SB Nation - Jose Guillen

Who Was Your Least Favorite Royal of 2009?

royalsreview — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 04:37:10 -0000

More photos » by Lori Shepler - AP

7 months ago: Kansas City Royals right fielder Jose Guillen can't catch the ball as Los Angeles Angels second baseman Howie Kendrick (47) hits an inside-the-park home run during the sixth inning of a baseball game in Anaheim, Calif., Friday, May 8, 2009. (AP Photo/Lori Shepler)

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Despite Zack Greinke's greatness, nobody really liked the 2009 Royals. Dayton made a number of bizarre signings during the off-season, then responded with even stranger ones in-season.

So who was your least favorite Royal of 2009?

The Nominees:

Kyle Farnsworth: A brilliant symbol of both Dayton Moore and Trey Hillman's weaknesses. Signed to a 2 year/$9 million dollar contract in the off-season that everyone hated. Was inexplicably named the setup-man/8th inning guy on Opening Day Eve by Hillman. Everyone thought this was insane. Farnsy gave up game-losing bomb the next day. Hey continued to fail until he was demoted, then he went on a long scoreless innings streak. Farnsworth ended up posting his lowest HR/9 numbers in ages, and still was below average.

Mike Jacobs: Jacobs didn't replicate his career year, another stroke of terrible luck to befall Dayton Moore. Gloriously managed a sub-.300 OBP. Could not handle the easiest position on the field. Frequently swung hard. Chewed gigantic amounts of tobacco while at the plate.

Jose Guillen: Ended the debate about his suckitude by achieving near perfect negative value. Hit .242/.314/.367 with absolutely horrific defense. Showed tremendous ability to turn fly ball outs into home runs for the other team. Has potential to unknowingly play a key role in the next game-fixing scandal. Hated by half the teams in the game. Contract is among worst in professional sports. Bonus status as the captain of Dayton's Awful Ex-Mariners Team.

Josh Anderson: Acquired by Dayton Moore in July for no apparent reason. Anderson had not hit before and he did not hit as a Royal, posting a .237/.268/.288. (Let's be fair, he has the ability to post a .280 OBP in full-time action.) Was a favorite late-game toy of Hillman. Does not appear to have blood.

Yuniesky Betancourt: Mysteriously picked up by Dayton Moore mid-season. Has no apparent strengths as a player. Has bizarre name. Costs much more than the minimum salary. Played key role in letting fans know that team is run by people who are ... ah, what's the point?

Willie Bloomquist: St. Willie turned in the greatest .265/.308/.355 season by a guy without a position in history. This was the Dayton Moore move that "worked" and .308 OBP, in Royalsville, is nothing to sneeze at.

Ryan Freel: Owning a .140/.275/.140 line with the Orioles & Cubs, Freel was acquired by Moore leading up to the trade deadline. Absolutely tore the cover off the ball as a Royal (.244/.306/.289) and told many fantastic stories about how he avoided the Vietnam War.

Jamey Wright: Could not sustain 0.00 ERA through first five minutes as a Royal, in more bad luck. Although quickly earning trusted status in Hillman's bullpen, posted a 4.90 ERA in next 57 games. Appeared in tie games constantly (13). Actually, he just appeared constantly.

Tony Pena Jr: Took epic failure of 2008 to a new level in 2009, posting an incredible .098/.132/.118 line. Played crucial role in delivering the Yuni-Bomb to Kansas City. Amazing shift to a pitching career, a move straight out of a message board if there ever was one, hurts his hate-ability however.

Sidney Ponson: Provided Royals with valuable depth in 2009: you can never have enough bad pitchers. Poison pill contract and fate led to him starting the 2009 Home Opener, the opening of the newly renovated K. Against the Yankees. Surprised fans with better than expected 7.36 ERA.

Horacio Ramirez: Ho-Ram's ex-Brave, ex-Mariner, ex-mildly surprising 2008 move that sorta worked out status, earned him another contract and $1.8 million from Dayton Moore. Sucked from the beginning and was gone by early June. He'll be back.

Jose Guillen Trade Rumor Is Ridiculous For Multiple Reasons

James Kannengieser — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:00:14 -0000

Adam Rubin at the Daily News is peddling a Jose Guillen trade rumor with this headline: "New York Mets Jump Into Bargain Hunt For Free Agent Jose Guillen". (Edit: The headline has since been changed to "New York Mets In Jose Guillen Bargain Hunt As Kansas City Royals Look To Dump Outfielder") Let's analyze this headline and report:

a) Jose Guillen is not a free agent. Why are the words "free agent" in the title? Maybe I'm missing something.

b) Jose Guillen is not a bargain. He has 1 year left on his contract at $12 million.

c) When one reads a headline like that, he expects to see some info in the article detailing the Mets' interest. However, there is nothing to suggest that the Mets are actually interested, just this line about the Royals looking for a trade partner:

The Royals, who are looking to deal outfielder Jose Guillen, identified the Mets as a potential trading partner, although there was no deal considered close, sources said.

