SB Nation - John Bale

Thursday's Frosty Mug

KLSnow — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:20:18 -0000

by Brian Snyder - AP

Yes, Randy Wolf is a Brewer now.

Some things to read while remembering that "port" is "left."

Welcome to day one of the Randy Wolf era (FanShot). He'll make $29.5 million over the next three seasons, plus an option for 2010. Reaction to the deal has come from everywhere:

Miller Park Drunk credits the Brewers for signing the best available free agent.
Master Reid of Quevedo at the Buffet says it's a gamble the Brewers had to take at this point.
Erik Manning of FanGraphs explains why this deal shouldn't be compared to the Jeff Suppan signing.
Jordan also offered his thoughts on that topic, and reasonable expectations for Wolf.
Adam McCalvy noted that Wolf's deal is the third richest for a pitcher in team history.
Jorge Says No! says the Brewers are "going for it" in 2010.
Babes Love Baseball thinks the Brewers overpaid for him.
Aaron Gleeman says he'd rather have the deal Rich Harden signed with the Rangers.
Wolf's contract inspired Rob Neyer to write a two parter on the economics of player salaries.
Meanwhile, Diamond Leung has a quote from Wolf about the divorce situation with the McCourts that might have led to Wolf's departure from Los Angeles.

But, the Brewers weren't done there: They decided to burn a little extra money by overpaying for bullpen help. The result is a two-year, $7.5 million deal for LaTroy Hawkins (FanShot). The move ensures the Brewers will have at least three pitchers in their bullpen earning more than $3.5 million next season (Hoffman, Riske and now Hawkins), as well as two pitchers with closing experience, both of which are 37 or older. Two more links on Hawkins: one good, one bad.

Aaron Gleeman notes that Hawkins has posted a 3.35 ERA over the last six seasons, in 379 innings.
Brian McTaggart quoted Hawkins as being "very disappointed" about leaving Houston, which is pretty much exactly what you don't want to hear from a guy you just threw a lot of perfectly good money at.

Both signings and a few other topics came up in Doug Melvin's MLB Network interview last night, which Tristarscoop chronicled for us, in case you missed it.

Since then, Doug Melvin's had an interesting 12 hours or so. First, a valet lost the keys to his car. Then, after presumably getting a ride back to the meetings, Melvin raised his offer to Craig Counsell. Melvin seems confident a deal will get done, and if he's saying so, that means he's pretty sure. Counsell has also spoken to the Reds, but it doesn't sound like there's much happening there.

Meanwhile, what once looked like a sure thing still isn't done: Mark Mulder remains unsigned, and now the Royals are also showing interest in his services.(h/t MLB Trade Rumors)

The Brewers also filled one more spot on their 40 man roster, selecting Indians lefty Chuck Lofgren in the Rule 5 Draft (FanShot). In a later post, Baseball America called him one of the best stories taken. It sounds like he's had a rough couple of years, but he's a big, athletic lefty who throws hard (90-93), so he's exactly the kind of pitcher the Brewers should be seeking out to work with Rick Peterson.

Can't get enough Triple G? Batter's Box Interactive has some photos from a Gregg Zaun at bat in Toronto last season. Zaun was also the starting point for today's Thursday Thinker: stop back for that at noon.

You still have a few hours to cast your vote for a second baseman on our BCB All Decade Team. Voting for that position closes at 4 today. Prince Fielder officially became the first Brewer elected to the team yesterday. Voting for a shortstop opened yesterday and closes at 4 tomorrow. Voting at third base, perhaps the most ~~depressing~~ interesting choice on the team, will open at 4 today.

Around baseball:

Astros: Acquired reliever Matt Lindstrom from the Marlins for two minor leaguers and a PTBNL, and signed Brandon Lyon to a three year, $15 million deal.
Mariners: Signed Corey Patterson to a minor league deal. (FanShot) Also re-signed infielder Josh Wilson.
Mets: Re-negotiated their contract with Henry Blanco, due to concerns over the health of his shoulder.
Orioles: Acquired Kevin Millwood from the Rangers for reliever Chris Ray and a PTBNL.
Padres: Released pitcher Eulogio de la Cruz.
Rangers: Agreed to terms on a one year, $7.5 million deal with Rich Harden, with a club option for 2011 and acquired Mike Lowell from the Red Sox for catcher Max Ramirez.
Rays: Acquired Rafael Soriano from the Braves for reliever Jesse Chavez.
Red Sox: Acquired Boof Bonser from the Twins for a PTBNL or cash.
Royals: Released Mike Jacobs and pitcher John Bale
Tigers: Designated pitcher Freddy Dolsi and catcher Dusty Ryan for assignment.

