Who's Bored? Tom's Bored

For those of you keeping score at home, 89 days until Opening Day.  Is it too early to talk about baseball?  Never!  If ESPN can talk about football in June, in the middle of baseball season, I can sure as heck talk baseball in January, in the middle of college football's bowl season and the NFL playoffs.  Does anyone even care about college bowls other than the National Championship and the one their school is playing in?  No.  Does anyone care about baseball in January?  You're looking at him.

So, today we begin a rundown of all 30 MLB teams, mostly out of sheer boredom, and also because the best free agent remaining on the market is 44-year-old Roger Clemens, with the second-best, apparently, being Jeff Weaver, who pitched well in the World Series for the Cardinals and made everybody forget how awful he was in the first half of the 2006 season for the Angels (I mean, they dumped him for Terry Freaking Evans!)  Several members of the 2004 Colorado Rockies are also still available, including Preston Wilson, Jamey Wright, Todd Greene, Jeromy Burnitz, and Shawn Estes.  And you wonder why Dan O'Dowd blew the team up.

Where to begin?  I talk Rockies all the time, so we'll save them for last.  Instead, we'll go with, oh, (throwing darts at a wall) the Kansas City Royals.

A typical Royals outfield adventure.

Since somehow mustering 83 wins in 2003, Royals fans have endured three consecutive 100-loss seasons.  In fact, they've lost 100 or more games four of the last five seasons, and lost 97 games in both 2002 and 2000.  Kauffman Stadium would be one of the best (and least expensive) places to enjoy a game in America if not for the truly awful brand of baseball the Royals have been playing since 1994.

Shots at the Royals aside, the Royals did notice the success the Cardinals had with the strategy of "Sign All the Guys the Rockies Didn't Want" and have followed suit, with Scott Elarton and Zach Day gracing the roster along with Ryan Shealy, who the Rockies only didn't want because he plays the same position as Todd Helton.  The Royals may have also pulled off the single dumbest signing of this offseason by paying Gil Meche and his career 4.65 ERA $55 million.

Of course, as Baseball Think Factory pointed out, signing Meche means the Royals won't be able to sign a bunch of mediocre guys to block their top prospects.  And it also means that the Royals are actually trying these days, rather than pocketing the luxury tax money that they pick up from rich teams like the Yankees and blaming market inequities (rather than, you know, bonehead decisions and refusing to spend money or develop an adequate farm system) for their failures.

There are some impact players down on the farm, which is what having so many poor seasons and high draft picks will do for you, but not a lot of depth.  In other words, if Alex Gordon, Billy Butler, and Luke Hochevar don't pan out, things aren't going to be pretty for the Royals in the next few years.

But that's not for discussion for 2007, though any of those three could be with the team at some point during the season.  For 2007, Meche is actually the Royals' #1 starter, which tells you a lot about how bad things have gotten for the Royals.  He'll likely be followed in the rotation by Odalis Perez, who's better than the 6.20 ERA he posted in 2006.  After that... things get ugly (unless, of course, you're a hitter on the opposing team.)  According to Royals Review they're looking at Luke Hudson, Jorge de la Rosa, and Zack Greinke as their last three starters -- with Scott Elarton, Brian Bannister, and Zach Day in spring training competition for spots in the rotation.  Considering what Day did in Colorado last April, the fact that he could have a spot on a major league roster is amazing.  What we know about Elarton is that he's tall and has some pretty weak stuff; the Rockies brought him in because he had minor success in Houston and played his high school ball in Lamar, Colorado and therefore should have success pitching at altitude.  We now know better than that.  Of course, this is better than last season, when the Royals had Elarton as their #1 starter instead of merely a guy competing for a rotation spot.  The bullpen has a bunch of no-name guys, including an interesting signing in John Bale, and of course Octavio Dotel, last seen miserably failing as the closer in Houston and then Oakland.  The bullpen could be good if Dotel rediscovers the magic he showed in Houston before they made him the closer and if some of the other guys step up.  On the other hand, I don't see the rotation turning out well.

The offense, if you want to call it that, should be better as only Reggie Sanders, Emil Brown, and Mark Grudzielanek have reached age 30.  It wouldn't be a stretch to suggest that Ryan Shealy, who should be manning first for the Royals on a regular basis, could put up better numbers than Todd Helton does in Colorado.  Angel Berroa has mostly shown that his Rookie of the Year season in 2003 was a fluke, while 25-year-old Mark Teahen is making sure the Royals don't have to rush Gordon to the majors.  Of course, with Sanders closing in on 40 and Emil Brown only being league-average in left field, and Billy Butler looking mostly like a DH in the field, there should be somewhere for Gordon to play if and when he's ready.  Grudz still has it at 36, and the Royals don't have an obvious replacement on the horizon since they got tired of waiting on Donnie Murphy.  David DeJesus is a potential star in center field, while catcher John Buck has struggled enough at the plate that the Royals felt it necessary to sign Jason LaRue.  And of course there's longtime Royal Mike Sweeney, pushed to a permanent DH role by injuries and the acquisition of Shealy.

Translation: It's going to be another long year for the Royals, and there should be plenty of opportunities for the Royals' young prospects to get some playing time.  Butler and Gordon should be up around midseason, and Justin Huber should get some PT as well.  Hochevar, who's logged just 15.1 innings at A-ball, is obviously more questionable, but the Royals have showed no qualms about rushing prospects to the bigs in the past.

Royals Projected Opening Day Lineup

DeJesus cf
Grudzielanek 2b
Teahan 3b
Brown lf
Sanders rf
Shealy 1b
Sweeney dh
Buck c
Berroa ss

Projected Starting Rotation

Gil Meche
Odalis Perez (L)
Luke Hudson
Jorge de la Rosa (L)
Zack Greinke

Projected Finish: 5th, AL Central

The season will be a success if: The Royals avoid the cellar for the first time since 2003.  Seriously, it's going to take a while for the Royals to turn things around and this season should be about getting the young guys some meaningful, non-September playing time, not embarrassing themselves, and perhaps not being out of the playoff race by the end of April.  There is some talent down on the farm, including some impact talents that are very close to being ready for the majors, though the system doesn't have the depth of the Rockies' or the impact talents like the Devil Rays'.  But it would be nice for the club to show some progress this season.  The AL Central has suddenly become one of the toughest divisions in baseball, and that can't help the Royals in their quest for respectability.

Projected 2007 Record: 66-96

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