Dyson: Does He Suck Up Everything, Or Just Suck?

With another season having come to another merciful end, there’s a lot we can take away from the last six months. What looked in March like a promising up-and-coming farm system is now generally accepted to be the best in the game. Zack Greinke declined; Joakim Soria didn’t. Kila Ka’aihue restored his luster; Alex Gordon didn’t. Mike Aviles impressed, then he didn’t, then he did again. Wilson Betemit exploded out of nowhere; Brian Bannister shriveled into irrelevance. Yuniesky Betancourt improved from being an all-out disaster to…well…something less than an all-out disaster.

And most importantly, the Royals finally, belatedly started clearing house; by the end of the season Kyle Farnsworth was blowing leads and Rick Ankiel was striking out in Atlanta, Willie Bloomquist was dispensing his winning attitude on an actual winning team in Cincinnati, and Jose Guillen was hitting into rally-killing double plays in San Francisco. The future looks brighter today than it did in March, and frankly looks brighter than it has in seven years.

But the present is as grim as always. The Royals won 67 games this year, compared to 65 last year, and even that overstates their progress. The Royals have scored fewer runs this year (676) than last (684), and allowed more runs (845) than last (842). Soria’s superhuman season helped the Royals convert a slightly worse run differential into a slightly better record.

There’s a lot to ponder about the Royals’ performance this season. But over the last few weeks, I’ve spent more and more of my time thinking about a specific player, a player who until he was called up four weeks ago I had hardly thought about at all.

The first time I gave Jarrod Dyson serious consideration for even a moment was last winter, when I asked Trey Hillman at the Winter Meetings manager press conference whether there were any minor league players he was looking forward to having contribute at the major league level in 2010. Granted that none of them were quite ready yet, but I figured he’d mouth a few platitudes about Mike Moustakas or Eric Hosmer or Mike Montgomery. Instead he mentioned just one player – Jarrod Dyson, who was coming off of a season in which, at the ripe age of 24, he had hit .258/.331/.319 in Double-A.

That seemed…odd. I could make a cheap crack at Hillman’s expense here, but it’s not like Hillman was scouting Northwest Arkansas games while managing the team in 2009. (Although if he was, that would explain a lot of things…) No, it was clear that as an organization, the Royals were enamored with this speedy old outfield prospect with absolutely no power. The question was why.

Fast-forward through 2010, when Dyson missed the first half of the season with various injuries. He then returned and sped through some rehab stints – hitting .520 in rookie ball, .327 in Wilmington, .240 in NW Arkansas, with a lot of steals and not much else in the way of secondary skills. He made it to Omaha in late July – just a few weeks before he turned 26 years old, mind you – and hit .278/.327/.349. He did steal 13 bases in 46 games, and he did hit the first home run of his five-year professional career. (It hit off the top of the wall, and bounced over, for a grand slam.)

He was promoted to the majors on September 6th, and over the next two weeks played sparingly. In his debut, he pinch-hit and walked; in his second game, he pinch-ran and immediately stole second base. He did start on the 18th and get three hits, making him 5-for-14 in his brief career.

On September 21st, I got an email from a long-time contact of mine, a long-time Royals fan with a scouting background – let’s just call him Amateur Scout Guy, or ASG. ASG used to correspond with me years ago, primarily to let me know that I was vastly overrating Prospect X and that Pitcher Y was an arm injury waiting to happen. He didn’t impress easily. He was also usually correct.

I hadn’t heard from ASG in years, but something mildly disparaging I had written about Dyson caused him to reach out to me. “I saw Dyson in NW Arkansas and also in Omaha this year, and I gotta tell you... he is legit. I like him decidedly more than [Derrick] Robinson, and I will bet you Dyson plays a lot more for the MLB club than Robinson ever does. I thought he was fantastic - espec. his CF defense. His arm, speed, and CF defense ALL were clearly better than Robinson for me, and I think he'll hit and walk as much or more than Robinson as well.”

ASG was making a presentation for the defense in the case of Sabermetrics v. Jarrod Martel Dyson. The defense was helped when, that night, Dyson went 3-for-4 with two doubles. Four games later – he hit his first major-league home run, and this once cleared the right-field fence cleanly.

Of course, in the three games in between, Dyson went 0-for-14. I felt compelled to respond on behalf of the prosecution. “So please, if you can, explain to me this: why I should believe that Dyson can be the Royals' everyday centerfielder next year, given that he has no power (last night notwithstanding), he doesn't hit for much average, and he's too old to improve much more?

“I'm not saying you're wrong - on the contrary, he's opened my eyes with his speed and defense to the point where I'm willing to have my mind changed. But you can't just explain away a five-year track record.”

ASG conceded nothing. “Dyson will be a top-15, maybe a top-10 (he would be in my top-10) prospect in a loaded Royals system, the best in the game. Top-100 for BA? No, but he’ll play more MLB games than 20-30% of the top-100 will. Sure, if he was 22 or 23, BA and everyone else would be all over him. But he’s not, and yet that’s got nothing to do with his ability and tools. I am telling you, at this point, I am convinced the organization believes much more strongly in Dyson than they do in Robinson. No doubt in my mind whatsoever. Robinson is 22 years old, so… get my point?

“…I really believe in the CONCEPT that there are some ultra-athletic – but raw – position players who can come very quickly, put it together very fast.”

Obviously, we have a disconnect here. The stats say Jarrod Dyson is a poor man’s Joey Gathright, or (as I compared him to before the season) Endy Chavez: a player with top-of-the-line speed and defense, but below-replacement-level hitting skills. The scouts – or at least one scout – thinks that Dyson’s numbers are a reflection of his inexperience playing the game, and that – even at age 26 – he is poised to take a giant step forward and become a quality everyday centerfielder in the majors.

I don’t doubt ASG when he says that “the organization believes much more strongly in Dyson than they do in Robinson.” This is, after all, the same organization that believed much more strongly in Jason Kendall than in John Buck, and in Mike Jacobs over Kila Ka’aihue. You’ll have to forgive me for not putting much stock in the organization’s opinion.

That said, I made it a point to watch Dyson as much as possible in the season’s final weeks. And I saw enough to understand why a scout would believe his eyes over a lyin’ stat sheet.

It’s not just that Dyson has speed to burn, though he certainly does. I don’t have the scouting bonafides to throw an “80 speed” label on a player, but if he’s not an 80, he’s at least a 75. He’s clearly the fastest Royal since Gathright. In 305 minor league games – basically two full seasons – Dyson stole 131 bases, at an 80% success rate. In just 14 starts and a handful of late-inning appearances with the Royals, Dyson stole 9 bases, and was caught once. The dude is fast.

But it’s not just his speed on the bases that is so enticing. It’s that he makes such good use of his speed in the outfield – he gets a quick first step, and accelerates rapidly. Again, I’m not comfortable calling him an “80 glove”, but I think it’s fair to say he’s a 70 – a plus-plus centerfielder. The only Royal outfielder in the last 15 years who put his speed to such good use defensively was Carlos Beltran.

On Monday, September 27th, in just his eighth start in the majors, Dyson recorded 10 putouts in centerfield – tying the Royals’ franchise record for putouts by an outfielder. Granted, there’s some luck in having that many flyballs in your vicinity in one game, but it says something that the record he tied was shared by Amos Otis and Beltran, two of the four elite defensive centerfielders in Royals history. (The other two would be Willie Wilson for a stretch in the early 80s, and Brian McRae for a stretch in the early 90s.)

In 129 innings in center field, Dyson had a range factor of 3.49, meaning he recorded 3.49 outs per nine innings. I’m fairly certain that no centerfielder in history has ever had a range factor of 3.49 for a full season. (Anything over 3 is Richie Ashburn/Willie Mays/Andruw Jones territory.) The advanced metrics are similarly gushing about Dyson’s defense; Total Zone ranks Dyson as 3 runs above average, and Baseball Info Solutions’ plus/minus system ranks him at 4 runs above average – in the equivalent of less than 15 games in the field.

On top of that, Dyson actually has a pretty strong arm – maybe a 60 or 65 on the scouting scale. Most waterbug-type centerfielders who can run like the wind but can’t hit for power have noodle arms – think Juan Pierre, or Coco Crisp, or even Johnny Damon. Dyson doesn’t fit that mold at all.

So you’ve got a player with three above-average to outstanding tools in his speed, glove, and arm. I can see how that might get the scouts salivating. That still doesn’t make him a valuable player. He has no power, and while he might have the speed to beat out a bunch of groundballs Ichiro-style, he doesn’t make good enough contact to hit for a good average. His strikeout rate in the minors is about 108 per season, and in his major-league cup of coffee, he struck out 16 times in just 57 at-bats.

Dyson’s final start of the season was a microcosm of his talents. His first time up, he reached base when the third baseman bobbled his groundball. Does Dan Johnson make an error if he wasn’t rushing to throw out the speedy Dyson? Maybe not. In the third inning, he caught up to Carl Crawford’s fly ball deep in the right-centerfield gap and made the catch look almost routine. In the bottom of the fifth, he laid down a textbook sacrifice bunt to move Mitch Maier from first to second.

But in his other three at-bats, he made outs, twice on a strikeout.

As he stands now, Dyson is certainly an intriguing player – a fantastic late-inning defensive replacement/pinch-runner, but someone who simply doesn’t hit enough to start. There’s no way to spin the stats to make him out to be anything more than a fourth outfielder, and at age 26, there’s no way to spin a projection system to suggest that he’s going to improve much upon who he already is.

