seeing as how I get half of my, like, 6 hits a day off of odd web searches (most dealing with my very drunken all-star game ramblings last year concerning players not on the royals), I figured I'd try to help out my fellow web surfers on their search for further enlightenment. so, with my random readers' best interests in mind, here are some answers to your various queries:

how the fuck much money does that carlos pena guy make?

well, in fact, he's making $2,575,000 in 2005. for future reference, this site seems to be a good one for finding this kind of information.

speaking of carlos pena, remember when he was the favorite whipping boy for sites like baseball prospectus? well, ok, "whipping boy" is more like a guy taking punishment. I meant, more like, one of those guys that (especially since he was on the Oakland A's) just about every saber-type site hyped like there was no downside to him. not that I want to spend too much time searching, but he was all over the top of the heap of "potential break-out stars" a couple years back. even rany loved him (you have to scroll down for the pena love). yeah, he's certainly torn up the league since then – who's to say we couldn't have gotten him for jeff suppan?

anyway, looking at trades such as last year, where the A's sent mike wood and mark teahen to the royals in the carlos beltran trade and all they got was octavio dotel – who, besides making $4,750,000 this season, didn't contribute much when he initially pitched for the A's (his end stats look a lot better than I remember them being in important A's games when he came over), the A's also make deals where they acquire guys like mark ellis for angel berroa (oh, sure, there was that Johnny damon for Roberto Hernandez for Ben Grieve thing, but all of those guys kinda suck and washed out for the A's and Royals and Devil Rays). and, after a couple non-productive seasons from ellis, you'd have to say the royals got the best of that deal so far.

and then there's this about our man Carlos Pena:

July 5, 2002: Traded by the Oakland Athletics with a player to be named later and Franklyn German to the Detroit Tigers for Jeff Weaver and cash. The Oakland Athletics sent Jeremy Bonderman (minors) (August 22, 2002) to the Detroit Tigers to complete the trade.

so, let me get this straight: the A's traded former saber-superstar Carlos Pena, Franklyn German, and Jeremy Bonderman for Jeff Weaver and cash. WTF? let's see, for Jeff Weaver they ended up getting:

July 5, 2002: Traded by the Oakland Athletics to the New York Yankees for Ted Lilly, Jason Arnold (minors), and John-Ford Griffin (minors).

for lilly, they got bobby kielty, who's been a part-time player; they sent Jason Arnold to the Blue Jays for Erubiel Durazo (indirectly), and traded John-Ford Griffin for Jason Perry, who has done fairly well at the A level, and is currently in AA. so, basically, they sent three current major leaguers to the tigers (and, in bonderman, a potential 1-2 starter) for a $5 million DH, a 4th outfielder, and a player in AA.

so, they managed to find three star pitchers at the same time. they managed to get some top prospects for two of them (mulder and hudson, obviously), and zito's been average so far this year, but getting prospects for those guys is a product of finding them in the first place, not necessarily a further reflection of their skill at finding talent. they make mistakes, too; it would be nice if people weren't so inclined to glorify them on every move they make.

anyway, random person, hope I helped you with your carlos pena salary information! thanks for stopping by!

some more searches:

roger clemens shower

talk to tony pena! he may be able to help..

"allard baird" asshole

he very well may be. right now, he's just slow to learn how to conduct a youth movement. I mean, "the plan". it is in place, this "the plan". don't disparage it!

"denys reyes" right arm

ah, denys reyes. the guy that broke a collarbone and switched to throwing left-handed – is that what you wanted to know about his right arm? this was probably my girlfriend's favorite royals player, seeing as how she's only been following them the last 2 years now. especially funny when he would fall off the mound every once in a while..

"KEN HARVEY" RELAY PITCHERS FACE

he nailed Jason grimsley. funny as shit, especially considering who he took out. come on, dummy grimsley, you know Harvey can't field that well! oh, I guess that's part of the reason why he's a dummy..

stupid pitcher KC royals

hint: it's all of them.

