SB Nation User Blog: jackie ballgame

‘AL is vastly superior to NL’ argument doesn’t make sense to me (Casey Casem, set me straight)

jackie ballgame — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:24:09 -0000

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.

Furthermore, both conferences have always drafted from the same pool of players (we’re getting to baseball in a second, bear with me). Okay, so, you have the same players, the same rules, not much room for referee bias, and at least 30% of team schedules mixing conferences. But that didn’t stop NFL commentators and my University of Iowa college roommate—who was from the Chicago area—from constantly squawking about ‘NFC-style-football.’ That spiel just wouldn’t die. It was something about aggressive (blitzing?) defense and smash-mouth running offenses. Correct me if I’m wrong, Gen-Xers, but the ‘NFC style’ was all about line-play and ball control. Best I can tell this myth was built on the Bears and the Giants and Emmitt Smith. And maybe the Redskins? Never mind that Walter Payton was quintessentially not a ball-control back, that the NFC featured the 49ers who were the least smash-mouth team of all time, that Troy Aikman’s down-field passing shared at least half the credit for the awesomeness of the Cowboys’ offense, and that Marty Schottenheimer was an AFC coach. Seriously, the ‘NFC-style’ was basically describing the Chiefs.

Today’s version of the ‘NFC-style’ spiel is ‘the AL is so much better than the NL, they might as well just separate the leagues and make the NL a farm system for the AL.’ Every time a player, particularly a pitcher (CC Sabathia, Cliff Lee) switches leagues and goes from being a very good AL pitcher to a dominant NL pitcher, everyone crows about AL dominance. KC Star reporters write absurd articles about how, if the Royals were in the NL, they would be competing for a playoff spot.

I’m not rejecting the ‘AL is way better than the NL’ argument out of hand, I’m just saying I haven’t yet seen an acceptable explanation for it. ‘AL pitchers are way better, as a group, than NL pitchers’, for example, isn’t much of an explanation. Because, if you think about it, it doesn’t make any sense. What you’re saying with that particular non-argument is, essentially “We are witnessing an incredible coincidence. It just so happens that sixteen teams, which all happen to be in the National League, have simultaneously fallen victim to the same deficiencies: none of them know how to scout pitching, and their minor league pitching development techniques happen to all be terrible. Conversely, fourteen teams in the AL all happen to scout and develop pitching very well.”

Now, maybe you could say league-wide rules or umpiring differences somehow have had an effect on how pitching talent develops. This argument would posit something like “smaller strike zones condition pitchers to throw more hittable pitches.” Now, that could be an interesting argument, but does it really speak to talent levels? I mean, couldn’t Jake Peavy just go through a transition period as he gets used to the new strike zone? In fact, wouldn’t that make Peavy a better pitcher in the AL, since he’s gotten used to working in such tight spaces?

Whatever rules or bias-based argument you might make to explain why pitching is worse in the NL…wouldn’t those same arguments necessarily imply that hitting is better? For example, the ‘pitchers in the NL are more hittable because they have a smaller strike zone argument’ would have to also say ‘hitters are better in the NL because they get more hittable pitches.’ Or maybe they’re worse because they get more hittable pitches and therefore never develop the ability to deal with pitches that are higher or lower in the strike zone? Is that what this is all about? I guess then they’d be worse when transitioning to the AL because suddenly they wouldn’t be seeing so many hittable pitches, maybe this was Holliday’s problem in Oakland.

But even if you made arguments like those, you couldn’t make the leap that baseball is somehow inferior in the NL, you’d simply be saying it’s played differently and there are awkward adjustments for players switching leagues. I’m starting to go in circles here, but you get my drift. Arguments for league-wide superiority talent-wise just make no sense to me.

So could you play “Lost In Emotion” by Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam?

Sincerely,

Lost and Confused

If Player X isn’t part of The Plan, why not trade him (when his value is decent)?

jackie ballgame — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:46:26 -0000

(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.