The argument for Dyson, then, is that even though he’s already 26, he’s so inexperienced at playing baseball that he has an uncommon amount of room to improve. Dyson hardly played baseball before he was signed by the Royals as a 50th-round pick, and while he’s been in the system for five years, he’s played in just 323 games as a pro.

I’m sympathetic to the argument that an exceedingly athletic player with not a lot of experience can be expected to improve, even if he’s already in his mid-20s. The classic case of this would be Kenny Lofton, who was more of a basketball player than a baseball player in college (he was the sixth man on some great University of Arizona teams). Lofton was also a late pick; he was selected by the Astros in the 17th round in 1988. Three years later, in a good hitter’s park in Triple-A, Lofton hit .308/.367/.417 with just two home runs, struggled in a September call-up, and the Astros were so unimpressed they traded him to Cleveland that winter for Eddie Taubensee.

The next year, Lofton hit .285/.362/.365 for the Indians, led the league with 66 steals, and finished second in Rookie of the Year voting. The year after that, Lofton began a seven-year stretch (1993 to 1999) where he was arguably the best leadoff hitter in baseball.

So yeah, I’ve seen athletic hitters figure it all out and become late bloomers. But look, Dyson is no Lofton. Lofton was old for an elite prospect, but he was 24 when he was Triple-A; Dyson was nearly 26. Lofton struck out a lot less, and hit for much better batting averages. And even though the Astros didn’t respect his talent, the rest of baseball did – Baseball America ranked Lofton as the #28 prospect in baseball after the 1991 season. Dyson’s not going to sniff their top 100.

Of course, Dyson doesn’t have to be nearly as good as Lofton to still be an asset for the Royals. He needs to cut his strikeouts, and he needs to hit lefties (he batted just .203/.242/.271 against LHP in Omaha; against RHP he hit .301/.362/.382.) But if he can hit .270 and draw the occasional walk, his speed and defense will make him a valuable player.

Dyson’s statistical track record would make you believe that even that modest ambition is unrealistic. The Royals, and ASG, will make you believe that it is. I don’t have a strong position either way. That, in itself, is progress, because a month ago I thought that Jarrod Dyson was a complete distraction from the minor league players who actually have a real future. Now, I’m willing to keep an open mind.

While Derrick Robinson might be the future in centerfield, he’s certainly far from ready. Next year is likely to be a transitional year, a year where the makeup of the roster in September is likely to be dramatically different than it was in April. It’s a year for the Royals to experiment a little, and see what they have with some of their young players, as opposed to wasting time with more short-term veteran solutions.

Given that, what do the Royals have to lose by letting Dyson play centerfield next season? If nothing else, his stellar defense may help in the development of some of the team’s many young pitchers. I do think Dyson will benefit from another half-season in Omaha, while Mitch Maier and Gregor Blanco get to showcase themselves in the majors.

But the thought of Dyson starting in centerfield next July, or even next April, no longer fills me with dread. On the contrary, I think it will be quite fascinating to watch. The all-out war between Scouts and Stats has simmered down to a low-level guerrilla battle. Dyson remains one of the few remaining flashpoints in this conflict. Regardless of which side wins, we’ll learn something from the outcome. We’ll get to watch an exciting rookie try to establish in the majors instead of watching another thirtysomething veteran cash a paycheck. And who knows? The Royals might have a found a viable everyday player in the 50th round.

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The GM.

Every year my motivation to write about the Royals dwindles with the remaining games on the schedule, and this year is no different. No matter how optimistic I might be about the future, there’s only so much I can write about the present club before I lose my will to go on.

I’ve got a number of half-finished articles waiting to be finished in Word, and hopefully I’ll get them out to you over the next few days. But yesterday, something happened that made me passionate enough to bang out an article, so here it is.

Last year, you may recall that I snapped at the end of the season, and walked away from writing for a couple of months. The straw that broke my back was the Royals’ decision to leave Kila Ka’aihue down on the farm in September. Ka’aihue spent all of this September in the Royals’ starting lineup, so that’s something.

But my first step on the path that brought me back to the Royals, and brought me back to the belief that Dayton Moore was salvageable, actually had nothing to do with the Royals. My road back began watching, with some manner of disbelief, the way the Giants handled Buster Posey last September.

Posey, after nearly going #1 overall in the 2008 draft, was taken by the Giants with the #5 pick, and signed too late to get into more than 10 minor leagues that summer (though he did hit .351/.467/.622). He started 2009 in the California League and was probably the best hitter in the circuit, with a .326/.428/.540 line in 80 games before he was promoted all the way to Triple-A. There, he hit .321/.391/.511 in 47 games. Despite a reputation as a raw defensive player, he threw out 46% of potential basestealers between the two stops. He was clearly one of the best prospects in baseball – ranked #7 overall before this season by Baseball America.

The Giants’ starting catcher in 2009 was Bengie Molina, who actually had a decent season, at least by his standards. Molina hit .265/.285/.442, with solid defense and his usual glacial speed. Their backup catcher was Eli Whiteside, a 29-year-old rookie who hit .228/.268/.339 on the season. With perhaps the best catching prospect in baseball ripping through Triple-A, you would think the Giants would have given Posey some playing time in September.

You would think so particularly because the Giants entered September in the thick of the wild-card race. When the sun came up on September 1st, the Giants were 72-59, six games behind the Dodgers in the NL West – but tied with the Colorado Rockies for the wild-card lead. I don’t know about you, but if my backup catcher is struggling to keep his OPS above .600, and I’ve got the best catcher in the minors destroying Triple-A, I’d find a way to get my catching prospect some playing time.

The Giants, on the other hand, did everything in their power to block Posey’s path. He didn’t make his major league debut until the 11th, at which point the Giants had already fallen 4.5 games behind the Rockies. He entered the game in the eighth inning of a 10-3 loss and struck out. He didn’t play again until eight days later, on September 19th, by which point the Giants had closed the gap on Colorado to 2.5 games. Posey came into the game in the seventh inning, with the Dodgers leading 9-1; he would go 1-for-2 at the plate. Three days later, with the Giants down 10-5, Posey would enter as a defensive replacement in the eighth after both Molina and Whiteside were removed.

Only on September 25th, with the Giants four games back with 10 to play, did Posey make his first major-league start. He would start two games in a row, then two games in the final weekend of the season after the Giants were eliminated. From September 1st to the 24th, as the Giants slid out of contention with Posey on the bench, Whiteside started behind the plate six times, going 2-for-24 at the plate.

I’m trying to think of a comparable situation for the Royals. Imagine if, next season, Christian Colon came out of the gate batting like Honus Wagner, crushing everything in sight, moving to Triple-A at mid-season and not missing a beat, becoming generally accepted as the best shortstop in the minors. Imagine if Yuniesky Betancourt was playing sub-par defense and struggling to get his OBP to .300. (Granted, one of these things is easier to imagine than the other.) And imagine if once a week the Royals were starting, I dunno, Tony Pena Jr. at shortstop for his defense.

Then imagine that the Royals entered September tied for the wild-card race. Omaha’s season ended, Colon was promoted to the majors, and…and…he sat on the bench for the next three weeks while Betancourt continued his display of mediocrity. Imagine if, down the stretch, Tony Pena Jr. started six times at shortstop while the best shortstop prospect in baseball watched from the dugout.

How would you respond? What vile, unprintable things would you have to say about Dayton Moore? They would likely be the same vile, unprintable things Giants fans were saying about Brian Sabean.

Watching this unfold last September was the first step I needed to rehabilitate my impression of Dayton Moore. It reminded me that, while it’s okay to criticize Moore for every mistake he makes, it’s unrealistic of me to compare his actions in a vacuum. I have to compare him to his peers, and some of his peers make decisions that are a lot dumber than anything Dayton Moore has done. And some of those peers win anyway.

Like Brian Sabean.

Brian Sabean has been the General Manager of the San Francisco Giants since 1997. He is – I’m writing these words and don’t believe them myself – the longest-tenured GM in baseball. In that time the Giants have had a good deal of success – they’ve now been to the playoffs five times in those 14 years, including a World Series berth. But I remain reluctant to apportion much of the credit for that to the man running the front office.

For one thing, this is the first time in Sabean’s tenure that the Giants have qualified for the postseason without Barry Bonds. Say whatever you want about the methods Bonds may or may not have used, but he was a force of nature unlike anything you or I have ever seen in baseball. He broke the game. With Bonds at his peak, the Giants never finished lower than second from 1997 through 2004. Bonds missed most of 2005, and the Giants finished under .500 for the first time in nine years. Without Bonds’ reflected glory, Dusty Baker isn’t a genius in San Francisco, and Sabean doesn’t survive 14 years.

A quick look at Sabean’s track record explains why most analysts have trouble taking him seriously as a GM. This is the man who traded Joe Nathan, Boof Bonser, and Francisco Liriano to the Twins for A.J. Pierzynski – almost certainly the worst trade of the last decade. This is the man who didn’t want his first-round picks – he didn’t think they were worth the money spent on them – and so deliberately signed Michael Tucker before the arbitration deadline. This allowed the Royals to offer Tucker arbitration after he had already signed – they had no intention of doing so because they thought he might accept – and get a pair of first-round picks in the following draft. (One of those picks was used on J.P. Howell.)

