Ned Yost on the European Financial Crisis:

"You know, they’ve hit a few bumps in the road, but Europe is looking stronger than ever and I expect them to compete with the best of ‘em this year."

Yost on the National Deficit:

"It’s been lower, no question. But if you really watch it, you can see how it’s gonna settle down—I don’t expect it to be an issue in 2012."

Yost on Whitney Houston:

"Now there’s a set of golden pipes, let me tell you. She’s gone through a rough stretch, there’s no hiding that, but I think she’s gonna rebound this year and come back like the old Whitney."

Yost on Democracy in Afghanistan:

"The trick there is to get the locals to buy in—and you can see that happening already. I think you’ll see some solid balance between the executive and judicial branches this year, and don’t underestimate the legislature."

Yost on Syria:

"Look, every country goes through a slump now and again. Heck I’ve seen it happen to Chipper Jones."

Yost on Limburger cheese:

"Does it stink? Sure it does, but you know something, you put it out there for the guests, you stick with it, and next thing you know it’s helping you out because someone took their shoes off when they came in the door and maybe woulda stunk the place up but no one notices."

This isn't so much an opinion one way or the other on the departure of Frank White; we only have spin to go on and it isn't even direct spin, at least not from the Royals' side of things. The only information we're getting from the Royals comes in the form of a broad 'White's reputation for privately badmouthing the Royals' comment from Mellinger. Who knows which side is right--more importantly, who knows what you would do in David Glass' shoes here. Maybe you'd fire him too, or maybe you'd apologize and give him a front office job, there's just not enough information to say.

What we can say, though, is that White represented a precious resource that the Royals ought to value. It's important to evaluate the Royals as a business as much as a baseball club because the better they perform in the business department, the more leverage they have to put a good team on the field.

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The question is about to be cast into the realm of the hypothetical: Would the open market principle have eventually worked against small market teams in the MLB draft?  It certainly was showing no signs of doing so any time soon. 

It used to be the case, some time ago now, that richer teams exploited the free-market draft by plucking juicy players poorer teams couldn’t afford.  That seemed to be what happened as recently as 2006 when Rick Porcello, unanimously considered to be at least a top-3 amateur talent, advertised his unwillingness to sign for less than some astronomical sum—let’s say it was 10 million—and as a result fell all the way to the 27th pick where the Tigers were waiting with a $7.3 million deal spread over four years (only $3.5 in cash up front if Wikipedia is not mistaken).  That deal, of course, seems like chump change just five years later. 

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When the Royals’ farm system began to seem exceptional to national writers last year, and then to seem even better than your run-of-the-mill best farm system in baseball, a thought kept running through my mind: “They’re looking for the next Rays.”  I felt I was observing two sociological phenomena in action: (1) love for the underdog, which has deep historical roots in the American psyche, and (2) a collective casting-about for the next instance of something noteworthy that recently happened.  Before moving on to the point of this post, which is of course, what Dayton should do between now and opening day 2012, I think it’s worth having a quick discussion about both.

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The Song of Roland (a.k.a. the Song of Kendall) is, according to Wikipedia, the oldest major work of French literature.  The surviving manuscript was created around 1140, although an oral version of the legend is known to have been sung to the troops of William the Conqueror who was preparing to invade England in 1066.

According to early historian William of Malmesbury in his History of the Kings of England, “Then a song of Kendall was begun, so that the man’s warlike example would arouse the fighters.  Calling on God for aid, they joined the battle.”

In the story, Kendall is a courageous knight and leader of a battalion protecting Charlemagne’s flank as he returns to France after battle in Spain (the rearguard).  Kendall’s jealous stepfather betrays him by plotting with the Saracens in Spain and arranging an ambush of the rearguard. 

Per Wikipedia: “At the pass of Roncesvalles, the twenty thousand Christians of the rearguard are ambushed by a vastly superior force, numbering four hundred thousand. Yost counsels Kendall to blow his olifant horn, to call back Charlemagne's main force, but Kendall refuses. The Franks fight valiantly, but in the end they are killed to the man. Kendall blows his olifant so that Charlemagne will return and avenge them. His rotator cuff bursts from the force required, and he dies soon afterward. He dies facing the enemy's land, and his soul is escorted to heaven by saints and angels.”

