Potpourri.

Before we get to the future of the pitching staff, a few bullet points on some recent developments:

- Trey Hillman has gone on record as saying that Miguel Olivo will be the primary starter behind the plate the rest of the season. This flip-flopping will almost certainly cost Hillman the election.

I understand his thinking; Olivo has played somewhat better than Buck this year, he’s thrown out a lot more runners, and if there’s any way to repair the rift between him and Olivo and leave the door open for Olivo’s return, it’s worth pursuing. But let’s not overstate Olivo’s case. He remains, as always, a one-trick pony: he mashes left-handed pitching (.287/.326/.598), but is unplayable against right-handers (.246/.265/.385). If Olivo is amenable to returning next year, an Olivo/Brayan Pena platoon might be the best internal option the Royals have, but having fought for more playing time all year, methinks Olivo isn’t going to quietly accept the short end of a platoon in 2009, especially given Hillman’s legendary communication skills. I hope Posnanski is right that Hillman is trying to make amends, because Hillman has apparently had a worse year in the clubhouse than he’s had on the field.

In the Introduction to “The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers”, James wrote, “There is one indispensable quality of a baseball manager: The manager must be able to command the respct of his players. That is absolute; everything else is negotiable.” I agree with James, which is why Hillman’s fondness for small ball strategies and Ross Gload, bizarre use of the intentional walk, and inability to get his hitters to take more pitches are small fish relative to the fact that his own players are mocking him behind his back. If Hillman doesn’t regain their respect – and once lost, respect is almost impossible to regain – his days as manager are numbered. And fair or not, the fact that Olivo is earning more playing time after blasting Hillman in the press for not getting a fair shake is likely to only add to the perception that Hillman treats different players differently.

If there’s a silver lining here, it’s that getting Olivo more playing time may help him move up the Elias rankings a little, as Olivo appears to be on the bubble for Class B free agent status, which would earn the Royals a supplemental first-round pick if he leaves as a free agent.

- As you will soon see, the pitching staff appears to have a much happier future than the offense. But you can never have too much pitching, and when a talented pitcher is available for free, you should pounce on him.

Such a pitcher has just become available, as the White Sox have just designated Charlie Haeger for assignment. If you’re not familiar with Haeger, here’s all you need to know in four words: he throws a knuckleball. A few more words: he throws a really, really good knuckleball. As I documented in this column, Haeger’s preternatural ability to throw the knuckler got him to the majors at age 22 – just two weeks older than Charlie Hough was when Hough became the youngest knuckleball pitcher ever to reach the major leagues.

Since I wrote that column, Haeger has regressed some. He spent the last two years toiling for Triple-A Charlotte, and after his outstanding 2006 season (3.07 ERA), he had a 4.08 ERA in 2007 and a 4.45 ERA this year. Even so, those numbers really aren’t that bad; this season, for instance, he allowed just 167 hits in 178 innings, with 77 walks and 117 strikeouts, and surrendered just 13 home runs. (The low homer total is a Haeger staple – he is as stingy with the homer as any knuckleballer in a generation.) More importantly, he doesn’t even turn 25 for another two weeks. It’s not an exaggeration in the slightest to say that he’s at least five years away from his peak.

The last knuckleballer before Haeger to get us all excited was Charlie Zink, who I ranked as the #50 prospect in the game after a promising 2003 season (and I received an incalculable amount of grief for ranking him so high.) Zink was bloody awful in 2004 and 2005, and mediocre in 2006 and 2007, before suddenly re-emerging with a terrific season in Triple-A this year and finally making his major league debut (one admittedly terrible start). Zink is still just 28; his best is likely still to come.

Haeger is just 24. He just had the highest ERA in the five seasons he’s worked with the knuckleballer, and it wasn't even a bad year. I wouldn't hesitate in the slightest to give him a spot in the majors next season in long relief; with a little more experience, he could be ready to be a #3 starter. As Charlie Hough told me when I interviewed him, “when you’ve pitched a thousand innings you’ll know what you’re doing.” Haeger has now thrown 781 innings with the knuckleball, so if Hough’s Law holds, he’s due for a breakout within a year or two. Zink came into this season with 741 innings, and finally reversed his four-year slide.

Zink is still with the Red Sox, because the Red Sox know just how valuable a knuckleballer can be (if memory serves, Tim Wakefield is their longest-tenured player), and they know how difficult the pitch is to master. The White Sox’ impatience can be our gain, and the only cost is a spot on the 40-man roster.

What’s the downside? Sure, the knuckleball is a novelty pitch, but what’s wrong with a little novelty for this franchise? To the best of my knowledge, the Royals have never had a knuckleball pitcher in their history. They’ve also never had a 40-homer hitter in their history. Some traditions are not worth keeping.

Do it, Dayton. I think we can find a way to survive the loss of Jeff Fulchino.

Royals Today: 9/3/2008.

The Royals are turning over a new leaf along with the calendar. Last night was the sort of game that makes you wonder why this team has won 70 games exactly once this century. I mean, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Zack Greinke throws 7 terrific innings, Ramon Ramirez and the Mexicutioner throw two scoreless. Bam Bam gets three hits, including a three-run bomb that essentially ices the game in the first inning, and finally gets his slugging average over .400. The Royals start someone other than Ross Gload at first base, and are rewarded for their ingenuity with a homer. Trey Hillman brings in two defensive subs in the late innings and manages to improve the defense at five separate positions: Pena at SS, Aviles at 3B, Teahen in RF, Gathright in CF, DeJesus in LF.

So as Dayton Moore prepares to blow up this roster in the off-season – and it’s about time he admits that it needs to be done – it’s worth noting that not every roster spot is a problem, and some are even solutions. Let’s not throw Jose Guillen’s babies out with the bathwater. (Throwing Jose Guillen out, on the other hand…)

With a month to go, let’s evaluate who needs to go and who needs to stay.

- Let’s start with the easy decisions, the guys that should be safe for next year. Alex Gordon will start somewhere. Mike Aviles will start somewhere. Billy Butler, who is hitting .329/.360/.526 since the All-Star Break, will start somewhere. It’s a testament to just how unsettled this roster is that of the three definite keepers for next year, none has a firm lock on a position. Third base is still the most likely destination for Gordon, but it’s set in a sandbox, not in stone. Aviles will move to second base, or possibly even third, if the Royals find a true shortstop willing to take their money. Butler will likely continue to DH most of the time, but could play first base anywhere from 0 to 100 games next year.

