What better? Chan Ho Park or Boston bull-pen? :D

Also, must be "Send Your Minor League Team to the Ballpark" day in New York.

Serious non-Met's hater question: Is Jerry Manuel going to get replaced soon? I can't see him sticking around much longer at this current pace (not that the string of injuries is his or Minaya's fault).

Probably just realized that Corey Patterson isn't on the team anymore.

Love the inside the park home run.

Nah, I don't think so. I thought he took a great approach to spring training, really focusing on defense, fundamentals (every hitter took something like 50 curveballs a day and had to take them to the opposite field), etc and it just didn't carry over. I've been pretty happy with how he's handled the pen although his early benching of Church when he was smoking hot bothered me. Even if the injuries force a collapse, he'll get the season.

That being said, I think Minaya is gone if they fail to make the playoffs, injuries or not. And a new GM would probably want to bring in his own guy. Problem is, much like Glen Sather of the NY Rangers, Minaya seems to be way too loved by ownership and isn't held accountable.

Not stress. Dizziniess related to an ear infection.

Well, if you believe the DL reports?

Yea, I don't see Manuel going anywhere. He can't do anything about the injuries. For the most part, I've been rather pleased with how well they have handled all of this, as they are still very much in contention, if they don't make a couple foolish mistakes they can very well be in 1st. Minaya, on the other hand, who I was once very pleased with should get the boot if they fail to reach the playoffs, again. As I said, with the Mets still in contention, this trade deadline can make or break Minaya I think. If he can pull off some magical moves to overcome these injuries, maybe he'll stick around. The Mets remind me of a team I build in FOF or OOTP, they seem to have a world of potential and you just keep them around bc you are waiting for that yr for it all come together, but it just doesn't happen.

I can't blame anything this year on Omar. He wanted Manny and the Wilpon's would give him the money. He wanted Abreu and they wouldn't give him the money to match the 1 year deal for $5 mil that the Angels gave him. He wanted Lowe but couldn't match Atlanta's offer and had to settle for Oliver Perez. His hands were tied this offseason because the Wilpon's lost money in the Madoff scam.

Thank God for the San Diego Padres.

It's really sad how bad they have become.

Scotty Pods is having a solid year after we brought him back from the dead. Hitting .311 , /.359 obp 8 steals and 18 runs in 39 games so far. I'll take it.

White Sox trying to get the band back together lol.

Contreras looking good lately, we signed Freddy Garcia to a minor league deal, Pods back in the leadoff spot. Unfortunately we are still 4 games under .500 lol

actually the boston bull-pen has been the best pen in MLB this year, so whatever. win some and lose some.

He is, he just changed his name to Willy Taveraz.

You realize the Yanks were a horrible error away from losing 2/3 and got dominated in that joke of a ballpark yesterday by a career triple AAA pitcher, but you stay classy!

Weren't the Reds supposed to be a good team? They came into KC and got swept despite not having to face Meche or Greinke. Got a good chance at a 5 game winning streak thanks to Meche and Greinke pitching the next two days. Amazing that the Royals are only 5 1/2 back of first place despite a 8 game losing streak in recent days.

I'm fairly certain its stress - they said Votto has asked them not to disclose the specific cause which suggests a personal issue. Either way, I hope he's okay - a great hitter, and Reds fans deserve a break or two (they are already stuck with Dusty).

This is what it’s like for the Royals to play themselves. There’s some talent there, you can see it. But it’s inconsistent and prone to ineptness. How they’re above .500 is beyond me. Then again, Royals fans think that with some luck, Kansas City could be a .500 ball club, too.

There were a lot of comments at RR about it being an NL vs AL thing. It's not- Kansas City caught a team at a really slumping time and was either starting to heat up (maybe) or at least get out of a funk. If you have two inconsistent clubs and one is down and one is up, it can make things look a lot more lopsided than they are.

SI

Absolutely beautiful outing from Cliff Lee tonight. He took a no-hitter into the 8th inning and outpitched Chris Carpenter for the win. Tomorrow is a big day for the Indians because the team is sending Grady Sizemore back to have a second MRI on his elbow. A clean bill of health means things are looking up but anything else probably puts the Indians into sell mode.

Lee is the only guy out there I wouldn't mind seeing the Phils sell the farm for.

The Reds pitching was slightly worse than usual, and the hitting is going through another prolonged slump. Put those together, and you get swept.

