Opening Day, And The Gloves Come Off.

And now I know why God, in His infinite wisdom, did not want me to attend Opening Day.

I am, as many of you know, a rather patient baseball fan. I am a rather forgiving baseball fan. I would not have survived as a Royals fan if I was not.

Last year, no one was the beneficiary of my patience and my forgiving nature than Trey Hillman. Whether it was his ridiculous dressing-down of his players on the field at the end of a meaningless spring-training game, or the way he talked up the importance of OBP all spring even as his players set an all-time franchise low in walks, I defended him well past the point of reason. I figured that anyone who had just taken the Nippon Ham Fighters, the Royals of Japanese baseball, to two Japan Series and one championship must have some idea what he is doing, and after years of watching managers who had no idea what they’re doing, I was prepared to give some leeway to a manager with an actual history of success on his resume.

The free pass is over.

The shame is that there are so many positives to take from this game. Gil Meche was brilliant once again, getting through seven innings in just 91 pitches, striking out six without a walk, and getting out of a bases-loaded, none-out jam in the second with just one run scoring. After Mike Jacobs turned a routine groundball into a double (excuse me…a “double”) in the fourth, Meche retired Carlos Quentin and Jim Thome to get out of the inning. David DeJesus showed off the improved outfield defense with his arm instead of his glove, killing two baserunners and taking at least one run off the board. Kevin Seitzer was in line for a game ball after both Jose Guillen and Mike Aviles walked (did those two ever walk in the same game last year?), both of them working their way back from a two-strike count against Mark Buehrle. Gordon homered. Teahen doubled and walked and didn’t kill anyone while playing second base.

If the Royals hadn’t held a lead going into the late innings, the story of the game might have been the team’s inability to hit with runners on base. The Royals stranded 11 men on base, and were 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position. But how a team hits in those situations over the span of one game is meaningless; what matters is that the Royals were getting guys into scoring position in the first place. And thanks to Meche, the Royals were in excellent position to win the game despite their futility with RISP.

Until the eighth. Until the inning that Hillman had just yesterday designated as Kyle Farnsworth’s inning, a decision that I suppose was inevitable in spite of, or perhaps precisely because of, the fact that it completely defies common sense.

Look for veteran Kyle Farnsworth to get the ball today in the eighth inning — instead of Juan Cruz or Ron Mahay — if the Royals are looking to bridge a lead to closer Joakim Soria.

“With the effectiveness that he’s shown (in spring training),” manager Trey Hillman said, “it would probably be Kyle. But those three guys can rotate between the seventh and eighth on any given day.

“One of those guys, probably Cruz or Mahay, could default to the sixth if we needed that.”

There wasn’t a Royals fan in the country who didn’t hold their breath when they read that passage on the eve of Opening Day.

Trey Hillman named Kyle Farnsworth his primary set-up man instead of Juan Cruz.

Kyle Farnsworth, he of the 4.48 ERA last year, and the 4.80 ERA the year before that, and the 4.36 ERA the year before that, over Juan Cruz, who had a 2.61 ERA last year, a 3.10 ERA the year before that, a 4.18 ERA the year before that.

Farnsworth, who surrendered 15 home runs in 60 innings last year (pitching for the Yankees and Tigers, two teams that play in pitcher’s parks) over Cruz, who surrendered 5 home runs in 52 innings last year (pitching for the Diamondbacks, who play in one of the game’s best hitter’s parks.)

There is no fathomable reason to think that Kyle Farnsworth is a better pitcher than Juan Cruz. None. And any reason that Hillman might proffer serves only to denigrate the intellect of the man proffering it. Before today’s game, I had been told that Hillman decided on Farnsworth in part because he pitched better during the final week of spring training. That excuse – and I hesitate to sully the fine name of the term “excuse” by associating it with Hillman’s thought process here – is both inexplicable and totally absurd. Which is to say, it makes as much sense as any other excuse that Hillman could have offered for his decision.

And it actually makes more sense than the other possible reason Hillman might have had: that Hillman arranged his bullpen hierarchy not based on performance, but based on salary. It’s a fact that Farnsworth was signed for more money than Cruz. It’s also completely meaningless, unless you’re using that information to evaluate Dayton Moore’s skills as a GM. If Hillman decided that he needed to justify the fact that one reliever is making $4.5 million a year and the other one is making $3 million a year – or if Moore is forcing Hillman to make that decision – as far as I’m concerned, that’s a fireable offense.

Juan Cruz has been the better reliever for at least three years. Dayton Moore signed him, at the cost of a draft pick, precisely because he was an upgrade on what the Royals had in terms of a bridge to Joakim Soria. How Hillman could have settled on Farnsworth to be his eighth-inning guy and decided that Cruz “could default to the sixth if we needed that” defies explanation.

Does Hillman even know that Farnsworth, whatever his assets are, is incredibly vulnerable to the home run? Does he know that U.S. Cellular Field is one of the best home run parks in baseball? Does he know anything?

It’s bad enough that Hillman brought Farnsworth in to protect a one-run lead in the bottom of the eighth inning. Worse still, he left him in. He left him in after Josh Fields led off with a bunt single. He left him in after Chris Getz singled with one out to put the tying run on third.

He probably felt pretty good about leaving Farnsworth in when Carlos Quentin struck out and kept Fields ninety feet away. That’s why the Royals spent $9 million on a pitcher that few other teams wanted at half that price: they wanted the guy who could get a strikeout when a strikeout was needed. Never mind that Farnsworth badly needed a strikeout because of a mess of his own making, or that Cruz has a better strikeout rate than Farnsworth.

So that brought Jim Thome to the plate. Jim Thome, who had hit 42 home runs against the Royals in his career, more than any other player in history (Rafael Palmeiro had hit 41.) Two men on, two out, one of the most feared left-handed hitters in the league at the plate.

Does Hillman bring in Juan Cruz at this point, because he’s, you know, a better pitcher? No, but fine, that ship has sailed.

Does he bring in Ron Mahay to get a key left-handed hitter out? In his career, Thome has hit .296/.431/.620 against RHP – against southpaws, those numbers drop to .240/.342/.442. He’s basically Barry Bonds against right-handers, and Casey Blake against left-handers. Mahay only needs to get one out before it’s Mexicutioner time. How about it? No.

Well, how about Soria himself? Didn’t we just hear Hillman talk about how he was going to use Soria to get four or five outs a lot more this year? What better time to use Soria in the eighth than on Opening Day, when he hasn’t thrown a pitch since Saturday? Keep in mind that Soria, much like his doppelganger Mariano Rivera, has a reverse platoon split – he’s been more effective against left-handed hitters (.167/.242/.255) than right-handed hitters (.188/.251/.264) in his career. If ever there was a time to call upon Soria in the eighth inning, it’s this situation, right? No.

No. We’d much rather break out the deer rifle to measure just how far Jim Thome can hit a fastball that’s thrown incredibly hard and incredibly straight.

Farnsworth threw the pitch, but he’s no higher than third on the list of people who should be blamed for this. It’s not his fault that Dayton Moore offered him $9 million to sign. It’s not his fault that Hillman brought him in to pitch the eighth inning when better options abounded, then left him out there even as his margin for error grew smaller and smaller.

The Rany of a year ago would have cut Hillman some slack for this. “He made a mistake,” he would have said, “but he’ll learn from this. Let’s see who he calls upon the next time the Royals have a one-run lead in the eighth. If Cruz gets the call, then chalk this up as an expensive but useful lesson for Hillman, that the guy with the ERA in the 2s is generally better than the guy with the ERA in the 4s.”