Kansas City Royals Suck
royals suck
why the royals suck
the kansas city royals suck
royals suck

do you really need to look this up to know why?

helpfully,
Joe Blow

Minnesota 9, Kansas City 4
Royal Record: 5-16

Minnesota 6, Kansas City 5 (11 innings)
Royal Record: 5-17


I think one of the hardest things about being an intelligent baseball fan is overcoming the fact that most of the players aren't. As you move up the ranks of baseball, you expect this to be less of the case, which is why it's frustrating to see major league baseball players make the same mistakes as my adult rec league team.

Yes, it's a little dramatic to make the leap from comparing the royals to my team, but if you've played or watched baseball at the lowest levels (we're talking about my team here), you understand the mentality that a lot of these guys take into their professional careers – the aggressive, offensive scheme of hitting, diving, and attempting to be spectacular at all times, completely disregarding the more subtle, intelligent approaches that breed winning baseball teams. They seem to be pretty widespread things, the type of things that have to be coached out of a player – whether it's from outside coaching or simply from within the player himself – and you expect that when you watch professional teams, the players should possess an excellent knowledge of the game.

In some, this is true. Unfortunately, by the time you reach the major leagues, sometimes it's not through understanding and knowledge, but simply through physical talents (i.e. "tools" players). The combination of these two, baseball intelligence and physical talent, is seemingly rare. It's still not an excuse.

I'm sure other teams have players do the same things quite a bit, but since most fans watch their team much, much more than other teams, it seems like your team makes many more mistakes than others. Which, in the case of the Royals, may very well be true. In the last game I watched, I saw Matt Diaz (not to single him out, it's just the most recent thing I noticed) take a terrible path to field a line drive to left. Instead of moving laterally and getting in front of a hard-hit ball before charging forward, he took a strictly diagonal path, which resulted in the ball bouncing just out of reach of his glove, all the way to the fence, resulting in a double and runs scored. While dropping a fly ball is easily noticed as an error, this is just as much of one, as you're giving preventable free bases. It doesn't show up anywhere, though.

The most frustrating thing is that it's exactly something I see happen during my teams' games.

By the way, in our last game, we lost 12-11 in 8 innings (standard games are 7 innings). Here's my official *Regular Season* stats through one game:

Team Record: 0-1

Offense

Blow, Joe: 0-2 (2 BB, K, reached on error, 1 RBI)

Season:
Avg: .000
OBP: .500
Slg: .000
OPS: .500
RBI: 1

Can you say, "sample size"? I love odd stat-lines like that at the beginning of the season. On defense, I again made no errors, but I also only had one put-out opportunity, which was an adventure in fighting the lights. Unfortunately, I got kind of screwed on that strikeout – I came up to bat first in the top of the last inning, our team down by two, and the clock reading 11:30 P.M. Our home-plate umpire, who, by the way, was getting paid to be at this game, apparently decided anything close was going to be a strike, since if we failed to score two the game would end. So, after taking two pitches at eye level, the next two pitches were a good 5-6 inches outside. Strikes, of course. With a 2-2 count, I ended up swinging a pitch so far outside I couldn't reach it, but I knew it would be called strike 3 anyway. The funny part is we ended up scoring two, and only two, so we had to play the bottom of the inning PLUS an extra inning after we held the other team scoreless. haha, extra innings, no extra pay.

Anyway, as far as the game, our lineup construction was terrible (sound familiar, Royals fans?) Now, I'm not a lightning-quick guy, but I can run fairly well, plus I actually know how to run the bases. Naturally, I batted behind the biggest, slowest guy on the team, a guy that moves one base at a time unless the ball rolls all the way to the fence. So, no stolen bases, no going first to third on a single, since I can't be sure he'll try to score from 2nd on a single. Then, our centerfielder went down, and instead of moving me over from left, our team manager lady puts one of the slowest, poorest defenders out there. In centerfield. He completely ran past two grounders up the middle, and played way too deep on most batters, resulting in 3-4 "hits" that should have been caught.

