Burlington.

If Wilmington is the minor-league hottie that the Royals are constantly trying to please, then Burlington is the slightly overweight girl with self-esteem issues that’s just happy the Royals called, and never mind where they’ve been the last few days.

The Royals have sampled much of the Midwest League over the last quarter-century. Their low A-ball affiliate has moved from Appleton, Wisconsin in 1987, to Rockford, Illinois in 1993, to Springfield, Illinois in 1995, to Lansing, Michigan in 1996, to a two-year sabbatical in the South Atlantic League in Charleston, West Virginia in 1999, and finally to Burlington, Iowa in 2001.

The fact that I had to include the state along with the name of each city tells you what you need to know: none of these teams play in large cities, and none of them –with the exception of the Lansing Lugnuts – are a particularly desirable location for a minor league affiliate. In particular, the Midwest League teams have to deal with, well, Midwest weather. The Royals can afford a state-of-the-art drainage system at Kauffman Stadium, and can have the players back on the field just as soon as the Tornado Warning expires. The Burlington Bees can’t. Just by way of example, the Bees were rained out this Tuesday, and Wednesday the game was suspended in the seventh inning due to rain. That’s pretty typical. It could be worse; at least the Mississippi hasn’t flooded this year.

The Royals have stuck with Burlington for the last decade nonetheless, probably because it’s close by, and because the Bees put up with teams that are as consistently wretched as the Blue Rocks are consistently great. The Charleston Alley Cats were 61-80 and 53-80 in 1999 and 2000, and since moving to Burlington, the team has eight losing seasons in nine years, and finished at least five full games under .500 seven times.

The exception was 2008, when after a 30-39 first half, the Bees went 46-29 in the second half to clinch a playoff spot, then blew through three rounds of playoffs to win the Midwest League championship. And you guys all thought Mike Moustakas wasn’t a leader.

The Bees are on pace for their worst season yet in 2010, as even a doubleheader sweep on Thursday night only improved the team’s record to 30-52. Now, winning isn’t everything in the minors, and at this level of the minors winning isn’t much of anything. But this team is as weak in prospects as its win-loss record suggests.

The big exception to this is Wil Myers, and he alone makes the Bees worth watching. (Or he did, anyway.) Myers was drafted in the third round last year, but the Royals nearly took him with their first-round pick, and gave him mid-first-round money ($2 million) to sign. It’s been money well spent. As a 19-year-old in a tough hitters’ league, Myers started out slowly, hitting just .232 (but with good pop) in April. He heated up in May and June, and by the end of June his overall line was .289/.408/.500, with 10 homers, 19 doubles, and 48 walks.

Those numbers are ridiculous for a teenager in the Midwest League. Two years earlier, at the same age, Moustakas hit .272/.337/.468, with 22 homers and 25 doubles in a full season, and everyone was duly impressed. Myers’ performance for Burlington was very similar – except that Myers had more walks by the end of June than Moustakas had (43) all season long.

It’s so hard to evaluate the batting eye of a high school hitter, because they face so much inferior competition that sometimes they’re forced to expand their strike zone for the good of the team. Reports before the draft were that Myers had a good batting eye, but no one expected this level of patience.

Myers is clearly on a faster track than Moustakas was, because he was promoted to Wilmington at the start of this month. He’s only getting hotter; in eight games with the Blue Rocks, Myers has hits in seven of them, and last night he went 4-for-5 to raise his average with Wilmington to .438 (14-for-32). He only has two doubles and one walk in those eight games; we’ll cut him some slack.

Did I mention Myers is a catcher? No, I guess not. He is, you know. A 19-year-old catcher who has hit his way to high-A ball, where he’s batting right behind Eric Hosmer. Hosmer, who is one of the organization’s best prospects, is a year older than Myers and plays first base.

Wil Myers, the catcher, might well be the best prospect in the entire organization.

The problem is that it’s less than 50/50 that Wil Myers really is a catcher. The tools are there – he’s thrown out a solid 34% of attempted basestealers this year, and made just 4 errors – but he also has allowed 18 passed balls in just 51 games behind the plate.

Myers wasn’t a full-time catcher in high school, so he has barely a year of full-time backstopping to his credit at this point. I think the impact of blocking balls behind the plate is overrated. The Royals survived a couple of seasons of Miguel Olivo just fine; they can survive Wil Myers. Myers’ offensive skills, solid arm, and weaknesses with the nuances of catching remind me of Jorge Posada, who to this day drives the Yankees crazy with his defensive deficiencies. (Hey, it’s hard to catch with so many rings on your fingers.)

The greatest impediment to Myers’ glove might be his bat. If he keeps hitting like this, he’s going to force himself to the majors before his glove is ready, and the Royals will be tempted to move him to the outfield. In their defense, that might even be the correct move. Myers’ body type – a lanky 6’3”, 190 – lends itself more to running around an outfield than squatting behind the plate. His offense will definitely play in a corner, and he has the speed (10 steals this year) and arm to make himself into a quality right fielder in short order. And while catchers are always in demand, the Royals have less depth in the outfield than they do at almost any other position.

Still, you hate to give up on the potential to have a catcher who hits like Myers does. For now, the Royals don’t have to make that decision. If Myers keeps hitting the way he has, though, he might be ready for the majors by the time he’s 21, and then a decision will have to be made. It’s a dilemma other teams would love to have.

Picollo on Myers: Very good hands, good athleticism, but footwork is not good. Pop times to second base are 1.8-1.9 seconds, which is good…footwork is an issue partly because he’s tall and lanky…if he doesn’t smooth out his actions behind the plate there are some worries about his long-term health if he stays at catcher…his defense isn’t helped by the fact that A-ball pitchers are much more erratic than in the majors…has heard from scouts that Posada [he brought up Posada’s name on his own] looked much the same way in A-ball – some nights he looked awful, some nights he looked good.

With Myers gone, the cupboard is almost bare. The second-best hitter on the team, outfielder Carlo Testa, is hitting a modest .255/.331/.450, and is 23 years old. There isn’t another hitter anywhere on the roster who strikes me as more than a long-shot prospect.

On the mound things are equally bleak. The pitching staff includes some notable names, but they’re not notable for their performances this season. One’s notable for being an early-round bust (Sam Runion), another for struggling to return from Tommy John surgery (Matt Mitchell), and another for being talented but with a perpetually sore arm (Kelvin Herrera).

Keaton Hayenga was a late-round pick in 2007, even though he had torn his labrum on a bad slide during his senior year of high school. The Royals were enamored enough with his arm that they gave him $300,000 to sign, then waited patiently for 2 years for him to return to the mound last season. This year, the wrapper was finally taken off, and the Royals were excited to see the return on their investment.

What they’ve received is a pitcher with an 8.23 ERA, and just 17 strikeouts in 43 innings. When you gamble on prospects, sometimes you’re going to crap out.

Bryan Paukovits, who was a junior college draft-and-follow from 2006, has been the Bees’ best pitcher this season. In 62 innings, he’s allowed just 43 hits and 16 walks, with 65 strikeouts. The problem is that he just turned 23; he’s a few levels below where a prospect his age should be. The Royals have promoted him to Wilmington, and he gave up nine runs in his first start, although he’s pitched better since then. He’s a prospect, but a marginal one.

With all that said, there’s at least one pitcher on the Bees’ staff who has true All-Star potential. That would be Tyler Sample, who was the Royals’ third-round pick in 2008 out of a Colorado high school. Sample was considered quite raw – and had already had Tommy John surgery in high school – but he threw very hard and had a very promising knuckle-curve. He was very much a project, and in his pro debut he walked more than a batter per inning, but last season he walked just 22 batters in 55 innings.

He made his full-season debut this year, and his control issues resurfaced, as he walked 27 batters in his first 30 innings. His control has slowly but dramatically improved since; in his last ten starts, he has walked just 28 batters in 49 innings, and in his last two starts he has just two walks (against 14 strikeouts) in 12 innings.

He’s still a long ways from the majors, and he just turned 21. But his stuff is undeniable, as he’s allowed just 59 hits in 79 innings while striking out 71. He’s a monster at 6’7”, 245, and sometimes it just takes tall pitchers a while to straighten out their mechanics and repeat them on every pitch. If there’s one pitcher in the organization that I’d bet on to jump up the prospect rankings in the next 12 months, it’s Sample. If the light bulb goes on, he could move very, very quickly.

But that’s it for Burlington. One top prospect, one sleeper prospect, and a whole lot of chaff. That’s a pretty standard fare for a minor-league team. It’s a tribute to the organization that “pretty standard fare” makes Burlington easily the weakest full-season team in the system.

I’ll be back next week with a brief overview of the short-season leagues, and then try to tie it all together with my unscientific rankings of the organization’s top 30 prospects.

Deadline Decisions.

As most of you have noticed, this season has been rather therapeutic for me as a fan of the Kansas City Royals. By the end of the 2009 season, my relationship with the team had become, frankly, toxic. I’m in a much better place now, to the point where I think that many of my fellow Royals bloggers are needlessly pessimistic about the future of the franchise. I like a good Dayton Moore joke as much as anyone, but I almost wonder if there’s some sort of time warp going on here, where people continue to judge Moore as if the last six months never happened.

Moore gets hammered, and deservedly so, for moves like the Betancourt trade and the Kendall signing – but is only grudgingly given his due, if at all, for the fact that the farm system overfloweth. As Kevin Goldstein rhetorically asked after Chris Dwyer’s last start for Wilmington – 6 innings, no runs, 9 strikeouts, and a promotion to Double-A after the game: “Seriously, is any system having as good a year as the Royals? Is there anyone even close?”

So I’ve climbed back on the Moore train, and plan to stay on board until we see what happens with the most impressive collection of minor league talent the organization has had in at least 15 years. That doesn’t mean that my criticisms of Moore will suddenly abate. In a way, the evaluation of Moore only really starts now.

This month, in fact, may be the most important month of Moore’s tenure to date. This is the month when we’ll find out whether Moore is truly serious about trusting the future of the Royals to the kids, or whether he’s going to continue to follow the safe, CYA route of employing proven veterans until they’re pried from his cold, dead hands.

In Moore’s first July as a GM, he was a trading dervish. He got the proceedings off to an early start, moving J.P. Howell to Tampa Bay for Joey Gathright on June 20th. He then moved Ruben Gotay for Jeff Keppinger (July 19th), Mike MacDougal for Daniel Cortes and Tyler Lumsden (July 24th), Elmer Dessens for Odalis Perez, Blake Johnson, and Julio Pimental (July 25th), Tony Graffanino for Jorge de la Rosa (July 25th), and on deadline day he traded Matt Stairs for Joselo Diaz, and Jeremy Affeldt and Denny Bautista for Ryan Shealy.

