Didn't See That Coming.

The minor league update is proceeding at an even more glacial pace than I expected – at this rate I’ll be done sometime around Thanksgiving – so rather than waiting until I’m done to tackle other topics, let’s interrupt the proceedings to talk about today’s news. Kyle Farnsworth made his triumphant return* to the Royals’ roster today, and to make room for him, Alex Gordon was optioned to Triple-A.

*: On Opening Day of this year, the Royals had seven relievers on their roster: Joakim Soria, Jamey Wright, Juan Cruz, Ron Mahay, Kyle Farnsworth, Robinson Tejeda, and Doug Waechter. Horacio Ramirez, who started the year in the rotation, replaced Waechter when Waechter went on the DL in April. John Bale started the season on the DL, but he was activated on May 24^th when Tejeda went down. Roman Colon was called up the same day. Ramirez was released on June 13^th and Tejeda returned a week later. Bruce Chen was called up on June 27^th when Farnsworth was hurt, and would later join the bullpen.

Since June 27^th, here is the combined performance of every Royals reliever except for Joakim Soria:

114.2 IP, 127 H, 88 R, 81 ER, 74 BB, 86 K, 19 HR, 6.36 ERA.

Since June 27^th, the only change made to the bullpen has been the activation of Doug Waechter on August 6^th when Juan Cruz went to the DL. Waechter fit right in, allowing three runs in 1.1 innings before going back on the DL. And now Farnsworth takes his place.

The Royals’ middle relief corps has, over the past seven weeks, delivered a performance rarely before witnessed in the annals of baseball history. They have sucked in every conceivable way and in a few inconceivable ones. And over the past seven weeks, Dayton Moore has not felt fit to make a single change to his personnel. The only change made was made because an injury forced his hand (or Cruz’s performance forced him to declare an injury) – and instead of trying a fresh face he just reactivated another one of the guys he brought in over the winter – and who was so recovered from his own injury that he went back on the DL a week later.

And now Kyle Farnsworth is back. Meanwhile, not once has Dayton Moore shown the conviction to give one of the Royals’ minor league products – the products of the farm system he has invested so much effort and money in over the past three years – an opportunity to see if they can improve on the middle relief corps’ six-plus ERA.

That might be the most scathing indictment I can think of regarding Dayton Moore: the Royals are 46-72, chugging towards the worst record in baseball, and we can’t even point to all the rookies on the roster as both an excuse for that performance and a hope that the performance will improve in the future. Consider this: it’s August 18^th, and NOT ONE ROYAL HAS MADE HIS MAJOR LEAGUE DEBUT THIS SEASON. That’s a stat you might expect from a contending team with a huge payroll and stars at every position. That’s not something you expect from a last-place team that is supposedly building for the future.

I guess The Process – I capitalize it out of respect – involves not just losing, but losing with a bunch of veterans while keeping promising minor leaguers like Kila Ka’aihue and Chris Hayes right where they are. Unless The Process includes “purposely tanking this season to get first dibs on Bryce Harper”, color me confused.

Wow, that was one long tangent…back to Gordon. When the season started, the Royals’ hopes for contention were predicated on three young former first-round picks taking big steps forward. As disastrous as this season has been, it’s important to remember that two of those guys have, in fact, done so. Zack Greinke is the best pitcher in the American League, and Billy Butler is hitting .298/.353/.480 and is on pace for over 50 doubles. Two out of three isn’t bad at all; Greinke is under contract through 2012, Butler through 2013, which gives the Royals plenty of time to build a winning roster around them. This season hasn’t been a total loss.

But it has been a total loss for Gordon. Gordon hit .260/.351/.432 last year, which was still a disappointment by the standards we had set for him, but was actually a pretty good season: his OPS+ was 110, and by comparison Butler’s OPS+ this year – his breakout season – is 119. Even if Gordon didn’t take a big step forward to becoming the middle-of-the-lineup presence we thought he would be on draft day, he was already an above-average player – and if he took just a small step forward, turned a few strikeouts into walks and hit a few more home runs, he’d be one of the five best third basemen in the league.

Instead, he got hurt. Injuries happen, and while it was frustrating that it came at such an inopportune time, his hip problem didn’t seem likely to alter his long-term course. He raked the ball during his minor league rehab – in 13 games he hit .350/.491/.650 – and I was confident that he would return the same hitter as before, and hopefully better.

Instead, he’s hit just .227/.310/.333 since returning, and .198/.300/.313 overall. At times he’s looked like he’s rounding into form, as when he hit two doubles and two homers in a five-game span last week; and at times he’s looked totally lost at the plate, as when he’s gone 0-for-11 since. His walk totals are a refreshing change of pace on this team, but I can’t really say he’s got good plate discipline, not when he continues to swing at pitches low and away and then take pitches right down the middle. Gordon might strike out looking more often than any Royal ever.

And frankly – and this incredibly sad to write – I like this move. I would have liked this move a lot more had it come TWO YEARS AGO, when he deserved it, and when a Triple-A refresher might have kept his career from stagnating the way it has. But better late than never. Gordon has earned this, and the Royals have to stop shying away from holding their most promising young players accountable when they don’t perform as expected.

The really interesting implication here has to do with service time. If Gordon was not sent down, he’d be eligible for free agency after 2012. By getting sent down, the wheels are in place to delay free agency by a year. There’s about a 12-day gap between the number of calendar days in a full MLB season and the number of days required to qualify for a full year of service. However, that’s not the determining factor here. The determining factor is that if a player is optioned to the minors but returns in under 20 days, he gets full credit for the service time he missed during his option.

This is critical, because the last day of Omaha’s season is September 7^th. If Gordon is recalled on September 8^th, he will have spent 21 days in the minor leagues. The margin is so thin here that issues like “does today count as a minor league day or major league day?” and “does he have to spend MORE THAN 20 days, or AT LEAST 20 days in the minors?” matter. As I understand the CBA, he needs to be in the minors for at least 20 days, and he’s likely to be there for 21.

So don’t pay attention to Moore when he says there are no financial implications here. Not that I’m complaining. If this move works – if Gordon’s bat comes around – then delaying his free agency until 2013 will be HUGE. If it doesn’t work, then frankly his service time doesn’t matter anyway. But as I see it, this move has the potential to resurrect Gordon’s career, and delays his free agency by a year. And if it hurts the Royals on the field in the meantime – putting them in a better position in the Bryce Harper sweepstakes – so much the better. What’s not to love?

Minor League Update, Part 2.

Let’s dispense with formalities and just pick up where we left off last week:

6) Danny Duffy, LHP, 20. The consensus opinion is that Duffy is having a terrific season for Wilmington and is one of the brightest lights in the organization. I don’t entirely disagree with that, but I think it’s important to sound a note of caution. Just as we have to make allowances for Moustakas because Wilmington is such a tough hitter’s park, we have to discount Duffy’s numbers for being the product of the same ballpark. Those numbers are good – 3.51 ERA, 95 K and 31 BB in 100 IP – but not great, even for a 20-year-old.

Look at this line from a former Wilmington left-hander: 10-6, 2.55 ERA, 134 H in 162 IP, 154 K, 33 BB, 8 HR. Looks like a pretty good pitcher, huh? What if I told you this pitcher didn’t turn 20 until late in the season? You’d think he was a stud prospect. And once upon a time, Jimmy Gobble was a stud prospect.

