Just Lerew it

Hey everyone, I know I haven't been posting regularly over the past week and a half and I hope you will forgive me of that. My wife lost a dear member of her family this week, so blogging has been pushed to the back burner on the to-do list. I'm sure you guys understand.

Anyways, we are going out of town for a few days and I promise when I get back I will be posting much more often. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

I just wanted to make a post real quick about something that should be an intriguing interest the Royals will take a look at in the next few days. The Braves (you know, Kansas City East) recently outrighted former star prospect Anthony Lerew off of the teams 40-man roster, meaning he will likely be joining a new team in the near future. The Royals should, and likely will, take a chance on this kid.

Lerew, a 6-foot-3, 200 pound right handed pitcher, got axed to make room on the 40-man for the ageless wonder - Tom Glavine. He's only 26.

You can obviously connect the dots here with Dayton Moore and his time with the Braves, but what you may not know is that the scout responsible for signing Lerew when he joined the Braves as an 11th round draft pick in 2001 was none other than J.J. Picollo - Moore's right hand man and assistant general manager in Kansas City.

For those of you who don't know about Lerew, he was highly regarded as the top pitching prospect in the Braves system after quickly rising through the organizational ranks. Lerew was a dominant force in their system until undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2007 (after reaching the big leagues) and missed all of that year and nearly all of 2008 while rehabbing. He did return to Triple-A last season and went 1-4 with a 4.14 ERA with 22 strikeouts in 37 innings. He is still working out the kinks of the surgery, however, as he did walk 20 as well.

Still, the guy is yound and well worth a shot. If he turns out to be anything like his old self the Royals could have one heck of a pitcher on their hands. It's low risk - high reward. He can start the season at Omaha and see where he goes from there. No one is going to give him a big league job yet, and he likely won't make much money. So he likely would welcome a return to the Royals and reunite with Moore and Picollo. It's an intriguing situation.

Oh yeah, and as a side note: Lerew was expected to join Kyle Davies as the key pieces to the Atlanta pitching staff. Now, wouldn't that be quite the coincidence?