The Royals are looking to deal Jose Guillen? Wow, shocker. They identified the Mets as a potential trading partner? And I identified Marisa Miller as a potential girlfriend. That means nothing. Thanks for playing.

d) The report takes a turn for the crazy around paragraph 3:

The Royals want to acquire an inexpensive outfielder in return for Guillen, and are impressed with Angel Pagan despite his shortcomings.

It's actually surprising that the Royals are interested in Pagan, given their front office's fondness for bad players. Pagan probably played a bit over his head in 2009 but is young, cost-controlled and has a decent chance of being an above average player. The throwaway line about Pagan's "shortcomings" is no doubt a reference to his memorable baserunning gaffes, which were so egregious that they killed any chance of him being a productive major league player, right? Wrong, his baserunning was actually above average this season. Although he might have been even more valuable if he didn't make those mistakes, they cost the team very little. Let's can the discussion about Pagan's "low baseball IQ" everytime he is brought up. Also, how is Luis Castillo not mentioned once in this rumor? What up with that?

e) Most importantly, Jose Guillen is terrible. Like Jeff Francoeur in 2008 terrible. Note that this alone does make the trade unlikely, but it seems outlandish that even Omar Minaya would trade for Guillen. He's 33 years old, recently injured and coming off a season in which he produced -2.0 WAR in just half a season of playing time. You almost have to try to be that bad. He doesn't walk, hit for power or play good defense. Fortunately, this rumor doesn't seem to make ~~much~~ any sense. Guillen as back-up plan to Matt Holliday, Jason Bay or Mike Cameron is like Jeff Suppan as back-up plan to John Lackey, Rich Harden or Randy Wolf.

Rays Family Tree: The Dead Trade Strings of 2001

FreeZorilla — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:00:32 -0000

by Charlie Riedel - AP

Jose Guillen takes a rare pitch

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1999: Aaron Ledesma and Rolando Arrojo for Vinny Castilla (Released 2001)

1999 Trade	Acquired	Trade Salary	PT Stat	NT Stat	Original Draft
Aaron Ledesma	Expansion Draft	$525k	OPS .682/2 yrs	OPS .554/1 yr	2nd Rd 1990 Mets
Rolando Arrojo	AFA	$325K	ERA 4.23/2 yrs	ERA 6.04/1 yr	AmateurFA 1997
for
Vinny Castilla	Released 2001	$6.25 million	OPS .870/9 yrs	OPS .569/ 2yrs	Bought for Mexican team

Pre-Trade:

Formerly a second round pick of the Mets in 1990, Aaron Ledesma was a 26 year-old utility man when the Raysselected him in the 1997 expansion draft. Ledesma would start games at all four infield positions for the Rays in both 1998 and 1999. During his two season run he posted a slash line of .295/.325/.358.

Rolando Arrojo was signed as an amateur free agent in 1997 after defecting from the Cuban national team. The allegedly 29-year-old right hander was a sensations during the Rays inaugural season in which he earned 14 wins and had an ERA of 3.56. His FIP of 4.32 told us he was not quite that good. In 1999, his FIP/ERA were more in line at 5.32/5.18. Its no fun when you know something is too good to be true.

Vinny Castilla was 32 years of age and coming off 7 consecutive seasons of .800+ OPS with the Rockies while manning the hot corner. For his career with the Rockies, which also included stints in 2004 and 2006, he posted a slash line of .294/.340/.530.

Post Trade:

Vinny Castilla was supposed to usher in the Hit Show era. Outside the infamous Colorado air, Castilla proved to be quite average. His career road splits of .257/.303/.435 might have served as a warning sign of what was to come. For those who have spent the past year cursing the Pat Burrell signing of 2009, well, all I can say is its a good thing you weren't on the bandwagon for the Hit Show. In just over one season, and 109 games with the Rays, Castilla put up a line of .219/.253/.316. He certainly was not helped by a .236 BABIP, but he saw his ISO drop to .088. He also only walked 4.1% of the time in 2001. After Navi's season, its probably time to look at the correlation between BABIP and BB%. By contrast, Burrell's OPS in 2009 was .682, or .113 higher than Castilla's with the Rays. Burrell's ISO also was .146, or .058 higher than Castilla's. Finally, Burrell still managed to walk 12.2% of the time, or 8.1% more often than Castilla.

The Rays released Castilla near the beginning of 2001 and he was quickly signed by the Astros. He was far better for the Stros, posting an OPS of .812. He later had two stints with the Rockies and one each with the Braves, Nationals, and Padres. Only with Colorado did Castilla again show flashes of his former self. He retired from baseball in 2006 and is currently serving as a player-manager for a team in the Mexican League, as well as the manager of Team Mexico in the World Baseball Classic.

