Frenchy has more RBIs than Billy with men on base and in scoring position. Getzie is the man for RISP.

“And let’s ignore the reason Frenchy has guys on base and in scoring position is because Billy is getting on base in front of Francoeur over 40% of the time, of course.”

Yet Billy doesn’t score many runs, about fifth on the team as I remember. Billy on first is kind of a negative, as succeeding batters have to generate three bases of offense to score him, taking a double and single to bring him around rather than just a double for most of the rest of the team.

As for cherry-picking, Billy does two things well; hit ground balls and walk. As we noticed during the brief experiment with Butler back in the 3-slot, he doesn’t walk as much when followed by Gordon. Before that Billy hit 5 and walked lots with Aviles or Betemit following him. A flaw of OBP is that Billy gets credit for batting ahead of a weak hitter and OBP and wOBA also don’t have a speed factor to show that a walk to Billy adds less probability of creating a run than a walk to anyone else except the catchers and Moose, who don’t steal, although Moose is much faster than Billy based on eyeballs. Given that, I think a broader group of stats defines production better and Billy isn’t very production. His wOBA is ineffectual at producing runs and runs are what are tallied to decide the winner of the game.

I’m also amazed at the Melky and Frenchy supporters — I’m not a detractor, per se, because I think the Royals are getting what they paid for, and they’ve both had their moments this year. I think what we all generally should be doing is shrugging…neither has been bad in 2011, but neither has been good.

And, I just can’t resist…Jim, you’re going to continue to make yourself look silly by championing every mediocre-to-poor player the Royals have while bashing…Billy Butler? “And Billy fails to drive anyone home”? The man has a slashline of .288/.436/.438 (.874 OPS) w/ RISP — 21 hits and 28 RBI in that situation. What part of that equates to failing? I’ll just sit here and wait for you to find an angle on how you’re just not absolutely, totally incorrect on that statement.

Meanwhile, you can also tell me how Francoeur’s line of .266/.296/.383 (.679 OPS) is better, which is certainly the case since he has 36 RBI, right? I mean, you’d rather have a guy hit for less average and power with RISP, wouldn’t you? And let’s ignore the reason Frenchy has guys on base and in scoring position is because Billy is getting on base in front of Francoeur over 40% of the time, of course.

C’mon, Jim, stop cherry-picking stats to support the guys you like and then ignoring stats on guys you don’t. You’re smarter than that.

Good for Crow, I don’t think he should have been left off the team, but maybe this season we should have had two representatives. Hard to argue that for the worst team in the AL though.

I still believe if Royals think Davies have a future, they should put him in bullpen and use him in long relief, even piggyback him on someone like Duffy, Mazarro, etc. like they do in the minors. Yes, he needs some confidence building work, but not at the expense of a ridiculous 6-man rotation.

If we get Cain, Gio, and Monty up this year for some experience joining Escobar, Moose, and Hos, plus trade some veterans for more minor leaguers, it will be quite a positive season. Off course, a lot of people declared them dead before the season even began, but I think they’re all Cardinals fans:)

Transitions are always challenging and this one is a bit painful, but the team we have at the moment is close to being competitive and, I think, will give us hope before the end of the year when the kids stop making stupid mistakes and get into the rhythm of the Bigs. We have talent for the first time in years and that can’t be taught.