Frankly, both of these teams are setting up for a year or two from now, it is clear that neither is close to ready to contend at this time. The Reds are playing without 2 of their 3 best power threats right now, though. Encarnacion and Votto. And it shows.

It doesn't help when your lead off hitter is on a streak of thirty-four plate appearances without reaching base. But as Dusty says, he's the lead off hitter, so I guess he just has to get four or five ABs a night.

Then they've changed the reason since he went on the DL. The ear infection stuff is what ESPN was saying when I had to put him on the bench in a fantasy league I'm in.

Tonight the Giants play The The Angels Angels of Anaheim (stolen from McCovey Chronicles). Memories of 2002 are stirred up, of course.

What is amazing to me is that the Giants are leading the wild card. Of course, I'll look back on this post mid-august when the giants are playing the Bryce Harper sweepstakes and laugh.

pfft.. The Giants have no shot.

Giants need to trade some pitching for an impact bat.

Yeah, but who and what? Trust me, we've had this discussion a few million times.

Jeff Francouer is probably (hopefully) available.

I'm not sure that's really the sort of impact you're looking for though.

Yeah. He needed to clarify that the Giants needed positive impact.

Hmm...

Holliday? Hawpe is in division, so not likely. Problem is not many are out of it yet - the picture will clear in the next month.

You guys have plenty of young pitching to deal.

I think it's about time to let Nick Johnson go before he gets injured. And by let go, I mean trade him for pitching.

For those that don't know, Yorbit Torrealba had family taken hostage in Venezuela, who were all recently released.

What the hell is going on here? I bother to show up in this thread to bash the Royals and their recent play. Evidently I lit a fire under their ass. Meche threw a 4 hit CG shutout and Greinke pitches tonight to try to make it 5 in a row. Add in a Detroit swoon and the Royals are only 4 1/2 games out of first place.

Attendance continues to be great over this homestand. 25K on a Tuesday night after drawing nearly 90K over the three weekend games. Two years ago, the Royals would be lucky to have drawn 10K PAID attendance on a night like that. With the ace going tonight, it'll be another good crowd.

I fully expect this post to jinx them back into a losing streak.

w00t 25k coming out to watch a crappy team. The Royals are sure turning it around now!

Who knew the Royals players read FOFC?

:D

Dear Dusty,

Putting hitters with an OBP under .300 in the #1 and #2 spots is not a good idea. Reaching base twice in ten plate appearances is not good. Please correct this. Thanks.

Teams like the Yankees and Red Sox will love to see these numbers. The extra 10K in attendance that the Royals are pulling during the weekday dates this year are a good deal for the big market teams. Given the Royals average ticket price, that's an extra $200,000 per weekday home date in revenue in ticket sales alone. Concessions and other purchases likely double that number in revenue for the evening. Over the course of a season, that's several million dollars in additional revenue. For the big market teams, that means the Royals are increasing revenue and reducing their need for things like revenue sharing.

Think of how much money would be saved by simply contracting the team? I'm not even talking about other team owners, but simply the fine consumers of Kansas City who spend hard earned dollars to watch a shitake team.

Sorry. I mistakenly thought you were looking for an honest discussion.

The Royals fans would just move over to watch the NHL Penguins play across town then.

I got a chuckle at the look of disgust on the first base coach after that GDP with the bases loaded last night. At some point the team has to move on, he's doing even worse than last season.

34 home dates so far in 2009, 19 weekday & 15 weekend
351,814 for the weekday games, avg 18,517

Through the first 19 weekday games last year the Royals drew
313,618 for the weekday games, avg 16,506

Difference = 2,009 fans per weekday game

Inescapable conclusion? That this phrase

does not mean what you think it means.

edit to add: Incidentally, road attendance for the Royals YTD versus last season is down by 5,200 per game so I doubt any other teams are celebrating over an uptick that's actually being offset by lower attendance in their own ballparks.

Cost of living adjustment?

New math maybe.

I think the worst part is his attitude. He copped it last season when they demoted him, he's had one so far this season, especially when Schaeffer was sent down, so there's really nothing that can be done. At some point, the 11 year old girls will stop buying t-shirts.

I didn't say on average. I was referring to that specific game. With that said, I did extrapolate that over the course of a season, which technically isn't correct as you note.

Even with the numbers you cited, an increase of 40K fans over those dates adds an extra $800K to the coffers. You can probably double that when you add $9 parking, $7.50 beers, etc. It definitely adds up.

As of the fourth inning tonight Tavarez was on an 8 for 86 streak with an OBP of .281 and a SLG of .286. It's a wonder the Reds have won any games this month.