Not all these trades worked out – actually, in aggregate the Royals probably lost more talent than they acquired – but the point was that Moore saw an opportunity to overhaul his roster, and took it. We can only hope he’ll be similarly active this season.

Moore hasn’t been active at the deadline since. In 2007, his only July trades were to acquire the infamous Roman Colon for a minor leaguer, and to trade Octavio Dotel (a no-brainer) for Kyle Davies. In 2008, the Royals did not make a single July trade, although they did pass Horacio Ramirez through waivers in August and then traded him to the White Sox for Paulo Orlando. (And they plucked Robinson Tejeda off waivers from the Rangers in June.) And last year, the only trade Moore made in July was…the acquisition of Betancourt. But hey, he also paid cash to acquire Ryan Freel and Josh Anderson, so it’s all good.

The Royals can’t afford that kind of passivity this season. Not when their window of opportunity looks like it might open a crack next season, and then be thrown completely open in 2012. Not when they’ve got at least a half-dozen players who will attract some kind of interest on the trade market. And not when they’ve got replacements ready to step in, all of whom figure to be better than the guy they’re replacing in a year or two, and some of whom are better than the guy they’ll be replacing right now.

This last point is crucial, because the unfortunate by-product of the Royals’ current 8-3 stretch is that some people are actually suggesting that the Royals are still in contention this season. Me, I prefer for my team to be playing better than .452 baseball before I think about contending. I’m a purist like that.

It’s one thing for Ned Yost to argue that the Royals aren’t out of it. He’s the manager; if he can’t make the case that his team isn’t out of it, he’s not doing his job. It’s another thing when our old friend Jeff Flanagan argues that the Royals can’t afford to trade Jose Guillen because they’re in the race. Come on, Jeff. You’re better than this.

“Try and visualize the lineup right now without Guillen – replace him with Mitch Maier or Willie Bloomquist. Seriously, how does that look?”

As a courtesy to Flanagan, I won’t make a list of the six different reasons why this is a ridiculous argument.

As I write this, the argument for what to do with Guillen may have become a moot point, as in his last at-bat against the Mariners last night he pulled up lame while running to first base. We’ve been told that it was a quadriceps injury, and that he’s “day-to-day” – which, given Guillen’s history, seems incredibly optimistic.

This significantly impacts the Royals’ ability to trade him, obviously. But even if Guillen is out for an extended period of time, it’s unlikely to have a huge impact on the Royals in the long term. The Royals were never going to get more than a marginal prospect for him. The main value of trading Guillen was always to open up the lineup spot to a younger, more deserving player – if he’s on the DL for a while, that spot will open up anyway.

(Okay, the main value of trading him was simply to unload his salary – he’s owed nearly $6 million the rest of the season, which is to say, more than the Royals are likely to shell out for all of their draft picks this year. But I’m not sure the Royals would have been able to get another team to pick up a large fraction of his salary.)

The injury to Guillen, though, only hammers home the point that it’s better to move these guys a few weeks early than one day late. So let’s look at all the players the Royals might be tempted to trade this month – which is over half the roster – and see what they can get.

Player: Kyle Farnsworth

Outstanding salary: $2.25 million* + $500,000 buyout.

*: The season is at roughly the halfway point, so I’m simply dividing each player’s salary by two.

Odds that the Royals will trade him: 80%.

Quick – who leads the Royals in ERA? Here’s a clue – it’s the same guy who leads the team in WHIP. Here’s another clue: it’s the last guy you would have guessed before the season began.

Farnsworth’s 2.04 ERA and 1.047 WHIP in 35 innings don’t justify his two-year, $9 million contract, but they do explain why the Royals thought he’d be worth the money. The dude still throws in the upper 90s, after all. There are always teams looking for bullpen help at the trading deadline, and Farnsworth’s contract situation is very favorable.

Farnsworth has allowed just three runs in his last 26 innings, and just as impressive as his performance is the fact that he’s maintained it even as the Royals have slowly ramped up his responsibilities. He started the season pitching the same garbage relief that he was relegated to last season. He then started pitching in games where the Royals had a large lead, then games where the Royals only trailed by a run, and now he’s pitching in tie games in the ninth inning, as he did Monday night. The old Farnsworth would have given up the walk-off homer on his second pitch – as he did last year. The new Farnsworth pitched a tidy one-two-three inning and got the win. Evidently Farnsworth is relying more on a two-seamer and a changeup this year. This makes some sense - as hard as he throws, his four-seamer never had much movement, and his two-seamer is still plenty fast.

It’s hard to believe that the Royals would keep Farnsworth, given that he’s gone after the season, and that he’s likely to have multiple suitors. Stranger things have happened, but the odds are pretty good that he’ll be moved soon.

Possible suitors: The Angels are still in the race, and have a pretty dreadful bullpen, a rarity under Mike Scioscia. The Red Sox are also pretty thin behind Jonathan Papelbon and Daniel Bard. And the Reds are clinging to first place despite a bullpen without a single reliable right-handed reliever.

What the Royals should expect in return: Let’s not lose our heads here: he’s still Kyle Farnsworth. A single B-grade prospect would be a steal. More likely, the Royals are likely to get a guy who grades out as a future utility-player/good fourth-outfielder/bullpen arm.

Who replaces him: The Royals have a ton of relief prospects, but they could all still benefit from a little more development. If and when Hochevar or Meche returns, they’ll slip into the rotation and either Bruce Chen or Anthony Lerew will take Farnsworth’s role. Otherwise we might see another audition for Brian Bullington or Philip Humber.

Player: Scott Podsednik

Outstanding salary: $825,000

Odds that the Royals will trade him: 65%

If you want to be charitable towards the Royals, you can make the case that they signed Podsednik with the intention of dealing him at the deadline all along. If that’s the case, then mission accomplished: Podsednik is having a classic Podsednik season, batting .301/.348/.370. It’s a completely singles-driven profile; Pods has hit FIVE doubles all season, which is ridiculous for someone who has the speed to make a double out of a single once a month. Still, he’s hitting for average, and stealing bases (24 of 34 so far), and his defense in left field hasn’t been a complete disaster.

Best of all, he’s doing this in a season in which offense is suddenly down all around baseball, making otherwise-rational teams think that they now need an infusion of speed and little ball to win in this brave new world. I see no need to disabuse these teams of this notion. Podsednik’s low salary might make him particularly appealing to teams with financial constraints.

Possible suitors: Left fielders for the San Diego Padres are hitting a combined .193/.289/.279. Throw in the fact that Podsednik is a perfect fit for that ballpark, and I’m a little disappointed that we haven’t seen a trade already. Melky Cabrera has been so disappointing in Atlanta that they’ve been forced to play Eric Hinske out there.

What the Royals should expect in return: Again, we (and the Royals) need to keep our expectations in check. As an everyday player, Pods is likely to fetch more than Farnsworth, but only a little more. I’d be happy with someone who would rank as the 15th-best prospect in the organization – which, given the state of the farm system, would actually be a half-decent prospect.

Who replaces him: Alex Gordon, assuming he’s eligible for parole.

Player: David DeJesus

Outstanding salary: $2.3 million this year, $6 million next year or $500,000 buyout.

Odds that the Royals will trade him: 55%

The big fish in the Royals’ pond, DeJesus is having the best season of his underrated career. He’s hitting .329/.397/.466, adapted to his third outfield position in the last three years flawlessly, is under a very reasonable contract, and has a very enticing option for next season. He’s also almost a certainty to be a Type B free agent, and possibly a Type A free agent, either this year or next.

The draft pick compensation is a huge part of his trade value. Twenty years ago, teams would give up impending free agents without any recognition of the value those players would have in terms of draft picks. Things are different today. Three years ago, the Red Sox gave up three players for a half-season of Eric Gagne, in large part because they valued the draft pick that Gagne was expected to give them. (Gagne then pitched so badly for the Sox that he dropped out of the Type B rankings completely.)

DeJesus’ situation is interesting because there’s a good chance he’ll be a Type A free agent this winter – but if his option is picked up, he’ll probably be a Type A free agent next winter as well. The Elias rankings are based on a player’s performance over the past two seasons, so DeJesus’ numbers this year will count towards his free agent status both times. Basically, as long as DeJesus hits as well in 2011 as he did in 2009, he’ll have the same Free Agent status both times.

The Royals have three options with DeJesus:

1) Trade him.

2) Decline his option, offer arbitration, then collect two draft picks when he signs elsewhere this winter.

3) Exercise his option, then decide between 1) and 2) against next year.

From where I sit, declining DeJesus’ option would be foolish – a player of his caliber is a bargain on a one-year, $6 million deal. The only downside is the risk that he gets hurt or somehow plays so poorly in 2011 that the draft picks you would have gotten this winter dry up.

The Royals might justifiably say that they’d rather have the draft picks in hand, given that they’re odds of contending in 2011 aren’t that great even with DeJesus. But for a team that’s in a win-now mode, DeJesus’ option is awfully enticing. Which is to say, DeJesus probably has more valuable to another team than he does with the Royals.

So the incentive is there for a deal to be made. The question is whether a contender is willing to give up the talent it will take to get DeJesus and the two draft picks.

Possible suitors: Since DeJesus can play all three outfield positions competently, any team with an outfield need is a potential destination. The same teams that would want Podsednik would want DeJesus even more; the Braves, in particular, have the farm system talent to get a deal done. The Red Sox don’t know what they can expect from Jacoby Ellsbury or Mike Cameron, and J.D. Drew hasn’t even had his annual injury yet. If the Rays are as fed up with B.J. Upton as they appear, then Tampa becomes an option. A sleeper team might be the Giants, if they decide to go all-in for this season.

What the Royals should expect in return: A lot. A lot, or they shouldn’t do the deal. Let’s put it this way: I wouldn’t trade DeJesus for the package that the Phillies got for Cliff Lee (J.C. Ramirez, Phillippe Aumont, and Tyson Gillies). Granted, that’s more a reflection of Ruben Amaro’s incompetence than anything else. But DeJesus should be able to command the standard three-prospect package of a Grade B+, a Grade B-, and a Grade C prospect. Think of this as a do-over on the Carlos Beltran trade.