Let’s try another left-hander, and this one spent his entire season at Wilmington at age 19: 9-7, 3.60 ERA, 145 IP, 142 H, 53 BB, 142 K, 8 HR. This line once belonged to Chris George. George and Gobble had eerily similar careers; both were supplemental first-round picks, both had great seasons for Wilmington the year they turned 20, both were in the Royals’ rotation two years later (George at age 21, Gobble a few weeks after he turned 22)…and both turned out to be massive busts.

I’m not saying that Duffy is destined to follow their career paths – at one time both George and Gobble projected as #3 starters in the major leagues, so obviously something went wrong. But Duffy’s repertoire is just similar enough to give me pause. His fastball is just average, maybe a tick above average; even with the makings of a good curveball, the potential is there for him to be just good enough to get bombed in the major leagues. He hasn’t done anything wrong this year, but he hasn’t taken a big step forward either, and at some point he needs to take a big step forward out of the shadow of the guys who came before him. Grade: B.

7) Danny Gutierrez, RHP, 22. If I had written this piece a few weeks ago, my evaluation of Gutierrez would be very different. Gutierrez broke out last season as one of the most intriguing arms in the organization; the former 33^rd-round draft-and-follow showed an improved fastball and dynamite curveball on his way to striking out 104 batters in 90 innings for Burlington last season. But his debut this season was delayed by an arm injury – continuing a trend, as he missed a month last season with a fracture in his pitching elbow – and then had a fight with the organization over his rehab process.

I confess to not having a handle on all the details; if I understand things correctly, he also took on Scott Boras as his agent during this time frame, and Boras has already picked a fight with the Royals over their rehab process (the Carlos Beltran affair of 2000). One way to look at this is that Gutierrez has some growing up to do. Then again, given my opinion of the Royals’ training staff, it’s hard to be too upset with the kid.

In any case, Gutierrez finally regained his health and was assigned to Wilmington two weeks ago. Working out of the bullpen, he allowed just three hits and one walk in eight innings, striking out 10…and then earlier today he made his first start for the Blue Rocks and threw four hitless innings, with a walk and 3 Ks. We’re only talking about 12 innings, but those are 12 damn impressive innings. He seems healthy again if nothing else, and his upside rivals anyone in the organization. I’ll give him a Grade B- for now, though I’m tempted to just give him an incomplete.

8) Carlos Rosa, RHP, 24. Rosa has long been one of the most well-regarded arms in the organization, but his perpetually fragile elbow – he had Tommy John surgery in 2005, and his forearm strain last season spooked the Marlins into refusing to take him instead of Leo Nunez in the Mike Jacobs deal – finally forced the Royals to give up on him as a starter and move him to the bullpen full-time. Given his stuff, this was expected to be an easy transition; back in March I imagine the Royals thought he’d be firing his bullets as Soria’s setup man by now.

Things haven’t gone according to plan. He had a terrible May (22 hits, 11 walks, 20 runs in 15 innings), and after working his way back into dominant form in July, he’s struggling again, having allowed 13 hits in just six innings this month. For the year he’s struck out 64 batters in 59 innings, but he’s also allowed 58 hits, 29 walks, and six homers, for an ERA of 5.19. It’s possible he’s not completely healthy yet; it’s also possible that all the repeated injuries have sapped away some of his stuff. He’s still a good bet to be a part of the Royals’ bullpen at some point next year, but the dream of Rosa as a shutdown reliever is fading fast. Grade: D+.

9) Kila Ka’aihue, 1B, 24. If you want to be charitable, you can say that the Royals were right: he’s not as good as he was last year, when he hit .314/.456/.628 and smacked 37 homers between Double-A and Triple-A.

The most remarkable part of his success last season was that he hit all those homers while striking out just 67 times. This year, his K rate is up (from 17% of his at-bats to 21%), and as a result his batting average has dropped over 50 points, to .261. The other weird thing about his performance last year is that he hit 37 homers but just 15 doubles, which is an unsustainable distribution; even the best power hitters hit nearly as many doubles as homers. This year, Ka’aihue is getting extra-base hits at nearly the same pace (11% of his at-bats this year, 13% of his AB last year), but the distribution is totally different: 26 doubles, 1 triple, 14 homers. As a result, his slugging average is just .450.

But if the Royals were right that he’s not as good as he was last year, I’m still right that the Royals would have been better off playing him at first base than trading for Mike Jacobs. His average may have dropped, his power may be off, but if there’s one thing Ka’aihue can do consistently, it’s work the strike zone. He has 85 walks and a .398 OBP. Using Clay Davenport’s work, we can translate Ka’aihue’s numbers into what he would have hit at the major league level: .245/.373/.426. Jacobs is hitting .236/.309/.432. I have absolutely no faith that the Royals will ever give Ka’aihue a shot, but if they don’t have a use for a minimum-wage 1B/DH that hits .245/.373/.426, I’m sure there are a lot of teams that would be willing to give him that opportunity. Ka’aihue has been a little disappointing this year – I figured his power numbers would drop, but not quite this much – but just as we all knew he wasn’t as good as he looked last year, I think he’s a little better than he’s looked this year. And he hasn’t looked bad this year. Grade: C+.

10) Blake Wood, RHP, 23. Another disappointment. Wood shook off back issues that slowed him down in 2007 last season, and was dominant for Wilmington before a promotion to Double-A, where he struggled (5.30 ERA) but had a healthy strikeout-to-walk ratio of 76 to 32 in 86 innings. Expected to take a big step forward this season with the Naturals, Wood stagnated instead; he had a 5.27 ERA in 13 starts, and struck out just 46 batters in 72 innings. He’s been out since June 21^st with “inflammation in his right elbow”. The combination of disappointing performance record and arm issues is a tough one to overcome. Grade: D.

11) Johnny Giavotella, 2B, 21. The square peg in the round hole that was the Royals’ 2008 draft, Giavotella was the rare college hitter selected in a draft that was typically heavy in high schoolers and pitchers. You had to figure the Royals saw something special in Giavotella to draft him in the second round, and he hit the ground running, getting assigned to a full-season league in Burlington last season and hitting .299/.355/.421. He’s spent this season in Wilmington, and is hitting .259/.367/.376.

Giavotella is the rare draftee who was young for his grade level – he didn’t turn 21 until a month after he signed, and just turned 22 last month. Away from Frawley Stadium he’s hit .270/.382/.425, and he has terrific command of the strike zone, with 62 walks against just 47 strikeouts. He doesn’t have much power, and his defense is still a little rough at second base, but he might be my favorite sleeper prospect in the organization.

I think the comparison I made when he was drafted last year was that he could develop into “Chuck Knoblauch without the speed”, and I still think that holds. He’s not that fast (although he does have 19 steals this year) and he doesn’t hit for power, but he does everything else well. I have a feeling that he’s going to have a breakout year for Northwest Arkansas next season, and this time next year we’ll be wondering why the Royals won’t make room for their new second baseman. Grade: B.

12) Kelvin Herrera, RHP, 19. Signed out of the Dominican when he was 16, Herrera was called up from short-season ball to Burlington late last season, and at age 18 held his own in the Bees’ rotation. There was a lot of hope that Herrera would be the star Hispanic pitching prospect the Royals haven’t had in, well, ever. Quick question: can you name every above-average starting pitcher the Royals have ever signed and developed out of Latin America? No? Congratulations – you’re correct! In forty years, the best Latin American starter the Royals have ever developed is probably Hipolito Pichardo. Hipolito Pichardo. If you disqualify Pichardo because he was mostly a reliever, you’re left with Runelvys Hernandez. Runelvys Hernandez. (Actually, the answer is probably Melido Perez, who won 78 games in the majors – but only one for the Royals before he was ill-advisedly included in the trade for Brian Bannister’s dad.)

