2 + 2 = ?
Posted: June 30th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 52 Comments »
This is, on the surface, all about the Kansas City Royals. But really, I think, it’s not. It’s about unexpected consequences, the vision thing and why two plus two does not always equal four.
So, here’s the thing: Royals general manager Dayton Moore knows about a hundred times more about baseball than I do. I mean this literally. Dayton Moore spends countless hours thinking, considering and pondering baseball. I could count my hours. He has access to a million scouting reports and honest opinions. He played the game, coached the game, scouted the game. He knows baseball in numerous way that I do not. But that’s OK, Royals manager Trey Hillman knows about hundred times more about baseball than I do. The Royals organization is filled with bright people — scouts, coaches, instructors — who all know about a hundred times more about baseball than I do.
Why start with that? Because of this: The Kansas City Royals in 2007 scored 706 runs, 13th in the American League. That was the first full year of Royals general manager Dayton Moore, and he understood (of course) that you really cannot expect to be successful finishing 13th out of 14 teams in runs scored. He understood … and realized that something needed to be done.
A look at the most-used lineup in 2007 showed that, actually, a LOT had to be done.
1. David DeJesus, cf
2. Mark Grudzielanek, 2b
3. Mark Teahen, rf
4. Billy Butler, dh (Mike Sweeney when healthy)
5. Ross Gload, 1b
6. Alex Gordon, 3b
7. Emil Brown, lf
8. John Buck, c
9. Tony Pena, ss
Well, you can see Moore’s dilemma. There was just not much there. DeJesus is kind of a quirky leadoff hitter (decent on-base percentage, history of getting hurt, no speed). Grud was getting up in age. Teahen was no No. 3 hitter. Butler showed promise but he had no business in the four spot. Gload at No. 5 was a fiasco. Gordon did not make the immediate splash everyone hoped. Emil Brown, well, we’ve been over that topic a lot. John Buck is John Buck — he will run into some balls and play hard — and Tony Pena can’t hit.
The first thing Moore wanted to do was get a legitimate middle-of-the-order bat, a veteran who would hit fourth every game and give pitchers something to think about. He had some money to do it too … Sweeney’s $55 million payroll was coming off the books, some other money was being freed up … Moore went hard after Torii Hunter. He made a big offer to Hunter and came awfully close to sealing the deal. But then the Angels swooped in, took Hunter away, and Moore felt even more pressure to make a move.
When the smoke cleared, the Royals signed Jose Guillen for $12 million a year. Admittedly, Guillen had a reputation as a pain-in-the-neck and he was turning 32 — which is just about the age when batters like Jose Guillen can begin to fade … BUT scouting reports indicated Guillen still had a quick bat, and he had punched up a 116 OPS+ in Seattle and, in the mind of Royals scouts, he was the best bat left out there on the open market. And, as Moore said, he was better than anything they had.
The Royals traded for a young second baseman, Alberto Callaspo. Admittedly, Callaspo had a checkered past — he was arrested for domestic violence at one point — and he did not bring much speed, power or defense to the table … BUT the Royals research indicated he wasn’t a bad guy (he’s still with his wife — the arrest was apparently a complicated matter) and he showed rather remarkable bat control. He almost never struck out. The Royals figured he could be a good offensive player and he might develop some gap power. They thought (hoped?) he could be good enough defensively to play second every day.
The Royals signed catcher Miguel Olivo for about $2 million. Admittedly, Olivo seemed to be dedicated to the proposition that walking is bad for a man — he had a .275 lifetime on-base percentage — and he did not seem to bring significantly different talents from John Buck … BUT the Royals liked the pop in his bat, liked his powerful arm, though he could improve offensively. They felt like he could be an asset as an every day big league catcher. The Royals also hoped that Butler and Gordon would take giant leaps forward and Teahen would improve also.
The season began. Tony Pena was SO bad, the Royals had no choice but to call up a shortstop nobody really believed in, Mike Aviles. The Royals, at best, thought Aviles might serve as a decent utility man because he worked so hard at the game and he had a strong arm. Aviles, though, surprised everyone by hitting .325 in 102 games. He won the Royals player of the year award and had one of the best 27-year-old rookie seasons in memory.
So, the Royals’ most common 2008 lineup (not that they HAD a most common lineup — Trey Hillman never used a lineup more than three times — but still) looked something like this:
1. David DeJesus, cf
2. Mike Aviles, ss (early it was Grud at 2b)
3. Alex Gordon, 3b
4. Jose Guillen, rf
5. Billy Butler, dh
6. Mark Teahen, lf
7. Ross Gload, 1b
8. John Buck/Miguel Olivo, c
9. Someone (Callaspo, Esteban German, Tony Pena), 2b
To review: The Royals spent about $15 more in talent. They moved things around. They got a shockingly good year out of Aviles. And, yes, they scored 15 FEWER RUNS than they had in 2008. It did not seem possible. These smart people had identified their problems, they had made changes, they had worked out solutions — even if they were temporary solutions. And they got worse.
Dayton Moore and the Royals people went back to work. They fired the hitting instructor and brought in a new one. They decided to get a leadoff hitter to replace DeJesus, another power hitter, a middle infielder and so on.
So … the Royals traded Boston a very good reliever, Ramon Ramirez, and spent a bit more than $6 million to get Coco Crisp to be the new leadoff hitter (if you include the buyout option). Admittedly, Crisp was often a fourth outfielder with the Red Sox and he had not managed even a league average OPS+ since 2005, and he had never played particularly well in the leadoff spot … BUT he finished strong in 2008, and the Royals liked his leadership skills and his baseball acumen and figured he would be a team leader and he was motivated to prove that he was an excellent every day player.
