There are a couple spots available for the RR AL Only Ross Gload Memorial Roto League. The draft will be Thursday, March 15, at 7:30 pm central time. It is a standard 5x5 roto format (OBP, HR, RBI, R, RBI for hitting, W, K, WHIP, ERA, SV for pitching). You also get to keep the stats of players traded to the NL during the season.

If you are interested, please post below and include an email at which I can reach you. I will then be in touch in the next day or so. The only prerequisite recommendation is that you are available for the draft date (which will not be changed), so please express interest only if you are available on March 15 at 7:30 pm.

UPDATE: After checking the ESPN site, if you cannot make the draft, ESPN does allow you to rank players and set draft preferences beforehand. Thus, you can still participate even if you are not available for the live draft, but your team will be auto-drafted based on your rankings and preferences.

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The Royals project to start the year with five position players who have less than a full year of major league service time -- Eric Hosmer, Johnny Giavotella, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain, and Sal Perez -- plus a 25-year-old shortstop, Alcides Escobar, who has yet to establish his bat in the majors. Setting aside the issue of how well you think they will perform (which has been addressed repeatedly this offseason and certainly will be addressed several more times before Opening Day), how bad and for how long do you think these six players would have to perform before the Royals would bench them or send them back to the minors?

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Per ESPN's article on changes under the new CBA:

After the 2012 season, about five to six additional major leaguers will become eligible for salary arbitration each year. The group of players with at least two but less than three years of major league service lost the right to arbitration in the 1985 agreement, but players regained it for the top 17 percent of 2-3-year players by service time in the 1990 deal. That will rise to 22 percent following the 2012 season.

So under the new CBA, Super Two status not only remains, but expands.  Under the old rules, the cutoff was usually between 2 years, 128 days and 140 days, with the historical range 122 days to 147 days.  Hosmer appears to have earned 147 days of service time this year, so under the old system he was likely to qualify for Super Two status.  With Super Two cutoff lowering under the new CBA, Hosmer is virtually guaranteed to be a Super Two unless he gets demoted to the minors between now and the end of the 2013 season.

Super Two status does not affect how the long the Royals have Hosmer under team control, but it means that he will qualify for arbitration four times instead of three, thereby costing the Royals millions in future salary.   

Instead of another re-hash of "let's trade for Wandy Rodriguez" or "let's acquire whatever starting pitcher that MLB Trade Rumors mentioned today," something that might be worthwhile would be profiling pitchers who might be the next Felipe Paulino.  These would be "failed" starters whose peripherals suggest that they are better than their ERA, injury reclamation projects, or relievers with underlying tools and skills that might translate to starting (e.g., some combination of good control and command, decent changeup or curve/splitter combo, low platoon splits). 

These are guys that the Royals might actually be able to acquire without giving up a top prospect like Wil Myers or tie up the payroll through Hosmer's arbitration years.   We have talked about Kris Medlen previously (injury reclamation project -- check, reliever who fits a starter's profile -- check), but there should be a good number of these guys out there.  And again, these would not be guys who pitched well as starters in 2011 like Bud Norris who are considered "underrated" only because the national media has failed to talk him up. 

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The TV networks have started to roll out their new shows, and like seemingly every year, the outlook is pretty bleak.  The only show I was somewhat looking forward to watching was "Up All Night," given its cast and decent premise.  Upon first viewing, the show was a solid "meets expectations," but not something I would necessarily watch every week.  The workplace side of the story was neither funny nor fresh, as it played like a scrapped SNL skit from five years ago centered on Maya Rudolph's Oprah impression.  Reportedly, the show was re-tooled to emphasize this character due to the success of "Bridesmaids," but (1) in two months, will anyone remember that movie? and (2) was Maya Rudolph really the reason people liked that movie? 

I also watched the first five minutes of "Free Agents," which I would bet is the only five minutes I ever watch of that show.  Other than that, I think I am going to stick to the baseball playoffs and the handful of returning shows that I already watch and let natural selection (insert "Terra Nova" joke here) take its course on the other new shows before investing any time in them. 

Are there are any new shows that you are looking forward to?  Are there any Felipe Paulino-like sleepers out there that will defy the odds and become good shows?  What is your pick for the worst new show?  What would be your best idea for a Royals-based TV show (besides the Brandon Duckworth sitcom)?   

