Archive for the ‘Mike Moustakas’ Tag
Things have gotten stale here at AHairOffSquare, not enough time to do interesting things on the website. This is very frustrating but I’m glad to have the occasional outlet to make something cool. Here is a custom card of Mike Moustakas that I like quite a lot. I was challenged by Justin who does some cool card related stuff over at his website to re-create an autograph card he thought was cool. This is what I came up with and I really like it. It was nice to create something again… I really haven’t had any new designs in months so this was a nice refresher.
Mike Moustakas is having the year the Royals were hoping for, the only problem is several of his teammates aren’t. Here is a 1979 Topps custom card of Moustakas.
Why 1979 Topps? Well I got some love from a 1979 Topps blog. Larry over at http://1979topps.blogspot.com/ selected my little custom card blog as his Royals blog for posting a nice Steve Mingori card. He gives a nice review of the card and some extensive background. Go over to his site and check it out.
Mike Moustakas is the pivot point for the 2012 Kansas City Royals I believe. The success of the team this years i largely resting on his shoulders. The expectations are too high on a player like Eric Hosmer for the team’s success to depend on him, he is expected to have a good year. Mike Moustakas however had terrible struggles early last year before showing glimpses of the star Kansas City fans think he can become. If he can be a presence at the plate in 2012 it greatly increases the chances of the Royals being able to compete. Even if Moustakas struggles this year, just remember, last year’s opening day starting third baseman was Mike Aviles, and 2010 was Willie Bloomquist before that.
So this is my Royals report card. I realize that this is nothing original, The Kansas City Star does it every year I believe. This will be my perspective and it would be cool to measure up my grading against theirs. This is strictly subjective and I took into account expectations, performance, stats and even attitudes that I have noticed from my limited perspective. I am going to do this in 2 parts; pitchers and hitters. I’ll start with the offensive side of things(also accounting for defense of course.)
Matt Treanor – Catcher: Grade B
The Royals bought Treanor from the Rangers and have since sold him back. All things considered, Treanor did exactly what the Royals wanted him to do, he was a veteran catcher and provided some experience to a really young team. His offense was alright, defense was great. I hope Brayan Pena was paying attention.
Brayan Pena – Catcher: Grade D
Pena wasn’t paying attention. Pena solidified the perception that he can never be a starting catcher in the major leagues this year. He is below average offensively and defensively in my opinion. He is a stop-gap backup catcher and he shouldn’t be on the team next year. Royals fans will always remember his falure to get tags down that directly cost the team a couple games this year.
Manuel Pina – Catcher: Grade B-
Pina was a spark when Treanor went on the DL. He got a very short look while the team waited on Salvador Perez. Pina did nothing wrong but didn’t wow fans the way Perez has. He should be a solid backup for Perez.
Salvador Perez – Catcher: Grade A
How can you complain about Salvador Perez? He has a cannon arm and has showed it. He is also hitting a not-so-modest .333 at this point. He has showed great power the other way and the ability to hit at the major league level. Expect a drop offensively next year but not defensively.
Kila Ka’aihue – 1st Base: Grade D
Kila just didn’t cut in KC. He only had 23 games to strut his stuff and had a big walk-off home run but only hit .195. He was surpassed by Eric Hosmer’s performance in every aspect.
Billy Butler – 1st Base/DH: Grade B+
#CountryBreakfast can flat out rake. He had a slow first half but really kicked it up after the break. He has pushed over 90 RBI now (career high) and had a power surge in the early second half. He was pushed to strictly the DH role by Hosmer and has now embraced it.
Eric Hosmer – 1st Base: Grade A
Eric Hosmer has been nothing short of spectacular in his rookie season. He has hit for power, average and been a very good at first base (no matter what certain stats say.) He is a very strong rookie of the year candidate and in less than one season has become the face of the franchise.
Chris Getz – 2nd Base: Grade C-
Chris Getz has a lot of haters. He doesn’t hit for a high average or extra base hits. He is good defensively and very good on the basepaths but these thing don’t redeem his insecurities at the plate. The team would likely be better off with Navarro as a utilityman than having Getz on the roster in 2012.
Johnny Giavotella – 2nd Base: Grade C+
Hasn’t been great defensively and has been average at the plate. He has had a typical half rookie season.
Alcides Escobar – Shortstop: Grade A-
Escobar is great in the field. He makes fantastic plays that most shortstops don’t. After a couple seasons of Yuni at short for the Royals, Escobar is a godsend. He is a .250 hitter and doesn’t really project to be a whole lot better. He doesn’t have much power but that should improve. With his defense he could hit .250 for the remainder of his career and remain a starter.
Mike Aviles – 3rd Base: Grade F
Aviles was the Royals starting third baseman on opening day. This is hard to believe now. He was terrible in the field and at the plate. He then proceeded to whine about playing time after Moustakas’ callup. He has been good for the Red Sox but contributed almost nothing to the Royals in 2011.
Wilson Betimit – 3rd Base: Grade C+
Betimit was trade bait from opening day on. His value never really got any higher than that day either. He had an average year and didn’t fetch much in a trade.