Wow. The Nationals pull of a win against the Yankees. And the starter (Lannan) made it into the ninth inning.

And man are those fences short.

In the second least surprising baseball story of the week

The Houston Astros placed former Braves left-hander Mike Hampton on the 15-day disabled list on Wednesday with a left groin strain..

Bloop singles in KC again?

He's already the best pitcher ever, but if he had any luck at all....

Might have been one of those proof of mortality things. Pitching jesus can't always be fully man and fully god at the same time.

Aw, you guys are so fun. Greinke gave up 6 runs in 6.2 IP. Two of those were unearned and if Mitch Maier hadn't given up on a fly ball in the 7th resulting in a "double", Greinke wouldn't have had his 115th pitch end up somewhere near the moon because he wouldn't have had to throw it. And, yeah, he didn't have great stuff again tonight so he only struck out 9 and uncharacteristically walked 2. But, yeah, 4ER in 6.2- that raises his season ERA all the way to... 1.96.

Really, you should check out our defense sometime. It's craptacular- 3 more errors on the night. Oh, and finding stuff to hammer away at on a 29-35 baseball team must be a full time job considering the amount of energy devoted to it in this thread. I wish we could get this kind of national coverage anywhere else.

SI

Consider it the curse of MBBF. He has a way of rallying every person in a thread to the opposite side of whatever he's for and considering the Royals dominated several pages of this thread its no surprise it happened here.

I said earlier in this thread that Greinke deserves every bit of good fortune that shines his way. He's had it rough and its good to see him playing well, but you'd better believe I'm going to have fun with the fact that the guy just couldn't seem to catch a break at one point despite a sub 1 ERA, .270 BABIP, and zero homers allowed.

I know and I suppose I should realize that. Still, for us, we don't get much good news so we have to get excited when it happens :)

SI

yep.

Greinke could cure cancer and still get killed in this thread

Nothing you have ever posd as ever led to an honest discussion. Sorry if I crapped all over your Royal's jizzfest, but I'll probably keep slamming the Royals just because no one gives a god damn shit about the Royals.

I didn't post in this thread for two weeks or so because the Royals were playing so poorly and no one wants to talk about it. I finally came on and posted BASHING the Royals for their poor play and it's suddenly a 'jizzfest'? I'll apologize for fairly assessing my team's play. You only complain about the positive comments. An honest conversation usually contains both negative and positive assessments. It's fine if you'd like to bash them, but once again, at least be honest in your discussion.

And as sterlingice noted, for a team that no one cares about, there sure is a lot of discussion here. Post like yours only increase the conversations on it. If you don't like it, stop flaming.

We do.........on MLB Network.

Those were the days. I miss the past.


Well, it's not as much a discussion about the Royals as much as it is a conversation about your posting habits. Notice how not everyone dumps on SI for posting similar comments.

Finally, I'll stop flaming when you stop being a tool (good luck with that).

You stay classy.

While 47 errors on the season is abysmal, I would take that any day. :)

There are also the MANY plays that could be easily scored an error for the Nationals that aren't -- but I'm assuming the Royals have those as well.

The most heartbreaking is that Ryan Zimmerman has 8 of the total 61 errors. IT doesn't tell me on baseball reference, but I assume the majority of those are overthrows to 1B.

And, BTW. As much as I have disagreements with MBBF, the RKG stuff is way out of left field.

Based on FOFC coverage, people care about: BOS, NYY, NYM, KCR, WAS, LAA, PHI

Any other MLB teams are RARELY discussed in this thread. And NYY + BOS are 50/50 people that love them or hate them.

I'd disagree. SFG, DET, CHC, ATL all get a good amount of play here (just off the top of my head).

There's at least a couple of Dodger fans here too but we don't talk about them much, afraid to jinx anything I think ;)

I would talk more about the Braves, but likely anyone else who is likely to care is already heavily drinking.

Raul to the DL. (whimper)

Piss

:(

Reparations for trolling on MBBF, methinks.

Time to nut up, Phils!

Lemme guess, patellar tendonitis or an oblique strain?

;)

:(

Random Jays update.

Their IR rotation: Halladay, Marcum, McGowan, Litsch, Janssen (only Halladay and Janssen project to return at all this season).