Also sure to come back is Jose Guillen, unless there’s a GM out there dumb enough to trade for a guy making $12 million a year with bad defense, an abrasive personality, and a .284 OBP. Moore was dumb enough to sign him the first time around, so there’s always the bigger fool theory to hold your hat on. Barring the return of Chuck LaMar to a major league front office, I don’t think there are any fools out there big enough to take on this player with this contract at this time.

- Big ups to Moore for promoting Kila Kaaihue. I can understand why the Royals might have been reluctant to do so: they want to evaluate Shealy – who just turned 29 and is looking at his last opportunity to show he can play – and there’s not enough playing time to go around in September. But however limited the benefit of promoting Kaaihue is, it has to outweigh the downside, which is negligible.

Kaaihue has to be added to the 40-man roster after the season, so there is no roster benefit to keeping him on the farm. Kaaihue only has a month of Triple-A experience, but nearly three seasons’ worth in Double-A, so it’s not like he’s being rushed to the majors. And he was simply so dominating in the minors all season that it would be stupid not to give him a look. He had a 1087 OPS in Double-A, and in Triple-A his OPS dropped all the way to 1079. The fact that he didn’t miss a beat after his promotion bodes very well for him. His strikeout-to-walk ratio declined, but on the other hand he hit for more power, and pounded southpaws for Omaha after struggling against them in Arkansas. For the season, he finished fourth in the minors in homers (37) and second in slugging average (.628) – and led the minor leagues in walks (104) and OBP (.456).

Shealy started against the lefty and went deep, but hopefully they will platoon this month, giving Kaaihue the bulk of the at-bats. Shealy just doesn’t profile as an everyday first baseman in the majors anymore. He hit .283/.376/.503 for Omaha this year, which translates to marginal numbers in the majors. His career line in the majors is .267/.332/.402. He might get lucky and have a good year or two a la Chris Shelton, and realistically, if that was the case it would already have happened. Shealy’s a platoon player at best; Kaaihue could be the real deal.

It’s hard to stick in the majors as a right-handed first baseman with mid-range power – just ask Justin Huber. But left-handed first basemen with tremendous power backed up by great plate discipline? That describes some of the best first basemen of the last decade. Kaaihue may not have the power of a Ryan Howard or the patience of a Travis Hafner or the all-around excellence of a Carlos Delgado. But the mere fact that he’s in the discussion means that he deserves every opportunity for us to find out just how good he can be. Moore did his job and found him a roster spot; now Hillman has to do his job and find him at-bats.

- Hey, remember when David DeJesus was having a career year? Yeah, not so much. He’s down to .288/.348/.426 on the year, which is actually a touch below his performance in 2005 (.293/.359/.445) and 2006 (.295/.364/.446). If you ignore 2007, when he lost 40 points of batting average for no reason, he’s been a remarkably consistent player, a guy who flirts with .300 every year with some walks and a little power. Consistency is nice, but consistently mediocre is not. DeJesus remains the same tweener he’s always been – his bat plays well in center but his glove is a little short out there; his range is well-suited for left but his bat is a little weak.

He’s not old (he’s four months younger than Shealy, for crying out loud), and he’s signed to a favorable contract, and he remains a tempting trade target for a team that’s in a win-now mode but has a hole to fill in its outfield. When Moore talks about blowing this roster up, I hope he means trading someone like DeJesus, who’s good enough to help a team in contention but not good enough to pull a team into contention. I suspect this is his final month in a Royals uniform. It’s been a good run, if not quite as good as we had all hoped.

- The whispers that the Royals will be looking at Rafael Furcal this winter won’t go away, and the whisperers have been pretty good at predicting the Royals’ intentions in the past. The risk with Furcal is more medical than anything else; he’s had an above-average OPS three of the last four years, and he’ll be 31 this winter, so as long as his back is healthy he should be an above-average shortstop for a few more years. But if the Royals don’t like his medical reports or his price tag, they could do worse than to give Alberto Callaspo the everyday role at second base.

A second baseman who can hit .300 with more walks than strikeouts is valuable even if he doesn’t hit for much power. The question is whether Callaspo can hit for any power, or if he really is a Gathright-class singles hitter. In 318 major-league at-bats, Callaspo has just 14 extra-base hits and has yet to hit a home run. He’s been good for about 5 homers and 40 extra-base hits a year in the minors, but he’s had the benefit of some good hitters’ parks. Given his plate discipline, his lack of power, and his propensity to hit into double plays (given his average speed and groundball tendencies), I think he’s currently the Royals’ best option in the leadoff role. After all, you can’t hit into a double play when you’re leading off an inning.

- At third base, we’ll know more if and when Gordon returns, which fortunately appears soon. Teahen has played competently enough that I think the Royals are confident he can play the position going forward, though not necessarily that he will. I know a lot of Royals fans’ ire has been directed towards Teahen as the symbol of the Royals: the personable, nice guy who can’t hit. I don’t disagree with any of that, but I do disagree with those people who think the Royals will or should release Teahen this winter.

He’s likely to get around $3 million in arbitration, which is a lot of money for a fourth outfielder, but not a lot of money for a guy who can play all four corners adequately. More precisely, it’s not a lot of money for a guy who can play all four corners adequately and still has some offensive upside. Teahen is on his way to becoming the left-handed Casey Blake; like DeJesus, he’s a valuable player for a contending team that needs some depth, but not nearly valuable enough to help a bad team rise from the ashes. The difference between the two is that I think there’s a much stronger market for DeJesus than for Teahen. If Moore can find a buyer, more power to him, but I expect Teahen will be back next season to once again drive us to distraction.

- You know, just a month ago John Buck was having arguably his best season, with numbers of .247/.323/.407, and looked like he had finally graduated into being a league-average catcher, the sort of guy the Royals could live with for another two years. He’s 7-for-65 since, and now we’re resorting to hoping that Hillman and Miguel Olivo can kiss and make up. Don’t count on it. I expect Moore to be very active in looking for a long-term solution behind the plate this winter. Catchers are always a seller’s market; any catcher worth acquiring is going to be very expensive. (This problem could have been avoided if the Royals had drafted Matt Wieters instead of Moustakas last summer.) Dark-horse option: Brayan Pena hit .303/.376/.462 in Omaha this year, and will be just 27 next year. Frankly, I’m surprised he didn’t get a callup – he’s almost certain to be the backup catcher next year, and wouldn’t be completely stretched as the starter in a Johnny Estrada sort of way.

