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.

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.

Kila did have a September callup and hit his first MLB homer. He only got 20 ABs though.

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.

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.

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.

It’s truly absurd that he still has a job.