The Royals traded Florida a good reliever, Leo Nunez, and spent $3.25 million to get Mike Jacobs. Admittedly, Jacobs was a low batting average, low on-base percentage guy who lacked speed and a defensive position … BUT he swatted 32 homers last year and the Royals braintrust felt like they just had to have a middle of the lineup threat.
The Royals tried to get a second baseman or shortstop — they did make some effort to get Rafael Furcal or Orlando Hudson — but failed. Instead, they signed Willie Bloomquist to a two-year deal. Admittedly, Bloomquist had never been an every day player in the big leagues and he had only one extra base hit in 2008 … BUT the Royals loved his hustle and determination and felt like he could help the club many ways.
Before the season began, they moved Mark Teahen to second base, but had to pull off of that when Alex Gordon got hurt. They gave Olivo the catcher’s job full time. They counted on Mike Aviles to be a solid big leaguer. They started the year with Jacobs as their everyday first baseman. They hoped for Gordon and Butler to emerge.
To review, that’s another $10-plus million of hitting talent, a new hitting coach, and the Royals also hoped that Butler and Gordon would take giant leaps forward and Teahen would improve also.
Well, here’s where we are: The Royals are on pace to score 657 runs … 34 runs fewer than LAST YEAR, which you will recall was 15 runs down from 2007, which you will recall was the PROBLEM IN THE FIRST PLACE. They are on pace to score 49 fewer runs than they did with a lineup that had Ross Gload in the fifth spot and Emil Brown as the team leader in RBIs. It doesn’t seem possible.
If you want to talk about bad luck, you can talk about injuries. The Royals have had some — Gordon, Crisp, Aviles. It always seems to me that bad teams spend an disproportionate amount of time complaining about injuries and officiating. But realistically, it’s hard to believe that the Royals with a healthy Alex Gordon, Coco Crisp and Mike Aviles would be a markedly better team.
Truth is, the Royals’ very smart people made moves that did SEEM to make the Royals better. Maybe not A LOT better. But better. But that’s the difficulty of building a baseball team — two plus two doesn’t have to equal four. Take Mike Jacobs. The Royals traded Leo Nunez to get him — a middle reliever for an every day player. Seems like a good move. Jacobs hit 32 homers and slugged .514 last year — sure, maybe he had weaknesses but he would surely offer more than Ross Gload’s 79 OPS+ in 418 plate appearances. Right? Plus he’s a great guy, a clubhouse presence.
Only, it doesn’t work that way. The Royals paid $3.25 million for Jacobs — that’s real money in Kansas City. So they started him off as the every day first baseman. And he was bad enough there that, after a while, they moved Billy Butler to first full-time (Butler also showed some surprising defensive acumen). So, now Jacobs was a full-time DH, not as good a deal, so they had to hit Jacobs in a power spot in the lineup. They hit him fourth or fifth even though he’s not a legit fourth or fifth hitter. They knew he could not hit lefties, but they had paid too much money to rest him so he played against them even though he mostly had no chance. He was such a good guy, such a clubhouse presence, that they kept going to him even though he slumped … and slumped … and slumped.
Since May 25, Mike Jacobs has been hitting .156. He has one homer and one RBI over those 101 plate appearances (that one homer/RBI came in a 9-3 loss to Toronto). I’ll repeat: 1 RBI. I had to go back game-by-game to see it in action. Best I can tell, since May 25, Jacobs is 0-for-16 with runners in scoring position with a double-play and eight strikeouts. A couple of points: 1. It’s bad when a middle-of-the-order guy can only get 16 at-bats with runners in scoring position in more than a month. 2. He did walk five times so that’s something, I guess.
So you can see what I’m getting at … the Royals didn’t just trade a middle reliever for Mike Jacobs. They traded for a reasonably big chunk of salary, they traded away their DH spot because Jacobs can’t play anywhere else, and they traded away any opportunity they had to call up Kila Ka’aihue, the Royals first base prospect who hit 37 homers, walked 100 times and punched up a 1.085 OPS in Class AA and AAA last year. Kila’s wallowing in Class AAA now, where he’s on pace to walk 100 times again and he’s slugging .502 even though he has to be frustrated.
Jose Guillen provided another problem. Guillen came with baggage … the Royals knew that, and they clenched their teeth and signed him anyway. Then last year, every other day, another mini Guillen explosion would happen — he would rip the fans, or rumors would get out that he wanted out of Kansas City or he would get caught on YouTube threatening a fan or something. But the Royals thought he was a legit middle-of-the-order bat and even though he really had a subpar season last year, he did drive in 97 RBIs which was enough of a life preserver for the Royals to cling to.
Well, this year he has been pretty much a model citizen. He came to camp in shape, he has kept his thoughts to himself, he has been a pretty positive influence to tell the truth. He has been walking at a greater rate than at any point in his career. It’s really about all the Royals could have hoped for. The problem? He can’t play. He’s virtually unplayable in the outfield now … he can barely move. His quick bat has slowed — he’s slugging .404 so far. He appears to be playing hurt, and he probably is hurt though nobody is talking about it much. You hear people talking about the Royals trading him … who the heck is going to take a potentially hurt 33-year-old DH with a decelerating bat for ANOTHER $12 million next year? This was a crippling signing. And, of course, they HAVE to play him because they can’t eat that contract. So he hits fourth or fifth in the lineup.