He's also one of the guys I alluded to above, the type with the baseball, uh, "knowledge" that needs to be beat out of players at every opportunity: you know, the guy (and this team is full of them) that, no matter if a runner is two steps away from the plate and he's throwing from centerfield, throws over all cut-off men and tries to get the out at the plate. Again, no one seems to care that this is just as big an error as the pitcher throwing past the first baseman on a pick-off move, as it gives a free base to all runners. Since it's not a blindingly obvious mistake, it's not a mistake at all!

Well, here's a perfect example of the type of guys I'm now apparently stuck with this season:

The situation: down by 2, top of the last inning, nobody on base (and a team full of guys that can't hit home runs).

Me: "This guy can barely throw strikes, we need to take pitches until he can locate 'em."
Random Team Member: "We need to get hits is what we need!"
Me: "Yeah, but we need base runners, and right now a walk is as good as a single."
Random Team Member: "Well, I'll take a walk if I have to, but I hate it! I'm gonna try to hit it!"

Move forward to a couple pitches later – nobody on base, the batter at the plate has worked the count to 3-1.

Team Member (from dugout): "Come on, swing the bat, we don't want no fuckin walks!"

I'm surprised we don't just name ourselves the Moneyballs. But, this is the attitude that's ALWAYS been pervasive in every level of baseball I've played at. Our brilliant centerfield replacement guy, the defensive wizard, also absolutely refuses to take a pitch with 3 balls (yes, I'm amazed he ever gets that far to begin with), and I've seen him strike out on a couple pitches so high over his head that I don't think he could physically hit it anyway. Think about that: he'd rather swing at a pitch he has to look up at than take a walk. These guys will always dive for a ball instead of letting it drop and holding a runner to a single, they try to take an extra base at every opportunity (no matter how silly), and, despite the fact that I reached base 3 out of 4 times in Game 1, it's considered a failure because I never got a hit. It's that mentality that needs to be groomed from every baseball player, and it's exactly what I don't want to see from the Royals. Good coaching should take care of it, though I've yet to see evidence of that. But, then again, we're not exactly dealing with an advanced brain trust when we're talking about baseball players, are we? You just keep hoping..

Frustratingly,
Joe Blow

A small mention to clear the air..

In the last week or so, someone at ye old Royalboard has apparently taken to posting under the obviously catchy but slightly-used nickname "Royal Blues". just in case there's any confusion, I'd like to take this opportunity to point out: that royalboard poster is not your humble editor here at Royal Blues (wait, did I really need to link to my own site? eh, maybe I can give myself more hits..). Just in case anyone was wondering.

Thank you.

Decidedly,
Joe Blow

JBABL (Joe Blow's Adult Baseball League) Update #1

Oh yeah, in the interest of…well, me, here are the final pre-season stats (by my calculations) for the 3 exhibition games I played in:

Batting Average: .222
On-Base Percentage: .364
Slugging Percentage: .222
OPS: .586

awesome, yeah, I know. to be fair, it's the first three games of baseball I've played in honestly 10 years. heck, last time I played, the kids could barely even figure out how to hold a curveball, let alone get it to spin.

Game by game:

1: 1-5 (infield single, 2 Ks, two ground-outs)
2: 0-3 (1 BB, 1 K, pop-out, ground out)
3: 1-2 (1 BB, bloop single, fielder's choice), 2 runs scored

I actually broke my metal bat hitting that rocket bloop single. ok, so the cap came out. "broken-metal-bat" single just sounds better. and, as a defense for the first game, the strike-outs were pretty cheap: the lone umpire was calling balls and strikes from somewhere behind the side of the pitcher's mound, and one of the strikeouts came on consecutives curves that were really low.

On the plus side, I've made zero errors in the field so far. I've played 3 innings at 3rd base and 18 innings in left field. I'm really digging left field – in fact, I'd be more than happy to play there every inning of every game. my arm was really sore last sunday, due to trying to throw too hard the day before, but I sure as shit wasn't telling anybody. trust me, the easiest way for a non-hitting new guy on a team to grab a piece of the bench is to let the yokels that run the team know you're hurt. it'll get better.

tonight's the first actual game. I'm excited – the first real game I've had in a long while..

now it's just time to hit the fuckin ball.

