its own reward. The secret worry that every true-blue fan has is that bandwagon fans actually do it right — that it’s better to root for your team just when it’s good and ignore the team when it’s not than it is to suffer through the lean years. What I’ve learned from this experience is that I shouldn’t have worried about that at all. God bless bandwagon fans, and God bless an entire new generation of fans, like my 12-year-old daughter, whom the Royals have gotten their hooks into now and may never let go. But for those of us who watched the Royals when they were terrible, the events of the past 15 months take on a meaning and a depth that can’t be replicated without the experience of the years, if not decades, of futility that preceded them.

Royals Twitter rooted for the Royals before they were cool. Royals Twitter also knew SungWoo before he was famous. That is its own reward. That is enough.

[KChiefs1]

Found this & it's very appropriate.

[58kcfan89]

Originally Posted by KChiefs1

Found this & it's very appropriate.

She was in KC on September 22 when we lost 11-2 to Seattle (don't ask me how I know that). Makes sense.

[Prison Bitch]

Originally Posted by CoMoChief

Such a lucky hit.

I'll take it though.

It was but so was Springers bloop that scored 2 in the 2nd.

[okcchief]

Originally Posted by KChiefs1

Keuchel at Minute Maid:

18 starts, 15-0, 1.46 ERA, 0.89 WHIP.

Opposing batters have a .186/.232/.242 slash line against Keuchel at Minute Maid Park.
He struck out 139 and allowed only four HR's in 129 1/3 innings at home.

He's tough in Houston.

I realize that. That's what's called a bold prrdiction. **** that bearded douche!

[KChiefs1]

http://kckingdom.com/2015/10/08/kc-r...-world-series/

5. September Flu Bug

This might not count for much, but the Royals enter the postseason winners of its last five games and 6-2 in its last eight.

After a dismal month of September when the Royals posted an 11-17 record, Kansas City is yet to lose in October. It was a long month of September for everyone involved, but it was great timing in the grand scheme.

Manager Ned Yost kept referring to his team’s struggles as similar to the flu, according to The Kansas City Star‘s Andy McCullough, and it now seems to have run its course.


4. Healthy Is Happy

You’re always battling some nagging injury and the aches of playing 162 games of physically demanding ball, but the Royals enter the postseason both well-rested and healthy. Relative to other teams, the Royals are at full strength, and that’s as important as any reason on this list.

THEY’VE PLAYED TOGETHER, THEY’VE WON TOGETHER AND EVERY PLAYER KNOWS HIS ROLE.
The Royals lineup tonight will be a mirror image of the Opening Day lineup. Other than swapping second baseman Ben Zobrist for Omar Infante, it’s the same nine guys. Pitcher Yordano Ventura started Opening Day. He’ll start Game 1 tonight.

Kansas City has had good luck this season staving off the injury bug. And for a team fresh off a World Series run the season prior, that’s a dangerous thing. They’ve played together, they’ve won together and every player knows his role. There’s as much accountability up and down the Royals roster as there is on any Major League team this season.

They’ll be without starting pitcher Jason Vargas and relievers Greg Holland and Tim Collins, of course, but other than that they enter the postseason in good shape. That’s all you can ask for from your club.


3. Kauffman Stadium

The Royals will have home field advantage the entire way to the World Series, and the world has found out over the last 13 months that Kauffman Stadium is a pretty tough place to win.

We don’t play downtown. There’s no skyline in sight. We’re not playing on the river or anywhere near the financial district. We’re taking you eight miles down I-70, to the middle of nowhere, and we’re going to find out if you can play. There’s no bars, no restaurants, no city lights. It’s going to be loud so you better able to block it out, and the yard is big so you better be able to cover it.

A LOT OF THOSE HARD-HIT FLY BALLS THAT BECOME HOME RUNS AT OTHER STADIUMS, THEY TURN INTO DOUBLES AT KAUFFMAN.
It’s a unique home field, and one that suits the Royals strategy. Kauffman Stadium was the 25th toughest stadium to hit home runs in this season, according to ESPN‘s Park Factors. On the other hand, it was the fourth friendliest stadium to hit doubles in. A lot of those hard-hit fly balls that become home runs at other stadiums, they turn into doubles at Kauffman.

