Ned Being Ned: Royals Manager Is Own Worst Enemy

Ned Yost, you are now on the hot seat.

The wonderful world of twitter blessed me with the afternoon news on Thursday that Kansas City manager Ned Yost decided to move left fielder Alex Gordon to the third spot in the batting order. Seemingly minor news, but with a suffering fan base like the one in Kansas City, all minor things become blown out of proportion.

This time I figured it was rightfully so, as I was dumbfounded by the move. Ideally, would you want Alex Gordon to be a middle of the order guy? Sure. However he has really found a solid home at the top of the lineup, and it was one less thing Kansas City had to worry about.

Well Ned Yost got to tinkering, and to no surprise the Royals lost to the Oakland Athletics on Thursday evening.

Can all of the blame from the loss be put onto just moving Gordon down in the order? No, but it reflects quite poorly on the manager and his inability to put together a cohesive batting order. Time and time again, Yost has said Eric Hosmer will be the future of the Royals organization batting third. Well by today's comments, it seems like Alex Gordon is now the man who is the future of the Royals batting third.

Part of the reasoning was the get more at-bats for Jarrod Dyson and Chris Getz at the top of the lineup. Huh?

Last I checked, Dyson nor Getz are long term parts of the future of the Royals. With Yost it's one step forward, and two steps back.

Dyson is a fourth outfielder at best. Chris Getz, while having a surprisingly solid season, is still Chris Getz. He's not the starting second basemen for a further playoff team.

Looking at Gordon's career numbers at leadoff, he's hitting .306/.381/.501 while batting first. Drop him down to third and he was batting .251/.338/.422 and that was before the game on Thursday evening.

The Royals finally found someone to leadoff, and now by shifting the deckchairs around, it appears that there are open auditions for leadoff. Ned, you had a leadoff hitter, his name is Alex Gordon.

Willie Wilson, considered to be one of the greatest leadoff hitters in Royals history batted .292/.331/.386 all-time in the leadoff spot. Advantage, Alex Gordon.

Johnny Damon, considered another great Royals leadoff hitter is a career .288/.354/.438 hitter when batting leadoff. Again, advantage to Alex Gordon.

It just proves when you have nice things, and it comes to the Royals, don't be surprised if they are taken away.