Both the Pierzynski trade and the decision to give up their first-round pick for Michael Tucker happened within three weeks of each other in the winter of 2003-04. And you thought Dayton Moore had a bad off-season last year.

Sabean has struggled to put together a winning team in the post-Bonds era, a task made more difficult by the 7-year, $126 million contract he gave to Barry Zito, a signing deemed one of the worst in baseball history before the ink dried.

Even after having Buster Posey fall into his lap, Sabean still refused to accept his good fortune. After refusing to see whether Posey could help the team last September, Sabean decided that Posey couldn’t help the Giants this April. Even after Posey hit .338/.426/.450 for Fresno in April, and even after enough service time had passed to guarantee Posey wouldn’t be a free agent a year early, Sabean left Posey for another month. After Posey hit .359/.456/.641 in May, and threw out 44% of attempted basestealers, he was granted parole.

But he still wasn’t allowed to catch. Posey was promoted on May 29th – he had three hits in his first game, another three hits in his second – but from that date through the end of June, he only started two games behind the plate. Instead, the Giants put him at first base, a position he played 12 times in Triple-A in anticipation of his call-up. Sabean simply couldn’t bring himself to bench Molina, even as the eldest Molina’s offense completely cratered. Only on July 1st, when Molina was traded to the Rangers, did Posey assume the full-time catching job.

Posey then spent the next three months reminding folks of how stupid it was that he had to wait so long for his opportunity in the first place. Posey was hitting .289/.314/.381 at the end of June; after becoming the full-time catcher he hit .311/.370/.544. He threw out 37% of attempted basestealers, and allowed just one passed ball in 76 games behind the plate. If Posey doesn’t win the Rookie of the Year award, it’s only because Jason Heyward had one of the all-time great seasons from a 20-year-old.

If the Giants had missed the playoffs – something they came perilously close to doing – Sabean’s refusal to give Posey a job sooner would have been the undeniable culprit. The fact is that the Giants made the playoffs despite, not because of, Sabean’s handling of his organization’s best prospect.

But the fact remains that the Giants, sans Barry Bonds, nevertheless won the NL West and are in the playoffs. Sabean and the Giants must have done something right.

They have. They’ve drafted well.

Take a look at the Giants’ roster, and what you’ll see is a team that’s succeeded mostly on the backs of homegrown players. Sabean did make a few savvy moves to bring in talent, most prominently the decision to give a one-year deal to Aubrey Huff, who was the team’s best hitter and will get some down-ballot MVP votes. He signed Pat Burrell off the scrap heap and Burrell rebounded better than anyone could have expected. Andres Torres, brought in last year as a 31-year-old outfielder with less than 300 career at-bats in the majors, had an out-of-body campaign. And Juan Uribe, signed to a modest two-year contract before the 2009 season, hit well while playing all over the infield.

I’m reluctant to give Sabean much credit for these moves, and not just because aside from Torres, every one of those players benefitted dramatically by moving from the AL to the inferior league. Sabean may have hit on those moves, but it doesn’t come close to making up for Barry Zito’s contract; for the ridiculous 5-year deal he gave Aaron Rowand after Rowand had a career year in the bandbox in Philadelphia; or the two-year deal he gave to Edgar Renteria’s corpse. Or the fact that the Giants traded Fred Lewis to the Blue Jays for future considerations in April, then spent the rest of the year so desperate for outfield help that they actually traded for Jose Guillen.

The reason the Giants are in the playoffs isn’t because their GM spent money wisely. It’s because, simply, they’ve done a pretty good job of drafting and developing talent.

Posey, we’ve already covered, although it’s worth noting how close the Giants came to not getting him. The Rays, with the #1 overall pick, narrowed their decision to between Posey and high school shortstop Tim Beckham. In one of the Rays’ few draft misfires, they went with Beckham, who is currently struggling to get out of A-ball. Sometimes you need a little luck in the draft, which is a nice segue to the fact that the Giants grabbed Tim Lincecum with the #10 pick in 2006.

There is simply nothing more important for the long-term health of a franchise than to hit it big with their first-round picks. A team that comes up with a Lincecum or a Posey in the first round every three years is going to be competitive no matter how bad they screw up everything else. And those two aren’t the only first-round picks that propelled the Giants to the playoffs this year. Matt Cain was selected with the #25 overall pick in 2002, and Madison Bumgarner was taken with the #10 pick in 2007.

The starting catcher and three-fifths of their rotation was drafted in the first round – and Sabean still deliberately surrendered his first-round pick for no reason at all. Look at the success the Giants had with their first-round picks in 2002, 2006, 2007, and 2008, and you can only wonder who the Giants might have drafted in 2004 or 2005 – if they hadn’t surrendered their first-round picks in both years.

Virtually every other significant contributor to the Giants was developed internally. Pablo Sandoval was signed as an teenager out of Venezuela in 2003, when Kung Fu Panda – the player and the movie – was still a distant dream. Jonathan Sanchez was a 27th-round find in 2004. The Giants had an astonishing run of finding quality pitchers deep in the draft; in addition to Sanchez, they drafted closer Brian Wilson in the 24th round in 2003, and set-up man Sergio Romo in the 28th round in 2005.

This all works its way back to the Royals, and Dayton Moore, and it’s the reason why I jumped back on the bandwagon this year. The Giants are proof that to build a playoff team, you don’t need to trade well, and you don’t need to spend money well. You simply have to draft well. The fact is that Brian Sabean, despite his many, many blunders over the years, cannot be considered a failure as a GM, because the Giants have done such a good job of drafting over the past decade that it covers over his mistakes.

I’m not close enough to the Giants’ situation to know whether it’s Sabean who deserves credit for that, or his scouting director, or someone else. But from my perspective, who gets that credit is irrelevant. The point is that the Giants, as an organization, have drafted well. And the Giants are in the playoffs. The point isn’t that Dayton Moore has done a terrific job of making trades or signing free agents. The point is that if the Royals draft well, then he can afford to make the occasional mistake in those other areas. Brian Sabean is proof positive that a GM doesn’t have to be perfect to be successful.

Some of you will point out that the Royals are handicapped by their payroll limitations, and have to do a better job with their money than the Giants do. That’s true, but that’s an overstated limitation. The Giants’ opening day payroll was a little north of $96 million. Simply take out Barry Zito and Aaron Rowand – as I’m sure most Giants fans would like to do – and you’re down to a little under $66 million. The Royals’ Opening Day payroll this year was about $75 million. Moore may have less margin for error than Sabean does – but Sabean has made some huge effing errors. With Guillen coming off the books this year, and Meche next year, Moore once again has payroll flexibility so long as he can avoid repeating his instant-gratification free agent contracts.

If Brian Sabean can lead his team to the postseason simply by drafting well, you can’t convince me that Dayton Moore can’t do the same thing. Particularly since nothing Moore has done can compare with the Pierzynski trade, or the Zito signing.

Going through this exercise just hit the point home even harder for me: if you want to know the single biggest reason why the Royals have sucked so bad, for so long, it’s not the financial limitations. It’s not the stupid trades for Neifi Perez and Roberto Hernandez. It’s this list:

Jeff Granger

Matt Smith

Juan LeBron

Dee Brown

Dan Reichert

Jeff Austin

Matt Burch

Chris George

Kyle Snyder

Mike MacDougal

Jay Gehrke

Jimmy Gobble

Mike Stodolka

Colt Griffin

From 1993 to 2001, the Royals drafted 14 players in the first or supplemental first round, including six guys in the Top 10. Every single player was a disappointment. Every. Single. Player.

From 2002 to 2005, the situation improves some:

Zack Greinke

Chris Lubanski

Mitch Maier

Billy Butler

Matt Campbell

J.P. Howell

Alex Gordon

Some big busts in there – and I’m this close to including Alex Gordon among them – but also some undeniable successes.

And then, starting in 2006 (sort of), the Dayton Moore era.

Luke Hochevar

Mike Moustakas

Mike Montgomery

Eric Hosmer

Aaron Crow

Christian Colon

It’s too soon to know whether this group will turn out to be a complete disaster like the first group, or a mixed bag like the second group. But there’s every reason to think that this group of players is different. It helps, of course, that most of these guys were taken at the very top of the draft. (Remarkably, the Royals drafted #1 overall in 2006 (Hochevar), #2 in 2007 (Moustakas), #3 in 2008 (Hosmer), #4 in 2010 (Colon)…and will be drafting #5 in 2011. At this rate, they should be drafting among the playoff teams in 2029 or so.)

But the presence of Montgomery, who was a supplemental first-rounder, on that list is a reminder that the Royals are finding talent everywhere, whether it’s in the second round (Johnny Giavotella), or the third (Danny Duffy and Wil Myers), or the fourth (Chris Dwyer) or the fifth (John Lamb), or the 11th (David Lough), or the 20th (Patrick Keating), or hell, the 50th round (Jarrod Dyson). Or even in Latin America, where they’ve signed Salvador Perez and Cheslor Cuthbert, among others.

This was – again – a trying season, and I’m as tired of looking to the future as everyone else. But as the chill rains come, and baseball stops and leaves you to face the fall alone, it’s important that one more time we stop and remember what this season was all about. It wasn’t about wins and losses. It was about prospects succeeding and failing. On that score, this season was a spectacular success.