Two former Brewers continue to search for work, and for once I'd rather have Jay Gibbons. Jason Kendall has received a two-year offer from the Royals, while Gibbons is drawing interest from the Dodgers.

While some players are looking for new teams. J.J. Hardy is busy making friends with his. He recently played in Harmon Killebrew's golf tournament, and the Hall of Famer had some nice things to say about him.

Easily the biggest trade at the meetings so far has been the three way deal involving the Tigers, Yankees and D-Backs. A lot of people are burying Arizona for giving up on Max Scherzer, but Patrick Sullivan of The Baseball Analysts and I agree: The Diamondbacks might come out ahead in this deal, trading a pitcher with an unsure future for two that might pitch in their rotation this season. Meanwhile, no one seems to mention that the Yankees traded two starters and a center fielder for one player.

Ever wonder what folks in minor league front offices do during the offseason? I don't know, but the Timber Rattlers' premiere episode of The Offseason would suggest they have some time on their hands.

With Jason Kendall gone, I guess we probably won't be talking about plunkings as much, and that's probably ok. With that said, Jeremy Greenhouse of The Baseball Analysts has a look at the probability of getting hit by a pitch, and what matchups and velocities make a batter most likely to get plunked.

It's been a pretty busy week at the Winter Meetings, and the flow of information has been dizzying at times. Just imagine how fast information would flow out if the internet was working.

Still looking for a gift for someone this holiday season? I might have a suggestion for you. Boys of Summer is a documentary chronicling Robert Cochrane and his father's summer long road trip to visit all 30 major league parks. The film is now available on DVD for the first time, with all proceeds going to the Michael J. Fox Foundation to help support research on Parkinson's Disease.

On this day in 1986, the Brewers sent Tim Crews and Tim Leary to the Dodgers for first baseman Greg Brock. Brock would go on to hit .261/.348/.387 over five seasons as a Brewer.

Happy birthday today to Doug Henry, who turns 46. Henry pitched the first four seasons of his major league career (1991-1994) as a Brewer, racking up 61 saves.

Drink up.

Get Those Extra Checks Ready for Miguel Olivo, Willie Bloomquist, and Jamey Wright Please

royalsreview — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:15:09 -0000

Earlier this season we touched on Dayton Moore's odd proclivity for the playing time bonus. Dating back to the Ross Gload extension, the Royals have included a number of playing time escalators in contracts. Like anything else in a contract, these bonuses can be used in a variety of ways, for the benefit or protection of either party.

Three curious things jump out about Dayton's recent use of the tool: 1) they have been given to players who are seemingly already being overpaid, 2) the Royals have used extremely modest dollar amounts for their bonuses, yet also made them incredibly easy to reach and 3) the Royals have given playing time bonuses to players who had in the past not been full-time players, but who were quickly then made full-timers on the Royals (great negotiating!).

In 2009, Miguel Olivo, St. Willie Bloomquist and a number of pitchers each had playing-time bonuses on the table. Let's see how they did.

Miguel Olivo: 114 games played, 416 plate appearances

Here are Olivo's bonuses (reached bonuses in bold), in all their nickel-and-dimer glory:

performance bonuses based on games, plate appearances:

$25,000 each for 75, 80, 85, 90, 95, 100 games

$50,000 each for 105, 110, 115, 120 games

$25,000 each for 275, 300, 325, 350, 375, 400 PAs

$50,000 each for 425, 450, 475, 500 PAs

By sitting Olivo on the last day of the season, Trey Hillman saved his bosses $50,000, as Olivo was set to hit another bonus by playing his 115th game. All told, Olivo earned an extra $400,000 in playing time bonuses in 2009, in addition to his $2.7 million base salary, for a total of $3.1 million.