Anxiously,
Joe Blow

Chicago 8, Kansas City 2
Royal Record: 5-12

Chicago 3, Kansas City 2
Royal Record: 5-13

Chicago 4, Kansas City 3
Royal Record: 5-14

Minnesota 2, Kansas City 1
Royal Record: 5-15

This team is a joke.

There's no "benefit" or "doubt" or anything to give to the Royals anymore. There's nothing they are actually "good" at: IF, OF, starting pitching, relief pitching, closers, managers, general managers, owners, concessions, marketing, merchandising -- merchandising! (honestly, do you know how hard it is to find good and/or cool royals stuff around town?). while this is still my team, I don't support our "vision" or "plan" or, hell, "personnel".

This team is a reactionary, slow-witted, jumbled mess that lacks the strength, talent, and intellectual ability to succeed at any facet of their existence. Everyone knows I'm a big Royals fan, and I'm tired of defending them to people, because I honestly don't believe they have the ability to accurately analyze and judge any part of their business that would make them successful – finding talent, managing technique and game strategies, or even understanding how to appeal and retain a fan base.

There's not a "strategy" – there's only reaction. It takes strength to look at a team in an unconventional or creative manner and do what it takes to win, even if your typical fan isn't going to understand your process. That is not this team. This is a team apparently run by a group of guys that are slow to both acquire talent or cut losses with former prospects, infatuated with veterans and versatile utility players, and lack the ability to do anything more than meekly follow the lead of teams developing alternative means of evaluating players, while relying heavily on traditional methods that tend to yield high-risk players who are often unable to translate their raw "tools" into useful, effective major league ability. This is not a group of leaders; it's a gathering of poor followers.

Between the Royals organization and MLB, there's no chance. If it were possible for me to root for another team, believe me, I would. I can't imagine there's a professional group more adept at both failing and possessing an inability to recognize complete failure as it presents itself at every opportunity. Instead, there's nothing but shortsighted player moves, haphazard team construction, and an uncanny ability to position the team in the worst alignments on game day. This is supplemented throughout the season by ridiculous gambles and poor decision-making, consistently demonstrating a failure to grasp the principles of winning baseball in every way.

So, let me amend my previous statement: I hate you MLB. And, Royals: I hate you, too.

Resignedly,
Joe Blow

Minnesota 10, Kansas City 9 (10 innings)
Royal Record: 5-11

I don't think I really want to take more of this. honestly, it's not worth it. it's amazing how one team can be so remarkably inferior in so many different things. while it's true that no one expected anything of this season (maybe the royals should have petitioned the league to just take this year off and return next year recharged and more mature), it's beyond the point of simple frustration. there is literally no chance for this team. I just don't see how every top draft pick, every minor leaguer hyped to us, every free agent signing, everything about this team can turn out *so* wrong. all I know is it's something I can count on every time.

yesterday, I watched a group of professional athletes – we're not talking the laughably bad baseball players that were the "superstars" at my high school, these are guys that are supposed to be infinitely better in every aspect of the game – repeatedly fail at plays that my adult baseball league team full of junior varsity rejects make pretty routinely. and you know we, um, pay to play in a league full of nobodies.

why watch the royals this year? I'm as true-blue as they come, and I'd never bail on my team, but it doesn't mean I have to care as passionately as I have. if this is the year we finally hit our youth movement head-on, why are at least half of the positions on every given day manned by long-time veteran journeymen and one high-priced slugger? our current hopes are pinned on a group of rookies and sophomores who so far either fail just as spectacularly as they succeed, or never even catch of a glimpse of success. it's not fun to watch, because you know the outcome. the royals are the incubation period: you baby the egg, treat it tenderly, nurture the new hatchling through the tough first few years – feeding it, wrapping its broken wing, building its strength, and preparing it for the day it will finally take to the air. of course it's a thing of beauty when all your work has paid off and you finally witness that first majestic flight..