Herrera started the year in extended spring training, then made his debut with five scoreless innings for Burlington on May 6^th. He hasn’t pitched since. I’m having trouble finding out the reason, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say it’s not a good one. Grade: D pending more information.

More to come…

Minor League Update, Part 1.

First off, I owe you guys an apology. On our radio show this Monday, Jason Anderson and I started the show by promising to stay positive for the duration of the show…and then we spent the next hour ripping the team from every direction. It wasn’t intentional, I assure you. It’s just that the abyss has become so deep that I simply can’t find an angle that portrays the Royals in a positive fashion. Some people are so ugly that no trick of lighting can flatter them.

This is where we’re at: three months after the Royals were 18-11 – the front office has made sure that none of us will ever forget the 2009 Royals’ record after 29 games – they have the worst record in the American League, and the second-worst record in the major leagues. Call me an unrepentant optimist, but even the most hardened cynic could not have imagined in May – or even a month ago – that we’d be in the running for the Bryce Harper Sweepstakes. I never would have imagined that, come August, I’d be scoreboard watching the Nationals in the hopes that Washington might go on a hot stretch (five in a row, baby! Just five games back!), or rooting for their negotiations with Stephen Strasburg to go fubar.

Instead, if the season ended today the Royals would draft in the top 3 next year – meaning they were one of the three worst teams in baseball this year – for the fifth time in six seasons. They’d draft in the top 2 for the fourth time in six seasons. Three years after we thought we hit bottom, three years after Dayton Moore told us where the parade would be held, we’re once again forced to subsist on nothing but dreams of a Tuesday in June – and hoping that this time we strike gold with a Top-3 pick.

And on that note, and because I’m trying to find that something positive, it’s time to take a long look at the minor leagues. As horrible as the team that Dayton Moore has fashioned is, he wasn’t brought in simply to fix the major league roster – he was brought in to fix the organization. And one of the reasons I was so positive about his hiring for so long was that he seemed to determine to fix the organization the right way – by expending every possible resource towards building the farm system. Over the last three years the Royals have spent all kinds of resources on the minors, not just in terms of money – they spent a major-league record $11 million on their draft picks last season – but in terms of things like having a seventh minor league team, and opening a new academy in the Dominican (granted, something that was in the works before Dayton was hired).

The Royals dug themselves into the hole they’ve been in since 2004 by neglecting the farm system for 15 years. (From 1993 to 2001, the Royals had fifteen first-round picks – and Mike MacDougal has turned out to be the best of them. Mike Macdougal.) It was going to take years of successful drafting and development to reverse that trend, and if you told me in 2006 that the Royals would continue to suck for three or four years before the farm system burst forth with talent? That’s a trade I would have made – if the farm system burst forth.

So that’s ultimately the question: while we’ve all been watching the team in Kansas City burn to the ground, have the Royals been quietly planting the seeds for the team’s renaissance in places like Springdale and Wilmington and Burlington? If so, all the sins of 2009 may be forgiven; if not, well, judgment is nigh.

Unfortunately, the most recent organization-wide assessment of the Royals’ farm system came from Baseball America three weeks ago, and it was less an assessment than an indictment. The Royals were listed as one of three organizations “headed down” based on how their top prospects have fared since the start of the season, including this comment: “Not much has gone right in the minors, from modest seasons by power plants Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas to spotty pitching at upper levels.”

Well, then. If that’s indeed the case – if the Royals have endured as much disappointment in the minor leagues as they have in the majors – then it’s time to turn out the lights. But is that a fair assessment? There’s only one way to find out.

Over the next few posts, I’m going to take a look at how the Royals’ top 30 prospects from before the season – as judged by Baseball America – have fared this year. For each player I will also assign a letter grade based on whether they appear to have a brighter future today than they did in March. I’ll go with a B- curve – a B- grade means the player has essentially the same outlook today as they did before the season. Keep in mind that the grade takes into account the player’s standing – a B- grade for your #1 prospect is a fine grade, because it means that he still projects as a #1 prospect. On the other hand, an A- grade for your #30 prospect means that he might have elevated his stock into the 11-20 range – he’s gone from a long-shot to make the majors to maybe projecting as a bench player, hardly something to get excited about.

Here we go. Each player’s age is as of July 1^st, 2009:

1) Mike Moustakas, 3B, 20. Right from the start, we’ve got a disappointment. Moustakas hit .272/.337/.468 last season and led the Midwest League in homers, the first teenager to do so in over a decade. Promoted to Wilmington this year, he’s hitting just .254/.297/.419, and the reviews of his defense at third base are unflattering enough that it’s likely he’ll have to change his position again before he reaches the majors.

In his defense, we would like to call Frawley Stadium to the stand. The Blue Rocks’ home ballpark is one of the best pitchers’ parks in the minor leagues, and when evaluating Wilmington players, that must be taken into account. At home, Moustakas is hitting .201/.262/.356; on the road he’s hitting .295/.326/.468, which is eerily similar to his numbers from last season.

I’ve said this many times before, but the ballpark effect for the Blue Rocks is so significant that hitters promoted from A-ball to Double-A typically hit better at the higher level. Just this season we have two terrific examples of this, in Jeff Bianchi (.300/.360/.427 in Wilmington, .325/.371/.450 for Northwest Arkansas) and David Lough (.320/.370/.473 vs. .331/.368/.500).

My favorite example of this is Carlos Beltran, who in 1997, at age 20 – the same age as Moustakas right now – hit a puny .229/.311/.363 for the Blue Rocks. The following year, he returned to Wilmington and hit .276/.364/.427, was promoted at mid-season and hit .352/.427/.687 in Double-A. The following year he was the AL Rookie of the Year. Johnny Damon hit .316/.399/.462 for Wilmington when he was 20 – the following year he hit .343/.434/.534 for Wichita and was considered the best prospect in baseball when he was promoted to Kansas City in August.

So it’s way, way, way too early to write off Moustakas as a bust. My concern isn’t with who Moustakas is, it’s with who he’s not. He’s not Rick Porcello, who’s an above-average major-league starter at age 20. He’s not Matt Wieters, who’s enjoying a solid season as the Orioles’ rookie catcher after entering the season as the #1 prospect in baseball. He’s not Jason Heyward, who doesn’t turn 20 until next week and is hitting .422/.505/.722 since being promoted to Double-A last month – with Wieters now in the major leagues, Heyward has taken his spot as the #1 prospect in baseball. Porcello, Wieters, and Heyward were all selected in the top half of the first round in 2007; most observers considered Porcello the second-best player in the draft after David Price, and most considered Wieters third. The Royals decided they couldn’t afford either player – for all the money they’ve spent in the draft the last few years, they chose an awfully inopportune time to save money. And instead of considering Heyward, who BA dubbed the steal of the draft from the moment he dropped to #14 overall, the Royals took Moustakas.

(An underappreciated side effect of the Royals’ disdain for statistics is that they don’t seem to understand the critical importance of age and how it relates to draft picks. The team frequently drafts players who are old for their grade, whether high school senior or college junior. Case in point: Moustakas was born on September 11^th, 1988, meaning he turned 18 just a month after he signed. Heyward and Josh Vitters, who the Royals nearly took instead of Moustakas before changing their mind at the last moment, were both born in August, 1989.

A year of development doesn’t mean much when comparing a 27-year-old to a 28-year-old – but when comparing a 17-year-old to an 18-year-old, it’s critical. It remains to be seen whether the Royals should have taken Vitters or not – after a monster start in low-A ball this year, Vitters has struggled since joining Moustakas in high-A ball. But Heyward, like a couple of other 17-year-old hitters drafted in the first round (Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez), has made a quantum leap in development from age 17 to age 19, and now sits at the doorstep of the major leagues. If the Braves make the playoffs, he could be their version of Andruw Jones, the preternatural rookie who makes a postseason impact before he’s legally eligible to partake in the champagne bath afterwards.