(Going on a tangent for a moment, but I think we can add Ruben Amaro to that list of General Managers who I’d rank behind Dayton Moore. Amaro gave Raul Ibanez that three-year deal that looked like a steal for one month, and an albatross ever since. He was given a huge gift when Roy Halladay agreed to a contract extension before trading for him, and then screwed everything up by giving away Lee for pennies. He gave Ryan Howard a ridiculous contract extension at the exact moment before his value went south. And the Phillies are barely over .500, in third place, and in danger of squandering the final peak years of some Hall of Fame-caliber players.)

Who replaces him: Gordon, but if the Royals manage to trade DeJesus and Podsednik, they have some decisions to make in at least one corner outfield spot. They could audition Jordan Parraz or David Lough out there. There’s also a good chance that DeJesus’ replacement in right field will be one of the players coming back in a trade.

Player: Willie Bloomquist

Outstanding salary: $850,000.

Odds that the Royals will trade him: 40%

A year after Bloomquist had a career-high 434 at-bats, the Royals have found a way to minimize his contributions – he has only 74 at-bats in half a season. The prescription for Bloomquist always said that for best results, take him in small doses. For as much flak as his signing received, our issue was was always more about what he represented than Bloomquist himself.

Since joining the Royals, Bloomquist has 508 at-bats and 167 games, basically a full season’s worth, and has hit .262/.305/.360, along with 30 steals in 39 attempts. That’s not a starting player, but as a utility player those numbers are perfectly acceptable. His salary of $1.4 million last year, $1.7 million this year is not ridiculous. What was ridiculous was that he was practically a full-time player last year. This year, his opportunities to hurt the ballclub have been limited.

One of the reasons why Bloomquist’s playing time has been curtailed of late has been the surprise performance from Wilson Betemit, who is hitting a frankly ridiculous .386/.438/.773 since he was called up. In 44 at-bats, he has hit four homers, which 1) ranks sixth on the team, and 2) is as many homers as Jason Kendall has hit since the start of the 2008 season.

Betemit isn’t anywhere near this kind of hitter, but there’s every reason to think that he can be a significant contributor to the Royals going forward. Betemit, like another ex-Braves retread in Bruce Chen, was a top prospect once upon a time. Betemit was signed by the Braves when he was 14 years old – no, seriously, 14. When his real age came to light years later, the Braves were disciplined – I believe they were banned from signing international players for six months – and they got off easy. Betemit is one of the few guys in baseball today who debuted in the majors as a teenager, in 2001. That off-season, Betemit was ranked the #9 prospect in all of baseball by Baseball America. As a 19-year-old, he had just hit .355/.394/.514 in a six-week stint in Double-A.

He didn’t stick in the majors until 2005, when he was 23, but hit a very respectable .305/.359/.435 as a rookie. He never developed after that point, and was traded in 2006, 2007, and 2008. He signed as a minor-league free agent with the Royals this winter.

The thing is, while he never developed into a star, Betemit really hasn’t played all that badly either. His career line in the majors is .263/.328/.445, and aside from a 45 at-bat audition with the White Sox last year, he’s always been at least adequate in the majors. He’s only 28 years old, and much like the player who essentially replaced him in Atlanta, Omar Infante (that would be All-Star Omar Infante to you, buddy), while Betemit’s dream of being an everyday player may be over, he should have a long and successful career as a super-utility player ahead.

Betemit can do most of the things Bloomquist does, but Bloomquist can do only some of things Betemit does. Both of them can play multiple positions, but Betemit also has the advantage of being a switch-hitter. Bloomquist’s biggest advantage in the field is that he can play all three outfield positions, whereas Betemit has never started a game in the outfield. On the other hand, given his bat, Bloomquist’s ability to play the outfield may actually be a detriment, because it tempts teams into playing him out there.

Betemit has made at least 16 starts at all four infield positions, and started at both shortstop and second base for the Yankees in 2008. He’s not the most graceful defender in the middle infielder, but then he more than makes up for it with the bat. Offensively, it’s no comparison. Bloomquist has a massive edge in speed; Betemit has a massive edge in plate discipline and power.

The problem with Betemit is that he doesn’t have the look of a utility infielder. Utility infielders are supposed to be scrappy, scrawny, speedy guys who don’t hit much – they’re supposed to look like Willie Bloomquist. Betemit doesn’t. But given our manager and general manager’s background with Atlanta, the fact that the Braves are thriving with Infante in that utility role lends hope that the Royals may feel comfortable doing the same with Betemit. Which makes Bloomquist, whose Swiss Army Knife package is appealing to some contenders, expendable.

Possible Suitors: The Red Sox, who are missing something like a third of their roster – including Dustin Pedroia – are rumored to have interest. You would expect almost every National League contender to at least kick the tires on Bloomquist.

What the Royals should expect in return: A lottery ticket. Some 19-year-old kid who throws strikes and has maybe a 10% chance of seeing his velocity suddenly bump into the low 90s.

Who replaces him: Betemit takes over his role; the Royals have a half-dozen options for who takes over his roster spot. If they want a backup outfielder, they could go with Jordan Parraz. If they want Willie Bloomquist Lite, they can go with Irving Falu or Ed Lucas.

Player: Brian Bannister

Outstanding salary: $1.15 million. Bannister is also under club control for 2 more seasons.

Odds that the Royals will trade him: 30%.

You know I love Bannister, and I can’t say that I want to see him go. If nothing else, keeping him around is worth it to have a perpetual foil to Dayton Moore in the clubhouse.

But if the Royals decide it’s time to move on, well, I can’t blame them. Bannister has a career 4.88 ERA, and over the last three years that number goes 5.76, 4.73, and 5.44. I think he’s a better pitcher than that, and for significant periods of time he has been a better pitcher than that. But twice in his career he’s run out of steam in August, and this year his numbers are destroyed by the 11 runs he gave up in Cincinnati when he became dehydrated.

Let’s face it: with his upper-80s fastball, there’s simply a limit to how good Bannister can be in the superior league. He’s the quintessential National League pitcher; against inferior hitters, without having to face the DH, and in a big ballpark – hello, NL West! – he could be a revelation. Plus, he’s an excellent hitter for a pitcher. At least, this is the pitch the Royals should be making.

The Royals don’t have to trade him, and they shouldn’t trade him just get rid of him. But in the long run, the Royals are looking at a situation where they should have five starting pitchers better than Bannister as soon as next summer. There’s nothing wrong with making a proactive trade now, rather than trading him for whatever you can get next season.

A month ago Bannister had a 4.50 ERA and his trade value was presumably a lot higher. Then came the disaster in Cincinnati, a bad start in Atlanta where he admitted to being gun-shy, six shutout innings to beat Stephen Strasburg, and then two consecutive outings where he’s allowed four runs. Basically, the Royals need Bannister to show some consistency over the next three weeks to convince suitors that his struggles were just a speed bump and not something to be alarmed by.

It’s no surprise, then, that with the All-Star Break coming up, the Royals are bumping Anthony Lerew from his start on Saturday in favor of Bannister. The Royals say they’re doing this because Bannister’s the better pitcher, and he probably is, but don’t be fooled: they’re showcasing him. If Bannister aces his next few auditions, we may have to find someone new to carry the torch of sabermetrics in the Royals’ clubhouse.

Possible suitors: The Padres would be an ideal location for him, and while San Diego has four starters with an ERA of 3.24 or less (!), their fifth starter, Kevin Correia, has a 5.05 ERA. The Dodgers have been struggling to find a fifth starter all season. The nasty divorce between the McCourts has basically frozen the Dodgers’ payroll, but if the Royals are willing to pick up Bannister’s modest salary the rest of the season, they could steal something here. Remember, the Indians’ willingness to pay the remainder of Casey Blake’s salary netted them Carlos Freaking Santana for a two-month rental.

But given that all three divisional races in the NL are close, there are a lot of teams that could use him. Maybe Omar Minaya wants to erase his mistake and bring Bannister back? The Reds? The Cardinals? There are a lot of landing places for Bannister if the Royals are serious about moving him.

What the Royals should expect in return: If the Royals trade him, it has to be with the knowledge that they’re giving up 2.5 seasons of a league-average pitcher. That’s not beanbag. It’s not worth trading him if they don’t get at least a Top-15 prospect in return.

Who replaces him: Meche or Hochevar in the short term. Michael Montgomery or Aaron Crow or Chris Dwyer or John Lamb by this time next year.

Player: Mike Aviles

Outstanding salary: Aviles is not arbitration-eligible yet, so his salary is basically the league minimum. Also, he won’t be a free agent until after the 2014 season.

Odds that the Royals will trade him: 25%.

Aviles is the most surprising player whose name has come up in trade rumors. On some level, it makes sense. Second base is an easy position to fill, because you’re basically drawing on the pool of second baseman and the pool of failed shortstops. The Royals want to see what Chris Getz can do, and if Getz fails, then they have Johnny Giavotella getting ready off-stage.

And let’s face it: the Royals have never been entirely comfortable with Aviles. He never had a good defensive reputation, even in the minors, then shocked everyone by playing the hell out of shortstop as a rookie. This year, he’s played mostly second base, and frankly hasn’t looked all that sharp. The ideal solution would be to admit that Betancourt was a mistake and move Aviles back across the keystone, but the Royals probably look at how Aviles has played at second base and figure that it would only look uglier at shortstop.

If the Royals do trade him, this won’t be your standard deadline deal. Aviles is under contract for 4.5 more seasons. His career batting average is .300 on the nose, and that includes the .183 disaster last season when he played hurt. This would be a substantial trade of a cheap everyday player under contract for the long term, and the return would have to be in kind.

Possible suitors: Aviles’ name has come up in trade rumors because the Red Sox are reportedly interested in him; with Pedroia out in the short-term, and Adrian Beltre a free agent after the season, the Red Sox might see Aviles as a guy who can fill a lot of holes in different spots both now and in the future. But “a guy who can fill a lot of holes” is a lot different than “an everyday middle infielder”, which is why I’m skeptical that the Royals will be able to trade him for what he’s worth. What worries me is that they might be able to trade him for what they think he’s worth.

What the Royals should expect in return: Aviles isn’t the player that DeJesus is. On the other hand, he’s millions of dollars cheaper, and he’s under contract for three additional seasons. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a DeJesus-caliber haul for him.

Others of note:

Player: Rick Ankiel

Outstanding salary: $1.625 million, plus $500,000 buyout.

Odds that the Royals will trade him: 15%.

First he has to get healthy. Then he needs to hit. And even then, some team has to be suitably confident that Ankiel will stay healthy, and keep hitting. It’s a tall order. As with Guillen, the Royals can be reasonably confident that Ankiel will pass through waivers, effectively moving his trade deadline to August 31st.