And so on. It isn’t like every move has failed. Bloomquist has been a nice utility player (though some want to call him the Royals first-half MVP — let’s be honest, he is OPSing 85 which isn’t much different from the 83 last year). Miguel Olivo has run into 12 mistake pitches and is slugging .530. Billy Butler is showing that he can handle the rigors of first base, and he’s on pace to hit 45 doubles. Alberto Callaspo has had a nice offensive first half. Mark Teahen has shown signs of life*.
*He needs to keep this going … I have a Montgomery Inn bet with Chardon Jimmy about who will have the better season, Mark Teahen vs. Jhonny Peralta. I took Teahen. When I made the bet, everyone around us thought I was crazy, but I’ve always thought Peralta was wildly overrated and I’ve always thought Teahen, left alone, could be a pretty good every day player. So far Teahen is CRUSHING Peralta (who is moping about moving to third — keep moping Jhonny!). If this keeps up, it will mean Jimmy will have to send along two racks of Montgomery Inn ribs (along with some Graeter’s ice cream. But the season has a long way to go.
But this is the point … individual successes don’t mean much. The Royals are 33-42 — they have won just 15 of their last 46 — and they have lots of bad things going:
1. This is are a TERRIBLE base-running team. No, seriously, terrible, horrible, one of the worst in memory. According to the Bill James base running numbers (which you will recall simply measure going first to third, second to home, first to home and various bases taken and baserunning mistakes), the Royals are a minus-74 base running team this year. MINUS-74 in only 75 games. No other team is even close (Padres are -39). In fact, the worst base-running team since 2002, when Bill and the guys started keeping this stat, is the 2003 Brewers, who were minus-91. The Royals might get there by the All-Star Break.
2. This is a LOUSY defensive team. There are any number of ways to quantify this … 40 unearned runs (only Chicago has more in the AL) is probably a good enough place to start.
3. Some of the pitching — Kyle Davies and Juan Cruz in particular — have been disappointing.
But if you want a REASON this team is floundering, it’s (of course) the offense. The Royals have scored three runs or fewer 38 times this year (most in the American League, of course), and their record in those games is 9-29. And those individual successes don’t mean diddly.
And it all comes back to the beginning: The Royals execs are smart people. But the more they do to this offense, the worse this offense gets. The more they hope for things to work out, the less likely it seems that things DO work out. It’s a quirk of baseball — a quirk of sports. I remember talking to an executive once who told me that if you get a left fielder who is a little better than the one you have, a centerfielder who is a little better, a right fielder who is a little better, and so on, you should be a better team. Well … maybe and maybe not. Two plus two does not always equal four in team sports. Sometimes, it equals P4. Sometimes it equals 4-6-3. And sometimes, it just equals another lost year.
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Any thoughts on Owen, the 3rd base coach? I’m a pretty casual baseball fan, but even I have noticed how awful he is. Just this past week, Maier was out by about 30 feet on his inside-the-park home run atttempt, and then Owens doesn’t send Pena last night on an easy sac fly (and Pena ends up stranded at 3rd).
I assume the awful baserunning stat is somewhat reflective of Owen? What was the Royals baserunning stats last year when Owen wasn’t the 3B coach?
The Royals’ baserunners need to pull a George Costanza and do the opposite of what Owen wants. Up is down, black is white, stop sign means go, windmilling arm means stop, etc.
Circle me Bert!
You’re too kind, Joe. Too kind.
It’s really really difficult to reconcile “smart execs” and “Royals offense the past few years.” I just don’t see it. It’s really hard to truly think they are smart when they clearly have little to no idea on how to put together an offense.
Also, please, PLEASE do me this one favor: delete any comments that say First or Circle Me Bert. I hate them, I am sure many of us here hate them, and they boil the blood in unhealthy ways.
Maybe the Royals need to open up the checkbook and hire Gardy.
We don’t need a new manager or new GM. We need to close the checkbook and use homegrown talent. It’s a little rare in Triple A right now, but Kila has got to be rewarded. I say we try to unload Jacobs.
The “too expensive not to play” argument has always mystified me. Right now they are paying Jacobs $3.6m to do very little at DH. By benching him and calling up Kila to DH, they are paying Jacobs $3.6m to do absolutely nothing, but the DH spot presumably improves. Either way they spend the $3.6m, but with Jacobs on El Bencho, they aren’t killing the offense AND their budget. Jacobs might even get fed up and demand a trade.
The Royal’s baserunning is indicative of bad coaching.
The biggest problem with the offense (and defense) is that Dayton does not seem to take walking or fielding into account. He keeps getting guys that have ABSOLUTELY no history of getting on base or fielding well (other than Coco).
He obviously does not have the payroll to buy real power, so he is trying to draft it and starting pitching, which is fine, but until we develop our own power, we will be a station to station team. The guys who we trade for and sign MUST be able to 1) Walk at a good rate to increase their chances of getting to that first station, & 2) Field their position well to help limit the # of runs given up.
Also, in reply to comment 1, I never thought Dave Owen could possibly worse than Luis Silverio but I was wrong! He seems to not only make the wrong decisions but make them in the wrong game situations.
Even if we grant the premise that the Royals’ management knows 100x more about baseball than you (I don’t), it doesn’t mean a whole lot if the other teams are managed by people 100x smarter than the Royals’ management.
“If you want to talk about bad luck, you can talk about injuries. The Royals have had some — Gordon, Crisp, Aviles. It always seems to me that bad teams spend an disproportionate amount of time complaining about injuries and officiating. But realistically, it’s hard to believe that the Royals with a healthy Alex Gordon, Coco Crisp and Mike Aviles would be a markedly better team.”