Oh, and Moustakas’ teammate at Chatsworth High, fellow first-rounder Matt Dominguez, was also born in August 1989. Dominguez just got promoted to Double-A as well.)

But getting back to Moustakas…he has been disappointing this year, certainly, but not critically so. It’s not hard at all to envision a scenario in which he goes to Springdale next spring, hits .300 with power, and becomes a trendy Rookie of the Year candidate for 2011. But next year is crucial for him. He’s been passed by enough fellow first-round picks as it is. Grade: C-.

2) Eric Hosmer, 1B, 19. The second of the Royals’ Twin Towers, Hosmer is having an equally disappointing season. Hosmer was sent to Burlington and was expected to exceed Moustakas’ performance there last year, but instead hit just .254/.352/.382, with a puny five homers in 79 games. He struck out in nearly a quarter of his at-bats (68 of 280), and scouts were critical of the fact that he stood too far away from the plate, making him vulnerable to outside pitches. He changed his stance last month, started to hit a little better, and the Royals decided to promote him to Wilmington despite his struggles – in 14 games so far, he’s hitting .208 with just two extra-base hits. He does take walks, but the light-tower power that we were promised has yet to materialize outside of batting practice.

If it’s too early to write off Moustakas, it’s way too early to write off Hosmer…but as I said on draft day last year, if the point of drafting Hosmer is that in three years he’ll be one of the best hitters in the minor leagues, why not draft the college guy who will be one of the best hitters in the minors the day he signs? The Royals passed on Justin Smoak, who fell to the 11^th overall pick, and Smoak is hitting .295/.407/.460 this year and is already in Triple-A.

At the beginning of the year, there was a lot of controversy over which prospect rated higher – BA had Moustakas #1, but BP had Hosmer #1. We’re going to have the same debate this off-season, for all the wrong reasons. Unless Hosmer starts to rake a little for the Blue Rocks this month, he’s had the slightly more disappointing season, and the relative rankings of these two players won’t change. Grade: D+.

3) Danny Cortes, RHP, 22. Yeah, because I really want to relive this again. Cortes was having a truly disappointing season – his walks were way up, his strikeouts down, despite repeating Double-A – before he was traded for Yuniesky Betancourt. (If Alexei Ramirez is the Cuban Missile, can Betancourt just be the Cuban Crisis?) Since the trade he has made four starts with the Mariners, and continues to walk guys (13 in 20 IP), but at least he’s getting the strikeouts (22). It’s easy to forget: he’s just 22, younger than Aaron Crow, and he still has the power stuff, he’s just lost his command. I have this sinking feeling that he’s going to arrive late next year as a shutdown setup man for the Mariners. For metamorphosing into Betancourt, I’m tempted to give him an F- grade, but based on his actual performance, Grade: D.

4) Michael Montgomery, LHP, 20. Like so many other Royals prospect, he was old for his draft class – he actually turned 20 on July 1^st, just a year after he was drafted – but unlike so many others, he’s developing nicely. In 12 starts for Burlington he had a 2.17 ERA, with 52 Ks in 58 innings, before he was promoted to Wilmington – he’s allowed three runs in nine innings so far. When Cortes was traded there was a lot of talk about Danny Duffy being the Royals’ best pitching prospect, but I still think Montgomery is better. His velocity is a tick better – sitting in the low 90s as opposed to touching the low 90s – and his body has a little more projection than Duffy’s does. The Royals have a ton of high-upside arms in their farm system, but Montgomery might have the highest upside of them all. If Moustakas and Hosmer don’t get it going soon, Montgomery’s a legitimate candidate to be rated the #1 prospect in the organization at year’s end. Grade: B+.

5) Tim Melville, RHP, 19. The Royals signed Melville, a Missouri high school product, in the fourth round last year when he fell from his projection as a late first-round pick because of signability concerns. His selection may well represent a tipping point in the history of the Royals’ draft – the moment when the Royals went from being one of the victims of the draft’s economics to one of the aggressors. Before Melville, the last time the Royals got a first-round talent this late in the draft was probably Bo Jackson in 1986.

Melville started the year in extended spring training, but debuted with Burlington in May and has been consistently good, not great, all season. In 15 starts he’s thrown 68 innings, allowed 64 hits, walked 29, struck out 65, and surrendered 6 homers. There’s some hint that he may be improving as the season goes on – in his last six starts he has a K/BB ratio of 35/11 in just 28 innings. The perfect Grade: B- guy – he’s exactly what we thought he was at the beginning of the year. That’s a compliment.

More to come…

Trade Deadline Blowout!

I’m in Boston at the moment for a dermatology conference, with family in tow – which meant a couple of days vacationing on Cape Cod beforehand. So here’s my quick summary of everything that’s happened in the past week; my work is made easier by the fact that other people have done some of the work for me.

- Not even the Red Sox are immune to my home team curse, which dooms the home team to defeat anytime I’m in attendance at the stadium (unless they are playing the Royals, of course.) The White Sox are something like 9-1 against KC in my trips to U.S. Cellular Field, but are 1-5 or so when playing other teams. I made my first trip to Fenway Park on Tuesday night, and for eight innings the Sox handled everything I threw at them – they put up a 5-spot in the third inning and countered every A’s rally with one of their own.

But the ninth inning was something out of the 1999 Royals’ playbook; with two out and a man on third, Jonathan Papelbon gave up a double to Tommy Everidge (Everidge’s first major league hit), then an infield single to Mark Ellis on an 0-2 count; Nick Green threw the ball away, allowing Ellis to take second; Ellis stole third; and Ellis scored the tying run on another infield single. The 11^th inning was just denouement; the A’s put together a two-run rally with two outs and another 0-2 count to Ellis, and while the Sox pushed across a run in the bottom of the inning, Dustin Pedroia’s bid for a two-out walkoff homer came up short of the Green Monster. Needless to say, I felt at home.

(Although in my defense, the person most at fault for the team’s collapse was the guy in my section who got a wave started in the 7^th inning – along with the thousands of people who succeeded in getting the wave to go around the stadium three times. The Wave. At Fenway Park. It’s almost like they want the team to spend another 86 years in the desert.)

- Back to the Royals…Luke Hochevar takes the mound this afternoon, and we’re all anxious to see how he’s going to follow up a start in which he struck out 13 batters – the most by a Royals pitcher since Kevin Appier on August 29, 1996 – while walking no one. My take on this is pretty much what Joe Posnanski wrote here. A 13-K, 0-BB start doesn’t quite meet the standard of signature significance; as I wrote once before, the exact same combination had me believing that Jason Bere was a future star once upon a time. But to have a 13-K, 0-BB start barely a month after throwing a complete game in 80 pitches? The former approaches the standard of signature significance for a power pitcher, the latter for a groundball pitcher. To accomplish both in the same season might be unprecedented – maybe Greg Maddux has done it, I dunno.

I really have no idea what’s going on with Hochevar. In his first nine starts, covering 51 innings, he had 19 walks and 21 strikeouts. In his last three starts, covering 19 innings, he has 1 walk and 27 strikeouts. But in his first nine starts he surrendered 97 groundballs and 78 flyballs; in his last three starts, he has surrendered just 18 groundballs and 32 flyballs. Hochevar’s groundball/flyball ratio has never been as high in the majors as it was in the minor leagues; prior to this season he was just a modest groundball pitcher at most. But in his last three starts he has become an entirely different animal, a power/flyball guy in the mold of a Zack Greinke. This isn’t a bad thing, but it’s just…weird.