Player: Kyle Davies

Outstanding salary: $900,000, plus he’s under club control in 2011.

Odds that the Royals will trade him: 10%.

Like Bannister, Davies has shown stretches of effectiveness, but whereas Bannister has been a league-average starter for months at a time, Davies has problems going more than a few starts at a time. Davies is cheap, but in the last five seasons he has just one year with an ERA lower than 5.27. In his last six starts, he’s walked 20 batters and struck out 13. I still think the Royals should try him in the bullpen for the next three months and see if they catch lightning. Otherwise, he’s a non-tender candidate this winter.

Player: Alberto Callaspo

Outstanding salary: Basically league minimum, and under club control through 2013.

Odds that the Royals will trade him: 10%.

There isn’t even a whisper of a Callaspo trade rumor, but you have to think the Royals are trying to figure out his future with Mike Moustakas on his way. Callaspo isn’t hitting nearly as well as he did last season; he hit .300/.356/.457 last year, and just .277/.310/.417 at the moment. But I actually think his trade value may be higher. For one, most of his dip at the plate can be explained by a drop in his batting average, which is somewhat fluky – the power he showed for the first time in his career last season has stayed. But more importantly, whereas last season he was a second baseman with terrible defense, he’s now a third baseman with at least adequate defense. Remember, the Royals were actively trying to trade him this winter, and the only substantial rumor we heard was from the Dodgers for Triple-A catcher A.J. Ellis.

I don’t think the Royals will trade him now, and I don’t think they should trade him now, because Callaspo’s value is not as a one-year rental, but as a long-term solution at the hot corner. Teams are more amenable to making major roster changes in the off-season. The Royals will likely hold on to Callaspo for now, hope that his batting average rebounds in the second half, and try their luck on the market again this winter.

Conclusion: Without even knowing what the Royals get in return, we can almost tell whether this will be a successful month for Moore simply by how many players get traded. With the exception of DeJesus and Aviles, it’s hard to imagine the Royals making a trade that doesn’t improve the team in the long term.

If you add up the percentages that each player gets traded, you wind up with an average of 3.3 players traded, and that doesn’t include Guillen, whose trade status is up in the air at the moment. That may be giving Moore too much credit, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that at least three guys get moved off the roster this month.

Basically, as along as Farnsworth and Podsednik find new homes, and as long as the Royals don’t give DeJesus or Aviles away, this will be a successful month. Anything less than that, and Moore’s ability to understand his team’s position on the success cycle – and his ability to avoid thinking that two good weeks from his team suddenly means they should be a buyer instead of a seller – will be called into question.

Wilmington.

The Royals’ connection to the Wilmington Blue Rocks is a source of fascination for me. The Wilmington franchise appears from the outside to be one of the most desirable franchises in all of high A-ball for a major league team to affiliate with. As the only pro baseball team in Delaware, they consistently do very well in the attendance category – currently second in the Carolina League. They play in a beautiful ballpark. And of the three high A leagues – the California and Florida State being the others – the Carolina League clearly seems to have the most going for it.

The California League is too hitter-friendly as a whole, while the Florida State league is dotted with small cities and negligible attendance. Prior to hooking up with Wilmington, the Royals’ used to have their high A affiliate in “Baseball City” – their spring training complex in Haines City, where the attendance for some of their games could easily be mistaken for a pitch count.

But the Royals snagged Wilmington as an affiliate when the Blue Rocks, new ballpark in hand joined the Carolina League after a 40-year hiatus from pro baseball, and with the exception of a two-year exile, have remained connected ever since. Those two years away (2005-06) were spent in the thin air and swirling winds of High Desert, the place that made Chris Lubanski a stud power hitter. The Royals were forced to join High Desert after the Red Sox made a compelling offer to the Wilmington franchise in the biannual dance between major league teams and minor league affiliates. At the time, I thought there was no way in hell the Royals would ever get Wilmington back. Yet when their two-year contract with Boston was up, the Blue Rocks were eager to re-form their partnership with the Royals. Why would a minor league hottie like the Blue Rocks stay (mostly) loyal to a frumpy, overweight, unemployed loser of a franchise like the Royals?

Because he treats her right. He sends her all his good ballplayers, makes sure she’s competitive year in and year out. The Royals hooked up with the Blue Rocks in 1993, finishing 74-65 that year, and in 1994 the Blue Rocks went an astonishing 94-44. I don’t have time to check all the way back to 1969, but I’m quite certain that’s the best winning percentage for a full-season minor-league team in the history of the Royals. The following year the Blue Rocks went 85-55, then 80-60. After a losing record in 1997, in 1998 they went 86-54.

Between 1993 and 2004, the Blue Rocks finished with the best overall record in the league six times, and second-best twice. They had only two losing seasons in those 12 years. Alas, Wilmington developed a case of wanderlust and decided to shack up with the rich investment banker who bore a stunning resemblance to Jon Hamm. It did not go well; the Red Sox came home late every night, and usually with alcohol on their breath, and then it turned out they had a girlfriend on the side. The Blue Rocks went 60-80 in 2005, and 67-71 in 2006, although they somehow finished with the best record in the Northern Division in that second year. Having learned her lesson, the Blue Rocks came back to her old flame, who gladly forgave her – let’s face it, it’s not like he had any better options.

To end this tortured and overly-drawn out metaphor before it spins completely out of control, the second round of the Royals-Blue Rocks relationship has been strong, if not as unequivocally successful as the first. The Blue Rocks went 75-62 in 2007, best in the Northern Division, but were just 69-71 in 2008. Last year, they once again had the best record in the league at 84-55. This year, it’s been a struggle; the team went 32-38 and finished 9 games out of first in the league’s first half, although they’re 4-2 since the break.

The team’s best prospect is also their best player, Eric Hosmer, about whom we’ve written enough already. All I’ll add to that is that Hosmer has hit two homers in the last two weeks, doubling his season output. He still only has four homers in 75 games, but with 26 doubles, 6 triples, and an overall line of .351/.425/.528, 1) the home run power will probably come, and 2) he’s still a pretty damn good prospect even if it doesn’t.

The main reason for the Blue Rocks’ sub-.500 record is that Hosmer’s about it when it comes to offense. The second-best hitter on the team is Jamie Romak, who was previously released by the Pirates and is in his eighth pro season. The only other regular with an OPS of even 700 is Adrian Ortiz, a former fifth-round pick out of Pepperdine who was arguably the fastest player in college the year he was drafted. Speed is not just his main tool, it’s his only tool; while he’s legged out enough infield singles to hit .305, he just hit his first home run in two seasons last night. He has just 4 homers in his entire four-year pro career, which would be forgivable if he got on base a lot, but he also has just 63 walks as a pro. He’s the poor man’s Joey Gathright, basically, and the original version was nothing to write home about.

Also of note is Rey Navarro, the shortstop the Royals got for Carlos Rosa earlier this season, who’s hitting just .241/.281/.331 on the season. He’s only 20; sometimes 20-year-olds surprise. I’m not counting on it, though. (Addendum: I should point out that Rosa gave up 25 baserunners in 13 innings for the Diamondbacks before he was just sent back to Triple-A. Trust me: Moore made the right move in turning nothing into something.) Navarro moved to second base last night to accommodate the newly-signed Christian Colon, who in his pro debut went 0-for-5 with 2 Ks and a GIDP. Clearly, he’s a bust.

Speaking of busts, Jason Taylor, the Royals’ second-round pick the year they took Hochevar #1 overall, hit .173 before he was released. I imagine the two drug suspensions didn’t help. The curse of the second-round pick strikes again.

After Hosmer and now Colon, the only hitting prospect to take seriously is Salvador Perez. Perez entered my viewing range last year when Kevin Goldstein offered his name as one of the organization’s sleepers during a radio interview. Perez was in Burlington at the time, and hit so poorly (.189/.230/.236) that he was shuffled off to Idaho Falls once the short-season leagues began.

But tools and youth make for a powerful combination. With Wil Myers needing to play everyday in Burlington, Perez was aggressively promoted to Wilmington to start the season, and thrived. Through the end of May he was hitting .289/.328/.446. He went into a terrible tailspin earlier this month, something like 3-for-45 at one stretch, and his overall numbers have dipped to .255/.294/.372.

He’s still a very good prospect. Along with a strong defensive reputation, the biggest thing Perez has in his favor is his age. He was just 19 when the season started; he turned 20 last month, and until recently was the youngest player in the Carolina League.

The reason he is no longer the league’s youngest player is because the Royals promoted his battery mate, John Lamb, to Wilmington. The Royals have many prospects who have improved their prospect standing in the last three months, but Lamb might have done so more than anyone. At the start of the season, he was a very intriguing left-handed pitcher who had very good command of good stuff, and was only 19. But he still ranked as only the fourth or fifth best lefty in the system, behind Michael Montgomery, Chris Dwyer, Danny Duffy, and maybe Noel Arguelles.

Today, two different scouts have told Kevin Goldstein that John Lamb “is as good a left-handed pitcher as I’ve seen in the minors this season.” If that sounds familiar, that’s because we were hearing the same thing about Montgomery back in April. Monty’s status is on hold while we wait for his elbow to cool down, but in the meantime Lamb has done his best to keep his throne warm.

Lamb was tremendous in 8 starts for Burlington – 1.58 ERA, 26 hits, 17 walks, 43 Ks in 40 innings – and has been every bit as good for Wilmington, with a 1.77 ERA in 8 starts. If memory serves, just twice in 16 starts has Lamb surrendered more than one earned run. His overall line for the season:

86 IP, 67 H, 30 BB, 98 K, 3 HR, 1.68 ERA.

Did I mention he’s still 19 years old?

Lamb’s formula for success isn’t complicated: three above-average pitches, excellent command, and a fearless approach to attacking hitters – I believe the word one scout used to describe him on the mound was “badass”.

Not that minor league stats mean all that much, but Lamb’s on pace to have the best season by a Royals’ minor-league pitcher since Zack Greinke’s legendary 2003, when he went 15-4 with a 1.93 ERA as a 19-year-old between A-ball and Double-A, and allowed just 114 hits and 18 walks in 140 innings. (If Greinke had spent all of 2003 in the majors – a ridiculous idea, of course, since he had thrown all of 11 pro innings before the season – but if he had, the Royals might very well have won the division.)

Lamb isn’t the best prospect in the Royals’ system, and if Montgomery gets healthy he probably isn’t even the best left-handed pitching prospect in the system. But I guarantee you that he’d rank #1 in half a dozen other farm systems.