Many, many years ago, Joe Sheehan and I dubbed Gregg Zaun “The Practically Perfect Backup Catcher.” Zaun plays passable defense, draws walks, and hits from both sides of the plate – and eventually the Blue Jays realized that such a perfect backup catcher wouldn’t be an embarrassment as an everyday catcher. Pena is also a switch-hitter, he’s batted over .300 in five straight minor league seasons, and strikes out in under 10% of his at-bats. Essentially, Pena impersonates The Practically Perfect Backup Catcher without the walks. Which is appropriate, because the Royals impersonate a Major League Franchise without the walks.

So looking to 2009, here’s how the offense lines up in a best-case scenario:

C: Buck/Pena or Imported C
1B: Kaaihue?
2B: Callaspo or Aviles
SS: Aviles or Imported SS
3B: Gordon or Teahen
LF: Guillen
CF: Imported CF (or DeJesus)
RF: Gordon or Teahen or Imported RF
DH: Butler

You know, all the talk about the Royals is that they should focus on bringing in a shortstop, but I think they need another outfielder more than anything else. There aren’t that many stud free agents in the outfield, but there are probably more options for the outfield than at shortstop.

But honestly: that’s a pretty sad state of affairs. If Moore is really bold, he can blow a wad of cash on a corner outfielder – Adam Dunn comes to mind, but so does Bobby Abreu. He can put Dunn or Abreu in left field, move Guillen back to right field, move Teahen to center field, trade DeJesus for a catcher, and pray his revamped lineup can score runs faster than they give them up on defense.

2B S Callaspo
SS R Aviles
LF L Dunn/Abreu
DH R Butler
3B L Gordon
RF R Guillen
1B L Kaaihue
CF L Teahen
C ? TBA

Yeah, that’s a dumb idea – that might be the worst defense in major league history. But I’m hard-pressed to come up with any smart ideas that will significantly upgrade the lineup for 2009, and I imagine Moore is as well. If you’ve got any brilliant ideas, by all means, share them with the group. Whatever your ideas are, they can’t be much worse than the current state of affairs.

When I Called Hillman #2, This Wasn't What I Meant.

“They say it is always darkest before the dawn. The problem is that there’s no way to tell whether now is that darkest hour, only that it’s darker than it has ever been before.”

I wrote that line at the end of the Royals chapter in our annual Baseball Prospectus book, after the Royals had just endured the worst season in franchise history, their first 100-loss season ever – six years ago. At that point in time, while it did not appear that the Royals could turn things around quickly, it was hard to see how things could get any worse. What’s worse than a 100-loss season? Is there a color darker than black?

But of course, they did. Two years later they would lose 104 games, then 106 the next year, then in 2006 they became the first non-expansion team in over 50 years to lose 100 games in three straight seasons.

Then came last year, when the Royals won 69 games – their second-most wins this century! Alex Gordon got a standing ovation on Opening Day. His sidekick Billy Butler joined him a few months later. Zack Greinke made a triumphant return from his bout with social anxiety. Gil Meche was the rare free-agent signing that panned out. Joakim Soria was a Rule 5 revelation. If you squinted, you could see a flash of purple on the eastern horizon.

If it’s always darkest before the dawn, then we must be getting closer to sunrise, because it just keeps getting darker.

August 2008 will likely go down as one of the worst months the Royals have ever had. They are 6-19 with two games to go. After staying remarkably healthy for the season’s first four months, they’ve been blindsided by the law of averages. Their second baseman tore up his ankle the day after he wasn’t traded at the trading deadline (and just a week before an obvious trading partner presented itself, when the Diamondbacks lost Orlando Hudson for the rest of the season*). Their third baseman may be out for the year with a torn quad muscle. Their #4 starter is out for the year after somehow bruising his ribcage in the act of throwing a pitch. Their fourth outfielder – well, one of their many fourth outfielders – had his face smashed in by an errant pitch while trying to bunt. Their left-handed setup man – who was the best setup man in baseball through the end of July – gave up 8 runs in 2 innings before going on the DL with plantar fasciitis.

*: With tomorrow night being the deadline for teams to trade for players that will be eligible for the postseason, I think this is worth putting out there: why don’t the Royals trade Grudzielanek (while picking up the remainder of his contract) to the Diamondbacks for a PTBNL? Grudzielanek may not be ready to play until the end of September, but he should be ready to play in October, whereas Hudson is out for the year. And I would imagine that Grudzielanek would be more motivated to return earlier for a team headed for the postseason. In Hudson’s absence, the Diamondbacks have been forced to play Augie Ojeda (.246/.354/.309) and Chris Burke (.195/.307/.270) at second base. Grudz has hit .299/.345/.399 this year, and you can tack on some points against NL competition. (Against the NL this year, he hit .396/.475/.491. Last year, he hit .320/.370/.720.) There’s no risk for Arizona; if Grudzielanek can’t return, then they trade the Royals a player of no consequence. If he is able to return before the end of the season, and the Diamondbacks make the playoffs, then the PTBNL would a more substantial prospect. Everybody wins.

A month after Jose Guillen denied reports that he can’t stand Trey Hillman, Miguel Olivo went out of his way to confirm reports of the same. Oh, and Eric Hosmer, the Royals #1 pick, has been hit by crossfire in the astonishing Pedro Alvarez gunfight going on in Pittsburgh, and is out at least until an arbitrator rules on the case on September 10^th. (Long term, I’m not really concerned – the odds that Hosmer’s contract is ruled invalid is infinitesimal given that everyone involved – Hosmer, the Royals, the MLBPA, the Commissioner’s Office – would prefer to keep Hosmer where he is. But it’s most certainly a pain in the ass right now.)

The Royals’ disappointing performance and stunning collapse forces us to re-evaluate what we thought we knew about a lot of players. But I’m not sure anyone’s reputation has fallen farther in my eyes than that of Hillman. Four months ago, you may recall, I was singing his praises, ranking him #2 on my list of reasons to be excited for the Royals’ future. Now? Well, let’s see what I wrote then, and what we think now.

- “[T]he one trait I’m most comfortable pinning on Hillman, and one of the reasons I’m so optimistic about his hiring: he’s adaptable.”

By “adaptable”, I was referring to his willingness to tailor different strategies for different personnel. He went to his first Japan Series with a great offensive team; he went to his second with a team with the worst offense in the league.