Yamaico Navarro – 3rd Base: Grade B-
In my opinion a fantastic trade. Aviles was dead weight and couldn’t play the field. Yamaico hasn’t played much for Kansas City. Navarro isn’t great but should be a solid utility infielder for the team in 2012.
Mike Moustakas – 3rd Base: Grade B-
He was no Hosmer in 2011 but still ended up having a respectable rookie campaign. He got hot at the end of the season and raised his average about 50 points. He started driving the ball and stopped popping out to 3rd base. He showed many encouraging signs for 2012.
Alex Gordon – Left Field: Grade A
After a few years of being a borderline major league player he lived up to his immense talent and had a just-off MVP type season. He was great in left field, had a ton of assists and has an outside shot at a gold glove. He showed good power and the ability to drive in runs which was my biggest concern in the past for him.
Melky Cabrera – Center Field: Grade A
For what Melky was expected to do how could you possibly complain? 201 hits? Nobody would have guessed that, not even Melky. He hit for good power, stole bases, scored runs and was the exact type of player this team needed. I hated this signing but he proved me wrong.
Jarrod Dyson – Center Field: Grade C
Dyson is good and field and has amazing speed. He is a liability at the plate and until he can get on base consistently will contribute very little in the big leagues. He is super fast and is worth carrying as a pinch-runner but needs to hit.
Jeff Francouer – Right Feild: Grade A
Francoeur was another signing I didn’t like. He didn’t walk and would swing at anything. He resurrected his career this head and had an amazing season. He never failed to impress in right field and has a cannon. He didn’t swing at junk as much as the past and maintained a good average. He was a great clubhouse guy and showed he will be a great leader for this young team.
Mitch Maier – Outfield: Grade B-
Maier never got a lot of playing time because of A) no injuries and B) great outfielders ahead of him. When he got a spot start he did admirably but never really got a chance to impress this year.
Lorenzo Cain – Outfield: Grade B
Cain tore up AAA Omaha and never got to the Royals until the last week of the season. He is ready to go but has no place to play. He would be very good trade bait for a starting pitcher if packaged with another high-end prospect.
According to @PaddyKC on twitter; Mike Moustakas is batting .378 over his last 30 games, if that isn’t worthy of a custom card today I don’t know what is. Over the last few games he has re-discovered his power as well.
On August 18th Moustakas was batting .195; On September 18th he is batting .252.
Last night the Royals won their 7th straight game by beating the White Sox 10-3. Mike Moustakas went 3-4 with a home run, 2 RBI and 3 runs. This is the 3rd straight game that Moustakas has pounded out 3 hits and 2 RBI! Over his last four games he is 10-16 with 3 HR, 7 RBI and 6 runs scored.
Its great to see Moustakas hitting well after struggling so much in the middle of the season. The power is good to see too but I was never worried about his power. Mike Moustakas has power, if he isn’t hitting home runs it doesn’t mean that power is gone. If he hits well the power numbers will come. I was concerned about his average hanging around the Mendoza line but I was never concerned about his one homer in his first about 275 at bats.
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.
When Manny Pina made his major league debut on August 3rd I posted this card. I said that Johnny G was next to get a major league debut card, I never thought it would only be 2 days later. Gio landed with a splash the same way Manny Pina did. He went 2-3 with a double for his first major league hit. He also drove in a run, stole a base and looked comfortable in the field. His scrappy Dustin Pedroia-like play is sure to win over Kansas City Royals fans. His call-up got a lot of momentum of late, so fans were really excited to see him in the lineup. It was great to see the infield of Hosmer-Giavotella-Escobar-Moustakas, that is a lot of young talent on one field.
I recently picked up a couple Paul Splittorff rookie cards and immediately thought of doing this with the design. Splittorff’s rookie was the nice black 1971 Topps set. He was on a dual rookie stars card with Jerry Cram. I couldn’t resist the urge to do this card with Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer. Right now Hosmer is a lot more of a rookie star than Moustakas but they are both everyday players in the major leagues and are well deserving of this card.
I’m done! This is the last of my 1983 Royals Topps set. I have posted a 1983 Topps card for every person to appear on the Royals 25 man roster this year. It is currently a total of 34 cards. With the trade deadline approaching I’m sure this set will need expanded on, I can’t wait to add Lorenzo Cain and Johnny Giavotella. Until that happens, the set is complete.
Many times I feel like I post things on my site too quickly and people don’t have a chance to find them. I like keeping up a high turnover on the site so there is something new hopefully almost every time a visitor comes to my site. Because of this I feel like some of my cards get overlooked.
I dug out this Mike Moustakas card to post today because lets face it, everything is about Mike Moustakas right now. I have done this a couple times so far I might make it a regular feature, call it “flashback” or “In Case You Missed It.”
This card of Moose is from the Royals futures game on April 2nd 2011 at Kauffman Stadium. I attended the game an was likely more excited for it than any Royals game in a very long time. I made a complete set to commemorate the game. It is another original design, I will re-post several of these in the coming weeks.
A Hair Off Square 