So, here we are.
We’re at the All-Star Break, and the Royals have played 92
games, so we’re well past the point where we can explain away a poor
performance with the words “small sample size”. There are fewer games left to
play than have already been played. We should have a pretty good idea of what
the 2013 Royals are now.
What they are isn’t pretty. The Royals are 43-49, on pace
for a 76-86 record. That’s exactly the opposite of what I predicted before the
beginning of the year. They are six games under .500 for the first time since
early June. They are 8 games out of first place for the first time all season.
And after playing better than their record would suggest for so long – they had
outscored their opponents almost all season long – the Royals quietly went
underwater in that regard as well, as they’ve been outscored by eight runs this
year. Maybe they should be 45-47 instead of 43-49, but that’s scant comfort.
They have the 11th-best record out of 15 AL teams; they have the 10th-best run
differential.
They’re not a good team. They’re not a bad team – they’re on pace for their best record (!) in 10 years –
but if they continue on their current pace until year’s end, the only people
who will declare 2013 a success will be trying to sell you something.
It appears even my admittedly tepid optimism about this
season was, once again, misplaced. The main reasons for that are:
1) A small amount of luck (they should be two games better
than they’ve played).
2) Somewhat disappointing, if still valuable, seasons from
Alex Gordon, Billy Butler, and Salvador Perez.
3) Alcides Escobar hitting as poorly as he did his rookie
season with the Brewers back in 2010. I expected him to decline, but not this
much.
4) Mike Moustakas being kind of a train wreck.
5) Jeff Francoeur and the second base rotation being as bad
as my worst fears.
6) Wade Davis being worse than my worst-case scenario for
his return to the rotation – particularly since I assumed there was a limit to
“worst-case” before he got moved to the bullpen.
7) The bullpen being erratic aside from Greg Holland,
although still effective overall. (Counting Holland, they are second in the AL
in ERA.)
On the plus side, James Shields has been as good as
expected, Ervin Santana has been better than expected, and David Lough has – at
least to this point – given the Royals more offense than they could have
expected from right field in the immediate post-Wil-Myers era. And the defense,
on a team-wide level, has been a revelation.
But there’s no way to sugarcoat it: the Royals are a
disappointment. Again.
I will, at least for the moment, refrain from turning this
column into a long screed advocating for the entire front office, from Dayton
Moore on down, to be shown the door. I think you can make a case that we’re not
at that point yet. But I think you can also make a case that we are. Moore was
hired OVER SEVEN YEARS AGO, and the Royals are 43-49 and eight games out at the
Break. That’s not the sad part – the sad part is that THIS ACTUALLY REPRESENTS
PROGRESS, because this is the best record – and the closest the Royals have
been to first place – at the All-Star Break since Moore was hired.
Moore was hired midway through the 2006 season. Let’s give
him a mulligan for that year. Since 2007, EVERY TEAM IN BASEBALL HAS HAD A
WINNING RECORD, save the Pirates, who barring an epic collapse will finish with
one this year. The Royals are on pace to win 76 games, which would be their
best showing under Moore – and yet every other team in baseball has won at
least 76 games TWICE since 2007 except the Pirates and Orioles, both of whom
should clear 76 games for the second time with ease this year.
I don’t much care how bad a shape the organization was in
seven years ago: there’s no excuse for that. And I don’t think it was in nearly
as bad a shape as we’ve been told by people who have a vested interest in
making the fan base think the new front office was inheriting a toxic waste
dump. It doesn’t matter how many times I hear “below expansion-level” – it
doesn’t make it true. Expansion teams don’t have an Alex Gordon, a Billy
Butler, and a Zack Greinke on their roster.
And even if the Royals that Moore inherited were an expansion team: so what? Of the
last four expansion teams, three made the
playoffs by their fifth season. The one exception, Tampa Bay, stumbled
along for nearly a decade before their front office ran out of excuses, got
dumped on the sidewalk – and the new front office got them in the playoffs in
their third year. After five years, if you haven’t put your team in position to
make the playoffs even once, the problem is no longer the organization you
inherited – the problem is what you've done with it.
