Maybe the Royals hedged Dozier's salary by taking the season under in Vegas. Only theory that makes any damn sense. What the hell is JJ waiting for?
Ejecting him from the organization won't fix the offense by itself but it's impossible to make any other meaningful moves until he's an ex-Royal.
If JJ has any compassion for Dozier or us fans he would pack Hunter's locker up tonight and send him his things in the mail. Hunter can cry himself to sleep on his huge pile of cash that he in no way has earned.
Ugh I hate to be so mean towards someone. I blame them for that too.
Dozier's presence on the field is taking PA's away from Lopez and Duffy. Quatraro should know better. I suspect that JJ is hoping that Dozier can perform well enough to have at least some trade value, as Carlos Santana (sort of) did last year. If that was JJ's plan the phrase "grasping at straws" comes to mind.
I raised an eyebrow when they kept him and he made the team. Now I have zero faith left in JJ. He's an interim GM now as far as I'm concerned. He had the rest of the season to interview for his job.
John Sherman doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who would be impatient enough to fire JJ a few months from now. But so far there's certainly a case to be made for that!
I get the frustrations, but JJ isn't going anywhere. This year is kind of like hitting the reset button. And doing so reveals how the organization was just spending the last five-plus years doing absolutely nothing to get better. JJ (and Quatraro) will get time to dig out from this.
Don't think I've ever been more frustrated as a fan. It just sucks to be excited for baseball again and then not even have that last three weeks. I'm going to LA to watch the Royals v Angels (Ohtani pitching). Can't muster even a little excitement about it.
Sort of seems like JJ hasn't been doing anything to improve the team either. I know bringing in free agents isn't a good way to build an organization, I just don't see any roster decisions that indicate that much has changed in player evaluation.
I think they opened the season looking to get something (anything) from Dozier. The hope was he would start off decent enough where they could eat some of the contract and get a little value in return. At this point, that's not happening.
Yes the offense continues to stink but there's at least a little glimmer of good news. I'm just not sure if it's really important or not...
MJ's off-season work appears to have improved his OF play considerably. He certainly looks better than Reyes who struggled mightily with some windblown fly balls over the weekend. Watching Reyes stumble around gave me an oddly familiar feeling until I finally figured out what it was: it was like watching Mecole Hardman wandering the field in uncertainty while trying to catch a punt.
To Reyes' eternal credit he finally did find a way to catch those fly balls. But man, that was tough to watch! I'm glad that watching MJ doesn't give me that same feeling anymore!
MJ has developed into a decent enough outfielder. I could deal with more improvement going back on fly balls, but his lateral movement has improved and, as we saw tonight, he's decent on the shorter balls.
An outfield of Reyes and Olivares in the corners like was saw yesterday, was a bold decision.
Craig - do you have any sort of inside scoop on how Asa Lacy is doing this year? Or Ben Kudrna? Or any of the other minor league pitchers with high expectations?
Thanks for the info! It's about what I expected. The early returns are that the new pitching coaches aren't magical pitching wizards after all, even though most of the Royals starters have looked pretty good at times.
At what point does the conclusion have to be that Mike Tosar was the key to the 3 man hitting development group? The offensive ineptitude is so hard to watch.
I’m sure Tosar was massively important, but organizations with good processes will lose coaching talent. You would think that with the other two—one of those being Zumwalt who is the architect of the hitting program—still in KC, the drop wouldn’t be this bad. I remain skeptical of looking at hard hit rate and exit velocity and chalking the lack of results up to luck, but something has to give. There has to be some regression to the mean at some point. If the key guys all click at once, the offense would look incredibly different.
We dealt with Santana last year, playing him continually so we could at least get something back in return. That worked so well we got back a pitcher. But guess what, I don't even remember his name, or if we still have him. DFA and be done with it.
The Royals got 2 pitchers for Santana. One of whom they flipped already for…another pitcher. Org filler.
I get the sentiment. I do. They’re not moving on from him at this point. It won’t make anyone feel any better but the clock is ticking. It’s just ticking at a snail’s pace. Because of a contract awarded by the previous GM.
If would start hitting 300 for a month or two, with his history they are not going to get any one for him. Probably the only way you trade him is to eat most of his salary anyway. Sunk cost anyway. They want to spend 2 billion on a new stadium, but afraid to lose a few million. And I really liked Doz when he came up.
Maybe the Royals hedged Dozier's salary by taking the season under in Vegas. Only theory that makes any damn sense. What the hell is JJ waiting for?
