Royals Today: 8/30/2010.

The Royals might be making progress, but it’s not evident from watching them on the field. With a win on Sunday the Royals are now 55-75, putting them on pace to win 68 or 69 games, after winning 65 last season. It’s actually worse than that, though. The Royals have been outscored by 154 runs this season. Six major league teams have a worse record than the Royals, but only two – the Orioles and Pirates – have a worse run differential. The Royals were outscored by 156 runs all of last season. At the major league level, at least, whatever steps the Royals have taken forward have been small ones – and they all pale to the giant regression to the mean taken by Zack Greinke.

- That the Royals have a better record (55-75) than their run differential would suggest (50-80) is one part luck, and one part Joakim Soria. Despite – or perhaps because – the Royals are playing so poorly, Soria is quietly having one of the best seasons by a Royals’ closer ever. In terms of saves – which, to be fair, is a pretty weak stat to evaluate closers by – his season might wind up as being the best ever.

The Royals’ record for saves was set by Dan Quisenberry in 1983, with 45, which at the time was the all-time major-league record. Ten years later Jeff Montgomery tied Quiz’s mark. With 30 games to go, Soria is at 36 saves, which puts him on pace for 44 for the season. (The Royals, by selfishly scoring two runs in the ninth inning yesterday afternoon, deprived him of a save that might turn out to be vital in his pursuit of the record.)

The Royals have obliged him by playing an awful lot of close games of late. Under Trey Hillman, it seemed like it was a lot of feast-or-famine for Soria; the Royals would have four save situations in a row, and then Soria would go a week without pitching before Hillman threw him into a 10-3 game just to get some work. But the Royals have provided him with a steady diet of save situations over the last six weeks. Prior to yesterday, every game Soria had entered since July 16th was either a save situation, a tie game, or a game the Royals were losing by just one run. In that span, Soria never had to pitch three days in a row, and never went more than four days without pitching.

The Royals have the most one-run decisions in all of baseball, and thanks to Soria they’ve done well in that regard. They’re 24-25 in one-run games, and 31-50 otherwise. They still have a perfect record (41-0) in game that they lead going into the ninth inning. In 2006, the last season before Soria arrived on the scene, the Royals lost seven games that they led with three outs to go.

Baseball Prospectus has a stat known as WXRL, for “Win Expectation Above Replacement, Lineup-Adjusted”. Ridiculous name aside, what the stat does is evaluate the odds that a given team will win the game when a reliever comes in, and the odds that the team will win when the reliever comes out, and then gives the pitcher the credit for the difference. For a closer, in other words, it rewards a pitcher for closing out “difficult” saves – with men on base or a one-run lead – a lot more than “easy” saves like starting the ninth with a three-run lead.

The Royals have asked Soria to close out a lot of tight wins this year – 19 times he has entered a game protecting a one-run lead. In addition, he has entered a tie game nearly as often (6) as he’s been asked to close out a three-run lead (8). He has of course been phenomenally successful at whatever job he’s been asked to do; he’s currently working on a franchise-record streak of 29 successful save opportunities in a row.

Add it all up, and Soria’s WXRL is 5.78, which is to say he’s been worth nearly 6 wins over a replacement-level pitcher in his role. That not only leads all of baseball – Heath Bell is about half-a-win behind – it’s already the fifth-best season in Royals history, behind Monty’s 1993 (6.86) and Quisenberry in 1980 (8.16), 1983 (7.04), and 1984 (6.65).

Quisenberry’s 1980 is probably out of reach, but if he finishes strong, Soria has a good shot at the second-best season by a Royals reliever ever. When you consider that he’ll only throw in the range of 70 innings, while Quisenberry threw over 128 innings in all three of those seasons, that’s a remarkable accomplishment.

(By the way, this is Soria’s fourth season in the majors, and every season ranks among the 12 best relief seasons in Royals history. That includes his rookie season, when he only served as the closer for about half the year. Montgomery has three seasons in the top 12, and Quisenberry has the other five. The demarcation between the top three relievers in Royals history and everyone else is as clear as anything I’ve ever seen in baseball.)

The Royals have 99 problems, but a closer ain’t one.

- On the other hand, the guy he usually throws to might be. You have to give it up for Jason Kendall – his ability to command playing time despite the inability to hit the ball more than 300 feet is not just impressive, it’s historic.

You probably noticed that Kendall has not hit a home run this season. You might have noticed that he has also not hit a triple this season. And you’ve certainly noticed that despite those two shortcomings, he continues to catch nearly 90% of the games. (Two weeks ago Ned Yost committed to playing Brayan Pena about a third of the time the rest of the season. Only on the Royals is limiting Jason Kendall to playing two-thirds of the time considered progress.)

But you might not have put all that information together, and realized that in 487 plate appearances, Jason Kendall has yet to hit a triple or a home run. And you probably didn’t realize that since World War II, only two players have batted 450 times in a season without a triple or home run.

One of those players is the remarkable Frank Taveras, who in 1980 batted 598 times and topped out with a double. Taveras was your classic jitterbug who hit the ball on the ground and ran like hell. He led the NL in steals in 1977 with 70, but his career high in OBP was .321, and he of course had no power. The Pirates, for whom he toiled for many years, traded him to the Mets early in the 1979 season, and perhaps not coincidentally the Pirates won the World Series that year.

The other player is Ron Hunt, who hit nary a triple or homer in 1972…or 1973…or 1974. He was a full-time player all three years and amassed over 1500 plate appearances in that time.

Hunt is, for my money, one of the most fascinating baseball players of all time. For one thing, over that three-year stretch he was actually a pretty decent player despite his comical lack of power. Take 1973, for instance: he hit .309, walked 52 times against just 19 strikeouts, led the league with 24 hit-by-pitches and had a .418 OBP. He played second base, which added to his value, even if he didn’t play it all that well. He had a 112 OPS+ and even got some MVP votes. He was sort of like Luis Castillo, in that he was a below-average defensive second baseman whose entire game revolved around OBP, except with less speed.

The really remarkable thing about Hunt is that he seemed to have made a conscious decision halfway through his career to get on base in any way possible – specifically, by going out of his way to get hit by pitches. He averaged 10 HBPs a year for the first five years of his career – and then, from 1968 until 1974, he led the NL in HBPs seven straight years. In 1971, he was nailed FIFTY times – the all-time major-league record. He came close to making a mockery of the rules – I’m fairly surprised that MLB didn’t alter the rules somehow to discourage this kind of overt gamesmanship. Awarding first base to a batter that’s hit by the ball is meant to discourage pitchers from hitting batters; it’s not meant to encourage a pesky middle infielder who can’t hit the ball over an outfielder’s head to lean into a pitch twice a week.

I get the impression Hunt wasn’t a particularly popular player with his peers, and it shows in the stat record – in early September, 1974, he was abruptly waived by the Expos. The Cardinals claimed him, but he never played for St. Louis, and he was released the following March, still 34 years old.

Anyway, the reason for the digression is this: Hunt finished his career with 243 HBPs, ranking sixth all-time. The player directly above him on that list? Jason Kendall, with 254. It all comes back around.

(Kendall isn’t even contributing in this regard – he only has 6 HBPs all season, which would be the lowest number in his career, and the odds that he breaks Hughie Jennings all-time record of 287 are looking increasingly remote.)

- I’m just going to throw this list out there:

Highest Single-Season OPS by a Royal (min: 200 PA)

1) George Brett, 1980, 1.118

2) George Brett, 1985, 1.022

3) Wilson Betemit, 2010, 1.001

4) Danny Tartabull, 1991, .990

5) Bob Hamelin, 1994, .987

Yes, I’m cheating a little bit. I set the minimum at 200 plate appearances, and Betemit just had his 200th plate appearance of the season yesterday.

But still.

If you look at the list of the top 30 OPS’s in Royals history, you’ll find that the list is basically the same whether the minimum is 200 plate appearances or 400 plate appearances. Aside from Betemit, the only players on the list who had fewer than 400 plate appearances were Hamelin (374 PA, but in a strike-shortened season) and Carlos Beltran in 2004, when he was traded in mid-season. There’s a good reason for this – it’s hard to sustain an OPS north of 900 for even 200 plate appearances, unless you’re actually a pretty damn good hitter.

If we look at the best seasons by a Royal hitter with between, say, 150 and 400 plate appearances, here’s what we get:

1) Wilson Betemit, 2010, 1.001

2) Bob Hamelin, 1994, .987

3) Carlos Beltran, 2004, .901

4) Tony Solaita, 1975, .884

5) Esteban German, 2006, .880

When you factor in the special circumstances that put Hamelin and Beltran on this list, then barring a collapse over the last month of the season, Betemit is going to finish with the greatest partial season in the history of the Royals.