Hochevar’s career has long been a source of mystery for me. I included him on my list of “23 Reasons I’m Excited To Be A Royals Fan” under the title “The Enigma” – and that was nearly two years ago. So I don’t profess to know where his career is headed next. But I’m more optimistic about his future prospects than I have been in a long time.

And on a tangential note – can we dispense with the whole “the Royals should have drafted Tim Lincecum” meme please? NO ONE thought, on draft day, 2006, that Tim Lincecum was the #1 player in the draft. It turns out that everyone was wrong – but it’s silly to hold the Royals to a higher standard than the other 29 teams out there. Remember, Lincecum didn’t go 2^nd or 3^rd or 5^th – he went tenth in the draft that year. The guy who was the consensus #1 player in the draft was Andrew Miller, who has a 5.50 career ERA and 143 walks in 258 innings. Virtually all baseball people would take Hochevar over Miller in a heartbeat right now. The Royals didn’t screw up by taking Hochevar. On the contrary, they made a bold move, one that appears to be the correct one.

(And while we’re quashing memes, can we also dispense with the idea that Dayton Moore deserves credit for drafting him? Sorry, Dayton, but after telling us for the last three years that you had no input in that draft, you can’t suddenly change course and take credit for Hochevar. That was Deric Ladnier’s work. Hochevar, like roughly two-thirds of the good players on your roster, was someone you inherited, not someone you acquired.)

- While Hochevar seems to be undergoing a transition from groundball pitcher to power/flyball pitcher, Brian Bannister has done the complete opposite. And in his case, we know it’s deliberate, because he’s told us.

I don’t normally urge you all to listen to the radio show after the fact, but if you haven’t listened to the clips of Bannister on last week’s show, please do so. Or just listen to the clips by themselves, which you can also access by that link. We’ve long known that Bannister is one of the smartest guys in baseball, maybe the smartest when it comes to applying sabermetric principles to making him a better player on the field. But I don’t think any of us appreciated just how important sabermetrics has been to his success.

Partly, that’s because until this season, he really hadn’t been all that successful, at least not in what would be considered a sustainable way. In 2007, he rode a fluky performance on balls in play to a 3.87 ERA, but his peripherals were unimpressive – he struck out just 4.2 batters per nine innings, and unless you’re an extreme groundball pitcher you can’t survive at that level. To his credit, Bannister recognized the unsustainability of his performance, and endeavored to get more strikeouts last year. It worked – his K rate jumped to 5.6 per nine innings – but his home run rate nearly doubled, and along with regression in his BABIP performance, his ERA jumped nearly two runs.

Which brings us to 2009, and after a terrible performance in spring training and in his first minor league start, he decided to junk the fastball that got him to the majors, switch to his “no-seam” cut fastball, and begin the transformation to a groundball pitcher. And what amazes me most about the clip above is that everything he talks about his borne out in the numbers. His fastball this year really has lost a tick of velocity, but gained a ton of sink. His groundball ratio really has jumped, from just 37.5% last year to 49.6% this year. And in the process, he has figured out a way to meld the two approaches, keeping his strikeout rate (5.6 per 9) from last year, while keeping his home run rate (0.9 per 9) from 2007.

He is every bit as successful a pitcher this year as he was two years ago, only this time there’s nothing in his numbers to suggest it’s a fluke. Bannister has gone from #7 on the Royals’ depth chart in March to their #2 starter today, and there’s every indication he will continue to be a slightly above-average major league starter for the foreseeable future. (For a more in-depth analysis of Bannister’s comments and how they correspond to his performance this year, I recommend these two articles.)

After Bannister’s rookie season, I wrote of him, “while I’m a little leery of Bannister in the short term, I’m confident that he can make the adjustments to continue being an above-average starting pitcher in the long term.” You have to understand, I make predictions like this all the time, and future events almost always prove me to have been overly optimistic. The fact that I nailed it this one time is testament to Bannister more than me. There’s no Royal that I love more than Zack Greinke, but there’s no Royal that I’m prouder of than Bannister, and there hasn’t been since Dan Quisenberry left.

Naturally, this makes me terrified that he’ll be in another uniform 24 hours from now.

In Bill James, the Royals had a fan living in their own backyard who unlocked the secrets of baseball analysis a generation before they went mainstream. In Joe Posnanski, the Royals had the first nationally-acclaimed sports columnist who had a thorough grounding in sabermetrics working for the local paper. In Brian Bannister, the Royals have on their own roster the first major league player who has used sabermetrics to comprehend, and advance, his own career. The Royals have been blessed, through sheer serendipity, with three trailblazers on the path towards baseball enlightenment. They ignored the first one until he got fed up and decided to help the Red Sox win a title or two, and they’re doing their best to ignore the second one. I have no optimism that they’ll listen to Bannister any more than they listened to the first two, but maybe the fact that he wears cleats and stirrups to work means that they’ll keep an open mind. Or, you know, maybe they’ll just trade him.

- Speaking of the trade deadline: it is tomorrow at 3 PM, and tonight’s radio show is a special two-hour affair devoted to all the possible moves, so be sure to tune in. The Royals are not cooperating, as they appear to be content with holding pat. Maybe this is a good thing, given that the last time the Royals made a trade, they were the ones giving up the prospects. And in fairness, the meltdown of the bullpen has limited their options, as most of the players they have who are not part of the future are also not part of anyone’s present. Still, let’s take a look at what they could – or should – do:

Juan Cruz: You could list the other five middle relievers on the roster here as well, but unless some team wants to improve their draft position for next year, I suspect the demand will be light. Cruz, by virtue of his performance in the NL before signing with the Royals, might – might – draw some interest. Going into the All-Star Break, I thought that with a strong finish to July, that Cruz might be a useful chip for a team that felt he could return to his old form in the inferior league. That, ahem, has not happened. Cruz has appeared in five games since the Break, has given up at least two runs in all of them, and in three innings of work has allowed 11 hits and 14 runs. You almost have to hope that he’s hurt, because that’s one of the worst stretches of relief work I’ve ever seen. At this point, if the Royals can get out from under his contract, they should trade him for a token non-prospect. He’s owed more than $4 million between now and the end of next year, and as noble as it appeared before the season, the Juan Cruz Experiment has not worked out in Kansas City.

(By the way, I love this line from an anonymous Royals official: “It’s like other teams think we’re going to give guys away for nothing.” You think? For the money most of your guys are earning, you ought to be thankful if you can give them away.)

Willie Bloomquist: The Spork has been impressive this year, no question; his .278/.324/.383 line, his speed, his defensive versatility are all assets, and his price tag ($1.5 million per) is not prohibitive. I think it’s interesting that Bloomquist, who was the only hitter Moore has acquired in the last year or two with some idea of the strike zone, is also the only one of them who seems to have worked well with Kevin Seitzer. Bloomquist has value, and the Royals shouldn’t trade him for just a marginal prospect. But if some team is willing to give up a blue-chipper or a guy with intriguing upside, you have to do that deal. The idea of contending in 2010 is looking more and more delusional, so anyone who’s not under contract past 2010 has to be put in the display case.

Brian Bannister: The Brewers supposedly have interest, but Bannister is under contract through 2012, and you don’t give away three-plus years of a quality major league starter without getting some serious coin in exchange. There’s a trade here that could work – Bannister for Alcides Escobar, who’s very young, developing as a hitter, and one of the finest defensive shortstops in the minors. But that would require Moore to acknowledge that the Yuniesky Betancourt trade was a clusterf**k in every way imaginable, and something tells me he isn’t ready to do that.