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Was listening to the most recent Rany on the Royals podcast (around four days after the fact, which is pretty good for me).  Rany had Rob Neyer on as a guest caller and something Neyer said about Moore—a point he has been making for a couple years now—got me thinking.  His point was that while Moore now looks to be pretty good at drafting young talent (and developing it), he still hasn’t proven to be very good at trading for young talent.  And while this does sort of seem to be true—the players the Royals have drafted are much more exciting than anyone they’ve traded for—part of me doesn’t understand how it could be the case. 

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This argument turned out to have three parts.  Wow.  Wasn’t expecting that.

Part 1: The importance of somehow obtaining extra draft picks.

Let’s relive, as briefly as possible, a conversation that surfaces every year on this site around draft time, and about which I’ve already ranted too much (if you’re tired of the sandwich pick rant, skip to Part 2).  Let’s just look at this year’s draft.  The Angels had five first round draft picks.  Five.  FIVE!  And the Red Sox—who have prospects and money and sports cars and Bill freaking James working in the front office and need an advantage in the draft in approximately the same way Apple needs a leg up in the awesome phone market—had three first round picks.  Given their smarts and money, I really think Boston would be competitively even with other teams if they had ZERO first round picks.  But instead they weaseled three, because that’s what they do, and one of those was Anthony Ranaudo who was, not so long ago, projected to be among the top 3 players taken.  If you have three first round darts, one of them is going to hit, even if you’re throwing blindfolded.  Ranaudo just dominated the Cape Cod league.

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Wanted to comment on a conversation Rany had with Jason Alexander on Rany-on-the-Radio yesterday (listening to podcast now):

There was an attempt to reconcile the fact that Dayton seems to be proving himself to be a good developer (evaluator?) of young talent, with the fact that he seems to be a horrifying evaluator of Major League talent--the farm system is off the charts this year (impressive!), yet he released John Buck and chose to sign Kendall for 6 million guaranteed (not impressive!). 

The explanation for this is that while Moore may be adept at developing HIS players--that is, he places faith in young players that he himself acquired--he seems down on the young talent that was acquired by Baird before he got here. 

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Christian Colon created a dilemma for the Royals when he “repeatedly referred to himself as a ‘born leader’” during an afternoon conference call after Monday's amateur player draft.  The Royals’ prized new shortstop prospect has drawn more than one comparison to Yankees captain Derek Jeter since his name was called fourth overall.  These comparisons along with Colon’s ‘born leader’ comments have likely drawn the attention of another Royals prospect, power-hitting third base prospect Mike Moustakas, who has proudly carried the mantle of ‘Royals future captain’ since the team drafted him second overall in 2007. 

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This about sums it up:

"One of the worst parts of being a devoted fan of any crappy team, in any sport, is the sense that you're truly only rooting for the laundry, that the players in the uniform bearing the name of your town don't care half as much as you do. Nor should they. They may be men playing a boy's game, but they're also men at work at a job defined by its naked difficulty. Their every act is literally numbered, and those numbers—and, in a fan's eyes, the players themselves—are public property. Ultimately, though, they owe us nothing beyond their best effort."

I usually hesitate to write stuff like this—predictions of how prospects will eventually fit into the major league team.  It’s fun to mentally rearrange the furniture, but when the prospects you’re talking about are currently at A and AA, chances are good that trades or injuries will allow things to work themselves out.  Still, it’s not a stretch to imagine Moustakas in Kansas City by the middle of next summer if he continues treating the Texas league like his feudal kingdom (granted, it’s been less than a month that he’s done this, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves, but he is just flattening baseballs right now).  It’s also obviously not a stretch to imagine Gordon in left field before this summer is over.  Trading two of Podsednik/Ankiel/Dejesus is not just plausible, it’s probable. 