Lamb’s presence means that Chris Dwyer is only the second-best southpaw in Wilmington’s rotation, but he’s a top prospect in his own right. Dwyer, you may recall, was a fourth-round pick last year who the Royals gave late first-round money ($1.45 million) to sign. Dwyer was eligible for the draft as a college freshman, a situation only made possible by the fact that he was 20 by the time he graduated high school. Despite a low-90s fastball and an above-average curveball, his one collegiate season at Clemson wasn’t particularly successful on the mound, with a 4.92 ERA. So coming into the season he represented an interesting test case for me. We knew that the Royals were doing a solid job of identifying talent in the draft, but with Dwyer the issue wasn’t identifying talent, it was developing talent. All 30 teams knew that Dwyer had excellent stuff, but at the same time he hadn’t shown an aptitude for translating that stuff into results.

So to me, Dwyer’s success or lack thereof this season would clue us in on the development side of the Royals’ farm system. While it’s just one data point, the coaching staff gets two thumbs up from me based on Dwyer’s performance this season.

Dwyer started the season in Wilmington, which was an aggressive push for a guy in his first full pro season even if he was 22 years old. In his first seven starts, he was as advertised: occasionally impressive, mostly erratic. In 34 innings he allowed 31 hits, struck out 31 batters, but also walked 24 – including at least three batters in each start. And then the light bulb went on.

In his last seven starts Dwyer has thrown 45 innings, allowed 41 hits – and has a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 54-to-7. In his last seven starts he has allowed no walks four times. He had a 1.67 ERA in June. Giddyup. If Dwyer’s changeup catches up to his curveball and fastball, he could be an above-average major league starter; if he winds up being primarily a two-pitch pitcher, he should still follow the Jeremy Affeldt career path to carve out a long-term relief role.

Like Dwyer, Wilmington’s third starter, Tim Melville, was a fourth-rounder in fact but a first-rounder on talent, although Melville was drafted out of high school and is a right-hander. He was a disaster to start the season. In his first five starts, he gave up 18 hits and 14 walks in 17 innings, with an 11.88 ERA. And one of those starts was a five-inning, one-hit, one-walk gem, so you can guess how bad the other four starts were.

The problems were almost entirely mechanical, a problem which isn’t unusual for 20-year-old kids who stand 6’5”. The mechanics got straightened out, and over his last 10 starts Melville has pitched up to his promise: 58 innings, 44 hits, 20 walks, 52 strikeouts, 5 homers. Like Dwyer he works primarily off a fastball-curveball combination, and like Dwyer he’s a flyball pitcher who will probably be susceptible to the homer in the majors. But unlike Dwyer he still can’t drink legally, giving the Royals the benefit of a lot of development time. He’s going to come along slowly, but his long-term upside is right there with any pitcher in the system.

With a nod to Alex Caldera, the long-time organization soldier who was just promoted to Northwest Arkansas and won his Double-A debut, the other prospect in the Blue Rocks’ rotation is another left-hander, Buddy Baumann. Baumann first caught my attention this spring when I explored the long history of the Royals ignoring talent in their backyard, a history which has thankfully come to an end, and realized that Baumann – drafted in the 7th round last season – was the first player the Royals had drafted out of Missouri State (a school which has given us Ryan Howard, Shaun Marcum, Brad Ziegler, and Josh Outman in recent years) since 1993. For that reason alone I was intrigued to see how he would fare.

Like Dwyer, Baumann jumped to Wilmington in his first full season, and pitching out of the bullpen was outstanding, if a little wild: 36 innings, 29 hits, 17 walks, 41 Ks, and no homers allowed. He was then promoted to the rotation on June 19th and responded with five no-hit innings. In his second start, he allowed six hits and one run in five innings, and in two starts has struck out 9 and walked one.

I can’t gauge him as a prospect yet simply because I know next to nothing about him; he wasn’t in Baseball America’s list of the Royals’ Top 30 Prospects before the season. He’s listed at just 5’10”, which makes it hard to see him as a starter in the long term. At this point, he’s just a name. But he’s definitely a name to watch.

And finally, much like the Royals found Blaine Hardy in the late rounds of the 2008 draft, they found Patrick Keating in the 20th round in 2009. Keating had lost his job in the rotation at the University of Florida before he was drafted, but the Royals thought that with some mechanical changes they could get more velocity out of him, and they were right. Moved to the bullpen and told to throw his four-seamer more, he was suddenly touching the mid-90s, and was so effective so fast that he actually made an appearance with the Blue Rocks last year, just two months after he was drafted.

Keating went back to Wilmington this year, but didn’t stick around for long; after 30 innings, 18 hits, 10 walks, and 41 strikeouts, the Royals sent him to Arkansas to look for a bigger challenge. He’s still looking. In 14 innings for the Naturals, he’s allowed 10 hits, walked 7, struck out 12. He has a 1.42 ERA for the season. He’s not a future closer, but like Louis Coleman he could be an effective set-up man in the major leagues by next season.

Between Northwest Arkansas and Wilmington alone, the Royals can put together an all-prospect pitching staff.

#1 Starter: Michael Montgomery

#2 Starter: John Lamb

#3 Starter: Aaron Crow

#4 Starter: Chris Dwyer

#5 Starter: Tim Melville

Swingman: Edgar Osuna

Swingman: Buddy Baumann

RH Reliever: Louis Coleman

RH Reliever: Patrick Keating

LH Reliever: Blaine Hardy (okay, he’s in Triple-A now)

LH Reliever: Brandon Sisk

If pitching really is the currency of baseball, the Royals are freaking loaded.

Northwest Arkansas.

If you’re wondering why I’m focusing so much on the farm system to the exclusion of the major league team, here’s why.

On Monday night, after the Royals had lost an excruciating game to the Nationals, 2-1, despite out-hitting Washington 11-4, here’s what Ned Yost had to say:

“That doesn't shut down your [running] game when a catcher throws well,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “You’ve still got to try and score runs when you're not doing much at the plate.”

This makes perfect sense, except that the Royals converted 11 hits into just 1 run in large part because of their running game, which contributed two caught stealings (and a runner picked off – from second base!) and no steals. The opposing catcher, Ivan Rodriguez, just happens to be one of the greatest-throwing catchers in baseball history. To use Yost’s words, when a catcher throws well you absolutely SHOULD shut down your running game.

And as for “not doing much at the plate” – the Royals had 11 hits in the game, despite giving away five outs – the three above and two sac bunts. They actually batted .333 in the game. Sometimes, doing nothing is the best thing a manager can do. For some managers, it’s also the hardest thing.

And then, after Wednesday’s 1-0 win against the Mighty Strasburg, Yost explained why he was so reluctant to use Joakim Soria outside of save situations on the road:

“If you use your closer on the road in the eighth inning when you’re behind,” Yost said, “to me, that says you’re giving up. It’s much easier to use him (in those situations) at home.”

Yes, yes, of course. Nothing says “I give up” quite like PUTTING YOUR BEST PITCHER IN THE GAME.

So this is why I’m studiously attempting to avoid discussion of the major-league team, and I apologize for falling off the wagon there for a moment. I like Ned Yost; I want to keep liking him. The best way for me to do that at the moment is to ignore him.

Which brings us to Northwest Arkansas, and thankfully, we’ve found the mother lode. The prospect train which Dayton Moore assembled in rookie ball three years ago has since passed through Burlington and Wilmington, and has pulled into Wal-Mart country. The Naturals ran away with the division early, clinching the first-half playoff spot with a 42-28 record that was the best in the Texas League.

Mike Moustakas and Michael Montgomery, whom we’ve already discussed, headline the prospects. It bears mentioning that Montgomery, who missed a few weeks with some elbow soreness, came back and pitched well on a strict 55-pitch count…and then went back on the DL with more elbow soreness. The Royals are adamant that his elbow tenderness is very typical, his MRI is clean, and they are just being cautious with their most prized arm. We all hope that is the case, but it’s never a good sign when someone goes back on the DL just hours after they came off of it. I’m not scared, but I am a little worried.

Moustakas, meanwhile, just keeps mashing the ball – he’s already surpassed his homer total from last season, and is hitting a ridiculous .350/.417/.701. He has to be considered one of the front-runners for Minor League Player of the Year honors, however meaningless that award might be. (Alex Gordon won the award in 2006.)

The only other first-round pick on the roster is Aaron Crow, and there’s no way to sugarcoat it: Crow has been a huge disappointment this season, almost certainly the most disappointing player in the system. He looked strong in spring training, to the point where there were rumors the Royals were considering breaking camp with him in the majors (much as the Reds did with Mike Leake, who the Royals were hoping would fall to them in the draft.) Crow went to Double-A instead, and was expected to shine, if not dominate.

Instead, he’s been taken out behind the woodshed, and if anything the beatings just keep getting worse. Crow had a 3.94 ERA in April, a 5.97 ERA in May, and has an 11.66 ERA in June, having allowed 28 runs in his last 18.2 innings. His strikeout-to-walk ratio is 53 to 40, which is pretty lousy; he’s also given up 94 hits in 79 innings.

The one saving grace to Crow’s record is that he’s getting groundballs in bunches. According to minorleaguebaseball.com, his G/F ratio is 3.37, and his last start was the first one of the season in which he didn’t get at least twice as many outs on the ground as in the air. That’s a sign that his sinker is working, at least, even if nothing else is. The sinker hasn’t kept him from giving up 9 homers already, although at least he’s trending well in that department, as 5 of those came in April.

When he was drafted, it was almost too easy to compare Crow to Luke Hochevar, as both of them failed to sign as college juniors, then both signed with the Fort Worth Cats in the independent American Association, then both were drafted by the Royals in the first round. But today the comparison between the two is even more striking. Like Crow, Hochevar started his first pro season in Double-A and was expected to dominate, and like Crow he struggled much more than was expected. Compare their numbers:

Crow: 6.27 ERA, 79 IP, 94 H, 40 BB, 53 K, 9 HR

Hochevar: 4.69 ERA, 94 IP, 110 H, 26 BB, 94 K, 13 HR

Hochevar pitched better, particular in terms of commanding the strike zone. But his numbers were not what you’d expect from the #1 overall pick. Like Crow, he gave up a lot of homers despite being a fierce groundball pitcher.

So I do think there may be something to the notion that after pitching hardly at all for 18 months, it may be too much to expect even a top pitching prospect to go to Double-A and dominate. Hochevar was moved up to Omaha in July and pitched about the same – a high ERA masking some decent peripherals. But the following year he was excellent in three Triple-A starts before arriving in the majors.