…until, instead circling around and returning home, your baby sails off into the sunset with another flock. then, time to start all over again!

I hate MLB.

I'm glad I have my own baseball to pay attention to this summer, because I really don't think I have it in me to care as much about this team as I'd love to. I think I'll write more about my own team – I know, not interesting to anyone else, and I'd honestly hate to lose the three of you that read this – but if the royals are all I write about, I might as well shut it down now. maybe I'll get back to my sorely neglected record collection. at least my favorite bands and records never turn to shit just because they can't afford to record with high-dollar engineers and equipment. sure wish I could say the same thing about my favorite baseball team..

the royals will still occupy much of this space, but…goddamn. that's about all.

dejectedly,
Joe Blow

between "vacation" (if that's what you call Detroit) and work, Royal Blues has suffered from lack of posts – just humor me here and at least pretend like you've been anxiously awaiting my return..

besides, I never promised quality *or* quantity.

in fact, because I'm behind once again in game-type recaps, we've secretly replaced your regular royals reading with new R.O.Y.A.L.S. acronyms – see if you can tell the difference!

Kansas City 6, Detroit 5
Royal Record: 4-6

interesting game, great ending with berroa's two-run blast being the difference..

in acronym form:

Rookie
Of
Year
Angel
Lifts
Spirits

see how easy that is! well, what are we waiting for? let's go!


Detroit 7, Kansas City 1
Royal Record: 4-7

who said the bullpen was a strength? I sure hope that doesn't appear in any of my posts (I'm pretty sure it doesn't..)

Relievers
Old
Yardbirds;
American
League
Snickers

Detroit 6, Kansas City 1
Royal Record: 4-8

you didn't think the royals would perform well against the same guy twice, now did you? maroth shuts the vaunted KC sluggers down..

Royals
Offense:
Yet
Another
Laughable
Score


Cleveland 5, Kansas City 1
Royal Record: 4-9

I attended this game in person, marking the first time I've actually seen these guys this year. it was sad. very sad. in fact, it had me longing for the days of 2003 – you know, that one year current royals fans tend to take solace in, considering it was the only winning season in a long, long time. and then you think about that, and realize that it's truly ridiculous that our success is measured by achieving four games over .500...once.

Really,
ONE
YEAR
Above
Loser
Status


Kansas City 6, Cleveland 5
Royal Record: 5-9

alberto castillo hits a walk-off homer to win a frustrating but exciting game.

Rockin!
Our
Young
Alberto
Launches
Slam

Minnesota 5, Kansas City 4
Royal Record: 5-10

a great moment – Sweeney crushing a 3-run home run off of johan santana to take the lead – eventually wiped out by the bullpen. really, does any other team manage to lose as many games via walk / wild pitch / error / double-play ball hit past a drawn-in infield type of stuff more than the royals? I guess it just goes to show that this year is already in the books..

Royals
O5:
Yet
Another
Losing
Season


S.I.N.C.E.R.E.L.Y.,
Joe Blow

been an odd week here at the domicile of your humble Royal Blues host, which is about all I can say for my slightly-extended absence. though, it's not like there's been an abundance of quality royals listening to occupy my time. such is the business of free royals writing..

in an effort to encourage conciseness – on my part, of course – I've just about deleted a good four paragraphs worth of crap. seeing as how even *I* didn't feel like reading through them.

basically, we've dispelled of all positive spring training talk and actually seen the royals perform. hey, there were a couple good performances mixed in! the rest...well, you know.

honestly, at this point in the evening, I've already been through a number of quality local hand-crafted brews that I lugged back from michigan (home of the goddamn 10-cent bottle deposit I'll never get back..), so I'm just gonna plow through these and try to get back with you once I've caught up again..

