The McGovern Manifesto- Restoration, Reformation and Retaliation- Part 2

[royals19]

Re: The McGovern Manifesto- Restoration, Reformation and Retaliation- Part 2

Congratulations on clipping the 100-win mark! I've been a silent follower for awhile (I think.)

Atta boy Royals. Awesome season.

Thanks, I really appreciate it. This year, we started out really slow but we were able to battle back through injuries and ineffectiveness. I didn't think that we had the team to win 100 games but I guess it just worked out that way. I had this team winning somewhere between 85-90 games.

******

How was your little, "Island Vacation" Ned?

So much sun... so many crabs... too much sand.

Haha... that's good. A little time in the Pacific never hurt nobody.

Ned, I'm going to be up front with you. You screwed us big time on that Jeremy Guthrie op... you damn near brought the whole house down on The Trust and that is unacceptable.

I understand... Sir, I'm willing to do whatever it takes to earn my manager's spot back.

I had a feeling you'd say that. When we retake the ball club, you're wish shall be granted... Under one condition.

I'm listening...

I want you to go back to KC... Bo Jackson, Andrew Friedman and Dayton Moore are having a meeting there at the Stadium and then are going to dinner on the Plaza.

Take a team with you to KC and bring me Bo and Friedman. Without them, McGovern's nothing. With the "Owner" out of the way, we'll be able to take back what was rightfully ours in the first place.

What about Dayton?

Let McGovern have him. He's just an errand boy.

I'll take care of it.

[royals19]

Re: The McGovern Manifesto- Restoration, Reformation and Retaliation- Part 2

So before we get to all of that post-season drama and the stunning conclusion of this year's plot line, we need to give credit to a certain group of guys for bringing back the hardware this season.

2014 Cy Young Winner- James Shields

This is exactly what we envisioned when we acquired James Shields. Last season wasn't too kind to him and we gave him a 4/29 million dollar contract in hopes that he would bounce back. And boy, bounce back he did. Shieldsy seemed much sharper than last season as far as stuff and command goes. Last year, he was really just eating innings but this season, he finally put everything together. His fastball was up to 96-97 compared to 94-95 from last season, the change up had more bite... and the command was much better. When you take that and combine it with his ability to throw 120+ pitches without tiring, we're essentially sitting on a top 5 pitcher in baseball for the next 3 years.

Being the Cy Young, all eyes will be on him next season and if he think's he's proven himself, he's dead wrong. In order to solidify his spot as a top 5 pitcher, he needs to do crazy things this October.

2014 2nd Base Gold Glove Winner- Chase Utley

We gambled the chips last season on Utley having enough in the tank to impact our club for a couple years, at least until we could find a suitable replacement at second base and he did just that. Last season, his game winning hit in the Wild Card game vs. Texas won him a spot in Royals lore. Being fair to our postseason hero, we brought him back on a 2 year deal hoping he'd be the everyday second baseman. Unfortunately, his bat declined so we were forced to peruse Jed Lowrie.

However, Utley was able to come in and have an excellent impact off the bench as a utility player of sorts and his defensive efforts in the late innings saved the Royals many ball games. He deserves it and hopefully, he'll come back for one more season to continue to add to his hall of fame case.

2014 Left Field Gold Glove Winner- Alex Gordon

For whatever reason, I thought that Gordo won the award last season but it seems that Jackie Bradley Jr. snatched the award from him at the last second.

This season, we had a franchise altering choice to make, Trade Alex Gordon, or Billy Butler? The question loomed over us for quite some time but in the end, we decided that Gordon's superb defense and his bat outweighed Billy Butler's offensive capabilities. The trade also represented a turning point. Alex Gordon, now becomes the face of our franchise. He'll be entering the last season of his contract this next season and we'd love to make him a lifetime Royal. Gordon represents the ideal player that we want to have here in KC and I'm glad that we've got the opportunity to keep him.

