Remember when the Royals were the toast of the town, and
working their way to becoming one of the best stories in baseball? I believe
they called that time “Sunday”.
It’s still early, folks. It’s
still early. When a three-game losing streak – the first streak that long
this season – can upend the way the entire team is perceived, that’s a pretty
good sign that it’s too early to be making any firm conclusions about what this
team is supposed to be. I can’t overstate how important it is to keep this
mind. Because when you don’t, you wind up writing columns like this.
“No One Hating The Big
Game James Trade Now”
I won’t quote anything past the headline; you can guess how
it goes from there. I’m sure there have been some trades in baseball history
that can be accurately judged in less than 30 games, but this ain’t one of
them. I don’t want to keep going back to the Shields trade, partly because you
guys are sick and tired of hearing me talk about it, and partly because a trade
of this nature – prospects for established veterans – can’t be adequately
judged for years.
But if Jeff Flanagan wants to judge the trade right
now…well, if the season ended right now, the Royals wouldn’t be in the
playoffs. For the talent the Royals gave up, they can’t win this trade unless
they go to the playoffs. There’s always next year, I guess.
So far, Shields has been everything the Royals could have
expected, and more. I happily admit that he’s been better than I expected to
this point – a 2.52 ERA (and no unearned runs) is exceptional. If he stays
healthy, averages over 7 innings a start, and maintains a 2.52 ERA through the
end of 2014, I will concede that it was a price worth paying. But can we not
render judgment on a trade after seven starts?
Meanwhile, Wade Davis has a 4.75 ERA, which is about what I
would expect from him – not bad enough to get pulled from the rotation, but not
good enough to be any kind of asset. It’s early, of course, and he’s making a
big transition. Wil Myers has slumped a little in Triple-A (9-for-his-last-48),
bringing his overall numbers down to .276/.372/.414. (I’ve heard through the
grapevine that Myers is not happy – justifiably so – that the Rays have not
promoted him to the majors. He wouldn’t be the first elite prospect to slump in
Triple-A out of frustration that he’s not in the majors.) Meanwhile, Jake
Odorizzi threw seven no-hit innings in his last start, and in 34 innings has
more strikeouts (39) than hits + walks (34).
The final chapter in this trade has yet to be written. The first chapter in this trade has yet to
be finished. Let’s all calm down about declaring victory or defeat just yet.
And let’s see if the Royals can win one of their next three days, and thus
avoid a six-game losing streak by mid-May for the tenth consecutive season.
Moving on…
- It’s really quite remarkable that the Royals are 17-13
despite getting virtually nothing from The Best Farm System In The History Of
Baseball. Of the nine guys on Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospect list two
years ago, here’s what we have:
Myers, Odorizzi, and Mike Montgomery brought in Shields and
Davis.
Eric Hosmer is hitting .268/.339/.330.
Mike Moustakas is hitting .219/.294/.333.
John Lamb, Christian Colon, Danny Duffy, and Chris Dwyer
have contributed nothing.
So the contribution those nine guys have made on the 2013
Royals are a pair of corner infielders who haven’t hit, a #5 starter, and James
Shields. This is…sub-optimal.
And yet the Royals are 17-13. That’s a credit to the front
office, for not letting the disappointment of their farm system inhibit them
from getting contributions elsewhere. Obviously, they’ve benefited mightily
from the two holdovers from the Allard Baird administration, Alex Gordon and
Billy Butler. But the acquisitions of Ervin Santana and Jeremy Guthrie, which
were maligned by large portions of the blogosphere, have paid dividends so far.
(Yes, it’s early. There’s still plenty of time for these transactions to go
south, particularly Guthrie, who’s on a three-year deal.)
Salvador Perez, obviously, has contributed far more than the
17 guys who were ranked ahead of him in the farm system two years ago. The
Royals have turned a 10th-round pick, an undrafted high school player who they
got in a trade for Rick Ankiel and Kyle Farnsworth, a Dominican prospect who
couldn’t stay healthy as a starter, and a first-round pick who had failed as a
starter, and turned them into an excellent bullpen.
