Archive for April 2011
I decided the Royals cards were getting a little stale and I need to force myself to vary brands and teams a little bit. So I decided to turn on baseball tonight and feature the player that was the star of the first highlight that I watched. It was Rays at the White Sox and Juan Pierre is up with the bases loaded. My first thought was; “Oh no.” Juan Pierre is one of my most hated players in the majors and I really didn’t want to feature him on a custom card on my site. Pierre hits a deep drive to right field and Sam Fuld makes a diving catch that is likely the best play I have seen so far this baseball season. His head-first dive to catch the ball was on a dead run and landed him on the warning track.
Who is Sam Fuld? He is a young player that has played parts of two season with the Chicago Cubs before joining the Rays this year. He has a whopping one long ball and five runs batted in in his major league career. I’m sure this catch was the highlight of his career so far. He will have the distinction now of being my first “Custom Card of the Day.”
I chose 1991 Fleer to feature because in some ways I think it is an awful card design, but that some how makes it kind of cool. The striking yellow makes the card stand out in any collection and the design is simple, really simple. I made Billy Butler as my first card of this set but as I mentioned I want to post some cards other than Royals.
I would like to do a “Custom Card of the Day” often from now on as I have a strong catalog of card designs re-created at this point. I will try to do odd players like Sam Fuld and less of players like Albert Pujols. I hate the Yankees so don’t expect to see many of them.
Jamie Romak can hit. He is a typical first baseman. He’s got pop and isn’t a great defender. I saw him take one out of the park in the futures game on April 2nd at Kauffman Stadium. Romak is in an unfortunate position however. He appears to have four high quality players/prospects ahead of him in the same organization.
The Royals have Billy Butler and Kila Ka’aihue and the Omaha Storm Chasers at AAA have Eric Hosmer and Clint Robinson who are both great hitting prospects. Romak is at AA Northwest Arkansas Naturals and looks to be fifth in line to play first base in the near future in Kansas City. Who knows what could happen, injuries, trades, players moving positions but there appears to be a ton of road blocks in front of Jamie Romak.
Derrick Robinson is fast. He is a speedy guy and from what I have seen, which isn’t very much, he seems to be similar to Jarrod Dyson. Dyson has been great so far for the Royals as a pinch runner. I really like having the speed element on a team. The only upside for Robinson over Dyson may be that he might be a better pure base stealer and hopefully develops into a better hitter than Dyson projects to be.
Jesse Chavez is a relief pitcher that is currently with the Omaha Storm Chasers. Chavez is young but is no longer a rookie. He had a good season for Pittsburgh a couple years ago in the majors but hasn’t been able to match his success with the Royals. Chavez is not a pitcher that I am excited to see come out of the bullpen for the Royals. I think there is a strong likelihood he will fill in and could even be the first call up for a short relief role but I would rather see Blake Wood or one of the rookies come up instead.
This Chavez card is a great picture. It is reminiscent of Greinke’s Sports Illustrated cover. The picture doesn’t really fit with my spring training set but the Chavez card is nice addition to the set in itself.
Centro-matic is a Texas band led by Will Johnson. Johnson is a folk hero of sorts. He is not like a Arlo Guthrie folk hero, he is more like a Paul Bunyan type folk hero. Centro-matic in many ways is the central ingredient in a small family of bands. Will Johnson has several projects going on simultaneously. Johnson is the lead singer and guitarist for Centro-matic, and the lead singer and guitarist for the more low-fi South San Gabriel. Johnson also tours solo and has released numerous records under his name alone. Johnson’s strangest role may be as drummer for Monsters of Folk. Monsters of Folk is a supergroup made up of Jim James(Yim Yames, My Morning Jacket) Conor Oberst(Desaparecidos, Bright Eyes, Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band) Mike Mogis(Bright Eyes) and M. Ward(M. Ward, She & Him) and of course Will Johnson(Will Johnson, Centro-matic, South San Gabriel)
Here is a great chance to expose yourself to the music of Centro-matic and South San Gabriel; They have generously posted a compilation on their website of 24 songs as a sampling for the bands. The download can be found at: https://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=batch_download&batch_id=UFhzT2pPZDVKV05jR0E9PQ
This is the cover art for the 24 song sampler provided on Centro-matic's website.
