2014 Kansas City Royals

[Irish27]

With the Diamondbacks out of the race already, I am going to adopt the Royals as my team this year. For the past couple of years, many thought the Royals would have a break through season with a lot of young talent, and it looks like this is the year.

The Royals are 37-32 and a half game out of first place. The have won eight straight games. Gordon is coming into his own and guys like Escobar and Butler are driving in guys. The pitching has been pretty good with a healthy Shields. Vargas has pitched well and Greg Holland has 20 saves.

It would be nice to see the Royals make the playoffs for the first time since their championship way back in '85.

[Irish27]

Royals win their 9th straight as they beat Detroit 11-4 and take over first place.

[thenewazcats]

Shields, Ventura, Duffy, Vargas, Guthrie... not sure that gets it done over 162. Then again that rotation has the 10th-best FIP in MLB so far, and Cleveland's rotation is nothing special and Detroit has serious problems with a broken down Verlander and the inconsistent Scherzer. I really like that Ventura kid.

Butler has had a good week but he has been brutal the rest of the year. Gordon is a good player. Escobar is doing all right. Hosmer is making small strides, and the power has shown up recently.

No doubt this may be a fun team to watch, but can you really loan out your allegiance midseason?

[Irish27]

Shields, Ventura, Duffy, Vargas, Guthrie... not sure that gets it done over 162. Then again that rotation has the 10th-best FIP in MLB so far, and Cleveland's rotation is nothing special and Detroit has serious problems with a broken down Verlander and the inconsistent Scherzer. I really like that Ventura kid.

Butler has had a good week but he has been brutal the rest of the year. Gordon is a good player. Escobar is doing all right. Hosmer is making small strides, and the power has shown up recently.

No doubt this may be a fun team to watch, but can you really loan out your allegiance midseason?

Have you seen the Diamondbacks play? I am amazed Towers still has a job. He took a young team that had made the playoffs and made terrible trade after terrible trade. His free agent signings have been terrible also.

[thenewazcats]

Shields, Ventura, Duffy, Vargas, Guthrie... not sure that gets it done over 162. Then again that rotation has the 10th-best FIP in MLB so far, and Cleveland's rotation is nothing special and Detroit has serious problems with a broken down Verlander and the inconsistent Scherzer. I really like that Ventura kid.

Butler has had a good week but he has been brutal the rest of the year. Gordon is a good player. Escobar is doing all right. Hosmer is making small strides, and the power has shown up recently.

No doubt this may be a fun team to watch, but can you really loan out your allegiance midseason?

Have you seen the Diamondbacks play? I am amazed Towers still has a job. He took a young team that had made the playoffs and made terrible trade after terrible trade. His free agent signings have been terrible also.

I'm not disputing Towers' ineptitude, but I'm still a DBacks fan. Nothing wrong with enjoying the product the Royals are putting out there. I'm just a one team kind of guy, win or lose. Playing fantasy baseball helps keep me interested when the DBacks are out of it in April.

[Irish27]

I still watch the Diamondbacks and pull for them but seeing how they should still have Skaggs, Parker Upton and instead have a bunch of overpaid veterans not getting it done makes me mad.

[thenewazcats]

Right there with you, Irish. Towers gutted a good homegrown talent pool, and it set us back another four or five years at least. Very frustrating watching the cultivation of your youngsters only to never even get a glimpse of what it would look like at the ML level. Let's just hope he doesn't find a way to deal Drury, Shipley, Miller, Velasquez, Lamb or any other prospect in the farm system with half a future. I really do like the draft the organization had, but we're years away from seeing the impact. It's once again time to gut the ML roster, and we shouldn't have been in this position. Kendrick deserves as much blame as anyone. The Towers hire was bad from the get-go. Not sure La Russa can do much as a front office guy but we can hope.

[The Goat]

It is amazing that with how much talent Towers has dealt away that there is still a good amount left on the farm.

Even more amazing than that, is the fact that Towers has been allowed to increase payroll by quite a bit while dealing all that talent away, and the team is still a mess. I don't think a complete strip down fire sale is necessary, but I would hope that they are at least putting feelers out on guys.

[wooha]

8 W in a row