Figured it would take quite a bit for Ned to move away from Gordo. A straight platoon with Alex/Jorge would be fine but Jorge has reverse splits. Need Cuthbert to get fixed up for another right hand option. I also had to shake my head at dayton who pre-game yesterday said he needs Orlando to heal up before rosters expand so he can come up and be our "defensive specialist"
I have a hard time believing they would all of a sudden move away from Boni considering they like him enough to put him in the 2 hole night in and night out. But then again, this is Ned we're talking about. This move also speaks volumes about Soler. Clearly they aren't expecting anything from him this year. At the time I didn't mind the trade because I thought we were rebuilding but now that move looks terrible. Would have been nice to have Wade for this one last push.
Pretty good Melky trade break down from BP. Spoiler July 31, 2017 Transaction Analysis More Melk, Please by Matthew Trueblood and Victor Filoromo Printer-friendly Chicago White Sox Kansas City Royals Team Audit | Player Cards | Depth Chart Return to Top Acquired RHP A.J. Puckett and LHP Andre Davis from Kansas City Royals in exchange for OF-S Melky Cabrera. [7/30] Puckett was the Royals’ second-round pick out of Pepperdine in 2016 and he has a chance to be a fast-riser for the White Sox if he can develop above-average command of his fastball to go along with a plus changeup. The fastball sits 90-92 mph and can touch 94, with some downward plane to it. He can flash above-average command of the fastball, but his changeup command can be spotty at times despite it showing as a plus pitch. Puckett needs to work on preventing his hips from flying open while staying true to his 6-foot-4 frame. He’s a ways off from the majors because his curveball is very much a work in progress. It shows sharp 12-6 movement at times and sits 71-74 mph, but he does not throw it consistently from his high-three-quarters slot. Not having consistent command of his secondaries has led to him becoming a nibbler at times; he has 46 walks in 107 1/3 innings this season. If he can develop the curveball and find more consistent command of his secondaries, Puckett is a safe bet to make it to the majors, and at the very least can eat some innings in a rotation. —Victor Filoromo Team Audit | Player Cards | Depth Chart Return to Top Acquired OF-S Melky Cabrera from Chicago White Sox in exchange for RHP A.J. Puckett and LHP Andre Davis. [7/30] Kansas City is threading a needle here, and if they don’t get it exactly right, there are a fair few losing seasons between them and the playoffs again. Of course, if they do get it exactly right, they might end up in the playoffs again this year, and then everything feels a little bit different. This team won two pennants, played a game with a chance to win the World Series twice, and actually won the thing once. They did it all with a core that can not only be cleanly characterized as homegrown, but that everyone recognized as a budding championship core even in its seedling form. The Royals’ farm system was famously amazing as far back as 2010, and one of the best ever in 2011. It was mostly these guys who made it so. Now, most of them are on the cusp of free agency, and it’s clear that most of them will move on. After this season, Royals fans will still have Salvador Perez, Danny Duffy, and (perhaps to their chagrin) Alex Gordon to remind them of those World Series runs, but the rest of the stars will likely be gone. While they’re still around—while this team whose commitment to winning the fans reciprocated, and then some, is still mostly out there in the home colors at Kauffman Stadium—the front office and ownership groups have to be sensitive to what any move means. Even if they were only on the very fringe of contention, selling off the core like spare parts would have been a bad look, and since they’re legitimate contenders now, failing to support them with additions to the roster would also have gone over like a lead balloon. On the other hand, this team still isn’t likely to be