In America? I suppose he deserves credit for “adapting” to Tony Pena’s sub-.170 average by grudgingly giving some starts to Mike Aviles, and then adapting to Aviles’ .330 average by continuing to play him every day. I don’t want to completely downplay Hillman’s contribution – he did give Aviles an opportunity to play, and has stuck with him at shortstop despite occasional defensive lapses. But it wasn’t exactly a move of genius.

He has dialed back the kamikaze basepath approach a little; after stealing 29 bases (but getting caught 19 times) in April and May, the Royals have swiped 39 bases against just 15 caught stealings since.

Other than that, I’m not sure Hillman has proven that he’s learned one thing about his roster from Opening Day to today. He still hasn’t learned that Ross Gload is a joke of a starting first baseman. Gload is hitting .271/.315/.343 this season, with three homers – or one fewer than Carlos Zambrano has hit in one-fifth the at-bats. Despite that, Gload has already smashed his career high in at-bats, and is getting more playing time as the season progresses, not less: he started just 51 games the first three months of the year, but started 26 times in July and 21 already in August.

He hasn’t learned that you can’t waste a roster spot on a .164 hitter who you don’t even use for defense. In the Royals’ last 44 games, Pena has batted just 20 times and played a total of 53 innings.

And he hasn’t learned what I cheekily named Jazayerli’s Law of Fundamentals a few years ago: A team's ability to execute the “fundamentals” is inversely correlated to the time spent discussing the importance of executing them. That’s all we heard in spring training: how, after years of trying to master the fundamentals without success, that now we had a manager who really, truly, honest-to-God, no-my-fingers-are-not-crossed, knew how to teach the fundamentals.

- “Hillman talked about the fundamentals a lot during the spring, and it remains to be seen whether that’s just the standard rigmarole that every new manager needs to say – a new manager saying he wants to focus on the fundamentals is like a newly-elected politician saying he wants to get tough on crime. If he keeps harping about it, then we’ll need to worry. My hope is that, like Bobby Cox or Mike Scioscia or Jim Leyland, he won’t talk about fundamentals as much in the future because he won’t need to: his team will have already proven they can execute them on the field.”

Instead, the 2008 Royals may be the worst team in major league history when it comes to catching popups. That’s saying something, given that their competition includes the 1996-2007 Royals.

- “Plus, the frequent references to bunting and offensive risk-taking notwithstanding, he seems to have a pretty good grounding in what makes an offense tick. From Bob Dutton:

‘I’ve spoken to all of them about eliminating batting average and going to OBP,’ he said. ‘Because OBP really is the statistic that tells you what your chances are of scoring runs.’”

[snip]

“Talking with Dutton, here’s Hillman on his offensive philosophy:

‘OBP is a no-brainer,’ Hillman said. ‘Get on base and have guys drive you in. Be aggressively disciplined in the strike zone, but take your walks. After that, it depends on what you’re talking about.

‘If you’re talking about the middle of the lineup, which I consider three through seven, then I look for run production. So I go to slug (slugging percentage).’”

Um, yeah. About that OBP thing, Trey.

Last year, the Royals drew just 428 walks all year, ranking 13^th – next-to-last – in the league in that category. In 2006, they managed to draw 474 walks, good enough for 10^th in the league. By Royals standards, 2006 was a rousing success: since 1981, the Royals have ranked higher than 10^th just five times in 27 years: 1988, 1989, 1997, 2002, 2003. The Royals haven’t ranked in the top half of the league in walks drawn since 1989.

There wasn’t exactly a high bar for Hillman to clear this year. But somehow he managed to do the limbo anyway. Through 134 games, the Royals have drawn just 328 walks this year. That puts the Royals on a pace for 397 walks, which would tie the 1983 team for the fewest walks in franchise history.

By comparison, every other team in the majors has drawn at least 364 walks. Except for the Mariners, every other AL team has at least 398 walks, which is to say 12 AL teams already have more walks than the Royals are on pace to finish with a month from now.

Since the 1983 Royals, just five teams have finished a full season with under 400 walks: the 1993 Rockies, 1998 Pirates, 2006 Cubs, and the Tigers in both 2002 and 2005. The Royals are on pace to become the sixth team in a quarter-century that fails to reach the 400-walk plateau.

And keep in mind that pace is likely to drop, given that the team’s most patient hitter, Gordon, is out for a few weeks if not the entire season.

On Sunday, the Royals drew five walks in a regulation game for the first time in almost exactly a month – since July 25^th. Not coincidentally, they won the game by four runs, the only game they’ve won by more than a single run since August 3^rd. (They can’t even get full credit for this one, though, since one of those walks was intentional.) They picked up on cause-and-effect so well that in their four games since, they’ve drawn four walks – combined.

I guess when Hillman said that OBP is a no-brainer, he meant that only people with no brains think it’s important.

Hillman’s not going anywhere for the time being. Dayton Moore’s approach is so deliberate that he hasn’t even gotten around to firing Mike Barnett yet, so Hillman is sure to get another year to show that he can turn pretty theories into hard reality. But a tenure that started with such promise six months ago has turned out to be a disaster. And as Hillman goes, so go the Royals.

Gordon Redux.

I was planning on making this a bullet-point “Royals Today” post, but instead I want to clarify my post on Alex Gordon and Mark Teahen in light of the general reaction in the blogosphere, which seems to boil down to, “Rany’s a moron.” That's probably true, but I don’t want you to base that opinion on just one column.

- First off, I need to make it clear that I'm not down on Alex Gordon as a hitter. I have written several times before that I am still optimistic that Gordon has a breakthrough shortly to come at the plate, and I still firmly believe that. Just in the past six weeks, Gordon has shown the patience that he showed in the minors and in college, and the patience that presages power: in 29 games since the All-Star Break, he walked 23 times and - despite a .261 average - had a .402 OBP. There's no question this injury comes at a bad times, as we'll have to wait until next year to know if, having learned to spit on pitches that are not inside his happy zone, he can start turning on the pitches that are. But whatever position Gordon plays next year, I am still optimistic that he'll be a force with the stick.

- There have been some comments that I’m leaning on a statistical metric to hammer Gordon’s defense, given that Baseball Prospectus rates his glove this year at a woeful 18 runs below average. I should make this clear: I wrote the entire post without even knowing what his defensive statistics were. I looked up his numbers at the end and was surprised to find they were as bad as they were, but I had already made up my mind that his defense was trending downwards based on personal observation. I may be wrong – I am not a scout – but given that I started the year with the belief that Gordon was an above-average third baseman, I don’t think I would have changed my mind without overwhelming evidence to the contrary. When the Royals were in Chicago last month I attended two games at U.S. Cellular, both times sitting in the upper deck between home plate and third base, which gave me a terrific bird’s eye view of his reaction times and range. It wasn’t pretty.

