A Hair Off Square   custom cards

It is not far fetched to believe that Ka’ahue could have a breakout season this year. It will be his first full season in the Major Leagues. He has been great in the minors but has had a few struggles making that big league success. He has a chance to big year, he is ready and it may be now or never. The Royals seem to have a potential logjam at first base. This could mean if Ka’ahue doesn’t perform he may the person that has to move.

The logjam pretty much involves four players; Billy Butler, Kila Ka’ahue, Eric Hosmer and Clint Robinson. Hosmer and Robinson aren’t ready yet but they aren’t far away considering how young Butler and Ka’ahue are. The Royals can DH one of these guys, which seems to be the plan in 2011, but to have a third first baseman on the roster doesn’t make any sense. I would think baring a major setback Hosmer should be ready to play every day in the big leagues next year at this time. This means Ka’ahue has this year to perform. There is a chance the Royals could move Butler but it is hard to see that happening.

What kind of year would Ka’ahue have to have to be on the opening day roster next year if Hosmer is ready? I’m not really sure but my money is on Ka’ahue getting moved at the deadline this year or next offseason, which is a shame but may be something that just has to be done.

On a really young, cheap team, Jason Kendall is an exception. He is a candidate to retire any off-season from now on and it taking in a hefty salary by Royals standards. On top of that, he’s hurt. The bottom line is that Kendall doesn’t really seem to fit on this team very well. I think he definitely has value to the Royals however, especially now, during spring training. With Brayan Pena, Manuel Pina, Lucas May and of course Salvador Perez in camp, Kendall is a really good veteran to have around all of these young players.

Will Kendall be playing next year? Maybe. Will Kendall be playing for the Royals next year? No way. He is just another one year rental right now. I hope Kendall gets healthy and plays this year, but I also hope the other catchers(probably Pena and May) get plenty of action as well.

I think everybody likes Tim Collins. He seems to have a lot of fans in Royals camp, for both the underdog factor and his performance. Right now, it is looking like he’ll be trotting in from the bullpen in Kauffman this year.

I’ll be really short with this one; Melky Cabrera  is the only current Royal that I wish wasn’t on the team. I hope he proves me wrong.

He’s back! Royals fans love Bruce Chen. I’m not quite as excited. Chen is a good one year rental starter that will eat up innings and give some good performances. I am definitely not against him being in the Royals rotation this year, he will just be lumped in with Jeff Francis, Jeff Francour, Melky Carbrera and pretty much Jason Kendall as players to fill roster spots until the younger players are ready to come up to the big leagues.

I already missed a day so today is a double, I’m choosing two new members of the Royals today. I think both will end up on the opening day roster. Jeremy Jeffress, who came over in the Greinke deal, and Jeff Francis, a one-year free agent who has had past success with the Rockies.

Alright, in my last post I mentioned Alex Gordon’s 2011 Topps card of him playing third base. I have posted a picture of it here along with a version I made of him playing the position listed on the card. The real card is pictured on the right and my custom card is pictured on the left. My card has a picture of Gordon from spring training this year. I could get a nice picture from last year but I am thinking of composing an entire set of 2011 Topps Royals cards containing nothing but spring training pictures.

Alex Gordon's 2011 Topps custom card with a picture from spring training

Alex Gordon's actual 2011 Topps card

At this point I will point out some of the subtle differences between my card and the actual card. Some are quite obvious, the silver foil being the most obvious. Also as a quick list: I made my blues lighter, I put the position in a different color, the baseball behind the logo is different, I have a thin white border around my Royals logo. Alright, those are the big ones, I have reasons for all of these changes that are justified and boring so I won’t go on about it here. Instead I’ll explain how I build the cards briefly.

I think I could more closely replicate the actual cards if I used Photoshop. I could edit out the existing picture and keep the look of the original card. The reason I don’t do this is I want every thing to be vector artwork except the actual picture. This means I re-create every nuance of the card. It does give my cards a little more of a 2-D look but I think they are still a very fair representation of the original.

I will try to post a new 2011 Topps Royals card each day until Opening Day, It could become challenging but it should be a nice looking set when I’m done.

A preview of what John Lamb's 2011 Topps card might look like.

Here we go, spring training is upon us and baseball fans are overflowing with excitement. The Royals (and every other team) have reported to camp. This is especially exciting to me because it means pictures for custom cards. The Royals had a lot of turnover on the roster this year plus many of the most notable players haven’t even wore a big league uniform much yet. But now spring training has started and I now have access to pictures of young stars like Mike Montgomery, John Lamb, Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Alcides Escobar and so on.

Also, did anyone notice 2011 Topps came out? Not a bad design either. The typical classy white border with a lot of picture, just the way I like it. It has a nice curved bar across the bottom for the name and the team logo in a circle on the right with a baseball behind it. It has a minimal amount of silver foil as is consistent with recent years of Topps. The foil makes the cards look nice but on a personal note makes it very hard to replicate for a jpg on screen for a custom card.

Two problems with the 2011 Topps; 1. The circle has “Kansas City Royals” written on top and bottom, this strikes me as overkill and a bad idea just to fill space; 2. The position is written in foil back just by the picture making it hard to read. The second problem is much more cumbersome to me than the first but I digress.

I have combined the two new exciting events and made a 2011 card with a spring training

photo. I chose John Lamb. Why? Lamb is good for one, but for the most part it was random. I made my landscape card design first, so I needed a landscape picture. I’m planning on making the team set before the rest of it comes out. Series 2 and update should be incredibly exciting for Royals fans this year. We could have our first official Topps cards of all the young rookies we have heard so much about.

Lets quickly go over what Royals are already done. The series 1 Royals set contains 9 cards just like last year. 9 isn’t too bad right? WRONG. Of the 9 players featured, 4 of them will not wear a Royals uniform in 2011. That is nearly half of the Series 1 set. The players featured that are now gone are: Greinkie(Brewers) Betancourt(Brewers) Dejesus(Athletics) and Meche(Retired.) There are 5 current Royals featured as well, they are: Lucas May(Rookie Card), Gregor Blanco, Mike Aviles, Kyle Davies and Alex Gordon.

Minor complaint: Gordon is listed as Outfield as he should be but the picture is clearly of him making a throw from third base. This is almost as bad as when they kept using pictures of him wearing number 7 after he had switched to number 4, but I once again digress.

A note on the Lamb card; The picture doesn’t fit. The ball he is throwing is obscured by the Royals logo, not horrible but it bothers me. I may change his card later. Technically, I believe Topps can’t even make this card yet, he has to appear in a Major League game first. Consider this a preview.

Also a quick thanks to Around The Horn KC blog for the photo, I hope they don’t mind me using it. They are a great blog and every Royals fan should definitely check it out.