That Rany is gone. He’s fed up. He’s watched Trey Hillman make enough dumb decisions with his bullpen (like this one). He watched as Trey Hillman lost the clubhouse, the cardinal sin for any manager, last August before he was rescued by the team’s improbable 18-8 run in September. And he’s decided that whatever Hillman accomplished in Japan, it means absolutely nothing if he can’t perform third-grade math in his head, the kind of math that says the guy with the 2.61 ERA last year is better than the guy with the 4.48 ERA.

The worst part of all this is that we all saw it coming. Every last one of us knew from the moment they read Hillman’s words about keeping Farnsworth in the eighth-inning role that it would cost the Royals dearly at some point. We didn’t know it would be Opening Day, against one of our chief rivals, with the justice meted out by one of our greatest nemeses. But we knew it was coming. With the Royals, no bad decision ever goes unpunished.

Here’s a memo for you, Trey: Kyle Farnsworth is NOT NOT NOT a quality set-up man. Juan Cruz is.

Oh, and here’s another one: never underestimate the power of common sense.

If the reasons why Juan Cruz is better than Kyle Farnsworth can be understood by a six-year-old, then no amount of extenuating circumstances, like who looked better in a meaningless ballgame in March, ought to change that fact.

Maybe Hillman will learn from this immediately and anoint Cruz as his top set-up man, or maybe he’ll need to cough up a few more games first. What happened on Opening Day was the ultimate example of what behavioral psychologists call “negative feedback”, and you’d think that would be enough to learn. (Even lab rats know that if you shock them every time they press a lever, they should stop pressing the lever.) But Hillman shouldn’t have needed the negative feedback of a game-winning three-run homer to learn. If he’s not smart to figure out on his own that Juan Cruz is a better reliever than Kyle Farnsworth, he’s probably not smart enough to realize that if Decision A leads to Outcome B, the best way to avoid Outcome B again is to stop making Decision A.

Regardless of whether he learns or not, Hillman is getting no slack with me this year. He cost us this game, plain and simple. He cost us a two-game swing in the standings with a divisional rival. The odds that the outcome of this game – the outcome of Hillman’s decision – keeps the Royals out of the postseason are something like 1%. Think about that: it’s still Opening Day, and there’s a one-in-a-hundred shot that the Royals just blew the division.

What else is there to say? I’m tired of getting sarcastic emails on the Baseball Prospectus email list with subject lines that go “Trey Hillman, Supergenius” – emails from people who are not Royals fans, but are just so offended by dumb managerial decisions that they felt compelled to discuss what Hillman did with other non-Royals fans. I’m tired of getting trash-talking text messages from friends who root for the White Sox. I’m tired of losing games that should have been won, wasting performances that should have been celebrated, and starting the season with that pit in my stomach that says, “here we go again,” and it’s still Opening Day.

Most of all, I’m tired of watching the Royals shoot themselves in the foot. God knows we have enough of an uphill climb if we want to contend. We can’t control the size of our payroll or the size of our market, but dammit, we can control the quality of our decisions. We can’t outspend our opponents, but is it too much to ask that we outsmart them? Or at least that we don’t outdumb them?

Instead, Trey Hillman made arguably the worst decision made by any of the 30 major league managers in their first game, and it cost his team the game. Worse, that decision was pre-meditated.

Thank God there’s another game tomorrow, and a fresh chance for the Royals to prove that this year really is different. It’s also another chance for Trey Hillman to prove whether he really has the chops to be a manager in the major leagues. I’ll be watching, with jaded eyes.

The Big News.

When I started this blog a little over a year ago, I really had no long-term vision of what this was going to become. All I knew was that my life was becoming progressively busier and more complicated, to the point where I could not in good faith continue to pretend to be a regular contributor to Baseball Prospectus anymore, but that I certainly did not want to give up writing about baseball entirely. So I made the only decision that I could make, which was to focus on the one subject that I was most passionate about: the Royals. The two hours a day I was spending just to keep up with everything going on in major league baseball was feeling more and more like work, but the time I spent keeping up with the Royals wasn’t work; that was life. I was about as likely to stop caring about the Royals as I was to stop caring about personal hygiene. So Rany on the Royals was born.

I’m still not sure where Rany on the Royals is going, but today I am pleased to announce that RotR is expanding its reach to a new platform. This Thursday at 7 pm CDT marks the debut of my new weekly radio show on 810 WHB Radio in Kansas City.

I imagine you’re all having the same response I had when they first contacted me: are the guys at WHB insane?! (No? Just me?) The brass at WHB have offered a radio show about Kansas City sports to someone who 1) doesn’t live in Kansas City and 2) doesn’t know the first thing about doing radio. This is an incredibly ballsy and unconventional move, one that could work out brilliantly, or one that could leave egg on a lot of people’s faces. (Don’t tell anyone this, but I think moving Mark Teahen to second base was Chad Boeger’s idea.)

I am, obviously, very flattered and grateful to the guys at WHB for giving me this opportunity. I’m excited as hell to do this, and also scared to death. Those of you who know me personally know that I have no trouble talking about baseball for an hour – it’s getting me to shut up that’s the trick. But talking among friends is one thing, talking coherently in front of a live audience of thousands – with a producer’s voice in my ear, with commercial breaks to plan for, where the inevitable mistake is going to be on permanent record – is entirely different.

The many phone-in segments I’ve done on radio over the years, many with WHB, give me confidence that I can do this. Just be aware it’s probably going to be rocky at first. Fortunately, I will be ably assisted by my co-host, Jason Anderson, who provides the experience and professionalism in this medium that I currently lack. We may be stepping on each other’s toes at first, but we should be doing our best Olbermann-Patrick impression soon enough.

Just be aware that I am going to make mistakes. I am going to say things that are simply factually incorrect. I am going to cut in when Jason is talking and vice versa. I am going to occasionally take a really long time to come up with a response. I am going to say “uh” and “er” a lot. If you can put up with my foibles at the beginning, I am confident that we’ll have a steep learning curve, and the show should improve as we go along.

The way I envision the show’s format is that after Jason and I talk about the Royals for a good half hour or so, we’ll have a different guest on each week to provide another perspective. Rob Neyer will probably be this week’s guest; it seems only fitting that we should get back together again to mark this special occasion. Kevin Goldstein, our minor league expert at Baseball Prospectus, should be on later this month, particularly after he’s had a chance to see Eric Hosmer up close when Burlington’s season gets going next week. I’ve got some other guests I’d love to bring on; really, one of the great perks of this gig will be the opportunity to talk to some really interesting and intelligent people covering the game.

And another perk will be the opportunity to talk with some of you. We’ll hopefully finish off each show with a call-in segment, and that’s where all of you come in. The goal of Rany on the Royals on the Radio – we’re still figuring out a name for the show – is to create a show that appeals to the most hard-core Royals fans out there. My goal is to have the most knowledgeable callers of any sports radio show in the city, if not the country. So when the phone lines open up on Thursday, I want you guys to light them up like a Christmas tree. Bring your questions, bring your opinions, and together let’s make this the best show it can be.

You’re probably wondering how the radio show is going to affect the blog. (I certainly am.) It would be disingenuous of me to suggest that it won’t affect the blog at all – including preparation time, each show is likely to take up at least three hours a week of my time. Of course, each column I write takes about that long, so whereas I generally wrote two or three columns a week during the season last year, this year it will probably be more like one or two. On the other hand, you’re also getting an entire hour of Royals discussion on the radio, and that’s worth a couple columns in its own right.

There may be a few changes to the format of the website as well. Given the incredible lack of effort I’ve put into the design of ranyontheroyals.com – really, a trained monkey could have designed something more appealing – I don’t think any of you will mind. Hopefully each show will be available in podcast form after it airs, and I hope to have a link to the podcasts from my website once they’re available.