A frequent recent comment -- one that Kevin Goldstein apparently mentioned first and subsequently repeated many times in the comments -- is that the Royals have zero financial commitments to their 2012 payroll.  That statement, however, is not quite accurate for a couple of reasons.  First, as mentioned elsewhere, the Royals owe about $2.5 million in 2012 on the major league contracts given to Noel Arguelles and Aaron Crow.  Second, a major league team is required to pay each of the 25 players on its active roster at least the major league minimum.  For 2011, the major league minimum will be about $415,000, and it goes up about $5,000 every year, so the 2012 minimum should be expected to be around $420,000.  As a result, for 2012, every major league payroll has a floor of approximately $10.5 million (25 players x $420,000 major league minimum).  Thus, even before considering anyone else who might be on the roster, the 2012 Royals already have approximately $13 million committed to payroll (or a little over $12 million if Arguelles and Crow play the entire year in the majors). 

Of course, the Royals will not field an entire roster of players making the major league minimum.  The Royals have eleven players currently on their roster who would be projected to be arbitration eligible after the 2011 season, including Billy Butler, Luke Hochevar, and Alex Gordon.  The team also will undoubtedly exercise its $6 million club option on Joakim Soria, barring a catastrophic injury or trade.  Adding these players into consideration, the Royals expected 2012 payroll increases significantly. 

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If the offseason has seemed slow so far, it is about to pick up.  Earlier this fall, the owners and the players agreed to move up several of the offseason deadlines.   After the holiday weekend, the next two weeks might be the busiest of the entire offseason.  The following are the upcoming key dates, with a brief summary of what they mean (and what they mean for the Royals). 

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One of the first orders of business this offseason will be whether the Royals will tender contracts to its arbitration eligible players.  While most of the decisions are obvious, Josh Fields presents an interesting case.  The Royals bought Fields and Chris Getz from the White Sox last offseason for $1 million (and what is left of Mark Teahen). Heading into the season, Fields had no real defined role other than right-handed bench bat, so it was not surprising that he started the year on the disabled list with an injury that was never mentioned during spring training.  It turned out, however, that Fields needed arthroscopic hip surgery. As a result, Fields missed the season except for a September cameo when he hit 306/320/490 (352 wOBA) in only 50 plate appearances, prompting Rany Jazayerli to call for the Royals to sign him to a 3 year/$15 million contract (no, not really).

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With the recent trend in stories projecting future Royals rosters in 2012 and beyond, it seemed a good idea to look back on how players rated as the top prospects in baseball from a few seasons ago have developed so far.  The following are Baseball America's annual Top 10 Prospects from 2006 to 2008 (which BA published before those seasons started).  Thus, for even the prospects on the 2008 list, those players would have two full seasons plus most of 2010 under their belt.  It is not too much of a spoiler to suggest that the key word in evaluating the development of even the elite prospects is patience. 

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As mentioned in the recent Davies thread, the Royals should keep an eye on other teams' players who are out of options, as they may become available in trade or on waivers before final rosters are due before opening day.

Here is a list compiled by mlbtraderumors.com, which I think has been previously linked. These are players who are out of options and with less than 5 years service time. Obviously, not all of these players are in any risk of being waived or otherwise becoming available (sorry Scott Baker fans), but there are a handful of interesting names that might become available cheaply or for free. One common scenario is when teams trade for each other's out of options players (such as Jorge de la Rosa for Ramon Ramirez de facto trade), so if the Royals decide to trade Davies or one of the other out of option Royals, these might be some of the trade candidates.

After the jump are some, but not all, of the interesting out of options players with some possibility of becoming available. 

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Fangraphs is again counting down its rankings of each organization in baseball.  Despite a recent binge of hiring Royals bloggers to counter a perceived bias against all things Royals, Fangraphs still dropped the Royals' ranking from 27th last year to 29th this year.   An explanation of the rankings criteria is here, with the criteria further clarified as the organization's changes of winning now and going forward based on current talent, future talent, management skill, financial flexibility, and quality of ownership and ballpark (one and a half out of six is not bad, right?).  Unlike last year, there are separate posts on the team's current talent (some guy named Matt Klaasen mutes his love of the Rick Ankiel signing), future talent, and overall health of the organization.   

Not surprisingly, Dave Cameron is brutal as usual when it comes to the overall health of the Royals, which he dubs "the anti-FanGraphs team."  And he is probably right:   

The management is bad enough to offset almost all of the good. Zack Greinke, Billy Butler, David DeJesus – there are pieces here that should be the core of a good young team. But they’ve been surrounded by chaff, and expensive chaff at that. There are some good young players on the way, but not enough. By the time those guys get to KC – if they get there before Moore trades them for something else without value – Greinke’s contract will be expiring, Butler will be expensive, and they’ll be faced with another necessary rebuilding process, because there isn’t enough talent in the organization to contend either now or in the future.

He concludes that while the process might have worked in the 1980s, it just does not work anymore. 