Willie Bloomquist: 125 games played, 468 plate appearances

Thanks to being employed by one of the dumbest management teams in the game, Willie Bloomquist set career playing time highs in 2009, by wide margins. Prior to 2009, his career high in games played was 102 games in 2006, and in 32 of those games he was a late-game sub. The 468 plate appearances in 2009 is more than he got in his final two seasons in Seattle combined (380), where he was also loved by everyone and valued for doing whatever it is that he does. Again, the Royals gave a guy with a .663 OPS 468 PAs this season. Blame Alex Gordon.

performance bonuses:

$50,000 each for 70 games or 280 PAs, 80 g or 320 PAs, 90 g or 360 PAs, 100 g or 400 PAs

$0.1M each for 110 g or 440 PAs, 120 g or 480 PAs, 130 g or 520 PAs, 140 g or 560 PA

Willie's contract is a little more standard, in that the games played and plate appearance bonuses are tied to one another, given that they are reflective of the same thing most of the time. The Sainted One hit all four of his $50,000 bonuses and two of his $100,000 bonuses, for a total of $400,000 extra in bonuses. Bloomquist's base salary in 2009 was $1.4 million, giving him a total payday of $1.8 million. In addition to the biggest contract of his career, Dayton Moore signed him to a deal which would allow him to add 25-35% (roughly) to his payday simply by showing up.

John Bale: 43 total points

Bale's contract for 2009 is interesting in that it uses a points system based on how he is used. (Bonuses met in bold)

performance bonuses based on points (2 points for a start, 1.5 points for 2-inning appearance, 1 point forappearance of less than 2 innings):

$25,000 each for 34, 36, 38 points

$50,000 each for 40, 42, 44 points

$75,000 each for 46, 48, 50 points

$0.1M each for 52, 54, 56 points

$0.125M each for 58, 60 points

By my count, Bale appeared in 43 games, and they were all non-starts, and all under 2.0 innings, leaving him at 43 points. Actually an impressive total for a guy who seemingly was injured and ineffective all season. The Royals bullpen, we're all in this together! If we all suck, we can all still play. Bale snagged an extra $175,000 dollars to go along with his base salary of $1.2 million.

Kyle Farnsworth: 18 games finished

Farnsworth's contract uses "games finished" as a bonus trigger, which could either mean "I got the closer role" or "I was good enough to sub for Soria sometimes" or even "I was bad but got mopup duty". Farnsworth somehow finished 18 games for the Royals, which amazes me.

performance bonuses: $50,000 each for 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 games finished; $0.1M for 45 GF; $0.15M for 50 GF; $0.25M for 55 GF

Still, no bonuses for Farnsy.

Jamey Wright: 0 starts, 65 appearances

Wright was supposed to be one of Moore's bargain signings this season, brought in for a minor league contract. Thanks to his near-constant use however, Wright did alright for himself.

performance bonuses:

starts: $50,000 for 5 GS; $0.1M each for 10, 15 GS; $0.15M for 20 GS

relief appearances: $50,000 each for 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45 games; $0.1M each for 50, 55, 60 games

Wright was signed to a minor league contract, but he would have made the prorated minimum while in the Majors, and could have had extras thrown in as well. Cot's lists him as earning $800,000 in base salary in 2009. Thanks to his 65 appearances, he also earned an additional $600,000 in bonuses. Wright owes Trey Hillman a nice dinner.

Yabuta and Waechter had a number of bonuses, but reached none of them. Thankfully, in Yabuta's case. Yabuta appeared in only 43 games as a Royal in 2008-9. Did you know that if he had appeared in 155 games total over those years, he would have vested a player option for 2010?

When you look at these bonuses, the ones for the pitchers make much more sense, from the club's standpoint: if you make this team, Jamey Wright, and if you're healthy and good all season, Kyle Farnsworth, you'll make even more money for us. Maybe that gets them in the door for a little less money guaranteed, which would in theory be good, if we were talking about good players.