Kansas City 6, Los Angeles Anaheim California 2

Royal Record: 2-2

denny bautista (apparently) pitched great. one of those games I didn't get to hear or see – you'll notice that is a theme for most of these recaps here. mike sweeney with a couple RBIs, paul byrd sucking – isn't that what was supposed to happen? paul byrd was never that good; I'm glad the royals didn't listen to some "fans" and refused to re-sign him. can't say so much for lima. at least he has energy, though. I guess.

Disneyland 8, Kansas City 3

Royal Record: 2-3

why are "spot starters" always so effective against the royals? then again, why are starters in general effective? oh yeah, we can't buy hitters.

lima, uh, sucked. you know, the thing is, I LIKE jose lima. for the most part. he's just one of those guys that will get bombed sometimes and have some strangely effective starts other times. that's royals baseball for you – as it is right now. lima was unnecessary this season, but they signed him, so I pretty much resigned myself to him early on. really, allard just needed somebody with a little bit of name and advertising potential, so I know why he signed him. it still doesn't mean we needed him.

Kansas City 8, CA L.A. Anaheim 3

Royal Record: 3-3

one of the things I like (well, the only thing I like concerning baseball when I'm out of town) is the excitement of waking up the next morning (or, you know, coming home late from a night on the town) and tapping my foot while waiting for the internet to fire up so I can see what the royals did. you brace yourself for a 10-2 loss, and slap the desk when you know that brian anderson is pitching against bartolo colon and the royals win 8-3. I couldn't believe this score! gotay came up big – hey, he played? what, did shawn camp pitch? for all I know, pickering smashed the ball! what, no? oh, emil brown did? you know, I'm starting to like this guy. honestly, having watched, um, ZERO spring training games, and never hearing of the guy before, I was pretty much one of those least qualified to comment on him. but, at the same time, how could I have ever known anything? from what I've heard so far (I still haven't actually *seen* a royals game this year), he sounds like a really solid player. so, good for him. I love when guys like that finally make it. a very solid game here (from the text, anyway).

Seattle 8, Kansas City 2

Royal Record: 3-4

quite an opener. immediately after clearing the security check at the beginning of the terminal at detroit metro airport, I looked in from the opening of the "fox sports" bar-ish garbage to try to see the royals score. I proceeded to watch the slowest crawl ever for a couple minutes, then gave up to ride the terminal-tram to one end of the airport, so I could walk all the way back to the beginning and kill some time. I had 1 ½ hours to kill – after my tram ride and walk back, I had a measly 1 1/4 hours to go. in case you've never been to the new detroit airport, there's subway-ish things (that run above-terminal) that take you from the middle to the end, since it's a huge terminal and lazy people hate to do things like, oh, exercise-ish walking.

when you walk from gate to gate, there are some cool moving sidewalks (cue "99th floor" for 60's garage rock fans ((ah, ok, for everyone actually reading this, nevermind – though, if you followed the link, ZZ top really has nothing to do with this)) -- 60's garage is just one of my things, you know) that allow you to feel like you're walking faster than humanly possible for a moment. well, after traipsing across a bunch of those, i stopped for a moment at my eventual gate. just outside of it was one of the numerous "sports" "bars" i swear i had walked by on a previous journey across the terminal...and happened upon a group of mariners fans sitting at the "bar" (hey, one of them had a hat, and there was a seattle flight close-by – I just assumed). anyway, from what I could tell while I was looking at scores, I had heard, "yeah, they lost big today. at kansas city."

I thought, "yes! they won again!"

after strolling through the terminal for a while, I finally exhausted myself and stopped back by a more empty version of the same bar to check the sports crawl.

Seattle 8, Kansas City 2

"goddammit," I thought. "ah well, I have a flight to catch."
that game sucked, I guess.

Seattle 2, Kansas City 1

what a lame fuckin game! greinke good for 6, cerda gives up 2 (macdougal lamely kicking everyone in the nuts by wild-pitching in the first run), KC finally scoring ONE run when it doesn't matter nearly as much...this is the kind of game I hate, and...fuck I hated this game.