I’m scheduled to be on The Border Patrol tomorrow morning around 8 am to talk more about this, if any of you are interested in tuning in.

So I hope you’re as excited about this as I am. The show is going to be a work in progress; there are likely to be a lot of missteps along the way. But it should also be a ton of fun, for me and for you.

Thanks to all of you for being loyal readers, and I hope you’ll all be loyal listeners as well.

25 To Watch: Part Two.

I guess it’s only appropriate that, with the Royals in town to open their season in Chicago for the first time in 1976*…that the White Sox’ opener would be postponed by weather for the first time since 1982. So now I’m all dressed up with nowhere to go.

*: It’s been listed a few times that the Royals last opened their season in Chicago in 1983, but according to baseball-reference.com that doesn’t appear to be the case. In 1976, they opened in Chicago on April 9^th…then didn’t play again until April 13^th, at home. Given that they later played a five-game series in Chicago over three days, I’m guessing that this isn’t the first time an opening series between these two teams has been hampered by weather.

Anyway, onto the final twelve…

12. Alexei Ramirez

The failure of so many well-hyped Cuban defectors in the major leagues over the years proved to be a blessing to the White Sox, who were able to sign Ramirez on the open market to a four-year, $4.75 million contract in December of 2007. The Cuban Missile went straight to the majors last spring, hitting .290 with 21 homers and 13 steals and setting an all-time rookie record with four grand slams (the last of which came in the final game of the regular season, setting up a tiebreaker against Minnesota that the Sox would also win) on his way to finishing second in the Rookie of the Year vote. Now he needs to prove his rookie season wasn’t a fluke – which may be a tall task given his free-swinging ways, as he walked just 18 times all year – and the Sox aren’t making his life any easier by asking him to move from second base, where his defense was occasionally brilliant but often raw, to shortstop. Let’s hope that when Aviles brilliantly deflects the Curse of Angel Berroa, he sends it hurtling toward U.S. Cellular Field.

11. Jeremy Bonderman

Six years ago, Bonderman was the Tigers’ Zack Greinke, a 20-year-old phenom in the majors, who showed enough promise in the Tigers’ 119-loss season to mark him as a potential star. After his rookie season I drafted him in my perennial Strat-o-matic league. The following year, I furiously tried to obtain one of the top few picks in the draft to grab Greinke, and another owner made me an offer: he would trade me his draft pick on the clock – with Greinke still on the board – for Bonderman.

I said no. I thought Greinke might be the new Greg Maddux, but I thought Bonderman could be the new Roger Clemens, and I couldn’t pull the trigger. (The story has a happy ending, though. The following March – after Zack went home to Florida and everyone thought his career might be over – I nabbed him for a considerably cheaper price. I’ve made an enormous number of stupid trades for Royals over the years – I once traded Jim Thome for Dan Reichert* – but every now and then my blind optimism pays off.)

*: Seriously. Jim Thome (and draft picks!) for Dan Reichert (and Gabe White, who had one of the best reliever cards in the set that year.) Yes, I am an idiot.

Bonderman looked ready for takeoff after the 2006 season, when he went 14-8 with a 4.08 ERA and 202 strikeouts, but he suffered through a disappointing 2007 and in 2008 his stuff mysteriously dropped off, a mystery which was solved when Bonderman was diagnosed with a thoracic outlet syndrome, a condition which – Doctor’s cap on – occurs when one of the large arteries carrying blood from the heart to the right arm gets pinched by one of the ribs in the area, decreasing blood flow and potentially causing a life-threatening blood clot to form.

Bonderman had surgery to correct the problem, but as the season gets underway he has yet to fully recover. He’s hoping to be ready to go within a few weeks; a healthy and effective Bonderman could be the difference between contention and a sub-.500 record in Detroit this year.

10. Fausto Carmona

As a rookie in 2006, Carmona went 1-10 with a 5.42 ERA, and when briefly handed the closer’s job in late July, he promptly handed the job back by blowing three consecutive save opportunities. In 2007, Carmona was one of the breakout stars in the game, winning 19 games with a 3.06 ERA and placing 4^th in the Cy Young vote. Last year, Carmona struggled to find the strike zone all season, walking 70 batters against just 58 strikeouts in 121 innings, and matched his 2006 effort with a 5.44 ERA. He’s an extreme groundball pitcher who doesn’t need a sterling strikeout-to-walk ratio to be effective, but it’s been decades since a starting pitcher could survive in the majors with more walks than strikeouts. Carmona could be the best starter in the division this year, or he could be back in Buffalo in June, and I’d be equally unsurprised by either outcome. I’d be a lot happier with the latter than the former, though.

9. Mark Teahen

All the controversy over whether he can handle second base with any kind of adequacy obscures the fact that his spring training aside, Teahen hasn’t really proven that his bat is worth the gamble. He hit .255/.313/.402 last year, which is below the average mark by an AL second baseman last year: .282/.339/.410. Kevin Seitzer thinks he’s found something, and Teahen will always have 2006 on his resume to make you think he’s capable of better. He’s 27 this year, the most common age for players to have their career years, but he faces a double challenge of having to prove himself both at bat and in the field this season.

8. Francisco Liriano

Little Johan was, inning for inning, one of the best pitchers in the world in 2006, when he was just 22 years old – until he tore up his elbow and required Tommy John surgery. He finally returned in 2008, but was terrible in April; forced to return to Triple-A, he was dominant for three months and then equally so with the Twins (6-1, 2.74 ERA) upon his return in August. Aside from Liriano, the Twins’ rotation is filled with a bunch of control specialists (Nick Blackburn, Kevin Slowey, Glen Perkins) – the only other power pitcher in the rotation is Scott Baker, who starts the year on the DL. With Liriano fronting the rotation, this might be the best in the division – if he falters again, this is a much less intimidating team.

7. Billy Butler

There are a lot of small things the Royals did this spring that were exasperating, but don’t forget the one big thing they didn’t do: they didn’t block Billy Butler from an everyday job. There was a time when it appeared the Royals were ready to give up on Butler, who has 216 major league games to his credit but who doesn’t turn 23 for another two weeks, a kid with a career line of .336/.416/.561 in the minors. PECOTA projects Butler to be the best hitter on the entire roster this year, with an expected line of .291/.352/.458. Butler might be capable of even better if he can avoid the twin pitfalls of an unhappy organization (so far so good) and an unhealthy body (he’s in the mythical Best Shape of His Life). A season close to his 90^th-percentile projection (an impressive .326/.388/.534) would solve the Royals’ problem of a lack of a true #3 hitter quite nicely.

6. Gavin Floyd

Kenny Williams might be the best GM in baseball when it comes to trading for young players at the perfect time – just after they’ve exhausted the patience of their current teams, and just before they break out (John Danks, Carlos Quentin, Gavin Floyd.) Quentin was his best by far – one of the game’s best hitters for a disposable prospect – but acquiring Floyd (and Gio Gonzalez) for the ticking sound in Freddy Garcia’s shoulder was rather inspired as well.

Floyd has an impressive pedigree – he was the #4 overall pick in the 2001 draft, two picks after Mark Prior, three picks after Joe Mauer, and one pick before boyhood friend Mark Teixeira. But he was a constant source of aggravation to the Phillies, flashing an unhittable curveball at times but bombing in several major league trials and then posting a 6+ ERA in Triple-A in 2006. The White Sox got him, Don Cooper cleaned him up, and boom! he went 17-8 with a 3.84 ERA last year. He was remarkably lucky at the start of the season – his BABIP in his first nine starts was an absurd .176 – and those first nine starts colored the perception of him for the rest of the season. Ask most baseball analysts what they think of Floyd, and their immediate response is likely to be “it was a fluke.” But in his final 24 starts, Floyd had a perfectly normal .295 BABIP, and still had a very respectable 4.20 ERA in that span. Floyd may fit into the category of player who has been called overrated for so long that he’s actually now underrated. We can only hope he goes back to the frustrating form he showed prior to 2008.