(On the subject of Betancourt: it’s way too early to evaluate his performance – if he were 15-for-42 instead of 5-for-42, I’d be shouting “SMALL SAMPLE SIZE!” from the rooftops, and it’s not fair to ignore that issue just because he’s sucking at a Penaesque level. But man, even I thought that he would show some short-term improvement just from having a change of scenery. I never thought that the Betancourt acquisition would end well, but if he keeps hitting like this, at least it might end soon.)

Mark Teahen/David DeJesus: Both guys have value, and both guys might be more valuable as a secondary cog on a contender than as middle-of-the-order types for the Royals. Teahen, in particular, has more value at third base than anywhere else, and now that he’s been relegated to right field, he’s almost certainly worth less to the Royals than he would be to some other team. But neither seems to be attracting a ton of interest, and the Royals have no reason to sell them for less than their true worth. It’s not like either player is blocking a prospect from getting into the lineup, and both players are still under contract for two more seasons. If the Royals don’t get what they want for them this year, they can always do this dance again next July. I don’t expect them to get traded, and that’s probably for the best.

Miguel Olivo: Now that Brayan Pena has been working his way up to first-string status, a move I heartily endorse by the way, the Olivo/Buck combination looks even more ridiculous than it did the last two winters. Olivo has had his hot stretches this year, which disguises that his OPS+ is actually lower than Buck’s (89 to 90). Eight walks in half a season will do that to you. Olivo isn’t going to fetch much, but a grade C prospect would be worth it, if only to keep the Royals from the temptation of bringing him back again next year. I’d rather have Buck, if only because the Royals can probably release him this winter and re-sign him at a much better salary (say, $1 million with incentives). A Buck/Pena quasi-platoon would give you slightly below-average production at a fair price. All Olivo does is make the Royals think they have a solution at a position when they really don’t.

Alberto Callaspo: Finally, here’s the bold move I’d love to see the Royals make: trading Callaspo for a comparable young player, preferably a centerfielder. Callaspo has a blend of obvious strengths and weaknesses; he’s a hell of a hitter for a second baseman (.305/.354/.463), but beyond awful defensively. There’s no reason to think his offense is a fluke; if anything, given his 28 doubles in just 348 at-bats, there’s reason to think he’s starting to develop power (a notion bolstered by the fact that after going homerless in the first 400-plus at-bats in his career, he has seven homers this year.) You don’t think the Twins, who are just two games out of first despite the fact that their second basemen have hit a combined .187/.278/.236 (!) this year, would want Callaspo? (Fun fact: the Twins are the only team the Royals have never made a trade with.)

The problem with Callaspo is that his defense, while bad enough on its own, is just one of many sub-par gloves on the Royals. A stronger defensive team could weather one iron glove in their infield; with the Royals, their entire infield is one big sieve, and they need to find a way to repair that if they want to entertain any hope of contending in the near future.

The decision to move Callaspo is made easier by the fact that Jeff Bianchi has been the breakout star of the farm system, and might be ready for an audition as soon as September. I still think Bianchi should be given a shot at shortstop, but until the Royals give up on Betancourt that option appears to be out. (And if Bianchi slides across the keystone, Johnny Giavotella may soon be ready to take over at second.)

And looking long-term, Callaspo’s defense isn’t going to suddenly improve over time. A shortstop that loses range can move to second base or third base; a second baseman who loses range can only move to first base. That’s enough to end the career of many a second baseman – Ruben Gotay, anyone? Callaspo’s bat will keep him in the majors even if he has to move to first, but as what? The new Ross Gload?

So if the Royals want to be bold, if they want to sacrifice some offense in the short-term in exchange for a defensive upgrade at two positions, they really ought to explore the market for Callaspo. I really do think the Twins would make the perfect trade partner. Maybe you take a chance on Carlos Gomez, who hasn’t hit at all, but is just 23 and does play excellent defense in center. Maybe you take a flyer on Delmon Young and move DeJesus back to center. Maybe you settle for a prospect – especially if you can pry someone like Ben Revere away from them.

But in the midst of one of the most dreadful seasons I’ve ever witnessed, the Royals need to do something bold. (And unlike their last “bold” move, something smart.) Trading Callaspo when his trade value will never be higher, when you’ve got replacements in the minors who are almost ready, when he might fetch you a long-term solution at another position, certainly qualifies. The Royals have 24 hours to get cracking.

A Modest Proposal.

Wow, this whole “I’m taking a step back from the Royals” plan is already paying dividends!

I had a good time in Kansas City over the weekend. I had a chance to meet many of you at the ballpark on Saturday night, and had a chance to meet many of my colleagues in the local print and radio media during my stay. I wish I could say that the Royals’ performance on the field made me reconsider my perception of the team, but I can’t. And I wish I could say that all the conversations I had with people over the weekend made me reconsider my perception of the organization. But I can’t.

The highlight of my weekend – hell, it might be the highlight of my career – came on Friday night, when unbeknownst to the Royals (or me), the participant in the between-innings “Match Game” promotion was a devoted reader of this blog. After winning the promotion, our good reader was given the microphone and asked to say a few words. He said only two: “Rany Rules!” The microphone was snatched away by the announcer at that point, but judging from the audience’s reaction, the damage was already done. The revolution may not be televised, but it will be broadcast over the PA system to a sellout crowd at Kauffman Stadium. (To continue with my “V” theme, this reminds me of the moment when Juliet Parrish peels John’s skin to reveal the lizard underneath on national TV. Old-timers can relive that moment here – advance to 7:30 into the clip.)

There’s an old and oft-repeated quote that “Comedy equals Tragedy plus Time,” which I think applies beautifully to the Royals weekend. When Trey Hillman left Joakim Soria in the bullpen Friday night rather than ask him to get four outs, and Juan Cruz gave up the game-winning homer to Evan Longoria…that was tragedy. When Cruz gave up the game-tying and game-winning hits in the eighth inning the next night, that was unfortunate. When Hillman said in his post-game comments that he was willing to use Soria for four outs instead of five, that was farce.*

*: Seriously…four outs but not five? In the history of baseball, has there ever been a situation where a pitcher could get four outs but not five? Especially given that Soria’s so efficient on the mound that the difference between four outs and five outs is approximately three pitches. And if Soria was available for four outs, then WHY DIDN’T HE COME IN FOR FOUR OUTS THE NIGHT BEFORE?

And then, when the Royals blew an eighth-inning lead again on Sunday, and again Soria didn’t pitch while the triumvirate of Jamey Wright, John Bale, and Ramon Colon surrendered two hits, three walks, and committed an error…that was comedy. I mean, what’s the point of being angry? I already wrote that column. And it’s too late in the season to be despondent about it. Really, the only proper reaction is simply to laugh.

So for those of you who enjoyed the last post I wrote – which was actually posted before Sunday’s game – in the spirit it was written, thank you. For those of you who didn’t think it was that funny, I’m sorry you didn’t find it funny. And for those of you who didn’t think humor was the proper response – I’m sorry, but I can’t think of any other response except humor for the predicament the Royals find themselves in. (And for those few of you who thought the news “item” was real – I’m sorry that the Royals have become such a joke that it’s hard to separate satire from truth.)