The Bloomquist and Olivo bonuses make less sense to me. Not surprisingly, Olivo was unhappy with a lack of playing time in 2008, and seemed to have an idea that he was "brought here to be a starter". Hmm... where'd that problem come from? Meanwhile, the extra Bloomquist money just adds less value to an already bad contract. When you include reasonable playing time bonuses, the Royals didn't sign him to a 2 year/$3.1 million dollar deal, they signed him to a 2 year/$4.1 million dollar deal.

Figures like these need to be kept in mind when discussing the Royals payroll. Are these contracts creative ways of staying under some set in stone budget number? There's no way of knowing. Reported figures for the Royals payroll tend to be all over the place. Sometimes the Royals want to stress how large it is, sometimes they want to point out how small.

Contracts like these are common in today's game, just not necessarily for position players with little injury history like Bloomquist and Olivo. Two is a coincidence and, with the Ross Gload contract, three is a trend. Maybe Moore just likes making these kind of deals. Maybe ownership wants a little injury insurance. Maybe it is a motivational tool for the player. Who knows? There are benefits to lots of small bonuses (like the Olivo contract) and there are benefits to ones which aren't reached until some large playing time number is hit, as in the Yabuta contract. Did Olivo know that Hillman's decision to play Pena and Buck on the final day of the season cost him $50,000? Did he care? Should he care? I don't know the answer to those questions. Yes, $50,000 is much less relevant to these guys than it is to most of us, but then again, Miguel Olivo also has many more expenses, taxes, etc. than most of us as well. He has had to move across the country like six or seven times during his career. He's got bills, he's got things he wants. If a guy I didn't really respect cost me $500 dollars (in my mind) I'd be really unhappy about it. I bet you'd feel the same way.

This is all just to say, there's quite a lot going on here. Since we aren't privy to these contract negotiations, and know nothing about anyone involved beyond their baseball stuff, we're left to guess. What do you guess?

Perkins Is Strong but Cuddyer Is Stronger, and the Twins Win Another Series

Jesse — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:22:30 -0000

More photos » by Ed Zurga - AP

5 months ago: Minnesota Twins catcher Mike Redmond, center, is helped to his feet by manager Ron Gardenhire, left, and a team trainer after he was injured during a baseball game against the Kansas City Royals in the fifth inning Wednesday, July 1, 2009, in Kansas City, Mo. Redmond left the game. (AP Photo/Ed Zurga)

Browse more photos »

Royals give the Twins a couple runs, but even if they hadn't this one was going to Minnesota.

While the first inning was quiet, the second inning started with a bang. Michael Cuddyer took Gil Meche's first pitch of the inning and launched another line-drive home run into the left field seats of gorgeous Kauffman Stadium to give Minnesota their first run of the afternoon. It was the 12th of the year for Cuddles, and it's safe to say that at this point he's having the season we've wanted him to have since he lit up in 2006.

Meche did everything he could for the Royals. Six hits and five walks don't necessarily look good, but one of the three runs he allowed lays at the feet of Alberto Callaspo, whose Bill Buckner-like five-hole error allowed Joe Crede's routine grounder turn from a third out into a run. But none of Meche's walks scored, although Matt Tolbert's two-out walk in the sixth allowed Joe Mauer to step in and give the Twins their third run.

While Meche wasn't really bad, Glen Perkins was positively solid. He allowed ten hits but didn't walk a single batter, and the ultimate number is one. One, as in the number of runs he allowed. From the start he mixed up all of his pitches, only relying heavily on the fastball once his offense had spotted him a 2-0 lead. Kansas City did start to catch up with him a bit over the sixth and seventh, when they tallied half of their offensive hits on the day, but every time the Royals threatened Perk came back. The defense backed him up with a pair of double plays, and outside of Carlos Gomez over-running a fly-ball that had already bounced off the fence, there weren't any miscues made by the Twins.

The Royals? A different story.

In addtion to Callaspo's error in the third, the Kansas City bullpen ensured that any comeback attempt made by their offense would be as difficult as possible. After Robinson Tejeda struck out Gomez and Brendan Harris to kick off the top of the eighth, Denard Span singled and stole second base. Matt Tolbert followed that up with a single to score Span, advancing to second on the throw. With Justin Morneau having been removed the previous inning due to tightness in his groin, Tejeda did the smart thing and intentionally walked Mauer to set up the force at third. And then John Bale proceeded to walk two more, including Cuddyer with the bases loaded. By the time Roman Colon came on to get the final out, the Twins held a 5-1 lead with just six outs remaining for the Royals.