Who am I kidding, this is a Kila Ka’aihue post, 100%. It was obvious last offseason the Royals didn’t believe Kila was good enough for the major league team when they traded away the 8th inning for Jacobs. I mean they made a big show of obtaining Jacobs and talked up his power and insinuated that he was a big part of the Royals’ future. A few of us irrationally hopeful fans held out hope that Jacobs was an experiment and that Hawaiian Punch had a shot to be in the bigs by mid-summer (the fact that this didn’t happen was the final straw that cryogenically froze Rany’s Royals fandom. It pushed him over the edge. He’s on a leather couch somewhere, staring at the ceiling, smoking cigarettes and talking about his infancy). The Irrational Fan Assumption was this: “The Royals want Kila to prove what he did last year, so they’re obtaining Jacobs as a hedge. It’s obvious to us (irrational fans) that Kila will show he’s a monster in short order, and the Royals will move Jacobs aside because they like to waste money.”

The Royals Front Office Assumption* had two main points: Point 1: “We’re skeptical he’s any good. Can’t hit the fastball. Not betting on him, get Jacobs.” Point 2: “Let’s keep him around though, just in case he does indeed turn out to be a monster, and also because moving him would be a big P.R. mistake since he’s known for his excellent OBP and Jacobs is known specifically for his horrible OBP and trading Kila would turn the Jacobs acquisition into a blatant swap: Jacobs for Kila. Such a blatant swap would be a horrible P.R. move because Dayton JUST finished telling Joe Posnanski in an interview that the Royals HIGHLY value OBP, and the swap would FLAGRANTLY undermine that statement because, again, Kila is so widely known for his OBP skills he might as well become the face of the OBP movement (on posters and everything) while Jacobs, more than ANY other player in all of baseball, is the very antithesis of OBP. He’s the anti-OBP. If there were ever an Ultimate Fighting OBP showdown, Kila Ka’aihue and Mike Jacobs would be staring at each other on the billboard. And by trading Kila, we would be making the explicit statement: WE’RE TAKING MIKE JACOBS IN THE ULTIMATE FIGHTING OBP SHOWDOWN. WE’RE BETTING ON THE ANTI-OBP. IN THE HIERARCHY OF QUALITIES WE LOOK FOR IN PLAYERS, OBP IS CLEARLY BELOW WHATEVER IT IS WE SEE IN JACOBS, (okay, I can stop using caps now) despite what Dayton just told Joe Posnanski a few days ago.”

*Question: If you multiply the Royals Front Office Assumption by the Irrational Fan Assumption do you get reality? Such that: RFOA x IFA = Reality.

All of that has been covered ad nauseum. But here’s the reason for my post, my ‘point’ if you will: If they believed Point 1, which they clearly did, why not trade Kila after his monster 2008 season? Credit where credit is due, Moore had already worked wonders in this very scenario: Ambiorix Burgos was very highly valued around the league for his explosive arm. Moore thought the arm was fools gold and so he turned Burgos into Bannister. If he thought Kila was fools gold, why not turn Kila into ________? (You know the correct name for the blank is Yuni Betancourt, you know that’s true, and we got him anyway, so hey, win-win!). Unfortunately, Kila’s value, league-wide, is probably now less than half of what it was last offseason. So my more general question is, if you have a guy who you think is playing over his head, why not trade him immediately? I mean immediately. This is the classic fantasy baseball axiom. I think perhaps I already voiced the Royals answer to the question in Point 2. Would have been bad P.R.

The Evolution of the Royals Genome

jackie ballgame — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 21:33:27 -0000

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?

I’ve been a Royals fan since around 1988 (I moved to KC in ’86 and it took a couple years to sink in). I can’t remember the exact year Schuerholz left, at twelve years old—at least back then—you didn’t typically know or care about the general manager. You cared about Brett and Stillwell and Seitzer and Gubicza and Montgomery (I always thought he looked like Neil Young. Of course, at twelve I was cool enough to know who Neil Young was). When I finally realized you should care about and keep track of the GM, Herk Robinson was the guy. I remember—until he traded for Jermaine Dye—I couldn’t stand Herk. He seemed to always be acquiring old, slow guys (it’s likely that entire perception was colored by Kevin McReynolds). I remember when we signed Wally Joyner. You’d think Joyner would be a kids’ ballplayer—he looked like your dad out there, master of the fundamentals. But I couldn’t stand him; I wasn’t old enough to respect what he brought to the table. All I knew was that he was a first baseman who hit like a second baseman. It seemed like all the Royals, except Danny Tartabull, an aging George Brett and you-know-who, hit like second basemen (this is why I was slightly worried when we signed Seitzer as a hitting coach. I was, and still am, worried that he’s going to teach everyone to hit like Wally Joyner).