- I’ve seen a lot of comments that Gordon would be a disaster in the outfield given his frequent struggles with infield popups. That may be true, but I would submit that chasing popups and catching fly balls are different skill sets – outfielders don’t usually track balls that are hit almost completely vertically, while simultaneously trying to feel their way around baserunners, other infielders, the dugout steps, and fans in the first row. More importantly, I think this is something Gordon can improve with, you know, practice. Maybe he can’t handle the outfield, but I think the Royals have to try him there first, because moving him to first base wastes his talent and blocks other good hitters.

- And finally, I want to make it clear: I am not saying that the Royals should move Gordon off of third base. I am simply saying that the Royals are moving him, or at least strongly considering doing so. Moving Teahen back to third base is an incredibly strange move to make unless the Royals are serious about finding a replacement for Gordon at the position.

I mean, does anyone else think it’s weird that, two years after the Royals told Teahen that he was being moved off of third base permanently to make way for their new phenom, they’d go back to him and say, hey, we’d like you to play third base for a few weeks while our not-so-phenomenal phenom is on the DL? Billy Hall has struggled at third base for the Brewers this year, but they didn’t ask Ryan Braun to move back to third base. When Evan Longoria got hurt a few weeks ago, the Rays didn’t move Akinori Iwamura back to third base. Teams don’t move an everyday player from one position to another mid-season just to cover for an injury for a few weeks. But we’re not supposed to raise our eyebrows a little when Teahen moves from the outfield to third base?

I can think of two recent examples that resemble this situation a little. The first was earlier this year, when the Tigers opened the season with Miguel Cabrera at third base, and Carlos Guillen – who had played mostly shortstop, but had dabbled at first base the last few years – at first. Barely three weeks into the season, Jim Leyland decided to give voice to the whispers that had been following Cabrera for the past year – namely, that he had outgrown third base. Overnight, the two switched positions, and Cabrera is unlikely to play anywhere other than first base for the remainder of his 7-year contract.

The other example that comes to mind is when Chipper Jones, who moved from third base to left field to start the 2002 season, abruptly moved back to third base on June 15^th, 2004 – against the Royals, strangely enough – and hasn’t started a game at another position since.

The point is, teams don’t have their starters change positions willy-nilly – these moves tend to be permanent. Gordon is no Cabrera, but like Cabrera his body may be growing too thick to play third adequately – and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because those body changes may also help him hit for more power over time. Teahen is no Chipper, but if Bobby Cox was comfortable with moving Chipper – who was never a great defensive player – back to third base after a two-year sabbatical, you have to figure that Dayton Moore would be comfortable moving Teahen back there as well.

Should they move Gordon? Like most good questions, the answer is, “it depends.” It depends on who replaces him at third base: whether Teahen is a defensive upgrade, and if he isn’t, then whether they can find another third baseman this offseason. (Or, perhaps more likely, whether Moore splurges on a shortstop. The thinking all summer has been that the Royals find a shortstop and move Aviles to second base. The developments of the last few days – including the return of Alberto Callaspo – makes me wonder if the plan isn’t to find a shortstop and move Aviles to third base.)

It depends on where they move Gordon. If the Royals move him to first base, without ever giving a shot to Kila Kaaihue, they will be making a mistake. But in the outfield, the Royals have just one good player (DeJesus) along with one marginal player who has to play because he’s getting paid $12 million a year and will go on a three-state shooting spree if he’s benched (Guillen). The Royals have a ton of good fourth outfielder types – Gathright, Maier, Costa, the ubiquitous Teahen – but no other starter-caliber options, whether in the majors or in the high minors. If Gordon’s offense continues to develop, his bat will carry any position. And it’s possible that, freed of the defensive demands of a more difficult position, Gordon will be more likely to reach his offensive potential.

I think the ideal solution here is that the Royals grab a shortstop over the winter; I know everyone and their mother is pining for Rafael Furcal. If the Royals can grab Furcal or someone of his ilk, move Aviles to third, Gordon to the outfield, and make Teahen a fantastic four-corners bench player, they can upgrade their defense at two positions without sacrificing one bit on offense.

I don’t know what the answer is, and frankly, neither do the Royals. That’s why Teahen’s back at third base – so that the Royals can evaluate whether he’s the answer or not. If he’s not, then they’ll probably spend all winter evaluating options from outside the organization, and deciding whether they can afford them.

Maybe the answer is that Gordon is still the team’s best option at third base in 2009, and maybe he’ll be there on Opening Day. But don’t fool yourself into thinking that his return there is a foregone conclusion. It’s simply impossible for any of us to know who’s going to be at third base next year. How can we, when it’s pretty clear that the Royals themselves don’t know?

Big News at the Hot Corner.

The remedy for a seven-game losing streak: more Duckworth. Baseball is a funny game. That’s why we love it. Or at least that’s why most fans love it; Royals fans love it because we’re suckers.

Today I want to focus on a development which I feel hasn’t received nearly enough attention so far: namely, that with Gordon out for at least a few weeks and possibly the season, his replacement at third base has been…Mark Teahen.

This is an extraordinarily significant development, in my mind, because it means Gordon’s days as a third baseman are numbered if they’re not already over. While Gordon’s future at the plate is a matter of some question, there’s really no question that his glovework has massively regressed. As a rookie, Gordon’s defense was as terrible as his offense the first two months of the season, but he righted himself the rest of the way and was pretty solid the final half of the season. Our Baseball Prospectus metrics ranked Gordon as 2 runs below average on defense at third base, a promising number given that he was around 8 runs below average at mid-season. Coming into the season, I felt that he could handle the defensive demands of the hot corner for at least a few more years.

As recently as two months ago, when the Royals moved Mike Moustakas from shortstop to third base, I openly questioned why they didn’t consider moving him behind the plate, both because he has the body type and athleticism to be a catcher, but also because the Royals already had a long-term solution at his new position. But over the last two months Gordon has been just awful on defense – he has the lateral range of a tree stump, and has supplemented that with a blizzard of errors the last few weeks. BP evaluates Gordon’s defense this year as 18 runs below average, and that’s with five weeks left in the season. The defense on the left side of the infield is a major reason why the Royals, as a team, rank a disappointing 23^rd in the majors in defensive efficiency.