A few months ago, I asked this rhetorical question: “Can you really call Dayton Moore the worst GM in baseball, or even one of the worst GMs in baseball, when he’s built the #1 farm system in the game in three years?” Some of you had a lot of fun with this question. Some of you answered, in all seriousness, that yes, you can still call Dayton Moore one of the worst GMs in baseball.

I think that’s wrong. I think that Dayton Moore has done the most important part of his job as well as we could have hoped. I think that we will start to taste the fruits of that success next year. Most of all, I think the lesson I’ve learned from Brian Sabean is that if Moore gets player development right, the Royals will be successful even if he makes the occasional mistake in the other parts of his job.

I’m not excusing the Guillen signing, or the Meche arm-shredding, or even the Yuni trade. What I’m saying is that when Moore blunders, as Royals fans we forget that all GMs make blunders. GMs can make mistakes – even horrendous mistakes – and still lead their team to the playoffs. As Royals fans, it’s been so long since we’ve seen a playoff team that we’ve lost all perspective of what it takes to build one. We’ve grown into this mindset that if our GM isn’t perfect, if he ever gets the short end of a trade, or if he ever spends millions of dollars on a free-agent flop, then we’re doomed.

As Brian Sabean has shown this year, we’re not doomed. So long as the system churns out talent.

Next year, the excuses end. Next year, the bill of goods comes due, and we have every right to expect to see the tangible results of this youth movement. If the Royals have a 2011 in which everything goes wrong – much like the Mariners’ 2010 – then you have my permission to jump off the bandwagon, because I’ll be jumping off with you.

But right now, I’m feeling pretty good about the future. The chill rains may have come – and for the 25th straight season, they’ve come early – but I’m not facing the fall alone. I’ve got the promise of the game’s #1 farm system to keep me company.

Luke, and Ned's Cool Hand.

“In my book Out of the Blue I told the story of when my first major league manager, Tommy Lasorda, gave me the nickname “Bulldog.” It was May of 1984, my first full year in the majors. I’ve often referred to the meeting in his office as “The Sermon on the Mound.” Because he had been told to, Ron Perranoski, my pitching coach, escorted me into Tommy’s office. I was carrying a 2-2 record and my ERA was a miserable 6.20. I knew I could do better than that and suspected that Tommy agreed. I was glad that Perry had come along – although Tommy wouldn’t have met with me, or any of his players, without their coach present.

No person had ever been more intimidating to me than Thomas Charles Lasorda. He was an enthusiastic leader, but although I had not played for him for more than a few months, I also knew that he was loud and brash. Verbally, he took no prisoners. A few days before this meeting, I had given up a two-out double in Houston to Jose Cruz with two men on base. Tommy was furious. But his anger was not directed at my mechanics or pitch selection. He was mad at me because he thought I was pitching timidly and didn’t believe in my abilities.

Now I was sitting in his office. “You don’t believe in yourself,” he shouted. “You’re scared to pitch in the big leagues. Who do you think these hitters – are Babe Ruth? Ruth’s dead! You’ve got good stuff. If you didn’t, I wouldn’t have brought you up. Quit being so careful. Go after the hitter. Get ahead in the count.”

Although I was being aired out, I was sure that I heard a compliment hidden in Tommy’s words. I’ve got good stuff? He brought me to the big leagues because he believes in me?

Tommy wasn’t done. “If I could get a heart surgeon in here, I’d have him open my chest and take out my heart. Then I’d have him open your chest, take out your heart, and tell him to give you mine. With my heart and your arm, you’d be in the Hall of Fame! I’ve seen guys come and go, son, and you’ve got it.”

Tommy finished his sermon with a flourish. “Take charge! Make ‘em hit your best stuff! Be aggressive. Be a bulldog out there.” And then, almost like he had surprised himself with a stroke of genius, he announced, “That’s going to be your new name: Bulldog. It’s the ninth inning, we bring you in and you’re facing Dale Murphy. He hears, ‘Now pitching, Orel Hershiser.’ He can’t wait till you get in there. But if he hears, ‘Now pitching, Bulldog Hershiser,’ he’s thinking, Oh, no, who’s that? Murphy’s going to be scared to death!”

I admit that I was a little insulted by the rah-rah pep talk and the nickname, but I knew Tommy had spoken the truth. I had been tentative and too careful. Two days later we were in a tough situation against the San Francisco Giants. The call came from the dugout, “Can anybody down there pitch?” The bullpen was spent so I volunteered, in spite of a tender elbow and an arm weak from overwork.

I’ll never forget the walk to the mound and the three innings that followed. I could hear Tommy shouting from the dugout, “C’mon, Bulldog! You can do it, Bulldog! You’re my man, Bulldog!” I was a major leaguer. I was good enough to be here and had what it took to win. And I started to believe it because it’s what my skipper had told me.

Tommy Lasorda had introduced me to the importance of truth-telling – tactless as it was – and the power of an encouraging coach.

- Orel Hershiser, Between the Lines: Nine Things Baseball Taught Me About Life

It wasn’t readily apparent, but by some measures, Luke Hochevar had a pretty good season in 2009.

In 143 innings with the Royals last season, Hochevar did his job pretty well. By “his job”, I mean the three things that a pitcher has the most control over: walks, strikeouts, and keeping the ball on the ground. Hochevar had a groundball rate of 47%, which is very good. (For comparison’s sake, the major league average is between 43 and 44%.) He walked just 46 batters, or 2.90 walks per 9 innings (the AL average was 3.39). He struck out 106 batters, or 6.67 Ks per 9 innings (the AL average was 6.86).

If that’s all you knew about Hochevar, you’d have to conclude that he was an average, maybe slightly above-average, starting pitcher in 2009. You’d be wrong, of course. Massively wrong.

Hochevar had his moments, as we all recall – the 80-pitch complete game, the 13-strikeout, no-walk gem, and the 3-hit shutout. In his other 22 starts, he got beaten like an extra in The Expendables. Hochevar finished the season with a 6.55 ERA – the highest in baseball for anyone with 100 or more innings.

Take those three starts out, and his seasonal ERA was 7.70.

There are a number of reasons why Hochevar turned a solid set of peripherals into the worst pitching in baseball. For one, despite being a groundball pitcher, he surrendered 23 homers in 143 innings – nearly 14% of flyballs hit against him cleared the fence, which is close to twice the usual average.

Secondly, he was a nightmare with men on base. Whether it was a matter of pitching poorly from the stretch as opposed to the windup, or a matter of him putting too much pressure on himself with men on base, or simple luck, the fact is that with no one base, Hochevar held opposing hitters to a line of .238/.302/.411. With men on base, they hit .364/.420/.628. With the bases loaded, batters were 4-for-7 with a double and a homer.

The xFIP stat is one of the best ways to calculate a pitchers’ “true” pitching ability – it calculates his ERA when you strip out all the luck out of his performance, and look simply at his ability to strike out batters, avoid walks, and keep the ball on the ground. Hochevar’s xFIP last season was a very solid 4.34. His ERA was 6.55 – a difference of 2.18.

Since 2002, when batted ball data became readily available and xFIP could be calculated, Hochevar has the greatest disparity between his xFIP and his ERA of any pitcher in a single season (min: 140 IP).

Pitcher Year ERA xFIP Diff.

Luke Hochevar 2009 6.55 4.34 2.20

Casey Fossum 2004 6.65 4.57 2.08

Carlos Silva 2008 6.46 4.64 1.82

Ricky Nolasco 2009 5.06 3.28 1.78

Manny Parra 2009 6.36 4.64 1.72

(Many thanks to Matt Klaassen for procuring this data for me.)

Early this year, it looked like more of the same. Through his first eight starts, Hochevar had made some progress – he had surrendered just one home run all season – but his inability to avoid the big inning saddled him with a 5.86 ERA.

“You manage two ways every night,” Yost said. “You manage for the small picture -- everything you can do to win tonight. But you also manage for the big picture, because we’re trying to change things around here. We’re trying to take ourselves to the next level.”

The last of those eighth starts was Hochevar’s first start under new manager Ned Yost. The start summed up Hochevar’s entire career to that point. He cruised through the first six innings, allowing two hits and one run, and the Royals led 4-1 going into the top of the seventh.

Hochevar had breezed through six innings when, with one out, he banged headlong into the big inning that has often betrayed him. But even as Mark Kotsay and Alexei Ramirez singled and Mark Teahen walked to load the bases, there was no stirring in the bullpen.

“We had that ballgame won. That’s on me; I gave that game away,” Hochevar said. “I need to get it done in that inning and get out of that. That’s not good.”

That’s what Yost and Hochevar discussed in the manager’s office right after the final out.

“Hoch is a guy that, when we get to the next level as an organization, he’s going to be a guy that's probably going to be a No. 2 or No. 3 starter, and he needs to find ways to not let that happen,” Yost said.

After retiring the first batter of the inning, Hochevar allowed five hits and a walk in succession. By the time he was pulled from the game, the game was tied, and Brad Thompson allowed a go-ahead sacrifice fly that would decide the ballgame.

“You can’t run and get him every time he gets in a little bit of trouble,” Yost said. “He has to learn how to pitch his way through that situation before he can really take it to the next level and, I mean, a 15- to 18-game winner and helping us win a championship.”

On Twitter, a frustrated blogger made it clear to the new manager that he needs to have a quicker hook with the shrinking violet that was his former #1 overall pick.