Aaron Ledesma had 40 at-bats in 32 games with the Rockies with an OPS of .554. He was granted free agency, had back surgery in 2001. and never played affiliated baseball again. Today, he is an an assistant coach for the Scranton/Wilkes Barre Yankees along with former Ray Scott Aldred. The late PLK of DRB fame interviewed Ledesma back in 2006 for the site and that can be read here(see the gem below from Coach Ledesma):

DRB-You performed well with the '98 Rays, but your production slowed in '99, as your OPS dropped .121 points. What was it like on those nights when you just couldn't swing the bat. What is a player in a slump feeling in those times?

AL-Being in a slump was horrible for me. I was absolutely terrified of going o-fer. That's probably why I never hit for much power. I trained myself to put the ball in play hard somewhere. If I had another chance to do it all over again, I'm coming out of my shoes. Easy to say now. And I have no clue what OPS stands for. (On Base Percentage+Slugging Percentage OBP+SLG=OPS)

Rolando Arrojo lasted 19 starts in 2000 with the Rockies (ERA 6.04) before being shipped along with Rich Croushore and Mike Landing to Boston in exchange for Jeff Frye, Brian Rose, John Wasdin, and Jeff Taglienti.

Taglienti was a minor leaguer who never made it past AA and was out of baseball in 2002. Frye played 27 games at 2B with an OPS of .838 for the Rockies before being granted free agency. Wasdin pitched 13 innings for Colorado before being released. Rose made 12 starts for the Rockies with an ERA of 5.51 before being traded in 2001 to the Mets in exchange for Mark Leiter. Leiter was traded a week later along with Mike Dejean and Elvis Pena for Juan Acevedo, Kane Davis, and Jose Flores.

Flores was granted free agency a few months later with no time spent in the majors. Acevedo was moved in August of 2001 for Josue Espada of the Marlins organization. No details on Espada could be found. Kane Davis pitched 68 innings of relief for the Rockies in 2001 before being traded to the Mets for Corey Brittan, who lasted just one season in AAA for the Rockies and has been out of baseball since 2002. This concluded the Vinny Castilla string for the Rockies.

1999 Trade: Joe Oliver & Humberto Cotafor Jeff Sparks (Released 2000) and Jose Guillen (Released 2001)

Pre-Trade:

Journeyman Joe Oliver was signed by the Rays to a minor league contract prior to the 1999 season and began the year at AAA Durham.

Humberto Cota was a 20-year-old catcher coming off a stellar 1998 campaign with the Princeton Rays in rookie ball where he posted a slash line of .310/.399/.580 with 15 home runs.

Jeff Sparks was a 27-year-old right handed reliever in AAA with the Pirates. Through 34 appearances in 1999 he had struck out 69 and walked 23 in 49.1 IP.

Jose Guillen was the 23-year-old everyday right fielder for the Pirates in 1997 and 1998 with a slash line of .267/.301/.406.

Post-Trade:

Jeff Sparks made 23 relief appearances over two seasons with the Rays where he flashed stuff that was tough to hit with a K/9 of 12.16/9 and a Slugging % allowed of .305. However he also had control issues with a BB/9 of 8.9/9. He was released following the 2000 season. He pitched in the in dependants through 2005, but never for an affiliated team past his time with the Rays. Per wikipedia, as of 2007 he was hawking home and garden tools at Lowes, while going to firefighter school and training with Mike Marshall.

Jose Guillen would be a part-time right fielder for the Rays through 2001 when he was released, thus ending the Oliver/Cota string. During his stint he posted a slash of .255/.317/.394. He would go on to have a richly compensated career after he discovered power in 2003 with the Reds and A's to the tune of 31 home runs.

Guillen was traded in a 1-for-3 deal to Oakland during 2003. One of the 3 pieces? A young pitcher named Aaron Harang. A few years later in 2005, the Angels traded away Guillen for Maicer Izturisand Juan Rivera. For his career Guillen has OPSed .764 over 13 seasons with below average defense. With nets of Izturis and Rivera, and Harang, the Rays should have done better than releasing him in 2001. One consoling fact, there is a team that had far more costly consequences involving Guillen than the Rays missed opportunity costs. The Royals have paid him $24 million over the past two seasons for one full season's worth of . a 720 OPS.

Joe Oliver started 40 games for the Pirates in 1999 with a lowly OPS of .537. He would continue floating around the majors through 2001.

Humberto Cotawas a part-time catcher for the Pirates from 2001-07 with a slash of .233/.280/.358. Cota was granted free agency after 07, and had a very nice AAA season for the Rockies in 2008 with a line of .319/.342/.493. He became a free agent again, and played in the Mexican League in 2009 with an OPS of .850. Cota kept the trade string alive for the Pirates through 2007.

wOBA to WAR Conversion Spreadsheet

Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:33:26 -0000

Update 2 11/10/09 - 4:20 MST - In column B of the spreadsheet there was some extra calculations that added 2 extra runs to all calculations. I think they were an artifact from once wanting to add WAA. They have been removed and the spreadsheet is corrected.