Exactly, Joe. There are really only 1 or 2 teams that have been devastated by injuries to the point where they lost enough good players where their playoff chances decreased significantly.
Joe, please switch to a serif typeface. They make “curiously long posts” easier to read.
I could do a better job than the Royals’ front office. And I mean that. You probably could too if you’re reading this blog. It would be very hard to do worse if you’ve read Bill James and absorbed 20% of it.
Joe is being MUCH too kind because he’s a classy guy. The fact is simple: the people at the top of this organization are terrible at their jobs. This is not exaggeration and neither is it motivated by frustration or anger (I’m not a Royals fan). It is a cold, dispassionate assessment of the public record.
If decision-makers are hamstrung and bound to decisions they made (even expensive free-agent acquisitions) then they aren’t good decision-makers. Once you’ve spent the money, you’ve spent the money. You still have to make decisions to put the best team on the field. Sit Guillen and Jacobs and call up KK.
If 2 players were somewhat similar, I could see not using a roster spot on a call-up, but this is not that case. The Royals brass cannot marry themselves to the decisions they’ve already made and must seek to make the best ones they can (future decisions)… Otherwise this once-proud organization will never get back to respectability…
The problem with the offense is low OBP. The Royals do not have enough players with high enough OBP to have sustaining rallies which lead to multiple runs. They’re lucky to score one most times. Bill James in the ‘86 Baseball Abstract wrote about how an offense is a chain and if it breaks in the middle you’ve got two worthless pieces of chain.
That’s the Royals’ offense for many, many years. Either someone in the middle of the chain doesn’t get on base or someone on base does something stupid (Olivo AND Pena on the SAME PLAY recently) and a potential big inning goes by the wayside.
I am really beginning to not just find it difficult to be a Royals fan — I am starting to actually hate them. Dayton needs to draw a frickin’ line in the sand and demand his team play the game right. And if you can’t play the game right you’re gone. And if you can’t play for KC then where the hell else in MLB are you going to play? That’s where they need to start — to demand that these players be professionals or they’re gone. What do the Royals do? They sign and overpay for sub par players and locker room cancers. Pioli and Haley have only been in charge of the Chiefs for 6 months and they are already running off the dead weight. The Royals are as bad as they always have been, playing the same inexcusably inept baseball and the payroll is drastically higher.
(a) i’m not buying the injury complaint one bit. look at the mets: they have been completely destroyed by injuries, and they’re 3 games back and only 1 below .500.
(b) i also never understood the “too expensive not to play” argument. is it because if you don’t play him you aren’t able to trade him?
(c) i’d also love to see a serif rather than sans
- and there are rumors that KC likes Jeff Francoeur
to me it seems like the KC GM likes to take on resurection projects, well there are a lot of players that are in condition to be resurected.
I think KC should be going after solid productive and reliable players
Mark Teahen should better productive if he had someone to drive in, he’s hitting fine it’s just that there is no one runing on the bases when he’s hitting
Great starting pitching, fair reliever corps, too bad for the offense i would love to see KC back in the top
1) Sunk costs. Look into it.
Playing time and lineups are decisions that should be made entirely independently from salary. We all know that.
I understand that salary can make it hard to see reality. I understand that we all want to see good things in our major purchases because we all have this internal bias against admitting we’ve made a mistake. But professionals have to overcome that.
2) These folks might be smart. And they might have access to all kinds of great information. But it is clear that they are not making good decisions.
There are lots of kinds of intelligence, and lots of kinds of abilities. It could well be that they people are not in positions that their intelligences and abilities are well suited for.
I’m not calling them stupid or useless. But I am saying that we can tell that they are not well suited for their jobs. This does not mean that they are not trying. It just means that they are not succeeding.
3) The key is not that they Royals are bad or too far out of the first place. Their payroll limitations make these outcomes much more likely than for the mets. The key, as Joe points out, is that they are getting worse.
Moreover, they are not taking a step or two back in order to take many steps forward. They are not investing playing time to develop young talent. They’re just losing.
Thank you Joe. I begged you to write about the Royals’ baffling decision to leave Kila in Omaha, and you came through. To me, this is the most unpardonable sin of all that have been committed by Dayton Moore. What earthly reason can there be for a team this bad offensively to let one of the few offensive prospects they’ve developed in recent years wallow in Triple A? It’s infuriating, particularly because I suspect you’re exactly right – they won’t bring him up because they can’t admit that Jacobs and Guillen are busts. To me, that goes beyond mere pride; that’s front office malfeasance.
I have been a Royals fan my whole life, born a year before the team. Every spring brings an unreasonable sense of optimism that this could be the season we turn things around. This season’s disaster feels more crushing than most. I’ve virtually given up. It’s actually to the point where despite spending the money yet again to watch the Royals online here in NJ, I’ve been watching more Major League Soccer lately than Kansas City Royals baseball.
“Moreover, they are not taking a step or two back in order to take many steps forward. They are not investing playing time to develop young talent. They’re just losing.”
The classic example of this was the almost daily occurrence last season sitting Billy Butler in favor of Ross Gload because the Royals’ brain trust discerned Butler’s fielding at first to be so reprehensible that he could never handle it in the majors.
This being the (then) 32 year old Ross Gload with a career OPS+ of 93 (and 79 in 2008) versus the 22 year old Billy Butler, former first round pick, who only had limited exposure at first for the first time in his life the prior year.
A year later, and as Joe alluded to “they moved Billy Butler to first full-time (Butler also showed some surprising defensive acumen)”, Butler has shown that he might not be half bad. Not great, mind you. But playable.