(Tony Solaita had an awfully interesting tenure with the Royals. As a rookie in 1974, he hit .268/.361/.406, then hit .260/.369/.515 in 1975. In 1976 he started slow, batting .235/.286/.294 in just 68 plate appearances…and was promptly waived. Solaita, who was from American Samoa, serves as a reminder that the Royals’ reluctance to put faith in take-and-rake hitters from the Pacific islands is not new.)

Betemit, who was signed to a minor-league contract over the winter, is pretty clearly the greatest free talent acquisition by Dayton Moore since Joakim Soria. Moore has actually quietly had a terrific season in terms of picking up contributors out of the pool of unwanted free agents. Along with Betemit, he re-signed Bruce Chen to another minor-league deal. Chen leads the team in wins with nine; more meaningfully, with a 4.76 ERA in 102 innings, he’s been the second-best starter on the team this year.

Kanekoa Texeira, who was claimed off waivers from Seattle, had a 4.64 ERA out of the bullpen before he went on the DL; despite his lack of a strikeout pitch, his extreme groundball tendencies make him a nice guy to bring in with men on base in the middle innings. And hey, Bryan Bullington did pitch the game of his life against the Yankees.

While the pickups of Betemit and Chen have made a big impact this year, it’s not like they are rookies who are under contract for the next six years. Chen is a free agent after the season; while he’s re-established himself as a major leaguer, I don’t expect teams to be beating down the door to sign him. I could see the Royals offering him a one-year, $1-1.5 million contract to return as a stopgap next season, and I could see Chen accepting the offer.

Betemit, if I understand his service time correctly, would be a free agent after next season. This makes for a very difficult decision for the Royals. If you think Betemit’s season is a fluke, then you’ll either him trade him this winter or bring him back next year to babysit third base until Mike Moustakas is ready, but with the plan to trade Betemit to a contender if he’s still hitting well.

But what if it’s not a fluke? What’s so striking about Betemit’s numbers is that they don’t look like a fluke. Yes, his batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is .405, which is unsustainably high. Betemit is hitting .331 overall, and there’s no way that can last. If his BABIP drops into the .330 range, which is realistic, then his “true” batting average is closer to .280.

But even if he hits .280, he can be a heck of a hitter. While batting average is subject to a lot of fluctuation, power and plate discipline are not. Betemit has 27 walks in just 172 at-bats – that’s not a fluke. He has 13 doubles and 10 homers – that’s not a fluke.

(By the way, with 10 homers, Betemit is just three behind Yuniesky Betancourt for the active team lead. Last week I was on with Soren Petro, and he asked me who I thought would finish with the team lead in homers. Billy Butler was the obvious choice, but I thought Betemit was a heck of a sleeper pick. Well, I’m changing my tune – Betemit isn’t a sleeper anymore. I honestly think he’s the favorite to hold the team’s homer title at season’s end.)

So even if you knock 50 points off his batting average, his numbers this season would be .281/.370/.531. Now, I doubt he’s even that good. He spent a month in Omaha and hit just .265/.358/.407 earlier this year; last year, he hit .241/.294/.441 in Triple-A Charlotte. But at the same time, Betemit was once one of the best prospects in all of baseball, and from 2005 to 2007, when he was 23-25 years old, he hit .265/.337/.455 in nearly a thousand plate appearances in the major leagues. He’s only 28; maybe he’s just figuring things out. It bears mentioning that, according to Fangraphs, Betemit is hitting fly balls at the highest rate of his career.

If he is, then he has to factor into the team’s future. Even if Moustakas takes over at third base sometime next year, Betemit has the bat to play somewhere else. We’re talking about a guy who played shortstop in the majors as recently as two years ago, so he should have the athletic ability to play any corner position. First base and DH are filled, but the Royals are still weak in outfield prospects. Betemit could play third base the first half of next season, then move to right field if and when David DeJesus gets traded.

So the Royals have a decision to make. If they think his numbers are for real, then they may have a chance to sign him to a long-term deal this winter at a huge discount relative to what he would get the following year on the free market if he continues to hit. Is it crazy to suggest that the Royals should offer Wilson Betemit a 3-year, $12 million contract this winter? Maybe. But it’s not any more crazy than suggesting in April that Wilson Betemit would be the best hitter on the Royals this season.

Royals Today: 8/26/2010.

When fans of most teams think of the most memorable moments in their franchise’s history over the last 10 or 15 years, they’re likely to think of game-winning hits in the playoffs, or a clutch homer in a pennant race in late September. Royals fans are a little different.

9:38 am. HoltzyKC Lineup for Motown matinee: Blanco 8, Aviles 6, Bloomie 5, Billy DH, Kila 3, Pena 2, Mitch 9, Miller 7, Getz 4. O'Sully pitching.

We can’t reminisce over game-winning hits in the playoffs, because we haven’t been to the playoffs. We don’t have clutch homers in a pennant race in late September, because our team has been mathematically eliminated by late September for 24 – about to be 25 – straight years.

9:52 am. royalsauthority Any lineup with Bloomquist hitting 3rd is the worst lineup EVAR. #Royals

We have to take our memorable moments where we can find them, even if they occur in a meaningless August game pitting a pair of sub-.500 teams against each other. Like, say, yesterday.

10:02 am. Tom_Gage Miguel Cabrera: 10 more home runs (31) than entire #Royals lineup today

One of Ned Yost’s idiosyncrasies is that, whereas most managers look at a day off in the schedule as a built-in opportunity to get his players some rest without taking them out of the lineup, Yost actually likes to use a scheduled day off as an opportunity to sit some of his regulars the day before, giving them two days off in a row – but at the cost of fielding some of the weakest lineups you’ve ever seen. Like, say, yesterday.

10:03 am. Royals_Report Willie Bloomquist really is batting third today for the #Royals against the Tigers. It's the first time ever in his career as a starter.

In the 20-plus years since I started following the Royals closely, the weirdest lineup decision I had ever seen were these two games, on May 10 and May 16, 1992, when the Royals started Bob Melvin in the cleanup spot. The same Melvin who would finish with a career slugging average of .337, and had a .317 slugging average and a total of seven homers from 1989 to 1991. Melvin started the 1992 season 9-for-23, and the Royals faced left-handed starters in both games, and…yeah, there’s really no explanation for it. Melvin did have a huge platoon split in his career - .284/.325/.410 against LHP, .196/.225/.283 against RHP. It was still a comically bad decision. The Royals lost both games.

10:05 am. mellinger Galarraga's best chance at a perfect game in six weeks.

But batting Melvin cleanup was genius compared to batting Willie “Boom-Boom” Bloomquist third…against a right-handed pitcher, no less. Against left-handers, Bloomquist has an almost respectable career line of .273/.335/.366. Against right-handers, he’s hit .256/.302/.314. Ladies and gentlemen, your #3 hitter!

10:49 am. royalsauthority Can't believe I want Yuni in the lineup. RT @brokenbatsingle: @royalsauthority maybe Yuni and gordon stayed up late playing scrabble.

As it turned out, not only had Bloomquist never batted third in the majors, he had never batted third in the minors. Naturally, his teammates seized on the opportunity.

Teammates chimed in as the minutes ticked down in the clubhouse before heading to the field for batting practice.

“He’s my pick to click,” Jason Kendall said.

Alex Gordon added, “You’re going to go big fly all day.”

When asked whether he was playing a hunch, Yost replied, “You have a better idea?” Well, given that he had a couple of guys hitting under .180 (Kila Ka’aihue and Brayan Pena) batting fifth and sixth, and Jai Miller making the second start of his major league career batting eighth…yeah, I still had a lot of better ideas. But let’s be frank – this was one ridiculously bad lineup, no matter where Bloomquist was batting.

11:11 am. Royals_Report Manager Ned Yost on Willie Bloomquist batting third for #Royals against Detroit: "I guarantee you he’ll get a couple of hits. You watch."

11:22 am. devil_fingers Let's be honest: Batting Bloomquist #3 isn't nearly as stupid as hitting Kendall #2, which the #Royals have done 67 times this season.

Early on, the lineup performed exactly as well as you’d expect, mustering just two hits – one a double by Bloomquist in the first – and two walks in the first six innings. Sean O’Sullivan righted the ship after giving up 3 runs in the second, but the Royals were still down 3-0 heading into the seventh.

1:35 pm. Royals_Report Bloomy watch: Flies out to right in sixth. Now 1-3. Needs one more hit to meet Yost's pre-game guarantee. Royals trail Tigers 3-0 in sixth.

