The main story of the last night’s installment of the Battle for Grass Creek between the Royals and the Mariners was Hisashi Iwakuma. Iwakuma shut down the (admittedly less-than-intimidating) Kansas City bats with an eight-inning effort, during which he allowed only four hits, no walks and no runs, and struck out seven. The Mariners needed all Iwakuma could bring, because the Royals themselves only allowed the Mariners one run. The Mariners’ lone run came right after Royals’ manager Ned Yost made the questionable decision to have left-handed starter Danny Duffy walk the left-handed hitting Robinson Cano to pitch to right-handed Corey Hart. The problems with that decision have been discussed elsewhere. My own short summary: some intentional walks might make sense, but this was not one of them.

Yost made another interesting decision in the bottom of the ninth. With none out, a runner on first and the Mariners’ closer, Fernando Rodney, on the mound, Yost had Norichika Aoki lay down a sacrifice bunt. Aoki did so successfully, but after an Eric Hosmer walk, the Royals made two more outs and it all came to naught. After the game, Yost explained his decision:

Because I want to take a shot at tying it. My ‘pen was strong enough where I felt like I could go ahead and go for the tie. Some nights you don’t. Some nights you play for the win.

Like intentional walks, not all bunts are bad. Sometimes they are the smart play, sometimes they are not. It is not always easy to say one way or the other. Yost’s teams have sometimes bunted in situations where it made sense. Was this one of those situations?

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Each weekday during the minor-league season, FanGraphs is providing a status update on multiple rookie-eligible players. Note that Age denotes the relevant prospect’s baseball age (i.e. as of July 1st of the current year); Top-15, the prospect’s place on Marc Hulet’s preseason organizational list; and Top-100, that same prospect’s rank on Hulet’s overall top-100 list.

Raul Mondesi, SS, Kansas City Royals (Profile)
Level: High-A   Age: 18   Top-15: 3rd   Top-100: 46th
Line: 89 PA, .304/.382/.430, 1 HR, 9 BB, 23 K

Summary
One of the game’s top shortstop prospect is holding his own against much older players.

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The Royals, as you most likely know, are something far from a powerful team. It took them until April 9 to hit their first homer of the year, an Alex Gordon shot that likely wouldn’t have made it out of any ballpark in the big leagues had it not been wind-aided. It took them until April 15 to hit their second. Even now, 24 games into the season, they have only 10, four coming in the span of a week from Mike Moustakas, who has just 13 total hits — and a .159/.213/.354 line — all year. They have as many homers as a team as Jose Abreu does on his own. Their isolated power is .001 better than that of the Mets, and is in shouting distance of the worst mark we’ve seen in decades. They’re on pace for 67 homers. No one has hit fewer than 70 since the 1991 St. Louis Cardinals, who had only Todd Zeile break into double-digits with 11.

This isn’t a surprise. The Royals hit the fewest homers in the American League last year, and they tied with Minnesota for the fewest in 2012. This wasn’t built to be a powerful team, and it’s not.

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Each weekday during the minor-league season, FanGraphs is providing a status update on multiple rookie-eligible players. Note that Age denotes the relevant prospect’s baseball age (i.e. as of July 1st of the current year); Top-15, the prospect’s place on Marc Hulet’s preseason organizational list; and Top-100, that same prospect’s rank on Hulet’s overall top-100 list.

Summary
The former fifth-overall pick continues to struggle with his swing, leading to increasingly poor output as he climbs the ladder.

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Earwigs are weird little bugs. They’re long, they have pincers on their butts and they have these weird little membranous wings they rarely use. Some species of earwigs have been traced back to the Jurassic Era, and they live on pretty much every continent. You know where they don’t live? Anyone’s ears. The term earwig is a bit of a misnomer as, at least according to the infallible Wikipedia, one would rarely find them in a human ear.

The term has also migrated to mean something that is found in the human ear, at least sort of. Songs, tunes and melodies can also be termed earwigs — referring to a tune that gets stuck in one’s head. I’d list some popular choices, but I don’t consider myself to be that mean of a person and I shudder at the comments if I were responsible for the quickening of some readers’ descents into madness. I do have to mention one, though, or this won’t have anything to do with baseball. Read the rest of this entry »

Each weekday during the minor-league season, FanGraphs is providing a status update on multiple rookie-eligible players. Note that Age denotes the relevant prospect’s baseball age (i.e. as of July 1st of the current year); Top-15, the prospect’s place on Marc Hulet’s preseason organizational list; and Top-100, that same prospect’s rank on Hulet’s overall top-100 list.

Alex Balog, RHP, Colorado Rockies (Profile)
Level: Low-A   Age: 21   Top-15: N/A   Top-100: N/A
Line: 11 IP, 9 H, 5 R, 1 HR, 9/5 K/BB, 4.09 ERA, 4.38 FIP

Summary
The 70th overall pick in last year’s draft struggled mightily upon his introduction to pro ball in 2013, but has regained the stuff that got him drafted so high.

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As we mentioned on Wednesday, we’re going to be contributing to FoxSports.com over the course of this season, and today, Jeff Sullivan is up with a piece on Yordano Ventura, the reigning Velocity King among MLB starters.