5. Travis Hafner

In 2006, Travis Hafner led the American League in OPS. In 2007, he remained an above-average hitter despite dropping his OPS by 260 points. In 2008, his OPS dropped another 209 points, as he hit .197/.305/.323 in an injury-plagued season of just 57 games. In 2009, his four-year, $57 million contract starts. You’d be hard-pressed to come up with another player that, while still in his 20s or early 30s, went from one of the game’s best hitters to replacement-level in the span of two years. (Bob Hamelin did it in one year, but The Hammer only had one good season – Hafner was an absolute stud for three.) For that reason alone, you have to think Hafner’s got some bounce-back in him. If 2008 proves to be a fluke and he returns to .300/.400/.500 level, the Indians are going to run away with the division. But it’s surprising how few people think that’s going to happen. Hafner is the quintessential Old Player’s Skills player, and one of the original inspirations for James to come up with the concept of Old Player’s Skills, Alvin Davis, was one of the best hitters in baseball at age 28 – and out of baseball at age 31. Hafner is 31.

4. Zack Greinke

In some ways Greinke shouldn’t rank this high, because he seems to be through the worst of his social anxiety issues, and what he gave the Royals last year seems to be what he’s capable of: 200 innings, pretty strikeout-to-walk ratios, an ERA in the mid-3s. But in some ways you could argue that he ought to rank #1 on this list, because in terms of absolute upside, Greinke has the potential to be the most valuable player – not just pitcher, player – in the division. Would anyone be truly surprised if he goes out there and puts up numbers reminiscent of Bret Saberhagen in 1989? I’m talking 20 wins, an ERA around 2.50, seven innings and a quality start every time out? He has the stuff to do it. He may finally have the head for it. That doesn’t mean he will, but he can. And nothing would change the complexion of this division – and scare the living daylights out of the other four teams in the AL Central – than a focused, dominant, positively mean Zack Greinke absolutely carving up hitters in the early part of the season.

3. Joe Mauer

The guys who run the numbers will tell you that the Indians are the favorite to win the division, which I agree with. But the numbers – or at least PECOTA – puts Cleveland seven games ahead of every other team in the division, with the Tigers in second, and the Twins third with just a 77-85 record. Regarding the Twins, I respectfully disagree. I don’t share Joe Posnanski’s belief that Ron Gardenhire is the best manager in baseball, but I’ll say this: I don’t think any team in baseball is better at any specific task than the Twins are at teaching their pitchers to throw strikes. Last year the Twins walked just 406 batters, the fewest in baseball; in 2007 they walked 420 batters, second-fewest in the majors; and in 2006 they walked 356 batters, which was 73 fewer than any other team.

Looking at their pitching staff this year, I see no reason why that streak will end. And while the offense can’t be expected to hit as well with runners in scoring position as the .305 mark they had last season, they can expect to compensate for some regression by getting improvement out of Delmon Young and Carlos Gomez and a full season of Denard Span. I fully expect the Piranhas to be out in full force this season.

Unless…unless Joe Mauer, their most valuable player by far no matter what the BBWAA thinks of Justin Morneau, is out for an extended period. Mauer has two batting titles in the last three years; every other catcher in American League history has combined for zero. Mauer doesn’t hit a ton of homers, but he’s good for 30 doubles and 70-80 walks a year – oh, and he’s one of the best defensive catchers in the game. But he’s none of that if he’s not on the field, and right now he’s on the DL with an inflamed sacroiliac joint – also known as a bad back. He might be back in a few weeks, but if he’s not, or if he’s hobbled the rest of the year, the rest of the division just caught a huge break.

2. Kyle Davies

The naysayers – of whom there are many – regarding the Royals’ chances this season usually point to the same thing first: the lack of a reliable starting pitcher after Meche and Greinke. The reluctance to separate Kyle Davies from the Ponsons and Ramirezes of the world is understandable; this is the same guy who had a 6.09 ERA just two years ago. But Davies always had the talent to be better – Baseball America named him the best player in the country in his age group when he was 14 – and last year some of that potential was distilled into performance. Most of that performance came in only one month, but what a month: in September Davies had a 2.27 ERA, allowing just 22 hits and one homer in 32 innings, with 24 strikeouts against seven walks. Davies had a 4.06 ERA for the entire season – if he can post a 4.06 ERA or better over the course of 33 starts this year, he’ll be one of the game’s best #3 starters, and the concerns about the Royals’ rotation will look more shrill than serious.

1. Alex Gordon

The most important player on the Royals’ roster was one of the most-hyped prospects in the franchise’s history. The most important player on the roster also bats seventh in their Opening Day lineup. That juxtaposition explains why Alex Gordon’s season is so critical to the organization, not just for 2009 but for years to come. Two years ago Gordon was coming off a minor league campaign in which he showed literally every skill in the scout’s notebook: power, speed, average, defense, work ethic, intangibles, whatever. He was College Player of the Year in 2005, Minor League Player of the Year in 2006; Rookie of the Year and MVP awards didn’t seem far away.

Two years later, much of that promise seems to have evaporated. Scouts talk about the holes in his swing; stats guys project him to show steady but very slow improvement over the next few years. But that pessimism ignores the subtle but very real step forward Gordon took last year. He drew more walks while cutting his strikeouts. He hit more balls in the air, hitting more homers despite playing in 17 fewer games. And he’s still just 25, entering his third season in the major leagues. As I documented last year, a number of similarly-hyped players struggled a little in their first two years, and just as their chances at stardom were written off, they exploded on the league in their third year. Gordon is capable of the same thing. And there’s simply no way the Royals can expect to compete this year without Gordon meeting the expectations people had for him two years ago.

25 To Watch: Part One.

It’s on. For the first time since 2004 – let’s not dwell on what happened that year – we go into a season with legitimate playoff aspirations. It may require a little dreaming, a little luck, but for the first time in five years you can tell your friends, “I think the Royals can win the division this year,” and not have them stare at you with a mixture of disgust and fear, as if you had just sprouted a third ear before their eyes.

But if it’s going to happen, it’s going to require certain players to perform at the edges of their expectations. Here is a list, to this Royals fan, of the 25 people with the most impact on the Royals’ chances to run a flag up a pole at the new Kauffman Stadium this year. This isn’t a list of the 25 best players, but the 25 players whose performances could shape the outcome of the division. Joakim Soria isn’t on this list, for instance; it’s not that he isn’t wildly important to the Royals’ chances of winning, but simply that he is very much a known commodity – he’s about as safe a bet as a reliever can be. The guys on this list are there precisely because they’re unknown commodities.

25. John Buck

The Royals’ chances this season depend in large part on having a lineup that contributes at every spot, and that requires the Royals to get more out of their catchers than just the occasional home run. Miguel Olivo is who he is – a ridiculously free swinger who crushes lefties – but Buck still has a glimmer of hope to be something more than who he has been. That’s an odd thing to say about a guy who has been about as consistent as any player in the majors. (Buck has been within 12 points of his career marks in batting average (.234), within 18 points of his .298 career OBP, and within 33 points of his .398 slugging average, in every season of his career.) Call this a hunch, that a combination of a clearer head and the work of the Bat Whisperer can get Buck back to where he was in early 2007, when he was absolutely destroying the ball. If the Royals do go to the playoffs, I’m guessing Buck, not Olivo, will be the starter behind the plate.

