(EDITOR'S NOTE: It was announced after the writing of this post that Jack Maloof was relieved of his hitting coach duties and replaced on an interim basis by George Brett)
The Kansas City Royals are once again a disappointment. After an off-season of aggressive trades and signings, they had hoped to compete in the AL Central. That plan hasn't worked out at all as the Royals currently sit at 21-29, tied for the worst record in the division.
Their struggles and current eight-game losing streak have people calling for the ouster of manager Ned Yost. But there is good news! Well, for Yost at least. For the Royals and their fans, not so much. It turns out that Yost's hitting coach Jack Maloof has unwittingly stepped right in front of the bus bearing down on Yost thanks to some mind-numbing comments he made yesterday in relation to Kansas City's inability to hit home runs.
As of this writing, the Royals are next to last in all of baseball in home runs, leading the pitiful Marlins by just one dinger. They have hit just two homers since May 14th, both coming off the bat of the reanimated corpse of Miguel Tejada. To Royal fans, this is a huge problem. To their hitting coach though it isn't a problem at all. In fact, based on his comments to Fox Sports Kansas City, he almost seems strangely proud of it
That's why I'm not overly concerned because I think we'll lead the league in fewest home runs again this year.
Not being concerned over a lack of homers is certainly odd. Saying that a team can "lead" the league in fewest homers makes one think that Maloof doesn't understand how baseball works. Oh wait, so does this same quote from the same interview:
There is just no reward here (for us) to try and hit home runs.
Um, actually, I just checked the baseball rule book and it turns out there is a pretty strong incentive to hit home runs.
What Maloof is trying to get at is that he believes Kauffman Stadium just isn't conducive to homers, especially given the current roster make up of the Royals. That is specious reasoning at best. Perhaps he is just so busy with his own hitters to notice that other teams aren't having any problem whatsoever smacking the ball out of the park at Kauffman. In fact, the Royals have allowed 32 homers at home this year, the fifth-most in all of baseball.
Maloof does have something of a point though as Kauffman has typically graded as a below average park for hitters and homers. It is hardly a home run graveyard like Safeco and Petco were before they moved in the fences though. Even with that in mind, that is no reason to give up on homers altogether. Maloof inadvertently makes that point against his argument with this gem:
Here's the thing: Other teams come in here from Anaheim or wherever and they have their swing already down," Maloof said. "This park doesn't even enter into their minds when they hit here. They have their swings, the same swings, because it pays dividends for them at home.
Silly Jack, Anaheim is a really poor example. Angel Stadium actually plays as one of the most home run suppressing ballparks in the league and has for years. It easily outrates Kauffman for degree of difficulty on homers. Clearly the Angels have had no problem finding a swing to tailor to work for homers at a park like that and those swings certainly work just fine in Kauffman considering the Halos recently game to Kansas City and swept the Royals in a four-game set during which they clubbed eight homers.
Too bad for Maloof that the Angels also didn't just give up on hitting homers like Maloof wants his guys to do, right?
This really is just some misguided way for Maloof to cover his butt regarding the power outage of hitters like Billy Butler (who managed to his 29 homers last year when Kevin Seitzer was the batting coach, by the way), Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas. The only thing he successfully did though was make sure that when Yost gets canned that Maloof will be fired along with him, hopefully never to be put in a position to influence young hitters with his moronic views on homers ever again.