So, in a season where the Royals finished 12 games under .500 they got 95 starts at first from Ross Gload and 34 out of Billy Butler. Ross Gload was not resigned after the season. Billy Butler is now the starting first baseman. Foresight…
Thanks for cheering me up, Joe.
I don’t think it is so much as a 2+2=? so much as it is that the organization seriously believes that 1+2=4.
Was it really so hard to foresee that a first baseman who has always been a below average hitter for his position, can’t get on base, can’t hit lefties, and played defense like he had a skillet on his hand instead of a glove would continue to show all of those same attributes? Apparently, another small market team, the Marlins, noticed this which is why they got rid of him before he became too expensive.
Was it really too hard to foresee that an aging outfielder who has never been a legit star bat, was coming off of PED’s, couldn’t get on base, and couldn’t field would start to show his age and not be worth a long expensive contract? Apparently most of the teams in the MLB foresaw this, which is why DM was the only GM to offer him much of anything at all.
Was it really hard to foresee that a catcher who can’t get on base, can’t really catch the ball, and brought pretty much the same skillset as the starter we already had, would continue to not get on base, not catch the ball, be pretty much the same catcher as we had in house?
And lest we forget, that guys like Gload, TPJ, etc…, who were a large part of the poor offensive production the past couple of years, were DM acquisitions as well.
Yes, the organization has recognized there is a problem with the offense. The bad thing is, they keep bringing in players that have all of the same attributes as the players that have cause the offense to be so horrible in the first place.
I guess this explains all of the interest in Jeff Francoeur.
So, Joe…..we all know the problem, what’s the solution?
I remember hearing Herk Robinson speak at a conference for sports writers in 1996, and at the time he spoke about how the Royals were going to begin going in a new direction. He said the problems started in the late 80s/early 90s when the team signed aging veterans to try to chase the success of the late 70s/early 80s.
The team finally realized that model wasn’t working after nearly a decade and was going to build the team out of its farm system. Yet here we are another 13 years later facing the same situation year in and year out. Somebody obviously didn’t get the memo.
Joe: Find me someone to write a similar piece about the Pirates. I was feeling better about their play much of this first half but now this trade of Nyjer Morgan to Wash Nats for (omfG, not him!?)Lastings Milledge has me terribly discouraged. Morgan was having a nice 2009 season so far, was making only $412K and he’s gone to DC to become their everyday centerfielder. Meanwhile, we get the problem child Milledge. I’m sure the few Pirate fans that remain are going to hate this transaction, as they should.
Thanks for the KC Royals info. At least Pirate fans aren’t saddled with that impotent group of everyday garbage.
Joe–You say, repeatedly, that the Royals front office people are smart and know a lot about baseball. OK. But now, let’s look at the details of your piece. Over and over again, the Royals took a guy who had something (character, speed, glove, contact rate) and WISHEDCASTED that he’d hit well.
Repeatedly signing guys who have not proven they can hit, who then fail to hit……well, all I’ll say is that smart folks would learn from this mistake.
PS–Joe, your commenters ask in unison: who shot the serif?
One of the commenters reminded me of something that I had passed over in Joe’s comments. Billy has not shown defensive acumen. Hey, I agree we have to play him. I think he will eventually has a chance to be Mike Sweeney (before the bad back), but he also has a long way to go to even be Sweeney in the field. His error tonight led to the winning run, and he has caused errors by his fielders with his inability to take a clean one hop throw. He is constantly in the wrong place on plays, led by his interception of a throw ( to the pitcher covering first) in another game deciding inning recently.
At least he has shown effort this year, and he has a little bit of range at first, and he is improving, but he only had one direction to go! The fact that he is better than he was last year, and better than Jacobs, does not make him adequate.Ideally Jacobs would be gone and Kila would be playing first mostly with Billy Dhing but still playing some in the field.
To the people dismissing the Royals’ injuries, what expectations did you have for the team this year?
Beyond a nutcase or two who thought the Royals would become the 2008 Rays overnight, it seemed the best-case projections were that they might be able to hang around .500, maybe a couple games above, which would let them compete in a crappy division.
None of those projections involved them losing their 3B, SS, and CF, with their RF, All-Star closer and honorary #1 starter (Meche) also battling injuries. I mean, it’s not like the Royals are lauded for their depth.
So instead of hanging around .500, they’re 7-8 games under or wherever they are. I’m sure some of that is guys not performing like the team hoped, but I don’t know how you could say “Well, I’m not buying injuries as an excuse”.
Take those 6 guys (Gordon, Aviles, Crisp, Guillen, Meche, Soria) and have them healthy all season, and I can’t see how KC doesn’t have at least 5 more wins than they do now. That’d put them right in the mix.
For some reason this reminds me of middling (NBA) basketball teams. I feel like they should just trade anybody and everybody they can for expiring contracts and start over.
Joe, you are forgetting one thing–the games that Trey Hillman has single-handedly lost for this team.
I mentioned this before, but I think the Pirates and Royals have been very similar franchises for the past 6/7 (16/17) years. Trying to put out a team just average enough that it might be able to luck into 85 wins and a division title (in a weak division).
With the hiring of Neal Huntington, these similar approaches changed. The Pirates seem to have come to the conclusion that:
1. We suck
2. Given #1, we are not going to win with the current crop of players
3. We are going to trade off any mid career asset we have for young talent, take chances on guys with talent but little track record for success, and not let any older guys take playing time from young talent.
