SB Nation - Roman Colon

Reviewing Dayton Moore at the Deadline: 2007

royalsreview — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 03:51:04 -0000

Continuing our look back at Dayton Moore's performance at the trade deadline. For 2006, click here.

The 2007 Royals were the first Royals team since 2003 that did not lose at least 100 games, though at 69-93 they were hardly a factor in the AL Central. They reached the level of "not laughably bad", which is more or less where the Royals have stayed. In 2009, through 99 games, the Royals were 40-59. In 2007, they were 43-56. In a way, it should come as too much of a shock that this stagnation has occurred: after a very busy first year on the job, Dayton Moore has stopped aggressively shopping players.

The 2007 trade deadline was the beginning of this new phase, a phase that apparently will continue through 2009. Although the 2007 deadline did produce one of the better trades of Dayton's tenure, his inability or reluctance to do more makes the 2007 deadline an incomplete success

July 13, 2007: Dan Christensen traded to Tigers for Roman Colon. Christensen was one of the many Baird Era guys who found new addresses in 2006-7. A pitcher drafted in the fourth round of the 2002 draft, Christensen is now in the Seattle system. Considering the long odds that Christensen will ever contribute at the Major League level, snagging Roman Colon -- yes, a former Brave -- was not a bad move. Colon is no great shakes, but after spending 2008 in Omaha, he's appeared in 22 games with the Royals this season. He has a live arm, but little control (11 walks in 24 IP) and is your standard issue mediocre to poor bullpen arm. Then again, the Colon trade was less a case of Dayton's great scouting abilities than a case of the Tigers needing to part way with Colon. The Tigers likely gave Colon away for so little because he had punched Jason Kamuth -- who was trying to break up a fight between Colon and another pitcher -- so severly that Kamuth needed plastic surgery on his face. Cool!

July 25, 2007: Royals release Scott Elarton. Hours after a horrible Elarton start against the Yankees that had me questioning the meaning of life, Dayton parts ways with one of Allard's worst signings. Elarton was signed to a two year, eight million dollar deal for 2006-7. He was terrible. Moore showed a willingness to move on... from somebody else's mistake.

July 31, 2007: Octavio Dotel traded to Atlanta for Kyle Davies: An early high point of the Moore regime. Dotel had signed a one year, $5 million dollar deal, with a number of appearance escalators, in December. Everyone's assumption was that Moore had taken a chance on the oft-injured Dotel on the chance that, if healthy, he could be traded. Dotel made his first appearance with the Royals in late May, and eventually appeared in 24 games, notching 11 saves. On deadline day, this actually happened, with the Braves, yes the Braves, sending back the promising but inconsistent prospect Kyle Davies. Davies has started 46 games for the Royals since, but like JDLR and Odalis Perez, has turned in an ERA+ of 85. Davies has improved a little since his Braves days, though he hasn't made a great leap forward, and his numbers remain all over the place. His 1.8 WAR season in 2008 makes him one of Dayton's better pickups, especially considering the price paid was a partial season of Dotel.

That's it, two trades and a no-brainer DFAing.

The Colon trade was ok, but basically pointless. The Dotel-Davies trade was a very good deal however, probably the best trade of Dayton's career. (However, it's 2009 and Davies is in Omaha, so let's not go crazy.)

In spite of two ok-to-good trades, in retrospect, it is clear that a more aggressive approach would have better served the Royals long-term. The bottom line is that Dayton should have done more.

The biggest mistake was at second base. Not trading Mark Grudzielanek was an absolute mistake. It was a mistake at the time and it's a mistake now. Grudz was hitting .305/.346/.441 on July 30th, and was only owed ~2 million of his $4 million dollar salary. You have to find value for Grudz in that situation. And if you can't find the value you want, you settle for what you can get. Work with the salary and turn it to your advantage if you can in the form of another body. Whatever it takes. The Royals, of course, stuck with Grudz, and it worked out so well for them that they started 2009 with Mark Teahen playing second.

Dayton's second mistake at the 2007 deadline was holding onto David Riske. Riske had a 2.22 ERA with 11 holds at the deadline, and was only owed ~1 million in salary, with an affordable club option for 2008. Again, get something. Get a body. Take a bad contract from someone else, package it with Riske, and get two bodies. Now, of course, we know that Dayton loves collecting mid-tier veteran relievers.

Lastly, there's the possibility of buying at the deadline, as the Mariners just did. No, it wouldn't have been easy, but rebuilding the Royals was never going to be easy.

Supposedly, the Royals were going to rebuild around Dayton's scouting acumen. (Which frankly, should not be taken as a given anymore.) What better chance to display it than finding a 19 year old kid languishing in obscurity in some other system that turns into a useful player? Instead, Dayton quickly fell in love with his ability, real or otherwise, to scout 33 year old veterans, which is how we ended up with the Jose Guillen Generation.

Nearly all of Dayton's 2006 moves ended up being losing trades for the Royals, but most of them were chances worth taking. For whatever reason, after 2006, Dayton's mentality seems to have changed by 2007. Perhaps the success of the Meche signing convinced him he could win soon, especially with Greinke, Gordon and Butler lying around.

As it turned out, he was wrong then, and wrong now, and we're still paying for it.

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)

Rockies 9, Royals 9: Helton, Tulowitzki and company (almost) make up for Ubaldo's meltdown

theoldgrizzlybear — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 02:35:06 -0000

The Rockies and Royals played to a 9-9 draw in ten innings of ball on Tuesday at Hi Corbett Field in a game loaded with offense (or was it just sub par pitching?), including 5 home runs. The Rox actually rallied for three runs in the bottom of the ninth at the expense of Roman Colon to tie it, capping off the exciting game.

Looking to build off of his record-setting performance his last time out (for Dominicana in the WBC), Ubaldo Jimenez instead ended up flaming out in his first game back with the Rockies today, giving up 8 ER on 6 hits and 4 walks in 4 2/3 innings. 3 of those runs scored when Ken Ray (who the hell is Ken Ray?) gave up a bases-clearing triple to Mitch Maier in relief of Jimenez before recording the third out of the fifth inning. Luckily, that only made the score 8-5 KC, as the Rockies did some damage of their own to the Royals pitching staff, including 5 runs and 6 hits off of starter Kyle Davies.

Good performances by purple pinstripers included Todd Helton's second straight game with a homer (2-2 with and RBI and a walk in this one); Troy Tulowitzki's 2-for-4, HR, 3 RBI day; and Carlos Gonzalez's 2-hit day, as his bat continues to come around. Ryan Spilborghs homered as well, and Dexter Fowler also singled and drove in a run in his only at-bat (as a pinch hitter), and later came around to score. On the pitching side of things Juan Morillo, Manny Corpas, Ryan Speier, and Franklin Nunez each threw a scoreless inning for the Rox.

The offense altogether was a plus, and the guys who are likely to be everyday players are coming around and hitting the ball well. And, I wouldn't be too concerned about Ubaldo's stinker today. It was his first game back in Spring Training, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him bounce back strongly in his next start.

Tomorrow, the Rockies have the day off (but not really, as a few guys will be participating in a minor league game at Hi Corbett Field). The big league fellas will be back at it on Thursday as they go against the Dodgers in Glendale, with Franklin Morales scheduled to start.

Wrap rating: There's no tying in baseball!