This week, we were talking about the Royals trip to Seattle and the weird games they ran into in the Pacific Northwest. We also talked about speculation that Mike Moustakas may be sent to Omaha to work on his struggles, including how effective a demotion might be for him, and compared his case to Alex Gordon's past. Then we talked about sample sizes and regression to the mean. It's early in the year, but a question posed to us by a listener was "when does it stop being a small sample size?" So w...
May 13, 2014•1 hr 25 min
From Omaha: John Lamb Interview (05 - 03 - 14) by KC Baseball Vault
May 09, 2014•4 min
From Omaha: Johnny Giavotella Interview (05 - 03 - 14) by KC Baseball Vault
May 09, 2014•3 min
This week, the Kansas City Baseball Vault covered a lot of topics, starting with the controversial decision by MLB Advanced Media to pull the plug on multiple fan podcasts on iTunes. The Royals Podcast Network was among the iTunes casualties, and we explained where things stand - long story short, not much is going to change at all, and if you're listening now, you've found other ways to hear our show. Keep checking in on Soundcloud, Stitcher Radio, any other podcast app, or RoyalsPodcast.com fo...
May 09, 2014•1 hr 11 min
This week, we kicked things off by talking about the Royals' trip to Cleveland and Baltimore - a mixed bag for sure. Jeff and Mike raved about Yordano Ventura's outing against the Orioles and his poise and approach in his eight shutout innings on April 25. We also had to lament the close games lost in Cleveland, key AL Central contests. But the meat of this week's show was a deeper analysis of Kauffman Stadium and the following question: Are the Royals a team of guys who won't hit homers at all,...
Apr 30, 2014•1 hr 14 min
Kelly's Westport Inn presents the Kansas City Baseball Vault: Your hosts Jeff Herr and Michael Engel discussed the last week of Royals baseball and the rebound after a miserable series in Minnesota. While Kansas City is scoring more, they're still showing disturbing splits on batted balls, and many key players have hit far more groundballs than is ideal. Of course, the Royals are notorious for having the lowest franchise home run record in the majors, so that fact led to a discussion about why. ...
Apr 23, 2014•1 hr 14 min
The Royalman Report returns as an interview series with former and future Royals. In this first episode, Troy catches up with former Royal and current El Paso Chihuahua, Jeff Francoeur. Jeff speaks very candidly in this interview about his time with the Royals, his baseball struggles, his life struggles, the prank and his mission to make it back to the Big Leagues. If you want to see the prank his teammates pulled on him, you can do so here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2llUpTmIkdc Email your...
Apr 19, 2014•11 min
Michael Engel talks about his joining the Pine Tar Press team, the Royals bullpen, Mike Moustakas and much more.
Apr 16, 2014•1 hr 4 min
To distract ourselves (momentarily) from the Royals' awful series in Minnesota, we opened the show by talking about Royals fandom, loyalty, and some silly comments from Steve Physioc about social media. But we couldn't stall forever and had to address some concerns - the offense, the bullpen. Players we thought should be fine who aren't, and players we feared would be awful who are - so far - still awful. It's not all bad, though. We talked about the bright spots in the early season as well, lik...
Apr 15, 2014•1 hr 21 min
Mike and Jeff talked about the Royals season opener and broke down the loss and shared impressions. It's only one game...but it was still a game the Royals should have won. But there's a lot of season left, and we broke down the opening day roster and looked at a few of the key players, including the importance of Mike Moustakas, the potential of a healthy Lorenzo Cain, and how important this year is to Alcides Escobar. We also chipped in official win predictions, so if and when we're incorrect,...
Apr 02, 2014•1 hr 9 min
With a week before opening day, we looked at the few remaining questions about the Royals roster. Danny Duffy was optioned to Omaha to work as a starter after a brief bullpen tryout didn't work out. Speaking of the bullpen, can they be as effective as they were in 2013? Can Greg Holland repeat his All-Star campaign? And what about the middle infield? Alcides Escobar and Omar Infante have both been injured at different stages of spring training and have yet to get familiar with each other. Who mi...
Mar 25, 2014•1 hr 12 min
Clint Scoles interviews with a number of different Royals from Spring Training. Interviews include Eric Hosmer, Danny Duffy, Mike Moustakas, Billy Butler, Jason Adam and more.
Mar 21, 2014•39 min
We were glad to talk to a recurring guest on the Vault this week. Bob Kendrick is the president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, and a huge part of the baseball community in Kansas City. We had him join us to share some stories and tell us about the upcoming events at the museum including a visit by Olympian Jackie Joyner Kersee, the Curt Flood Symposium, the Hall of Game inductions, and Dressed to the Nines Day at Kauffman Stadium. Follow Bob at @nlbmprez on Twitter or visit NLBM.com for m...
Mar 19, 2014•18 min
David and Clint were lucky enough to interview two of the most intelligent Royals media personalities around. With Rany the roster breakdown, Santana offseason and last man on the bench options were discussed. The conversation turned to the ownership's commitment, whether Ned Yost is the right man for the job and GMDM performance. Clint and David also discussed David's trip to Arizona and what he saw there.