Peavy gave Hochevar a live demonstration on how to survive.

“Like I told Hoch, that's a perfect example,” Yost said. “Callaspo got the big hit in the first inning to give us a three-run lead, but Peavy stopped the bleeding and he settled down and made pitches right into the ninth inning. And that's the kind of guy I see Hoch becoming.”

Only after the game did it become clear that Yost deliberately left Hochevar out there even as his game fell apart. Yost was trying to lose the battle to win the war.

But the little picture was lost, as Yost took a chance on fixing the big picture with Hochevar.

“In terms of that, he has to learn how to take his game to the next level, and you don't do it by getting taken out of situations when you get in trouble,” Yost said. “And sometimes they hurt like tonight, but you can take a night that hurts and learn from it and become a better pitcher.”

There was no Sermon on the Mound that day. (By the way, I apologize for not quoting from Out of the Blue directly. I searched through all the storage boxes in my basement but could not locate my copy. Which is a shame, because after spending $18 for it – a lot of money for a 14-year-old in 1989 – it would be nice to actually get some use out of it.) But in leaving Hochevar out there to battle through adversity, Yost showed a confidence in his pitcher that Hochevar may not have had in himself.

From the time he was drafted, Hochevar has shown himself to be very intelligent, thoughtful pitcher – “thoughtful” in the sense that he is very aware of his strengths and weakness on the mound. He might have been too aware, in fact; perhaps the biggest criticism of Hochevar throughout his career has been that he has been too tentative on the mound, too quick to give the opposing hitters credit, too reluctant to go right after them, match strength against strength. He’s been missing a killer instinct, in other words.

On May 15th, Ned Yost, who had a long track record of instilling confidence in his young charges in Milwaukee, started to put his stamp on his new team, starting with his biggest enigma.

In Hochevar’s next start, threw his first complete game of the year, in a tidy 107 pitches. After allowing a two-run homer in the sixth inning – the Royals still led 6-3 – Hochevar retired the last 10 batters of the game. His next time out, Hochevar protected a 2-1 lead into the sixth inning. With one out, he gave up a single to Elvus Andrus and a game-tying triple to Michael Young. Hochevar stranded the tying run at third on a pair of grounds. The Royals re-took the lead with two runs in the bottom of the inning, and Hochevar worked two more scoreless innings before Joakim Soria closed out the 5-2 win.

Hochevar would give up five runs in his next outing, though he pitched well (two walks and 7 Ks in 7 innings). He was a hard-luck loser his next time, taking the loss despite allowing just one run in seven innings, striking out ten. He struggled in his start after that, on June 11th, after which it was revealed that his elbow was bothering him, and he missed nearly three months before returning. After a pair of abbreviated outings while he got his stamina back, he was let loose in his last start and threw six solid innings, allowing three runs.

All told, since Ned Yost sat him down for a talk, Hochevar has thrown 49 innings, allowed 46 hits, and has an excellent strikeout-to-walk ratio of 41 to 11. He has allowed 7 homers, but even so his ERA in that span is a very solid 3.86. In terms of runs allowed, this is easily the best stretch of Hochevar’s career.

For the season, Hochevar’s ERA is 4.79 – nearly two runs lower than last year’s mark – even though his xFIP is barely lower this year (4.25) than last (4.34). Is he really pitching better, or is his luck just evening out? I think it’s both. Certainly he was hurt by bad luck last year, and hurt by bad defense (only one of those things has evened out). But I also think that Hochevar has learned to staunch the bleeding. Last year, you knew that the minute Hochevar ran into some trouble, the wheels would come off. This year, he’s stayed on track through adversity. Maybe that’s the confidence imparted him to by Yost, simple maturation, or maybe it’s a mirage. But I don’t think it’s a mirage.

The simplest way to show the change in Hochevar’s results is to look at how many times he’s given up 3 or more runs in an inning. Hochevar started his career pitching long relief in September 2007, and began with a run of 15.2 consecutive non-3-run innings. That doesn’t sound like a particularly impressive streak, and it isn’t. But in his rookie season of 2008, he would have only one streak that was longer: after he was chased from the game by a 3-run sixth inning against the Twins on May 29th, Hochevar would make it until July 1st before giving up another 3-run inning, this time a 4-spot to the Orioles in the 3rd inning. In between, he threw 33.1 innings. They weren’t particularly good innings – he allowed 37 hits and 17 runs – but at least he was able to avoid any seriously crooked numbers in that span.

In 2009, Hochevar’s longest stretch without a 3-run inning was 24.1 innings. Over the last two months of the season, his longest stretch was just 13 innings. In his last seven starts, Hochevar had at least one 3-run inning in six of those starts (and in two of those starts he gave up 3 runs twice!) – the other start was his complete-game shutout.

Hochevar finished the season by allowing 12 runs in his final four innings – a 5-spot to end his start on September 28th, then a 3-spot and a 4-spot in the first three innings against the Twins on October 4th, helping the Twins to the sweep they needed to tie the Tigers for the AL Central.

Suffice it to say, by the end of the season he was a mess.

Hochevar started 2010 with the second-longest stretch of his career, 26.1 innings without allowing a 3-run outburst. His stretch ended when he gave up 5 runs to the Rays in the second inning on April 29th…and naturally, he gave up another 4 runs in the very next inning.

He allowed the Rangers to score 4 runs in the third inning on May 9th, and then on May 15th, with Ned Yost watching on, Hochevar surrendered the four runs in the seventh inning that cost the Royals the ballgame.

I’m not saying that Yost’s pep talk transformed Hochevar into a new man. All I’ll do is state the evidence, which is this:

Hochevar hasn’t given up three runs in an inning since.

Last Sunday, Hochevar gave up a two-run homer to Shin-Soo Choo in the first inning, then started the second inning by giving up back-to-back-to-back singles to plate a third run. The old Hochevar would have melted like the Nazis when they opened up the Ark of the Covenant. The new Hochevar retired the next three batters in succession, then went on to pitch four more scoreless innings and got the win.

Hochevar has now made 8 appearances and thrown 49 innings since Ned Yost gave him a talking-to, and has yet to allow more than 2 runs in any inning. That streak might well end tonight, but even if it does, it’s easily the longest such stretch of his career. And it makes me optimistic that Hochevar’s physical abilities, which are formidable, now come with the mental fortitude to match.

The narrative of Luke Hochevar is that he’s another failed #1 overall pick, another college starting pitcher who never showed the same stuff as a pro. That narrative is driven by Hochevar’s performance, but it isn’t supported by his stuff. Hochevar isn’t Bryan Bullington, who got hurt and never threw as hard after he signed with the Pirates as he did in college. He’s not Jeff Austin, who held out for 9 months and then showed up with 3-4 mph mysteriously missing off his fastball. Hochevar doesn’t have a dominant fastball, but he throws plenty hard, generally 92-93, and he has a full four-pitch repertoire. He never profiled as a prototypical ace, maybe, but he definitely projected as a #2 starter, and frankly his stuff still projects that way.

According to Pitch F/X data, Hochevar’s fastball has jumped in velocity this year, from an average of 91.8 mph to 93.6 mph this year. I’m a little skeptical about that, because the Pitch F/X data from Kauffman Stadium has been notoriously hot all season. (Analyst Mike Fast estimates that the average reading on pitches at Kauffman Stadium is 1.1 mph faster than at other ballparks.) But even if you factor in an adjustment for that, it appears Hochevar is throwing a little harder this year. Whether that’s a maturation thing, or whether he’s throwing harder because he’s learned to stop trying to be too fine with his pitches and just go after hitters, I don’t know. But it’s something.

I don’t think that Hochevar is going to suddenly turn into the second coming of Orel Hershiser. (For one thing, as I’ve detailed here, we’ve already seen the second coming of Orel Hershiser, and his name is Brandon Webb. I wrote that comparison three years ago, and since then the similarities between the two have only grown stronger. Four starts into his seventh full season in the majors, Hershiser tore his rotator cuff, and missed a season and a half. One start into his seventh full season in the majors, Webb tore his rotator cuff, and has missed almost two full seasons.)

But I do think that Hochevar has the power to re-write the narrative of his career. Hochevar has, unfairly I think, been labeled as another big draft mistake by the Royals, and all because a guy named Tim Lincecum was drafted by the Giants and won two Cy Young Awards in the next three years.

If you want to label, say, Alex Gordon a draft bust, the evidence is far stronger for that. Not only is Gordon a year further into his career, but the 2005 draft already is considered to be one of the best ever. Justin Upton went first overall; Ryan Zimmerman went fourth, Ryan Braun fifth, Troy Tulowitzki seventh. Ricky Romero, who went sixth, and who two years ago was considered the black sheep of this group, has suddenly turned into one of the better left-handed starters in baseball. Only Matt Jeff Clement, who went third, saves Gordon from being the worst pick in this group.

(And that’s not it. After the Rays whiffed on Wade Townsend with the eighth pick, the next four players selected were Mike Pelfrey, Cameron Maybin, Andrew McCutchen, and Jay Bruce. Of the first 12 picks in the 2005 draft, Gordon might have been the third-worst – and he’s still an average major league player.)

