Kuzul

As I awaited the beginning of St. Louis Cardinals' pitching prospect Michael Wacha’s MLB debut Thursday afternoon, the Kansas City Royals announced that they had hired Hall of Famer George Brett as assistant hitting coach to help aid their faltering offense. I went down to gather some quotes from the press conference where they announced the move and was pleasantly surprised to listen to Brett field questions from a combination of St. Louis and Kansas City media. Brett pulled no punches on the field, and he is treating his new job just the same. So, why is a man who loves his golf, spending time with his family and is making the most of retirement coming back to work? “Out of frustration,” he said. That simple sentence fragment likely echoes the sentiments of every Royals fan right now. Brett said that just like everyone else, he was frustrated watching a ...

The 2012 MLB All-Star Game received another dose of youth on Saturday afternoon when Bryce Harper was tapped to replace Giancarlo Stanton. Stanton was removed following a Friday injury and is slated for knee surgery on Sunday, July 8. Harper joins a colorful list of rookie All-Stars. While he will be the youngest position player of all time, he is not the youngest All-Star. But he’s close. Following is a list of 10 of the youngest players to make the MLB All-Star roster.Begin Slideshow

Last night against the Miami Marlins the Cardinals came back to win a game in which they trailed in the eighth inning for the first time this season. They were 0-26 in those situations until Monday night.However, the Redbirds' bullpen tried their best to punt the game to the Marlins in the seventh as Fernando Salas got just one out while allowing runners to reach second and third. Scatter-armed Eduardo Sanchez followed and walked three men in a row—the first intentionally with the other two coming Rick Ankiel-style.The Cardinal relievers walked eight batters on the night in 10 innings.Fortunately for St. Louis, Heath Bell and the Marlins' bullpen have had continuing struggles of their own and blew a four-run lead in the ninth (but at least they forced the Cards to, you know—hit the ball).Jason Motte was fortunate that Jose Reyes' scorching liner to center was right at outfielder Shane Robinson to end ...

Fans vote for the starters in the MLB All-Star game which means one thing: it's a popularity contest. Year after year we see the American League starters as a Yankees and Red Sox All-Star team featuring Ichiro or Josh Hamilton. There are usually a few guys who get a deserving start, but it's rare that the fans get it right all the way through. The 2012 All-Star game in Kansas City is under a month away, so here are the players who, as of now, deserve to be starting.Begin Slideshow

It's that time of year again in Major League Baseball.Division leaders and Wild Card hopefuls dominate the headlines as fans across the nation begin to anticipate the excitement of October pennant chases. September is where legends cement their place, managers justify their contracts, role players previously shrouded in obscurity make their names known, MVPs and Cy Young winners bring home their hardware, headlines are stolen and franchise-crippling collapses are immortalized. The most exciting month of baseball's regular season is where the pretenders and the contenders are finally separated as W's, X's, Y's and Z's begin to finalize the standings, granting a select few ball clubs the ever-so-elusive invitation to the sport's most exclusive dance.Lost in the hype, however, as disgruntled fans of hopeless teams begin to switch the channel over to football are their first glances at a brighter future. For those of us not lucky enough to construct our hopes around the ...

For the past few decades, the Kansas City Royals have been little more than an afterthought in the world of baseball, but behind names such as Eric Hosmer, Billy Butler, Mike Moustakas, Aaron Crow and now Alex Gordon things are on the verge of turning around for the once forgotten franchise.The Royals haven't enjoyed a great amount of success in recent memory, finishing in last place of the AL Central six of the last seven season. Despite the lack of on-field success however, the team has enjoyed a fair amount of early round picks in the past few MLB drafts.With these early round picks, the team's management has chosen some quality players over the years, three of which made their debuts in Aaron Crow, Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas.Crow has been everything the Royals could have asked for in a set-up man, posting a 1.43 ERA and 37 strikeouts in ...

Derrek Lee, 1B Baltimore Orioles (26 percent owned in Yahoo, 28.8 percent in ESPN)Current Stat Line: .247 AVG/26 R/5 HR/19 RBI/2 SBLee has certainly not lived up to expectations so far in 2011, but his bat seems to be coming alive. In the past seven games, Lee has hit .438 with five XBH and six runs.He has been shuffled between the fourth and sixth spot in the lineup, so if he can stay healthy, he should help your team in AVG and RBI.Projection (rest of season): .283 AVG/39 R/11 HR/44 RBI/2 SB Alexi Casilla, 2B/SS Minnesota Twins (28 percent owned in Yahoo, 55.6 percent in ESPN)Current Stat Line: .260 AVG/32 R/2 HR/15 RBI/11 SBCasilla has been on fire for the past month. Since May 24th he has hit .327 AVG/9 R/2 HR/11 RBI/8 SB. Casilla is currently batting second for the Twins and he should stay there. I don't expect him to hit .327 for the rest of the year, but he should be a solid contributor in AVG, ...

After a thrilling series with the Cleveland Indians, the Kansas City Royals traveled to Arlington to take on the Texas Rangers in a three-game series. This is the beginning of a six-game road trip that will end in Cleveland next week. Game 1 has Jeff Francis on the mound for the boys in blue taking on Derek Holland for the Rangers. This is just one of the games that Royals fans would like to forget. At least the Royals didn’t cave after being dug into a five-run hole. They fought back but were unfortunately bested by the power hitters of the Texas Rangers, who pounded out five home runs in the game. This was Francis’ worst game of the season by far, giving up nine hits and five earned runs in four innings. He picked up the loss, making his record for the season 0-2. It was nice to see ...

In recent memory, we've always heard about how the AL East is Major League Baseball's toughest division, with the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays beating up on each other, along with the rest of the American League. Some people make a case for the NL East, where the Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta Braves have a stronghold, combined with an over-acheiving Florida Marlins squad and an even more under-acheiving New York Mets team. It's easy to say one division is better than the other based on records alone, so I had an idea: What if we take the best player at each position, from each division and create separate "All-Star" teams?  Which division would have the most talented squad? That's exactly what we are going to do in hopes we can finally come to a realization of which division is MLB's best.  You might be surprised at how good (or bad) ...

KANSAS CITY ROYALS Last Year: 67-95, fifth in AL Central  Manager: Ned Yost   PROJECTED LINEUP  C: Jason Kendall (R) (will start season on DL) DH/1B: Kila Ka'aihue (L) 1B/DH: Billy Butler (R) 2B: Chris Getz (L) 3B: Mike Aviles (R) SS: Alcides Escobar (R) LF: Alex Gordon (L) CF: Melky Cabrera (S) RF: Jeff Francoeur (R) During the 2010 season, the Royals were second in baseball in terms of batting average. However, the offense had trouble scoring by the lack of power (19th in SLG) and the average rate of getting on base overall (14th in OBP). Billy Butler is the Royals' best hitter. Butler will hit over .300, but his power declined over last year. He did cut his strikeouts by 20 and increase his BB total slightly. I expect close to 20 home runs, a .390 OBP and a .480 SLG line for Butler. Kila Ka'aihue will provide the power in the KC lineup. He has never had more than 200 big-league at-bats ...