eBay Pic Dump II

Some KC baseball miscellanea procured from the eBays (click to enlarge):

These three shots are from opening day at Municipal Stadium on April 9, 1963 (a 2-8 loss against the Yankees).

Your 1920 Kansas City Blues

Lou Fette, Blues 1929

Bob Boken, Blues 1932

Marty Hopkins, Blues 1936

Lee Stine, Blues 1937

What Royals fan can forget the classic 1976 World Series! Wait, what? Must have been printed ahead of time in case the Royals made it...

1920 ad for a Blues game from a scrapbook full of Blues coverage

 

Slim Harris, Blues 1934

Terrible scene on the field after an A's game in '56: "Negro & white boys fight..."

A Slightly Less But Still Quite Premature Look At The 2011 Lineup

Since my last post previewing the 2011 lineup, the Greinke trade bombshell was dropped. (You can read my recap of Greinke's time with the Royals here.) The upside to the frustrating trade is no more Yuniesky Betancourt in a Royals uniform. New Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar is at least young and by all accounts could be fantastic in the field. He should also get on base a little more than Yuni - Bill James projects a .318 OBP for Escobar next year compared to .293 for Yuni. Escobar's slug is projected by James to be less than Yuni's though: .364 to .397.

It's not a given, but I expect/hope Lorenzo Cain will see the bulk of the time in center. Swapping out Gregor Blanco from my previous post for Cain results in a lower projected OBP (.345 to .361) but improved slug (.379 to .337). According to the Baseball Musings lineup analyzer, the effect on scoring from these two changes is almost nil. The projection is still 4.9 runs/game. Escobar and Cain could be big upgrades on fielding runs saved though.

This is what the optimal lineup would supposedly look like after the two changes (once again, first number is James's projected OBP, second is SLG):

1. Kila 1B/DH (.375/.451)
2. Billy 1B/DH (.377/.476)
3. Pena C (.327/.400)
4. Alex LF (.356/.455)
5. Francoeur RF (.318/.425)
6. Escobar SS (.318/.364)
7. Cain CF (.345/.379)
8. Aviles 3B (.320/.414)
9. Getz 2B (.333/.339)

Premature Look At The 2011 Lineup

If you're like me and a Royals fan, you're bummed out by the recent signings of out-machines Jeff Francoeur & Melky Cabrera and the specter of a Zack Greinke trade. 2011 is going to be another brutal year for the Royals.

To wallow in it, I plugged Bill James's 2011 projections (found on Fangraphs.com) for a potential Royals lineup into Baseball Musing's lineup optimizer. But it actually made me feel marginally better. James is projecting big improvements from Kila and Alex. If they live up to these numbers, 2011 will be much more bearable.

Below would be the optimum batting order for these players according to Baseball Musing's tool, which would be expected to score 4.9 runs/game, or 794 over 162 games. That's insanely high -- only the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays scored that many in 2010. But hey, makes for some fun "maybe they won't be that bad..." off-season dreaming. If everything breaks our way, maybe we'll only lose 85 games!

First number is James's projected OBP, second is SLG:

1. Kila (.375/.451)
2. Billy (.377/.476)
3. Aviles (.320/.414)
4. Gordon (.356/.455)
5. Francoeur (.318/.425)
6. Pena (.327/.400)
7. Getz (.333/.339)
8. Yunicorn (.293/.397)
9. Blanco (.361/.337)