R.A. Dickey mopped up in the eighth and got two outs in the ninth, before a single and a walk brought up the man who could make it a two-run game with one swing of the bat. Ron Gardnehire did the right thing and brought in Joe Nathan to lock down the win, even if it was for a cheap one-out save, and Nathan did his job. David DeJesus slapped a hard grounder to Brian Buscher at first base, who took it himself to retire the Royals for the final time in the series.

Right now I haven't seen any updates on the guys who had to leave the game, but here's the run-down for how it looks as of right now.

Morneau left due to the sore groin. With an off day tomorrow and on Monday, the Twins have the luxury of keeping him in the designated hitter role over the weekend if they want to take it slow with him, unless it's something worse in which case he'll likely miss this series before Minnesota puts him on the DL retroactive to today. We should find out by tonight whether this is an issue or a non-issue.
Nick Punto left with more soreness in his back, and he was slow getting up after getting taken out while turning a double play at the end of the sixth.
Mike Redmond also was removed, taking a foul ball off his forearm. X-Rays are negative, but he does have a bone bruise. He'll be sore for a few days.

Stars of the Game
#3: Joe Mauer (3-for-3, R, RBI, 2 BB, .160 WPA)
#2: Michael Cuddyer (1-for-3, HR, 2 RBI, R, 2 BB, .155 WPA)
#1: Glen Perkins (7 IP, 10 H, 1 K, 0 BB, 1 R, .358 WPA)

If the Royals Were Nations: The Pitchers

royalsreview — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 03:26:13 -0000

Continuing our geographical examination of the Kansas City roster. (The position players can be found here.) Hopefully, the players themselves can use this analysis, especially if they ever become NFL football players, play in the Super Bowl, and get asked "What country would you be?" by a wisecracking journalist from Italy.

John Bale: He's mostly imaginary at this point (just like Arod's cousin, right...), or at least, a scenario in which he's useful is. Since the Royals acquired him -- a move I liked at the time -- he's been mostly hurt and ineffective/unlucky. He also sent himself to the DL for punching a wall, so he's an effective problem solver. All this makes him the Sealand of the roster: an imaginary "nation" off the coast of England, that's little more than an old military platform and some insane people in weird uniforms. So far Dayton Moore's brought in three guys from East Asia: Bale, Yabuta and manager Trey Hillman. Maybe he should just stick to the US South.

The John Bale of the world.

Brian Bannister: Is there an auto-text generator somewhere on my computer for Bannister? There should be. It's always the same thing: he's smart, he likes stats, he has average stuff, he's a Born Again Christian, his dad was also a ballplayer, JoePo likes him, etc. So what country is he? I've got Finland, which always ranks well on educational charts and has oodles of Scandanavian efficiency, which could be related to handling the numbers well. Finland's also the least blonde, least visited, most vulerable to Russia, and least good at soccer Scandinavian country. They even speak a weird language. So in sum, Bannister/Finland: a mix of good and bad, with a lot going for it, danegrously close to being too expensive at this point, on the precipice of failure, works best as an underdog.

Bruce Chen: Chen's been around forever, lost more battles than he's won, but every so often is sorta ok. He's even been completely off the map for long periods of time. Sounds like Poland.

Juan Cruz: One of the newest Royals, Cruz isn't exactly young or old. He's in the middle of his career, and while everyone seems to have always loved him, he's been on more than a few teams. As a reliever, Cruz's overall impact is going to be somewhat limited, but he's a nice feather in your cap, and a great place to be for a few innings. In all these ways, he's resembles the lovely island of Bermuda. Much like Bermuda, he's also set apart from the other islands of the Carribean (which he truly isn't a part of), much like Cruz isn't really part of Dayton Moore's off-season horribilis.