Ka’aihue homered leading off the seventh. Pena and Mitch Maier followed with singles, but Phil Coke came on to end the threat with the Tigers still leading 3-1.

2:24 pm. Royals_Report Bloomy watch: Likely to finish 1-4 in first game as No. 3 hitter. Just struck out in eighth inning. Royals trail Tigers 3-1.

Bloomquist’s strikeout in the eighth left Mike Aviles on first base with one out. Ryan Perry then got Butler to fly out, but rather than face Ka’aihue – who had homered off of him the night before – Perry was pulled in favor of Jose Valverde, who hadn’t blown a save since the first week of the season (against the Royals, mind you.)

Instead, Valverde offered up a data point for why Yost has decided to reserve his closer for the ninth inning only. Going for the four-out save, Valverde couldn’t even get the first one. Ka’aihue doubled in Aviles, and Pena followed with another double to tie the game. Maybe Bloomquist would bat again after all.

2:50 pm. jazayerli That said, if Willie fulfills Yost's 2-hit prophecy with a game-winner, I'll never criticize him again. By "again", I mean "for a few days."

The frightening combination of Dusty Hughes and Jesse Chavez got out of the eighth inning unscathed, helped by a nice play by Ka’aihue that saved a run. Philip Humber came in to pitch the ninth and retired the side in order.

3:04 pm. Royals_Report Bloomy watch: He does get another AB but grounds out to first in the 10th. Now 1-5. Royals and Tigers tied 3-3.

You don’t have to believe me, but watching Bloomquist’s at-bat in the 10th, I was fully expecting – and even hoping for – a home run. In a world where Yuniesky Betancourt can be a useful player, why can’t Ned Yost be a prophet and Willie Bloomquist be a hero? Instead, the game continued, and Humber continued to stymie the Tigers in the 10th and 11th. (I would be performing a minor surgery when Bloomquist batted in the 12th, and was unable to watch live.)

3:22 pm. mellinger I like Ned Yost for the #Royals. Wonder if batting Bloomy 3rd and guaranteeing two hits will become his take-a-shower-with-clothes-on...

3:26 pm. devil_fingers Yost not PHing Gordon for Bloomy made sense: Ned said Bloomquist would get a "couple" hits, so he's still got at least one more left in him.

Bloomquist batted again in the 12th, with one out and nobody on. He ran the count full against Alfredo Figaro.

3:44 pm. Royals_Report Bloomy watch: Yes, a sixth AB as game reaches the 12th in Detroit. Gets second hit as Yost promised...homer on full-count pitch.

3:45 pm. mellinger In your face, @Mellinger!!! #bloomy

3:45 pm. devil_fingers Wow. Boom, Yosted.

3:45 pm. nate_bukaty Ned Yost: prophetic!

3:49 pm. nate_bukaty Or will it be his Broadway Joe moment?! ;-) RT @mellinger: Wonder if guaranteeing two hits will be his take-a-shower-with-clothes-on...

3:49 pm. robneyer Meanwhile, Willie Bloomquist just became the Royals' No. 3 hitter for the rest of the season.

3:51 pm. mellinger Can Yost do this with all the #royals? Can he make Butler fast by batting him leadoff? Or Davies good by just guaranteeing it in pregame?

3:52 pm. jazayerli And by "ever again", I mean "ever again". Holy moly.

Joakim Soria retired the Tigers in order in the bottom of the 12th – his 29th converted save opportunity in a row.

3:56 pm. mellinger If Yost is willing, I have a friend who could really use a guarantee that he finds a woman.

It was a meaningless win in a meaningless game that brought the Royals to within 19 games of .500. The only impact that Bloomquist’s homer might have is that it might knock the Royals back a slot or two in next year’s draft.

But you know something? It might have been the highlight of the season. What can I say – we’re Royals fans. We’ve got low standards.

3:58 pm. jfishsports Yost's post-game should be him just walking in, taking the microphone, throwing it down, and walking out with two middle fingers raised.

---

The irony of Yost’s prophecy and Bloomquist’s homer is that it takes the spotlight away from the real story of the ballgame. The Royals did, in fact, win this game because of Ned Yost’s strengths as a manager, but it had nothing to do with the Spork.

Going into his final at-bat on Tuesday night, Kila Ka’aihue was hitting .152 for the season (10-for-66), and was just 1-for-his-last-19. He wasn’t striking out a ton – he had whiffed just 10 times, which is to say that despite hitting .152, he was only on pace to strike out about 90 times over a full season. This is Ka’aihue’s hidden talent, and the reason why it’s not fair to compare him to the Calvin Pickerings of the world: for a power hitter who draws a ton of walks, he very rarely strikes out.

The problem is that he wasn’t drawing a lot of walks either, having taken a free pass just four times so far.

“I just had to go back to what I need to be doing. I was trying to do some things I was not capable of doing. I was looking out of my zone and trying to hit more pitches. Stuff like that. Just not playing my game.”

Despite his struggles, Yost showed no signs of giving up on him. Quite the contrary; he kept moving Ka’aihue up in the lineup. After batting fifth against the Yankees on August 13 and 14, Ka’aihue moved into the cleanup spot in his next three starts, and then moved into the #3 hole last Saturday. It was because he was batting in the #3 hole that Ka’aihue got one last chance to bat on Tuesday, with the Royals down 9-0 in the ninth, with two outs and no one on.

And the Hawaiian kid with the slider bat-speed connected on a 95-mph fastball (granted, it was right down the middle) for his first homer of the season.

“Going into that at-bat,” manager Ned Yost said, “I was thinking about giving him a day off (today) to let him regroup a little bit. Now, that might be something that will get him going. He just needs a couple of hits to relax a little bit.”

Yost dropped Ka’aihue down to fifth in the lineup yesterday, because hey, when you have the opportunity to bat the Spork third, you have to take it. But Ka’aihue was in the lineup, and he delivered – multiple times. He led off the top of the second with a walk, and while he was stranded, it was a good sign that he was finally letting the game come to him.

After Armando Galarraga shut the Royals down for six straight innings, Ka’aihue went down and got a slider – not a hanging slider, but a decent pitch that was down and in – and pulled it into the right field seats. In the eighth, facing the Tigers’ closer while representing the tying run with two outs, Ka’aihue doubled, then scored the tying run on Pena’s double. In the tenth inning, he batted with Alex Gordon on first base; after Gordon took second base on a wild pitch, the Tigers elected to intentionally walk Ka’aihue on a 2-0 count. That’s quite a turnaround given that, just last week, the Indians twice intentionally walked Billy Butler in order to face Ka’aihue.

Kila Ka’aihue has been the premier power-and-plate-discipline hitter in the entire organization for the last three years, and he finally delivered on that promise for just one game. He had two extra-base hits and two walks in Wednesday’s game. That might not sound that impressive, but it’s just the sixth time in the last six years that a Royals player has done that.

I’m not going to argue that one home run is going to change the course of Kila’s season. After all, twice this year Alex Gordon has hit game-winning homers, and we’re still waiting for him to sustain any kind of a breakout.

But I will argue that by keeping him in the lineup, by publicly supporting him despite his struggles, Ned Yost has given Ka’aihue the opportunity to change the course of his season. As I wrote in May, while young hitters in Milwaukee like Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun hit right out of the gate, Yost also stayed firm with hitters who didn’t, like Rickie Weeks and J.J. Hardy and Corey Hart. Yost’s blend of patience and optimism with young players is his single best trait as a manager.

So go ahead and revel in the Bloomquist Prophecy, and sing Ned Yost’s praises. Or go ahead and mock Yost for being foolish enough to bat Willie Freaking Bloomquist third, results be damned.

As far as I’m concerned, though, Yost can bat Bloomquist third – and Jason Kendall second – in every game the rest of the season if he wants, so long as Ka’aihue adjusts to the major leagues and proves himself to be an everyday player by the end of the season. Yost seems committed to giving him that chance. That, not Bloomquist’s home run, is the real story of yesterday’s game.

YUUUUUUU-NEEEEEEE!

This is an article I was sort of hoping I wouldn’t have to write, and I’m still not sure needs to be written now.

But in light of Yuniesky Betancourt’s recent hot streak, which coincides with the birth of his first child*, I think the time is right.

*: It seems like half the players on the club have had children this season. And it seems like they’ve all played exceedingly well afterwards**.

**: Maybe Manny Ramirez was on to something when he was caught using fertility drugs as a performance enhancer.

Over an 11-game stretch from August 3rd to 18th, Betancourt was 16-for-38 (.421) with five homers. Even after an 0-for-4 performance on Thursday, as I write this he’s hitting .267/.287/.422 for the season. His .422 slugging average would be a career best, and his 12 homers are already a career high. His OPS+ of 91 is a hair’s breadth behind his career-best of 93, set in 2007, when he hit .289/.308/.418 for the Mariners.