Dave Cameron at Fangraphs has a nice article on the perils of using the prior year's result as the baseline for projecting the next year's results, including a few encouraging words on postive regression involving beloved Royal Yuniesky Betancourt: 

Regression “fixes” a lot of problem spots from the prior year, even if the team doesn’t make a serious effort to change out players. The Royals got a .253 wOBA out of their shortstops a year ago. I don’t care how bad you think Yuniesky Betancourt is, you have to expect that number to be higher this year. They didn’t do anything to improve their shortstop position this winter, but the level of production they got from the position in 2009 is not their expected level of production for 2010.

. . . .

This applies across the board. Injuries, clutch hitting, variance in run distribution – all of these are subject to extreme amounts of regression, and they all had a significant impact on how some teams performed last year, both in terms of “raw” wins and losses and things like runs scored and runs allowed. You cannot just look at a team’s prior year won loss record – or even their pythagorean record – make some adjustments for the off-season transactions, and presume that’s a good enough estimator of true talent for the 2010 team.

This article arrives a year too late to temper expectations for the 2009 Royals based on the 2008 Royals, but the underlying premise still applies, as the 2010 Royals may perform better than the 2009 Royals even if they really are not much better overall.   

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MLB has released the list of six-year minor league free agents, which includes notable Royals Shane Costa, Ryan Shealy, and Chris Lubanski.  Under the rules, a minor leaguer with six full years of credited service time in the minors can become a free agent if his organization does not place him on its 40-man major league roster.  Neither Costa, Shealy, nor Lubanski were expected back, so this comes as no surprise.  Costa is now free to fulfill his destiny as a backup outfielder for the Padres, while Shealy and Lubanski will be looking for jobs filling out AAA rosters.

CHONE Projections for 2010

Costa: 279/336/418, +1 batting runs above average

Shealy: 245/329/398, -2 batting runs above average

Lubanski: 243/309/379, -13 batting runs above average

The full list of now former Royals is after the break. 

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From today's Christina Kahrl chat, following up on an answer in which she badmouths Ryan Sweeney:

vegasbill (Las Vegas): UZR and BPro defense stats both have Sweeney as a pretty great defender. Combined with his average offense he's a valuable player.

Christina Kahrl: Average for what, all major league hitters? Certainly not for right fielders; a .261 EqA from a corner outfielder isn't valuable, it's something you have to overcome to score enough runs to contend.

How did one of the main Baseball Prospectus writers completely miss the boat on valuing defense and positional adjustments?

One development last offseason was that many good hitting but defensively challenged players – or "1B/DH-types" – found a weak market for their services and had to take contracts well below what they would have received in previous years (Adam Dunn, Pat Burrell, Bobby Abreu, etc.). The Royals, however, were unable to take advantage, as they preemptively filled their one open 1B/DH spot by surrendering Leo Nunez to Florida instead of waiting for the Marlins to formally non-tender Mike Jacobs.

This offseason, potential free agent 1B/DH-types will again be plentiful. Here is the list according to Cots (which includes a few "OF" and "3B" whose defense or health are so bad that they really should only DH anymore):

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Davies 2009 (through May 27 start):
   
4.94 FIP
6.33 K/9,  3.86 BB/9, 1.64 K/BB, 8.9% swinging strike rate
1.23 HR/9, 11.8% HR/FB
17.4% LD%, 44.4% GB%, 288 BABIP

The K/BB is almost exactly his 2008 1.65 K/BB, so he has added a few strikeouts at the expense of a proportional number of walks.  A good sign is that his swinging strike rate is up almost a 1% from 8.0% in 2008.  As expected, his HR/FB rose from an unsustainable 6.7% in 2008 to a tick above average in 2009.  He has also turned about 5% of batted balls from line drives (21.6% LD% 2008) into groundballs (38.8% GB% 2008). 

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Continuing with the series on explaining useful statistics as requested in the excellent For All the Dummies post, this entry looks at three key pitching statistics that both scouting and statistical analysts consider very important:  strikeout rate (K/9), walk rate (BB/9), and strikeout-to-walk ratio (K/BB, or alternatively K:BB).  Again, the purpose here is provide a brief introduction and (likely oversimplified) explanation of these stats, not to start any debates or provide any in-depth analysis.

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As discussed in the recent and most excellent For All the Dummies post, it appears that one reason some readers resist using statistics in evaluating baseball players is that the discussion of a particular stat often skips an explanation and goes straight to the conclusion.  The following is an attempt to provide a brief introduction and background to Fielding Independent Pitching or FIP, one stat that frequently gets discussed on Royals Review (and has generally gained acceptance by those who study baseball stats).  This post probably oversimplifies FIP a bit, but the main point here is to provide the general idea, not to start any debates, or link a bunch of research articles and studies (other than to note that current MLB consultant Tom Tango invented FIP and that I found this article helpful in explaining the basics of FIP).  For further reading, see devil_fingers epic post of links.

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