As Sam Mellinger points out, Pittsburgh has been Kansas
City’s sister city for the past 20 years. Neal Huntington was hired as their GM
18 months after Moore was hired. You think Moore inherited a hopeless
situation? The summer before Huntington was hired, the Pirates had used the #4
overall pick on Daniel Moskos – who quickly became a middle reliever – instead
of the guy who was best player available on 29 other teams’ draft list, Matt
Wieters. The year before they had used the #4 overall pick on Brad Lincoln. They
had just traded prospects for Matt Morris’ fat contract and withered arm.
The Pirates are 56-37. And their farm system is still loaded
– even with 2011’s #1 overall pick, Gerrit Cole, now in their rotation, they
still have Jameson Taillon, Luis Heredia, Gregory Polanco, Alen Hanson, Josh
Bell, and their two Top-15 picks from this year’s draft (Austin Meadows and
Reese McGuire). Of course, it’s easier to have a loaded farm system when you don’t
trade two of your top five prospects to acquire two years of a starting
pitcher. Instead, they traded for Wandy Rodriguez last summer – they got 2.5
years of Rodriguez – for three Grade C prospects. Rodriguez is no James
Shields, but he does have a 3.59 ERA.
So yeah, I’m kind of tired of the excuses. But that’s a
discussion for another time. Right now, it’s time for the front office to make
a sober and clear-headed assessment of where the team stands going into the
second half of the season, and whether it makes more sense to trade prospects
for established major league talent in an attempt to go for it, or whether it
makes more sense to trade off veteran parts that might help other teams that
want to go for it, and get prospects in return.
This assessment should take about 10 seconds. Maybe 15 if in
the process they get a sudden urge to sneeze or yawn; there are some things you
just can’t help.
Look, the Royals are not going to the playoffs this year.
According to Baseball Prospectus, their odds of making the playoffs are 0.7%;
their odds of winning the AL Central are 0.4%. ESPN is wildly optimistic by
comparison, pinning the Royals’ odds at 4.9%. They’re eight games out. They’re
in third place. And the Tigers are underachieving as much as any team in baseball
– according to Baseball Prospectus’ third-order standings, which measures what
a team’s record “should” be based on the quality of their offense, pitching,
and their strength of schedule, the Tigers should be 61-33 instead of 52-42.
So the Tigers, with one hand tied behind their back, are
eight games ahead of the Royals. And according to Buster Olney, of the 19 teams
within eight games of first place at the All-Star Break, the Royals have the
toughest schedule in the second half. It’s time to move on.
Let’s start with Ervin Santana, the best move Dayton Moore
made last winter, who has made every start – and until his last start had
thrown at least 6 innings in all of them – with an excellent 3.37 ERA. His
command is as good as it’s ever been; he’s only walked 5.1% of batters,
essentially tied with 2008 as the best performance of his career. Throwing more
strikes sets up his excellent slider, and is the difference between being
replacement level last year and being a Top-20 starter in the league this year.
His last start – in which he gave up eight runs in five
innings – jumped his ERA nearly half a run, and may have given potential trade
candidates pause. Santana gets the first start out of the All-Star Break on
Friday, and a solid bounceback start from him is of considerable import.
Assuming he does bounce back, he’s one of the most valuable
starting pitchers available on the trade market; after Matt Garza, Santana
might actually be the most coveted starter left. Virtually every contender has
at least one spot in their rotation which would be significantly upgraded by
Santana, and he’s a guy who will not just help a contender reach the playoffs, but move forward in them; he has the ability to
be a Game 2 or Game 3 starter in each playoff series.
So he should have significant trade value. If he doesn’t,
the Royals can of course just hold on to him, make him a qualifying offer this
off-season, and – when he almost certainly declines the one-year offer to sign
a long-term deal instead – get a supplemental first-round draft pick when
Santana signs elsewhere.
But I’m almost certain that Santana will bring back more
value than that as a trade. Supplemental first round picks are valuable, but
they’re not as valuable as a Top-100 prospect, or even as valuable as a Top-200
prospect. Sure, you might land a Sean Manaea, or you might draft a guy who’s a
Top-100 prospect a year later, but the hit rate with a draft pick in the #30-40
range is less than 50/50.
Also, by trading Santana before the trading deadline the
Royals would save at least $4 million, and they’d also save a little over $1
million they’d need to sign the compensatory draft pick. If you trade Santana,
the prospects you acquire have already received their signing bonus. That’s $5
million that can be spent elsewhere, a not insignificant amount of money. (The
Royals could of course agree to pick up most or all of Santana’s salary, which
would yield a better haul of prospects in return.)