There’s no denying that Yuni is having a better season that most people, yours truly included, expected. But I will say that the recent fawning over him is a bit much.

Nothing grates me more than the line, which I’ve seen repeated in a bunch of different media outlets, that Betancourt is leading the Royals in home runs. I hate to be a stick in the mud, people, but HE’S NOT LEADING THE TEAM IN HOME RUNS. Jose Guillen is. Just because Guillen was designated for assignment doesn’t mean his homers don’t count. (And the fact that Guillen was DFA’ed, despite leading the team in homers, should tell you not to put too much stock in that accomplishment.)

Still, if you want to give credit to Betancourt for ranking second on the team in homers, as a shortstop, go right ahead. Just don’t forget to point out that along with his 12 homers, he also has exactly 12 walks. He might lead all current Royals in homers, but he also ranks dead last on the Royals in walks (among player with more than 150 PA). Betancourt has drawn a walk in just 2.8% of his plate appearances; the only Royals with a lower walk rate are either 1) pitchers or 2) Jai Miller, who has batted once.

So please, people, keep things in perspective. Betancourt has shown some pop, yes. That doesn’t make up for the fact that of the 145 players who have batted 400 or more times this year, he ranks dead last in walks drawn. Every other player has walked at least 18 times.

Never forget: power is nice, but OBP is life. Betancourt’s .287 OBP ranks third from the bottom among those same 145 players. That’s not an inconvenience, or a blemish on an otherwise sterling stat line. That is the single most important offensive statistic in the game, and Betancourt’s performance in that category is beyond awful.

So if we can agree that Betancourt, while a surprisingly good hitter this season, is nowhere near the best hitter on the ballclub, I’ll agree that he’s been a much better player than I expected him to be.

No analysis of Betancourt is complete without an evaluation, or perhaps a humiliation, of his defense. His glovework, or lack thereof, was the single biggest reason analysts like me panned the trade for him. His defense also represents a flashpoint in the minor skirmish that still takes place at times between statheads and scouts. (Or at least Royals scouts.) At the time the trade was made, the Royals were comfortable saying that Betancourt was at least an average defensive shortstop. Meanwhile, every 21st-century defensive stat evaluated Betancourt’s defense as among the worst, if not the worst, of any everyday shortstop in the majors.

Specifically, the defensive metric of choice at Fangraphs (Ultimate Zone Rating, or UZR), which graded Betancourt’s defense as exactly average in 2005 and 2006, ranked him 4 runs below average in 2007, 11 runs below average in 2008, and an amazing 17 runs below average in 2009. The defensive metric favored by Baseball Info Solutions gave him similar scores: dead average in 2005 and 2006, then -7, -13, and -19 over the next three years.

There’s been a lot of talk this season that Betancourt’s defense looks better, at least to the naked eye. I would share in that assessment; at least 2 or 3 times this year I’ve seen him make plays on balls headed up the middle that he wouldn’t have reached last year. Of course, in each case they were grounders that a good defensive shortstop would have gobbled up like candycorn before throwing onto first for a routine play, but in Betancourt’s case, he was only able to reach them by lunging for them, snaring them into his glove in a full dive, then getting to his feet before nipping the runner at first.

In other words, he’s looked better. He hasn’t looked good. And the numbers back that up. UZR ranks Betancourt’s defense as 7 runs below average so far; BIS is even less charitable, ranking his defense 14 runs below average already. A third defensive metric, Total Zone, ranks Betancourt’s defense as dead average this year after being 12 runs below average last year.

Defensive metrics are imperfect, and so it is best to take a look at multiple different measures to get the most accurate picture. Averaging these three different metrics together, and we can estimate that Betancourt was 16 runs below average last year, and 7 runs below average so far this year. Again: he’s better. He’s still not good.

Nonetheless, he can make a pretty play in the hole, as he did in the ninth inning to preserve victories on back-to-back nights earlier this week. His supporters will point to plays like those as proof that the numbers can’t be right. To which I say: we’ve been down this road before.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…a shortstop with a solid defensive reputation, but brutal defensive numbers…a shortstop who makes the highlight reels with dazzling plays in the hole but who is an absolute sieve on balls hit to his left. Sound familiar? It should, since I just described Derek Jeter.

I think the battle over Betancourt’s defense is the war over Jeter’s defense writ small. Betancourt moves well to his right, has a strong arm, and can make the flashy play from the hole. But he simply has no range to his left. He’s a little more mobile this year, but it’s still a problem, and there’s no reason to expect it to get better.

Admitting you have a problem is Step One, and it would be nice if the Royals acknowledge that Betancourt has an issue. Prior to the 2009 season, the Yankees and Derek Jeter publicly acknowledged that his Gold Glove reputation aside, he could stand to work on his lateral movement, and he focused his off-season exercises with that specific flaw in mind. As a result, Jeter – at the age of 35 – had arguably the best defensive numbers of his career.

That’s a textbook case of a team using statistics as a tool – not as the end-all and be-all, but as a tool – to make their team better. I don’t expect the Royals to acknowledge that Betancourt’s defense is still subpar. But it’s not too much to ask that they acknowledge that his defense could be improved. He’s clearly made some strides this year, but he just as clearly has a ways to go.

Alright, enough dancing around the main point of this article. I’m not prepared to concede that we were wrong about Betancourt. He’s put up some nice power numbers, but we’re still talking about a bad defensive shortstop with a .287 OBP. The Royals are on the hook for $3 million of his $4 million salary next year, plus a $2 million buyout of his 2012 option. That is to say, the Royals will pay him $5 million in 2011. As well as he’s played this year, if Betancourt was put on the trade market after the season, does anyone really think there would be any interest in him? Unless the Royals kicked in some money, I’d say no. Which is to say that even now, even with the Mariners paying some of his salary, Betancourt’s contract has no value.

And I still won’t concede that we were wrong about Betancourt, because everything I know about the situation at the time was that the Royals didn’t have to pay the price that they did. The Mariners were desperate to get rid of him. The Royals could have had the Mariners pick up more money, or do the deal without including Dan Cortes. (Cortes, by the way, was finally moved to the bullpen by Seattle a few weeks ago – a move that was long predicted – and has been dominant in that role: in 13 innings out of the bullpen in Double-A, he allowed just one run and struck out 20, and since being promoted to Triple-A he’s allowed one run in four innings.)

But if I’m not prepared to concede that we were wrong, I am prepared to concede that Dayton Moore was right. Moore was frank about the reason he made the trade at the time: that he didn’t see Betancourt as an All-Star player, but that he was better than anything the Royals had on hand, and the money the Royals would have to pay him was perfectly reasonable for an everyday player.

I hated the trade as much for what Betancourt represented – a giant middle finger to those of who believe that statistics matter – as who he was. But if you take the personal feelings out of the equation, the fact is that Moore was, generally speaking, right. Betancourt has been unquestionably better than the alternatives the Royals had on hand. This is an indictment of Moore’s work, that three years after he was hired the Royals were still forced into hoping that Tony Pena Jr. would hit, or that no one would notice that they were actually starting Willie Bloomquist at shortstop on a regular basis.

If the Royals had not traded for Betancourt, they would once again be petitioning the federal government to declare the area between second and third base a disaster zone. Jeff Bianchi, the one prospect in the system who might have been big-league ready, tore his elbow in spring training. Mike Aviles came back faster than expected from Tommy John surgery of his own, but he hasn’t shown nearly the fielding chops he did as a rookie. The Royals likely would have gone out of the system to find a stopgap anyway, and they would have been hard-pressed to find a player that would have matched Betancourt’s 1.3 Wins Above Replacement this season.

(Quick aside: how much of the credit we’re giving Betancourt should be reflected onto Kevin Seitzer? When you consider the talent the Royals had in the lineup at the beginning of the season, it’s a miracle that the team has even hit as well as it has. Jose Guillen, given up for dead, had an above average OPS+ before he was let go. Scott Podsednik, who had hit .270 just once in the last four years, hit .310 before he was traded. David DeJesus had the best numbers of his career before he got hurt. Wilson Betemit is having one of the great half-seasons in Royals history. And Betancourt has been more than tolerable at the plate. If only he can get Kila to hit…)

I don’t think the Betancourt trade is going to go down in the books as a win for the Royals in a strict accounting sense. The Royals gave up a potential quality reliever for the right to slightly overpay a below-average shortstop. But in a strategic sense, the trade is looking more and more like a small victory. In 2010, at least, Betancourt has done everything the Royals expected him to do. Good for him, and good for them.