I think it’s fair to call Aaron Crow a poor man’s Hochevar, with all the loaded meaning that implies. Hochevar has been infuriatingly inconsistent, but also undeniably talented. I think Crow may be fated to be the same way – not a complete bust as a pitcher, but someone whose results will lag behind his stuff. I think Hochevar is close to closing the gap – or he was before he went on the DL – and I hope that Crow one day will as well. But that day is still far off. For now, I will be happy if he simply pitches better in the second half than he did in the first half, and genuinely earns a promotion to Omaha for 2011.

J.J. Picollo on Crow’s struggles (remember, this conversation happened 3 weeks ago): He’s trying to be fine – he’s not good with his first-pitch strike efficiency…too fine with his two-seamer, which batters are laying off of, meaning he can’t use his slider and changeup…in spring training the team thought he might be ready by June…trying to get him to throw more four-seamers on his first pitch…they’ve learned from handling Hochevar not to rush him.

If Crow really has lost his spot on the list of the team’s top prospects, you don’t have to look far to find someone to replace him. Out in center field, Derrick Robinson has been a revelation.

Robinson was a fourth-round pick in 2006, who got $850,000 – second-round money – to sign. He was a pure tools play; he was arguably the fastest player in the draft that year, and the Royals were betting they could teach him to hit. They decided to double-down by teaching him to switch-hit at the same time. For the first three-plus seasons of his pro career, it looked like a bad gamble. Robinson hit .245/.316/.322 with no homers in his first season at Wilmington in 2008, and when he was given a second chance at the same level in 2009, he hit even worse, and his plate discipline deteriorated.

Until the end of July, when in desperation – the Royals were considering giving up on the switch-hitting experiment and letting him bat right-handed full-time – Robinson asked if he could change his batting stance from the left side, standing more upright at the plate. He hit .311/.362/.513 in August, with five homers, after hitting just three in his entire pro career to that point. His overall line (.239/.290/.324) was still worse than the year before, but at least you could dream on him a little.

The dream is starting to take shape this season. As my friend Kevin Goldstein loves to say, “always bet on tools”, and at age 22, Robinson’s tools are finally shaping into skills. Despite making the biggest jump in the minors, the one to Double-A, Robinson started the season looking like a completely different player. In April, he hit .324. He drew 12 walks in 19 games and had a .427 OBP. After years of hitting better from his natural right side, he hit better left-handed, a strong sign that his new batting stance made the difference. Now that he was getting on base, he was free to use his game-changing speed even more. He had stolen over 60 bases in both 2008 and 2009, remarkable given his low OBP. This April, alone he stole 15 bases.

He couldn’t keep it up, and didn’t, going into a prolonged slump in early May. But to his credit, he got hot again, and for the month of May hit .286 with a .374 OBP. He slumped terribly a few weeks ago, but is starting to pick it up again, going 10-for-his last-35. For the season, he’s hitting a very respectable .292/.362/.375. Those numbers look a lot better when you consider 1) he’s still only 22; 2) he already has 30 stolen bases in 42 attempts; 3) his speed gives him Gold Glove potential in center field – one of his catches made ESPN’s SportsNation show last month.

I do believe the Royals need to take it slow with him. After drawing 12 walks in April and 15 in May, he’s walked just twice in June, taking his OBP down with it. His power surge last August hasn’t been replicated – he’s still waiting on his first homer of the season. If he can hit .290 in the majors and take his walks, he can be an offensive force even without power – but if he can’t hit for power even in the minors, there’s the risk that pitchers in the majors will just pound the strike zone and turn him into Jason Tyner or something. The Royals have made comments hinting that they want to take it slow with Robinson, and I agree.

A more flattering comparison for Robinson is Denard Span. Span was a first-round pick of the Twins in 2002, and while he hit better than Robinson in the low minors his numbers were disappointing all the way to Double-A. In 2006, at the same age Robinson is now, Span hit just .285/.340/.349 in Double-A with just 2 homers (a career high!)

And like Robinson, Span’s bat came around after he went back to an old batting stance, as detailed in this interview he gave to Dave Laurila. The Twins continued to take it slow with Span. He spent a full year in Triple-A at age 23 and hit just .267/.323/.355. He returned to Triple-A the following year and the light bulb went on; he hit .340/.434/.481 and was promoted to the majors, and has been an outstanding player since, with high OBPs, good speed, and very good defense more than overcoming his lack of power.

Robinson might be slightly ahead of where Span was at the same age, but I still think he’ll be well served with a full year in Double-A this season, and at least a half-season in Omaha next year before we can think about him patrolling center field in Kansas City. But a year ago at this time, the idea of Robinson making it to the majors at all was a pipe dream. Suddenly, the Royals might have their center fielder of the future. We just may need to look a little farther into the future for this one.

Picollo on the keys to Robinson’s success: It’s a matter of confidence…he has the confidence to get deeper into counts, leading to more walks and two-strike hits. Rusty Kuntz watched him a lot and saw a much more confident approach at the plate in addition to the change in his stance.

The other high-profile prospect on the roster is Johnny Giavotella, the team’s second-round pick in 2008. Giavotella is your classic scrappy 5’8” second baseman, and it said a lot about him that the Royals were willing to spend a high second-rounder on a college player with his profile. He struggled some in Wilmington last year, hitting .258/.351/.380 with sub-par defense, but it was a tough place to hit and he was still young; he was my sleeper pick before the season.

He has played better this year; not a lot better, but better. Giavotella is hitting .283/.365/.375, with as many walks (34) as strikeouts, and while he’ll never be a Gold Glove threat, I’ve heard fewer complaints about his defense this year. Like Robinson he may never hit for power, but he at least has 16 doubles so far this season to keep pitchers honest. The Royals, like every team, were presumably trying to find the new Dustin Pedroia when they took him, but I still think he’s gunning to be the poor man’s Chuck Knoblauch.

A prospect with his profile is in a tough spot, because if he doesn’t hit well enough to play every day in the majors, he doesn’t have the glove to be a utility player because he can’t handle shortstop. Either he’ll be an offensive-minded second baseman, or he’ll be a Quadruple-A player for the next decade. He turns 23 in a few weeks, so he still has time to take one big step forward with the bat. He needs to. Alternatively, given the plethora of second-base options the Royals already have in the majors and the minors, Giavotella would make excellent trade bait.

No other hitter on the roster has the kind of prospect cache that Moustakas, Robinson, and Giavotella do, but that’s not to say there aren’t any other future major leaguers on the team.

Catcher Manny Pina, one half of the haul the Royals got for the lightning arm and loosely-screwed-on head of Danny Gutierrez, looks like a long-time major-league backup at worst. Last year, in the Rangers’ organization, Pina spent the whole year in the Texas League and hit .259/.313/.393. This year his ability to hit for average hasn’t improved – he’s batting .268 – but his secondary skills have. After hitting 8 homers all of last season, he already has 6 this year, and is slugging average (.444) is 50 points higher. And after striking out more than three times as often as he walked in 2009, he has more than doubled his walk rate while cutting his whiffs by 30%, and in 142 at-bats has both 18 walks and 18 strikeouts, leading to a .350 OBP.

Pina came into the organization as a defense-first catcher, making his offensive improvement even more enticing. He just turned 23, and with the Royals’ clear reluctance to use Brayan Pena as anything more than window dressing, Pina has a chance to back up Jason Kendall as soon as next season. Or, if we’re lucky, Kendall can back him up instead.

Other hitters of note:

Clint Robinson, a former 25th-round pick who’s done nothing but hit as a pro, and is batting .301/.389/.548 as Moustakas’ wingman. He’s also a 25-year-old first baseman, and a bench role as a pinch-hitter/defensive replacement at first base might be his upside. But hey, it worked for Ross Gload.

Tim Smith, the other half of the Gutierrez deal, is a 24-year-old outfielder who’s hit .300 at almost every stop, and is doing it once again at .303/.391/.454. He looks like a Shane Costa-ish tweener to me, but I could be proven wrong. Like Pina, his K/BB ratio has completely turned around; he’s drawn more walks than strikeouts after striking out almost twice as often as he walked last year. Double-A hitting coach Terry Bradshaw has an excellent reputation, and for good reason.

Paulo Orlando, a 24-year-old Brazilian native who astute Royals fans will remember as the player we got from the White Sox for Horacio Ramirez – the first time, when the Royals picked him off of waivers and he was good, as opposed to the second time, when he was re-signed for $2 million and sucked raw eggs. Orlando struggled in Wilmington for all of last season, but like a hundred other guys, he was so happy to leave Frawley Stadium that his bat has come alive, as he’s hitting .316/.382/.468. He’s got a good defensive reputation, and has fourth outfielder possibilities.

With all due respect to you Nick Van Stratten and Anthony Seratelli fans, that probably exhausts the list of hitting prospects. Still, on any given night the Naturals can start a lineup where 7 of the 9 batters might wind up spending a lot of time in the major leagues.

The rotation, behind Montgomery and Crow, is a bit shy on prospects. The outlier here is Edgar Osuna, who the Royals took in the Rule 5 draft from Atlanta, and who the Braves refused to spend the measly sum of $25,000 to re-acquire when Osuna didn’t make the Royals’ roster.

Given how little regard the Braves had for him, you wouldn’t expect anything from Osuna, but he has pitched insanely well this season, making the Texas League All-Star Team (along with 8 of his teammates.) The key for him has been, in a word, control. Last year he had good control, walking 35 men in 150 innings between A-ball and Double-A. This year, his control has been insane; he’s walked just nine batters in 80 innings. His other numbers have been pretty average – 55 strikeouts, 79 hits, 8 homers. But you walk one batter per nine innings, and you can thrive even if you’re average in all other respects.

The scouts aren’t buying it. Osuna’s fastball, I believe, runs between 85 and 88; he’s got a slow curveball that gives minor leaguers fits but major league hitters will spit at. His changeup is a genuine major league pitch, but it’s not enough to be successful, even for a lefty. At some point, his performance demands a promotion, at least to Triple-A. The mere fact that the Braves refused to take him back does not guarantee that he’s a nobody; the Dodgers famously declined to take Shane Victorino back from the Phillies after the 2004 season. Still, anything we get out of Osuna at the major-league level is gravy.