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Not to mention Moose at the top of the BA prospect hotsheet (whoa!).  There's a blurb about Melville in there you can shield your eyes from.  But check out the Bullingon blurb:

Bryan Bullington, rhp, Royals. Really, one could nominate the entire Triple-A Omaha pitching staff for Blast From The Past. Their leaders in innings pitched: Bullington, Gaby Hernandez, Philip Humber, Anthony Lerew and Bruce Chen. Of those five, only Hernandez has never ranked among our Top 100 Prospects—though he was a 2004 third-round pick and peaked at No. 3 on three straight organization Top 10 Prospects lists from 2005-07. But as to Bullington, his pitching in Triple-A this season and last has made palatable the idea that the 29-year-old (and first overall pick in 2002) could be a low-leverage reliever in the big leagues. Now with his fourth organization, he has jumped out to a 2-0, 1.54 start for Omaha, registering 27 strikeouts and 10 walks in 35 innings thus far. He's held batters to a .169 average and allowed only one home run. Don't look now, but Bullington's low-90s fastball, sinking change, cutter and slider have given him the weaponry necessary to attack Pacific Coast League opponents. In the past two seasons (caveat: totaling 73 innings), he's run up a 2.58 ERA to go with strong ratios of 8.6 strikeouts, 2.1 walks and 0.4 home runs per nine innings.

Check out this line.

Apologies if this has already been discussed, I haven't had time to keep up the RR blog as much as I used to.  This is just awesome.  Will ran a little poll recently to guage how people are feeling now about the Royals since some prospects are performing well and Kila's been called up.  I think I clicked 'cautiously optimistic' or some such.  But Monty has me positively giddy.  Wanted to start a little thread about Monty to see which recent prospects people would compare him to (aside from Zack), both in terms of pitching style, but also in terms of pure potential (two separate questions really--comparable lefties with his repertoire versus just an 'abstract potential' meter). 

How about Clayton Kershaw as a comp for both?

2012:

Greinke, Monty, Crow, Bannister, ______

By Jackie Ballgame Kaegel

With Gordon, Callaspo, and Fields on the mend, the Royals are thinking outside the box and considering using Kyle Farnsworth as their third sacker on opening day.  Farnsworth, who has been hot dogging it from the pitcher’s rubber as a flame-throwing starter all Spring, has been turning heads (your head turns skyward every time he throws a fastball). 

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I was listening to the latest Baseball America podcast with Jon Manuel (Manual?) and…J.J. Cooper? (as usual, I’m nearly a week late on this).  Manuel voiced a point of view that I’ve heard often, a viewpoint that is very, very common and which has come to sort of drive me nuts because it seems illogical.  If I spend an entire train ride thinking it over, which I’ve done more than once, I can sort of squeeze some logic into it, but it requires philosophical contortions.  For me, anyway.  Okay so here’s Jon’s thesis:

(Paraphrasing):  ‘Sure, the Royals have a number of interesting arms in their system with good potential, but I just don’t trust their ability to develop any of them.  The Royals have a terrible history of developing pitchers.  With the exception of Greinke, they haven’t been able to develop a good pitcher for about fifteen years.’ 

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Prologue:

You know, the following blog post sounds awfully bitter now that I look at it twice.  I’m really not bitter on Christmas Eve, I just have too much fun ranting.  If there is ever true equity in baseball, I’m really going to miss these rants.  Imagine a world with nothing to rant about…I’d definitely complain about it…

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Dear Casey Casem,

I don’t understand something and I was hoping you could dedicate a song to help me out.  I don’t understand the ‘AL is better than the NL’ argument.  It is very reminiscent, and is just as popular as, the famous “NFC-style football” argument of my childhood.  Which I never understood.  I’m technically on the clock at work so I’m not going to go rummaging around in football schedules from the 80’s and 90’s, but if I remember correctly, the format has always been that a given NFL team would play one entire division from the opposite league.  At the time that was typically five games, or approximately a third of your schedule.  In addition, there wasn’t any discernible (discernAble?...my Microsoft Word spellchecker recognizes both spellings…curious) differences between conferences—no rule differences or room for collective referee bias (like strike zone judgment).  Maybe some NFL superfan out there will tell me that referees from each conference judge, say, pass-interference or intentional grounding differently, but with a third of teams’ games being mixed between leagues you’d have to think referee ‘style’ was homogenized. 

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(Note: the first sentence of this post originally said: “I’ll make this brief.”  Yeah, I redacted that). 