Update 11/10/09 - 4:00 MST - An error was found in the spreadsheet. I will post a corrected version later tonight once I get a chance to make the correction. Sorry for this inconvenience. -Jeff

Last Friday, Justin ran an article on free agent first basemen with their 2009 wOBAs. Justin and I determined that it needed a baseline wOBA for reference. The overall league averages can't be used because each position has its own run adjustment depending on its difficultly. For example, 2B is much harder to play than 1B, so if Chase Utley and Ryan Howard have the same wOBA, Chase's value is worth more since he is playing a more difficult position. Fangraphs has a great explanation of the process for each value in the WAR calculation.

I created a spreadsheet that has the projected RAA, RAR and WAR for each position assuming a certain wOBA.

For the spreadsheet I made the following assumptions:

The player plays an entire season thereby getting the entire positional adjustment and has 700 plate appearances
Player is a league average defender. If defense is needed, use a multi-year average of UZR from Fangraphs.
The values for "League Average wOBA," "conversion of wOBA to runs, PA per year," "Run to Wins Conversion" and positional adjustments are set to the current league scoring conditions. The spreadsheet can be downloaded and these values can be manipulated as each user sees fit.
No assumptions are made for league adjustments (AL being more difficult than NL) in the calculations.

Here are the wOBA values for each position needed to get league average and replacement level production:

	Average Level	Replacement Level
All Players	0.327	0.289
C	0.310	0.273
SS	0.32	0.28
2B/3B/CF	0.326	0.289
RF/LF	0.342	0.305
1B	0.350	0.313
DH	0.366	0.329

Examples for using the spreadsheet.

Example 1. Justin's look at 1B Free Agents

Here is the graphic Justin posted Friday:

Values are in the graphic, but no reference for meaning. Instead, if we look at the preceding table, we can see that a 1B needs to hit .350 for league average production. There are only 5 free agent first basemen that meet this criteria (LaRoche, Mientkiewicz, Branyan, Johnson, and Delgado). Also we can find that 6 players contribute at below replacement level when batting (Garciaparra, Cairo, Millar, Tracy, Betemit and Aurilia).

Example 2 - The Royals are considering having Jose Guillen be the permanent DH next season. What does his wOBA need to be to contribute positive WAR for the Royals?

This answer is actually pretty simple. He needs to bat a wOBA of 0.329 since there is no defensive adjustment to add. Currently, Bill James, the only person out with projected wOBA, has Jose projected to hit a wOBA of 0.321. Jose's production isn't enough to get DH replacement level production. Then by going back to the spreadsheet, it can be seen that if he gets 700 at bats he will have a -0.5 WAR. The Royals should be looking for another DH if they are hoping to have at least replacement level contribution from the DH spot.

I hope that you find this spreadsheet useful, and let me know if you need any further explanation.

Transaction Report: Me

devil_fingers — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:47:49 -0000

I put off posting this longer than I should have, as I think on Fridays only 9 of my 23 regular readers come around, but I have a transaction to report, that might be even more thrilling than the Mark Teahen-for-Chris Getz-and-Josh Fields-Royals-White Sox-Utility-Man Blockbuster (did that even go through yet?). I don't want to make too big a deal out of this, but...

The brains behind FanGraphs.

As of Monday, I will be a regular contributor to ~~Cornell~~ FanGraphs (maybe you've heard of it?) on their analysis blog (under a different name, but it'll be easy enough to figure out). It's a great opportunity for me, and I appreciate the Daves (Appleman and Cameron, pictured left) bringing me on board. I mean, I'm assuming they haven't figured out exactly what kind of stuff I do yet. But, you know, I'm sure the Royals might have had misgivings the day after they signed Jose Guillen, but by then it was too late.

Neither FanGraphs nor Driveline are "exclusive," meaning that if I wanted to, I could keep writing the same amount for both. However, I'm already probably spending ~~more~~ about as much time as I should on this hobby, and real life recently got more complicated (and fun) with the arrival of B.L.F. I thought about it for a while, but finally decided that FanGraphs would be the best move for me. So I won't be a regular poster here any more.

Kyle Boddy lures a young blogger-wannabe into a life of nerdy dissipation.

It was a tough decision. Kyle basically found me hanging out on the corner, handing out trivial sabermetric analyses and bitching about trades to anyone who was bored enough to listen. He let me basically do whatever I wanted. My first "real" post here in January was something I'd been kicking around for a while (remember the days before UZR was freely available?), and I obviously couldn't say enough about it... I hope I've learned to keep things a bit more "efficient" since then. Since then, there have been some good and some not-as-good posts, but I've learned a great deal not just about baseball, but about blogging from this experience. I won't go through the highlights now -- this has gone on long enough as it is.