That draft pick compensation disappears if Santana is
traded; his new team can not receive a draft pick. But that won’t stop a
contender with a need for pitching from trading a valuable collection of
prospects. It didn’t stop the Los Angeles Angels from trading three prospects,
including Jean Segura, for Zack Greinke last July. Segura, who barely exhausted
his rookie eligibility last season, is hitting .325/.363/.487 for the Brewers,
leads the NL in hits, and made the All-Star team. (Segura alone is worth nearly
as much as the four guys the Brewers gave up to get Greinke in the first place,
but that’s another story.) Santana is not as coveted as Greinke was, but given
that both guys were just two-month rentals, he’s not that far behind.
Looking around the majors at contenders in need of pitching,
here’s a partial sample of teams that might be good fits:
- The aforementioned Pittsburgh Pirates might be a good fit,
given their huge incentive to make the playoffs this year and wipe away the bad
taste of 20 losing seasons in a row. Their rotation has had trouble staying healthy
behind A.J. Burnett and Jeff Locke, and Santana would give them stability in
the second half.
Truthfully, I don’t think they’re a great match, even though
they’ve got tons of prospects to deal and an incentive to deal them. The
Pirates lead the majors in ERA, and should probably be focusing their efforts
to find a right fielder that can hit. They have a wealth of very good prospects, but if anything, their best prospects
are too good; I doubt that the
Pirates would give up any of them in return for Santana.
- The Nationals are one of the game’s most disappointing
teams, and are the reason why the Pirates feel so good about their playoff
chances. The Nats are six games out in the NL East and five games behind the
Reds for the second wild card spot, close enough that they should be motivated
to win but far enough that they should taste some desperation. And while their
four returning starters (Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmerman, Gio Gonzalez, and
Ross Detwiler) are all pitching well, the Dan Haren experiment has gone rather
poorly, with a 5.61 ERA. Santana would be a perfect fit for their rotation,
giving them five above-average starting pitchers.
(And for those of you who like to bring up Dan Haren’s
struggles as proof that I’m a know-nothing imbecile, I’d just like to point out
that while I do my best as an analyst, I am not privy to confidential medical
reports on each player. Remember, the Chicago Cubs almost traded Carlos Marmol
for Haren, but that trade fell through at the last moment because of issues
with Haren’s medicals. The Nationals took a flyer anyway, but clearly the
medical issues there were more significant than I had reason to believe. This
doesn’t change the fact that I’m a know-nothing imbecile, mind you.)
The problem with trading with the Nationals is that Anthony
Rendon is in the majors, Lucas Giolito just came back from Tommy John surgery
and they’re not giving him up for a two-month rental, and there isn’t anyone
else in the Nationals’ system that is worth acquiring for Santana. Unless I’m
missing someone, which is possible.
- The Diamondbacks are reportedly looking for another
starter as they attempt to hold off the Dodgers in the NL West. They certainly
have prospects to deal. I doubt you’re getting Tyler Skaggs or Adam Eaton or
anyone of that ilk for Santana, but the Diamondbacks do things a little
differently from everyone else, so it doesn’t hurt to ask. They traded Trevor
Bauer for Didi Gregorius (which, in their defense, doesn’t look so bad right
now), and they traded Justin Upton for Martin Prado and stuff (which does).
Even if their elite prospects are off the table, they have enough depth to make
it worth the Royals’ while with two or three mid-range guys. The problem is
that I don’t think Santana’s fly ball tendencies would play well in Arizona’s
ballpark, so they may look elsewhere for rotation help.
- You don’t trade in your own division if you don’t have to,
which is the main reason to be skeptical of a trade with the Indians. Otherwise
it makes great sense; the Indians are the mirror image of the Royals, with a
great offense and no starting pitching, and are yet another exhibit in how
pitching really is NOT more important than hitting.
Francisco Lindor is untouchable, but there are some
interesting names here (Dorssys Paulino? Tyler Naquin? Ronny Rodriguez?) that
I’d be interested in. The Indians need all the help they can get if they want
to keep up with Detroit in the second half, and I think they’re going to make a
surprise splash in the next two weeks. But probably not with the Royals.