Up until this weekend, my thinking was that if Gordon could just hang on for two more years, Moustakas would probably be ready for the majors by 2011 if not sooner. But the Royals have decided they can’t wait, and I can’t say I blame them. Let’s be clear about this: even if Gordon’s out the rest of the year, there’s no way that the Royals move Teahen back to third base – a position he hasn’t played in two seasons, and wasn’t that proficient at before he moved – if Gordon’s simply going to take over again next season. The Royals have a perfectly acceptable band-aid in Esteban German who could fill in for a few weeks if need be.

No, if the Royals are moving Teahen back to third – after already moving him from third base to right field, from right field to left field, and from left field to first base – then they must be seriously considering the idea of making him the starting third baseman in 2009, and they want to see if he can still handle the position. It’s a gamble, certainly; Teahen wasn’t exactly Ryan Zimmerman over there to begin with. (BP’s metrics calculated Teahen’s defense as -10 runs as a rookie, but +7 runs as a sophomore.)

But I think the Royals have to try him there, if for no other reason than to decide whether he’s worth keeping around for next year at all. The guy’s hitting .246 with 10 homers, and a corner outfielder with those kinds of numbers isn’t worth paying a few million dollars a year – which is what Teahen will earn in arbitration. On the other hand, a third baseman with those numbers is worth keeping around, particularly if you think he can improve on those numbers and (more importantly) you don’t have any better options.

The question, then, is what to do with Gordon. What the Royals can not do is move him to first base. Gordon still fits into the Royals’ long-term plans, but if they park him at first base for the next four-plus years, then suddenly you have an enormous logjam between him, Butler, and Kaaihue, without even mentioning Eric Hosmer or any number of random minor league hitters who might develop over the next few years.

Gordon, on the other hand, would fit in nicely in the outfield. He has decent speed – he’s 21-for-27 in basestealing attempts in his career – and his bat would play well at either corner, particularly if he continues to develop. Teahen moved the outfield two years ago and did fine out there, and Gordon’s supposed to have the stronger arm and better athleticism of the two.

Of course, that’s why Teahen moved to the outfield instead of Gordon in the first place. It’s an admission of wrongdoing for the Royals to have them switch places after two years. But you play the game with the players you have. Gordon has been a disappointment in a number of ways – when he was drafted as the shining light of the three great collegiate third baseman in 2005, he was supposed to have Zimmerman’s glove and Ryan Braun’s bat, but it turned out he has Zimmerman’s bat and Braun’s glove.

But Gordon is who he is, and whining about it doesn’t help anyone. It also turns out that Teahen is a more versatile and more athletic player than we thought he was two years ago. So at this point, it’s worth finding out if he can handle third base again, and we won’t know if he can until he tries. We already know that Gordon can’t.

Mayday!

If it’s late August, then I’m probably stuck at work – every kid in the Midwest apparently has to have their acne cleared before they go back to school. So I’ve been too busy, thank God, to spend any time watching the Royals endure what has probably been their worst week of a season filled with bad ones. After getting swept in Chicago to start this road trip – by the combined score of 22 to 2 – the Royals won the opener at Yankee Stadium because Mariano Rivera allowed the go-ahead run to score on a wild pitch and Joakim Soria picked off Justin Christian, who had just come into the game as a pinch-runner. That’s right: the Royals have Rivera to thank for the fact that they’re not on a nine-game losing streak.

The Royals aren’t just losing – they’re getting abused, both literally and figuratively. The team’s last three victories have all been one-run squeakers; they haven’t won a game by more than a single run since August 3^rd. Here’s the last five games in detail:

1) Saturday: lost a 13-inning affair to the Yankees on Saturday because of a total team meltdown – at the plate, in the field, on the bases, and in the manager’s chair.

After battering Sidney Ponson for all of seven hits and two runs in 6.1 innings, the Royals managed a total of one hit against six different relievers. Even so, they scored two early runs and should have scored at least one or two more, except with the bases loaded in the seventh and one out, David DeJesus was doubled off second when Jose Guillen’s liner was caught, then Mitch Maier was put in motion with DeJesus batting in the ninth, resulting in a strike ‘em out, throw ‘em out double play, then Mark Teahen was thrown out trying to steal to end the top of the 13^th.

Even so, those two runs could have held up had Alex Gordon not committed a double error on A-Rod’s grounder to start the 7^th. Rodriguez would score on Robinson Cano’s triple; Cano would score on a two-out wild pitch from Greinke. Not that it would have mattered, since Tony Pena followed that with an error of his own.

Even with all that, the Royals still might have held on long enough to score had Trey Hillman not stubbornly refused to use Joakim Soria in a tie game. After a brilliant performance by Robinson Tejeda, Hillman elected to go with Joel Peralta to start the 11^th inning instead of Soria. Peralta threw two scoreless innings. In the bottom of the 13^th inning, in a tie game at Yankee Stadium, Hillman calls on…Jeff Fulchino.

I’ve written far too many words on the ridiculous conventional wisdom that permeates the game regarding the usage of closers, a CW that Hillman has shown no inclination to challenge. So I’m not going to belabor the point here. True, Soria had thrown 25 pitches the night before – but it was the first time he had pitched in five days. Monday was an off-day, so at that point Hillman knew he could use Soria on either Saturday or Sunday, but not both. He decided that it was safer to hold Soria back for an imaginary save situation that might never (and did not) materialize, rather than use him in the extra-inning tie game that was right in front of him. I can hear the argument: there’s no guarantee that the Royals would score anyway, and even if they did, Soria would have to pitch at least two innings to close out the game.

Addressing the first argument: that’s right, there’s no guarantee that the Royals would score, although given that the Yankees were already down to using somebody named David Robertson, the odds were pretty good that even the Royals could break through eventually. But so what? You can’t save your best pitcher to pitch only in games that you are guaranteed to have a lead. It’s possible that Cliff Lee might pitch a brilliant game but the Indians might still lose because they don’t score any runs – this has actually happened once or twice this year – but he still pitches every fifth day, doesn’t he? This notion that closers should only pitch when you have the lead is a crutch. The Yankees pitched Mariano Rivera for two innings in this game, even though the game was tied, and guess what? While Rivera wasn’t credited with either a win or a save, the Yankees would not have won the game without him.

(In Rivera’s case, he was used because since the Yankees were the home team, once the game went extra-innings it was impossible for a save situation to develop for them. Hillman did the same thing with Soria on August 10^th, when he used Soria for the 9^th in 10^th of a tie game when the Royals were at home; the Royals won in 12 innings. Amazing how, once you take the absurd save statistic out of the equation, managers actually make decisions that maximize their team’s chance of winning, not their closer’s chance of picking up a save.)