But the 2006 draft was far weaker, and the decision to take Hochevar first overall is far more defensible. Everyone likes to talk about Tim Lincecum, but you know where he was picked? Tenth – meaning that eight other teams also passed over him. If you think Hochevar was a bad pick, do you know who went second overall? A guy named Greg Reynolds – whose major league resume consists of 62 innings and an 8.13 ERA. That’s a bad pick.

Evan Longoria went third, but Brad Lincoln went fourth, and he’s still trying to establish himself in the majors. Brandon Morrow went fifth, and he’s suddenly emerged as one of the best power pitchers in the league. But none of those guys were considered to be worthy #1 overall picks. The guy who was the consensus Best Player in the Draft went sixth overall: Andrew Miller. Miller has a 5.74 career ERA, has suffered arm troubles, and this year was relegated to Double-A – where he had a had an ERA over six.

Yes, the Royals could have had Lincecum, who Kevin Goldstein recommended they take. They could have taken Clayton Kershaw, who went seventh overall and was my favorite (after Miller) heading into the draft. Or they could have taken Drew Stubbs, who went eighth. (I swear I remember reading somewhere – and I don’t remember where – that Dayton Moore, who had just been hired by the Royals but who was not allowed to participate in the draft, wanted the Royals to take Stubbs. That would have been a fascinating pick – Stubbs isn’t a star player, but his combination of power, speed, and great defense makes him one of my favorite breakout candidates for 2011.)

But they could have had Greg Reynolds, or Brad Lincoln, or Andrew Miller as well. It’s time to stop regretting what the Royals could have had with that pick, and recognize that the player we did get is better than a lot of the alternatives. And he’s only getting better. The Royals have a lot of problems to solve in their rotation. But Zack Greinke isn’t their only solution.

Royals Today: 9/16/2010.

Sorry about the long delay between posts. Sometimes real life gets in the way. Let’s try to catch up with a potpourri.

- A little over two weeks ago, I wrote that Wilson Betemit “is going to finish with the greatest partial season in the history of the Royals.” I also suggested that the Royals consider signing him to a 3-year deal after the season, rather than risk losing him to free agency after 2011 (or paying him a lot more to re-sign than they’d have to pay him now.) The comments section was rather skeptical of this suggestion.

“I wouldn't go paying Betemit too much money or commit for too long. He had 1,275 MLB at-bats prior to 2010 in which he had an OPS of 756, and that's also in line with what you'd expect from his minor-league hitting record.”

“If he would take a one year ML deal for 1 mil, fine. Anything more than that, let him walk.”

“[T]here is no need to think about a 3 year deal. Moustakas will be up no later than midseason, and Hosmer should be up to start '11. He will make for a nice utility guy next year, but I don't think there is a spot for him after that.”

So yeah, there was some skepticism, which I’m sure only intensified after Betemit started September in a 1-for-21 slide. But over the last seven games, Betemit has gone 13-for-29, with 3 doubles and 2 homers, including his first career grand slam. His seasonal line is now .317/.399/.552, in over 250 plate appearances. And I ask again: shouldn’t we at least acknowledge the possibility that this isn’t a fluke? And if it’s not, shouldn’t the Royals be looking to sign him to a long-term deal.

My friend Joe Sheehan came back with the retort that in 2008 and 2009, in roughly the same number of at-bats, Betemit hit .252/.287/.406, and that counts too. Which it does. But if we simply add together Betemit’s numbers for all three years, then from 2008 to today, in a sample size of 511 plate appearances (almost a full season), Betemit has hit .284/.345/.478 with 36 doubles and 18 homers. Is it that unrealistic to expect Betemit to hit .284/.345/.478 in a full season next year? And if not, isn’t that a guy worth signing for 3 years?

(Those of you who subscribe to Joe Sheehan’s Newsletter can read a much more extensive back-and-forth between Joe and I. If you don’t subscribe, you’re missing out.)

Or to look at this from another angle, this timely article from Fangraphs breaks down Betemit’s numbers from this season and comes to the unsurprising conclusion that he’s been awfully lucky in the batting average department. That’s hardly a surprise – you ordinarily can’t hit .317 while on pace to strike out 140 times unless you have massive power. But according to Fangraphs, even when you take the air out of Betemit’s batting average, you’re left with a projected line of .287/.373/.522. And I say again: are you sure you wouldn’t want that hitter around for the next 3 years?

Betemit, remember, is just 28 years old. The Royals signed Jose Guillen when he was 32; if the Royals signed Betemit to a 3-year deal, he wouldn’t be 32 when the contract ended.

The terms I suggested ($12 million for 3 years) came under some fire, and in fairness, I just pulled those numbers out of thin air. It’s quite possible that he would sign for less than that. He’s arbitration-eligible for 2011, and arbitration looks at a player’s production for the last two seasons, so Betemit’s brief and ineffective stint in the majors last year would keep his salary down. (As would the fact that he’s been a part-time player.) I’d be astonished if he made more than $2 million in arbitration.

A 3-year, $12 million deal would essentially tack on a 2-year, $10 million extension to his contract. That might be generous – I could see a 3-year, $10 million deal instead, or even 3 year, $9 million, with a $1 million buyout of a generous option for 2014. These are details best worked out by guys like Jin Wong, who do this full time and have access to the terms of every other contract in the major league for comparison’s sake. The point is that regardless of what the terms are, it’s a very manageable contract.

Would Betemit accept such a deal? I’m inclined to think he would. He’s made roughly $4 million in his career, which is good money for you and me but not the kind of money that sets him up for life. Signing a three-year deal now would put him into that kind of financial security, and still allow him to chase big dollars at the age of 32. He might well be willing to give up the chance to get double that money a year from now, in exchange for guaranteed millions today.

Much of the resistance to signing him stems from a concern about where he plays. His defense at third base has been awful – to the naked eye he looks subpar, and the defensive stats have him at around 9 runs below average in just a quarter of a season. That’s tough to do. And anyway, when Mike Moustakas is ready, he yields to no man.

But if Betemit hits like this, he has a better bat than any outfielder in the system except maybe for David DeJesus, who is a free agent after next season. And the corner outfield is perhaps the only position on the field where the Royals don't have a top prospect knocking on the door of the majors. I see Betemit playing third base for most of 2011, then right field for 2012 and 2013. Basically, Betemit can be the player that the Royals thought Mark Teahen would be – a guy who can move from third base to the corner outfield, dabble at first base, and hit well enough for all four positions.

Teahen is a worrisome comp for another reason, which is that Teahen’s 2006 is the closest comparison to Betemit’s 2010 in Royals history. Teahen hit .290/.357/.517 that year in 109 games, but Teahen only started hitting after he was demoted to Omaha early in the season. He returned on June 3rd, and the numbers are eerily similar:

Betemit: .317/.399/.552 in 263 PA

Teahen: .313/.384/.557 in 356 PA

Teahen, of course, never hit like that again, and it’s possible Betemit won’t either.

But I would argue that it’s a risk you have to take. Even if Betemit regresses like Teahen did, he’d still have some value as a super-utility player. Maybe not $4 million-a-season value, but he wouldn’t be Jason Kendall either. Fangraphs estimates that from 2007 to 2009 – the three seasons after his breakout mirage – Teahen was worth a total of $8.9 million. So even if Betemit’s 2010 is a mirage, a three-year deal is unlikely to pay him substantially more than he’s worth. And if it’s not a mirage, then he’ll be an absolute bargain.

If Betemit is going to stay in Kansas City long-term, though, it’s clear that it will be as a corner outfielder and not as a third baseman. Which is why I think that the Royals need to move Betemit to the outfield immediately, and play him out there every day until the end of the season. They simply have to find out if Betemit can play an acceptable outfield before making a long-term commitment. (This would also open up some playing time at third base for Josh Fields, assuming we can all stomach it.) Alex Gordon, who had never played the outfield before, has been surprisingly decent in left field – the defensive numbers put him at roughly league-average – and I’d like to think that Betemit can be as well, but there’s only one way to find out.

The fact that it hasn’t happened yet suggests that the Royals don’t consider Betemit a long-term solution, and will be content to either trade him at next year’s deadline, or let him walk after the season and (possibly) get draft picks for him.

We’ll see what happens. Dayton Moore almost never makes big contract decisions until the off-season, and there’s certainly no urgency to get a deal done in September. There are some valid reasons to be concerned about giving a three-year deal to a guy who was in Omaha barely three months ago. But it needs to be considered this winter, which is why it needs to be discussed – and why Betemit needs to be moved to the outfield – now.

- If the story of the summer months was Betemit’s breakout, the story of September has to be Brayan Pena. After spending five months locked away in a cupboard under the stairs, allowed out only when absolutely necessary and under strict orders not to do anything that would embarrass the family, Pena was finally and grudgingly given the starting job. And he’s run with it.

In the Royals’ first 126 games, through August 24th, Pena started just 12 times and had just 69 plate appearances. The rust showed; he hit .148/.221/.180, numbers that were so awful that they seemed unredeemable.

But Pena has started 15 of the Royals’ last 19 games, and has hit .397/.446/.552, including the first home run by a Royals catcher this season, and with more walks (6) than strikeouts (4). Remarkably, he became the first Royal all season to win Player of the Week honors. Pena’s seasonal numbers are all the way up to .269/.331/.361, which is close to his .273/.318/.442 line from last season.

When Kendall went out for the season, Ned Yost flatly stated that Pena would probably start 4-5 times a week, with Lucas May starting the other 2-3 times. But so far, May has started just twice all month. Which is as it should be. May seems like a decent backup at best, whereas Pena has borderline starter ability.