24. Rick Porcello/Ryan Perry

I’m cheating a little and combining these two guys together. Porcello and Perry, the Tigers’ last two #1 picks, both made the roster out of spring training, even though Porcello’s 20 years old and never pitched above A-ball, and Perry has all of 14 professional innings to his credit. I’ve already made fun of the Tigers’ decision to rush Porcello, but a friend pointed out a very significant difference between this decision and the one to start Jeremy Bonderman in the bigs: unlike in 2003, the Tigers are very much playing for this year, and if Porcello gives them the best shot at winning, then he needs to be with the team, service-time considerations be damned. Looking at their other options for the rotation – even with Porcello, includes Zach Miner – it’s hard to argue that Porcello doesn’t help them. Likewise Perry, given that elite college relievers are frequently ready within a year of being drafted, and given that the Tigers’ closer is the not-exactly-Riveraesque Fernando Rodney. If Porcello and Perry really are ready, the Tigers are going to be in the hunt. If they’re not, their pitching staff is strictly second-division caliber.

23. Ozzie Guillen

I have rarely been more wrong about a manager than I was about Ozzie Guillen, who given his antics as a player came across as someone who would wear out his welcome in the manager’s chair quickly. Those concerns have proven to be, ahem, overstated. Guillen has managed to find a way to light a fire under his players without ever letting that fire rage out of control. He’s just crazy enough to intimidate his players without being so crazy as to freak them out completely. He’s Billy Martin without the psychosis, in other words. His act doesn’t work every year, but it worked in 2005, and it worked in 2008. On paper the White Sox look like an under-.500 squad, but if Guillen (and Don Cooper, maybe the most underrated pitching coach in baseball) work their magic again, they can once again tell PECOTA where to stick its algorithms.

22. Juan Cruz

It’s easy to overstate the impact of a reliever – that’s what led the Royals to throwing $9 million at Kyle Farnsworth – but the addition of Cruz seemed to change the perception of the Royals’ bullpen from a potential liability into an unquestioned strength. If he’s the same pitcher he’s been the last two years, ringing up hitters in bunches and keeping his ERA around 3, the Royals will never miss Ramon Ramirez. A Cruz-Soria combination can shorten a lot of games to seven innings, and Farnsworth, Mahay, and Tejeda are nice options to have in the sixth and seventh. But Cruz’s control issues and the velocity he generates on a frame listed at 155 pounds makes him far from a sure bet.

21. Asdrubal Cabrera

Who? The Indians’ second baseman is nowhere near a household name, but he has the potential to change that – quickly. Stolen from the Mariners for Eduardo Perez at the trading deadline in 2006 (between Cabrera and Shin-Soo Choo, the Indians better vote Bill Bavasi a playoff share if they make it this year), Cabrera came up late in 2007 and hit .283/.354/.421 as a 21-year-old. Last season, he was the worst hitter in the division this side of Tony Pena in the first half, hitting .184/.282/.247 through June 8^th, before he was sent to Buffalo for a month-long refresher. He hit .326/.375/.475 there, and after returning on July 18^th hit .320/.398/.464 for the Indians. His defense makes a lot of people scratch their heads and wonder why he isn’t playing shortstop instead of Jhonny Peralta. If the Indians get second-half Cabrera for both halves this year, they’ve got one of the best second basemen in the division. It’s hard for me to look at Cabrera and not see Edgardo Alfonzo, who had a massive breakout season at age 23.

20. Luke Hochevar

He may be starting the year in Omaha, but the Royals can’t win this season without having him in Kansas City most of the season. More than any other pitcher, Hochevar is the one guy with the skills to give the Royals that elusive fourth starter. He pitched much better as a rookie than his 5.51 ERA suggests, and his groundball tendencies allow him to be successful even without a terrific strikeout rate. If he gets 25 starts this year with an ERA in the mid-fours, the Royals have a shot. If Sidney Ponson winds up being not just the fourth starter, but the fourth-best starter on the Royals, it’s going to be a long year.

19. Carlos Gomez

After being the centerpiece of the Johan Santana trade last winter, Gomez’s first year with the Twins was a Tale of Two Half-Innings. At the plate, he hit just .258 with little power and terrible plate discipline; even with his speed (33 steals) he was one of the worst everyday hitters in the majors. But on defense, he might have been the best defensive centerfielder in the game. He’s just 23 this year, and his offense is a lot more likely to take a step forward than his defense is to take a step back. The Royals have to hope that his offensive failings continue to counter his defensive brilliance.

18. Jose Guillen

Guillen has been such a ceaseless source of grief for Royals fans over the past year that it’s easy to forget that, just two seasons ago, he was a very productive hitter (.290/.353/.460) in a very difficult hitter’s ballpark in Seattle. Even last year he was brilliant for stretches when he was healthy and happy, a combination which unfortunately was rarely seen. This has been a very quiet spring for Guillen, both on and off the field. Let’s hope that silence is a virtue.

17. Armando Galarraga

Few noticed when the Tigers traded for Galarraga last winter, and fewer still expected the 26-year-old to have the season he had, going 13-7 with a 3.73 ERA and finishing fourth in the Rookie of the Year vote. Galarraga had a fairly mediocre minor league track record, and owed his success last year largely to a ridiculous .237 BABIP, suggesting his season was a fluke. Hmmm…trade for a 26-year-old unheralded rookie, watch him win 12 or 13 games with an ERA in the upper 3s and garner RoY consideration thanks to a low BABIP…where have I seen this before? Royals fans can only hope that Galarraga’s encore is the same.

16. Delmon Young

While a lot of people (over here! I’ve got my hand in the air!) thought the Twins got the short end of the stick in the Santana trade, the consensus about the massive Delmon Young-plus for Matt Garza-plus deal was a lot more balanced. The Rays won that deal in spades last year, mostly because of how it impacted their defense but also because Young stagnated in his second full season in the majors. I fear that a breakout is still imminent. Young may have attitude/work-ethic issues, but he also has massive talent (the #1 overall pick in the 2003 draft, remember), and while he hit just .290/.336/.405 last season, his walks jumped from 26 to 35 while his strikeouts dropped from 127 to 105. Oh, and he’s still just 23. A slow, steady improvement we can handle; a Carlos Quentin-like breakout, sandwiched between Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau, we can’t.

15. Mike Aviles

It’s not just that the Royals never have a player do what Mike Aviles did last year; it’s that no team has had a player do what Aviles did. As Sam Mellinger pointed out a few weeks ago, not counting Japanese imports, Aviles had the best rookie season for any player 27 or older since World War II. In 2006, Aviles hit .264/.307/.373 in Omaha, and made 80% of his starts at third base. Two years later, he hit .325/.354/.480 for the Royals with defensive numbers at shortstop that were as shocking as his numbers at the plate. The Royals don’t necessarily need Aviles to replicate his performance last year, but it would be awfully nice if it turned out 2008 wasn’t an Angel Berroa-sized mirage.

14. Kevin Seitzer

Last season, the Royals drew 392 walks. Three hundred and ninety-two. It was the lowest walk total in the history of the most impatient franchise in baseball. By comparison, every playoff team last season drew at least 481 walks, and every team except the Angels drew at least 540. A massive change in hitting philosophy was required, and to his credit Dayton Moore undertook one. Now, hitting coaches can only do so much, and the Bat Whisperer might prove to break more swings than he fixes. But the Royals are trying to modernize their 1970s-approach to offense in the 21^st century, and revolutions call for revolutionaries. Seitzer may be hailed as a hero, or he may get the guillotine as quickly as he did for the Diamondbacks in 2007. Good or bad, though, at least he’ll do something. And God knows the Royals’ approach to the strike zone needs something. Anything.