As hard as it is to believe, I sympathize with Hillman a little bit. His comments after Saturday night’s game were rather ridiculous, both because he could have used Soria for four outs the night before and because he had used Soria for five outs earlier this season (a decision which was instrumental in the Royals winning an extra-inning thriller in Minnesota…one of the games which deluded me into thinking that this season was going to be something special, in fact.) But the sad reality about where baseball is today is that Hillman’s thinking over the weekend doesn’t make him the worst manager in baseball. His thought process is the norm among baseball teams today.

That thought process can be summed up as this:

1) Joakim Soria is my closer.

2) The job of the closer is to earn saves.

3) You can not earn a save unless you finish the game.

4) Therefore, if Soria can only get four outs, they have to be the last four outs of the game.

Once upon a time, closers weren’t called closers; they were called firemen, and the distinction is critical. “Closers” are there to “close” things – they’re there to close out the lights, which means finishing off a victory. Firemen put out fires – they’re there to get out of the stickiest of situations, no matter when those occur. No rational person would argue that the situation Soria could have faced on Sunday – tying run at third, just one out in the eighth – is less critical than the classic closer role of starting the ninth inning with a one-run lead. There’s a margin for error in the ninth; in the eighth, a single will tie the game (and did).

But that’s where the game of baseball is today. The problem with Hillman isn’t that he’s not with the conventional wisdom in this regard – it’s that he’s not willing to go against the conventional wisdom, even though his bullpen is such a unique challenge (one of the top closers in baseball fronted by arguably the worst middle-relief pack in the game) that it begs for unconventional thinking. He’s afraid to think outside-the-box, and the Royals need a manager who thinks outside the box. So instead, we have a manager who used every reliever (as well as starter Bruce Chen) out of his bullpen except Soria and Robinson Tejeda over the weekend, then finally used Soria to pitch an inning with the Royals down by eight runs last night.

As some brilliant commenters pointed out:

1) Last season, the Royals were shutout (okay, no-hit) by Jon Lester, which started a 12-game losing streak. This year, the Royals were shutout by Lester, which started an 8-game (and counting) losing streak.

2) Five of those eight losses have been by three runs or less. Both of Soria’s appearances in the last eight games have been in games decided by six runs or more.

Hillman’s intellectual atherosclerosis may not be treatable, but the woes of the bullpen are. Remember, Hillman didn’t use Soria all that differently last year; only seven times out of 63 appearances did Soria pitch more than an inning (although six of those seven were six-out appearances). The complaints last season were far fewer, though, because he had Ramon Ramirez to pitch the eighth inning. This year, he’s had Juan Cruz and Kyle Farnsworth. Farnsworth’s problems could (and were) predicted, but Cruz’s struggles were not so easily predictable. (And as Sam Mellinger finds out, they’re still mystifying.)

So allow me to make a modest proposal. The bullpen needs to be fixed, but the last thing the Royals ought to do is to trade some of their marketable guys (like DeJesus and Teahen) for some immediate relief help. The correlation between expense and performance is almost non-existent, something Dayton Moore has proven the last two seasons. His no-name set-up men last year, Ramirez and Leo Nunez, were far more effective than the two guys he signed for a combined $7 million a year to do the job this season.

First off, the Royals need to bite the bullet and get rid of some of their relievers. Frankly, none of their jobs should be safe; after Soria, Ron Mahay has the lowest ERA in the bullpen at 4.26. But Roman Colon should be an easy target; he has a 5.03 ERA, has allowed 31 baserunners in under 20 innings, and frankly his minor league track record makes you wonder what it was that Moore saw in him in the first place. (Other than the tomahawk on some of the uniforms he wore.) Tejeda, who has a great arm but also has walked more than a batter an inning, should also be fair game; if the Royals still think they can polish him, then they should take a long hard look at Jamey Wright, who isn’t terrible but also hasn’t really done the one thing the Royals brought him to do: the supposed groundball specialist has allowed 7 homers in 47 innings this year.

In return, they should find a spot on their roster for two guys. One is Carlos Rosa, who the Royals converted to relief this year because of concerns that he would not hold up physically as a starter (concerns about his elbow led the Marlins to nix the deal that would have traded him for Mike Jacobs, forcing the Royals to trade Nunez instead.) Rosa, perhaps still shaking off the rust from last season’s injury, struggled terribly at the start of the season; he had a 7.03 ERA in his first 32 innings, allowing 36 hits and 20 walks in that span. But over his last eight outings the light bulb has gone on; he has allowed just 4 hits and 4 walks in 14 innings, along with 14 strikeouts. If the scouting reports jibe with the sudden improvement in performance, then I think it’s time to throw Rosa into the pool and see if he can swim.

The other guy is Chris Hayes. I’ve had a lot of fun promoting Hayes as a prospect here and here and here and here, but I worry that some people – certainly some people in the organization – really do think that the idea of Disco as a prospect is a lot of fun, as opposed to something serious. At the start of the year, my goal was not to get Hayes immediately promoted to the majors – as well as he pitched last year, I understand that any pitcher whose fastball rarely touches 80 is going to have to prove himself in the high minors a little longer than the average prospect. My goal was simply to raise awareness that the Royals had a submarine prospect in their system, who ought to be taken seriously as a prospect despite his lack of velocity.

Well, that was March. It’s July now, and in the interim Hayes returned to Northwest Arkansas and pitched better than he did last season, with a 0.98 ERA in 37 innings. The Royals grudgingly promoted him to Omaha in mid-June, and he has continued to pitch well. His ERA in Omaha is 3.20, but he really hasn’t pitched much worse than he did in Double-A; he has continued to show tremendous control, strike out a little under one batter every other inning, and keep the ball on the ground (he’s allowed just one homer at each level). It’s just that a few more groundballs have gotten through. His BABIP in Double-A was .260, and in Triple-A it has been .315 – since a typical BABIP is around .300, Hayes was a little lucky in Double-A, and a little unlucky so far in Triple-A.

That’s splitting hairs, though, because there’s nothing to be ashamed about having a 3.20 ERA. For the season, Hayes has a 1.89 ERA, has allowed just 8 walks (two intentional!) in 62 innings, and has allowed just the two homers. If this isn’t the Dan Quisenberry starter kit, I don’t know what it is.

At the start of the year, even the most optimistic Hayes fan (i.e. me) thought it was unlikely he would earn a promotion to the majors before September, but this season has been a perfect storm of factors that have earned him a look. Hayes has continued to pitch well, of course, but beyond that you have a bullpen meltdown of a scale that I don’t think anyone predicted. During this eight game losing streak, here are the combined numbers for all Royals relievers (not counting the two innings Soria threw):

24.1 IP, 29 H, 26 R, 25 ER, 26 BB, 22 K, 4 HR

That’s just sick. Maybe Hayes wouldn’t improve on that hit total, but if all he does is throw strikes and keep the ball down, he’ll represent an enormous improvement on that performance.

It was thirty years ago this month that a much better Royals team – better in every facet of the game – nonetheless gave an opportunity to a submarining right-hander who threw in the upper 70s. Quisenberry was as poorly-regarded then as Hayes is now, despite strong numbers in the minors. In 1977 Quiz threw 74 innings in Double-A, allowed just 61 hits and 11 walks, with a 1.34 ERA; like Hayes, he was forced to repeat Double-A, and in 1978 pitched almost as well, with a 2.39 ERA in 62 innings. He got to Triple-A in 1979, and like Hayes didn’t quite match the success he had in Double-A – he had a 3.60 ERA in 35 innings when he was called up to make his major league debut on July 8^th. He would never return to the minor leagues.

