Pinch-hit me, I’m dreaming
Posted: July 1st, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 27 Comments »
As you know, I love those absurd moments of baseball. Fortunately, I live in Kansas City, where the moments are always within arm-length reach.
In the late innings of Wednesday’s game between the Royals and Minnesota Twins, Kansas City Royals manager Trey Hillman made two absolutely remarkable moves.
In the seventh inning, he pinch hit Luis Hernandez for Tony Pena Jr.
In the ninth inning, he pinch hit Tug Hulett for Luis Hernandez.
You know, in many ways, this might be the crescendo of this preposterous decade for Kansas City Royals baseball. Yes, there have been funnier moments, sadder moments, more poignant moments. Yes, you could make a case for the time Tony Pena Sr. jumped in the shower with his clothes on or the time Buddy Bell said “Things can always get worse” or the time that pitcher Darrell May griped that he could not even get a no-decision or the time that Tony Jr. dropped a pop-up because he was blinded by the sun because wasn’t wearing sunglasses because his sunglasses, though ordered, had not been delivered.
But when you have a manager in the late innings of a close game using Luis Hernandez to pinch-hit for Tony Pena and then Tug Hulett to pinch hit for Luis Hernandez, well, at that point it might be time to seriously re-evaluate what kind of baseball organization you have become. Or way past time.
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hahah. brilliant joe
no kidding
Is Tug Hulett the son of erstwhile major leaguer Tim Hulett?
It could be worse – the Royals could have been the morons to give Aaron Miles a two year guaranteed contract.
Well, the three of them are slugging .386.
Combined.
That’s pathetic on so many levels.
When I tune in the game, I simply cannot believe that Tony Pena Jr. is starting for my team. I’d pinch hit for him too, anybody, I don’t care. He might be better, and he couldn’t possibly be worse.
Tony Pena Jr continues to get at bats.
That has to trump any, and I mean any, poignant moment in the history of any professional sports franchise in history.
A VORP of -6.6 was pinch hit for an increase in VORP to -4.2 was pinch hit for an increase in VORP to -3.2. While all the while we had bases loaded, 2 outs, and let Pena hit… Heck let Greinke hit and play short (half joking) in between starts.
Why was I born a KC Royals Fan? What is the meaning of life? What brought me to this point in my life? When did the ridiculous become the surreal?
At least I got a giggle out of seeing Tug in writing (and yes I am the cousin of Beavis).
People should lay off of TPJ. He fouled off 4 pitches IN A ROW last night. That may have been the highlight of his season.
The only thing sadder than the TPJ, Hernandez, Hulett fiasco is the fact that they are all on the major league roster.
Here’s the thing…. I have almost wrapped my head around the confluence of events that have caused us to have an endless supply of decent glove, no bat middle infielders on our roster. It is downright sickening that evidently no healthy outfielder in the entire organization hits better than Bloomquist, but there you have it.
The one thing that having a glut of terrible hitting middle infielders is that none of them should actually be hitting in a key spot. The fact that Brayan Pena or Guillen didn’t bat for TPJ in the fourth inning with the bases loaded and two outs is a damn near firable offense. Of course, the advice coming from the bench coach is going to be biased for TPJ – after all, the bench coach intentionally walked him last year.
Travesty in every sense of the word last night.
For what it’s worth, last night the Blue Jays intentionally walked Pat Burrell (he of the 76 OPS+ and .322 SLG) to get to Gabe Gross (116 OPS+, .437 SLG). This is bad enough in an of itself, but it got worse when Tampa remembered that they had Longoria (142, .566) on the bench. I don’t care that there was a runner on second and only one out – one simply cannot intentionally walk the worst hitter on a team to bring a better hitter (or, as it turned out, the BEST hitter) to the plate. Maybe there is a reason why Cito went 15 years between managing jobs.
This might be the season when I decide that my fandom needs a break. Every year I get excited about the possibility of seeing some improvement, and every year they find new and imaginative ways to crush my spirit. At this point they appear so criminally mis-managed (from the front office to the 3rd base coach), and the organization appears so horribly rotted out, that I am not certain whether I could muster serviceable suggestions for improvement.
Maybe it is as Joe says, maybe we all need to finally admit what this franchise has become: unredeemable.
I guess the point of that little story, aside from causing me to curse to myself, is to say that bad management happens everywhere. Or at least, on teams that don’t win.