Now, who knows if the Pirates got enough talent for McLouth/Bay/Nady, or if Milledge and LaRoche will ever develop, but as a fan I would be very happy that they have gotten realistic about where the team is in the cycle of success and have started acting accordingly.
The Royals have not appeared to change their approach to the big league club. Maybe this is understandable given that in the AL Central they may very well luck into 87 wins and a division crown one of these years, but as a fan I’d prefer the Pirates’ approach.
One last comment:
I only follow the Royals through this and Rany’s blog, but it seems to me that there is one inescapable conclusion from the last 2 years: Dayton Moore is an obstacle to the Royals success. His (successful) attempt to take the Royals biggest weakness and turn it into a bigger weakness has been mind blowing to watch. A GM who actively pursues exactly the type of players your team does not need, and also overspends for mediocre free agent talent is a luxury a team like the Royals can’t afford.
Sorry to bring this up, but I’ve let it pass too many times. One cannot “drive in” an RBI. One can get an RBI, be awarded an RBI or even have an RBI, but an RBI is a run batted in. You cannot drive in a run batted in. You can only drive in the run. The adjective has to score by itself.
I feel like you cant say the Royals overspend. everything else is true. But as seen above with the Torii Hunters, the orlando hudsons, furcalls ect the Royals cant simply pay market price. that’s what happens after decades of futility, nobody wants to show up all things being the same.
Great post, as always Joe. And as always, you are far too nice. Anyone that looked at the stats (for olivo, guillen, Jacobs) could tell that these moves were very risky when they happened. These guys had such a terrible on-base track record. The question is now whether Moore will admit that it hasn’t worked and realize the concept of sunk cost by bringing up Kila to DH and moving Jacobs to the pine, and sending Guillen to the DL and bring up anyone (Thorman maybe?).
And the whole 4 utility middle infielders (bloomquist, hulett, hernandez, pena) on the roster and tony pena still on the team deserves an entire separate post. It is comical. And what’s crazy is how little it’s mentioned in the Star. When I do see it mentioned, writers just seem to buy the injury excuse and say well who else would you bring up. I say anyone. Tony pena is the worst hitter I have ever seen and I imagine players are released every day by other teams that could do a better job than him.
I believe Pena is arbitration eligible after the season. I’m not convinced that Moore won’t offer him a contract. And that makes me sad.
Another piece of evidence that the Royals’s management is not as smart as Joe claims is that this past offseason was MADE for teams like the Royals. Guys like Abreu, Dunn, and Burrell were available forever and ultimately went for pennies on the dollar, yet the Royals tripped all over themselves to bring on mediocrities like Crisp and Jacobs.
Mark W # 26 said:
“Thanks for the KC Royals info. At least Pirate fans aren’t saddled with that impotent group of everyday garbage.”
When Pirates fans look at a franchise and say that to themselves about the Royals, we have climbed the highest mountain of baseball futility.
It is sad to see what has become of this once meritoriously (sic) proud franchise.
Are the Royals any better off this year having acquired Crisp than if they had simply stuck Mitch Maier in the OF and waited to see if he could figure things out?
Are the Royals any better off this year having acquired Jacobs than if they had simply stuck Kila out there at 1B and waited to see if he could figure things out?
Sometimes the problem is doing something for the sake of doing something, rather than doing something that is thought out carefully with a greater chance of success. I don’t know if or how much the Royals pursued Dunn or Abreu or Burrell (we know they tried on Hunter last year); if they did, and those players chose elsewhere, so be it. But this doesn’t require doing something just to do something. That’s panic, not planning.
I’d rather pay a worthless player to be worthless some where else than on my field for my team. This is a basic business concept: Sunk Costs. It’s so obvious, this shouldn’t even need to be stated. However, I understand that the shelf life of a GM can be a short one. With the Royals being terrible and some of the key player acquisitions designed to prevent such a result being just as terrible, it’s stands to reason that a GM would want to stick with his original decisions and go down with the ship.
Moore is likely thinking that Jacobs and Guillen may be playing well-below their capabilities, so if he stops playing them now, well, sound the death nell for any possibility of a trade. Also it tells ownership that he was wrong.
As a fan, who cares? Anyone that brings in Mike Jacobs and Jose Guillen in the manner that they were brought in should be canned, but Dayton Moore (consciously or subconsciously) may be acting in his best interests instead of the team’s.
As an O’s fan, I saw the two-headed Yes Man monster of Mike Flanagan and Jim Beattie refuse to give up on the 2005 season that started so well, but was really just a pipe dream. Ultimately, the writing was on the wall, the O’s were in mid-collapse, and the team was in 4th around 10 games out just before the trade dead line, but Flana-Beattie thought the O’s had a chance. Either they were lying to us, lying to themselves, or just stupid (probably a combination of all three), but they should’ve seen what intelligent fans saw: The 162 game season was in the process of putting the O’s in their proper place. It’s fairly obvious to me that Flana-Beattie knew this was their best chance for any success and couldn’t bring themselves to trade any key players since it would signal that the white flag was coming out and a look to the future and that future would likely involve someone else making the big decisions. At the time BJ Ryan was arguably the best closer in the majors, a pending free agent, and likely the desire of many contending big market teams. The defending champs in Boston were dealing with a terrible Keith Foulke and Mets bullpen stunk.
Who knows what the O’s could’ve got. We’ll never know since the management was thinking of their own interests instead of the team’s.
Okay, start up the bandwagon to fire Trey AND Dayton!
“Overspending” for Torii Hunter is not a desperate move, no matter what the amount. “Overspending” for Jose Guillen is. If I was Dayton Moore I would be in Mr. Glass’s ear letting him know that we really need to sign some players during this offseason that can hit AND field.