Last year, out of every starting pitcher who started at least one major-league game, Kansas City’s Yordano Ventura threw the hardest average fastball. His lead over second place was more than a full mile per hour.

This year, out of every starting pitcher who’s started at least one major-league game, Ventura has thrown the hardest average fastball. His lead over second place is almost two full miles per hour.

Fastball velocity gets a guy noticed. You could probably count on one hand the number of starting pitchers in the world capable of reaching triple digits during a game. Fastball velocity generates hype … and oohs and aahs. A good fastball allows a starter to get through the door, and down the road it buys a starter extra chances.

But as Toronto veteran Mark Buehrle demonstrates every five days, there’s a lot more to pitching than how hard you can throw. The questions with Ventura have nothing to do with his fastball; they have to do with everything else.

In January, FanGraphs ranked Ventura as the Royals’ second-best prospect, behind only Kyle Zimmer. Ventura throws a fastball, a curveball and a changeup, but his secondary pitches could use more development if he is to unlock the extent of his potential.

Armed with that incredible fastball, last year Ventura struck out just 11 of 64 batters in the majors. Before that, down in Triple-A, he allowed more than a hit per inning. Steps forward haven’t been necessary for Ventura to pitch in the majors, but there’s a difference between pitching and pitching well.

For Ventura, the goal is for 2014 to be a year of improvement, or refinement. After a promising spring, he got off to a wonderful start Tuesday, when he blanked the Rays for six innings. Though it was unfortunate the Royals lost 1-0 — the Rays scored in the game’s lone run in the top of the ninth — Ventura showed early signs of development that could bode well for the coming years.

Read the rest at FoxSports.com.

At the start of every season, or perhaps a little before, certain decisions are made in which certain starting pitchers suddenly cease to be starting pitchers. Whether due to age, ineffectiveness, or perhaps both, a handful of starting pitchers are demoted — if you can call it that — to a role in the bullpen. Certainly, this happens during the season, as well. A young pitcher could be knocking a starter out of their rotation spot, but offseason decisions to change a pitcher’s role is a pretty clear sign that the club isn’t terribly impressed with what a guy has been doing in that larger role. That is ostensibly happened to Ross Detwiler this year. It also happened to Paul Maholm, Brad Peacock, Justin Grimm, Chris Capuano, and Samuel Deduno, among others, probably. Contracts or lack of better options keep them on the team, but just not in the role most came into the league filling.

Almost every reliever is a failed starter of some sorts. Whether in college, the minors, or the big leagues, they were told that their services would no longer be needed in the first inning. A handful have been position player reclamations, sure, but you get the idea. And certainly players have flourished when being sent to the pen — Glen Perkins is a somewhat-recent example, but there are plenty to chose from throughout history. Some have fizzled out too, certainly. But as Detwiler et al. look to succeed in their new roles, there is a very recent blueprint for success they can look to — Luke Hochevar. Read the rest of this entry »

Monday featured, for the first time in 2014, a full slate of meaningful baseball, albeit with a bit of a lull in the late afternoon as the only live game for a stretch had the Rockies and the Marlins. I met a friend at a neighborhood bar a little after 5, and the bar had the game on all of its screens, and after a little conversation I found I was completely hanging on the action. Come August, I probably won’t be watching the Rockies and the Marlins, but this early in the year, everything’s interesting. And while we always know that anything can happen, there’s no cynicism around opening day. By the middle of the year, anything can happen, but we know what’s probably going to happen. In late March and early April, it’s more fun to imagine that baseball’s a big giant toss-up. That Marcell Ozuna looks good. If he hits, and if the Marlins get their pitching…

I don’t remember what most opening days are like, but this one felt like it had an unusual number of anything-can-happens. That is, events that would take one by complete and utter surprise. What are documented below are, I think, the five most outstanding miracles from a long and rejuvenating Monday. From one perspective, this is evidence that the future is a mystery and all a surprise is is a run of good or bad luck. From another, more bummer of a perspective, this is evidence that opening day doesn’t matter at all in the grand scheme of things and come on why are you already projecting Grady Sizemore to be a five-win center fielder? Why are you already freaking out about the 2014 Blue Jays? Be whatever kind of fan you like. Just remember that baseball is a silly game, and you’ll never outsmart it.

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“Don’t judge a book by its cover” is the old adage — things that appear one way may, in fact, be another way. We are taught this as children in an effort to curb prejudice and stereotypes. We should get to know people before creating an opinion of them. But, in reality, we pre-judge all the time. We make hasty decisions using a less-than-optimal set of data dozens of times a day. If we didn’t nothing would get done.

I hate grocery shopping. This strikes me as odd since I love food so much, but buying it is something I loathe. The crowds, the lists, the doubling back to grab something you passed — it’s all terrible. So when I’m done shopping, I want to get out of there as soon as I can. And when I make my way to the checkout, I’m scanning to find the line that will get me out of the store the fastest. The length of the line has something to do with it, but there are other factors I’ve come to discover. If I line has an elderly woman in it, I try to avoid it since they are most likely to search for coupons and write a check. Solo parents attempting to herd multiple children while checking out tend to take some time. I look at the baggers — do they seem to be working at a normal pace, or are they lagging? Would it be quicker to do self-checkout and bag everything myself? All these thoughts and more flood my brain when I make it to the front of the store.

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