29-year old lefty swinging outfielder David DeJesus is having another solid year for the Royals. He has played in 141 games this season and he is 154 for 548 (.281 avg, .782 OPS) with 73 runs scored, 13 homers, 70 RBIs and 4 stolen bases. The Royals have always considered DeJesus to be a poor man’s Johnny Damon but he’s still one of the best players on the team.

23-year old righty swinging DH Billy Butler is having a good season. Butler has played in 141 games for the Royals this season and he is 163 for 541 (.301 avg, .840 OPS) with 66 runs scored, 17 homers and 80 RBIs. I think that Butler will hit 30+ homers next season as he has ripped 46 doubles this season. I think some of those doubles will fly out of the stadium next season as that’s what happened with Aaron Hill this year in Toronto. Butler will be a player the Royals can build around for the future.

The Royals thought they knew what they were getting when they traded for Mike Jacobs but he has been better than advertised. Jacobs has played in 43 games for the Royals this season and he is 38 for 148 (.257 avg, .830 OPS) with 18 runs scored, 9 homers and 25 RBIs. He’s the Royals’ team leader in both homers and RBIs and they need him to keep it up because their lineup doesn’t have much power. He could easily whack 30+ homers for the Royals this season as long as he can just stay healthy.

Ryan Shealy has been on fire since his promotion in September. He has played in 9 games this month for the Royals and he is 13 of 35 (.371 avg, 1.189 OPS) with 6 runs scored, 5 homers and 11 RBIs. It’s too bad that Shealy waited this long to swing a hot stick or he might have been the starting 1B for the Royals this year. At least Shealy is working his way back into the good graces of the Royals’ front office so he might get a chance to compete for the starting 1B job in 2009 as long as he finishes strong.

David DeJesus has always been compared to Johnny Damon as K.C. is where both of their careers started but until this season it has not been a fair comparison. But this season DeJesus is making consistent hard contact as he is driving the ball often. He has played in 56 games this season and he is 65 for 214 (.304 avg, .815 OPS) with 28 runs scored, 7 homers, 33 RBIs and 5 stolen bases. The fact that he’s #2 on the Royals in RBIs this season tells you how bad the rest of the lineup has been (except Joe Guillen).