It only seems fair to start with the 2014 champs, the San Francisco Giants. The Giants have a certain beauty to them. They are a team that becomes one. People always seem to be surprised when a team like the Giants have such success. That’s called unselfish teamwork.

Notable Additions:

Nori Aoki OF

Casey McGehee 3B

Notable Losses:

Michael Morse LF/1B

Pablo Sandoval 3B

The Giants will enter 2015 with a few key changes. In the infield, the absence of Pablo Sandoval will not go unnoticed. Sandoval was a key contributor in each of the Giants past three playoff runs. In 154 postseason at bats, Sandoval holds a .354 batting average and a .545 slugging percentage. Casey McGehee will fill the spot at third base in 2015. McGehee played for the Marlins last season where he posted a respectable .287 batting average. There’s no question that this is a major downgrade.

The Giants will miss the switch hitting bat of Sandoval in the middle of the lineup. McGehee had two areas of concern last season. The first was the non-existent power. He hit only 4 home runs in 2014 and finished with a .357 slugging percentage. The Giants would love to see just 10-15 long balls from McGehee in 2015. It’s noteworthy to mention that he did blast 23 home runs back in 2010 when he finished with a .464 slugging percentage. The second area of concern is double plays. McGehee grounded into an MLB high 31 double plays in 2014. That’s almost twice the number of Sandoval who was doubled up 16 times last season. McGehee could be a difference maker if he could find a way to add some power to his stroke.

San Francisco fans should be excited to see Nori Aoki playing left field for the Giants this season. I think Aoki will fit well in the Giant’s system. He is a left-handed bat that managed to hit .285 in 2014 for the Kansas City Royals. The statistic that I find the most intriguing about Aoki is his batting average against left-handed pitching. He hit .363 against lefties last season with a .435 slugging percentage. Aoki should continue to be an exciting player to watch.

Breakout Player: Joe Panik 2B

You could argue that Panik already broke out in 2014. He played 73 games for the big league club last season and posted a .305 batting average. Panik brings a quick left-handed bat to the lineup. He was another guy who crushed left-handed pitching last season finishing with a .373 batting average and only struck out 12 times against south paws. He struggled to find the gaps at home but managed to hit 8/10 doubles on the road. If healthy I’m expecting:

.279 BA,  .346 OBP, 6 HR, 49 RBI’s, 71 SO

Game Changer: Matt Cain SP

Cain is coming off of an elbow surgery that ended his 2014 campaign early. Cain has struggled in the past few season with ERA’s above 4.00. If Cain can give the Giants just 175 innings with a 3.67 ERA it could be the difference between October baseball or an early off season. He finished the 2012 season with a 2.79 ERA over 219.1 innings. The Giants will look for any help they can get with their aging rotation.

It’s hard to say that the Giants will be a great team but I’m certainly not ready to doubt them. They still have solid pieces in place.

Madison Bumgarner reassured everyone last year that he is a true ace who can carry a team through the playoffs. Bumgarner posted a 0.43 ERA in the World Series last season through 21 innings of work. He’s given the Giants four consecutive seasons of over 200 innings of work. Hunter Pence continues to be one of the most consistent outfielders in the game and has given no indication that would show any change. Buster Posey seems to get better every season and is the core of this talented team. With the key pieces still in tact, the Giants should be ready to contend for another NL West Title. 2015 should be a more challenging season due to the fact that the Dodgers still remain a major threat and the Padres have significantly improved.

Make sure to check back in on March 31st for my complete standing predictions along with a few other fun pieces of news. Until then, you will be able to find a new preview of an individual team from March 1st through the 30th here at KRUI.FM.

The post San Francisco Giants 2015 Preview Edition #1 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

That’s exactly what I found myself repeating time and time again throughout Tuesday’s unbelievable sudden-death game between the Kansas City Royals and Oakland Athletics.

It was a tale of two lengthy stories in a do-or-die Wild Card game. First, the Royals and their “never say die” attitude fought from levels of obscurity to find themselves right in the midst of an American League Central Division title. While not garnering the division lead after a brutal 162-game schedule, they captured a playoff berth and the eyes of baseball nation. The Cinderella of baseball went up against, well, the once-Cinderella of baseball.

Oh, the Oakland Athletics: the featured team in “Moneyball” that made Billy Beane quite possibly the most well-known general manager in sports. While the tactics featured in the film got them into the playoffs with a salary well below the likes of the AL West superpower Los Angeles Angels, it wasn’t a winning strategy in the playoffs. So what did Beane do? He went completely out of his typical mind and traded his top prospect and best power bat to acquire exceptional rotation additions in Jeff Samardzija, Jason Hammel and Jon Lester.

