Royals Notes: Lineup Projection, Yuni Reaction, Duffy, Montgomery, Dwyer

Here's the latest from the one team in the American League Central not taking steps backward this off-season, even though the Kansas City Royals may not have done enough to address their biggest need, starting pitching. Still, I can envision a 2012 in which Chen squeezes out one more surprisingly good year, Sanchez is solid, Hochevar stabilizes, and Broxton's arrival frees up Aaron Crow to move to the rotation. Yet each of those seems like a gamble at best.

Royals Review says patience should no longer be required and has a neat piece on payroll vs. market size, Rany questions the Yuni signing (but only partially because he's a horrible player), and Jim Bowden spoke with Ned Yost about a lineup projection and whether Danny Duffy, Mike Montgomery, or Chris Dwyer make the back end of the rotation:

2012: A Long-Awaited Season of Hope Arrives for Royals Fans - Royals Review
"The frustrating thing is that at some point this year, probably more than once, someone is going to write or say, "Royals fans have to be patient." Trust me, we've been patient. We've been more than patient. We've been devout. The truth is, if we'd been spared Moore's wandering in the wilderness period of 2007-09, if a handful of moves had been better, if the team had won a big trade or two, we might have been able to really start thinking about contention last year, if not earlier. I lived through Ross Gload and Joey Gathright, so don't treat me like a fair-weather idiot."

• TV Market Size and MLB Payroll - Royals Review
  The size of the TV market appears to play a huge role in the amount of money that MLB teams are willing to spend on their payroll.
• YUUUUUUU-NOOOOOOO! - Rany on the Royals
  "The decision to re-sign Betancourt is really the quintessential Dayton Moore transaction: completely unexpected, laughable, infuriating, completely tone-deaf to the hard-core fan base – and yet, if you look at it in a certain light, it actually makes a perverse kind of sense. Depending on how willing you are to swallow the party line, you can actually convince yourself that it’s a good signing."
• Twitter / @JimBowdenESPNxm: Ned Yost MGR of the Royals ...
  "Ned Yost MGR of the Royals just told us @mlbnetworkradio that Dwyer, Montgomery & Duffy are top of the end rotation starters and are close"
• Twitter / @JimBowdenESPNxm: Ned Yost's projected Royal ...
  "Ned Yost's projected Royals lineup:Gordon, LF; Giavatella 2B; Hosmer, 1B; Butler DH; Moustakas 3B; Francouer RF; Perez C; Cain CF Escobar SS"