Ejecting him from the organization won't fix the offense by itself but it's impossible to make any other meaningful moves until he's an ex-Royal.
If JJ has any compassion for Dozier or us fans he would pack Hunter's locker up tonight and send him his things in the mail. Hunter can cry himself to sleep on his huge pile of cash that he in no way has earned.
Ugh I hate to be so mean towards someone. I blame them for that too.
Dozier's presence on the field is taking PA's away from Lopez and Duffy. Quatraro should know better. I suspect that JJ is hoping that Dozier can perform well enough to have at least some trade value, as Carlos Santana (sort of) did last year. If that was JJ's plan the phrase "grasping at straws" comes to mind.
I raised an eyebrow when they kept him and he made the team. Now I have zero faith left in JJ. He's an interim GM now as far as I'm concerned. He had the rest of the season to interview for his job.
John Sherman doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who would be impatient enough to fire JJ a few months from now. But so far there's certainly a case to be made for that!
I get the frustrations, but JJ isn't going anywhere. This year is kind of like hitting the reset button. And doing so reveals how the organization was just spending the last five-plus years doing absolutely nothing to get better. JJ (and Quatraro) will get time to dig out from this.
Don't think I've ever been more frustrated as a fan. It just sucks to be excited for baseball again and then not even have that last three weeks. I'm going to LA to watch the Royals v Angels (Ohtani pitching). Can't muster even a little excitement about it.
Sort of seems like JJ hasn't been doing anything to improve the team either. I know bringing in free agents isn't a good way to build an organization, I just don't see any roster decisions that indicate that much has changed in player evaluation.
I think they opened the season looking to get something (anything) from Dozier. The hope was he would start off decent enough where they could eat some of the contract and get a little value in return. At this point, that's not happening.
Yes the offense continues to stink but there's at least a little glimmer of good news. I'm just not sure if it's really important or not...
MJ's off-season work appears to have improved his OF play considerably. He certainly looks better than Reyes who struggled mightily with some windblown fly balls over the weekend. Watching Reyes stumble around gave me an oddly familiar feeling until I finally figured out what it was: it was like watching Mecole Hardman wandering the field in uncertainty while trying to catch a punt.
To Reyes' eternal credit he finally did find a way to catch those fly balls. But man, that was tough to watch! I'm glad that watching MJ doesn't give me that same feeling anymore!
MJ has developed into a decent enough outfielder. I could deal with more improvement going back on fly balls, but his lateral movement has improved and, as we saw tonight, he's decent on the shorter balls.
An outfield of Reyes and Olivares in the corners like was saw yesterday, was a bold decision.
Craig - do you have any sort of inside scoop on how Asa Lacy is doing this year? Or Ben Kudrna? Or any of the other minor league pitchers with high expectations?
Lacy is in extended spring training, throwing side sessions. He's technically assigned to NW Arkansas, but is on their injured list.
Good news on Kudrna - he has struck out 8 batters in 7 innings.
Bad news on Kudrna - he has given up 11 hits and 9 runs.
Thanks for the info! It's about what I expected. The early returns are that the new pitching coaches aren't magical pitching wizards after all, even though most of the Royals starters have looked pretty good at times.
Samad Taylor is ready
Taylor, Loftin, Garcia, Fermin…Everyone is hitting in Omaha. Except for Pratto. :(
At what point does the conclusion have to be that Mike Tosar was the key to the 3 man hitting development group? The offensive ineptitude is so hard to watch.
I’m sure Tosar was massively important, but organizations with good processes will lose coaching talent. You would think that with the other two—one of those being Zumwalt who is the architect of the hitting program—still in KC, the drop wouldn’t be this bad. I remain skeptical of looking at hard hit rate and exit velocity and chalking the lack of results up to luck, but something has to give. There has to be some regression to the mean at some point. If the key guys all click at once, the offense would look incredibly different.
We dealt with Santana last year, playing him continually so we could at least get something back in return. That worked so well we got back a pitcher. But guess what, I don't even remember his name, or if we still have him. DFA and be done with it.
The Royals got 2 pitchers for Santana. One of whom they flipped already for…another pitcher. Org filler.
I get the sentiment. I do. They’re not moving on from him at this point. It won’t make anyone feel any better but the clock is ticking. It’s just ticking at a snail’s pace. Because of a contract awarded by the previous GM.
If would start hitting 300 for a month or two, with his history they are not going to get any one for him. Probably the only way you trade him is to eat most of his salary anyway. Sunk cost anyway. They want to spend 2 billion on a new stadium, but afraid to lose a few million. And I really liked Doz when he came up.