Recent Royals: 2009 Bowman Chrome Johnny Giavotella

I have very few card collections given my limited resources and space, but I did decide some time ago to begin collecting on-card Royals autographs. It’s been a blast so far trying to track these things down and this is the latest addition to my collection. To view the cards currently in the collection, take a look at the Gallery or the other posts in this series. I’m working on getting a legit want list together on my trade page but, in the meantime, if you have any on-card Royals autos that it looks like I don’t have, don’t hesitate to drop me a line!

It was a banner f***ing year at the Bender household. The old man grabbed me and said, "Smoke up Johnny!"

The Royals have a notoriously stacked minor league system. Johnny Giavotella (whose name, for some reason, I always misspell) is the everyday second baseman for the AAA Omaha StormChasers and he’s… well. He’s average. But, get this: he’s improving. In his quick move up through the system (one year each at A, A+, AA and now AAA), his fielding percentage has improved every single year. His batting hit a real stride last year, at least in the Avg category (.322) with a respectable .895 OPS. The concern with his numbers would appear to be that he’s just not standing out in any category. Sure, a .289 hitter sounds good, but with single digit HR and SB totals in each of his minor league seasons, he’s not really grabbing my attention (or the attention of collectors- I scored this for One eBay). I’m not sure if Johnny has what it takes to become a regular in the bigs, especially with such a packed system. The good news is, there’s lots of room up top, with 2B not at all solid with Chris Getz‘ floppy bat. Johnny’s got a great name and a good signature. I look forward to charting his progress!