Joe, why are you wasting time devoting half the column to mincing around any direct criticism of Moore’s hideous track record as a GM? Just come out and say it! He absolutely sucks, and almost every move he’s made has been the complete antithesis of a Bill James/smart-building-a-team move.
It’s truly absurd that he still has a job.
I don’t think DM can be evaluated solely on how the big-league club is playing, though that is the simplest way. Mr. Glass was responsible for decimating the franchise from stem to stern. DM is responsible now for fixing that. If you have a house that has been left to rot for 10 years, you’ll have to fix the foundation as well as redecorate. But it’s hard to do both at the same time. Whether or not DM ultimately succeeds will depend on how well he repairs the foundation.
Of course, the short-term fixes keeping failing so magnificiently, it only makes the next year more difficult. Two years ago, we could have just cut the baggage loose. Now, we’ve got another year of Jose Guillen for $12MM, another year of Farnsworth for $4+MM, an option on Coco for $8MM, probably having to pay Jacobs $4MM in arb, plus we have all of the same problems.
DM has seem to do a decent job acquiring guys when he hasn’t HAD to, like getting Ramon Ramirez, Bannister, Tajeda, Cortes, but gets irrational when the situation seems more desperate.
Considering that OBP and SLG are the biggest factors in run scoring, it’s not hard to see why the Royals are scoring less runs this year. Dayton Moore paid plenty of lip service to OBP in the offseason, but he did nothing to improve it. In fact, he hurt it even more by trading for a guy like Jacobs. Jacobs is horrible at getting on base, horrible at defense and is in the midst of a great power outage. Coco was getting on base, but he wasn’t hitting much. 2+2 does equal 4. A lot of people saw this coming. We were just hoping it wouldn’t be this bad. We traded away 2 cheap, good, young relievers for those 2, and our return hasn’t been that great. Coco was acceptable before the injury, but Jacobs is not and never was. Why do you think the Marlins dumped him, sure salary was their main concern, but they saw the problem too. If he isn’t nontendered or traded by this offseason I would be very surprised. If they pick up Coco’s option they are crazy. If they brought him back at a cheaper price I could live with that.
Mr. Posnanski, you are just plain wrong.
Mike Jacobs, the valuable player the Royals traded for, has a .795 OPS, which ain’t great for a DH but is worth having. I mean, the Dodgers have the best record in baseball getting only .810 from their first baseman.
The problem is, the Royals also have Mike Jacobs, who cannot hit left handed pitching and has a OPS against them of .578. And the other problem is that the geniuses who know so much about baseball that they are keeping this guy who isn’t hitting well enough to hold Ozzie Smith’s batting gloves (actually, Ozzie was pretty good as a RHB) playing too often against LHP. And it’s not like finding guys who can hit LHP (but not RHP) is hard. Consider Willie Bloomquist, right on the Royals’ roster. OPS of .915 versus LHP. Bloomquist is too valuable to commit to a full time platoon, even though anybody can DH? Mitch Maier has an OPS of 1.061 versus LHP. Neither is listed as a regular by Baseball-Reference.
And that’s the problem with the Royals. Instead of being run by guys who are looking at what is really happening, they are looking at what they think should be happening. Jacobs *should* be a middle of the lineup hitter. And while he really isn’t, he’s closer versus righties. Maier *shouldn’t* be a DH versus LHP. And 18 at bats isn’t a lot. But any strat-o-matic player knows about backwards lefties. Jacobs sure as hell can’t hit LHP. He never has in his career, OPS of .668 versus .884 versus RHP. But what makes Jacobs reasonably valuable is that for his career he has had smart managers who gave him more than three times as many PA against RHP as LHP. And now he’s with a lunatic who has dropped that ratio to 2:1.
I seem to recall an interview with Earl Weaver, a long time ago, about his success as a manager. And he said something like success as a manager came from asking players to do stuff they could do, and not asking them to do stuff they couldn’t do. Like asking Mike Jacobs to hit LHP
As far as Kila goes, I completely agree. The Dodgers got Nomar, who for reasons of fragility they only wanted to play at first base. And for one season, he was excellent, 20 homers, clutch hits, team leadership. And the Dodgers had James Loney who was a much better fielder who had already proven everything a player could prove in AAA. He batted .380 in Las Vegas in 2006. But signing Nomar (who’d have an OPS+ of 78 in 2007) meant Loney spent half of 2007 sulking in AAA. Loney sulking told all the young players that the team valued experience unreasonably. Grady Little wasn’t manager enough to keep the team focused, especially with Jeff Kent, Mr. Personality, suggesting that a guy who’d just hit .380 in the minors (and an OPS over .900 in the bigs his first two seasons) should shaddup and pay his dues. Although Loney seems to have the best minor league credentials, Ethier and Kemp seem to have passed him, and Martin is debatable. If Martin returns to the batter of the last few years, then Loney is clearly last.
Now I believe a team has a responsibility to its young players. I know that last year was Kila’s first at AAA, and he was 24 which is kind of old. But (just at AAA) an OPS+ of 1.079, and 37 homers at AA and AAA combined, all tells me that either he started juicing, or he matured into being a real hitter. He has gone backwards some this year. He’s a 25 year old slugger who couldn’t even get a cup of coffee last September playing for a last place team that went out and is playing a guy who can’t hit LHP full time. It’s hard not to get depressed. I mean, the good teams, the winning teams, they bring their best players up for a few games at the major league level. Let them have a taste of major league per diem and travel. Tell them, “Yeah, this is why you’re riding buses in the minors, because you want to have this.” And I think, how can a guy with an OPS well over 1 not have a September call up? The cost in added salary is nothing compared to the value of turning a AAA star into an MLB star.