favored even in a potential coin-flip game, and the Astros team they’ll face if they advance beyond that is much better than the one they narrowly beat in the 2015 ALDS. Moves to improve the team have to be sensible, have to balance the long-term needs of the franchise with the demands of the fans and the stars who already have one foot out the door. And there’s one more constraint, one thing that makes even this low-cost upgrade at a position that needed it a little bit tricky: you can’t just shove a franchise icon onto the bench. That’s what the situation demands, right now. Gordon can’t hit, and while his glove is still pretty good (better than Cabrera’s, though Cabrera hasn’t been the outright butcher one might have expected him to be by age 33), it’s not close to making up what he gives away at the plate. Gordon stayed, though. He hit free agency, and while his market never developed quite the way he might have hoped, he had the chance to sign elsewhere and he didn’t. He’s the guy who hit the homer that spun the 2015 World Series in favor of Kansas City. He was there before any of the big-name prospects; he was there when Melky was the center fielder and Jeff Francoeur was over in right, hitting more or less like Gordon is hitting now. With Brandon Moss hitting much better lately and Jorge Bonifacioplaying well in right field, this move can only spell a whole lot less playing time for Gordon, if the Royals want to realize the full potential benefit of adding Cabrera. The question is whether they can do that, without disrupting the vibe that has always been a part of what the Royals do, a partial explanation for their persistent outstripping of everyone’s projections and expectations. Instead, what will probably happen is that Gordon will give up just part of his job, playing against most right-handed pitchers while Cabrera takes at-bats from both Bonifacio and Moss, and Cabrera will actually displace Gordon only against left-handed pitchers. Cabrera is an excellent fit in that regard, because Gordon is a left-handed hitter and has hit .201/.320/.301 against southpaws since the start of 2016. Cabrera, formerly an extremely balanced platoon split guy (never a guarantee, even for switch-hitters), has seen that split widen a bit, and is hitting .310/.340/.498 against lefties during that time. If Ned Yost can strike the somewhat delicate balance needed here, this should be a substantial move. Against teams (like the Indians, for example) with very tough lefty relief options behind good righty starters, Cabrera can be doubly useful off the bench, batting for either Gordon or Moss as the situation dictates. We'll see if Yost is capable of nimbly managing the matchups and egos required to get the most out of his bats down the stretch. —Matthew Trueblood
Watched it on 120X after we failed to score ONE FUCKING RUN with runners at 2nd and 3rd with no outs.
Which is weird because I thought his "stuff" looked really good tonight. A lot of good movement on those pitches. Also, we get swept, indians get swept. We win, Indians win, fuck it all.
Someone called Cam Gallagher is the only other catcher on the 40 man. He's hitting .295 in Omaha this year.
That was tough. What was wrong with Duff? And bunting Esky when Gordo and Butera(Moss) are behind him, I just can't get behind it.
Good thing the entire pitching staff waited until after the deadline to shit itself. Fucking awful. Also Ned said Gordos riding pine until he changes his swing.
Wish the collapse would have come 2 weeks ago so we could sell and not buy. Now we are trending towards being in no man's land without future Matt Strahm.
Couldn't even watch last night. I'm glad Gordo completely retooled and fixed his swing in 3 days though.
Holy shit. The rook with the slam during the sonic slam inning. Some dude from Shawnee named Tim brown just won 25K.
It's funny, he got up 3-0 and I said "you better take 2 strikes you fuck". Takes one strike, then swings and pops up ball four, "you dumbass cunt faced rook. Go back to the god damn minors". Insert grand slam to shut my dumb ass up.