I’m getting way off topic. Point is, Herk—fairly or not—seemed to be the grandfather of a few traits that the Royals are now famous for, not the least of which is the blah acquisition—the overpaid free agents who were once maybe kind of good, but are now in the declining phase of their career and sign with the Royals mainly because they can’t sign anywhere else (you know the names. I’d like to see a complete list. The all-over-the-hill Royals team. The Kansas City Blah Stars). The best part is the Royals’ subsequent propaganda campaign. They fly over Kansas City and drop pamphlets out of an airplane. He may be 38, but [McReynolds, Gonzalez, Sanders, Guillen, ____, ____ ] is a POWER BAT!

The blah acquisition is just one of many alleles in what is taken to be Royals’ genetic code. ‘Can’t develop a shortstop’ is another. ‘Can’t develop a starting pitcher’ used to be one before Zack arrived. But here’s what doesn’t make sense to me. Haven’t there been three different front office regimes since Schuerholz left town and these fungi originally appeared? I can’t remember how many of Robinson’s staff carried over into the Baird regime, but since Baird was one of Robinson’s guys, you could try and say that he carried Herk’s traits with him. Perhaps, for example, Baird was infused with Herk’s eye for blah acquisitions.

But can you really ascribe the Royals’ organizational traits—those characteristics so quintessentially…Royalsian—to Moore? I mean, you can and no one will really disagree; the guy did sign Jose Guillen to a ridiculously burdensome contract. Yuniesky is a quintessentially Royals blah acquisition. But it just doesn’t make sense to me. This ascription of character traits to sports organizations across regimes happens all the time in sports. The ‘Braves’ Way’ will be referenced long after Schuerholz is gone from the organization. They’ll acquire some pitcher in 2050 and someone will say, that’s a classic Braves move! Shoot, you see this kind of thing all the time, not just in sports, but in life. “Foreign policy X is so American.” But you see a lot of it in sports. “NFC style football.” “Yankees style baseball” (even though their entire core was signed this last offseason).

I guess it wouldn’t bug me so much if there didn’t seem to be some truth in it, even if it makes no sense at all. Think about it. The only holdover from the Baird regime—as noted by Rany—is Nick Swartz. You’re telling me Nick Swartz carries on the Royals Way? Somebody is going to say that Glass is the common denominator, that he and his ownership circle (family) carry it along from GM to GM. I’m not buying. We’re led to believe that he has absolutely no say in player acquisitions, that Moore has been given total autonomy per his demands upon signing up for the job. And I do believe it. Also, the Royals are actually spending money now. They’re spending more money than almost anyone else in the draft, and they’re funding an extra affiliate. That was why we were so excited when Moore arrived, there were tangible changes in the way the team operated. Going forward, Royalsian moves were to be a thing of the past. When we saw Glass opening his wallet, we didn’t need convincing.

And yet…Royalsian moves continue. Not just typically Royals moves, quintessentially Royals moves. Is there a spirit hanging around at Kauffman stadium? Does the team need to be exorcised? If so, let’s hurry up and arrange it.

With the Royals Comfortably Under Water, I’m Home Again

jackie ballgame — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:42:57 -0000

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.

Dayton Moore Is Addicted to Gambling; It’s the Only Explanation

jackie ballgame — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 03:44:37 -0000

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.

Moore Auditioning For Position As Epstein Assistant

jackie ballgame — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 18:58:35 -0000

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.

Pena Serving Important Role at Spring Training

jackie ballgame — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:54:44 -0000

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.

Crying Over Spilled Hudson

jackie ballgame — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:21:11 -0000

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.