Kyle Davies: Davies is Georgia. Not Georgia the country, Georgia the state. Davies is just a big ole white boy with a good southern white boy name: Kyle. (There's even the bizarre, Old Testament name of Hiram thrown in for good measure.) If you exclude Florida, which is admittedly kinda a geographic exception, Georgia is the most populous state in the Old South, and Davies is the best former Brave brought in by Moore. Davies may not quite be ready for prime time yet, but you know if something happened, he'd be sure to beat the hell out of Brian Bannister.

Kyle Farnsworth: Yea, there are worse guys out there, just like there are probably a few places worse than the Central African Republic. Like, the Congo (both of them) and... and... well, the Sudan. Probably Chad too. So before we criticize the fact that the Royals are paying a premium for Farnsworth -- he's one of the highest paid non-closers in baseball -- just imagine how expensive it would be to visit the C.A.R. Sometimes, you gotta pay for the privilege. And if it works out? Well, you can strut around your block for years on the story.

It isn't fair if we only talk about the negatives of the Farnsworth signing.

Jimmy Gobble: Somehow lovable, in spite of being nearly entirely pointless at this point, Jimmy Gobble is the Bolivia of the pitching staff. Bolivia is Venezuela without the baseball and oil, Chile without the coastline, Argentina without the cafes, Brazil without Rio or the Amazon and Columbia without the beaches or drug money. Gobble can't start, can't get right-handers out, and wasn't used as a lefty-specialist by his manager last season. Which makes him sorta like the Bolivian Navy... a group of men in out-dated boats in a land-locked country. He's not even cheap anymore, and neither is Bolivia, thanks to their socialist leadership. Still, we love him. I mean, he's Gobble! He's like the last survivor of the 2003 team. In much the same way, Bolivia has an incredibly short guy called "Evo" running the country.

Zack Greinke: Poised to begin a reign of dominance, and in many ways already there, Greinke is like the USA, circa 1945. He's rebounded from some rough patches and a somewhat delayed breakout (hey, joining WWII in late 1941 was no problem at all... England was managing things fine there, it was all good) to world power status. Sure, not everyone quite knows it yet, and some still assign an out-dated dominance to bloated entities like France/CC Sabathia. But Greinke is right there, and still has room to grow. We're hitting the boundless optimism, not too decadent phase now folks, with 2011-12 the Kennedy years.

Luke Hochevar: So imagine you could travel anywhere in the world. You had top choice, and even some price controls in place. The airports won't be crowded, you'll have a nice seat on the plane, and whatever hotel room you want. You survey your options and go with... Argentina. Uh, ok. Sure, Buenas Aires is nice, and the tango is fun, and there's surely a lot of guys walking around with long hair who would probably be considered attractive. Still, that was your top choice? No South Pacific? No real Paris as opposed to "the Paris of South America"? Meh. I can only see it making sense if you wanted to do a hardcore Patagonia/wilderness/edge of the Earth thing, but we all know the Royals aren't into that. So back to Hochevar... Hochevar's rounded into a solid middle of the rotation pitcher, but it looks like that's all he'll ever be. Considering where the Royals selected him, it's hard to complain, yet hard to feel satisfied.

Ron Mahay: Sure, he's a journeyman reliever (seven teams in twelve years) that's currently well-paid and injured (remember when we all thought Moore = mad genius as a bullpen builder). But of that troubled lot, the journeyman middle relievers of the world, he's one of the best. He's even lacking the John Bale self-destruction gene, and has had a modicum of stability, serving all those years in Texas. Add it up, and he's the Montenegro of the staff: the quasi-stable, non-horrible journeyman, just as Montenegro is the rich, peaceful, beautiful jewel of the Balkans. Mahay earning $4 million last season is the equivalent of that hardcore poker tournament in Montenegro that was featured in Casino Royale, his years in Arlington, equalling Monty's time with Yugoslavia.