Even when he wasn’t hitting from April to August, Pena’s defense was very solid – his throws to second base had more zip, and he seemed to be moving better behind the plate. The Royals have spent a lot of time coaching him, and he has worked his ass off to get better. He’s thrown out 34% of attempted basestealers this year, and allowed just one passed ball. Frankly, the defensive concerns about Pena have always seemed overblown – he threw out 35% of basestealers last year. The defensive metrics at baseball-reference.com list him as a dead-average defensive player for both 2009 and 2010.

I hate to be insensitive, but Kendall’s injury has benefitted the Royals, both in 2010 and for the future. A year ago they had three catchers under contract for 2010, all three of whom were better than Kendall, and they went out and spent $6 million anyway. But Kendall is almost certainly out until May, and probably until July or August. In his place, the Royals have a 28-year-old switch-hitting catcher who projects as roughly a league-average hitter and fielder, a great work ethic, a wonderful and infectious attitude, and even after arbitration this winter is unlikely to make more than about $1 million. And they have a perfectly serviceable rookie backup catcher making the league minimum.

Hopefully Pena’s performance this month has convinced the Royals that their catching situation for next season is in good hands, and they avoid the temptation of bringing in yet another overpaid veteran catcher to tide things over until Kendall is ready to resume sucking. The Royals caught a break when Kendall went down, and they caught a bigger one when Pena started hitting. We can only hope that they appreciate the break that Pena has afforded them, and leave him in the starter’s role that he has earned.

- Speaking of minor-league free agents made good, what do the Royals do with Bruce Chen this winter? In his second go-round with the Royals, Chen has been a serviceable starting pitcher, a #5 starter in the scouting parlance. In the vernacular of the Royals, that makes him a #2. (Of the nine pitchers who have started at least five games for the Royals this year, Chen’s 4.70 ERA ranks behind only Zack Greinke.)

Chen’s not quite as good as his ERA suggests; he continues to walk too many batters for a guy who’s an incurable fly-ball pitcher. Chen’s xFIP, which is one of the best measures of what a pitcher’s ERA “should” be if he has a normal amount of luck, is 4.92. Last year, Chen’s ERA was more than a run higher (5.78), but his xFIP was barely a third of a run higher at 5.30. Some bad luck last year and some good luck year disguises the fact that he’s basically been the same pitcher both years.

I wouldn’t suggest that the Royals give Chen any kind of long-term deal or anything, but I would be perfectly happy if the Royals offered him a one-year contract in the $1.5 million range. (If they could offer Horacio Ramirez $2 million…) Chen’s in that sweet spot where he’s good enough to pitch in the back of a rotation, but not good enough to command a lot of money.

I’d almost prefer that the Royals re-up with Chen for one year rather than spend a lot of money on a superior starter in the free-agent market, because while the Royals have a lot of openings for next year’s rotation, I’m not sure there are any openings for 2012. Between the Fab Four lefties (Mike Montgomery, John Lamb, Danny Duffy, and Chris Dwyer) and Aaron Crow, the Royals have five pitching prospects, none of whom are likely to earn a rotation spot next April. But all five pitchers might be ready for a major-league audition between April and September.

Put it this way: if at least three of those five pitchers aren’t ready for the Opening Day rotation in 2012, then something’s gone wrong. And with Greinke and Luke Hochevar under contract for 2012, you could argue that the rotation is already set.

For 2011, then, the Royals need some stopgaps, guys who are better than replacement-level, but who won’t cost a ton of money and don’t require long-term commitments. Conveniently, they already have one in Kyle Davies, who has pitched well enough the last month to justify bringing him back for his final year before free agency.

If the Royals re-sign Chen, they go into the season with Greinke, Hochevar, Davies, and Chen, and can leave the fifth spot open for grabs – if someone like Montgomery or Duffy pitches lights out, they might force the Royals’ hand, and if not, then you settle for Sean O’Sullivan again, or one of the many Triple-A veteran options (Bryan Bullington, Philip Humber) or maybe some non-roster invitee. (I'm working under the assumption that Brian Bannister will be released.)

That’s not a particularly appealing rotation, but it’s a very flexible one – flexible in the sense that the minute one of your young studs is ready, you can accommodate him with a minimal amount of pain and effort. For that reason, I think it makes sense to bring back Bruce Chen. The price – both in terms of money and opportunity – is right.

- Finally, you might have noticed a common thread between the three players above. Betemit, Pena, and Chen were all 1) former Braves, and 2) acquired for free.

Dayton Moore’s ex-Brave fetish gets mocked a lot, at least somewhat deservedly. But it can’t be argued that, at least in 2010, his taste in ex-Braves has paid off in spades. If you’re going to have a weakness for players from another organization, at least have the good sense to pick a winning organization.

Forty Men. One Roster. Lots of Decisions.

Last September, the Royals elected not to bring up a prospect who hit .252/.392/.433 in Triple-A, and a certain writer blew his top and took a sabbatical. This September, the Royals have chosen not to promote Mike Moustakas to the majors, even though Moustakas has hit .324/.372/.638 for the season; if you like old-school stats, he has 36 homers and 123 RBIs. (He has 123 RBIs, and it’s not Labor Day yet, and he missed the first two weeks of the season with an oblique strain. Moustakas has 123 RBIs in 115 games*, which speaks as much to the quality of his teammates as to his own production.)

*: In the last 50 years, only 7 major-leaguers have had more RBIs than games played in a season. Six of the 7 played in the heart of the steroid era, from 1994 to 2000. The seventh player was George Brett, who in 1980 drove in 118 runs in 117 games.

And yet this same sportswriter agrees wholeheartedly with the decision to leave Moustakas in the minors, not to mention every other top prospect in what is arguably the game’s deepest farm system. What’s changed?

There are the obvious reasons – Ka’aihue was 25 and had spent two full seasons in the high minors, while Moustakas is just 21 and was in A-ball last year. Also, the Royals left Ka’aihue in Triple-A so they could play Mike Jacobs, whereas Moustakas would take playing time away from the far more intriguing Wilson Betemit (and the at-least-somewhat-worth-following Josh Fields.)

But the biggest reason is simple math. There are only 40 spots on a 40-man roster, and the Royals already have more than 40 players fighting for space.

In fact, the Royals currently have (as you can see here) 42 players on their 40-man roster. They can do this because players on the 60-day DL do not count against the limit. Gil Meche and Fields, both of whom were on the 60-day DL, were just activated, but the Royals asked David DeJesus and Luke Hochevar to take their place. (Jeff Bianchi has been out for the year, but if I understand things correctly, the rules allow teams to option a player to the minors even if they’re injured, so long as they didn’t play in the majors the previous year. Otherwise, Bianchi would be earning major-league service time. But I believe the Royals would have to promote him to the majors – accruing both salary and service time – in order to put him on the 60-day DL.)

Jason Kendall’s season-ending shoulder injury saved the Royals from having to release anyone to make room for Hochevar when Luke was activated yesterday.

(No injury is reason to celebrate, and I won’t. I will simply point out that while Kendall might have been a warrior to play through it, he also hit .200/.241/.225 in August. I love players who are warriors; I love players who don’t hurt their team because they’re too selfish to admit they can’t perform even more. Kendall's injury probably saved Brayan Pena’s career in Kansas City, and makes the acquisition of Lucas May far more significant than I ever thought it would be.)

So it’s no surprise that on September 1st, aside from Meche and Fields, the only player the Royals called up was May, who’s already on the 40-man roster. Even after the minor league season ends next week, I doubt we’ll see anyone called up who’s not already on the 40-man. The Royals have hinted at calling up a third catcher now that Kendall’s out, and conveniently Manny Pina is on the roster (although he’s with Northwest Arkansas, who will probably be playing in the Texas League playoffs until the middle of the month.) I suspect that the Royals will want to scratch their Jarrod Dyson itch, to use him as a pinch-runner and defensive replacement if nothing else. But I won’t be surprised if they are the only two additions to the active roster the rest of the month.

The only other player on the roster who’s a candidate for the 60-day DL would be Kanekoa Texeira. Which means that the Royals have, at most, one roster spot to play with before they start cutting guys. I’m not averse to cutting some of the guys on the 40-man roster – Gaby Hernandez and Victor Marte, I’m looking at you – but it complicates things.

What really complicates things, though, is that the Royals have to add a whole slew of guys to the 40-man roster between now and the Rule 5 Draft. In past years, the Royals looked at the Rule 5 Draft as a potential source of new talent, because they always had a high draft pick, and because they had so little talent themselves that they were rarely at risk of having one of their own players picked.

Here’s a list of all the players the Royals drafted in the last decade (not counting guys who were drafted only to be traded for cash to another team immediately afterwards.)

2009: Edgar Osuna (4th)

2006: Joakim Soria (2nd)

2005: Fabio Castro (1st) – immediately traded to Texas for Esteban German

2004: Andrew Sisco (2nd)

2003: Jason Szuminski (10th) – immediately traded to San Diego for Rich Thompson

2002: D.J. Carrasco (6th)

2001: Miguel Asencio (3rd)

2000: Endy Chavez (5th)

Some of these guys are busts, but when you consider how low the batting average on Rule 5 picks – even high picks – is, the Royals have actually done awfully well. Soria by himself justifies a decade of Rule 5 picks, but snagging Esteban German at the winter meetings in 2005 was one of Allard Baird’s last good moves for the Royals. Sisco gave the Royals one good year in relief, and was later traded for Ross Gload. Carrasco was a key part of the bullpen in the miracle 2003 season; he spent three years with the Royals, and his ERAs read 4.82, 4.84, and 4.79.