His defense was superb this season as you can tell by his whopping 17 assists. Alex Gordon is a premium defender and a perennial .300 hitter with 30 homerun potential. Folks, it just doesn't get much better than that.

[Deuce2223]

Re: The McGovern Manifesto- Restoration, Reformation and Retaliation- Part 2

Not going to lie, at this point in my franchise, Walker has been a bust at the MLB level, both in games I have pitched with him as well as sim games. Hope he works out for you. I havn't moved Sanchez past AA yet, but figure next season he will be in AAA.

At this point I would take Butler for both, if I didn't have Smoak tearing the cover off the ball and Morse and Plouffe rotating between DH/RF.

[Guccilafluer]

Re: The McGovern Manifesto- Restoration, Reformation and Retaliation- Part 2

This is an awesome franchise. Just started reading the old thread a couple days ago and I'm all caught up. Love what you're doing with the Royals, awesome in getting Utley (one of the trades I've thought about making myself in my royals chise). Also good to see someone not on the Billy Butler train, I can only watch so many GDP's before I start to rip my hair out.

Cheers to the Tampa Bay way!!! Keep it up

[CameRoN0407]

Re: The McGovern Manifesto- Restoration, Reformation and Retaliation- Part 2

Congrats on the 100 win season, and more importantly, the playoff berth!

[crains13]

Re: The McGovern Manifesto- Restoration, Reformation and Retaliation- Part 2

Good luck in the playoffs man!!

[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: The McGovern Manifesto- Restoration, Reformation and Retaliation- Part 2

Don't bow out like a b**** like I did in the ALDS is all I have to say, lol.

[royals19]

Re: The McGovern Manifesto- Restoration, Reformation and Retaliation- Part 2

Not going to lie, at this point in my franchise, Walker has been a bust at the MLB level, both in games I have pitched with him as well as sim games. Hope he works out for you. I havn't moved Sanchez past AA yet, but figure next season he will be in AAA.

At this point I would take Butler for both, if I didn't have Smoak tearing the cover off the ball and Morse and Plouffe rotating between DH/RF.

Really? Man that sucks. He really impressed me in September. I'm thinking he's going to get a long look for me in Spring next season.

As for Sanchez, I can't believe Seattle had him in AAA at 19. I went ahead and sent him back to AA because I envision leading my next wave of starting pitchers through the minors.

This is an awesome franchise. Just started reading the old thread a couple days ago and I'm all caught up. Love what you're doing with the Royals, awesome in getting Utley (one of the trades I've thought about making myself in my royals chise). Also good to see someone not on the Billy Butler train, I can only watch so many GDP's before I start to rip my hair out.

Cheers to the Tampa Bay way!!! Keep it up

Thanks dude I appreciate it! I'm following you're Royals franchise as well. I'm glad there's other Royals fans out there!

Congrats on the 100 win season, and more importantly, the playoff berth!

Thanks man, I appreciate it. I was thoroughly shocked that we were able to pull a playoff berth outta nowhere and that we were able to stack up 100+ wins this season.

Good luck in the playoffs man!!

Thanks dude! I gotta say though, I really like what you're doing with the Big Red Machine. The presentation, the graphics... all of it is mind blowing.

Don't bow out like a b**** like I did in the ALDS is all I have to say, lol.

Haha, I had to deal with that last year. This year, we are playing Detroit again in the ALDS since they won the Wild Card game and I'm looking for revenge.

[royals19]

Re: The McGovern Manifesto- Restoration, Reformation and Retaliation- Part 2



This is it... This will probably be the team we roll out with for next season. I see World Series potential in this team. We're hella streaky but if we can get hot early then we might be able to cruise into the World Series. If not, our bullpen is about to get a ton of work in this October. It is crucial for our franchise, moral wise and in a monetary sense that we go deep into the postseason. We're essentially trying to win with what we have until 2016. During that time period, we're trying to increase our budget as much as possible for the 2015-2016 free agent class which includes guys like, David Price, Jason Heyward, Miguel Cabrera, Shane Victorino, Yoenis Cespedes, Aroldis Chapman... it's essentially the holy grail of free agent classes.