Player X most obviously represents Kila Ka’aihue, but you may think of others to plug into that sentence.  The Royals have actually done a decent job of moving players that don’t have futures (in their eyes) in KC—J.P. Howell, Ambiorix Burgos, Billy Buckner, Jorge De la Rosa, Danny Cortes, and __ Gutierrez (I only know minor leaguers not discussed often by Baseball America by their last names.  I’m like a high school gym coach).  It’s important to note that “decent job” here refers only to taking action.  The results of said action—and the soundness of the reasoning behind it—are an entirely different conversation that has to do with judgment (good vs. bad vs. ugly).  As those topics are well covered here at TDERR (The Discerning Eye of Royals Review), I decided it was worth a fanpost to just make, or perhaps reiterate, the obvious point mentioned in the title.

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Over and over again, nationwide, you constantly hear variations on the following theme: “The Royals organization has been making the same inept mistakes for years.”  Here are some of the variations:

            - Year in, year out, the Royals always [do X].

            - Signing Yuniesky Betancourt, that’s such a typical Royals move.

            - The Royals can’t develop a shortstop.  They’ve never really been able to.

How is it possible that these traits spill over from one regime to the next?

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I was starting squirm in my seat when the Royals were leading the division.  What was this strange team?  Who were these ‘Big Three’?  Who was this Bert Callaspo leading the league in doubles and this ’06 version of Mark Teahen?  What were these predictions in the New York Times of the Royals winning the Central?  It wasn’t the team I married twenty years ago—they were suddenly like Kevin Spacey going through a mid-life crisis, smoking pot and working out in the garage.  It was like I didn’t even know them any more.  They started making me feel self conscious.  Knowing I’m from Kansas City, people started asking me about the Royals around the water cooler (I live in Hoboken, NJ, work in New York.  If you’re ever in Hobo, I’m the guy wearing the Royals hat...or the only guy in town who isn’t bald...as of yet...take your pick).  “Soooo, looks like the Royals are doing okay!”  I looked at them with insecurity and fear.  Were they sincere?  My chest-thumping-KC-fan-read-self-deprecating-Midwestern-humor didn’t work anymore, now it sounded like bragging.  The Lionel Train-esque model of Kauffman stadium (complete with little people in blue hats) I started to build on my desk lost its tongue-in-cheek oeuvre.  Also, much like Rob Neyer, I had nothing to write about. 

All I can say is, Thank God they came back to me!  I know them again, I can touch them, they’re real again!  If I see Teahen in an upscale steakhouse when I come back to town I don’t have to act shy around him, I can just say ‘Hey Mark, pass the salt’.  We can commiserate about how the front office doesn’t give a damn about upgrading the talent level of the ballclub, even though that’s a not-so-subtle slam of all of his clubhouse friends (I always get a kick out of this—i.e. Greinke’s statement that he signed with the team because the front office seemed committed to improving the talent of the ballclub.  In other words, all you guys I’ve been playing with over the last few years, you all pretty much suck and I signed because I believe you’ll all be gone shortly).  I like the paradoxical statements and feelings of dysfunctional teams, it’s in my blood.  These friggin Yankees fans wonder how I can be a Royals fan.  To me that’s like a ‘movie fan’ asking me how I can read books.  When the Royals win like that it makes me feel like I’m just buying in to mainstream America’s fascination with easy entertainment!  Might as well just give me a barrel of popcorn and 8 ounces of fake butter along with it!  All you fans of good teams, you’re all lemmings. 

Here’s a sentence you probably won’t read anywhere else: Signing Kyle Farnsworth was not a mistake.  Let me explain.  Signing CC Sabathia to a 3 billion dollar 40-year contract may prove to be a mistake.  If CC falls apart within a year or two, we could reasonably call it a mistake in retrospect because there was some logic to signing him in the first place.  And yet there was also a compelling warning sign: he’s thrown over 1600 innings at age 28.  An error in judgment, to me, presupposes that the option you chose had at least some argument, however flawed.    