And I look at the purported leadoff hitter, DeJesus (though I guess Crisp has supplanted him). One steal. OBP under .300. Playing left field. Left field is for Bonds. Manny. Guys who can really hit. Okay, if you need your left fielder to lead off, then Rickey. Raines. Not DeJesus.
Hillman may be a genius. But he’s not seeing what he has; he’s seeing what he wants them to be. He has a DH who needs to platoon. He has a left fielder who needs to be benched. He has a closer who needs to pitch some of the time in the eighth inning because his setup men aren’t good enough to hold the lead for his closer. I can accept an OBP under .300 if it means you’re getting gold glove defense at shortstop. I can accept that OBP from Andre Dawson. David DeJesus isn’t that guy.
I’m a fan of motivating your players, probably more so than most of the stat guys who read this site. But when you have a guy with a 2008 minor league OPS over 1, 37 homers, 100 walks, who cannot even get a shot, it’s time to start looking at what you have and stop hoping that your hamburger really is prime rib. It’s time to bring up Kila, and play Maier full time until he proves he’s not as good as his stats. It’s time to see what you have, not what you want to have.
I second the points made by Gate (#33). In fact, my son and I were having this same conversation yesterday.
There may be some questions about the specifics of what Huntington is doing, particularly whether he should be acquiring players with perceived character issues. But it does appear that his intention is to build a solid talent base and deepen his minor league talent. That was the Rays’ modus operandi when Sternberg and company took over. Many of their acquisitions failed, but a few emerged as useful players.
But Moore seems to have no plan, just the hope that every signing turns out as surprisingly successful as the Meche deal. That is a formula for disaster, and even if it should yield a contributor now and then, is not calculated to produce sustained success. It seems to be based on a notion that in a weak division, just the right amount of luck may lead to a title. I prefer an approach that seeks to build a base of a team that can compete regularly for a while to one that rolls the dice each year.
Richard Aronson #46:
Kila did have a September callup and hit his first MLB homer. He only got 20 ABs though.
Not trying to take away thread focus but I would just like to point out that this thread title also happens to be the name of Bob Seger’s greatest (IMO) song. “2 + 2 = ?” was a 1968 anti-war song by The Bob Seger System and is available on many of the 1960’s garage/nugget style compilations as well as at least one Bob Seger hits CD’s.
Re: the Royals –> Some teams can field deep teams with nary a weakness, but you don’t need to do that to succeed. Anytime you have one of baseball’s greatest players on a team, along with a solid manager (and maybe the best hitting instructor of all time) you have a chance for big success. That’s what the ’70’s Royals did, and they simply surrounded George Brett with some average to above average players and presto, they are a playoff bound team. The Twins get away with playing some historically bad players regularly because they also have 3 premier players in Mauer, Morneau, and Joe Nathan. What the Royals need to do is clone George Brett, then surround the Brett clone with a bunch of guys who can stay out of his way (ideally at least one should also sport a fu manchu mustache).
Anyway, keep on keepin’ on Joe.
Part of the problem seems to be they are looking at the wrong numbers when it comes to free agents. I didn’t like the Guillen, Olivo, Jacobs, or Crisp signings when they made them. With Jacobs, it was like they were blinded by his home runs last year. Problem is he strikes out a lot, has a very low OBP, and it was a career high home run total. They kept talking about how they needed to improve OBP, but every player they picked up had a lower OBP than the last. Crisp started off well, but then moved back to his usual mode. I just don’t get it. They keep over paying for square pegs.
There are a couple few things that caught my attention here. First, their reasoning for Guillen and Jacobs. They picked up Guillen because he was the best available at the time and they picked up Jacobs because they felt they needed a middle of the lineup bat.
The problem is that sometimes what you need doesn’t exist. Signing someone because he is the best available is an awful reason. Especially since they decided to overpay him in a way that rivals the Giants signing of Zito. Signing someone because they needed a middle of the order bat doesn’t make Jacobs one because he hits HRs. He is a 1 tool player. You don’t pay one tool players 3+million. We knew both of these players before we signed them/traded for them.
DM has been preaching OBP since he got here and he keeps bringing in guys who do nothing but make our OBP worse. Jacobs, Guillen, and Olivo are God awful although Guillen and Jacobs are doing better this year.
When looking at the amount of money Crisp and Jacobs cost this team this year, I feel you have to look at the fact that they were “forced” to pick up Farnsworth for far more money than a middle reliever should be paid plus any other reliever that we signed who was more than either Nunez or RamRam. The relievers that were signed were also far worse. So when figuring out that salary increase, it’s important to add the salary of Farnsworth and (add another reliever) to that amount.
The final thing with the signings of this last year is that they were done way before the off season had a chance to pan out and we quickly found out that things weren’t quite as expensive as originally thought. That’s unfortunate because we had already spent our money on lesser players. We could have had Hudson for the same amount we spent on Crisp and kept RamRam in the process. To me that’s not being very smart. Especially when the economy said that reduced salaries were a definite possibility.
It may have nothing to do with this case, but there is a real reason to keep a promising player in AAA, at least for most a season that is a lost cause anyway. That is to avoid starting his arbitration clock. The Phillies did that with Ryan Howard, suffering through a horrible few months of Jim Thome (207/352/360) in 2005 but saving a year of arb-eligibility on Howard. Of course it probably cost them a playoff appearance that year as well….