While I won't be posting here on a regular basis anymore, I will still be around here and other SBNation sites, and will sometimes have posts that I'll do here and elsewhere on "bigger" issues. I don't want to be the guy who's already graduated but keeps hanging around campus (alright alright alright), but I'll be around.

Final thank-yous:

Thanks to everyone who read my stuff here, especially those of you who linked to it. I appreciate the time it took. I hope that if any of you aren't FanGraphs regulars yet, you'll come by and check out my stuff there (you can also continue to follow me on Twitter). I know I'll be watching to see new developments here at Driveline as Kyle enters a new era in his business.

Big thanks to Kyle for giving me a shot basically out of nowhere and giving me pretty much complete freedom to write about anything I wanted. You the man.

Thanks to Royals Review, both various users there and especially Will, for putting up with my nonsense in FanPosts and comments there. No, I never "worked" there, I'm just some annoying guy who posted a lot. Without that forum, Kyle probably would never have been tricked into thinking I had something to say.

Thanks to Sky Kalkman for help and encouragement by email and Google Talk.

And thank you Dayton, just for being Dayton.

Negative Team WAR - 2009 Edition

Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:32:14 -0000

A few months ago I looked at the negative WAR teams accumulated from 2004 to 2008. Since the 2009 season is over, it is time to look at how teams did this year at limiting the amount of negative WAR players on the field. If a player played for two teams this last season, I only took the partial seasons that were negative. Fangraphs only has combined WAR, so if a player had a negative value for one team and larger positive value for another I did not find these instances. My final numbers might be a little less negative than they should be because of this limitation. Here are the results with comments and table of exact values after the jump:

	Hitting/Fielding	Pitching	Total
Padres	-3.8	-6.8	-10.6
Royals	-7.3	-1.0	-8.3
Nationals	-1.9	-4.5	-6.4
Brewers	-1.0	-4.4	-5.4
Astros	-2.6	-2.6	-5.2
Indians	-2.5	-2.6	-5.1
Cubs	-3.6	-1.3	-4.9
Orioles	-1.9	-2.9	-4.8
Braves	-3.9	-0.8	-4.7
Mets	-2.6	-1.9	-4.5
Mariners	-2.7	-1.6	-4.3
Diamondbacks	-3.1	-1.1	-4.2
Angels	-3.3	-0.8	-4.1
Athletics	-3.5	-0.6	-4.1
Pirates	-1.7	-2.3	-4.0
Cardinals	-2.6	-1.3	-3.9
Twins	-3.2	-0.6	-3.8
Reds	-1.1	-2.4	-3.5
Phillies	-1.3	-2.1	-3.4
White Sox	-2.9	-0.3	-3.2
Yankees	-1.4	-1.6	-3.0
Blue Jays	-1.5	-1.5	-3.0
Giants	-2.1	-0.8	-2.9
Tigers	-1.8	-1.0	-2.8
Rangers	-1.5	-1.2	-2.7
Rays	-1.5	-1.0	-2.5
Marlins	-0.7	-1.5	-2.2
Dodgers	-0.7	-1.1	-1.8
Red Sox	-0.9	-0.6	-1.5
Rockies	-0.9	-0.3	-1.2

Thoughts:

The Padres' lack of leadership, because of the team changing hands, could easily have been a major cause of their numbers.
The Royals don't have have the excuse of the Padres; Dayton Moore just doesn't know how to evaluate position players. The Royals' Jose Guillen was the ML leader in negative WAR with -2.0. His personal total was worse than the position player total for half the teams.
The negative WAR of the Padre pitching and Royals hitting were each more than the total of any other team.
I know some people considered the Rockies lucky to make the playoffs this year, but giving up only 1.2 wins probably helped.
The most negative WAR accumulated by playoff team was 4.1 WAR by the Angels. The three smallest scores (Dodgers, Red Sox and Rockies) all made the playoffs.

Insane Trade Ideas Involving Jose Guillen

royalsreview — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:37:52 -0000

More photos » by Ted S. Warren - AP

The Dayton Moore Era has reduced us to this. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

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Jose Guillen will earn $12 million dollars next year. He's not a good baseball player: he can't hit anymore and he is probably one of the two or three worst outfielders in the American League. He's in the way. He makes life more complicated for the Royals, and frankly, the Royals don't need things to be any more difficult than they already are.

The Royals need to trade Jose Guillen. Everybody realizes this. The only problem is that there is no real trade market for a terrible and expensive ballplayer with injury history who also happens to have a horrible reputation in the industry (Dayton Moore everyone!).