13. Cliff Lee

Yeah, I’m still not used to seeing Cliff Lee’s name on the list of Cy Young winners either. It’s not that he wasn’t deserving – he was the American League’s best pitcher pretty much from his first pitch – but it’s just not all that typical for a guy to 5-8, 6.29 one year and 22-3, 2.54 the next. There’s nothing about his performance that screams “fluke!”, or even whispers it: he set a career high in strikeouts with 170, a career low in walks with 34, and a career low in homers with 12. But taken in the context of his career, you have to expect some fallback, particularly since scouts weren’t talking about the same kind of leap forward that his numbers proclaimed. He ought to be good, but if good is all he is, the Indians are going to take a hit.

Rob & Rany Returns! (One Night Only.)

With Opening Day rapidly approaching, I thought it would be an opportune time for a special guest to join me. Please welcome the return of Rob & Rany, as we argue over the Royals’ chances to win this season.

Rany: So, it’s another year, and I’m pretty sure that, for the 12th consecutive season, I’m more bullish on the Royals than you are. I don’t think the Royals are divisional favorites are anything, but I think that they have maybe a 15% chance of winning the division – just slightly less than you’d expect by arranging the teams at random. I think they’ve got the best 1-2 starters in the division, the best closer/set-up man combination in the division, and a deep if not particularly star-laden lineup. Is that enough? More specifically, what do you think has to happen for the Royals to win the division?

Rob: What do I think has to happen...well, Alex Gordon and Billy Butler both have to hit like we used to think they would and one of the Royals’ many No. 5 starters has to actually pitch like a No. 3 starter (care to predict which of them will actually do that?). If those three things happen, I can see this team getting to .500. And in this division, it’s just a hop and a skip from there to seriously contending.

Rany: Wow, if I didn’t know you better, I’d say it sounds like you also think the Royals have a chance. I take it you agree that the AL Central is a remarkably even division at this moment in time – you can make a case for every team in the division to finish first based on its strengths, and to finish last based on its flaws. The Royals’ biggest flaw, as it stands, is an infield defense that looks just absolutely awful. I can almost justify the decision to send Hochevar to Omaha simply to keep him away from this infield, given his groundball tendencies. Can a team win with an infield this bad?

What do you think about Teahen at second base, anyway? I think it can work, if Teahen can find a way to be even adequate defensively and if Kevin Seitzer really has unleashed his bat. I think it’s a really cool gamble, but I can’t deny the potential for this to backfire. I think the risk is worth the reward, because on paper the Royals are still five or ten games behind the Indians. If the Teahen experiment costs them a few games, well, they’re just farther back in the standings. If it wins them a few games, you’ve cut that gap in half right there.

Rob: More than five. Close to 10. Which isn’t an impossible gap to close. That’s two standard deviations. Indians drop one SD, Royals bump one SD...except the Tigers and probably the Twins are better than the Royals, too. On paper.

I like the Teahen Gambit. Why not? But I suspect that if Kevin Seitzer wasn’t named Kevin Seitzer, we might not take Teahen’s March numbers quite as seriously. My guess is that we get the worst defensive second baseman in the league, with (roughly) Teahen’s career hitting stats. At best, because if he struggles with the glove – as he almost certainly has to, particularly on the DP – itmight well affect his hitting.

Not be a wet blanket or anything. I like the creativity it shows. I just wonder if the same creativity is what led to Sidney Ponson entering the season with a rotation slot.

Rany: Yeah, it seems like an inordinate amount of hope in the Royals has been placed on Seitzer’s shoulders. Unfortunately for him, I’m not helping - I truly think that if the Royals make the playoffs this year, at year’s end we’ll be calling Seitzer the team’s MVP. That’s a lot to ask of a hitting coach, given that most hitting coaches don’t seem to have much effect one way or another.

Which brings up the Royals’ other big flaw, which is that once again, for all the lip service the Royals have given to OBP, they went out and got a bunch of players that think walks are for sissies. Mike Jacobs’ career high in walks is 45. Miguel Olivo walked 7 times (7!) in over 300 at-bats last year, and he’s going from second-string to first-string. Coco Crisp has a below-average walk rate for a leadoff hitter.

I don’t think the Royals will come anywhere close to last year’s total of 392 walks – mainly because that’s one of the lowest walk totals of the last 50 years – but for them to be competitive you’d really like to see them up near 500 walks, and it’s hard to see where that kind of improvement is going to come from. I think Gordon might walk more, and maybe even Teahen. But the lineup is what it is – a lineup with little ability to walk, and not enough power to make up for that. If the Royals do find a way to walk 500 times, I think the Royals ought to induct Seitzer into the team’s Hall of Fame on the spot.

Rob: Sure. And for my next trick...

We may project improvements for Gordon and Butler, but the “walks problem” isn’t going away, which means it’s mostly up to the pitchers. Who a) aren’t going to get any help from their infield defense, and b) aren’t going to get much help from anyone except Meche, Greinke, and Soria.

I guess I’ve circled back around to old material. Sorry...I think it’s going to be an interesting team when the good starters are starting. But otherwise I think it’s going to be pretty dreary.

Rany: I think you’re selling Juan Cruz a little short – he could be a huge addition to the bullpen, if only because he ought to keep Kyle Farnsworth out of game situations in the 8th inning. But to me, the key to the entire pitching staff is probably Kyle Davies. If his September was a mirage – if his ERA is closer to his 5.63 career mark than his 4.06 ERA last season - then I think we can safely call this season toast.

The thing about Davies is not only was he such a good pitcher on a statistical basis late last year, but the impression I’m getting is that the scouting evaluation has also changed – you’re hearing a lot of guys saying that he could be an above-average starter this year based on his stuff. He’s done nothing in Arizona to change that impression. If he can give the Royals 180 innings with an ERA around 4, then “when the good starters are starting” is suddenly 60% of the time, and the Royals just need to find one more league-average starter to make this a very formidable rotation. The problem is, I still think Luke Hochevar is the guy most like to fit that profile, and they can’t seem to find him. Ponson must be blocking their view. Literally.

Rob: Sure, if Davies is good everything looks a little better, particularly because the Ponson Gambit surely can’t last long. If Hochevar deserves that spot, he’ll pitch well in Omaha and he’ll have that spot before Memorial Day.

My worry – which I mentioned somewhere else recently – is that NONE of these guys...not Davies or Hochevar or Bannister, and certainly not Ponson or Horacio Ramirez...is going to post even a league-average ERA.

Obviously, one or more of them might surprise us. But counting on surprises is a good way to go broke (if you’re betting) or look foolish (if you’re writing).

Rany: Hey, I’ve never let the fear of looking foolish stop me from counting on surprises from the Royals before. And I’ve had many opportunities.

Rob: Yeah. You and Posnanski both. Can’t wait to see his prediction.

Rany: The difference is, with Poz I always think his optimism is at least a little tongue-in-cheek. With me, it’s totally earnest and totally pathetic.

Honestly, it sounds to me like we really don’t disagree all that much about the Royals’ fortunes this year: better (but still mediocre) offense, strong top of the rotation but major issues at the back end, good bullpen, horrifying defense. Sounds like a pretty average team overall, but for an average team it seems like the Royals have an unusual number of strengths and weaknesses. This might be a good thing, in the sense that if they can patch up those weaknesses – in particular, if they can find or trade for another starter – they could go from average to above-average rather quickly. How badly could this team use Orlando Hudson right now? And how intriguing would the back end of the rotation look if Moore had saved some money for, I don’t know, Pedro Martinez?