Suppose you handed a young minor leaguer with potential, say Carlos Rosa, the job as your primary setup man coming out of spring training and he had his confidence forever shattered by Jim Thome the first week of the season.  You could say that was a mistake, with hindsight, because you could maybe see the logic of the move.  Rosa, in a strange way, seems like he was made to be a setup man (not a closer, not a middle reliever, not a starter, but a setup guy.  He fits the tall, lanky 8th inning stereotype, but lacks the weird quasi-psychopath facial hair of a closer, and the tree trunk legs of a starter).  He’s got a bit of a track record of being good, you could see where they were going had they decided to try him out in the role.  But you could also see the stupidity of it.  If he failed, you’d say “The Royals are always rushing kids to the big leagues!  When are they ever going to learn??”  You’d write it off as a mistake.  And you’d be strangely satisfied to leave it at that.

That’s the funny thing about mistakes; we accept them.  We even call them ‘honest’.  Dayton Moore is a man, he’s allowed to make mistakes.  Michael Jordon became great because he learned from his mistakes, etc.  You can make your peace with a mistake.

Hear me now, believe me later, signing Farnsworth was not a mistake.  And that’s why he’s so maddening.  This explains why he creates rage…not just rage, but froth among Royals fans.  He wasn’t a mistake so we can’t make our peace with him.  If you signed David Eckstein as your clean-up hitter, bat him fourth, and start him at first base, you couldn’t say in retrospect that it was a mistake.  You couldn’t say it because there was no logic to it in the first place.  None.  Eckstein has never hit for any kind of power, has never shown an ability to drive in runners, took a lineup spot away from some power hitter who could only play first, etc, ad infinitum.  You could turn it over and over in your hands like an extra terrestrial object, analyze it from all angles, and you’d never find the logic.  It’s just not in there.  It’s like this art exhibit I saw once in a museum.  It was a folding chair.  That’s all it was, just a chair.  Anything else to it?  An explanation of some kind?  Nope, just a chair.

Now, don’t get me wrong here.  I’ve been pretty harsh toward Dayton Moore in this space since somewhere around January, or whenever he signed the Farns, but the truth is, now that I’ve ‘thought it over’…no, now that I’ve seen Davies blossom, I’ve understood that Moore has done some really savvy things.  Signing Davies was just brilliant, even if Moore’s motivation there was Davies’ Braveness.  It was especially smart because Moore set up the Davies trade a few moves in advance, like a good chess player.  Trying to figure a way to quickly restock the Royals, he grabbed Octavio Dotel knowing Dotel would succeed (there were subtle indications that Dotel would bounce back…just like there were subtle indications Meche was about to break out).  He read those indications and knew that by signing Dotel he was essentially signing a young prospect (which he would obtain at the trading deadline).  He may well have already had Davies in his sights.  Knowing the Braves’ bullpen situation, the types of pitchers they like (Rafael Soriano reminds me an awful lot of Dotel) he may well have known the Braves might need Dotel by the deadline and might be willing to flip Davies for him.  I think Moore set about acquiring Davies from the moment he got here.  And it looks in the early going this year like Moore might have been exactly right about this kid.  We’ve already talked about Meche.  We’ve gotten to know him so well we almost forget what a bold move that was.  Jon Heyman mocked the Royals for the Meche signing with a front page article at Sports Illustrated online. 

So credit where credit is due here. 

But all that does is make this Farnsworth signing even more baffling.  Like I say, it wasn’t a mistake.  There is no logic anyone can come up with that will justify that move to me.  No logic.  I’ve spent so much time thinking about this and coming up empty, that I’m going to just throw something out there:

Moore is a gambler.  Not just a gambler, a wild gambler.  Maybe after Meche and what he was seeing in Davies, he got a little cocky.  He probably thought he could see things in pitchers that other people just can’t, the same way a gambler wins a few big black jack hands and suddenly feels like he has an uncommon knack.  Ask my brother, who was a black jack dealer; he would see it all the time.  Guys would get the taste for it and start betting hundreds, thousands. 

As much as I try to tell myself that the money aspect of the Farnsworth signing doesn’t matter, it’s not my money, etc., we all know it does matter.  We all know one man’s Farnsworth is another man’s Orlando Hudson.  Dayton went all in on Farnsworth, which is to say he went all in and hit on a hard thirteen.  At a poker table: he went all in with a 3 and a 2, off suit.  At a roulette wheel: he went all in on a two-number combination.  At a Russian roulette table: alright let’s not go overboard with this.