Sabrmetric Data Shows 7.16 ERA Isn’t So Bad If Accomplished By Lefty

jackie ballgame — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:24:32 -0000

After careful consideration, sabrmetricians across the country agree that high ERA’s thrown by lefties are more valuable to a team than high ERA’s thrown by righties. “Technically, a lefty who puts up a 7.16 ERA allows the same number of runs as a righty with a 7.16 ERA,” statistical guru Jackie Ballgame said in a press conference on the groundbreaking discovery. “But it’s the WAY that the lefty allows those runs. Lefties throw the other team completely off. Hitters might score five, six, seven runs every time you run a given lefty out there, sure, but they’re completely off balance. It’s all in the numbers.”

That analysis has raised questions among the baseball faithful. What if, say, a righty like Brian Bannister or Luke Hochevar puts up an ERA of 4.5 and a lefty puts up a 7.0? Is that 7 ERA somehow better than the 4.5? “I know it sounds wacky to the common fan,” says Ballgame, “but us stat gurus, we’ll take the lefty even in that scenario. Let me break it down for you. The righty is allowing in the neighborhood of three fewer runs to cross the plate per nine innings. But you have to keep in mind the way they’re allowing those runs. Against the righty, the runs are crossing the plate in an orderly, no-nonsense fashion. Against the lefty, it’s a completely different story. The runners are disoriented. The ball was coming at them from a different angle when they hit it over the wall, so they might be running the bases sideways or backwards. The players in the opposing dugout are confused, the opposing manager just doesn’t know what to make of the situation. And that’s what you want, that’s what the lefty gives you, a total state of confusion on your opponents’ bench.”

The Royals, in their low-key, tight-lipped style of late won’t admit that they’re using such complex statistics to assist them in putting their rotation together this year. But you can bet they’ve got this analysis in mind.

Manager Trey Hillman all but admitted recently that Horacio Ramirez would have to “pitch his way out of” a rotation spot despite getting regularly shelled in his last stint as a starter in Seattle. "He's going to have to pitch his way out of it," Hillman acknowledged. "Am I fence-riding a little bit? Yeah, I am because he's got to pitch well enough to seize one of those spots. But, at the same time, we have a preference that we'd like to have a left-hander in that rotation."

Soria to Start on World Stage?

jackie ballgame — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:17:47 -0000

Alright, this one’s from the hip. I’ve done no research on this, and, as usual, apologies if this has been well-covered by the discerning eye of RoyalsReview Nation (a subcult of the only-slightly-better-known Royals Nation). Here’s what I’ve been chewing on for the last couple days: Soria is going to pitch for Mexico in the World Baseball Classic. Now, Mexico has plenty of good players, I would bet that Mexico’s team will be far from the worst in the tournament. Nonetheless, I would also bet that the Mexicutioner is among the two or three best players on the team, and along with Yovani Gallardo (if he plays), one of the two best pitchers. Tell me now, oh manager of the Mexican team, are you going to put Joakim in the bullpen when your national pride is on the line?

I didn’t think so.

What that means, then, is that Soria might very well START on a world stage—I would even say he’s likely to start, on that stage in front of everyone. In front of the Discerning Eye of RRNation, in front of Joe Posnanski and Rany Jazayerli and Dayton Moore. Not to mention Davis Glass, for whatever that’s worth.

In light of this delightful possibility, I’d like throw out a little hypothetical. What happens if, say, he dominates? What happens if he whiffs Alex Rodriguez on three pitches...in the 7th inning? What would happen if he were to throw a 100-pitch complete game?

I’m not saying this is likely to happen, I’m just throwing out the most interesting scenario. I could write a few thousand words expanding this scenario and looking at the hypotheticals, but I’ll keep this one short. I’m operating under the premise that Moore, even in the above scenario, would keep him in the closer’s role. Moore is a resolute guy, he doesn’t cow to fan pressure, or media pressure, or probably even ownership pressure. Someone once compared him to Don Corleone (Royals Authority, I think) and I think that’s about right. I’m not suggesting he’s a bad guy or anything, on the contrary, he’s a man of strong moral fiber. But he operates by his own rules.

But imagine the clamor if Soria dominates. I’m thinking he won’t just be getting pressure from the fans and the media, he might get a little from various corners of the front office. Regardless (Craig Brown, or is it Clark, stop staying “irregardless” already. I know the dictionary may say it’s legitimate, but come on, “regardless” is so much cleaner, neater, eloquent). Regardless, I can’t wait to see what happens.