Finally, there’s the bullpen, where the Naturals have no less than three relievers with serious major-league possibilities. Well, they had three, until Blaine Hardy went on a run-ger strike, and threatened not to give up another run until his demand to be promoted to Omaha was met. (Horrible pun, I know.) After allowing two runs in his first outing of the year, Hardy didn’t allow another in his next 11 appearances, covering 24 innings, before joining the O-Royals’ bullpen at the end of May.

Hardy, a left-hander, was a 22nd-round pick just two years ago, out of legendary NAIA school Lewis-Clark State in Idaho. He proved to be a find right away, giving up less than a baserunner per inning for Burlington in the Midwest League last year. Still, no one expected this: despite jumping two levels to Double-A, he allowed just 11 hits in 26 innings (!) before his promotion, and he’s been nearly as effective in Omaha. For the year, he’s allowed just 22 hits in 43 innings with a 1.27 ERA. He has just 31 strikeouts against 12 walks, although his strikeout rate is better than it looks, simply because he’s been so stingy with the hit that he hasn’t had as many strikeout opportunities as you’d expect.

Hardy isn’t overpowering, but he throws around 90 and changes speeds well, works both sides of the plate, and doesn’t show a pronounced platoon split. The Royals have made due with Dusty Hughes as their sole left-handed reliever for most of the season, but pretty soon they’ll have a legitimate weapon in that role.

The second lefty in the Naturals’ pen, Brandon Sisk, is a prospect in his own right. Sisk was signed out of an independent league in 2008. As you’d expect from an undrafted left-hander, his fastball is marginal, but according to Picollo “he has excellent deception” in his delivery. He opened eyes last season by allowing just 30 hits in 61 innings in Wilmington. Now pitching in a more neutral ballpark, he’s allowed 39 hits and 15 walks in 40 innings, with 38 strikeouts. Sisk is a lefty specialist at best, but that’s still quite a find from the indy leagues.

The third prospect reliever, Louis Coleman, was the ace of LSU’s College World Series champion team last season, but also came in out of the bullpen to secure the final out of the championship. The Royals got him in the fifth round because his low arm slot meant that he didn’t project as a starter. So the Royals made him a reliever full-time, and he’s been excellent from day one. He reached Wilmington after signing last season and was very effective there, and hasn’t missed a beat for the Naturals in 2010.

In 48 innings he’s allowed just 31 hits and 14 walks, and struck out 52. Those are outstanding numbers across the board, but a word of caution: as you’d expect from someone with a low arm slot, he has a big platoon differential. Lefties are hitting .257 against him this year, while right-handed hitters are batting just .124. His walk and homer rates are pretty similar from each side, but still, that’s a sizeable difference which limits his effectiveness.

In the modern bullpen, where 7 relievers are standard and most teams carry one if not two LOOGYs (Left-handed One Out GuYs), there’s a place for a ROOGY like Coleman. If Yost spots him correctly, Coleman should be a useful piece of the puzzle as soon as next April.

Picollo on the Naturals’ relievers: Hardy is ahead of the other guys simply because he throws the most strikes…throws 89-90 but touches 93…good changeup, curveball is inconsistent. Coleman has a low three-quarters delivery and throws across his body, also quite deceptive…he doesn’t throw a four-seamer which is unusual for a bullpen guy…his velocity is down to 89-90 after sitting at 92-93 last year, but he’s still getting results.

So to sum up: the Naturals have one Grade A stud hitter (Moustakas), one potential above-average center fielder (Robinson), a potential everyday second baseman (Giavotella), a borderline starter/excellent backup catcher (Pina), three role players (Smith, Robinson, Orlando), a Grade A left-handed starter (Montgomery), an enigmatic right-hander who still has top-shelf stuff (Crow), a Jamie Moyer Scratch-Off Lottery Ticket (Osuna), and three potential long-term relievers (Hardy, Sisk, Coleman).

That’s an impressive collection of talent on one team. There have been years where the Royals didn’t have this many quality prospects in the entire organization. And we’re likely to see more prospects pass through Northwest Arkansas before the year is out. While Hardy has moved to Omaha, his place in the bullpen has been taken by Patrick Keating, a 25th-round find last year who I’ll talk about in the Wilmington piece. There’s a good chance we’ll see Eric Hosmer here before the year is out, and now that he appears to be signed it’s possible Christian Colon might reach Double-A this year. Danny Duffy will probably make his Double-A debut in about a month. A late-season appearance by Chris Dwyer or even John Lamb isn’t out of the question.

Put it all together, and a very strong case can be made that the 2010 Northwest Arkansas Naturals has the greatest collection of future major league talent of any Royals’ farm team in history. But that’s an article for another day.

Father's Day.

Baseball, they say, is a game for fathers and sons. I don’t doubt that they are right; I’ve seen Field of Dreams, after all. But baseball is not the only thing that binds fathers and sons together. My father wouldn’t know a double from a double play, but I would be neither the man nor the writer I am today without him. So today, on Father’s Day, I hope you’ll indulge me as I tell you a little about my dad.

Nabil Jazayerli was born in Damascus, Syria in 1944. He grew up in a middle-class family, although “middle-class” meant something entirely different in the Middle East in the 1950s than it does in 21st-century America. My grandfather, Muhammad Yunus Jazayerli, owned a factory that produced liquid nitrogen, which was then sold to a variety of companies that needed the stuff for industrial purposes. In America this would have made my grandfather a wealthy man; in Syria, it meant that he had the ability to provide for his family, and eventually buy his house instead of renting it, but it was a path to self-sufficiency, not a yellow brick road.

My father did well in school, as much by necessity as by choice. In Syria, as in most countries outside the western world – then and now – your career path is decided by the time you graduate high school. Every high school senior in the country takes a standardized exam (the Baccalaureate) and your composite score on the exam determines where you stand in line when it comes to picking your college. Or to put it more bluntly, it determined whether you were accepted to medical school. There were about 90 slots in the University of Damascus’ medical school, and that meant that the top 90 high school seniors in the country got the opportunity to become doctors. The 91st-best senior got the shaft. It’s not like anyone was in a position to turn down the opportunity to become a physician. Medicine wasn’t simply a noble and well-compensated profession – it was the noble and well-compensated profession.

While my father was in high school, my grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer. Told by the doctor that his disease was caused by the cigarettes he had been smoking in ignorant bliss for decades, he threw away his stash and never lit up again. He would have a lung removed, and managed to survive seven more years in progressively deteriorating health before he passed away. The official cause of death was his cancer, along with heart failure, but a contributing cause of his death was Ba’athitis.

It’s almost impossible to believe today, but in the 1950s, Syria was a functioning democracy. The president was elected – fairly – and served for a period of time before his term expired. Judges had immense power to apply and enforce the law. People enjoyed civil rights like freedom of speech and political expression.

One of the groups that took advantage of the latter was the Ba’ath party, a group of disaffected socialists who railed against the perceived injustices of government. This group gradually gained control of key positions within the army, and in 1963 they struck. A coup d’état was successful, and the Ba’athists soon set out to bring to the masses all the injustices that they had claimed to be fighting against.

One of the Ba’athists’ first targets was the bourgeois middle class, who had the chutzpah to conduct business with the intention of making a profit. In January, 1965 the government began “nationalizing” private businesses, “nationalizing” being a euphemism for “nice business you’ve built – we’ll take it!”

They came for my grandfather’s factory in the middle of the night. They were let in by the night security guard, a member of the Ba’ath party. My father was preparing to head to class the next morning when some of the factory employees rushed to the family’s house to tell them what had happened. It was common knowledge by that point that once the government had taken over your business, your best move was to just stay away. More than one businessman had made the mistake of going to his office to try and reason with his occupiers, and had suffered a savage beating for his impertinence.

My father had the unhappy duty to inform my grandfather of the news. He found Muhammad Yunus sitting on his bed, putting on his shoes.

“I don’t think you should go to work today,” was all my father could say.

My grandfather looked up at him, and immediately understood. “They’ve taken the factory, haven’t they?” My father could only muster a nod.

“Very well,” my grandfather said, and started removing his shoes. He then lay down in his bed and went back to sleep.

My grandfather did not last long after that. Neither would the factory; the Ba’ath party put the security guard in charge of the factory, which is a bit like giving the general manager’s job to a peanut vendor. (Don’t get any ideas, Mr. Glass.) Within six months the factory ceased to function, as every machine in the place had broken down.

At home, my father – barely out of his teens – had a mother, a sick father, and three younger sisters to provide for, and suddenly there was no source of income. My father had only one option open to him – the government, committed to its socialist principles, continued to provide free tuition for all medical students, and moreover they provided a small stipend to students who were in the top 25% of their class. If my dad was to continue in medical school, he simply had to find a way to rank at the top of his class.

So he did. When he wasn’t in class, he had a textbook in his hand. His neighbors would later tell me that when they woke up at dawn, they’d see my father sitting on the family porch, book in hand; when they went to bed at night, they’d still see him sitting there, studying under a fluorescent light.

By the time he finished medical school in the summer of 1970, my father had a wife and a 10-month-old daughter to take care of in addition to his sisters and widowed mother. All he had in his pocket was a medical degree, a plane ticket, and a contract to begin his medical residency in a distant land called Michigan.

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Growing up in the late 70s and early 80s, I was blissfully unaware of all of this. I was born in June, 1975, in the suburban Detroit hospital my father trained at; two weeks later my dad completed his Cardiology fellowship, packed up the family, and drove to his new job in Wichita. Like most of his classmates who journeyed with him, my dad never originally intended to stay in America forever, not when his family was back in Syria, not when his mother country was in desperate need of well-trained physicians. Their goal all along was to stay in America just long enough to save up enough money to live comfortably back home. That was why they accepted jobs in small towns like Wichita and Appleton, Wisconsin and Moline, Illinois. Save as much money as you can for a few years, and get out.

Sociologists speak of “the myth of return” – the notion intrinsic to immigrant communities that one day they will return home, no matter how unrealistic that return might be. It’s a dangerous myth, because so long as they expect to return, there’s no incentive for them to integrate themselves into their new society.

For my dad and his classmates, the myth died quickly. My dad visited Syria in 1977, planning to scope out a possible return. He found a country in the grip of a socialist, totalitarian government, with an economy in much worse shape than when he left in 1970. A country where money was scarce, electricity was rationed, and where the greatest ambition for the best and brightest students was to study and move abroad like he had already done. In that moment, my dad realized he was an American. “I could have gone back and lived comfortably,” my dad would later tell us. “But there was no way I could let you kids grow up in a country without a future.”