Rob: Ah, money ... I have this vague memory of protesting at some point that some money might have been better saved than spent on Jose Guillen ... Probably just a dream I once had.

Rany: There’s one more thing I want to cover, and that’s the issue of depth. I was talking to a reporter from the Omaha World-Herald today, and he was pointing out how strong the O-Royals’ rotation was - I think it’s going to go something like Hochevar, Bannister, Duckworth, Lenny DiNardo, and Matt Wright - and it occurred to me that honestly, that rotation might be better than the Royals’ major league rotation just three years ago. Six guys made 10 or more starts for the 2006 Royals: Mark Redman, Runelvys Hernandez, Scott Elarton, Luke Hudson, Odalis Perez, and Jorge de la Rosa. And let’s not forget the eight starts from Ducky, or six each from Bobby Keppel and Joe Mays...my God, what a horrible rotation.

Rob: That was only three years ago? I had already forgotten most of that ugliness (though for some reason Bobby Keppel’s never left me).

Rany: As much as teams struggle to put together their 25-man roster for Opening Day, no team gets through a season without getting significant contributions from guys who start the year in the minors. I don’t think the Royals have a Mike Aviles ready to break through (although no one thought they had a Mike Aviles to break through last year), but inevitably they’re going to need contributions from their bench or from Triple-A. I think the Royals may be taking the issue of depth a little too far, in that their replacement starters are likely better than the guys they’d replace, but at least when they inevitably need to use a sixth or seventh starting pitcher, they have someone capable of filling in.

While the Royals look strong in terms of their established veteran depth, it’s unlikely we’re going to see an impact prospect come up during the year. Carlos Rosa might pop up in the bullpen before long, and it’s possible that Daniel Cortes could be ready for the rotation by September. But unless some combination of ineffectiveness or injury opens up a spot for Kila Ka’aihue, or unless Mike Moustakas makes some sort of Travis Snider-like leap and gets promoted just before the playoff roster deadline, I think most of the Royals’ best talent on the farm won’t be seen until 2010.

Rob: Of course, that 2006 team did lose 100 games ... and that was an improvement over the previous two seasons. Which reminds me/us that I/we shouldn’t be too greedy. Last season was the Royals’ best in quite some time, and if they win 78 this season, it’ll be another (small) step forward. All things considered, they would seem to be on track for another (small) step next year, and then who knows?

Rany: Let’s wrap it up on that note, then. Gun to your head, how many games do you think the Royals will win this year? And just for fun, what do you think the front office’s best and worst decisions will be this year?

Rob: I actually have them at 74 wins, a game behind the White Sox. Can’t remember if that’s how the numbers came out, or if I bumped them down a game or two for spite.

Best Decision: Releasing Ponson on the 21st of April.

Worst Decision: Waiting too long to trade Juan Cruz.

Rany: I think I’ll put them at 80 wins, which gives me cover if they tank (hey, I said they’d finish below .500!) but also hedges the upside (hey, I said their win total will be in the 80s!) Somewhere between 78-81 wins sounds about right – they’re pretty much the definition of average overall, but the infield defense knocks them down a peg. And that still puts them just two breakout seasons away from contention.

Best decision: I’ll go crazy here and say the decision to make Teahen a second baseman.

Worst decision: They give Ponson and Ramirez more than 20 starts combined before realizing they should have danced with who brung ya.

(Look for another edition of Rob & Rany soon – just in a different format. Hopefully you’ll all understand soon enough.)

Ponson vs. Hochevar.

So after my last post I decided to give the Royals 24 hours to think about the consequences of their decision, in the hopes that maybe they would come to their senses. Instead, they made it official, demoting Luke Hochevar to Omaha in order to clear a path for Sidney Ponson to open the season as the team’s fourth starter.

I’ve written this many times, but it remains one of the most telling stats about the Royals over the past 15 years, so I’m going to write it again: the Royals have had one winning April (2003) in the last 19 years. The team’s overall badness doesn’t come close to explaining this statistic: assuming there are 26 games in April, a team with a .443 winning percentage (that’s the Royals’ winning percentage from 1990-2008) would come out of the month with a winning record about 22% of the time. Over the last 19 years they’ve had a winning record in May five times, June seven times, July six times, August eight times, and September/October four times – but just once in April.

And the best explanation for that is that the Royals simply have no idea how to distill the 50 or 60 players that every team invites to spring training into the best 25-man roster. It seems like every year, the Royals make at least one fairly absurd roster decision in the last week of spring training, and it generally takes a few weeks before the wisdom (or lack thereof) of their personnel decisions manifests itself, usually in the right-hand column.

Once again, the Royals can’t leave well enough alone. The rotation looked to be in decent shape at the end of last season. Greinke and Meche gave the Royals their best 1-2 punch since Appier and Cone in 1994, and Kyle Davies had completely remade himself in September into a very intriguing #3 starter. Neither Hochevar and Brian Bannister were all that good in 2008, but both were still young and had markers for success. There was reason to think that Hochevar, in particular, could be expected to improve significantly in 2009: he was a rookie last year, his 5.51 ERA was higher than you’d expect from his peripherals, and he was a strong groundball pitcher. (Hochevar’s FIP, which is a stat that estimates what a pitcher’s ERA would be if you stripped defense and luck out of the equation, was a full run lower (4.51) than his actual ERA.) When last season ended, I advocated that the Royals go into 2009 with those five guys still in their rotation.

Instead, they threw way too much money at Horacio Ramirez because of some nebulous theory that you can’t win without at least one left-handed pitcher in the rotation. But even that, by itself, would have only hurt the Royals in the pocketbook, not on the field. While Hochevar seems to need only repetition to improve, Bannister’s regression last year, along with the way he seemed to be trying to remake himself as a pitcher (more strikeouts, but unfortunately more homers), suggest that he could benefit from a refresher in Triple-A while he figures out what kind of pitcher he needs to be to find sustained success in the majors.

Even when Ponson was signed, I saw this as merely a sensible move to add some rotation depth at minimal cost. While the Royals seemed to have four options for the last two spots in the rotation, the way I saw it, Hochevar was clearly the #4 starter, the Royals three roughly equivalent options for the #5 slot, and there was a lot of needless panic over who would fill that role when the reality is that it’s the rare major league team that doesn’t fret over their fifth starter. Over at royalsreview.com, NYRoyal – a Royals fan who presumably lives in Los Angeles – wrote a column making that exact point: whoever the Royals’ fifth starter was, he wouldn’t be any worse than the fifth starters that the White Sox, Indians, Tigers, and Twins are sifting through.

There didn’t appear to be a wrong decision for the Royals to make. But I have learned from years of painful experience: never underestimate the Royals’ ability to create a bad decision when no such decision seems possible. Ponson is the fourth starter – enjoy the home opener, everyone! – and Ramirez is the fifth starter. Hochevar and Bannister both go to Omaha. And the Royals appear hell-bent on continuing their April streak.

I’ve heard the argument that the Royals want to send Hochevar down in part because of service time issues – Hochevar’s service time is currently at one year, 17 days, so if he spends even three or four weeks in the minors, his free agency might be delayed by another year. If that’s true, the Royals are picking an awfully strange time to care about this stuff – a year the Royals actually think they can contend – and an awfully strange player to care about. They had this opportunity with Alex Gordon and didn’t use it; I find it hard to believe that they would potentially sabotage the 2009 season in order to keep Hochevar under team control in 2014.

