Friday musings on the Kansas City Royals

Jason Parks of Baseball Prospectus was once again checking up on some of the young Royals, and his latest scouting report of Bubba Starling is plain ugly. He doesn’t have a lot of good things to say about his swing in general other than he is capable of generating bat speed through strength alone. This is disheartening for Royals fans, as this would seem to be a make or break year for Bubba. He hasn’t flashed much to give Kansas City fans hope that this may be the turning point in his career.

I still feel Dayton had almost no choice in drafting Bubba in the first place, but it has become increasingly obvious that either it was a bad pick, or he is suffering from a lack of development. Both of which have been an Achilles heel for Dayton in the past.

On Wednesday night, Reds closer Aroldis Chapman was struck above the eye by a 100mph bullet off of the bat of Salvador Perez. Chapman received a plate above his eye in surgery on Thursday, and has a timetable to be able to return to throwing in as little as 10 days, with a return to action some time in 4-6 weeks. Considering the horrific nature of the injury, this is fantastic news, and a collective sigh of relief was let out on the news that no lasting damage seems to have been caused.

The game was called after the injury as players on both sides were understandably shaken, with Salvador Perez reportedly crying as he left the field. We hope Sal can recover from this, as I cannot imagine what has to go through a batter’s mind after causing that sort of injury. Everyone knows there was no malicious intent, but psychologically, I hope this is something Sal comes back from soon.

He does have Eric Hosmer in the clubhouse, which may help, since Hosmer went through a similar ordeal when he himself took down Alex Cobb last June. This is a problem that I am not sure has a good solution. The league has been looking into and testing headgear for pitchers for quite some time, with some being available on a voluntary basis during spring training, but it almost certainly would not have helped Chapman in this particular case.

Mike Moustakas played a little second base this week in Ned’s quest to come up with an alternative to keeping a backup middle infielder on the bench. At first, I thought this may be the best move for the Royals, and maybe the only real solution as he would most certainly have a better glove at second than Danny Valencia. But upon further reflection, I think it would be harmful to move multiple players out of their defensive positions. We would not only be weaker at second, but also third in that scenario, and for a team that prides itself on defence, the more holes you create the more it hurts this team.

The best case for Kansas City fans would be if Alcides Escobar and Omar Infante simply get all of the little nagging injuries out of the way and play most every day when the season begins. Forgive me if I do not have much confidence that this would be the case.

In the beginning, I thought the plan of carrying no backup middle infielder had a chance of being fortuitous for the Royals, but it is becoming increasingly clear that it is a path they do not need to travel down. The best case scenario in order to keep all of the bats Ned covets is to simply begin the year with an 11 man rotation, an option the Royals brass has seemed reluctant to accept.

The Royals have hinted that they may be more inclined to start Danny Duffy in the bullpen as opposed to sending him down to be in the starting rotation at AAA. While I don’t agree with this, the explanation has at least softened my stance. Ned has stated that Duffy will gain no learning experience from starting in AAA, and he feels it would be best suited for him to learn how to get big league hitters out while with the big league club. The problem with this is that it is a bit of a process for a bullpen guy to be stretched back out into being a starter. This would be a small problem however, and one they were able to navigate last season with Bruce Chen and Mendoza.

As far as the now goes, it would be the best for the Royals, as Duffy certainly has the ability to be effective out of the pen and with the loss of Hochevar could provide to be a valuable asset. The problem with that thinking is that Ned has stated he would be used primarily in low leverage situations, which would seem to counteract the value the Royals would get from having him there. In true Royals fashion, the management has once again been caught talking out of both sides of their mouth by stating, on one hand, that they are done developing players at the big league level, only to tell us they are going to develop players at the big league level.

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