I don't think we can overstate just how unappealing he is right now, which is why the Royals should simply release him and move on. I really have no sense of how likely this is. Yes, just two years ago Moore voluntarily brought Guillen in, and yes, his bad play is not a recent development. That being said, Moore has shown an ability to cut bait on a failed experiment (Tony Pena Jr., Gload) albeit in a tardy fashion before. It would not stun me if this happened, although it would not stun me if Guillen is the Opening Day starter in right-field either.

There is one way the Royals might be able to trade Guillen, and that is to use him to solve someone else's problem. Many have suggested a seemingly logical Guillen-Bradley trade with the Cubs in just this vein. Bradley's situation in Chicago is certainly toxic, however, he remains an actually good player and, despite a widespread assumption that his contract is a disaster, he's set to earn just $9 million in 2010 and $12 million in 2011. I think the Cubs will hear better offers than a Guillen swap.

The key for the Royals might be finding someone who should be as desperate as they are. I think they can do this by inquiring about overpaid players signed to long-term deals. Can the Royals turn Jose Guillen into someone else's salary dump? The key is to think less about the money and more about the player, if the Royals can turn Jose Guillen into a good player, they should at least consider the move. Granted, I think many of these proposed trades are insane. I'm probably shaming all of us by even giving them the light of day. However, I also think that there's a small bit of "hey, this isn't half bad, maybe there's something to this."

Let's go:

Insane Idea #1- Guillen for Vernon Wells. Wells has a no-trade clause and would probably hate the idea of coming to Kansas City. Nevertheless, the situation in Toronto has soured and he may not want to be a Blue Jay as the team (presumably) rebuilds. In exchange for the last year of Guillen's contract, the Royals would have to take on Wells' deal, which is downright onerous: $12.5 M in 2010, $23 M in 2011, $21 M in 2012, $21 M in 2013, $21 M in 2014. That's $98.5 million, though in effect only $86.5 million after the swap. The catch is that Wells might be a productive player for most of this deal. He had a anti-career year in 2009 and he needs to leave CF. If he does the latter, he'll regain alot of his overall value, which could coincide with a few bounceback years at the plate. Yea, from a pure WAR perspective he will not earn his salary, but if he's a $9 million dollar player earning $23 million, that's not the end of the world. Yea, 2012-2014 are gonna be pretty painful, but if the Royals are gonna try to compete in 2010, an outfield of DeJesus-Someone-Wells has the potential to be really good defensively, with two nice bats. I think the Jays would make this deal right now, so maybe the Royals get greedy and ask for some money back in the swap or even a favorable secondary exchange of prospects. (Wells also has an opt-out option after 2011, which seems unspeakably unlikely to occur, but I thought it was worth mentioning.)
Insane Idea #2- Guillen for Barry Zito. A similar trade as above. Zito has $94 million left on a contract that runs through 2014, if an option for the final year vests. I'd be afraid of Zito returning to the American League, but his mini-comeback season in 2009 makes this trade one you'd at least pause to consider. If you assume the 2013 club option (which is tied to innings) doesn't vest and factor in the Guillen savings, then the Zito contract is equivalent to a four year, $64 million dollar deal. The Royals would head into Spring Training with a rotation of Greinke, Meche, Tejeda/Bannister/Davies/Hochevar #1, Tejeda/Bannister/Davies/Hochevar#2, and Zito. With Tejeda/Bannister/Davies/Hochevar#3 potentially a high-leverage bullpen arm and insurance policy. Zito was overrated as an A and is probably underrated now. Yea, his contract sucks, but it isn't your money.Tell me you're not doing a double take on this one? OK, maybe you aren't.
Insane Idea #3- Guillen for Carlos Silva. Silva is owed $23 million total for 2010-11, which becomes $25 million with a presumed buyout after 2011. Silva's contract is terrible, but he's also much worse than Zito or Wells. Less money, lesser player. However, when you factor in the savings of Guillen's salary, he's only really the next Kyle Farnsworth. I don't want Moore trading with Dr. Z anymore, but this isn't a completely unmerited trade for either side. Maybe Silva even gives you a 0.7 WAR season or something, it could happen.
Insane Idea #4- Guillen for Aaron Rowand. Rowand has three years and $36 million remaining on a fat contract signed two years ago. I'm not sure the Giants view him as a problem, but with his annual salary set to increase, they could be interested in moving him to help their chances of keeping Tiny Tim around. Rowand, like Wells, may eventually need to leave centerfield, but he probably wouldn't be terrible there in 2010. A DDJ-Someone-Rowand outfield would be very strong defensively, which could help make up for Rowand's subpar bat. If you factor in the Guillen savings, this swap would leave the Royals paying Rowand $8 million a year.
Insane Idea #5- Guillen for Gary Matthews Jr. Did you know that Gary Matthews Jr.'s regrettable contract now only has two years remaining? Matthews is owed $23 million total for 2010-11, which is barely anything compared to some of the guys we've seen. The GMJ contract has to go down as one of the worst of the decade, as he's given the Angels nothing from the very beginning. His offensive and defensive numbers are bad, but with regular playing time, I think he can be better. Not good, but vaguely ok. Of course, the Angels seem unlilkely to make this move, given management's long-standing problems with Guillen. When you're dreaming about a Gary Matthews Jr. trade and regretting these difficulties, you realize just what Dayton Moore has done to you.
Insane Idea #6- Guillen for Alfie Soriano. Soriano, incredibly, still has $90 million left on his massive contract, thanks to an $18 million dollar annual salary that runs through 2014. I think I'd rather have Vernon Wells.
Insane Idea #7- Guillen for Kosuke Fukudome. The time to make this deal was last winter, when Guillen may have still had some appeal and Fukudome's contract looked worse. Still, the Cubs would get out of the $26.5 million dollar obligation they have to Fukudome, in exchange for eating Guillen's $12 million. Fukudome's defense rated well in 2008, and was bad in 2009, so his overall value both seasons has been about the same. I wouldn't hesitate to make this deal, which also means the Cubs wouldn't do it. Then again, the Cubs have some massive contracts and (partially) selling off Fukudome could be appealing.
Insane Idea #8- Guillen for Dice K. My original idea was to look at swapping out JD Drew's contract, but its really not that bad, and I think the Boston FO values Drew's game, even if the general public doesn't. Dice-K is a different story, and the Red Sox owe him $28 million over the next three seasons. Guillen would never see the light of day in a Red Sox uniform, but the Red Sox would save $16 million in the process. The question is, would you want Dice-K for three years/$16 million?