And two years on, I think we can safely say that the Royals
did an excellent job of extracting talent in the Zack Greinke trade. (Though in
May of 2011, I’m willing to bet that some people who cover the Brewers thought
that they pulled a heist on Kansas City. Alcides Escobar was hitting .200!
Lorenzo Cain was in Omaha! “No One Hating
The Zack Greinke Trade Now”)
Today, Escobar is hitting .272/.308/.392, largely putting to
rest concerns that his offensive improvement last year was a mirage. The Royals
have a shortstop who is slightly above-average both offensively and
defensively, and who is under club control through 2017. And Cain has been the
most pleasant surprise on the entire roster. He leads the team in OPS, hitting
.327/.383/.455 so far, while continuing to play excellent defense in center
field.
Cain has been worth 1.1 Wins Above Replacement in 28 games,
which is an All-Star pace, but is really in line with his value his entire
career. In 138 career games, he’s been worth 5.3 bWAR. That’s exceptional. Like
Escobar, the Royals control him for the next five seasons. And Odorizzi, the
third player in the Greinke trade, was good enough to be the second player in
the Shields/Davis trade.
I’m not saying that Brewers fans hate the trade now, even
though they probably would have made the playoffs in 2011 without Greinke, and even
though he pitched poorly in the postseason when they needed him most. But if
they don’t, it’s only because the Brewers were able to flip Greinke for three
prospects of their own last July, one of whom (Jean Segura) is hitting
.328/.372/.513 as their starting shortstop. The Royals won the trade, but the
Brewers didn’t lose it. The Angels did.
Dayton Moore deserves considerable credit for the Royals’
17-13 record. What’s astonishing is that almost none of that credit is due to
his ability to develop players out of his own farm system. At least not until
Hosmer and Moustakas start hitting the way we think they can.
- While Moore has said on multiple occasions that you need
about 40 games to properly evaluate your roster, the Royals elected to shake
things up starting at game #30. I don’t blame them.
Last night, for just the second time this season, the Royals
started Dyson in center field and Cain in right field. As you know, platooning
Dyson and Francoeur is something I’ve been advocating for some time, so this
was a welcome development. (Tonight’s lineup, however, has Francoeur back in
right field against right-hander Freddy Garcia.)
Last night, Elliot Johnson started at second base over Chris
Getz for the second straight night; Getz, in fact, has only started two of the
Royals’ last seven games, with Johnson getting four starts and Miguel Tejada
one start at second base. (Getz is back in the lineup tonight.)
It’s not hard to discern why; Getz is hitting .216/.247/.338
on the season. Even great defense can’t justify putting that kind of bat in the
lineup, and as Getz showed on Monday, when he failed to corral a ground ball up
the middle that would have ended the game with a victory, he’s not a great
defender.
But this raises the question, for the umpteenth time, of why
the Royals aren’t willing to give an opportunity to Johnny Giavotella. During
spring training, the second base job was a battle between Getz and Giavotella;
no one saw Johnson or Tejada as anything more than utility guys. But now that
Getz has – not surprisingly – revealed himself as the same replacement-level
player that he’s been his entire career, the Royals are giving his playing time
to Johnson, who’s only better than Getz insomuch that he can be a
replacement-level player at multiple positions.
Meanwhile, Giavotella is hitting .277/.357/.411 in Omaha –
not great (he was hitting .326/.396/.489 a week ago, before embarking on a
1-for-21 slump), but certainly no worse than what Getz has provided. And
Giavotella, at least, has shown the ability to hit in the past – he’s a
lifetime .325/.392/.469 hitter in Triple-A – something Getz really hasn’t.
Instead of optioning Getz to Triple-A and giving Giavotella
an opportunity to play, the Royals started Giavotella at third base yesterday
for the first time this year. Two weeks ago, when Moustakas was playing so
badly that a demotion to Omaha seemed like a real possibility, I advocated that
Giavotella should get some playing time at third base to see if he could fill
in. Naturally, now that Moustakas has heated up (in his last 10 games, he’s
hitting .367/.432/.633), and now that Getz is ice cold (since hitting his first
home run as a member of the Royals, he’s 4-for-37) – NOW the Royals try
Giavotella at third base.