Aside from our business reasons for wanting to go deep into October, I personally want to win this just to win it. I'm sure McGovern feels the same way. We've got all the accolades in the trophy case and the only thing we're missing is that center piece, the World Series trophy.

On paper, Detroit is by far a superior team.. by far. However, they coasted here on fumes while we still got PLENTY of gas left. We can't get into a deep series against Detroit or they'll slaughter us.

So with that, let's get it in!

[royals19]

Re: The McGovern Manifesto- Restoration, Reformation and Retaliation- Part 2



There is nothing... nothing better than baseball in October.


The conditions are eerily similar to what we faced last year in Detroit. A cool October night, JV vs. Big Game James, the fate of a franchise at stake... yessir this is what I signed up for! I grind through playing and managing a 162 game season just for this month... haha, crazy? Probably... Ludicrous? Most definitely... Insane? Well I wouldn't go quite that far....

So I mentioned the epic Shields-Verlander matchup.


The Verlander-Shields matchup was as good as advertised. Verlander lead the salty Tigers squad into the series while James Shields had to "Put da team on his back" and hope that they scored him some runs. Like I said, we're streaky. We'll either score 30 runs in a week or whatever and then we'll get shutout 5 games in a row. I know, I know... I don't like it that much either but we're in October; about ready to stick it to the Tigers so I'm not going to complain.

It was actually an entertaining Game 1. Shields matched Verlander pitch for pitch and Verlander matched Shields pitch for pitch. Our offense traded the Tigers blow for blow and I figured that this sucker would come down to the wire. Surely, the lowly 100 game winning Royals wouldn't be able to best the mighty Tigers of Detroit right? That's what I thought... well until David Lough whipped out the hose in the 7th inning and single handedly crushed the Tiger's momentum.



I wish I would've remembered to take a video of this but I was too busy marveling at the fact how David Lough was able to throw a lob to Salvy to get Austin Jackson. David Lough may play right field but he easily has the worst arm on the team... and that's sad.

I know D-Low had "Top 10" written on his mind but the fact that this is game one and not an elimination game with anything on the line... this goes down as a great play but not a historical moment we need to hand on to.

So while David Lough does his thing,



Donnie Joesph almost blows the freaking game... Joesph has arguably been my best reliever during my entire tenure with the Royals. He managed to collect 33 saves in 2 months... as a rookie. I see a lite version of Craig Kimbrel in Joesph... Overpowering stuff, great control. The whole 9 yards.

Regardless though, we were sweating it in the 9th after he let up that first one. Luckily though he was able to strike Miggy out to end the game. I was hoping that we wouldn't go into extra innings because those types of games burn you later on and this time around, I got my wish...

Royals 1, Tigers 0.

[royals19]

Re: The McGovern Manifesto- Restoration, Reformation and Retaliation- Part 2

We managed to dodge the bullet of Verlander in game one... OK, so things are looking good... Until we find out that Max Scherzer is taking the mound. For whatever reason we simply cannot hit him. He lays everything over the plate for you to hit but it's like there's too much movement or whatever on the ball.


Today started out to be one of those days... Three straight guys grounded out to Jhonny Peralta in the first inning immediately promising me a long day. Joe Maddon figured that Lester would give him 6 or 7 strong and then we could turn it over to the pen for the rest of the game.

Unfortunately, we couldn't score runs and Detroit damn near broke the game open in the 4th, 5th and 6th but we were able to hang tough.

Eventually, Nick Castellanos hit a homerun and put us down in a situation we figured we couldn't dig out of. Down by one + Scherzer on the hill = a virtual checkmate. But again, we hung tough and stayed in there hoping for a miracle.