I think you get the idea I'm proposing here: the Royals use their own Guillen salary dump to take on a bigger salary problem of somebody else's making. The key is finding a player who currently has a contract that is now seen is a milestone in his current situation, but is, in reality, not that bad of a deal

I'd make the Guillen for Silva, Guillen for Fukudome, Guillen for GMJ, Guillen for Rowand moves right now. The Guillen for Zito and Guillen for Wells deals, probably the craziest (outside of the Soriano one, which I'm keeping in just to let you know I'm not out of my mind), would be tough to make but have some appeal. The money's pretty close, but I think I'd rather take on Zito than Wells. Dice-K is essentially a reprise of the Silva situation, though he still holds some promise.

There are sound arguments why doing a trade like this is a bad idea. Why compound a problem? Why take on more bad salary? The simplest thing to do would just be to release Guillen. Given the long-term contracts already given to Meche, Soria, & Greinke, the Royals don't really have any building blocks at the moment that need to be locked up with any urgency, save perhaps Billy Butler. Our attitude towards payroll should always be the same: we should only care insomuch as any contract has an ability to affect other moves or grant unjustified playing time. To different extents, all these bad contracts might do so, though I'm tempted to say something about how keeping Dayton Moore off the free agent market might not be a bad thing.

So what do you think?

Royal Embarrassment

Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 06:35:04 -0000

It has been a tough season to be Royal's fan, but I read a stat today that put me over the edge. It wasn't Miguel Olivo's well documented plate discipline (here and here and here), Zack Greinke's WAR (8.3) being higher than the entire offense (6.0) or that of the bottom 5 players in WAR (>200 AB), the Royals take up 2 of them (Jose Guillen being #1 at -1.9 WAR). Nope none of that fazed me. My disbelief started by reading baseball-refence.com's Stat of the Day that stated the Royal's production from the clean-up spot is the worst in baseball. No surprise that the worst offense has the worst clean up spot. This is where it got worse. Fellow blogger, RoyalRetro, who has a great website of Royal history, took it one step further and found that it is one of the worst batting order positions in baseball period. He has given me his blessing to take his analysis and go a little further.

Let's begin by looking at the rankings of the 270 (9 batting positions * 30 teams) batting positions this season. The batting positions are ranked according to OPS and here are the low-lights (link to entire list):

256 to 270 - The 9^th batting spot for 15 of the 16 NL teams (OPS of 0.431 to 0.543)
255 - 9^th spot at Detroit (0.556)
254 -- 7^th spot at Seattle (0.566)
253 -- 4^th spot at KC (0.573)
252 -- 9^th spot at KC (0.574)
250 -- 9th spot at Colorado (0.599)
248 -- 2^nd spot at KC (0.600)
176 -- 8^th spot at KC (0.721)

The forth spot in the lineup is supposed to be one of the teams 3 best players, but it is the worst of the Royals Colorado's pitchers in the 9th spot hit better.

What sort of talented players take up this spot daily for the Royals? Jose Guillen and Mike Jacobs each batted 49 times in the cleanup spot and the ever dangerous Mark Teahen batting there there 26 times. Recently Guillen and Jacobs took it to a whole new level as they fought over who sucks the most in the cleanup spot (I am not sure what they fought over, but you never know). True to their baseball form, they both swung and missed.