I’ve long tried to imagine what it would be like for me to move in my mid-twenties to a country on the other side of the world, where I barely spoke the language, where the only people I knew were the few friends who came with me, and then create a life there, knowing that my children would grow up completely immersed in their new culture, without any memory or connection to the one I grew up in. It’s hard enough for me to imagine changing my allegiances towards a freaking baseball team. Embracing a new country? I could never do it. My parents did.

My parents threw themselves whole-heartedly into the new life they had chosen for themselves. Whether it was the PTA or the hospital’s medical establishment or the local tennis club, my parents attached as many strands as possible to the web that made up Wichita society. Before I ever identified myself as a Muslim or as someone of Arab descent, I knew myself as an American. And I never knew that I was supposed to find a dichotomy between those parallel identities. No one ever told me I couldn’t be both American and Muslim, because my parents wouldn’t let them.

Along with my two older sisters and younger brother, I lived an idyllic childhood growing up in Wichita. My brother and I manned a lemonade stand the summer I turned 6; my mom no doubt spent more money on powdered lemonade than we ever made selling it (10 cents a cup!) We watched Saturday morning cartoons like everyone else, until that exciting moment in 1982 when the USA Network started the USA Cartoon Express – cartoons on Sundays too!

I grew up reading A Cricket in Times Square and Henry Huggins and the Encyclopedia Brown books. When I was older I graduated to that uniquely American genre, science fiction, devouring the books of Isaac Asimov, who himself was the child of immigrant parents and whose name was also worth a lot of points in Scrabble.

My parents recognized my precociousness early and did their best to cultivate it. When I was 5 or 6 years old, I suddenly became obsessed with learning as much as I could about Americana, and with my parents’ help I sent away for information from the Chamber of Commerce of every big city in America. Soon my bedroom was filled with pamphlets and brochures about the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the Liberty Bell Center in Philadelphia.

Soon thereafter I became a Weather Channel junkie – I’m guessing all the cool multi-colored maps were the thing – and would watch by myself for hours at a time. One of the shows invited viewers to submit their own weather questions to be read on the air. My parents not only helped me to submit my question, but when I was picked, they helped arrange for me to read my question live on the air. I was just 7 when I made my national media debut; I believe my question went something like this: “I understand that hurricane season runs from June to November. Has there ever been a hurricane outside of hurricane season?” Yes, I know: a scintillating question. I was 7. Leave me alone. (And if you want to know the answer – you know you’re just dying to find out – click here.)

The summer I turned 8, I was at a friend’s house and we were looking for something to do when his mother said, “why don’t you play that dragon game you just bought?” And so I entered the world of (Advanced) Dungeons & Dragons, which given my obsessive personality devoured a good chunk of my free time for the next seven years.

And, of course, there was baseball. I have no memory of George Brett’s white-hot summer of 1980, but I have no doubt that I owe my position today to the relevance of the Royals on the national scene throughout the late 70s and early 80s. My first baseball memory was of the Brewers blowing out the Cardinals in Game 1 of the 1982 World Series; then of Fred Lynn’s grand slam in the 1983 All-Star Game – even then I was an AL partisan. My first Royals memory is of a Royals-Yankees game I watched live on July 24th, 1983: the Pine Tar game.

My dad generally encouraged all of my interests, though he was decidedly lukewarm about my baseball obsession. Like any immigrant who owed his success in America to hard work, he was puzzled by America’s cultural obsession with sport. He had nothing against sports; he just didn’t understand how ordinary people might schedule their lives around them. For his oldest son, baseball was just a distraction from the ultimate goal of becoming a doctor as well.

Even so, in 1981 my father spent $50 to buy his numbers-crazed six-year-old a copy of the brand-new edition of The Baseball Encyclopedia, which ran a little over 2200 pages. It was my most-prized possession until I left for college a decade later.

When it became clear to my dad that my love for baseball was not a passing fad, even through college and medical school, many times he would say to me, “Son, I hope that one day you find your baseball in medicine.” I hope you find your life’s passion in your career.

My parents didn’t simply embrace America’s secular traditions, but even while holding fast to their own faith, they found a way to accommodate America’s religious ones as well. We had a Christmas tree like everyone else; we participated in Easter egg hunts like everyone else. The year I turned 13, my parents even sent me to Camp Kanakuk, a Christian summer camp tucked away in the Ozarks, for two weeks. This was 1988, before the Berlin Wall fell and when the Soviets were still our greatest enemy, so I was viewed with curiosity more than suspicion. “You’re a Muslim? Wow. I’ve never met one of you before.”

I didn’t see much of my father as a child; as a cardiologist building his practice, he was frequently on call and usually working late. But he made sure the times we spent together were special. My dad had grown up watching westerns and war movies in the cinemas of Damascus – before they were shut down – and loved nothing more than to watch a good World War II flick. And he made sure my brother and I watched them with him. Whether it was The Guns of Navarone or A Man Called Intrepid or The Longest Day, my dad would sit us down at night to watch. He’d let us stay up past our bedtime, and in return we’d do our best to comprehend what the hell was going on.

My dad enjoyed no movie quite as much as he enjoyed Ike: The War Years, a five-hour mini-series that came out in 1980, during the Golden Age of Mini-Series, with Robert Duvall in the starring role. I’ve only watched it, beginning to end, a couple dozen times. It’s been nearly twenty years since I’ve seen it, and I’m sure I could still recite half the lines by heart. Every other kid of my generation knew actor Paul Gleason as the malignant principal in The Breakfast Club. I knew him as Beetle, the genial aide to General Eisenhower.

Eisenhower was even more of a hero to my dad because he was a Republican. My dad, like most of his Syrian doctor friends, were proud Reagan Republicans, as you might expect from men who through sheer hard work had pulled themselves up by their bootstraps from a life of uncertainty in another country to become successful and wealthy physicians in America. They’ve all reluctantly been forced to become Democrats now, after the GOP made it clear that Muslims are no longer welcome in the party, but Dwight David Eisenhower still holds an exalted place with my father as one of our nation’s greatest presidents. Even better – he grew up in Kansas! More than once my dad would load my brother and I into the car and make the two-hour trek to Abilene to visit the Eisenhower Library and Museum.

In 1983, Herman Wouk’s The Winds of War would come to the small screen, and it was as if the mini-series was made for us. We watched it as a family – all 12 hours of it – at least once or twice a year through the end of the 1980s. You might know Ali McGraw from Love Story; I only know her from this.

At no time in all of this did it strike me as incongruous that my family would have such a passion for World War II movies, would identify so strongly with America’s struggle to defeat the Nazis. No one in my family served in the war, obviously; we had no personal connection to it. (“But I was born during the Battle of the Bulge,” my dad would remind me.) All that mattered was that we were American, and the war was an indelible part of American history. If our connection to this country debuted after 1945, what of it? We were part of a nation of immigrants; the exact year of immigration seemed a pointless detail.

My dad didn’t have time to volunteer with the Cub Scouts, but when I came to him asking for help to build a car for the Pinewood Derby, I saw a side of him I hadn’t seen before. He took me into the basement, opened a toolbox that I didn’t know existed, and in the span of an hour or two molded a block of wood and some plastic wheels into a sleek racing car. I was as astonished as any eight-year-old kid could be. I knew my father was smart, and hard-working, and respected, but until that moment I had no idea that he could be cool.

There was a lot that I would soon learn about my father, and his father, and his father’s father. I learned that my dad was so handy because he had grown up around my grandfather’s machine shop. I learned that my grandfather was a mechanical savant, who during World War II, when there was an acute shortage of metal parts, devised a method to repair a specific defect in Crossley diesel engines using only scrap metal. It was so ingenious that, after the war, representatives from the England-based company came to Damascus and asked him to show them what he had done. Afterwards, they sent him a thank-you letter, along with an offer to pay full tuition, room and board for his young son – my father – should he ever choose to study engineering in England.

I learned about my great-grandfather, Mahmoud, who was a soldier in the Ottoman army and spent nearly a decade in a Siberian prison camp before he was released during the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. I learned about my great-great-grandfather, also Muhammad Yunus, whose story needs its own blog post, and just might get it.

The more I learned about my family, the more I understood just what my parents had given up when they came to America. It was easy as a child to be oblivious to the sacrifices my parents had made, because my own life was so free of worries. It was only as a teenager that I realized that the ease with which I considered myself an American was a testament to just how hard my parents strove to do the same thing.

We all learned in our history textbooks about the great and glorious history of immigrants to our nation’s shores. I knew about Jamestown and the Pilgrims, about indentured servants and the slave trade, about refugees from the Irish potato famine in the 1840s and Jews escaping European anti-Semitism in the 1920s and 1930s. I knew that immigrants built this country, and I knew that each wave of immigrants had to conquer bigotry and racism before they could take their place on the tapestry of American life.

Maybe that’s why I never really felt like the child of immigrants myself. Immigrants are supposed to struggle before they, or more likely their grandchildren, found acceptance in America. I never had to struggle to be accepted. I knew I was different, but then in America we’re all different, aren’t we? That’s why I thank God every day that I was born in America, where more than anywhere else in the world – and today even more than in the past – a child of immigrant parents can be accepted right away as an equal member of society, where no opportunities are denied us, where no dream is too big to dream.

And I thank God for the sacrifices my parents made to come here, because it was their willingness to share the same dreams and endure the same hardships as the generations of immigrants before them that made my life possible. A Boeing 747 may have been their crossing ship, and a terminal at Detroit Metropolitan Airport may have been their Ellis Island. But they were immigrants just the same. They suffered the heartache of leaving the only land they ever called home just the same.

My father is 65 now, and retires at the end of the month. (It’s his third retirement; once a doctor, always a doctor. I’m hoping this one sticks.) Even after 40 years, the pull of the homeland remains strong, and my parents plan to split their time between the States and Syria, where economically if not politically, things are headed in the right direction. Forty years ago he came to America with nothing; today, he retires to a life of comfort, having watched his children grow up to become two doctors, a lawyer, and an MBA. (Or as we call it, the Jazayerli HMO.)

Only in America. And only to someone that believed in, and worked for, the American Dream.

So today, on Father’s Day, I just want to say: thanks, Dad. (And Mom!) Thanks for making the impossible sacrifices that only a parent could make for their child. Thanks for putting up with the snotty, bratty, spoiled, selfish complaints of children who could not possibly comprehend, let alone appreciate, what you did for them. Thanks for giving me a guidepost as I try to figure out how to raise my own three children. Above all, thanks for giving us the one thing every parent wants to give their children: a better life than the one you grew up in.

And Dad: I’m not sure I ever found my baseball in medicine. But I did find my medicine in baseball.