Anyway, Jeff Fulchino pitched exactly as you’d expect a guy who just got called up from Omaha to pitch. Game over.

2) Sunday: scored three first-inning runs against a resurgent Mike Mussina, then watched Brian Bannister craft the second-worst start in franchise history.

Using Bill James’ Game Score formula, Bannister’s start (1 IP, 10 H, 10 R, 10 ER, 3 BB, 0 K) registers as a -10. The only worst start in Royals history was Zack Greinke’s disaster in Arizona back in 2005 (4.1 IP, 15 H, 11 R, 11 ER, 2 BB, 2 K) which scores a -11. But Greinke redeemed himself at least a little that day by hitting a homer. As an overall performance, Bannister had a worse day than any of the roughly 6400 starters that preceded him.

(Incidentally, the third-worst performance by a Royal was Luke Hudson’s 10-run first inning in 2006. Only eight times in Royals history has their starter managed a negative game score, all of them since 1994, and five of them since 2004.)

But hey, at least Joakim Soria was well-rested to watch this game from the bullpen.

3) Tuesday: lost to the Indians, 9-4. Luke Hochevar pitched five okay innings but then somehow managed to bruise his ribcage while throwing a pitch – an injury that seems to violate the laws of biomechanics. With help from the newly-signed Kip Wells, the bullpen gives up five runs in three innings to ice the game.

4) Wednesday: Gil Meche pitches brilliantly again, and the Royals take a 5-3 lead into the eighth after scoring four runs in the fifth – a rally keyed by a pitch that broke Mitch Maier’s face in three places. Maier’s sacrifice goes for naught; in the eighth, their two most reliable relievers, Ramon Ramirez and Soria, give up four runs before the second out of the inning is recorded. The first out came on a sacrifice bunt.

I’m sure it’s just a blip in the road, but Soria has allowed nine of the last 12 batters he’s faced to reach base. Maybe he’s out of practice: in the last 11 days, he’s pitched twice.

5) Thursday: the Indians win again, 10-3. Alex Gordon, who already missed a game with a bad back, has to leave this one with a pulled quad.

They score three runs on a two-out bases-clearing triple by Grady Sizemore in the second inning, with Sizemore batting only because Tony Pena had previously let a pop-up drop because the sunglasses he ordered never arrived. (Seriously, I can’t do justice to this one. Fortunately Joe Posnanski can.) The Indians get another unearned run in the third after Billy Butler airmails a throw to first base. (Hey, it’s a long throw for a first baseman.) Here’s all you need to know about how bad the Royals are playing: in his last two starts, Greinke has allowed six unearned runs. He had previously allowed all of 11 unearned runs in his entire career, and just four in the last two seasons.

Here’s what it’s come down to: the Royals just played a team that has already thrown in the towel on their season, trading away their best pitcher and their starting third baseman (for some really good prospects, by the way) – and they got swept. What’s more, they lost every game by at least 3 runs.

In their last 14 games, the Royals have been outscored by 62 runs. They’ve won two games (both by one run), lost by one run once, lost by three runs twice, by four runs twice, by five runs once, by six runs twice, by seven runs twice, and by nine runs twice. If the Royals had been spotted three runs at the start of each game in that stretch, they’d be 3-9-2. For the season, they’ve been outscored by 124 runs – meaning that half of their season deficit has come in the last 14 games – and they Pythagorean record is 51-76. The Royals are 55-72, in last place by 4.5 games, behind last season’s pace, and by all statistical rights they should be even worse.

But hey, help is on the way. Just not this weekend. Tonight, Bannister takes his 5.96 ERA to the mound. And that’s the highlight of the pitching matchups against Detroit, given that we have the same starting pitcher tomorrow and Sunday. I don’t who this TBA guy is, but I doubt he’s any good. (Especially if “TBA” is just a euphemism for “Brandon Duckworth.”)

ones:

too busy to spend any time watching the Royals endure what has probably been their worst week of a season filled w

Well, at least it’s just 16 days until the Chiefs take the field. In New England.

Mommy!

Draft Aftermath.

Well, if you needed another reminder that there’s a new sheriff in Kansas City, you got it last night. For the second straight year, the Royals drafted a Scott Boras client with one of the top three picks in the draft, waited until the dying minutes before the trading deadline…and got the deal done.

Last year, the Royals took Mike Moustakas with the #2 overall pick. Moustakas was represented by Boras, who probably wasn’t pleased when Moustakas gave quotes to the media that made it clear that he really wanted to play baseball. Leverage is worthless if the other side doesn’t think you’ll use it, and all summer the expectation around baseball was that Moustakas would sign. He did, for $4 million, the same bonus that Alex Gordon got as the #2 overall pick two years prior. In light of the depressed bonuses throughout the first round, Moustakas did well, but the Royals certainly did well too.

Eric Hosmer, by comparison, played his Boras client role to the hilt. He never deviated from the script: he would love to sign if the money was right, but if not, he would be thrilled to attend LSU. Whereas everyone thought Moustakas would sign, everyone thought Hosmer would sign for the right offer. It was clear from the beginning that the right offer wasn’t $4 million. Once Tim Beckham, the #1 overall pick, signed early on for $6.15 million (but spread out over five years, as for some reason two-sport athletes are allowed to have their bonus spread out over time) I felt this set a good ceiling for Hosmer. It would be hard to argue that Hosmer deserved more than Beckham given that 1) he was drafted after Beckham and 2) the Royals had made it clear before the draft that they would have drafted Beckham over Hosmer if they had had the opportunity. So mentally I pegged Hosmer’s price tag at between $5 and $5.5 million.

He got $6 million. While the Royals can claim they gave Hosmer less guaranteed money than Beckham, the reality is that when you discount Beckham’s contract for the time value of the next five years, Hosmer got more money. If both players put their money in a money market account earning 4% interest the day they get paid, at the end of four years (i.e. the day Beckham gets his last check) Hosmer will have $7,019,000; Beckham will have $6,662,000.

So the Royals blinked. On the other hand, so did every other team in the top 5. The Pirates signed Pedro Alvarez, the #2 overall pick, for the same $6 million bonus. (Although they didn’t give Alvarez a major league contract, a big win for them given that Pedro’s a college hitter and might be ready for the majors by next summer.) Brian Matusz, at #4, got only $3.2 million guaranteed but got a major league contract which could make his total contract worth over $6 million (but could be worth less than $4 million if he’s slow to reach the majors.) Buster Posey, the #5 overall pick, got $6.2 million from the Giants.