The band is really a unique talent. The core of the band is Will Johnson and drummer Matt Pence. Johnson is such a unique singer that no other band really sounds anything like them. I have never seen a singer in a band use his proximity to the mike as a weapon as Johnson does. Johnson is also bafflingly prolific. Centro-matic just announced the release of their 10th record, that doesn’t even count Johnson’s many other projects. Do yourself a favor and check out the sampler.
There you go, now LISTEN TO CENTRO-MATIC.
Manny Pina is a good defensive catcher and has a chance to spend some time in KC this year. He started the futures game for the Omaha Storm Chasers while his friend Salvador Perez started against him for the Northwest Arkansas Naturals. Pina figured to be the starter in Omaha this year but Lucas May was just retained by the Royals. I don’t know exactly how this happened but I’m glad it did. I thought that Lucas May would get claimed and his days as a Kansas City Royal were over.
May and Pina will apparently share duties in Omaha this year. They are oppisites in many ways. Lucas May is a hitter that plays catcher and Manny Pina is a catcher that comes to bat when his turn in the lineup comes around. After seeing Brayan Pena and Matt Treanor in the big leagues through the first six games of this season I like defensive catchers better. Pena has had two questionable plays at the plate in which the runner has been safe and Treanor has had two in which an out was recorded.
Manny Pina could be a solid backup catcher in the future for a big league team I feel. I don’t know if his bat will ever allow him to be a full time player.
This is a spring training card of outfielder Brett Carroll. It is not a good picture but it is the only one that I could find. I don’t think Carroll is a Royals anymore.
Every year Topps puts out an update set to fill in the blanks that they missed for various reasons in previous releases. It just happened to work out that I will have my version of an update set as well. I finished with my spring training Royals set for the 2011 season the day before opening day with Joakim Soria, or so I thought at the time.
I felt as if I had one glaring hole in my spring training set, Royals opening day starting catcher Matt Treanor. Following my own rules I set for myself I couldn’t find a picture. My rules were based around the fact that the players had to be wearing spring training uniforms. You can tell the spring uniforms by the white stripe on the sides of the players jerseys. Treanor joined the club with just two games left in spring training so there were no pictures of him. As it happens, I was able to find a gallery of pictures from the day in between spring training and opening day and they were wearing the spring uniforms. So I felt this qualified.
So Matt Treanor was among these pictures and my update set was born. I plan on posting one per day like I did during spring training while I prepare my next project. It will consist of eight cards. On top of my 47 card base set, this will equal a 55 card Royals set. There are still holes I can think of but they are extremely minor.
Here is the first card of the update set, Joaquin Arias. I’m not sure what happened to Arias but I know he didn’t make the team. He had spent some time with the Rangers in the past and I imagine his days with the Royals are done as well unless he is willing to play in a crowded minor league system.
Nearly all the Royals top prospects were on display in Kauffman Stadium on Saturday April 2nd when the Omaha Storm Chasers took on the Northwest Arkansas Naturals. I won’t go over all the names but they were almost all there. It was my first chance to see the likes of Mike Montgomery, Mike Moustakas, Christian Colon, Wil Myers and Eric Hosmer.
The teams came out shortly after the Royals defeated the Angels 5-4 by getting 2 eighth inning runs having Joakim Soria take care of the Angles on 6 pitches for his first save of the year. The futures came out in their Naturals and Storm Chasers uniforms. The Naturals were the home team but the Storm Chasers got the home dugout and bullpen. The first comment I really have about the game is that the crowd was very strange. These are essentially Royals vs. Royals so the crowd seemed unsure of who to cheer for and against which made for a strange environment. I think the crowd was also there simply to observe and take in what should be the future of the franchise.
The starting pitchers were Mike Montgomery for Omaha and John Lamb for NW Arkansas. In my opinion Mike Montgomery gave by far the most impressive performance in the 12 inning affair. Montgomery pitched four innings, striking out four and only allowing one baserunner, a walk. He simply looked dominant when he was out there. I don’t think there was really a hard hit ball against him. John Lamb didn’t make it as far into the game but looked strong as well, pitching 2.2 innings and allowing one run on three hits.
- John Lamb of the Northwest Arkansas Naturals warms up in the outfield before the Royals futures game.