(Quick segue: many thanks to the Detroit Tigers for proving they learned nothing from jumping 20-year-old Jeremy Bonderman from A-ball to the majors in 2003. I wrote at the time – in an ESPN.com article that has, sadly, vanished from the web – that this was a ridiculous decision, because either Bonderman’s development would be hurt by being rushed, or his development wouldn’t be hurt – in which case the Tigers were trading a few weeks of major league service time at age 20 for an entire season’s worth of service time when Bonderman declared free agency at age 26. As it turns out, Bonderman’s career has been interrupted by some circulatory problems in his arm, but not until after signing a four-year deal that bought out two years of free agency, a contract he signed after his best season in 2006. Had the Tigers given Bonderman just a month or two in the high minors in 2003, they might have avoided the need to give Bonderman that contract when his price was at its highest.

Today, the Tigers officially announced that Rick Porcello, who is 20 years old and hasn’t pitched above A-ball, made their rotation. Porcello may very well be the second coming of Roy Halladay as some scouts claim – in which case, as a Royals fan, I’m thrilled that he’ll be hitting free agency a year sooner than he really needed to.)

There is certainly a way to spin the decision to demote Hochevar in a positive way – the Royals wouldn’t have made this decision if there wasn’t. This isn’t Dye-for-Neifi Perez. Sam Mellinger makes some very good points here and here, noting that 1) Ponson, in the here and now, isn’t a significantly worse pitcher than Hochevar is; 2) the Royals only need a fifth starter once in the season’s first 19 days, so it’s better to use Ramirez as a swingman and let Hochevar pitcher every fifth day in Omaha; 3) this decision continues the philosophy of the Dayton Moore era of forcing prospects to prove they’re ready before promoting them to the majors – a philosophy no Royals fan can argue with after seeing the wild excesses of the opposing point of view under Allard Baird.

I agree with Mellinger that this decision probably has more emotional impact than it will have actual baseball impact – if Ponson or Ramirez doesn’t perform, they’ll be replaced soon enough. In particular, I'm wondering whether Moore is already having second thoughts about Ramirez in the rotation, and plans to bring Hochevar up as soon as the schedule requires five starters on a regular basis. (This would explain the decision to cut Jimmy Gobble, if the Royals see Ramirez as a lefty reliever in the long run.)

But I strongly disagree with the third point above. For one, Hochevar isn’t being rushed to the majors – he’s already spent nearly a full year in the Royals’ rotation. I would argue that he wasn’t rushed to the majors last year – despite his unimpressive ERAs in the minors, his peripherals were actually pretty good, and frankly, the #1 overall pick out of college should reach the majors in little more than a year.

But beyond that, I don’t see how you can have Hochevar penciled in as your #4 starter at the start of spring training, and then reach for your eraser based on the spring he had. Mellinger argues that Hochevar didn’t force the Royals hand by having a brilliant spring training. I didn’t think – and I bet Hochevar didn’t think – he needed to have a brilliant spring training. He wasn’t pitching to win a job; he was pitching not to lose his job, and I think he did just that. He had a 3.86 ERA in 16.1 innings in major league camp, notably surrendering just one homer in the warm Arizona air (though he gave up more in some minor league starts.) Hochevar had a much better spring than Ramirez (9.00 ERA), or Bannister (8.53 ERA), or – ahem – Ponson (six runs in 5.1 innings in his first start; seven runs in five innings in his second start after Hochevar was sent down.)

I understand the merits of forcing your prospects to prove that they’re ready before handing them a job. I understand the message that can be sent to someone like Billy Butler, a message that says, “just because you’re young and talented doesn’t mean you can take this game for granted.” But this isn’t that. This is telling one of your most prized young pitchers – a guy who you selected #1 in all the land less than three years ago – that he’s going back to Omaha, not because he isn’t ready, not because he didn’t pitch well, but simply because a fat pitcher with a history of major disciplinary issues just caught your eye. What kind of message does this send to your young players? The message I’m taking away from this is that even if you’re drafted highly, even if you've been nurtured by the organization from day one, even if you do everything we ask you to do, we can still take your job away at any time if we develop a sudden hankering for someone else’s sloppy seconds. (Or in Ponson’s case, given that he’s played for six other teams before, sloppy sevenths.)

The other argument I’ve heard a lot in defense of this move boils down to, “Hochevar will be in the rotation soon enough.” If the best argument for this decision is that it’s going to be reversed eventually, isn’t that really an argument against this decision? The insinuation is that Hochevar will be the first man called up when either Ponson or Ramirez needs to be replaced. In other words, this decision is being made with an expectation of failure.

In the meantime, the Royals are looking at roughly eight starts from Ponson and Ramirez in April. By the time the Royals pull their heads out of the sand long enough to realize that their fourth-best starter is in Omaha, it will likely have cost them at a least a win or two. A win or two in April might seem like a small sacrifice to make in April. It might prove to be an enormous mistake come October.

My lifelong loathing for the Chicago White Sox has been well-documented, but last year, when the White Sox and Twins finished the season tied for first and needed to play a tiebreaker to determine which team advanced to the playoffs, I found myself inexplicably rooting for the Sox. For as much as I dislike the White Sox as a concept, I must admit my admiration for their front office. And I simply could not get over the hubris the Twins showed by continuing to run Livan Hernandez (the upscale, more likeable version of Ponson) out there every fifth day for four months.

Hernandez inexplicably won his first three starts – including one on Opening Day! – and on May 12^th was 6-1 with a 3.90 ERA – despite surrendering 72 hits in 57 innings, and striking out just 21. Where you and I saw a mirage, the Twins saw an oasis, and kept sending Hernandez out there, even as he posted a 6.59 ERA over his next 14 starts, allowing a remarkable 127 hits in just 82 innings.

Hernandez was finally released on July 30^th. Taking his spot in the rotation was Francisco Liriano, who was so brilliant as a rookie in 2006 before blowing out his elbow, and who had clearly recovered from Tommy John surgery, as he spent most of the first four months of the season toying with hitters in the International League while waiting for a spot in the rotation to open up. (He had briefly and ineffectually returned to the rotation in April, but he clearly wasn’t 100% yet.) He finally returned to the Twins rotation on August 3^rd, and went 6-1 with a 2.57 ERA the rest of the season.

The Twins, no doubt, justified the decision to leave Hernandez in the rotation for most of the summer by saying that he was a proven major leaguer, or that some extra time in the minors would only make Liriano a better pitcher when he returned, or some other such nonsense. In the end, that decision cost them the division, plain and simple.

The Royals have a puncher’s chance to win the division this year. What they don’t have is much margin for error. Starting the season with Ponson and Ramirez in the rotation, and Hochevar in Omaha, slices their margin that much thinner. The sooner they come to their senses, the less likely we’ll be to retrace the path of last year’s Twins, muttering “what if” all winter long.

--

I wrote most of that on the plane ride home from Vail this morning. After I made it home I learned that Ross Gload had been traded to the Marlins for a PTBNL. I first heard about this trade possibility a few days ago, but wasn’t about to count any chickens until they had both hatched and been safely transported across the country. The Royals are picking up almost his entire salary – the Marlins’ favorite player is always the one making the major-league minimum – so this move won’t save the Royals a dime. It will save them the roster spot, and if the PTBNL is one of the guys I heard attached to this rumor, the Royals may get a decent prospect to boot.

This certainly washes out some of the bitter taste that the Hochevar demotion left in my mouth. Hochevar should be back; Gload should not. I’ve yet to hear a coherent explanation from Moore about why Gload got a two-year deal to begin with, but give him some credit for cutting his losses, and give David Glass even more credit for being willing to pay one of his players to go away. This is yet another data point in the case for the reincarnation of David Glass as an asset in the owner’s box.