- And that brings me to the perfect trade partner, and
granted I probably write that every year. In my defense, so long as Ned
Colletti, the man who once traded Carlos Santana for Casey Blake, is in charge
in LA, the Dodgers are a mark.
But beyond their GM’s abilities or lack thereof, the Dodgers
make a lot of sense. They’re at .500 despite the highest payroll in the game,
and Colletti is on the hot seat – he’s motivated to overpay future talent to
win now. More than that, the emergence of Yasiel Puig means the Dodgers have
four outfielders who either deserve to play, have enormous contracts, or both –
Carl Crawford, Andre Ethier, and Matt Kemp are all signed for the next four
years.
So given their situation, wouldn’t you think that if the
Dodgers had a top prospect who also played the outfield, that said prospect
might be a little less untouchable than he would ordinarily be?
Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Joc Pederson.
Pederson was an 11th-round pick out of high school in 2010,
although he got $600,000 to sign. The next year he hit .353/.429/.568 in rookie
ball to get people’s attention, and then last year he hit .313/.396/.516 in
high-A ball at the age of 20, which really got people’s attention: he ranked
#85 on MLB.com’s top prospect list, although didn’t crack Baseball America’s
Top 100. This year, as a 21-year-old in Double-A, he’s hitting .296/.386/.516.
He has good plate discipline (42 walks in 304 AB), power (14 homers, 19
doubles), and speed (26 steals in 29 attempts). He’s played the majority of his
games in center field, but has played all three outfield positions.
He’s not Wil Myers, but he’d be one hell of a consolation
prize.
The Dodgers have already traded for Ricky Nolasco, so the
window might have closed. But behind a front four of Clayton Kershaw, Zack
Greinke, Hyun-jin Ryu and Nolasco, their fifth starter choices are slim. It
would be nice if they were a little more desperate, though. But again, Ned Colletti traded Carlos Santana for Casey
Blake. Joc Pederson seems like a steep price to pay for a half-season of
Ervin Santana, but you’ll never know until you ask.
Anyway, these are all just thought bubbles. There are other
teams that may be interested, other prospects who might be available, and the
point isn’t the specifics of the trade; it’s that some trade should be on the table soon.
Trading Santana is the easy part. Deciding who else to trade
off this roster isn’t. As much as I’d like to say the Royals should trade James
Shields, I really can’t, and not just because Dayton Moore might as well be
signing his own pink slip if he does that.
Last Friday I wrote an article for Grantland on the Toronto
Blue Jays, and the difficult predicament they are in. Like the Royals, the Blue
Jays went for it this winter, to an even larger degree: they traded four of
their top five prospects, but acquired Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, Mark Buehrle,
and R.A. Dickey, among others. But the Jays are 45-49, 11.5 games out in the AL
East, and they have to decide what to do.
My conclusion with the Jays is that they are a team that’s
built to win now, and with the exception of Josh Johnson, they return all their
starters next year, so their window exists for one more season. So while it
makes sense for them to trade Johnson if the right offer comes around, it
doesn’t make sense to trade guys, like Colby Rasmus, who become free agents
after 2014.
I think the same rationale applies to the Royals. Trading
Santana, who’s going to walk in three months, makes sense. But Santana is the
only player of any note who is going to be a free agent this winter. After next
season, things get dicey, because Shields is a free agent after 2014, and both
Gordon and Butler can leave after 2015. But at this point, I think the Royals
can still dream about contending in 2014, if they get all their young hitters
on track and someone steps up to replace Santana. (While whoever replaces Santana
isn’t likely to be as good, whoever replaces Wade Davis isn’t likely to be as
bad.)
It helps that the AL Central may be even less competitive
next year. The Tigers are probably on a downward trend overall; Miguel Cabrera
can’t really get any better than he is now, Prince Fielder turns 30, their
stars won’t all stay healthy year after year, and aside from Nick Castellanos,
there isn’t anyone in the farm system likely to help. The Twins could be a
juggernaut in three years but won’t be there in 2014, the White Sox might be
the worst team in baseball, and the Indians will probably be in the same 85-win
range they are now.