Semi-related question: is it better to be a Blue Jays fan or a Royals fan? The Royals are comically, almost tragically inept, and seem to stay bad. But at least they are bad. The Blue Jays are stuck in AL East purgatory, whereby they have not made the playoffs in 15 seasons, going on 16, despite fielding several teams that were probably good enough to make the playoffs in any other division. If the Royals get good, or even half-decent, they can probably make the playoffs any given year. The Jays, however, are doomed, unless everything breaks in their favour. And the Jays aren’t even bad enough to build up a young, exciting roster, like Tampa. I guess the choice is this: would you rather have a 70-win team, but know that 90 wins would give you a good shot at the playoffs, or have an 85-win team, and know that even 95 wins is not a sure thing?
Whatever happened to the “TPJ to the bullpen” momentum? Did it completely disappear? Look, he has been given more than enough time to try and pass himself off as an MLB hitter. It clearly isn’t working. It’s like in Catch Me If You Can when Leo pretends to be a Doctor even though he knows nothing about medicine and throws up as soon as he sees a kid with broken legs.
Actually, I do have one suggestion: Make me GM. Instead of GMDM, we could have GMTM.
Usually I don’t say things like this in public because I understand that they are ridiculous and almost never true, but in this instance I believe that it is at least close to some sort of truth: There is little chance that I could run this club worse than Dayton Moore.*
Listen, I am not saying that I am super smart or that I understand baseball, because neither are true. But what I do understand is that past performance is a generally decent predictor of future performance, and I also understand that making good decisions means listening to people who are intelligent and knowledgeable and who provide solid reasons for their advice.
These are not qualities that I perceive in Dayton Moore. He was herralded as some sort of baseball operations genius, and we were all primed to grovel at his feet while he guided our franchise out of the sellar with his decisiveness and keen understanding of the game. Well, I am no longer buying it. And I want my frickin’ money back.
If this seems like I am angry, then good. I am tired of making excuses for this club, and I am tired of hearing excuses made for this club. Either show some sack and make the big changes or get the hell out of the way.
*In a moment of more sanity I realized that this, in fact, expresses no truth whatsoever, except that it exposes me for being just as wanton and careless in my analyis as any fan who has reached a breaking point.
TPJ + Tug + L-Her = The Trifecta of Suck
If the Royals cut these three guys today, there is not another team in baseball that would claim any of them, even if the Royals agreed to pay their league minimum salaries. And we have all three of them on our roster.
I realize the AAA and AA don’t have many options, but I would rather see anyone than have to watch these three guys play. None of them can hit even a little, and all are VASTLY overrated on defense.
TPJ’s best at bat of his career is one where he fouled off 4 consecutive 3-2 pitches and struck out. Horrible.
Gonna disagree with you, Sabby. He’s not having a good season, but there is little doubt that Pat Burrell is a significantly better hitter than Gabe Gross. In the small sample size of this season, Burrell has the crappy OPS + and Gross the solid one, but for his career Burrell is at 117 and Gross is at 97.
Now, if you figured you’d wind up facing Longoria, that’s a different story. But he was hurt and maybe they thought he was not available to pinch hit. Or maybe they thought an injured Longoria was a better bet than a healthy Burrell.
So I’m going to say that was not an example of bad managing. It worked out badly, I gather, but that’s not the same thing.
What I would like to see is the owner, GM, manager or ANY of the players step up and say “This type of performance is unacceptable. In fact, anything short of a World Series trophy is unacceptable”. But, as long as they get to keep cashing paychecks for their (feeble)impersonation of Major League players, where is the incentive?Either get on board and make the improvments or get out.
When I saw Hernandez pinch-hit for TPJ yesterday, I instantly thought, “No wonder Royals fans are frustrated with Hillman. He just used a sub-.200, no power hitter in place of another sub-.200, no power hitter.” I may be a Twins fan, but still, that’s just a poor decision. Then Hulett entering the game was just laughable. Trey, you are not required to match up each player’s positions when you pinch-hit.
@ Jim M. (Post #14): TPJ is an above average fielder, so I’m sure some team would be willing to sign him, even if it was just on a minor league contract. Hulett is not great defensively, and Hernandez is just barely above average, so it would be a toss-up for those 2. But since other teams (Seattle for Hulett, Baltimore for Hernandez) have given them playing time in the majors as well, I’m willing to bet that someone else after the Royals would actually give them a shot.