Mar 12, 2014•1 hr 48 min
We had a lot to cover this week and jumped right into talking about the first cuts of camp, including sending John Lamb, Chris Dwyer, Kyle Zimmer, and others to minor league camp. None of the cuts were that surprising, but some - like Dwyer and perhaps Zimmer - may end up in the majors sooner than later. That led us to dreaming a bit on the pitching prospects in this wave. Buoyed by impressive scouting reports on Sean Manaea, and a strong start for Yordano Ventura, we tried to project a Royals r...
Mar 12, 2014•1 hr 40 min
Lo and behold, way back in the days of radio serial dramas, they foresaw the Ervin Santana contract drama. It seems every week there's been a new development. Every week, we're left waiting to tune in to see if there's been any resolution. Enjoy this experimental micro-podcast.
Mar 11, 2014•2 min
Finally - spring training games are underway, and while there's not a lot of information to go through yet, storylines are starting up. Jeff and Mike talked about some of the hitters, the roster construction, and what Danny Duffy and Yordano Ventura's performances mean (so far). Then we talked about the new play-tracking system that MLB Advanced Media announced. This is a revolutionary system that can track player movements all across the diamond and opens things up to a wide array of new analys...
Mar 05, 2014•48 min
Jeffrey Flanagan informs the Pine Tar Podcast about what the Royals think of Billy Butler, who could win the 5th Starter job and how the Royals could finish in the AL Central. Also plenty of talk about Danny Duffy, Omar Infante, Alcides Escobar, Yordano Ventura and others.
Feb 27, 2014•1 hr 7 min
The Royals are finally hitting the field and after Monday's intrasquad game there was a little bit of information to process. But before we got into that, we talked about the potential problem facing the Royals if Ervin Santana doesn't sign with another team. He's reportedly willing to hold out until after the draft to sign - which would mean the Royals wouldn't get a compensation pick for him. We discussed the implications for the Royals and for MLB and what might be down the line for the next ...
Feb 26, 2014•1 hr 40 min
Pitchers and catchers have reported. Full workouts start Wednesday, and now it's just a waiting game. All is mostly quiet on the Royals front, but they did pick up Jimmy Paredes. So, okay, that's not big breaking news, but the agreement between Ubaldo Jimenez and Baltimore is a big deal, and we looked at how that deal (4 years, $50 million) stacks up with other free agent starting pitcher deals and what it means for Ervin Santana, who still doesn't have a team. We also looked at what these deals...
Feb 19, 2014•56 min
When pitchers and catchers report this Friday, the Royals roster will more or less be set. To prepare, Jeff and Mike discussed comments from Dayton Moore on Monday about the pitching staff and a couple of minor leaguers. But first, we did some transaction cleanup, including Emilio Bonifacio's impending release, the Carlos Peguero trade, and sneaking Everett Teaford back to Omaha. We also talked about baseball finances and reading the pitching market. Dayton Moore has a pattern of jumping out ahe...
Feb 11, 2014•1 hr 32 min
Last week, we talked about the MLB.com and Baseball Prospectus top 100 (and 101) lists, which featured multiple Royals prospects. This week we took it a step further and went right to the source. We talked to Jason Parks (@professorparks) of Baseball Prospectus about the seven Royals prospects listed in their top 101, then we followed that by talking with Jim Callis (@jimcallismlb) of MLB.com and MLBPipeline.com about a number of prospects. Along with the expert insight of Parks and Callis, we b...
Feb 06, 2014•1 hr 44 min
Chris Kamler (@TheFakeNed) wandered around Royals FanFest on Friday and ran into a few notable names. Listen and you can learn about David Glass's expectations, Billy Butler on trade rumors, Aaron Crow on clubhouse chemistry, plus more from Eric Hosmer, James Shields, Johnny Giavotella, and Hall of Famer Denny Matthews.
Feb 01, 2014•34 min
Audio from new Omaha Storm Chasers manager Brian Poldberg and Alex Gordon
Jan 31, 2014•17 min
It's the time of year when all the prospect lists start hitting the press, and we took a look at two of them: MLB.com's top 100 and the top 101 from Baseball Prospectus. What followed was a look at the differences between the two. MLB had four Royals listed; BP had seven. Why? We talked about the differing perspectives we saw in the building of the lists and talked about some of the intriguing players like Sean Manaea, who both sides liked (but only one ranked), and Yordano Ventura, who both lik...
Jan 30, 2014•1 hr 6 min
This week, we discussed a few Royals news and notes as we wait for spring training to arrive. First, we talked about Jeremy Guthrie's contract restructuring and what it means for the 2014 Royals. At the time, it seemed like a change that might have bigger impacts down the line (and still could), but after reflection, Mike saw it as more of a clerical move, but was hopeful that it might mean another acquisition could happen. Jeff interpreted it as a way to kick back some money to ownership this y...
Jan 22, 2014•45 min
Producers note: Sorry about the lateness. I think I have the problems resolved. We played catch up on the latest Vault. After a break that included a few holidays, a Royalman wedding, and well, not a lot of Royals news, we were back at it. Troy and Mike discussed a couple of minor league signings and sized up the backup catcher spot (which is probably Ramon Hernandez's to lose now that he's signed a minor league deal), and also talked about Jason Donald and some utility infield options. The Roya...
Jan 17, 2014•55 min