Hud at the start of the at-bat is like "what a good chance to get your first ribbie...or ribbies in the majors" Count is 3-0 "hey a walk is a ribbie" Bam knocks it out of the park *Hud maniacal laughter*
Better formatting in the link. https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2017/8/11/16131720/kansas-city-royals-whit-merrifield-david-eckstein Spoiler Whit Merrifield Looks Like the Next David Eckstein—but He’s Way Better The Kansas City second baseman came out of nowhere to become one of the best players at his position BY MICHAEL BAUMANN AUG 11, 2017, 12:37PM EDT TWEET Getty Images/Ringer illustration Whit Merrifield’s greatest moment in baseball was supposed to be his last of any consequence. Even on a South Carolina team that had only one player drafted in the first three rounds—Jackie Bradley Jr.—Merrifield didn’t stand out. He was a 6-foot corner outfielder with the potential to be a grinder, which is what you say about a player when you can’t find anything nice to say about his tools. Merrifield seemed like a lock to kick around in the minor leagues for a few years, make it to Double-A, stall, and, at some point in his late 20s, decide he’d rather be a coach or a scout, or just go back to Columbia, South Carolina, and never pay for a beer again as long as he lived. Merrifield lasted until the ninth round of the 2010 draft—269th overall, three picks ahead of a shortstop-conversion lottery ticket out of Stetson named Jacob deGrom—and signed with the Royals for $100,000. He didn’t break an .800 OPS in the minors until his third trip through Double-A. Merrifield played all three outfield positions and all four infield positions, splitting most of his time (a little more than 2,000 innings each) between second base and left field. In May 2016, Kansas City could no longer countenance playing Omar Infante (63 OPS+ in 1,179 PA with the Royals) at second base, so up came the 27-year-old Merrifield. He was no kind of prospect, but it was fun to see him make the Show in the same way that it’s fun when a character actor you liked on ER gets an arc on Madam Secretary—“Oh, remember how great he was as that guy who lost his arm in a bike accident? Good to see he’s still working.” Merrifield did well, relatively speaking—a 90 OPS+ in 332 PA for a team whose OPS+ leader was Drew Butera isn’t nothing—but 27-year-old rookie utilitymen tend not to be worth getting attached to. So this bWAR leaderboard for second basemen is nothing short of mind-blowing. Second Basemen bWAR Leaderboard Rank Player WAR 1 José Altuve 6.2 2 Jonathan Schoop 3.7 3 Whit Merrifield 3.6 4 Jed Lowrie 2.7 5 Josh Harrison 2.7 6 Robinson Canó 2.4 7 Ian Kinsler 2.3 8 Daniel Murphy 2 9 César Hernández 2 10 Dee Gordon 2 José Altuve’s leading not only second basemen but all MLB position players in WAR. Schoop made his first All-Star team and is going to hit at least 30 home runs, and then—before you get to Ian Kinsler or Robinson Canó or Daniel Murphy or Brian Dozier—you get to Merrifield. Merrifield’s hitting .297/.333/.482 with 19 stolen bases in 21 attempts and average-to-above-average defense at second. He isn’t putting up Aaron Judge’s hard-contact rate, and he isn’t walking much, but he is avoiding strikeouts (13.3 K%, down more than a third from his 2016 rate and 19th best out of 156 qualified hitters), and he’s maintained his flair for the dramatic. Since Merrifield broadly fits the David Eckstein archetype, and because of that walk-off hit against UCLA seven years ago, it’s tempting to label him as a “winner.” Merrifield’s .297 batting average and 90 percent stolen base success rate are more valuable to the Royals than any of his metaphysical attributes, but he has come up big in important moments this year. Merrifield is hitting .304/.368/.446 in high-leverage situations (a 117 sOPS+). In late and close situations, which Baseball-Reference defines as “plate appearances in the seventh or later with the batting team tied, ahead by one, or the tying run at least on deck,” Merrifield is hitting .340/.393/.638, which is a 188 sOPS+, the 13th best among 181 batters with at least 50 late and close plate appearances this season. Merrifield is also third among second basemen, and 30th overall, in win probability added. During the nine-game winning streak that reinserted the Royals into the wild-card hunt, he hit .350/.386/.675 with four home runs. Even if this is just an anomaly, and Merrifield’s clutchness evens out over time, he’s still turned himself—suddenly and much later than is the case for most breakout hitters—into a very good big league player. Merrifield is within spitting distance of posting a four-win season, which is a mark 40 second basemen have reached since 2000. If you look at the list, there isn’t a bad player among them—even Ronnie Belliard was a 20-win player for his career, and Darwin Barney’s wrung eight seasons and counting out of his glove. The way Merrifield’s hitting (.333/.365/.556 in 126 PA since the break), he might reach five wins, a barrier only 26 second basemen have broken since 2000. Once players hit that level, they regress, they age, they drop off, but they don’t turn all the way back into pumpkins overnight. Merrifield has carved out a big league career for himself no matter what, even if it’s unlikely that he continues to play like a supernatural clutch monster. Then again, he wasn’t even likely to make it out of Double-A, so you never know.
So 4 run leads aren't safe with Jack. Guess we'll try 5 next time. And wtf does Ned keep bringing Minor in during the middle of an inning?
Is there anyone in this bullpen not named Kelvin that wants to get an out? And even when Gordo gets hits they're off shitty swings.