Did anyone ask Hillman what he was thinking? I bet that he originally used Hernandez as a pinch-hitter because Hernandez is a better fielder (and there were still 2 more innings in which the Royals had to play defense. In the 9th, Hillman could bring out the big guns (Hulett!) without regard for defense.
Serious question. Does the DH have to replace the pitcher in the batting order? On days that Bannister and Greinke pitch, wouldn’t it make sense to let them hit and use the DH to replace Pena in the order?
Just to be clear, my previous comment on Hillman’s thinking was meant to be sarcastic. Not sure if that came through…
Are you kidding? This is business as usual for the Royals.
Gotta love Trey “I didn’t think you were going to ask me a baseball question” Hillman.
Posted last night, after trying to make sense of the Pena/Hernandez/Hulett trifecta:
It’s good to know that if anything happens to two crappy-hitting middle infielders, the Royals wouldn’t miss a beat. Not every team constructs a roster to cover for that contingency.
“What I would like to see is the owner, GM, manager or ANY of the players step up and say ‘This type of performance is unacceptable. In fact, anything short of a World Series trophy is unacceptable’ ”
Ray Kroc essentially did that on the PA system during his first home game as the owner of the Padres.
Yes, the DH must be used for the pitcher. It is so specified in the rules.
Sabby,
I agree with Bill C.
Struggling lefty on the mound, runner on second, righty hitter with a strong track record coming up…I have no problem walking him to get to a lesser lefty hitter. Maddon countered by hitting Longoria for Gross, which Gaston then dealt with by bringing in League.
As for your other point, I’ve been plenty frustrated as a Jays fan, knowing that Toronto could field one of the best teams in baseball and they’d still be pretty likely to miss the playoffs. Last year was a good example – the pitching was good enough to make them an excellent team, but they only finished fourth in their division, and that was with the benefit of a down year by New York. I’d wager that in at least half the divisions in baseball, the Jays would have been in the race until the end, or would have finished in first.
I can take solace in the fact that they play very good, very competitive baseball, but if I were a fan of most other teams, I’d at least be able to know that (barring Pirates or Royals-level incompetence) my team’s chance will eventually come. I hate knowing that the Jays will always be up against the big-money Yankees, the big-money and smart-front-office Red Sox and the young-and-excellent Rays (who also benefit from a great front office and will be good at least until a few years of success deprives them of perennial top draft picks and the players they do have price themselves out of Tampa’s range).
The Jays COULD have a bigger payroll, but it’s a catch-22. Management isn’t going to want to lose tons of money, so they’re not going to want to commit to a huge payroll unless the fans are filling the stands, but the fickle front-running casual fans aren’t going to come out if the team’s consistently winning 85 games but not sniffing the playoffs.
So yeah, as for whether it’s worse to follow a good team that has a snowball’s chance in hell of making the playoffs for the foreseeable future or a bad team that could catch lightning in a bottle or has real hopes of building something a few years down the road…I just don’t know. The baseball fan in me likes knowing that my team will be competitive on any given night, but the homer in me would sure like to think there will be a chance of catching some playoff ball sometime soon (thankfully, I’ve already seen two series champs in my lifetime.)
As for onthemark’s comment, I don’t think anyone could legitimately say anything short of a World Series is unacceptable. In the playoffs, nothing’s a guarantee. The best team in the league could lose a short series to the worst team in the league, and many have suggested (with numbers to back it up) that any of the eight teams in the playoffs has a pretty similar chance of winning it all. No issues at all with people calling out a team for underperforming, but you also have to look at the players the team has. Obviously, the Royals are a looooong way from saying that even vying to stay in a pennant race through August is unacceptable. They just don’t have the horses.
joe, can you please do a post on chris davis and/or mark reynolds?
i don’t know about everyone else, but this year’s strikeout race is shaping up to be greater than or better than the mcgwire/sosa home run race.
240 k’s in 1 year? this might be the most insane record of all time!
What is it about KC shortstops?
You know, a couple of years ago, we could’ve gotten Adam Everett cheaply when the Astros let him go. Sure, he was rated the #1 defensive player in all of baseball — but he was also the worst hitting player in the National League. Oh yeah, his average was only like about 100 points higher than our current shorterstops.