What’s even weirder still, is that he didn’t even have to go all in.  Farnsworth would have played for us for less than half of that contract.  So there must have been another player at the table.  There must have been.  Unless Farnsworth’s agent bluffed Dayton into believing there was another player.  In my fantasy league this year, which is an auction league, I got into a pissing contest with another guy over Chase Utley.  Now, Utley is no Farnsworth, or vice versa, but the philosophy still applies.  The guy had decided he was going to get Utley before the auction ever started.  He decided his whole strategy for this season depended on getting Utley.  Going into to the auction with that knowledge, there was no chance he was going to get outbid.  And he didn’t.  I bid him all the way up to $45, which is pretty absurd for one player in our league, partly because I sensed during the bidding that he was going to beat me no matter what.  Well, Dayton went into the offseason the same way I suppose.  At some point he spied Farnsworth.  And like a gambler in cowboy boots at 4 a.m., he just wrote the check. 

Going all in on a two-number combination at the roulette wheel is not a mistake.  It’s not a mistake because, to a certain kind of gambler at a familiar moment, it makes sense.    

KANSAS CITY:  Dayton Moore, who allegedly declined a job offer as general manager of the Red Sox just three seasons ago is making a bid to become that organization’s assistant GM.  Attempting to follow in the footsteps of former Royals GM Allard Baird, Moore is doing everything he needs to do to make himself attractive to current Red Sox GM Theo Epstein.  Baird won the job mainly through his ability to build a starting pitching staff, signing the likes of Scott Elarton, Mark Redman, Joe Mays, and Jose Lima.  Moore, opening his third full season at the helm of the Royals, initially looked as if he had no chance of qualifying for the position of Red Sox assistant.  Signing Gil Meche to a large contract in the face of nationwide media and fan pressure, he looked like a boon for the Royals when Meche became one of the American league’s better workhorses on the mound.   Another trade, for Brian Bannister, the Rule 5 selection of All Star Joakim Soria, and under-the-radar trade for Ramon Ramirez had Moore looking like a Royals fixture well into the next decade. 

Yet, suddenly, Moore appears to be thrusting himself back into the Red Sox assistant picture.  “It’s like someone once said, don’t ever give up,” said Royals manager Trey Hillman.  Giving up is one thing Moore doesn’t do.  With a rotation that initially appeared to be a far cry from the one that netted Baird the Red Sox assistant job, including burgeoning young talent Kyle Davies who Moore himself pried from Atlanta, Moore cleverly removed Luke Hochevar, the team’s only viable #4 starter, replacing him with Horacio Ramirez, a pitcher in the Baird mold.  Then he added Sidney Ponson, another nod to the Baird era.  Finally, just yesterday, he cut Ryan Shealy—a big right-handed bat who could have platooned with Mike Jacobs against left-handed pitchers if Jacobs showed difficulty with AL lefties, a late-inning defensive replacement at first base, and a decent trading chip failing all else—choosing instead to keep a quintessential Baird-esque player in fan favorite Tony Pena Jr., despite having already signed TPJ replica Willie Bloomquist for approximately 1.5 million recession dollars per season. 

Voila, he’s right back in the running.  “We look at guys who maybe didn’t quite work with other organizations for one reason or another,” said Epstein regarding the Red Sox assistant job.  “A lot of times they have good ideas.  Other times, they have not-so-good ideas.  Former GM’s flourish here because we’re able to veto those bad ideas, just sweep ‘em under the rug.  Sometimes at meetings we just pretend we didn’t hear them.  Saves everyone a lot of useless conversation.” 

It should be mentioned that the impressive overhaul of the Royals farm system may eventually prevent Moore from obtaining the Red Sox job, but some decisions at the major league level suggest he’s not done trying. 

Laugh away at Tony Pena Jr.’s batting average or on-base percentage.  Slap your knee to the tune of his slugging percentage, which barely broke the Mendoza line last season—a marker normally reserved for batting average.  But make no mistake, Tony Pena Jr. might be the most important player at the Royals’ complex in Surprise, Arizona this year. 

