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.