Depressing Royals story of the day

[metsguy234]

http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2009...day/#more-2941

So — there were seven every day players in all of baseball last year with OPS+ of 80 or less. The Royals project to have FIVE IN THEIR OPENING DAY LINEUP. And that is assuming that Josh Fields, with his 68 OPS+ in 268 plate appearances last year, does not win a place in the lineup. And he could. The Royals like his bat.

[ragecage]

That is depressing, unlike Cal Ripken.

[free2131]

Uplifting Royals story of the day:

Fortunately, Ripken has indeed faced the Royals numerous times in his major league career, and said that the BBQ in Kansas City was, "Pretty Good."

[ragecage]

In. Stitches.

[free2131]

that is not the greatest player who ever lived, unlike cal ripken.

+2632

[Cal Ripken, Jr.]

Uplifting Royals story of the day:

Well, it was pretty good because I was the one eating it. When Bray-dog had some, it was merely adequate.

[TheNamelessPoet]

‘Most of these guys are past their prime….and the rest never had a prime.’

lol

[TheNamelessPoet]

Melky+Kawakami+Jordan Schafer*

for
Grenke
It's in the bag

He is dumb enough

[etothep]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...html?eref=sihp

Friday, the Royals announced that they signed outfielder Rick Ankiel to a $3.25 million deal. Several brilliant readers have asked me what I think about this ... and I have to admit complete bafflement on the subject. My brain is ringing static. It feels like someone asking me what is the square root of Cheyenne. It's like asking me what is more effective, Tom Hanks or brake pads. The question doesn't compute.

[actionjackson]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...html?eref=sihp

* It's amazing that decades and decades after Bill James broke down the arc of big league players careers that people still have this fundamental misunderstanding about how baseball players age. Back in 1988, when talking about what he had learned about baseball, he wrote "Ballplayers, as a group, reach their peak value much earlier and decline much more rapidly than people believe."

For a long time, the feeling was that players peaked from 28-32. Bill James said, no, it's much earlier than that. There have been many studies done since then, some of them quite fascinating. My takeaway is that MOST major league players, if they are good enough to become regulars, will peak at 26 or 27 and fall off pretty rapidly. The best players -- the kinds of players who will play in the big leagues for a long time -- may continue to get better at 28 and even 29 and can maintain that high level for a good while longer.

That, of course, makes it tricky to judge: How can you predict who will have long careers and who will not? How can you predict who will maintain their level into their 30s? You would hope that teams are spending hundreds of hours studying this very thing because a good sense of how players age can save a team hundreds of millions of dollars over the course a GMs career. The Royals this off-season have signed a 35/36-year-old catcher, a 34-year-old speed outfielder, a 30/31 centerfielder and this only a couple of years after giving $36 million to a 32-year-old outfielder. I suspect they're not investing enough study time in the aging process.

More Joe Po gold right there. Somewhere KowboyKoop is sacrificing crates of live chickens to mighty Jobu to bring about an end to the Dayton Moore era as quickly as possible. Hrrrm...makes me wonder. KK are you responsible for this? Because it could give you a nice head start with mighty Jobu and thus bring about the end of Dayton Moore in a hurry:

[filihok]

I don't get why people are hating on THIS signing so much.

Ankiel is a bounce back candidate and IF he's healthy he'll have some trade value at mid-season.

It's not like he's blocking the next Willie Mays from playing CF for the Royals

[KowboyKoop]

There are Royals fans who are predicting 88 wins this season.

God even the fanbase is stupid.

[metsguy234]

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big...urn=mlb,215539

[haveacigar]

I don't get why people are hating on THIS signing so much.

Ankiel is a bounce back candidate and IF he's healthy he'll have some trade value at mid-season.

It's not like he's blocking the next Willie Mays from playing CF for the Royals

They're hating on it because it doesn't appear to be part of any sort of plan or coherent roster management idea.

[200tang]

I wouldn't be knocking the Ankiel signing. It's the other signings that are bad. Ankiel is actually a good signing.