As you know, I’ve taken a much softer stance towards Moore this year, for a variety of reasons, primarily the farm system, but also out of recognition that almost every GM makes dumb decisions occasionally, and that it’s not fair to judge Moore in a vacuum. On that note, as hard as it is for me to believe that he’s won this round, as a Royals fan I’m happy that what looked like Moore’s signature move of incompetence instead has me looking like the fool. I’m happy to play the fool this time around, if it means having a GM who might not be the fool I thought he was.

Then again, I was right about Mike Jacobs. And Kyle Farnsworth. And overworking Gil Meche. And Jose Guillen. And Horacio Ramirez. And Jason Kendall. And…

Addendum: As I put this post to bed, the Royals have just completed an epic double-header with the White Sox, a double-header which didn’t start until 6:10 PM, featured a pair of extra-inning games, and was briefly delayed due to a power failure. And it was one of the best days of Yuniesky Betancourt’s career. In the opener, he cost the Royals early with a defensive misplay, but made up for it and then some in the 7th inning, hitting a game-tying, two-out grand slam. It was his third grand slam of the season, which not only tied for the major-league lead but also tied the all-time Royals’ single season record held by Danny Tartabull. He came up again with the game still tied in the ninth, with two out and nobody on, and doubled. He did not score then, but in the 11th, he batted again with two outs, this time with the winning run on third, and delivered the walk-off single.

And then, in the nightcap, he batted in the ninth with the Royals down a run, and Mitch Maier on third base – and once again lined a single up the middle to tie the game. The Royals gave up the go-ahead run in the tenth, and lost because they couldn’t find a way to get Yuni to the plate one more time.

The most surprising thing about his performance, though, was this: in the second game, at nearly 1 in the morning, with Betancourt representing the Royals’ final hope in the ninth – I was able to root for him unabashedly, with no mixed feelings at all. I’ve put my reservations behind me, and learned to embrace Yuni, warts and all. He’s not my kind of player. But he’s still my player. And he’s a better player than I ever thought he’d be.

Royals Today: 8/15/2010.

Watching the Royals these last two weeks, you can kind of get a sense for why Zack Greinke is so frustrated. It’s not that the Royals are losing, although they’ve lost 8 of their last 11; or that they’re not scoring, although they haven’t scored more than 4 runs in any of those 11 games. It’s that the roster that takes the field every night is still, after all this time, predominantly made up of stopgaps.

Of the 25 men on the active roster, the only players who are good bets to be on the Opening Day roster in 2012 are Greinke (if he’s not traded), Billy Butler, and Joakim Soria. Alex Gordon and Kila Ka’aihue might be if the Royals don’t find a way to dump them. Mike Aviles and Mitch Maier have a shot. One of the relievers, most likely Blake Wood, will probably still be around. Maybe Sean O’Sullivan.

But that leaves at least 16 roster spots, and probably closer to 20, where the Royals are just spinning their wheels. Those roster spots will probably remain functionally empty until sometime around next May, at which point, if everything goes to plan, you might see a new player shuffle into Kauffman Stadium on each homestand. Tim Collins might show up first…then Mike Moustakas…a left-handed starter (pick one) around Flag Day…then another one around the 4th of July…

The future is getting closer. But it’s still in the future. The present, meanwhile, consists largely of counting time. It’s not simply that the Royals are bad, although they are. It’s that they’re largely pointless to watch.

- The struggles of one of the above players, Kila Ka’aihue, has some wondering whether he has a future with the ballclub after all. This is the danger that the Royals were courting by waiting until August to cut ties with Jose Guillen and giving Ka’aihue an everyday job. If Ka’aihue had come out of the gate crushing the ball, then ultimately the extra time in the minors would have been more of an inconvenience than anything else.

But because Ka’aihue started 4-for-35, suddenly there’s a very real danger that the Royals won’t get an accurate assessment of his abilities this year because they’ll simply run out of time. The Royals have another 44 games left this season, which means at most Ka’aihue is going to end up with a little over 200 plate appearances. That’s hardly enough playing time to properly evaluate a player, particularly a player getting his first opportunity in the big leagues.

Travis Hafner, to pick a very similar player, hit .242/.329/.387 in a 70-plate-appearance audition in 2002, and then started 2003 hitting .230/.302/.415 through the end of July, in 44 games. At that point, Hafner was 26 years old, had 219 career plate appearances, and had an unimpressive career line of .234/.311/.406. It’s a fair bet that Ka’aihue’s career line, at the end of this season, may approximate Hafner’s numbers both in quantity and quality.

From August 1st through the end of the season, Hafner hit .276/.349/.545. In 2004, hit .311/.410/.585 and led the league in OPS+, the start of a 3-year run in which he was arguably the best hitter in the American League.

I am not saying that Ka’aihue will hit like Hafner did; in fact I find it distinctly unlikely. But by giving him such a small window of opportunity, the Royals run the risk of making a poor evaluation of Ka’aihue’s talents at the end of the year, and even if he is the next Travis Hafner, the Royals might wind up discarding him anyway before they find out.

He’s hit into some tough luck, no question; he missed a home run by just a few feet in his first two starts after his call up, and in his first 5 games back he was 2-for-20 despite just 2 strikeouts. But he seemed to press after that, striking out 3 times in a game against the Angels and then uncharacteristically swinging at bad pitches over the past few games. On Thursday night, facing lefty specialist Boone Logan in the 8th inning, he fouled off the first two pitches, both down at his shoetops, then watched as the third pitch ran right through the heart of the plate for strike three. I’ve seen this movie before, with Alex Gordon in the starring role.

Hopefully he’ll come out of it soon. On Saturday he mustered two hits, including one off of Logan. On Sunday…he was on the bench, against a right-handed pitcher, so that Willie Bloomquist could play third base.

I still believe that Ka’aihue is going to be an above-average hitter in the majors. Check that: I believe Ka’aihue already is an above-average hitter, and just needs enough of a sample size to prove it. But the Royals have made his path needlessly difficult, and they aren’t doing him any favors by sitting him on the bench against opposite-side pitching.

- Speaking of Guillen, I have tried and failed to come up with a permutation of “cash considerations” or “player to be named later” which would cause the Royals to come out on the short end of the trade with the Giants. Perhaps if “cash considerations” meant “one billion dollars” – or worse, if the PTBNL was…Jose Guillen. Otherwise, the Royals got something for nothing. Don’t expect the PTBNL to be a real prospect, but even so, the Royals saved a quarter-million dollars. That’s enough to pay for a decent prospect out of the Dominican.

- I don’t think Bryan Bullington is ever going to live up to even a fraction of the expectations that come with a #1 overall pick. There’s no evidence to suggest that his Sunday start was anything more than the vagaries of baseball showing themselves, a reminder that it is baseball, not football, where on Any Given Sunday the worst team can beat the best team, even with a 29-year-old journeyman in search of his first career win on the mound.

But what a win it was. By Game Score, Bullington’s start was the best one of the season by a Royal. (Although tellingly, the Royals had six starts that were better than this in 2009.) It was just the third time in their history that the Royals had beaten the Yankees 1-0. (Amazingly enough, the other two times occurred in the same series – on June 9th and June 11th, 1972. Jim Rooker and Dick Drago threw shutouts; Paul Schaal and Amos Otis drove in the only runs.)

Most impressively, Sunday was the first time ever that the Royals shut out the Yankees on two hits or less.

I still don’t think that Bryan Bullington has any more upside than to be another Brian Bannister-type. But I’d say he’s earned another start. With the original Bannister not doing too well these days, the Royals could do worse than to let Bullington prove whether they’ve found a successor.

- Bullington’s performance was a testament to the veteran influence of Jason Kendall, who called a brilliant game, sagely guided his inexperienced hurler through the gauntlet of one of the game’s toughest lineup, and even threw out the speedy Brett Gardner trying to steal second base in the sixth inning.

Or at least, I’m sure Kendall would have done all those things had he actually started the game. Instead, Brayan Pena did.

In Pena’s last four starts behind the plate, the pitching staff has been so traumatized that they’ve given up a total of 9 runs. I don’t think it’s humanly possible to destroy the canard that the Royals need Kendall behind the plate for the sake of the pitching staff, but if the fact that the team is dead last in the AL in ERA wasn’t enough, the performance of their pitchers with Brayan Pena is just another data point.