Mike Montgomery was relieved by another high prospect for the Royals, Danny Duffy. Duffy suffered one unearned run when both Irving Falu and Mike Moustakas mad errors in the same inning. Otherwise Duffy looked great, pitching three innings while allowing only one hit and getting strikeouts on five of the nine outs he recorded.
Danny Duffy of the Omaha Storm Chasers gets ready in the Royals bullpen during the futures game.
Other prospects that I wanted to see pitch that did are Chris Dwyer, Will Smith and Louis Coleman among others. The Storm Chasers would win the game by a score of 4-1 with Mike Montgomery getting the win. Offensively the game was a little flat, the Natural scattered five hits through 12 innings while the Storm Chasers were only able to muster eight. There were two home runs that went out; David Lough and Jamie Romak. Gregor Blanco added an inside the park home run when the left fielder missed a sliding catch and was injured so he couldn’t retrieve the ball fast enough to get Blanco. He would stay in the game so apparently it won’t be a long term injury.
Wil Myers had a nice double down the line into the left field corner for the Naturals. Also on the Naturals side, left fielder Tim Smith got credit for gunning down the Storm Chasers Johnny Giavotella at third base even though he appeared to be safe. The game was sloppy as there were 6 errors during the 12 innings. For the Storm Chasers the two biggest prospects, Moustakas and Hosmer, combined to go 1-12 with the one single belonging to Mike Moustakas. Eric Hosmer took an 0-6 and looked eager to hit one into the fountains, swinging at several first pitches. Hosmer did sparkle on defense making two great diving plays reinforcing the idea that he could be a gold glove first baseman at the major league level.
The Royals lost on opening day 4-2 to a very tough Jared Weaver and won 2-1 on April 1st on a Kila Ka’aihue walk-off home run. These games had several significant moments but I will choose a couple to talk about that may have been missed.
Opening Day had two events that I would like to briefly mention:
1. Jeff Francoeur throws out Jeff Mathis of the Angles in a close game at home. Everybody comments on Frenchy’s great throw, which it was, but the most impressive part to me was Royals newcomer Matt Treanor hanging on to the ball and absorbing a ferocious hit from Mathis. Treanor has been a Royal for less than a week and had a play on opening day that in my opinion was extremely important. I have seen several catchers have that ball knocked out and it was a huge play to keep the Royals in the game even though the game ended in a loss.
2. Pinch running will be a very important part of the 2011 Royals. I believe it was the 8th inning when Yost pinch ran Mitch Maier before Jarrod Dyson, I don’t know why Dyson wasn’t the first player off the bench. My issue is that Dyson pinch ran right behind Maier, which is great to have speed on the bases since he was the go-ahead run at the time. They didn’t score, any of them. In the 9th inning Matt Treanor singles and is on first as a very important runner with nobody but Brayan Pena to pinch run for him which isn’t a whole lot better. If Dyson or Maier is still available it could have been vitally important. It didn’t matter as things worked out but it easily could have been a factor.
The April 1st game will be remembered as the Kila Ka’aihue walk-off game. Rightfully so. The one thing I want to mention is the brilliant performance turned in but Jeff Francis, the Royals starting pitcher. His line: 7 innings, 1 Run, 5 hits, 1 walk. If he can pitch similar to this he will keep the Royals in a lot of games this year that other starters won’t.
I love Yost’s move of putting Soria in to pitch the top of the 9th to give Ka’aihue the chance to do what he did. Too many managers think “It could be a save situation tomorrow, I better keep him fresh.” YOU PLAY TO WIN THE GAME, right Herm Edwards?
I decided the Royals cards were getting a little stale and I need to force myself to vary brands and teams a little bit. So I decided to turn on baseball tonight and feature the player that was the star of the first highlight that I watched. It was Rays at the White Sox and Juan Pierre is up with the bases loaded. My first thought was; “Oh no.” Juan Pierre is one of my most hated players in the majors and I really didn’t want to feature him on a custom card on my site. Pierre hits a deep drive to right field and Sam Fuld makes a diving catch that is likely the best play I have seen so far this baseball season. His head-first dive to catch the ball was on a dead run and landed him on the warning track.
A Hair Off Square 