Seattle 10, Kansas City 2

this is the kind of game that doesn't make me feel bad about drinking at lunch. shit, I've had such an odd week of vacation and working and a "sick" day and working and changed flight plans and...oh, suffice it to say that, while drinking at work is never bad, the royals are a lot of the time. this game was sad.

I will be back with news on tonight's game (royals vs. tigers) and my new venture into the KC adult baseball league...hopefully sometime soon, too!

damn, that was long.

exhaustedly,
joe blow

Tigers 7, Royals 3
Royal Record: 1-2

well, that was certainly an ugly game. greinke goes out, royals offense goes out, then they hit the lights.

i don't have a lot to say, considering i'm leaving for the airport to (godforsaken) detroit in about 5 minutes. today was bad, and tony pena has, apparently, reared his head to reveal the he does, in fact, get lineup advice based on the way his cereal shakes out in the morning (earlier i said alpha-bits, but it's obvious cheerios are his preferred breakfast -- marreroooo (over pickering), graffaninoooo (over gotay -- ending "o" takes precedent) -- pretty much, uh...tony pena likes hunches, let's just say that.

anyway, that was bad, they're going to california, and i'm stuck in detroit once all sane semblance of a kansas city presence (plus tony pena!) has long since departed. so, see ya next week!

also, why do i receive hits for "carlos santiago is a fucking wuss"? who is this carlos santiago, and why is he so weak? maybe you can fill me in while i'm gone!

grudgingly,
joe blow

Detroit 11, Kansas City 2
Royal Record: 0-1

well, that was certainly ugly on monday, huh? while lima is not really our best pitcher, considering it was in Detroit and he was basically brought in because he had some name recognition among casual fans and a fiery attitude, I don't see much wrong with throwing him out there. except the pitching thing. I like sisco hitting dmitri young, I like pickering hitting a home run, and that's about all there is about that.

Kansas City 7, Detroit 2
Royal Record: 1-1

today, on the other hand, was much better. a good pitching performance by Hernandez, an excellent start with timely hitting by Dejesus, graffanino and Sweeney, berroa smacking a home run early in the season – pretty damn good. while i'm sure someone could dig up some type of complicated formula that would show hernandez was, in fact, the absolute worst pitcher to throw a game yet this season, that's not really my area of expertise, and i'm content to say he did (as stated above) pretty damn good. the only real trouble today was affeldt giving up a run in his one inning of work, which could have easily been two with a little less luck. for some reason, no matter how spectacular his stuff is, I'm afraid affeldt (no matter how much I would like him to) just, apparently, never seems to get it. I can't see him remaining in the "closer" role for very long – in fact, I have a hard time picturing him ever really being effective. he's been around for a few years now, and it's consistently the same story. not a happy one, either.

* * * * *

part of the (very long) entry I alluded to monday had to do with a bit of explanation regarding my previous stumbling little entry about my buddy mr. neyer – mainly, the idea I wanted to get across was that I don't, in fact, hate sabermetrics in general (wouldn't want to drive any of you off, you know). in an effort to implement my new-found fondness for brevity (I'm trying to keep these things shorter), here's a simple explanation: basically, I agree wholeheartedly with most of the ideas saber guys put forth and buy into (note I said "most"). I just can't stand most of the guys that "practice" it.

currently, most of the new ideas I see being created are WAY too complicated and ridiculously overreaching to actually mean anything, and most people I come across that have caught on to the saber-ish style of analysis are just as bad as "traditional" baseball guys –they'll accept anything thrown at them by certain glorified people, and will openly defy questioning any conventional wisdom brought forth from the saber crowd (while still complaining loudly when traditional guys can't see past "old baseball" ideas). I have nothing against saber-types in general. I'm for *all types* of analysis, as long as it's good.

I might have an entry about the fiasco joining the local adult baseball league has become if I have time, though I'll be in Detroit from thursday – monday. of course it's one day too late to catch the royals. dammit..

anyway, that's basically it.

carry on,
joe blow

Opening day!

(I had a whole long post i started writing on friday, but i didn't finish and now it really doesn't matter because the season's starting and royals stuff will now matter...for at least a month or so!)