Accurately measuring players’ Spring Training performance has confounded scouts, managers and fans for decades.  So much so that fans normally tune them out entirely.  Is Alex Gordon hitting the ball hard?  Well, he hit it pretty hard in Spring of ’07.  Hochevar is locating his fastball?  Runelvys Hernandez did that in the Spring not so long ago, too.  There’s just no way to know whose performance is a legitimate sign of the season to come, and whose exists in isolation as players around the major leagues stretch, warm up, and work out the kinks in their swings and wind-ups. 

That’s where Pena comes in.  Royals staffers have taken to calling him “the human barometer.”  For instance, yesterday both Mark Teahen and Mike Jacobs had good days at the plate.  Yet so did Pena.  Have a look at Dick Kaegel’s notes from the game:

“Royals at the plate: Mike Jacobs and Mark Teahen paced the offense. Teahen finished with a pair of homers, a double, two RBIs and four runs scored, while Jacobs contributed a two-run shot. Tony Pena Jr. also had a nice day at the plate with three singles, driving in a run with his first knock. Willie Bloomquist added a two-run single in the seventh.”

When asked whether fans should get excited about a possible return to 2006 for Mark Teahen based on yesterday’s game, a Royals official who wishes to remain anonymous brushed it off.  “I mean, I’m not saying it won’t happen, but look, TPJ had three hits too.  He drove in a run.  Heck, you don’t have to ask me, what does that tell you?”

And, in a nutshell, that is why Pena is getting so much playing time.  Pena tells Royals evaluaters which stats to take seriously.  It’s not a perfect system by any stretch.  If Jacobs hits a bomb and Pena strikes out four times, for example, you still can’t say with certainty that Jacobs had a good day.  But if Pena hits the ball, even once, on the same day other players do, you can keep those numbers out of your Spring Training calculator. 

“He’s been monumentally important for us, in terms of our ability to guage how the other guys are doin’” said manager Trey Hillman, spitting what could have been tobacco juice, but might have been just regular spit.  One thing is sure, the Royals are leaving no stone unturned this Spring. 

I’ll start off by cutting Dayton Moore some slack.  No one knew, except (supposedly) a few smug I-told-you-so’s on Wall Street, just how far the economy would dive.  Blaming Moore now for not predicting that Orlando Hudson—who rejected a 3 year, $24 million deal just a short time ago in hopes that he’d find something in the neighborhood of 5 years, $50 million—would be available for 1 year, $5 million, is the ultimate unfair second guess. 

Dutton reports Hudson would take 1 year at $4.4 million + incentives that would raise it to $8 million.  Where the hell did Dutton get such precise info?  Was he drinking playing miniature golf and drinking Old Crowe with Hudson’s agent? “Alright, alright, alright.  I get a hole in one in the Hippo’s mouth, you give me the exact details of Hudson’t demand... to the penny...”

If that’s the case, then 2 years, $10 million guaranteed gets it done.  That’s a time capsule of a contract; you’re getting a 31-year-old Grudzielanek who walks more and hits for more power for the exact same price we paid the grizzled version.  Shocking, isn’t it?  Not Bobby-Abreu-for-$5-million shocking, but shocking.  Still, I refuse to say Moore should have known he could afford Hudson.  No one knew any of this would happen, and no one knows just how bad this economic train wreck is going to be.  Greinke’s contract is looking smarter and smarter (for Greinke) every day. 

Prediction: free agent classes are going to get worse because even more players are going to lock themselves into long-term,“discounted” deals.  Fear of the unknown is a powerful force.  Maybe we should offer Moustakas a ten year deal right now.

Kyle Farnsworth was one of the first, if not the first, free agent signed this offseason.  Moore has to be cursing fate for that contract at the moment, and not for any of the reasons TDERRC (The Discerning Eye of the Royals Review Community) is criticizing it.  Moore basically bought stock in Citigroup circa September 2008.  A lot of it.  TDERRC and the rest of the baseball loving nation never would have believed at the Farnsworth signing, even with the foreshadowing of an eerily quiet Winter Meetings, that there was about to be the ultimate blue light special on top shelf offensive players.  

Let’s call December of ’08 ‘normal economic times’ just for fun.  Even in normal economic times, Royals Nation gasped at the size of the Farnsworth contract.  I looked around on the internet for a list of the largest non-closer relief contracts (and because of inflation, we can probably assume this to be a list of the largest non-closer relief contracts ever—IN THE HISTORY OF BASEBALL!!).