It affects the Royals the same, but they’re not a team that hits many homers. They hit 139 this season, good for 24th in the MLB.

The crowd is the cherry on top. They won’t make any outs, but there’s always something about 35,000 crazed fans screaming, especially while an opposing team is scrambling to stop a rally.


2. Better Offense

The Kansas City Royals offense hasn’t changed much since the 2014 season, and that’s a good thing. The 2015 offense is a more mature, refined version of last season’s. They’ve seen an uptick in almost every statistical category:

2014: .263/.314/.376; 95 home runs, 380 walks, 286 doubles, .690 OPS

2015: .269/.322/.412; 139 home runs, 383 walks, 300 doubles, .734 OPS

THE ROYALS OFFENSE WAS SOLID LAST SEASON, AND THIS YEAR IT’S A MORE DYNAMIC FORM OF THAT SAME OFFENSE.
That’s partly due to add Zobrist, designated hitter Kendrys Morales and right fielder Alex Rios. But it’s also due to the young guns – Hosmer, Perez, Moustakas, Cain – becoming better hitters.

Moustakas broke out last postseason, and he carried it over. He hit for a .212 average last season and had just 97 hits in 140 games. This season: a .284 average and 156 hits in 147 games. It goes on from there with the emergence of outfielder Lorenzo Cain and the continued progress of Eric Hosmer.

The Royals offense was solid last season, and this year it’s a more dynamic form of that same offense. They can score in more ways and there’re fewer outs for opposing pitchers to find.



1. Revenge

This is personal, don’t think for a second that it isn’t.

The 2014 World Series ate away at this team all offseason. All Spring Training and most of the regular season. This is about revenge, a grudge, a nagging and sickening feeling that 2014 and the San Francisco Giants stole something from them. Something they felt they did everything to rightfully earn.

THEY’RE THE PISSED OFF GUY WITH A BIG CHIP STACK, A ONE-TRACK MIND AND A RED DOT ON ANYTHING IN HIS WAY.
You made the playoffs, you played fundamental baseball and you got hot, you played out-for-out against the National League Champions, and you came up a base hit shy. The number one reason the Royals return to the World Series is that they expect to.

They’re not the Wild Card, the dead-man-walking guy playing with house money and seeing how long the ride lasts. They’re the pissed off guy with a big chip stack, a one-track mind and a red dot on anything in his way.

It’s a whole different approach this season, but it should serve the Royals well. They’re the only A.L. team to make the playoffs in both 2014 and 2015, and it’s going to take a heck of a team to knock them off before the final series.

[Prison Bitch]

Originally Posted by Prison Bitch

I don't have much faith our LH bats Gordon, Moose or Hoz will do anything this series.

Totally dominated. They can't hit quality LH. Good news is our next 2 (if necessary) will be bs RH. This lineup is so short on RH bats and Rios has been a gigantic POS who didn't help at all.


We got Johnny Gomes precisely for games against Keuchel & Kazmir. Why the hell isn't he on the roster and getting some AB?

[okcchief]

Originally Posted by Prison Bitch

Totally dominated. They can't hit quality LH. Good news is our next 2 (if necessary) will be bs RH. This lineup is so short on RH bats and Rios has been a gigantic POS who didn't help at all.


We got Johnny Gomes precisely for games against Keuchel & Kazmir. Why the hell isn't he on the roster and getting some AB?

That's a great question. Especially since there are pitchers on the roster we don't need at all.

[alnorth]

I plan to start the game thread, and take the afternoon off work. I assume that if we force a game 5, then the powers that be will grant us the prime time slot on Wednesday.

edit: oh, this has already been decided. MLB has already scheduled us for 7pm Wednesday if we win tomorrow, regardless of what happens with the other series.

[Al Bundy]

We are winning tomorrow.

[TLO]

Originally Posted by Al Bundy

We are winning tomorrow.

YOU'RE GOD DAMNED RIGHT WE ARE

[SPchief]

Ace tomorrow, 6IP, 9 K's 1ER

[baitism]

I hope Houston enjoyed the last win of their season.