Detroit has won so many of these close ball games that it's a spirit crusher. Combine that with the fact that we almost let a rookie single handedly beat us, we just couldn't go out like this... Even if it is Nick Castellanos.



Luckily though, Hosmer was able to come through with a SHOT in the 9th inning. I would've had a video for you all but adobe premiere grinds my gears a lot. So Hosmer gets the credit for the late game heroics tonight. And that would signify the end of Bruce Rondon's closing duties tonight and potentially for tomorrow... I don't think whoever the new Tiger's manager is, is going to be happy.

It took me 3 hours of playing time to get to this point, so I would stop and pick it back up the following day...

[royals19]

Re: The McGovern Manifesto- Restoration, Reformation and Retaliation- Part 2

So we would roll on into extra innings... Damn.

Luckily today is getaway day but still, extra inning games, this early in the series are bad news. You burn your bullpen then you have to focus more on managing you're pitchers the rest of the series...

Luckily, Joe Maddon is the best at managing his bullpen and kept everybody except for two pitchers to one inning apiece no matter the pitch count.

The first exception is Taijuan Walker.


Taijuan Walker came in and threw 3 scoreless innings. It doesn't sound like a big deal but this is a huge deal for our ball club. The fact that a rookie can come in and blow away those 3 hitters and pitch 3 scoreless innings... let alone in a playoff game is something to watch. I'm a huge fan of Walker and watching him blow away Miggy, Prince and V-Mart was awesome.

This is exactly what we envisioned when we put Taijuan on the roster. We want him to have that same impact that David Price had for the Rays during their run in 2008.

The second pitcher that threw more than one inning was Chris Reed.



...Yeah, that's a lot of pitches but here's the thing, He threw 169 in 7 innings... Reed actually pitched 12 innings and threw 211 pitches... That's unbelievable... and he some how managed to not allow a run despite having the bases loaded in 6 of the innings he pitched. It's safe to say that Chris Reed will not be pitching in the rest of this series and you probably won't see him in the ALCS if we make it that far.

So, hats off to Chris Reed for throwin' a hell of a ball game.

Again, after 7 more extra innings I saved the game, ready to finish it off on day 3.



And FINALLY, Mike Moustakas wins the ball game for us. The more time I invested in this game, the more I wanted to win it. I wasn't about to let this baby slip through my fingers... even if it did take Chris Reed 200 pitches... even if it did take me 3 days to finish it... I was going to win this thing hell or high water.

For precautionary reasons, I researched how long the longest playoff game was and came up with the following answer:

There was an 18 inning game in the National League Divisional Series on October 9, 2005 between the Houston Astros and the Atlanta Braves that the Astros won 7-6.

Also in 2005 the Houston Astros played in the longest World Series game. On October 24 2005, (The game actually ended on the 25th), the Houston Astros lost game 3 to the Chicago White Sox 7 - 5. Chicago broke the tie in the top of the 14th on a home run by Geoff Blum with 2 out. Houston, then managed to give the White Sox a 2 run lead with a bases loaded walk. Houston did not manage to bring in any runs in the bottom of the 14th and the world's longest MLB World Series game was over after a record 5 hours 41 minutes.

Therefore, this sets the record, for longest playoff game by far. It was a 1:10 game and according to the scoreboard, the last pitch was thrown at 7:12.


So after this 3 day adventure, we head on up to Detroit to hopefully end this thing in 3 and get some much needed rest before the ALCS.

[AC]

Re: The McGovern Manifesto- Restoration, Reformation and Retaliation- Part 2

Holy crap. Epic game.

[beamerball811]

Re: The McGovern Manifesto- Restoration, Reformation and Retaliation- Part 2

26 innings!?!?!?!?!?!? DANG!!!!!

[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: The McGovern Manifesto- Restoration, Reformation and Retaliation- Part 2

You know you've played a pretty epic game when: 1) you can't finish it in one sitting and/or 2) describing it won't fit in a single post. Well played, sir.