Ned Yost, to his credit, seems to have noticed that Pena doesn’t call a fastball down the middle on every pitch, and that he’s even thrown out 5 of 13 potential basestealers. Yost has said that Pena will start almost every day game from now until the end of the season, and a few other assorted games, which should add up to about a third of the games on the remainder of the schedule. On any other team, allowing a 36-year-old washed-up catcher to play two-thirds of the remaining games for a last-place team would incite all kinds of protests. On the Royals, we call this progress.

- Well, it would be progress if Brayan Pena could actually hit. Instead, he’s now 1-for-his-last-23, and has grounded into 4 double plays in that span. After hitting an impressive .273/.318/.442 last season, he’s down to a line of .161/.238/.196 this year, and has struck out nearly as many times as he did last year, in barely one-third of the at-bats. If I didn’t know better, I’d say getting to play twice a month is bad for a player’s development.

- Twenty-one of the Royals’ next 24 games come against divisional rivals. Now’s the perfect time to make their move.

Zack Speaks. Everyone Freaks.

As Sam Mellinger writes, the lot of being a Royals fan is that bad news trails after good like ants after a picnic basket. One moment we’re riding high, secure in the knowledge that Jose Guillen is gone and Kila Ka’aihue has a spot in the everyday lineup. The next, we’re laid low by our franchise player, who’s telling us in his own inimitable way, it’s not him, it’s us.

“There’s no reason for me to get real excited about it,” he said, “because the chance of more than one of them making a major impact by the time my contract is up is pretty slim.”

…

“It depends more on the team now,” he acknowledged. “We’ll see. This is at least the third full re-start/rebuilding phase since I’ve been here. And, obviously, none of them have worked. This one hasn’t even really started yet.”

…

“It’s not real exciting to have to go through it again,” he said. “It’s been six years with me, and most people (who are Royals fans) have been through a lot more than I have. But for me, it’s the third complete re-start/rebuilding phase.”

That’s not the part that hurts. The part that hurts is that he’s right. There’s nothing like the reality of the present to splash cold water on the dreams of the future.

At times like this, I prefer to take counsel from my trusty copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, where it helpfully says on the front cover, in all capital letters, “DON’T PANIC”.

Seriously, everyone. Let’s all just take a chill pill – you too, Dayton – and think this through before we do something stupid.

Greinke’s words already have people arguing that the Royals should trade him as soon as possible. As I see it, here’s the thought process:

1) Greinke is fed up with all the losing.

2) As a result of being fed up with all the losing, Greinke wants out as soon as his contract is up in 2012.

3) While the Royals might be better in 2012, they’re probably not going to be ready to truly contend until 2013 or 2014.

4) Rather than keep Greinke now, only to have him leave right before the team is ready to contend, it’s better to trade him now for prospects who will accelerate the rebuild and be ready to contribute in 2013 and beyond.

Let’s address these one by one:

- Greinke is fed up with all the losing.

If I can quote Colonel James here: Oh, you think so, Doctor? You think playing for a team that’s lost at least 87 games every year of his career, that has a record of 431-650 since his debut season of 2004, might have worn him down some? The Royals have a .399 winning percentage over the last seven years. A .399 winning percentage. When the New York Yankees were the laughingstock of baseball in 1990, finishing with the worst record in the game, they had a .414 winning percentage. The Chicago White Sox, to pick a team at random that isn’t known for its history of success, have had two seasons with a winning percentage under .400 since 1951. The Royals have averaged under .400 for nearly seven seasons.

Of course he’s fed up with all the losing. I’m fed up with all the losing, and I can turn off the TV when I can’t take it any more. If Greinke wasn’t fed up, I’d have to seriously question his commitment to winning in the first place.

- As a result of being fed up with all the losing, Greinke wants out as soon as his contract is up in 2012.

This is what has everyone up in a panic, but I don’t think it’s nearly so cut-and-dried. I have no doubt that if the Royals are still losing in 2012, Greinke will want out, and won’t re-sign under any circumstances. I had no doubt that this was the case before he spoke out.

“Very rarely do guys come straight into the big leagues and make an impact, especially hitters,” he said. “Just look at the top prospects in baseball. Delmon Young was one five years ago, and he’s finally starting to play well.

“Alex Gordon was one four years ago, and he might be starting to play well now. So the problem (with the Royals’ prospects) is that it’s not like as soon as they get here that it’s going to be instant (success). Maybe by 2014.”

I don’t get the impression from Greinke’s comments that he’s upset with the way the team is playing now. I think he’s frustrated because he’s hearing all this talk about a youth movement, but the youth movement hasn’t even arrived yet. I think he’s frustrated because he – not unreasonably, I might add – figures that if Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer and Michael Montgomery aren’t even supposed to arrive in Kansas City until the middle of 2011, what are the odds that they’ll actually be ready to be in contention by 2012, with just a half-season of experience?

That’s a fascinating question, and one that deserves its own column. But for now, let’s acknowledge the fact that Greinke isn’t saying he’s made up his mind that he’s gone after 2012. He’s saying that, based on what he sees, he doesn’t think the team will be competitive in 2012, and if it’s not, he’s out of here. He might be right. But he might be wrong. The beauty of this question is that it doesn’t have to be answered right now, because Greinke can’t go anywhere of his own accord for two more seasons. So why not wait and see?

- While the Royals might be better in 2012, they’re probably not going to be ready to truly contend until 2013 or 2014.

By happy coincidence, the day after Greinke made his comments, Kevin Goldstein published an article at Baseball Prospectus entitled “Ladies and Gents: Your 2013 Kansas City Royals.”

When I revealed my Top 25 Prospects list last week, I thought about including a hypothetical roster for the Royals in their first game after hosting the 2012 All-Star Game. I decided against it because it seemed a little too optimistic, even for me – it was a roster in which ALL 25 PLAYERS had spent their entire major-league career with the Royals, and something like 20 of the 25 players are still in the minors today. It just seemed unrealistic that a team could put together a roster that was THAT young and THAT home-grown.

And then Goldstein, who’s never been accused of being a Royals fan, publishes a roster that’s almost the exact same one.

Everyday Starters
C: Lucas May
1B: Eric Hosmer
2B: Christian Colon
3B: Mike Moustakas
SS: TBD
LF: Alex Gordon
CF: Derrick Robinson
RF: Wil Myers
DH: Billy Butler

Bench
C: Manny Pina
CI: Kila Ka'aihue
MI: Mike Aviles
OF: Mitch Maier
UT: Ed Lucas

The only 2 significant differences I had was that I had Myers behind the plate, Hosmer in right field, and Ka’aihue at first base; and I had Colon at shortstop and Johnny Giavotella at second base. The first one is a case of wishful thinking, I know; the odds that Myers can develop behind the plate in time are slim. But I really do think that the Royals are committed to Colon at shortstop, even with less-than-perfect range. (If they can put up with Yuni at shortstop, Colon should be a piece of cake.)

Rotation
ST1: Zack Greinke
ST2: John Lamb
ST3: Mike Montgomery
ST4: Chris Dwyer
ST5: Sean O'Sullivan

Bullpen
CL: Joakim Soria
SU: Tim Collins
RH: Louis Coleman
LH: Danny Duffy
MR: Luke Hochevar
MR: Aaron Crow

The only difference here is that I put Hochevar in the rotation instead of O’Sullivan. Really, the problem is that the Royals simply have too many good starters right now; Hochevar or Duffy could both slot into the rotation, as could Tim Melville or Tyler Sample if they break out next year. There’s no reason to worry about this right now; injuries have a way of thinning the herd.

Take a look at that roster, and for completeness’ sake add Giavotella and slide Colon to shortstop. O’Sullivan pitched for the Angels; the other 24 guys have never played a game for another major-league team. Aside from Greinke, the only players who will definitely be arbitration-eligible are Soria, Butler, Gordon, Aviles, and Maier. That’s a team that’s young, that’s cheap, and that ought to be competitive at the very least.

An e-mail from a scout last night led to a deeper thought, however, as he sketched a quick outline of a Royals roster of the future, leading me to put some real detailed thought into the process. What I came up with surprised even me. "This team could be really good," said the scout. "I realize that's weird, and like saying the Los Angeles Clippers are going to be good, where it just doesn't sound right, but that's a lot of talent."

This is Goldstein’s vision of the 2013 Royals. The only difference between the 2012 and 2013 Royals is that Greinke is a free agent. Butler and Gordon would be free agents after 2013; Soria, Aviles, and Maier after 2014. Everyone else is under contract through 2016.

I have no doubt that the Royals ought to be a better team in 2013 and 2014 than they will be in 2012, even if Greinke doesn’t re-sign. But it’s simply too early to write off 2012 yet. You don’t see waves of young talent crest on a single team at the same time very often. When it happens, the results can be immediate and spectacular.