That 1979 team had bullpen issues much like this one does; aside from Quisenberry, five guys made more than 10 relief appearances for the Royals that season, and only one (Al Hrabosky) had an ERA under 4.50. The troubles with the pitching staff are what kept that team, despite scoring a then franchise-record 851 runs, out of the playoffs (the only time the Royals missed the playoffs from 1976 to 1981.) No doubt, Quisenberry got his shot at least partly out of desperation.

But here’s the thing: he got his shot. Whitey Herzog was a baseball man through and through, but he cared about winning more than he cared about conventional wisdom: he would have given a shot to a pitcher who threw with his feet if it would have helped him win. Quiz got his shot, and pitched well enough that year that even after Herzog was fired after the season, Quisenberry entered the next season as the team’s closer, and held the job for the next six seasons.

Maybe Hayes won’t pitch as well as Quisenberry, though from where I sit I see no reason why he can’t. But you know what? He doesn’t have to. Quisenberry had a career 2.76 ERA, including a 2.55 mark with the Royals. If Hayes can put up a 3.76 ERA, he’ll be an asset to this team. If he puts up a 5.76 ERA, he’ll still be better than Robinson Tejeda.

An organization that trades actual prospects for Yuniesky Betancourt is an organization that cares far more about how a player looks than how he performs. In some ways, the Royals are the worst organization for a guy like Disco to pitch for. But the shadow of Quisenberry still carries weight in Kansas City, if not with the organization than at least with their fans.

But I don’t want the Royals to give Hayes a shot because of the memory of a pitcher who threw his last pitch over two decades ago – I want them to give him a shot because he can help the ballclub. The Royals need a guy who can, if nothing else, stop walking the tying run to lead off the 8^th inning – that’s Hayes. They need a guy who can throw two or three innings at a time – that’s Hayes. They need a guy who they can rely on to pitch four or five times a week if need be – that’s Hayes. And not to be crass about it, but they need a guy that they don’t perceive to be so valuable that they can only use him in predetermined situations. Emphatically, that’s Hayes.

This is probably the first column that I’ve written in a month that doesn’t come with a huge dose of anger or bitterness. I’m trying to play this one straight, because I am dead serious when I write this. Chris Hayes is not a freak show anymore. He’s a pitcher who can help the Royals right now. It’s time to bring Disco to Kansas City.

Breaking News About Soria.

(Evidently, the Royals have made it difficult to distinguish between satire and reality. So to set the record straight: the following is fiction. Some of the quotes are real, but the story is not.)

KANSAS CITY (RotR) – In a stunning and unconventional move, the Royals announced today that closer Joakim Soria had been sent home and would not pitch the remainder of the season.

“He’s too rested to pitch,” manager Trey Hillman announced prior to Sunday’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays. “If he’s too rested to pitch today, then obviously we can’t pitch him today. And if he doesn’t pitch today, then he’ll be even more rested tomorrow, so he can’t pitch then either. After sitting down and doing the math, we realized that if you extend this line of reasoning into the future, that Soria will be too rested to pitch for every game the rest of the season. So we felt it was best to send Soria home and have him rest up for next year.”

Hillman indicated that the problem with Soria began on Friday night, when he was available to get three outs, but too rested to get four outs. Then on Saturday, Soria was available to get four outs, but too rested to get five outs. Hillman defended the apparent contradiction, saying, “I’m not going to bang my head against the wall defending things I do or do not do in trying to educate the masses about things that, quite frankly, I can’t educate. There’s just too much.”

By today, with Soria’s rest having extended to seven full days, the Royals acknowledged that even using him for one inning would be dangerous. “I’m not going to push our closer,” Hillman explained. “I have to save that for Gil Meche.”

When asked to clarify, Hillman said, “I’m not going to sell my soul to the devil for a guy who has already had two major arm injuries (in his career). Now, a guy who missed two entire seasons with a shoulder injury, and who has had back problems all year – that’s okay. It’s a scientific fact that high pitch counts are the best treatment for back problems – I got that straight from my medical staff. But you can’t ask a guy who had Tommy John surgery five years ago to get five outs in a game.”

“Well,” Hillman continued, “unless the game is in Minnesota and he hasn’t pitched in ten days and he was just complaining of a sore shoulder a few days before. But this time, Soria said his arm feels great. Obviously, we can’t take any chances with that.”

“I’m as frustrated as any fan that we have,” Hillman added. “We’re all frustrated. The bottom line is somebody has to get the job done in crunch time so our closer doesn’t have to go out there and get five or six outs. Or, really, go out there at all.”

Soria has returned to his native Mexico, where he will rest his arm in anticipation for spring training. “Don’t worry,” general manager Dayton Moore reassured. “We’re going to work day and night over the next seven months on a way out of this paradox, so that we can find a way for Soria to pitch for us next year. I’ve got two sabermetricians on staff working on this right now.”

Hillman ended on a positive note. “I think we’ll hardly miss not having Soria around to pitch the ninth,” he said. “The way our bullpen has been pitching, it’s not like there are going to be any ninth-inning leads to protect anyway.”

Who's Up For Some Royals Baseball Saturday Night?

Enough drama. Who’s up for some baseball?

Thanks to the indefatigable efforts of my producer Blake Uhlenhake, and one particularly understanding employee in the Royals’ ticket office, we have managed to come up with a reasonably simple way to insure that a large group of people who have never met before can all be assured of sitting in the same section of the stadium on Saturday.

(This was a lot easier six years ago, when Rob Neyer and I just told anyone who wanted to watch a game with us to show up outside one of the gates an hour before gametime. With the renovations at the stadium, the risk of a sellout or near-sellout is considerably greater, and I don’t want to risk having 100 people show up at the stadium only to find they can’t all sit in the same section.)

So here’s the plan: if you want to attend a game with me THIS SATURDAY, July 18^th, against Tampa Bay, do the following:

1) Call THIS PHONE NUMBER: (816) 504-4168. This is the direct line to Sarah Trowbridge, our contact in the Royals’ ticket office.

2) Tell Sarah that you are part of the group purchasing tickets in SECTION 246.

3) Purchase as many tickets as you need. The group pricing for this section is $23, and as we are buying as a group, I believe all additional surcharges are waived.

4) Pick up your tickets before game time at Will Call, located at the stadium between gates C and D.

That’s it.

Sarah will be answering the phone today until 5 PM CDT, and from 9 AM to 5 PM on Friday. After 5 PM tomorrow she will be unable to process tickets for this section, so if you don’t buy your tickets by tomorrow, you may 1) not be able to sit in our section and/or 2) be forced to pay surcharges. That doesn’t mean you can’t still join us – if you make a last-minute decision to come out to the game on Saturday, by all means, come to the ballpark and try to buy a ticket in Section 246, or as close to Section 246 as possible.

There are approximately 100 seats available in Section 246; if we somehow manage to sell over 100 seats, additional people can be seated next door in Sections 245 or 247.

If you get Sarah’s voicemail, leave a message and she will call you back. If you want to contact her by email, you can do so at sarah.trowbridge@royals.com. But it’s probably easiest to just call her directly.

I’ve already purchased my ticket, and am looking forward to meeting all of you there. Gametime on Saturday is 6:10 pm, but I’m hoping to get to the park a little early. So if you want to meet up with me before the game, plan to meet up outside Gate D between 4:45 and 5, and plan to enter the stadium right at 5 o’clock. If you can’t make it there by 5, no worries – just find your seat and you should find the rest of us there.

LATE UPDATE: I have just been informed that Zack Greinke is the scheduled starting pitcher on Saturday night. (I picked this date months ago for this very reason – I had a feeling that if Greinke went to the All-Star Game, he’d be starting the second game after the break.) So if you needed another reason to come to the game Saturday night…you just got it.