"Jimmy Gobble, once a reliable situational reliever, may be lost forever."

Why? Is he a missionary in the Belgian Congo? Was he eaten by a grue?

Jimmy Gobble must have been on the Royals for like eight years by now. I remember Rob Neyer complaining about him back when Scribbly Tate was still alive. How often is a team's longest-tenured player a middle reliever?

Alright, alright...so Hillman finally made a bad record.

The Byrds 1973 reunion album doesn't count?

Brian Bannister is a train wreck.

His K:BB and K/9 have actually improved. The K:BB is now basically a respectable 2:1. The K/9 improvement is not just because he's facing more batters, the K% has gone from 11.3% to 14.5%. Tim Lincecum he is not, but these aren't bad numbers. The problem is he's getting hit harder. Line drives are up and home runs allowed are way up. And all his saberiffic goodness couldn't stop his BABIP coming back to league levels. What's more, with men in scoring position, hitters are basically Lou Gehrig against him - .358/.427/.659.

I don't think this is all bad luck. Bannister has always been significantly worse from the stretch. He's pounding the ball in the zone to get ahead of the batters (he's even admitted as much) and that's led to him getting hit hard. I think the focus on strikeouts is hurting him. He needs to go back to the drawing board because even for the Royals, an ERA of 6 just plain stinks.

The early-season enthusiasm for Bannister here has definitely faded.

The problem is that Bannister doesn't have a breaking pitch and he's throwing 90mph fastballs.

Also, Hillman's passion for giving Tony Pena Jr playing time is really getting absurd.

Pena has no real value left as a fielder. He doesn't have good range, he constantly makes errors.

I'm not very impressed with Trey so far. Same goes for St. Dayton (No word on if Dayton Moore will become the patron saint of finding surprisingly relief pitchers).

Hochevar was a scam, just like Jeff Austin. We spent a #1 pick on a lousy SINKERBALL pitcher?????

Tim Lincecum should have been ours, but we got scammed by Boras.

And Trey calls for bunts WAAAAAAAAY too much. This isn't Japan, Trey!

Pena has no real value left as a fielder. He doesn't have good range, he constantly makes errors.

What?
With the significant caveat that I haven't seen him much this year I have an extremely hard time believing this. Last year at least Pena was outstanding with the glove, just super. I have a hard time, even with an unfortunate error binge in there, he isn't still a plus or plus-plus SS.

Pena has been average to lousy lately as a defensive replacement. He made an error today. I think he made an error against the Yankees. He collided with Gordon against the Red Sox on an infield groundball. The guy didn't play organized ball until he was 18 and it shows.

Also, you have to measure things by realizing that Aviles has been better on defense than Pena at short.

Why is it that Royals fans are willing to throw Hochevar under the bus, but stick their head in the sand like an Ostrich when it comes to Gordon? I know he's only 24, but he's been pretty disappointing at the plate and an absolute butcher in the field. In a very, very deep draft seems like they bungled the Gordon pick, too.

In a very, very deep draft seems like they bungled the Gordon pick, too.

Can you really say they bungled the pick when Gordon was pretty much a consensus ROY preseason pick and who many thought was the heir to George Brett? That doesn't exactly scream "low-ceiling" like Hochevar.

Because Gordon still has tons of upside and, at 24 years old, he still has plenty of time to develop into an all-star caliber player. The problem with Hochevar is that he doesn't have that upside. His stuff wasn't very impressive (no plus pitches) when he was drafted and it's diminshed since. If Gordon doesn't pan out, then that's a pretty bad pick, but still not as bad as using a first overall pick for a guy that only projected to be a middle of the rotation starter.

Personally, I'm still trying to figure out how Hillman comes up with his lineups. It's one thing to have a diffrent lineup everyday. It's another to be jerking everyone around constantly. I don't think I've seen a single player stay in the same lineup spot for even two games in a row. Nothing like letting your players get comfortable.

Also, as far as Bannister's results, I think that really has to be chalked up to the defense he has to pich in front of. KC has the third worst DER in the league, third worst +/- figure, are well below average in both the infield and the outfield in RZR, and are near the bottom in OOZ plays. Teahen and DeJesus are the only two players who are above-average defensively. They have a few solid pitchers, but none of them are extreme strikeout pitchers so until they do something about the defense the guys like Bannister and Greinke are going to look a lot worse than they really are.

Flanagan: Royals’ Hillman needs to show us something

Ask Steve Garvey how that worked out for him.

Flanagan: Royals’ Hillman needs to show us something

Option J?

"Why is it that Royals fans are willing to throw Hochevar under the bus, but stick their head in the sand like an Ostrich when it comes to Gordon?"

Assuming that both players don't pan out (which isn't a given), Gordon was the consensus top player available when he was taken, while Hochevar was regarded as a deserving first-rounder, but kind of a reach, and a strange pick for KC to make. Thus, the Hochevar pick is more second-guessable, since there was a lot of first-guessing going on when it was made.

In a very, very deep draft seems like they bungled the Gordon pick, too.

Gordon had an excellent minor league career and was very well regarded by scouts as well. There may well be some bungling going on but if so it's by the Royals on some level: Him not being ready for the majors when promoted, not being prepared properly in the minors, poor job by the major league coaching staff in helping him adjust, the wrong decision made when it came time to decide whether to send him back to the minors or work out his problems in the majors. Maybe one of those options is the reason, maybe more than one. The drafting of Gordon seems just fine, it's the development side that probably failed.

Or we could all just be second-guessing now that we know Gordon's turned out badly so far. Same thing happens with Evan Longoria, a lot of us are saying some of the same stuff about the Rays. My feeling is, it just might be pretty much random and dependent on the player himself, rather than the team, and utterly unpredictable.

