Royals Position Battles

As the Royals gear up for their first spring training game today (Wednesday), the big news from camp has involved fairly nasty injury info on Jose Guillen and the fact that, basically, competition is boiling down to two spots for a group of five or six players. Guillen has a sore shoulder and a toe injury after attempting to fix an ingrown toenail himself, so the highly paid slugger has been on the shelf early despite reportedly coming to camp in pretty good shape. He was planning to maybe see action in Thursday's second spring game. Continue Reading

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Alberto Callaspo was the last guy in to camp after minor visa problems and is one of several guys who need to earn their way onto the 25-man roster. A story on the team site surmised that the team will carry 12 pitchers and 13 position players with 11 of those spots pretty much locked up by Miguel Olivo, John Buck (no way he should have a spot locked up), Mike Aviles, Alex Gordon, Mike Jacobs, Billy Butler, Willie Bloomquist, Mark Teahen, David DeJesus, Guillen and Coco Crisp. That leaves two position spots for Callaspo, who I think will earn a slot, Ross Gload, who I think the Royals can do without at this point, Ryan Shealy, who I think has a shot at earning a bench spot but may make better trade fodder, Esteban German, Tony Pena Jr., who had lasik eye surgery over the offseason and I'm sure will hit like Rod Carew now (ha ha), Kila Ka'aihue, who I'm sure is Omaha bound unless he goes Pujols this spring, Mitch Maier, and Brayan Pena, who I'd like to see take Buck's spot. An added wrinkle is that Callaspo, German, TPJ, Brayan Pena, Gload and Shealy have no options left, so the Royals have to use 'em or likely lose 'em. The Royals also picked up IF Tug Hulett off waivers from Seattle to throw him into the second base mix and dumped pitcher Neal Musser off the 40-man, but Hulett is expected to start the '09 season in Omaha.

Guillen is among those on the spring training roster who has been earmarked for a World Baseball Classic roster, and Jose is set to leave Sunday for his Dominican Republic team, although he left the door open to stay because of his nagging injuries. Aviles is slated for the Puerto Rico team, reliever Lenny DiNardo is set for team Italy, Olivo is set to join Guillen for the Dominican, the Mexicutioner Joakim Soria is set for team Mexico and Teahen is set to play for Canada. Little known pitcher Dylan Lindsay may also play for South Africa.

Manager Trey Hillman set this as the first lineup of the spring training season: CF Coco Crisp, SS Aviles, LF David DeJesus, DH Mike Jacobs, 1B Billy Butler, 3B Alex Gordon, 2B Teahen, C Olivo and RF Willie Bloomquist as KC takes on Texas and new retread starter Kris Benson. The lineup was originally different with the team facing a lefty, but when Texas switched to the righty Benson, the lineup changed as well. Interesting to set Bloomquist in right and use Teahen at second right out of the gate. Teahen's run at a second base job is another interesting storyline of camp that may affect the fates of Callaspo and, more so, German.

Ken covers the Royals on his blog The Pipeline.