Archive for the ‘Kansas City Royals’ Tag
Alright, it is a little strange writing an article about how great Zack Greinke was and how he is one of the 36 greatest Royals players of all time. It is weird because he is still pitching for the Milwaukee Brewers. Whatever he does for the Brewers won’t tarnish his up and down career as a Kansas City Royal.
In 2009 he pretty much clinched the status as a Royals great by winning a Cy Young award on a terrible team. He consistently got poor run support and was almost unhittable all season. He posted 16 wins and more importantly a 2.17 ERA. This even came after a season where he almost left baseball and pitched in just 3 games. He then resurrected his career in the Kansas City bullpen and became a dominant starter. He only posted 60 wins in his 7 seasons in Kansas City but still was one of only a couple bright spots for those teams shortly after the turn of the century.
The Royals basically bought Matt Treanor from the Texas Rangers a couple days before the season began in 2011. Or so we thought; it turns out they just rented him. They sold him back today, both deals between the Royals and Rangers for Treanor this year were for cash. Either way Treanor was good for the Royals this year and it appears that Salvador Perez is here to stay now so there is now longer room for Treanor with the Royals.
The shame of this is that Treanor’s last play as a Royal was getting hammered in a collision at home plate in Cleveland. He was knocked out cold and put on the 7-day disabled list. He played in the Royals minor-league system but never made it back to Kansas City.
I cringe when Jesse Chavez enters a game for the Royals. This has apparently happened only once this year. In Chavez’s one appearance he gave up a couple runs before being shipped right back to Omaha. His ERA for the Royals this year is 18.00, it should go down but we will have to see.
Chavez has a career ERA of 5.18 but half of his appearances were in 2009 with Pittsburgh were he put up a 4.01 ERA, his major league ERA since that year is aorund 5.90. Finally a trustworthy arm in the Royals bullpen.
Mike Moustakas has finally started hitting at the big league level. After watching his batting average dwindle below .200 for way too long, he recently got hot and currently has a 12 game hitting streak. The more impressive streak in my opinion is a multi-hit game streak he had of 5 consecutive games. He still has a very modest .232 batting average right now but it is a good place to be after where he was only a couple weeks ago. You can see it in his swing as well. He still is popping out to the infielders way too much but he is getting good swings now, something that wasn’t happening a month ago.
1989 Topps is not a bad looking set. It is just cheapened by the mass overproduction of baseball cards during that period. No card in the 1989 Topps set is really worth anything. Even the top names like Cal Ripken, George Brett and Nolan Ryan fetch almost no value because there are so many of this set out there.
Something I often say about most cards produced from 1988 through 1992 is that they aren’t even worth the value of the paper they are printed on. Obviously this is an exaggeration but it gets the point across about these cards. 1989 Topps is not a bad looking set though. I like the simple “jersey” style of the team name and how the players name is incorporated. This picture of Joakim Soria is a typical fan shot. From above where the seats are but it looks nice. It is a strange picture but I thought it fit the card well. Overall I think this is a nice refreshing set to see new names in, I might have to do a few more Royals cards from this year because they would look pretty nifty.
Lorenzo Cain is currently playing for the Omaha Storm Chasers but could be in the big leagues any time now. Cain was acquired in the Zack Greinke deal with the Brewers and at that time Milwaukee had him playing in the majors. The Brewers let Cain log some major league service time but so far through over 3/4 of the season the Kansas City Royals have kept him in AAA Omaha. He has performed well too. He is hitting .304 with 15 home runs and 70 RBI in 115 games. It is always dangerous to compare AAA numbers to MLB numbers but it is safe to say that the Royals would be very happy with that production. In fact: those numbers are eerily similar to the Royals current center fielders numbers. Melky Cabrera is batting .303 with 16 home runs and 74 RBI in 124 games.
Cain was dealt a blow when the Royals signed Melky Cabrera in the off-season then promised him the starting center field job. Cain was dealt another blow last week when the Royals extended Jeff Francoeur’s contract. That means the Royals current outfield of Gordon-Cabrera-Francoeur is in place and Cain may be the odd man out yet again next year. This leaves Cain in a similar situation as Clint Robinson in Omaha; not much left to prove and no place to go.
Apologies for the something like four day hiatus from any new posts. A hurricane-style storm has left me scrambling in the dark for about 60 hours over the last few days.
So I wanted to post a 1984 Donruss card of Alex Gordon. Certain pictures really capture the look of 1984 Donruss and I think this card fits the bill. I really like this picture and how it looks on the great 1984 Donruss design. More from this set still to come.
Alright, I can’t hold out anymore. Billy Butler shall now be known as #CountryBreakfast. So get on twitter and write something about the Royals and tag it #CountryBreakfast.
1996 Topps was an interesting year. A nice simple card design with a standard white border but with a couple subtle twists. Topps had done the inset picture on the front of the card a couple times before but what they decided to do was strange in 1996. The echoed the exact same picture in the name bar. It was a colored picture and was in a box that had a gradient with the name. The inset picture was of course a face closeup but I don’t really know that it added much to the card design.
Other than than a really standard year. Square picture, no strange curves or lines other than the name/picture box. Just a team logo in the corner of the card, it isn’t spelled out and the players position isn’t even on the front of the card. It was a bit difficult to re-create. Getting the gradient over the inset picture proved challenging but no too bad. It really isn’t all that interesting of year for Topps. I remember buying an absolute crap-load of the packs though.
Once again I think Goose Joak did a better re-creation than me. He did a Brad Hawpe card for 1996 Topps that he nailed.
Alright, it is a little strange writing an article about how great Zack Greinke was and how he is one of the 36 greatest Royals players of all time. It is weird because he is still pitching for the Milwaukee Brewers. Whatever he does for the Brewers won’t tarnish his up and down career as a Kansas City Royal.
A Hair Off Square 