Gil Meche: He's not the fastest worker and he has a reputation for being inefficient. He's at once a little under-rated, yet also acknowledged, now, to be "solid". Gil Meche is the non-fun parts of Brazil of the Royals. Brazil dominates South America in basically every way, and shows up on a lot of world leaderboards for various things, yet is still kinda that weird country with the funky flag. It's about as powerful as you can be without deserving a spot on the UN Security Council in anyway. Is it even in the G8? All sounds like Meche really, right there as an asset, but not quite a force. Meche has non of Brazil's flair, he's got not an ounce of Rio in his game. Meche might finish his career with the highest ratio in history of money earned or WARP numbers posted in relation to jersey sales. No, he's a modernist office park in Brasilia, staffed with guys who take forever to do anything because they're planning their next weekend trip or watching soccer on TV or because they're surrounded by hot women.

Can you find Gil?

Joel Peralta: Peralta allowed the most homers per nine innings last season of any reliever in baseball, making him the Gaza Strip. As in, he's frequently bombed. zing!

Horacio Ramirez: Hmm... Farnsy is the C.A.R., Bale is a nonexistent micronation, so where does that love lovable old former Brave and pointless Royal retread Horacio Ramirez? Ho-Ram's a proven poor starter, but was actually decent last season, as a Royal at least, out of the 'pen. Of course, doing the same thing with Chicago in the same season, he was then awful again. And he doesn't make the league minimum... You know what? I'm gonna be nice with this one. Ho-Ram is Kyrgyzstan, a nearly entirely unknown nation in Central Asia. Honorable mention for Ho-Ram is Thailand. Can you guess why?

Joakim Soria: Probably the coolest Royals player since Bo Jackson, and easily one of the ten best relievers in baseball, and that's being conservative. Somehow, he's able to look like the guy from Malcolm in the Middle yet legitimately carry the nickname "The Mexicutioner". As a closer, he's not really a heavy lifter, and he isn't placed in a position where he can carry a team. What he can do is, well, finish the job. All in all, this makes him Great Britain in a James Bond Movie. Look, Britain can't win the Cold War for you, and really can't even defend Europe, but if you need to send in one man to execute a bad guy, sleep with three beautiful Romanian women, defuse multiple bombs, survive a poisoning, and climb up the side of a building over one weekend, somehow it just makes sense that a British guy is better suited to pull this off than someone from, oh I dunno, Georgia. Kyle Davies is gonna drink too much beer, punch the wrong person, and screw up the mission, even though you'd think he'd make a better fighter. Corollary: Mike MacDougal is Great Britain during the Spice Girls era.

Robinson Tejeda: I suppose if Ho-Ram is Kyrgyzstan (which actually looks cool as hell, oh well, let's keep it) then that would make Robinson Tejeda... what's left of the Aral Sea. I understand that this is not actually a nation.

Doug Waechter: Really, Waechter has got to be Florida. Have you ever heard of someone pitching for the Devil Rays (as they were at the time) for four straight seasons? He was a longtime Devil Ray! Do you know how many pitchers have passed through the Trop in this decade? And the most amazing part was that he was never even really good. Better still, after washing out in Tampa, he resurfaced with, that's right, the Marlins. So, let's honor this dedicated Florida man. Obviously, he's another great pickup by Moore, as he had an ERA+ in the 70s three out of four seasons (and all of the last three) then one good year in Florida, pitching in a swamp. I think his numbers will translate well to a neutral field in the stronger league!

Yasuhiko Yabuta: Every other team gets to bring in a guy from Japan who, for three months (aka his first time through the league) is completely baffling and unhittable. Not the Royals. Yabuta was, from the start, hittable. But hey, everything else from Japan has worked out: Bale's a team leader and inspirational dynamo and Hillman's the best manager in the game.Yabuta: a concept that has worked out for everyone else, but in this case went disastrously wrong. He's the Clipperton Island of the Royals. Every other tropical island in the world turned out to be a nice place to live, and many even turned into profitable little trade centers or sources of cheap labor making one product. Not Clipperton, which is now uninhabited. In the early twentieth century however, a guano company (make joke here) tried to establish a colony there. Problem was, the relied on ships from Mexico for supplies every few months, only the Mexican ships eventually stopped coming due to, you guessed it, internal strife. The settlement was founded in 1906, and by 1915, nearly everyone was dead. In the end, there was one male left, and fifteen women and children. You can probably figure what happened next: after a reign of terror, the man was finally killed. The last survivors were picked up in 1917. All this is a long way of saying, Yabuta!