The 1991 Braves weren’t as young as people think – their entire infield was made up of veterans – but the pitching staff was young and talented, as the only pitchers over the age of 25 to start for the Braves were Rick Mahler, who made 2 starts, and Charlie Leibrandt. The Braves lost 97 games in both 1989 and 1990. In 1991, they were just 39-40 at the All-Star Break, then went 55-28 in the second half to take the division.

The 2007 Devil Rays lost 96 games, after losing 101 games the year before, but they had a very young rotation as well – just 20 starts came from pitchers over the age of 25. In 2008, a 26-or-younger pitcher started every game of the season, the lineup added a 22-year-old rookie named Evan Longoria, B.J. Upton moved to centerfield, they traded for Matt Garza, the defense went from sucktastic to stellar, and they won the AL pennant.

The odds that the 2012 Royals do that are slim – with the exception of Longoria and Steve Avery, the key players on both teams had spent a full season in the majors. But then again, the 2012 Royals don’t have to be as good as the Braves and Rays – who won 94 and 96 games – to be competitive. A winning season would be enough to be “competitive” in the AL Central, and more to the point, would be enough to convince Greinke that the Royals are worth re-signing with.

Maybe it’s a pipe dream. But it’s a dream holding on to anyway. Look at that team again – Soria is under a team-friendly contract, Aviles and Maier are backups, and the only other guys on the roster that can expect to earn seven figures are Gordon and Butler. (Actually Crow, by virtue of his major-league contract, would as well.) The entire roster, sans Greinke, would likely cost no more than $25 million, $30 million tops. Even if they re-sign Greinke, you’re looking at $45-50 million in payroll. Even David Glass would understand that he can afford to pay for one or two choice free agents to take the team over the hump.

And that’s the danger of trading Greinke now – not only do you trade his contract in 2011 and 2012, you trade the option to re-sign him for 2013 and beyond. Greinke is that rare superstar player for whom the bright lights hold little appeal. Rather than worrying that Greinke wants to leave, we should be thankful that there’s any chance that he’d want to stay in the first place. Think about how hard it is for the Royals to land top free-agents, how they offered millions to Torii Hunter and were rebuffed, how Andruw Jones told them their money was no good here, and how they were forced to settle for Jose Guillen.

The Royals have 90% of a contending roster in place for 2013 – the 90% that gives you tremendous value for your money. What they need is the 10% of the roster that takes 30-40% of the payroll, but provides the star power that’s backed up by the other 90%. The Royals have the luxury that they can seriously contemplate going after the best free agents on the market in a year or two. Losing Greinke would take them a step away from that goal.

Hell, if you really want to speed up the rebuilding process, and prove to Greinke that you’re serious about winning, you can go the other way and trade prospects for an established young player. The Royals have so much talent that they could afford to part with some excess. Imagine if the Royals packaged, I don’t know, Chris Dwyer, Johnny Giavotella, and Tyler Sample. Could they go to, say, the Orioles, and offer that package for Nick Markakis? Markakis is 26 years old and under contract through at least 2014. He’s making $11 million on his current contract, but the Royals could easily afford that given this roster, and afford the prospects too.

Maybe that’s not enough to get Markakis, although I think it’s a good starting point. But the point is that by virtue of having a stellar farm system, the Royals have a LOT of options at their disposal. They can trade prospects, and they can take on payroll – the two hardest things for any organization to do in today’s game. The ability to do those things should help the Royals land a player like Greinke, not trade him away.

- Rather than keep Greinke now, only to have him leave right before the team is ready to contend, it’s better to trade him now for prospects who will accelerate the rebuild and be ready to contribute in 2013 and beyond.

If the choice is between trading Greinke now for prospects, or losing him as a free agent and getting the draft picks – yeah, I’d say trade him now. But that’s not the choice. The choice is between trading him now, or trading him in 2011, or trading him in 2012, or letting him go to free agency.

If you hold him now, you get the option to see what happens in 2011. Maybe next year’s team has a little 2003 in them, and gets off to a .500 start into June, when Moustakas comes up and bangs 7 homers in his first month, and Montgomery wins his first three starts, and the team is a game out of first place in July, and the Royals announce that Greinke has signed an extension.

Or maybe the Royals play under .500 and are out of the race in July, but Moustakas comes up and plays well, and Montgomery and Lamb are in the rotation and show a lot of promise, and the Free Eric Hosmer! movement begins in earnest. Maybe Greinke isn’t ready to commit, but the Royals decide they’re close enough that they can make a run in 2012, and they keep him.

Or maybe – perish the thought – the Royals have a season not unlike what’s happened to the Orioles this year, when seemingly every top young player has regressed. In that case, Greinke goes on the market next year…and judging from the haul the Blue Jays got for Roy Halladay with a year-and-a-half left on his deal, the Royals could get two or three additional top prospects. Halladay’s price was inflated by his willingness to sign an extension with the Phillies, but still, there’s no question Greinke would be worth a ton.

Even if the Royals keep him until 2012, and then find themselves still languishing in last place that summer, they can still turn him into a top prospect then. The Mariners turned Cliff Lee into Justin Smoak and three other prospects last month. It was a disappointing return, large because it’s an established fact that the Yankees had offered Jesus Montero – one of the five best hitting prospects in baseball – and change.

If the worst-case scenario to keeping Greinke is that they simply flip him in two years for one of the game’s best prospects…I say keep him. What’s the rush?

The greatest concern I have with Greinke right now isn’t his words, it’s his actions. A day after making his comments, he went out and allowed six runs to the worst offense in baseball. In his previous start, he allowed three runs in eight innings to the Orioles, the worst team in the league; the Orioles ran themselves out of some rallies and Greinke was lucky to escape with the win. The start before that, he allowed eight runs in four innings to the Twins, and the Royals suffered a historic beatdown, 19-1.

If you want to make a case for trading Greinke, the case starts with the argument that he’s not mentally giving his best right now. Unlike last year, when the Royals were in first place early on, and Greinke had personal glory to shoot for late, he really has nothing to pitch for, and we know from experience that Greinke has trouble motivating himself for meaningless games. This is the guy that once said he’d rather pitch for Wichita in a pennant race than for Kansas City when they’re in last place.

Greinke started this year pitching almost as well as last year. But after his start on May 18, when he had a 2.72 ERA and just one win to show for it, he’s been – there is no nice way to put this – pretty awful since. In his last 14 starts, he has a 5.07 ERA. He’s pitched better than his ERA would indicate, and his stuff seems as good as ever – but for whatever reason, the results aren’t there. As tempting as it is to blame Jason Kendall, you have to wonder if his heart isn’t in it.

As Dick Kaegel writes:

This was the first time that Greinke had ever faced the left-handed-hitting Langerhans and he decided to fly by the seat of his pants. He didn't scrutinize Langerhans' tendencies prior to the game.

"I was going to just make good pitches and learn from them as the game went on, but he likes it away, he likes it down a little and it was kind of down, middle away," Greinke said.

Yeah, you might want to do your homework next time, Zack.

But even so, it’s no reason to give up on him. Not giving your all isn’t an admirable trait, but I’d rather have a pitcher that doesn’t get up for meaningless games than one who shies away from the big stage. Greinke’s performance isn’t close to the worst case I’ve ever seen of a pitcher who just mailed it in – Randy Johnson in 1998, who had already decided he was leaving Seattle after the season, and pitched for four months like he had a plane to catch. The Mariners dealt him at the deadline to Houston, and the light bulb immediately went on – Johnson won 10 of his 11 starts with a 1.28 ERA, one of the most impactful trade deadline acquisitions of all time.

Greinke’s struggles bother me. But I don’t think they’re permanent.

DON’T PANIC. If the Royals turn things around in the next two years, I still think Greinke will not only pitch like the pitcher we saw last year, but that he might stay beyond 2012. It’s not like he made these statements in a press conference designed to put pressure on the Royals to trade him immediately. He made these statements on a road trip to Bob Dutton, who by virtue of the fact that he’s there for every single game, is the one member of the media Greinke trusts the most.

“I like Kansas City,” Greinke said. “It’s a town that fits me pretty well. But I don’t know … at least put a team together that has a fighting chance (to win).”

That doesn’t sound like a player who’s got one foot out the door. It sounds like a player who’s fed up with losing, and isn’t going to stick around just based on the promise of a better tomorrow. It sounds like a player who wants to see results.

The Royals have two years to deliver them. I suggest they use all the time they have allotted.

I’m not sure if “DON’T PANIC” is written on the cover of The General Manager’s Guide To The Process. It should be.

A Better Day.