Their current MLB rotation: Tallet, Richmond, Romero, Cecil, Mills

So yeah, here's hoping Wells follows Rios lead of remembering how to hit because they're going to need some serious run support to stay close to the race. Assuming Halladay misses the minimum amount of time I'm still hoping the brass will bring in an arm to add to the rotation down the stretch (preferably a #2, at worst a #3) to see what sort of run they could make this season, but if he misses an extended period of time, well, damn.

It's not out of left field at all, read the Mets thread, he's a sad, wanna be troll.

Hm, I definitely missed ATL, but I don't see a lot of the others? Maybe I don't pay close enough attention. I mean, they aren't on the east coast, sooo..... ;)


Sorry, if you block out "RKG" and just see it as a typical poster... even if you know they're talking to MBBF.

Anyway.. let people bitch about or brag about their team, regardless of how supported they are nationally or by the media. I would imagine "my" team has one of the smallest fan bases in the nation and people just pat me on the back if I complain in this thread. :)

Wow, and I was leaving you alone. Hell, I even held up my end of the bargain in the Mets thread.

Time to go back in there and libel all over the place again, I guess.

Nats suck.

:p

You weren't kidding. Is Taveras the one dating Dusty's daughter this year?

It's true. :)

The Nationals are 10(+?) games out of 29th place in the majors.

Yup. I like the Royals, but if MBBF came out against Al-Queda, I'd ask for a membership brochure. :D

Braves actually manage to win one game against the Reds powerhouse lineup.

Reds hero Willy Taveras was lumped in with the pitcher by Dusty Baker in the post game interview, it made me laugh considering how the Reds fans here love those two guys.

"We had the bases loaded against him, but we didn't have the right people up -- Maloney and Willy, who's not swinging the bat well."

Keep him at the top of the order Dusty, he'll come around. Don't listen to these egghead wannabe baseball men.

Hanson threw six shutout innings and got an RBI to boot. Hopefully McLouth's homer shows management the benefit of having legitimate major league outfielders on the club. Maybe we'll get two more of them next season.

After following him for the last few days, that Mauer guy is pretty good.

It is gonna be hard for him to hit .400 but something like .370 is likely. He will have enough at bats in about 2 weeks to qualify.

But you guys still swept my (happless?) Phils. Actually, Happ pitched, so I guess I shouldn't say happless. HA HA HA! :banghead:

I appreciated the joke at least :D

SI

See, I was right. I knew I could jinx the Royals back into a losing streak!

Cards coming into town this weekend. Should be big crowds and a lot of fun.

Good luck.

Run differential by division.

ALE: +158
ALC: -34
ALW: -27
NLE: -108
NLC: +17
NLW: -6

BP Adjusted standings (adjusted Equivalent runs and runs allowed used for pythag), the top 5 teams in baseball in terms of wins:

1. Rays 41.6
2. Red Sox 39.1
3. Dodgers 39.0
4. Yankees 36.9
5. Blue Jays 36.8

see - i see that and it makes me feel like they should get rid of the whole "division winners" thing and just move to a straight "the teams with the X number of best records make the postseason" thing. everytime. without fail.

I mean why should a team like the Jays, who as Bishop posted are the 5th best in baseball in Adjusted standings, be shut out of the playoffs again and again simply because they play in a division with two powerhouses. It's shitty for their fanbase, and their revenue stream.

First shutout in New Yankee Stadium
First game with no home runs in New Yankee Stadium
First MLB win for Stammen

Nationals win the series! GO NATS!

Yeah I agree. It's pretty depressing. Red Sox and Yankees will always be competitive, and now the Rays are someone... damn division.

Is it surprising that the best players are heading where the money is? While not having a quick way to pull up the numbers, I would guess that the revenue stream in the AL East is higher than any other division. Unless a cap is instituted, it will continue to go this way.

I would think a salary floor is needed as well. Teams like KC, MIN, and FLA have been pretty good at putting revenue sharing in their pockets while taxpayers foot the bill for stadium improvements (or new stadiums). KC is certainly not the biggest offender, but I think I was reading a stat that since 2002 their revenue sharing has doubled to almost 40M a season, yet their payroll has increased 6%. And they got a tax hike to raise 250M to improve the stadium.

Clearly the Royals as of late are dedicating more resources to trying to win, but there are some teams that have clearly found that putting whatever product on the field you can for 70M and pocketing revenue sharing is an easy business bet, especially when the taxpayers are helping increase the value of the franchise.

I don't think FLA is ever a good example here. They have 2 WS titles since 1997 with those low payrolls. The gigantic payrolls of the Red Sox and Yankees have 2 and 3 WS titles respectively. I don't think you can argue that FLA ownership is not putting a good product on the field.