The Royal's let an answer to the cleanup spot slip through their hands this past off-season when they traded Ross Gload and cash for a player to be named later. Since the trade happened on April 1^st, fans thought it was a joke. Once it was determined not to be a hoax, there was much rejoicing in Royal's land.The joke ended up on us Royals fans as Ross could have been an improvement to the Royals if he was used instead of Guillen and Jacobs.

I did a lineup analysis of the Royals if Gload, using his 2009 Florida numbers, had batted in the 4^th spot. Also, I swapped that 248th ranked #2 spot (usually Willie Bloomquist) with the 8^th spot (usually Miguel Olivo). I used the lineup calculator at baseballmusings.com to run the estimates. The runs per game total goes from an estimated 4.25 runs per game (actual season number is 4.10 runs per game) to 4.55 runs per game. Over the course of a season that would be 50 additional runs [162 * (4.554 - 4.248)] or 5 more wins (assuming 10.5 runs will yield one addition win). It is pretty sad when that just batting Bloomquist 8^th and replacing Guillen and Jacobs with Gload in the cleanup spot could lead a team to 5 more wins. Embarrassing really.

I know I am putting my reputation on the line by bad mouthing the Royals as they will not tolerate criticism. First Rany Jazayerli gets banned for bad mouthing the process. Last week Keith Law was told that he was banned. There has even been rumors of stadium ushers being fired at the stadium who were bad mouthing Hillman withing ear shot of his wife. I will wait my punishment from Dayton Moore like a man, but I can't take the complete front office ineptitude any more. I just hope they don't make me go across the parking lot and watch the Chiefs.

Today's Fun Fact

Jeff — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:42:02 -0000

Turns out that regular playing time actually makes Willie worse.

News Roundup: Reds Sweep Doubleheader, Ruin Daniel McCutchen's Good Debut

Charlie — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 02:29:51 -0000

More photos » by David Kohl - AP

3 months ago: Cincinnati Reds' Darnell McDonald, left, slides across home plate with the winning run after a wild pitch from Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Jesse Chavez, covering home at right, in the bottom of ninth inning of Game 1 of a baseball doubleheader, Monday, Aug. 31, 2009, in Cincinnati. The Reds won 4-3. (AP Photo/David Kohl)

Browse more photos »

The Associated Press: Reds beat Pirates 4-3 before empty seats
There were less than 2,000 people in attendance for the day game today. Which is too bad, and it's also too bad about the way the Pirates lost it, because Dan McCutchen was actually pretty good, grabbing a quality start and five strikeouts while only walking two batters. Joel Hanrahan struck out four batters, too.

Except for a big homer by Andrew McCutchen, and some shut-down relief from Denny Bautista, the second game of the doubleheader today was downright forgettable, unless you're Jesse Chavez. (Who, uh, also won't be forgetting the first game.) So let's move on. But before we do, I want to good-naturedly suggest that we nickname Dan McCutchen "No Relation."

Moore will be extended through 2014 - Royals Review
This post from Royals Review about the ludicrous four-year extension Kansas City GM Dayton Moore just received reminds me of some of the unfortunate apologies for Dave Littlefield people stopped posting on the internet in, oh, about 2005.

Moore looked like a good GM in his first year or so when he was mostly just cleaning up the previous management's trash, but the decisions he's made at the big-league level since then have been terrible by the standards of today's GMs, who tend not to be idiots. When a GM sets money on fire the way Moore has with Jose Guillen, Yuniesky Betancourt, Mike Jacobs, Kyle Farnsworth, Willie Bloomquist and others the way Moore has, he deserves to be fired. When someone who spends as much on veteran players as Moore did this offseason and still finishes the season 30 games below .500, he deserves to be fired. And Royals fans who settle for 28th best or 30th best or whatever Moore is isn't aren't doing themselves or the team any favors.

It's true that Moore is doing a much better job than Littlefield at building through the farm system, but there's no reason to have any confidence Moore will be able to put together a good team even if he graduates a bunch of solid players from the minors.

I don't mean to pick on the blogger who posted this. It's hard to know how to respond to a tough situation. We've all been there. And the comment thread is hilarious.

Minor League Baseball: GCL Blue Jays 2, GCL Pirates 1
The Bradenton Pirates finished their season today. It was a decent season overall, I suppose. The hitters generally didn't fare that well, but most of them were very young, and outfielder Rogelios Noris and catcher Ramon Cabrera showed promise. Also, the GCL tends not to produce impressive-looking offensive performances. The Pirates' pitching, led by Trent Stevenson, Brooks Pounders, Jhonathan Ramos and Zac Fuesser, was very good, and I look forward to seeing some of these guys in full-season ball next year.

Also, 2009 bonus baby Zach Von Rosenberg made his pro debut today. He faced six batters, struck out two, got groundouts from three, and got one to pop up to the catcher. Not bad at all.