Before that trade the A’s had the best record in baseball. Since? They’ve lot 30 of 46 and stumbled into the postseason, struggling to regain the same outstanding lineup composition that had them as World Series contenders.

Two different roads lead to the same destination, one on the upswing and other trying to find theirs once more. But that isn’t the story, rather just the background. The story is how the Royals singlehandedly sparked baseball.

After not reaching the playoffs for 29 years, Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City was as electric as any stadium I’ve ever seen, and I watched the Kansas City Chiefs break the stadium sound record across the street just a night earlier.

Fans, dressed fully in blue, were never out of the equation, even when trailing on three different accounts. Their resilience matched the team – one of small ball, never giving up and a blue-collar attitude. The fan base represented their team just as well as the team played for its fans.

And through our televisions we witnessed the beauty and perfection of sport combined with a flawless relationship between athletes and fans. Never were the Royals out of it – not following a two-run, opening-inning deficit, not when down four runs with a seasoned playoff ace, Lester, staring them down on the mound, and not even when The A’s took a one-run advantage in the top half of the 12^th inning. The fans never stopped cheering, and in turn the players never quit performing.

And as neither a fan of the Royals or Athletics, I feasted on it – and I know others without an interest in the game did, too. Watching and not wanting the Royals to win seemed impossible, even against my preseason World Series pick. I’d rather be wrong than see those fans go home unhappy. This is how Kansas City sparked baseball.

They revealed what has been baseball’s appeal since it debuted well before my grandparents were born. Hard work, determination, teamwork, playing for the love of the game and simply doing whatever is necessary to pull victory from the jaws of defeat is so valued in a sport that has dwindled in popularity while trying to compete against the likes of the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLS in recent years. This can be shown by a singular play: a simple steal of third base.

Here’s the situation: bottom of the ninth, one out and a runner on second. Kansas City’s speedster Jarrod Dyson is on the base path, sitting in scoring position only because of a sacrifice bunt (what seemed like the 20^th of the night for Kansas City’s small ball attitude). With an out from the sacrifice, the Royals have two choices: Either 1) With Norichika Aoki and Lorenzo Cain the next two batters, let them swing and hope for a single to the outfield to tie the game, or even better walk-off or 2) Throw all the chips on the table and do what you’ve done all year by attempting an incredibly gutsy steal of third.

They chose option two, not jumping off the methods that got them to this point, such as their counterparts did during mid-season. It worked.

Dyson darted to third and slid well through the bag, one of an MLB playoff-record seven steals for the Royals. Sure enough, Aoki hits a sacrifice fly and Cain lines out. Had they changed strategies now, Kansas City would have lost.

Long story short: The Royals give up a run in the top of the 12^th, sure enough fight back once again, and win on a single off one of Oakland’s midseason acquisitions in Hammel.

Gatorade coolers were dumped, hugs shared to greet the winning run at home plate, and the crowd was as passionate as ever. The Royals showed what being an athlete and a fan is truly supposed to mean, where winning matters, but appreciation for maximum effort means even more.

And baseball provided something that football, basketball, hockey and soccer can’t. Something so unique to the sport, that it is also their downfall to many modern fans. The amount of time it took for this game to conclude was wonderful.

Every pitch made fans hold their breath, as everything could change from one swing of the bat, one fielding error – a passed ball, a steal, and all the other immense variables baseball provides. Every. Single. Pitch. The suspense was brutal – it was a literal nail biter as proof by my hands today. It was as stressful as game to watch as any, but I couldn’t take my eyes away. And remember, I’m not even a Royals fan.

Kauffman was rocking, and as a fan of a team that hasn’t been a winner since 1908, I thank Kansas City for showing me what that kind of passion looks like. Thank you, Kansas City, for being a Cinderella, blue-collar story that not only refused to go down without a fight, but refused to lose in general. Thank you, Kansas City, for showing anyone who questioned the intensity and immense passion that baseball can provide what the potential truly is. And thank you, Major League Baseball, for creating a one-game playoff with such immense pressure that these scenarios have the opportunity to come about.

The sudden death play-in game creates such a pressure-filled atmosphere that it makes baseball so much more appealing than its multiple seven-game bouts. After 162 games, to have it all come down to one game may seem unfair to some spectators, but it’s such an incredible concept. Imagine doing 162 days of classes, just to have the professor say “throw out all the homework, your grade comes down to tomorrow’s final test.” Yeah, that kind of pressure.

I hope you all got to experience to an extent what that Tuesday night game involved. Appreciate the pressure on both squads, the nerves they had to squander to perform and the show they put on.

But before I finish, remember what Kauffman looked like in that playoff atmosphere. Now imagine it’s Game Seven. Now move that game to Wrigley Field.

“It doesn’t get any better than this.”

The post How the Kansas City Royals Sparked Baseball appeared first on KRUI Radio.