The first Florida title came with a huge pricetag.

The sad part is that they're 5th in those rankings with such a cobbled together pitching staff (as the injuries turn around and affect who is in the pen as well as usage). Don't get me wrong, some guys have really surprised so far (Tallet, Richmond and Romero for the most part), but what does Cito have to do to get some legit arms behind Halladay, even if they're only rentals?

This whole, "use this season as a building block" towards next season is crap. It's not like Marcum and McGowan are overly proven/polished pitchers and both are going to be coming off of serious surgery (add Litsch to that list now). If the plan is to immediately insert those guys as the 2/3 next year (hopefully Romero can force his way into the top 3, but again, he's a young and unproven arm) and either one isn't immediately back to their form of a year ago, it'll be the same mess all over again.

Riccardi, I know you're a dillhole, but please, pretty freaking please, go and get a #2 arm for this rotation. You refuse to get a power bat to hit in the middle of the order but they can compensate for that by having a pretty solid lineup 1 thru 9, so get them the arm they need.

And hell, maybe that'll even encourage Halladay to stay around and sign an extension, now novel would that be.

Let's at least provide accurate information on the situation if you're going to formulate an opinion on it.

Cot's Baseball Contracts: Kansas City Royals

Royals 2002 salary: $47,257,000

Royals 2009 salary: $70,519,333

Increase in salary over last 7 years: $23,262,333 (48% increase in total salary)

Increase in revenue sharing over last 7 years: roughly $20,000,000

I have no idea where you're getting your figures, but it appears that the Royals are spending every dime of that revenue sharing money and then some. In addition, the Royals are expected to spend quite a bit more in the upcoming off-season due to a further increase in revenue thanks to the stadium renovation.

The Royals are one of the last teams to complain about in regard to small markets. They're doing everything the big market owners want them to do: increase revenue and spend all revenue sharing dollars on salary. David Glass is one of the more respected and powerful owners in the MLB meetings. They respect him for a reason and it's not because he's robbing the big markets blind as you imply.

I looked back on the article and it was outdated. But this is not some pattern. The Royals increased their payroll from last season by 25%, and in 2006 was 46M. At the time of that article, they were making about 25M in revenue sharing and spending 45M on player contracts. Meanwhile, the taxpayers were committing 250M to stadium improvements.

Now I'll agree they have loosened the purse-strings a little, but part of the reason baseball is having competitive issues between have and have-nots is only partly solved by a cap. In fact, from 1998-2008 they were in the bottom 5 in the league for payroll, but their franchise value has grown quite well. The incentive is not in winning and paying people.

I do like though, how you did your usual cherry-picking of data to show that they've increased payroll by 50% since 2002, when in fact, it was flat from 2002-2006, and jumped the last 2 years. Interestingly, from 1989-1994, they were in the top 10 for payrolls every season. When did Glass take over?

They are still constantly used as an example, though. If you can win a championship as often as BOS (and almost as often as NYY) for a much lower price tag over the course of 10 years, how can you blame them?

As a Red Sox fan but also a fan of the game, I am in favor of both a hard cap and a hard floor.

As was said, the first title came at a big expense. The second title was quite good, maybe they aren't necessarily the model for competitiveness I was looking for (same goes for MIN). Just two examples of teams that try to spend as little as humanly possible while pocketing revenue sharing money...all while trying to stick taxpayers with improving their franchise value.

C'mon, this is ridiculous. Glass had been steadfast that he refused to increase salary until a plan was put into place that better addressed the needs of the smaller markets. The last CBA expiration was in 2006. (http://mikepaward.com/articles/MLBCBA.pdf) Many of the small market requests were granted in the agreement reached before that one expired. The Royals starting spending money in ......... 2006. Glass was a man of his word and his stance ushered in much of the revenue grants to the smaller markets.

Your point concerning the early 90s and the Royals payroll being high is totally ignoring the situation. We had an owner who knew he was dying. He tried to buy a winner before he died and the salary spiked accordingly. Much of those large salaries were funded out of Mr. Kauffman's pocket, not the team. After what he did to bring the team to KC, he earned he right to try to buy a winner IMO if he chose to do so. Mr. Glass had no choice but to cut salary. The salary level was unsubstainable and Mr. Kauffman even told his friend, Mr. Glass that before his death.

For the record, Glass is ultimately for a salary cap and salary floor. He wants exactly what you all are advocating.