Sometimes this organization drives me nuts. Just as the hole
they had at third base is closing up, the hole they’ve always had at second
base is gaping wide – and not only is the potential solution to that hole being
ignored, the Royals are actively steering him away from the problem he might be
able to fix.
I hope I’m wrong when I say this, but at this point, one can
only assume that the Royals have internally decided that they want nothing to
do with Giavotella as their starting second baseman. They might be right about
Gio; he has had his chances at the major league level, and has not taken
advantage of them.
But they might be wrong, and right now, he can hardly be
worse than their alternatives. Maybe the Royals will eventually go outside the
organization for a solution, and by July the answer will be Chase Utley or
someone else. But in May, the best solution the Royals have on hand right now
might be Giavotella. At the very least, he deserves the same opportunity to
make his case as Getz has.
- Some more changes are in store for tonight’s game, as Ned
Yost finally got tired of the lack of production around Billy Butler, and caved
in to conventional wisdom, moving Alex Gordon into the #3 hole, Butler to
cleanup, and making Alcides Escobar the new leadoff hitter.
Look, I get it. Eric Hosmer hasn’t hit a home run yet this
year. The Royals don’t have a home run from the cleanup spot this year. Billy
Butler is on pace for 108 walks this year, and as much as I’d like to
compliment him for his new-found patience, I have no doubt that his walk total
is influenced by the fact that teams feel comfortable pitching around him and
taking their chances with whoever comes next.
And while Gordon has hit very well in the leadoff spot this
year, his profile is…weird. He only has five walks all season, as the
organizational plague of poor plate discipline appears to have finally infected
him. (Personally, I blame Francoeur. That dude’s a cesspool of the hacking
virus.) But Gordon leads the team in homers; he has as many home runs as walks,
which is something you hardly see from anyone, let alone a leadoff hitter.
(It has happened, though. In 1966, Felipe Alou led off for
the Braves 127 times year, even though he hit 31 home runs and walked just 24
times. Manager Bobby Bragan hit upon the then-revolutionary idea that you
should bat your best hitters at the top of the lineup so that they’d get more
at-bats. He probably took the philosophy a little to the extreme, but not only
was Alou his primary leadoff hitter, Eddie Mathews got the most plate
appearances in the #2 spot, just ahead of Hank Aaron. And Alou did lead the
league with 122 runs scored.)
On top of that, Gordon has some very funky splits this year.
With no one on base, he’s hitting .205/.224/.337, and leading off an inning
he’s just 9-for-53 with one walk. But with runners in scoring position, he’s
batting .483 (14-for-29), and he’s 10-for-20 with a man on first base alone.
Those splits are a complete fluke, and if the Royals are
moving him down in the lineup to take advantage of them, they’re making a big
mistake. If they’re moving him down because they want to bunch their two best
hitters together, or because his power is wasted in the leadoff spot and his
lack of walks is a problem, then I’m fine with it.
This still leaves two problems. The first is that Hosmer is
still batting behind Butler, just one slot lower, and if he doesn’t start
hitting, teams are going to continue to pitch around Billy until someone makes
them stop. The other is that Escobar is no more a leadoff hitter than Hosmer is
a cleanup hitter. Since the start of last season, Escobar has a .327 OBP, which
is fine for a shortstop but less than ideal for your leadoff guy.
One way to kill two birds with one stone would be to move Hosmer into the leadoff spot. It’s
unconventional, but no more unconventional that moving Gordon into the leadoff
spot in the first place. Hosmer’s getting on base, at least, at a .339 clip,
and he’s faster than you’d expect from a first baseman – since the start of
last year, he’s 18-for-19 in stolen base attempts. At least until he starts
pulling the ball and hitting for power again, putting him in the leadoff spot
is the best use of his talents, allows you to bat Escobar lower in the order,
and you can move Salvador Perez – who’s probably the best choice to protect
Butler in the lineup – into the #5 spot.
I will say this: lineup analysis is overrated, and the most
important priority in building a lineup is maintaining left-right balance.
Tonight’s lineup goes R, R, L, R, L, R, L, R, L. Ned Yost literally can’t do
any better than that.