J.J. Picollo talks about KC's youth movement

J.J. Picollo, the Kansas City Royals assistant general manager, has been at Werner Park the past couple of days. On Friday, he was Brett Pollock's guest on Storm Chasers Live! – a video program that runs before Omaha home games. The Storm Chasers provided Omaha Baseball 360 with a copy of the interview:

Pollock: There was so much talk about the talent on this team this year and about who would be the first to get the call to go up. Hosmer was first and Moustakas joined him about a month later. When you looked at Moustakas’ progression over the last month, what did you see that warranted the call?

Picollo: Well, all year long Mike has really been swinging the bat fine. He’s been a run producer which is really the number one thing we need Mike to do. He was knocking in runs all year. I think over the last couple of weeks, he started swinging the bat a little more consistently. And the roving coaches – some of our front office personnel kind of thought he hit his stride and it was just a matter of time.

Eric Hosmer (Photo: Minda Haas / Royal Blues)

Pollock: I mentioned Eric Hosmer. He was batting over .400 here and he did it with the glove as well. He seemingly had a very smooth transition to the big leagues. Picked up right where he left off and I think one of the interesting things about Hosmer – the thing that really jumped out at you, aside from his talent on the field was the way he carried himself. And it seems like already he’s kind of taken up the mantel of being the face of the franchise.

Picollo: He’s a very mature guy. He’s been that way since high school. He’s just continued from the time he signed until the time he got called up to the major leagues. He’s been the same guy he always has been. He’s a winner. He’s a competitor. We’re excited about having him there. We look forward to having him in the middle of our lineup for a long time.

Pollock: Alex Gordon is a guy with tremendous local interest here, having grown up in Lincoln, having played here in Omaha. How has his transition to left field and to the leadoff spot been for him?

Picollo: Alex is another guy who is a great competitor. He’s accepted any challenge that’s been in front of him. Last year when we approached him about coming back to Triple-A and learning left field, he didn’t have a problem with it. There’s always a level of disappointment that a player goes through and Alex went through that. But he accepted the challenge of being a left fielder – a lot like he has this year and going into the leadoff spot and he’s done a great job with that.

Pollock: Danny Duffy got the call and I think a lot of people thought it might be Mike Montgomery who would get the call first. Duffy performed pretty well. Mike pitched here last night. How close is he to maybe getting the call? What does he need to do to take that final step to get to the big leagues?

Picollo: I thought last night was a good sign for Mike. He made some good pitches throughout the game. I thought he located his fastball well. He ran into a little bit of a buzzsaw there in the fourth inning – walking a hitter to load the bases and then giving up the double to clear the bases. It’s stuff like that that you’d like to see Mike finish off that inning. If he does that, it goes from a good outing to a great outing, but it was a positive sign.

Pollock: There was a stretch in which you thought you might able to stretch out Jeremy Jeffress and have him go back as a starter. Now he’s back in the bullpen. What does J.J. need to do to put the finishing touches on to stay in the big leagues once he gets back.

Picollo: Well, I think what we saw last night was a snapshot of what Jeremy’s going through. Two hitters, he was very good. Two hitters, his command was a little off. But it’s all there for Jeremy. He’s got tremendous stuff. He’s a very good competitor. Finding the right role – the starting idea was more because his delivery is good. We thought maybe he could start. But it also gave us a chance to give him innings and develop. In the end, I think his role is probably best in the bullpen – with the power he has and the breaking ball he has. It’s just a matter of repeating that delivery and throwing a lot of strikes.

Pollock: You spent a lot of time with the Braves organization and of the things they do well is mine local talent – guys like Jeff Francoeur, who is now in Kansas City, Brian McCann, among others. The Royals just used the fifth pick in the draft on Bubba Starling, a local guy. How important is it for the Royals to be able to cultivate and mine talent in this area of the country?

Picollo: Dayton Moore set out in 2007 – in the first year he was in place as the general manager --- that we needed to really dominate the scouting area in the Midwest. We needed to know every prospect in the Midwest and do our best to make them a Kansas City Royal. With Bubba Starling’s selection, we feel like we might have gotten the best high school talent that has been in the Kansas/Missouri area in a long time.

Pollock: How high is Starling’s ceiling?

Picollo: There’s not a whole lot he doesn’t possess. He’s big, physical – he can run, he can throw, he’s got power, he’s a tremendous competitor. When you’re a football player, playing quarterback, you have some intangibles that you look for in a competitor, so the ceiling is about as high as it can be. Now, he hasn’t grown up playing ... [audio/video problems] ... like kids in Florida and Texas and some of the other hotbeds, but that will come in time and we saw a clear indication of it when he was with Team USA last summer. He went from hitting eighth or ninth on the club to third or fourth at the end of the summer. So I think that’s a pretty good indication of what he’ll do once he dedicates all his time to baseball.