Asencio is most notable for what might have been. In 2002, as a 21-year-old rookie, he had perhaps the worst major league debut of all time – 16 pitches, 16 balls – but recovered to post a respectable 5.11 ERA. In 2003, he was a big part of that 17-4 start; he worked as the team’s #3 starter behind Runelvys Hernandez and Jeremy Affeldt, and the Royals won his first 6 starts, the last a masterful 114-pitch complete game. That start might have ruined him; he struggled in two more starts, then required Tommy John surgery. Even worse, he was one of the few pitchers who failed the surgery and required a second operation – aside from 8 innings with Colorado in 2006, he never pitched in the majors again.

The Royals kept Endy Chavez on the roster all season, then waived him over the winter – he eventually landed in Montreal and had a nice sophomore season on his way to a nine-year (and counting) major league career.

That list would look even better if the Royals had found a way to hold on to another player – in 2002, the Royals actually drafted twice, and their second pick was Ronny Paulino. Paulino would be sent back to Pittsburgh the following spring, and he clearly wasn’t ready – but 3 years later, as a rookie catcher for the Pirates, he would hit .310, and he’s still catching most days for the Marlins.

The point is that the Royals have found a fair amount of talent in the draft, while losing almost none. Here’s a – much shorter – list of the players that were drafted from the Royals over the last 10 years:

2008: Gilbert de la Vera

2006: Adam Donachie

2005: Seth Etherton

2001: Corey Thurman and Ryan Baerlocher

Neither Baerlocher nor de la Vera made their new team’s roster – de la Vera was a bizarre pick, a pitcher with neither good numbers nor a good scouting report, and it’s never been entirely clear what the Astros saw in him. Etherton had just signed with the Royals as a minor-league free agent two weeks before the Padres drafted him; he didn’t make the Padres roster, and the Royals actually bought him back the following May. Donachie was drafted after a season when he hit .212/.310/.299 as a catcher in Double-A. You will not be surprised to learn that he didn’t make the Orioles’ major-league roster either.

That leaves only one player who made an appearance with his new team – Corey Thurman, who gave the Blue Jays a respectable rookie season (68 IP, 4.37 ERA) in 2002. I can only blame myself for his loss. You see, prior to that draft, in an early iteration of “Rany on the Royals” for Baseball Prospectus, I wrote about the upcoming Rule 5 draft and the risk that the Royals might lose some players. In particular, I wrote that “The Royals' decision to leave Corey Thurman off the 40-man roster, though, is much more dangerous, and nearly inexplicable.”

What I did not know – could not have known – was that at the very same winter meetings, my colleague Keith Law was engaged in discussions with the Toronto Blue Jays, discussions that would soon lead to a job in their front office. Keith would later tell me (after he was officially hired a few weeks later) that he had shared my column with J.P. Ricciardi before the draft. By highlighting a player I thought the Royals might lose, I inadvertently helped them lose him.

Anyway, Thurman would only pitch 15 more innings in the majors after his rookie season.

One of the big concessions the MLBPA made to the owners in the last Collective Bargaining Agreement was to give teams an additional year before drafted players would be eligible for the Rule 5 Draft – it used to be that players under the age of 19 were eligible to be drafted after their fourth season, while players 19 and older were eligible after their third. This was expected to weaken the impact of the draft, and it has.

Ironically, the first draft after the CBA changed yielded two impact players – the Royals took Joakim Soria 2nd, and with the next pick the Cubs drafted Josh Hamilton (who was traded to the Reds in a pre-arranged deal.) And Jesus Flores, drafted 5th, has shown a lot of promise for the Nationals as a catcher, though he's missed all of 2010 with shoulder surgery. But since then, the draft has been kind of pointless.

It’s easy to laugh at the Royals for drafting Edgar Osuna with their pick last year, given that the Braves thought so little of his talents that they declined to take him back for the bargain price of $25,000 at the end of spring training. But of the three players taken before Osuna, two (Jamie Hoffman and Ben Snyder) didn’t make their new team’s roster out of spring training, and the other (John Raynor) got two hits with the Pirates before they tired of carrying him and offered him back to the Marlins in early May.

Of the 17 guys who were selected in last December’s draft, only 3 have survived into September without being cut: Hector Ambriz, who has generally sucked out of the Indians’ bullpen all season; David Herndon, who has quietly pitched garbage relief for the Phillies; and Carlos Monasterios, the best of the lot, who has a 4.02 ERA for the Dodgers and has even made 11 starts this year.

The only other pick of note is Kanekoa Texeira, who was waived by the Mariners in June, but who pitched reasonably well for the Royals before his elbow started barking.

So anyway, the Rule 5 Draft has been declawed, and while that may have kept the Royals from finding some premium talent the last few years, it will almost certainly be a blessing now that the Royals are burgeoning with young talent.

As it is, the following players will have to be added to the roster after the season to keep them from being exposed in this December’s draft:

- Ed Lucas. He’s already 28, but he’s hitting .308/.396/.487 and over the last two seasons has played every position but pitcher and catcher. Scouts seem to think he can be at least a utility guy in the majors, sort of a cheaper, slightly better, Ivy League-educated version of Willie Bloomquist. Need to protect: moderate.

- David Lough. Drafted as a fairly raw college athlete – he played on a football scholarship, I believe – he has been slowly converting his tools into skills. He suddenly learned the strike zone halfway through the season, and since the Triple-A All-Star Break he’s hit .314/.401/.462. Need to protect: high.

- Clint Robinson. Yeah, he’s 25. He’s also hitting .332/.409/.625. Since June 1st, he’s batting .380 and slugging .746. Need to protect: insane.

- Derrick Robinson. He’s cooled off to a .283/.344/.375 line, but he might be the fastest player in the division (50 steals), and he’s still just 22. Need to protect: off the charts.

- Paulo Orlando. Hitting .308/.370/.470, with 24 steals, and excellent defense. Still just 24. And as a bonus, when he makes the majors, millions of young Brazilian boys will throw away their soccer balls and beg their parents to buy them a Royals hat. Need to protect: high.

- Everett Teaford. I don’t know what to make of this guy. The scouting report says he’s your standard-issue soft-tossing lefty. But his character is off the charts – in 2009 he won the inaugural Mike Sweeney Award, “which recognizes a player who best represents the organization on and off the field.” More importantly, after striking out 91 batters in 145 innings in 2009, he’s whiffed 117 batters in 104 innings in 2010. Need to protect: low to moderate.

- Nicholas Francis. I really don’t know what to make of this guy. Francis was suspended by the team and missed the entire 2007 season; the reasons were never divulged, but his co-conspirator Jason Taylor was later suspended by MLB for marijuana usage. He’s behind the development curve, but Francis is hitting .282/.328/.509 for Wilmington, and – you know this is coming – he’s hitting .300/.362/.582 on the road. (If his suspension year doesn’t count for purposes of Rule 5 eligibility, which I find unlikely, then he would not need to be protected.) Need to protect: low to moderate.

- Bryan Paukovits. Pitched great for Burlington, not so well for Wilmington, and he’s 23. Need to protect: low.

- Chris Hayes. Oh, wait…

And I’m not even entertaining the possibility of protecting guys like Tim Smith or Jamie Romak or a million mid-level relievers who might get picked but aren’t worth losing sleep over.

Conservatively, that’s at least five and maybe six guys who need to be added to the roster. I count only two pending free agents on the roster in Bruce Chen and Willie Bloomquist. That means that the Royals will have to DFA at least 3 or 4 guys after the season. That’s not necessarily a difficult point of order – in addition to the minor league guys like Hernandez and Marte, I can think of at least a few guys in the majors (Jesse Chavez, come on down!) who deserve the boot.

But every additional player the Royals add to the 40-man roster will require them to cut deeper, and eventually they’re going to run out of fat and start cutting into muscle. And keep in mind the Royals will probably want to keep at least a spot or two on the roster open for potential free agents to sign. The Royals might wind up promoting one of the guys I listed above this month, figuring that if they're going to be added to the roster anyway, there's no harm in getting a look at them now. But I will be stunned if they add anyone else. If Moustakas hasn't earned a look, no one has.

Be thankful it’s not worse. Under the old rules, where prospects gained their Rule 5 eligibility a year earlier, the Royals would have to protect their 2007 high school picks (Mike Moustakas, Danny Duffy), their 2008 college picks (Johnny Giavotella), and their young Latin American catcher (Salvador Perez) for starters. That would have been a potential bloodbath on the level of the 2003 Pittsburgh Pirates, who – in what has to be one of the most humiliating moments in major league history – had five of their players selected in the first six picks. Other teams were openly laughing in the draft room. (The last of those five players? Jose Bautista.)

So it’s okay to be upset that we won’t get a look at Moustakas this month, and that we probably won’t see Seabiscuit (Tim Collins) launch low-90s fastballs from his batboy frame, and that Louis Coleman won’t get the look-see that he certainly deserves.

Just understand that there’s a very good reason why. It’s the best of reasons, actually.