I am more or less a neutral on-looker, as I could care less about the Royals, but since I've been stranded in the KC TV market I've seen a good chunk of Gordon's games. If I recall, Gordon was touted a plus defender with great agility, instincts, and a strong arm. Based on what I've seen, his hands are terrible and his range is poor. Many fielding metrics, including Dial's, concur and suggest he sucks with the glove.

I don't doubt that Gordon may develop into a good hitter someday, but he's going to have to hit a lot more as a potential 1B/LF, rather than an elite defensive 3B to give the Royals top value. As mentioned above, I'm not sure how much of Gordon's struggles can be chalked up to the organization's handling of him, but it's pretty clear that skipping AAA was a bad decision.

My feeling is, it just might be pretty much random and dependent on the player himself, rather than the team, and utterly unpredictable.

I don't see why this isn't the default assumption unless there are strong indications otherwise. It just baffles me that every time a prospect turns out to be not-all-that-great the explanation always has something to do with "the stupid team screwing him up."

Meh, I'm not terribly impressed with Hillman, and I was a huge proponent of his hiring, but I don't think its fair to blame him for this season (which in the end, could turn out to be an improvement over last year).

It isn't Trey's fault Gload is signed for the next two years. It isn't Trey's fault Shealy can't get promoted. Its not Trey's fault the bench is so thin he has to play Joey Gathright so much.

I suppose you could possibly blame him for the lack of progress in Buck, Gordon and Butler and the regression by Teahen. Of course, it could also be that those players aren't really that good. And then wouldn't you also have to give him credit for the vast improvement of Meche, Greinke, DeJesus, Soria and Aviles?

I don't really believe managers have much impact in player performance. Their main job is to set the lineup, handle the bullpen, and manage the clubhouse. Trey has shown a willingness to try different things out in the lineup, but ultimately until he gets better personnel, its in vain. I think he's done a terrific job handling the bullpen, save for a few blunders here and there which every manager will have. I don't know how well he's managed the clubhouse. There are reports the clubhouse isn't a happy one, but that may due largely to Guillen.

IOW, its way too early to judge Hillman as a manager.

And then wouldn't you also have to give him credit for the vast improvement of Meche

Meche was better under Buddy Bell last year.

Ryan Shealy? Shealy is Ross Gload. Granted, you might as well have him up and platoon the two.

But I really loved "Esteban German has lost his trade value."

Anyway, unfortunately, there's still nothing much to like about KC. I'd like to point fingers but back when Baird was in his swan song, I wrote a few times about how bad this franchise was and it would likely take a long time for them to get good again. Moore (and Hillman) had an impossible task ... but it would be hard to say that there's been any significant progress.

There are some positives. DeJesus is tied up through 2011 at very cheap rates. Greinke's not an FA until after 2010. The Meche signing is working out OK and he's there through 2011. Soria will be around for a very long while -- guaranteed through 2011 plus cheap team options for 2012-14.

But there's plenty of weirdness here too. The Guillen signing has been its predictable disaster -- I know, I said the same thing about the Meche contract. They signed Ron Mahay for 2/$8 -- he's been good but this is not the sort of team that needs a $4 M Loogy ... and then they didn't trade him at the deadline. For reasons understood by nobody, they gave John Bale 2/$4 -- again, not a big deal but what were they thinking?

So far Moore's been good at tying up young talent (or, in the Royals' case, "talent") to good contracts. But DeJesus, Meche, Greinke, Soria is not the core of a good team and the Royals won't get there unless they can turn players like Gordon and Butler into stars (which they yet might do) while also generating a lot of useful players through their system.

They just don't have any roster flexibility right now. Everybody's locked into the role they had on opening day, regardless of performance. Aviles aside, they stuck with TPJ too long because they didn't see any other options at shortstop. Plus, they've been drafting toolsy high schoolers under Moore, so the minor league talent is younger than you'd like.

You want a depressing thought? Last year was Moore's first draft, and he focused on high schoolers. You always hope a few will run ahead of the pack, but the system won't be truly stocked until those 18 year olders are 22 or 23.

They signed Ron Mahay for 2/$8 -- he's been good but this is not the sort of team that needs a $4 M Loogy ... and then they didn't trade him at the deadline.

It's frowned upon to sign someone for more than one year and then trade him less than halfway through his first year, I think. It makes future free agents not want to sign with you.

I think Podsedsnanski wrote something about this earlier in the year, about how the Royals should be looking to trade various people but not Mahay.

They signed Ron Mahay for 2/$8 -- he's been good but this is not the sort of team that needs a $4 M Loogy .

I'm just nitpicking, but Mahay is not a LOOGY, he's a very effective setup reliever who can retire lefties and righties, and he's been worth every penny. I also think its not a bad idea to sign such players. They're not expensive and you can flip them for decent prospects. I think Dayton can be criticized for many moves, but signing Mahay is not one of them.

Also, as far as Bannister's results, I think that really has to be chalked up to the defense he has to pich in front of. KC has the third worst DER in the league, third worst +/- figure, are well below average in both the infield and the outfield in RZR, and are near the bottom in OOZ plays. Teahen and DeJesus are the only two players who are above-average defensively. They have a few solid pitchers, but none of them are extreme strikeout pitchers so until they do something about the defense the guys like Bannister and Greinke are going to look a lot worse than they really are.

The AL has a BABIP of .298. Bannister has a BABIP of .306. It's not a major factor, particularly considering he is giving up so many line drives. Maybe the Royals' fielding is making him look ever so slightly worse, but his ERA is 5.89. Make that a little better and he still stinks.

Look at the stats. Bannister is giving up 1.5 HRs per 9 innings. That's not on the fielders, I'm sorry.