This is an admittedly rosy assessment, but if you’re the
Royals you sort of have to deal in rosy assessments at this point. If a new GM
got hired tomorrow, I think you’d see him field calls on James Shields. But I
think it’s defensible for Moore, having bet the farm on two seasons of Shields,
to stick with his plan for next year.
The Royals don’t have a lot more assets to trade, because they
don’t have a lot more assets that are close to free agency. The only other free
agents this year are Miguel Tejada – who might get dealt very soon, now that
the Royals have claimed Pedro Ciriaco on waivers – and Bruce Chen. (And after
throwing six shutout innings, allowing just one hit, in his first start since
transitioning from the pen, don’t be surprised if Chen gets moved for a
prospect of modest means.) The only other free agents for next year are Luke Hochevar, who won’t get traded because he’s Luke
Hochevar, and Felipe Paulino, who won’t get traded because he’ll get hurt on
the plane ride over.
But there is one other asset the Royals should be trying to
trade. Greg Holland might be, inning for inning, the best pitcher in baseball
right now. By the most simple of assessments – the percentage of batters that
he strikes out – he is without peer in 2013. Since the beginning of the 2011
season, Holland has a 2.28 ERA in 162 innings, having struck out 225 batters
and allowed just seven home runs. He won’t be arbitration-eligible until next
season, and won’t be a free agent until after the 2016 season. He’s only 27
years old.
Which makes this the perfect time to trade him. Here’s why:
1) Closers are fickle.
This should be obvious, given that the guy Holland replaced as closer, Joakim
Soria, was even better (2.01 ERA) for even longer (four years), and then was
just average in 2011, and then blew out his elbow in 2012, and then got
expensive and signed with the Texas Rangers in 2013. (Where he’s pitched extremely
well since returning to the mound, by the way.)
Of all the missed opportunities by this administration, the
failure to cash in Soria at his peak ranks highly. There is no more useless
luxury in baseball than a closer on a last-place team, and yet the Royals were
convinced that if they traded Soria, it would cause a psychic disruption that
would turn the other 24 guys into quivering bowls of jelly, unable to carry on
without their security blanket in the ninth inning.
And at the time I could hardly blame them, because after the
nightmare that was the Royals bullpen from 1999 through 2006, I was a quivering
bowl of jelly myself. But I’d like to think I’m capable of learning from my
mistakes. If the Royals treat Greg Holland the same way they treated Joakim
Soria – as an untouchable – then it’s proof that they haven’t learned from
theirs.
Jayson Stark put it best: of the 18 closers with the most
saves in 2011 – just two years ago – just three of those guys are closing for
the same team today. The turnover among even the best closers is frightening.
There’s a reason why Mariano Rivera stands apart, why he is perhaps the most
respected player in the game today. It’s not simply that he’s the best reliever
in the game – it’s that he’s been one of the best, almost without interruption,
for the last 17 years. That’s not normal. Joe Nathan is the second-most-tenured
closer in baseball, and he has roughly half as many relief innings (and less
than half as many saves) as Rivera.
Holland may be the best reliever in baseball right now. He
probably won’t be the best reliever in baseball next year. He might not even be
an above-average reliever by 2015. But at the same time, he’s so dominant in
the present that he’s one guy teams will pay a premium for.
2) The Royals have
relievers. They have relievers coming out of their ears. Tim Collins has
been awful for the past 2-3 weeks, which doesn’t change the fact that he’s been
a very valuable pitcher for the past 2-3 years. Aaron Crow has a 3.17 career
ERA, and while ERA isn’t a great way to evaluate relievers, and while he’s
allowed a lot of inherited runners to score this year, I think he’s been
criticized so much that he might actually be underrated at this point.
Luke Hochevar has a 2.08 ERA, and has allowed fewer than one
baserunner per inning, and with men on base this year, batters are hitting
.119/.196/.167. That’s right: LUKE HOCHEVAR IS UNHITTABLE WITH MEN ON BASE.
Hochevar isn’t just the latest exhibit in how common it is for the lousiest starting
pitchers to become top-shelf relievers; he’s also the greatest.
Kelvin Herrera was terrible for the Royals this year, but he
had a 2.35 ERA and threw 84 innings as a rookie last year. The stuff is still
there; in 17 minor league innings this year, he’s allowed seven hits and
whiffed 25. He’s still just 23 years old.