Would the Royals have been able to sign Hosmer had they held firm at, say, $5.25 million? Only Hosmer and Boras know for sure. The risk, from the Royals’ standpoint, is that Hosmer’s alternative was to go to college – and while a lot can happen in three years, as a college junior his price tag might be even higher. Someone like Alvarez, on the other hand, is already a college junior – if he doesn’t sign, then the next time he gets drafted he’ll be a college senior, with even less leverage.

The conventional wisdom has always been that college juniors have the most leverage, because they only have to wait a year to get drafted again. But with the new rules that force an August 15^th deadline – eliminating the tactic of simply not returning to school in the fall, allowing you to negotiate for an entire year – I would argue that since a college junior has more to lose by not signing before the deadline than a high school senior, that high school picks actually have more leverage. They also have more risk – a lot can happen in three years – but going forward we might see premium high school talents command even more money than college juniors. (We might also see a premium talent threaten to attend a junior college, allowing him to be draft-eligible again the following year, when he’s just 19.)

Anyway, the important thing is that Hosmer signed. If he signed for $6 million instead of $5.25 million – what’s $750,000 in baseball terms? Less than two weeks of Jose Guillen, that’s what. In the long run, the continuing escalation of signing bonuses at the very top of the draft is a concern. But from the Royals’ perspective, if they still have a top-five draft pick in the next few years, we have much bigger concerns than the draft bonus structure.

So today, give it up to David Glass. Say what you want about his past – I certainly have – but he’s had a pretty flawless 2008. His name has all but disappeared from the newspaper, and that in itself is a good sign. Owners are like umpires – you never give any thought to the best ones. Ideally, the only input you want from an owner is that he opens his wallet when asked. Glass has opened his wallet for free agents each of the last two winters, and he’s opened his wallet for draft picks each of the last two summers.

As a result, this year’s draft has the potential to be one of the best in Royals history. They landed Hosmer, who has much power potential as anyone the Royals have ever drafted. Yesterday they also signed fourth-round pick Tim Melville, who was a Top-20 talent who dropped because teams were worried he was asking for too much money. Melville’s signing was an open secret for almost a month now, but the final reports are that his bonus was just $1.25 million. If that’s the case, the Royals got a steal – and that’s already the consensus around the game. Melville’s signing bonus would have been roughly slot money for the #28 pick; of the 27 first-rounders who signed, only two got less money. There may be more to the story here, but it looks from here like Melville would have made more money if he had just let the draft play out, as he likely would have gone somewhere in the middle of the first round.

That’s two of the top 20 players in the draft who just signed. The Royals already had supplemental first rounder Michael Montgomery, a polished high school lefty, and third rounder Tyler Sample, a 6’7” beast of a right-hander who was was considered a solid second-round talent by most people. Montgomery has a 1.76 ERA in rookie ball, with just 22 hits and 7 walks to go along with 24 Ks in 31 innings. Sample was wild as sin at first – 23 walks in his first 16 innings – but over his last two starts walked just one batter in 9 innings, allowing just 6 hits and striking out 12. Montgomery and Sample are polar opposites as pitchers, but along with Melville they were considered three of the 7 or 8 best high school pitchers in the entire draft. Pitching has been Moore’s focus since he was hired, and the farm system had impressive depth in that department even before this draft. With Melville signed, only two or three teams in baseball have more good pitchers in the minor leagues than the Royals.

Then there’s Johnny Giavotella, the 5’8” runt of a college second baseman taken in the second round, the exact antithesis of the tools guy that Moore and Ladnier like to draft. The fact that the Royals deviated from their script so strongly to take Giavotella suggested that they really, really, really liked him, and so far he’s done nothing to disappoint. He signed almost immediately, went straight to full-season ball with Burlington in the Midwest League, and in 54 games so far is hitting .297/.357/.420. He’s also a little young for a college junior, having turned 21 just last month. He’s got a long way to go, but so far he’s rolling along the Chuck Knoblauch/Dustin Pedroia track nicely.

The Royals threw a bunch of six-figure bonuses at other guys well down the draft list, but even if no one else pans out, the Royals’ first five picks alone have the potential to make this a historic draft. They also have the potential to burn out in Double-A; high school pitchers will break your heart. But so far so good.

The only blemish on the draft is that seventh-rounder Jason Esposito didn’t sign. Esposito is a third baseman from New England with a scholarship to Vanderbilt in hand, and those guys are tough to pry away. On draft day I speculated that since Esposito was drafted in the seventh round – the first round on the draft’s second day – that it suggested the Royals had time to contact him overnight and make sure he was signable before spending the pick. As it turns out, I was right – this report makes it clear the Royals kept throwing more money at him until he finally caved in the morning when he was offered $1.5 million. Unfortunately, after the draft he had second thoughts and decided to attend Vandy after all. It’s easy to be upset with the kid, and if this were a negotiating ploy I would be. But I’m not going to fault anyone for wanting a college education. I don’t know what my price tag would have been to forego college, but I’m glad I didn’t have to find out.

(Sources have told me that the Royals were close to signing Esposito up until the deadline, which makes me wonder if money was the issue after all. I guess everyone has their price tag.)

Even without getting Esposito to take their money, the Royals spent an obscene amount of money in the draft. Jim Callis of Baseball America raved about the Red Sox this morning for breaking the $10 million barrier, stating that this “may be a first in draft history.” Callis seems to have missed the fact that the Red Sox didn’t even spend the most money in this year’s draft. The Royals did. Kansas City’s first five picks alone cost $9,525,000; factor in bonuses to the rest of their top 10, and you reach a figure of $10,165,000. I don’t have signing bonus information after the first 10 rounds, but I’m fairly certain that Derrick Saito (16^th round), Jake Kuebler (17^th), and Greg Billo (28^th) got six-figure bonuses, and there may be more.

Sure, that number may be inflated by the fact that Hosmer got $6 million, where as the Red Sox never got the chance to draft anyone worth $6 million. But the dollars count the same no matter who the money goes to. This summer, the Royals have apparently spent more money on their draft picks than any other team. Ever.

It’s hard to remember this when the Royals are getting their brains beaten in at U.S. Cellular Park every other month, but help is on the way. For all the money the Royals have spent, it better be.