Down to business

Now that the pre-season is officially underway, let’s look at what we’ve got.

Three of the five starting rotation spots are (or should be) set. Career Royal Luke Hochevar’s back for another go-around, and Bruce Chen (at 35 the senior member of the team) seems to be settling in after years of bouncing around the majors. Johnathan Sanchez also figures to start, as he pitched well for the Giants. Plus if you trade Melky Cabrera for someone, you might as well play that someone.

The other two spots and the bullpen? Obviously Joakim Soria will stay at closer. The rest, well, we’ll just have to wait and see.

The current 40-man roster lists three catchers: Pena, Pina and Perez. I expect the choice here will depend more on what they plan to do with pitching than on the batting and fielding merits of any of the catchers.

Eric Hosmer recently signed a one-year deal, and they already had his buddy Mike Moustakas on board (they even have a Moose-themed promo scheduled, so they must be serious about him). So that takes care of the sides.

The Star speculates that Alcides Escobar will be the regular starter at short, though the team hasn’t reached a deal with him yet. I hope they’re right, because last summer I was impressed by Escobar’s energy. He reminded me of Tony Pena Jr. in the hustle department, but fortunately not in the sucking department.

When the team signed Yuniesky Betancourt to a one-year deal, my first thought was “well, here are the Royals once again failing to learn their lesson.” But the Star says his most likely spot will be backup for either Johnny Giavotella (“Gio” in Ned-Yost-speak) or Chris Getz (“Getzy”), with the unlucky runner up shipped to the Storm Chasers. So rest easy, Alex Gordon. Jeff Francoeur’s got the duty.

All the Spring Training games will be webcast, and the radio’s going to broadcast a few here and there when they aren’t tied up with KU basketball. So I’ll try to listen to some games and see how they sound.

Reporting for duty

Pitchers and catchers report today.

From the players’ perspective this is probably a fairly irrelevant date. It’s just the pitchers and catchers, six of the latter and something like 200 of the former. Today all they do is report. The official workouts don”t get underway until tomorrow.

More directly to the point, most of the players (not just the pitchers and catchers) are already in Surprise. Our likely roster has the youngest average age of any team in the majors, and a lot of these guys need the early start to get ready in time for opening day. The team’s official site is using words such as “enthusiastic,” though “inexperienced” constantly lurks behind the cheery facade.

In any event, here we go again

Hud

A couple of days ago, the Royals officially announced that Rex Hudler would be taking over Frank White’s vacant spot in the TV broadcast booth. My eight initial reactions (and yes, I know this isn’t 8sails, but I’ve gotten into the eight habit and I’m too lazy to break it):

1. For this you fired Frank White?

2. Really?

3. A month or two ago I bought a portable radio to replace my old one (which was too bulky and hopped out of tune if I even looked at it funny). I also got a fancy earpiece. Never has money been spent so wisely.

4. Chris Berman – ESPN’s nickname-bestowing football guy occasionally pressed into awkward service for baseball broadcasts – called Hud “Wonder Dog” because he was a dog and Berman wondered about him. In a related story, the Royals’ front office will henceforth be known as Wonder Management.

5. Really?

6. A month or two ago we ditched the MLB premium subscription. We just couldn’t see spending hundreds of dollars to watch YouTube-video-quality, delayed-until-an-hour-after-the-game-ends broadcasts. Though the future of the Royals’ broadcast team wasn’t a factor, in retrospect never has money been not spent so wisely.

7. Really?

8. They couldn’t get Harry Carry because he’s dead, right?

We signed Alex Gordon

To a one-year deal, of course. Still, it’s kinda nice to know he’s coming back. I didn’t think much of him at third base, but I’ve grown at least marginally fond of him in left. He’s a better player now, in part because getting him out of the hot corner was smart and in part because he’s playing measurably better now than he did when he first came up.

Plus if they’re going to put Betancourt back in at short then the left fielder should have plenty of work to do.