Louis Coleman, who couldn’t even find a spot on the Royals
roster for most of this year, came into the season with a 3.25 ERA in 111
career innings. Think about that for a moment – the Royals had a reliever with
a 3.25 ERA that they had to send to the minors for lack of space. After his
latest callup, he struck out the first seven batters he faced.
After getting called up as a reliever, Will Smith threw 12
innings, allowed 3 runs, walked none and struck out 10; that earned him a trip
back to Omaha. Donnie Joseph got called up, having struck out 59 batters in 38
innings in Omaha, but was returned to Nebraska after a couple of days.
The Royals simply have more relievers than they have roster
spots. It’s a great problem to have. But it is a problem, because it means
they’re letting talented ballplayers waste away in the minors. They should have
traded one this winter – think how much more value Kelvin Herrera had four
months ago – and they should trade one now. The problem is that most relievers
aren’t going to bring back a ton of value unless they’re pitching at an elite
level, and right now the only guy pitching at an elite level is Holland.
If the Royals trade Holland, they may not know who his
replacement will be right away – but they should have confidence that they do
have his replacement, even if it might take a few months to figure out who it
is. Maybe you give Crow the ninth-inning role by default. Maybe you take a
chance that Hochevar really has figured everything out. Maybe you go back to
the guy with the best stuff in Herrera. The point is that one of these guys
should be able to seize the job the way Holland did, and if you blow a few
games this year trying to figure out who that guy is, so be it. The goal is
2014, and by 2014 you should have this all straightened out.
3) Closers can still fetch a lot of talent. Think about what the A’s got for Andrew Bailey, or the Astros for Mark
Melancon, or what the Nationals got for Matt Capps. And keep in mind: Holland
right now is better than any of those guys were at the time, and is farther
from free agency than any of them were. We could go back in time further, to
the Marlins getting Brad Penny for Matt Mantei, or Ugueth Urbina getting traded
for Placido Polanco and Adrian
Gonzalez in separate deals, or the (gulp) Pirates getting Jon Lieber for Stan
Belinda. (And I’m not even bringing up Larry Andersen’s name…oops.)
Better still, combine Holland and Santana and see what teams
are willing to give up for a high-end closer AND a #2 starter. Put them in the
same deal, and maybe Joc Pederson is in play. Kolten Wong, the second baseman
that Johnny Giavotella was supposed to be, is in play. How much would the
Diamondbacks, who are trying to contend with Heath Bell as their closer, give
up for Holland and the starter
they’re looking for? Maybe Tyler Skaggs is in play.
The Royals of course won’t do any of this, because Greg
Holland is untouchable in their mind, because you can’t trade a top-tier
closer, even though the fact that the Royals quickly found a top-tier closer to
replace their last top-tier closer – a 10th-round pick replacing a Rule 5 pick
– should offer a clue that closers aren’t as hard to find as you might think.
The Royals won’t trade Holland because they don’t think of their players as
commodities; they think of them as a family, that they all need to get along,
that they need to support each other, that they need to have faith in each
other.
It’s sweet and endearing, it really is, and I don’t mean
that sarcastically or flippantly. The Royals have put together a roster of
likable players who really do seem to get along. They’ve also put together a
roster that, like every other roster they’ve put together, will lose more games
than it wins. If your goal is to end that streak and put together a contending
team for 2014 or 2015, now is the perfect time to see if you can trade high on
Greg Holland. But if your goal is to make the 25 men in your clubhouse feel
good about each other, then I guess Holland stays. We’ll see which goal the
Royals emphasize.
Dayton Moore gambled his team’s future last winter in order
to win in 2013 and 2014, and right now one of his two scratch-off tickets looks
like a loser. If he accepts that fact and throws in the towel on this season in
an attempt to make that second ticket pay off, he may yet rescue his bet. But
if he’s more concerned with the aesthetics of a .500 record this year than the
payoff of a playoff spot next year, that will be one more piece of evidence –
and maybe the decisive piece of evidence – that he’s not the man to lead the
Royals to the playoffs at all. And if he’s not that man, then it’s fair to ask
whether he should still be employed in the first place.
I’m not calling for his job yet. But I will be monitoring
the moves that he makes – or doesn’t make – over the next two weeks with great
interest.