(As usual with the Royals, when it rains, it pours. So let’s just pretend, for the sake of the column title, that Zack Greinke didn’t make any statements to the press today – I’ll address what he said soon enough.)

I’ll be honest: I didn’t think Dayton Moore had the balls to do it.

Sure, it was the right thing to do. Jose Guillen was a mistake from the moment he signed his 3-year, $36 million contract. This isn’t revisionist history. When Guillen signed, Rob Neyer wrote, “It’s Kevin McReynolds all over again.” Joe Posnanski ran with that comparison as well. It was a good comparison: like McReynolds, Guillen was a right-handed-hitting outfielder who the Royals acquired at the age of 32, an age where non-star hitters tend to decline rapidly.

With the book now closed on Guillen, here’s the final tally:

Kevin McReynolds as a Royal: .246/.338/.421, 105 OPS+

Jose Guillen as a Royal: .256/.308/.420, 94 OPS+

Score one for the statheads.

Really, it’s not fair to McReynolds to compare him to Guillen. For one, he wasn’t given the highest annual salary in Royals’ history, like Guillen was. In McReynolds’ case, the Royals were able to find a trading partner before the final year of his contract, shipping him to the Mets for Vince Coleman (admittedly not a prize pickup himself). And most importantly, while McReynolds got all the headlines as the big acquisition for Bret Saberhagen, the reality was that Gregg Jefferies was the key to that deal. Saberhagen-for-Jefferies was a ballsy trade that the Royals won – or they might have, had Herk Robinson not inexplicably traded Gregg Jefferies for Felix Jose the following year, perhaps the most unrecognized bad trade in Royals history.

I digress. Jose Guillen’s tenure in Kansas City got off on the wrong foot, and never found the right one. He said inflammatory things about his teammates and management. He intimidated Trey Hillman into letting him do whatever he wanted. He cursed out the fans to the media. He loafed on the bases and in the field. He played some of the worst outfield defense anyone had ever seen. He pulled out his own freaking toenail.

The only thing he didn’t do, with a few brief exceptions, was hit. From May 7 to June 23, 2008, Guillen had a remarkable 44-game stretch when he hit .380, slugged .659, hit 20 doubles and 10 homers, and drove in 45 runs. (He walked just twice.) And this season, after being written off as through after an injury-filled 2009 season, he shocked everyone with 6 doubles and 7 homers in the season’s first 18 games, batting .351 and slugging .716. (He walked just twice.) Aside from those two stretches, Guillen hit and fielded like a replacement-level catcher who was playing the outfield for the first time. Except with a worse attitude.

Since April 26th, Guillen has hit .233/.301/.363 for the Royals – and has started all but three games.

I know a lot of Royals fans were angry at the way the front office kept running him out there, day after day, in the desperate hope that their patience would one day be rewarded and they might actually get something for him. Honestly, my reaction was just a dash of anger in a large bowl of pity. It was less maddening than it was pathetic to watch Guillen play, day after day, knowing that even the Royals didn’t really want him in the lineup.

Let’s remember that, based on the way Guillen ended last season, I don’t think the Royals expected him to be physically able to play regularly this season. While I think Guillen might have been exaggerating slightly when he said that he almost died from blood clots in his legs over the off-season, there’s no question that as late as February, the Royals weren’t sure he’d be able to play at all. I have to think that all their stockpiling of outfielders, from Scott Podsednik to Rick Ankiel to Brian Anderson (remember him?) was based in part on the expectation that they’d have to replace Guillen.

And I have to think they were more surprised than anyone when Guillen looked fine in spring training, and then when he was the team’s best hitter in April. In retrospect, of course – and some Royals fans were wise enough to point this out at the time – Guillen’s hot April was the worst thing that could have happened to the Royals. Because once he proved in April that he was healthy and able, there was simply no way they could justify taking him out of the lineup.

So instead we were treated to a long, sad, joyless farewell tour, the result of an unholy alliance between a team desperate to get something for their player and a player desperate to get the hell out of town. Guillen’s April performance was just enough to get him back on the trade radar of a few teams, and if he had managed to hit at all over the ensuing three months he probably would have found a new home. But he didn’t. The Royals, proving they learned nothing from the Gil Meche debacle, were either too scared or too disinterested to give Guillen the occasional day off.

By early June, it was clear that no American League team was interested in acquiring him to DH. You’d think that was a cue to give up – but the Royals simply couldn’t give up the ghost, and in a desperate attempt to revive his value to a National League team, they gave him his glove back. Starting on June 9th, Guillen started 17 of his next 23 games in the field. Maybe they figured that Guillen would inevitably injure himself and solve their dilemma. If they did, it almost worked – Guillen pulled up lame “running” out a ground ball in early July, and looked like he’d be out for a while. He missed two games.

Meanwhile, Kila Ka’aihue was forced to turn the Pacific Coast League into his personal playground for four months.

Until the very end, the Royals held out hope. They offered to pick up almost his entire salary; they offered to trade him for a token player. When no team would bite at the trading deadline, they sent him through waivers. Forty-eight hours later, he went unclaimed. The game was over. The jig was up.

And Dayton Moore waved the white flag.

If he deserves criticism for sticking with Guillen as long as he did, Moore at least deserves credit for finally acknowledging reality. I mean, it’s easy to say that Jose Guillen was a sunk cost, and the Royals should do what other teams do – cut their losses and release the player. But it’s not that simple. Teams eat contracts all the time when the players they’re attached to have ceased to play at a major-league level. But Guillen, for all his warts, is worthy of his roster spot, at least in the abstract.

For the season, he’s hitting .255/.314/.429, and if that doesn’t sound great, keep in mind that his numbers are good for a 101 OPS+. Which is to say, he’s been a tiny bit better than a league-average player this season. Yes, most of that damage was done in April, and yes, you’d like better-than-average performances from your DH. But at the moment, the Royals rank a respectable 7th among the 14 AL teams in OPS from their DH spot. Their DHs rank above the Yankees (!), White Sox, Rays, and Angels, all of whom are in contention.

And yet they released him anyway. I’ve seen teams release expensive players who suck before, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a team release an expensive player who was still a league-average player.

It was absolutely the right move to make, of course. There’s a reason why the Royals couldn’t trade Guillen for even a few magic beans despite his performance – teams are understandably reluctant to take on his personality, particularly since nothing seems to irk Guillen more than being out of the lineup. There are a number of contenders who would love to have a man of Guillen’s talents on their bench. But there isn’t a single contender who thinks that Guillen himself would be happy with such an arrangement.

In the end, this move shouldn’t be too surprising. In the clubhouse after last Friday’s game, when Guillen hit the 300th double of his career (his final hit as a Royal, as it turned out), my friend Nate Bukaty asked him what he planned to do with the baseball. Guillen was almost disgusted by the notion that the ball had any value. Three times he told Nate to take the ball. Nate politely declined, and when it was gently suggested to Guillen that he give the ball to the Royals’ Hall of Fame, he sneered, “Now why would I want to do that?”

The following day, as the trading deadline passed and every other member of the team was in uniform in preparation for the game, Guillen alone sat at his locker with his jeans still on, and only after it was clear that he hadn’t been traded did he grudgingly decide to get dressed.

You don’t have to be Einstein to understand the implication.

In retrospect, sure, the Royals should have let him go months ago and gotten an early start on the Kila Ka’aihue era. I imagine they’d say the same thing themselves. But I understand why they let things play out the way that they did. I’m not a big believer in the unwritten rules of baseball, but one of the unwritten rules of sports is so obvious that it doesn’t need to be written: you don’t release a player who’s playing well. If the Royals had released Guillen in May, when he was still slugging over .500, the hit they would have taken to their reputation would have been far greater than the damage they did by letting Guillen overstay his welcome.

If you want to blame Dayton Moore for signing Jose Guillen in the first place, go right ahead; I know I do. But once Guillen came out of the chute on fire this season, Moore’s hands were tied. Only now, after Guillen proved both untradeable and unwaivable, could Moore simply release him in good faith. To his credit, Moore did so at the earliest opportunity, on a day (an off-day on the road) where Guillen’s departure was likely to cause the least amount of clubhouse discord.

It’s sad that it had to come to this. But it would have been sadder still if it hadn’t come to this, and Guillen continued to hog playing time until his contract ran out. The Ka’aihue Era can begin in earnest now. It’s starting late, but better late than in 2011. We fans have been on board with this youth movement for a long time now. With this one move, Dayton Moore proves that he’s starting to come on board too.

Moore has told us to Trust the Process. In releasing a still-viable veteran player, and eating $4 million to let an unproven but promising youngster play every day, Moore is showing us that he might – just might – finally be ready to Trust the Process himself.