Finding no such list, I started looking team-by-team in USA Today’s online baseball salary database.  Then I realized it was around 11:00 am and, being that I was at work and all, I umm, felt I should probably put away my salary calculator before my job’s equivalent of Dayton Moore rounded the corner of my cube.  I got through around nine teams and found that a lot of teams have one highly paid middle reliever.  The big market teams have two.  In 2008, the Cubs, who have a lot of highly paid everything, have Scott Eyre at 3.8 mil, and Bobby Howry at 4.5.  The Southsiders (yeah, I’m calling them big market, mainly because they’re in a big market) have Dotel at 5 mil, and Scott Linebrink at 4.  The Red Sox have Julian Tavarez at 3.8 mil and Mike Timlin at 3.   And now the Royals have Ron Mahay at 4 and Professor Farsworth, PhD., at 4.5.  That’s rolling with the Cubs and Red Sox.  When the hitters go out to party, the Sox and Cubs (and Jose Guillen) hang out at Scores in Las Vegas, while the Royals hang out at a dive called Scoreboard’s in Los Alamos.  While the big market starting pitchers (and Gil Meche) hit Plaza III, the Royals rotation hits Chubby’s on Broadway.  But when the middle relievers go out, the Royals are crowding the limo. 

Actually, the Royals and Orioles have their own limo.  Danys Baez received $6,166,666 last year for his services.  Dollars, that is.  It’s not really fair to put Baez in the middle reliever category, since he was signed originally as a closer.  But...

Alright let’s talk about Danys Baez and the Orioles for a second.  Baez apparently “studied physics in Cuba. He loves animals and has a boxer named Lennox in honor of professional boxer Lennox Lewis.” Okay that’s something.  He started off okay with the Indians and wasn’t quite what they thought he’d be as a starter.  And so they turned him into a closer.  Makes sense.  As a closer he had 25 saves, not bad...and 10 blown saves which tied for the league lead.  Hey, he was young.  He then went to Tampa where he converted 30 of 33 saves.  Now we’re talking.  Then he was traded to the Dodgers where he was demoted from the closer role after blowing four straight games.  L.A. traded him to the Braves, where he threw a 5.4 ERA and 82 ERA+ for the remainder of the season as a setup guy to Bob Wickman.  That offseason, the Orioles signed him for 3 years, $19 million.

Wooooooow.  (There’s this cable commercial where I live, wherein a family is watching a new flatscreen TV that has, apparently, an incredible image because everyone is saying ‘Wooooow,’ including a flea that is sitting on the cat’s back.  I’m now channeling the flea). 

The whole point of this digression was to show how ludicrous the Farnsworth contract really is.  But I don’t think it holds a candle to the Baez contract.  The Orioles also pay Chad Bradford 3.6 mil, who might well be worth it.  Regardless, the dinner tab is definitely on the Orioles’ middle relievers. 

So the Royals are rolling with the big dogs when it comes to their bullpen, while the O-dog will work for food at second base.  Now, I don’t want to go too crazy over O-dog here; he’s a good player, no doubt.  Above average offensively, well above average defensively.  He has roughly a 3:2 strikeout to walk ratio, an OPS+ that has been consistently over a hundred, roughly a .350 obp.  He’ll hit you around 10 homers, 30 doubles, and he recently had two seasons in a row where he hit 9 triples.  Wait a minute, maybe I should gush over him.  30 doubles (at second base)?  9 triples?  Throw in around 10 stolen bases?  What are the Royals thinking here?

Alright, deep breath.  We didn’t know he’d be this affordable.  But that’s not why I brought up Kyle Farnsworth.  With the Farnsworth contract, and the Hoagy contract before him, the Royals painted themselves into a corner.  Good fortune is when preparedness meets opportunity, someone’s dad likes to say.  Well, we met our opportunity.  And we weren’t prepared.

We might not have known Hudson would be available to us.  But we did know, TDERRC knew, that that Farnsworth contract was going to come back and bite us in the *ss.  It already has, and the season hasn’t even started yet.