2013 Top Prospects: #1

For the second straight season, the Royals have played well enough in the second half to give us legitimate reason to think that, with an off-season of maturation and a few savvy roster additions, they might be ready to contend next year. Since the All-Star Break, the Royals have scored more runs (285) than they’ve allowed (284).

Unfortunately, last year they also scored more runs than they allowed after the All-Star Break (328-313), and we saw how well that turned out.

Still, the Royals have basically been a .500 team on paper since the Break, which not coincidentally is around the time they got Salvador Perez (and Lorenzo Cain) healthy and jettisoned the likes of Jonathan Sanchez and Yuniesky Betancourt. In the AL Central, where 89 wins will probably take the division this year, there is absolutely no excuse for a .500 team to go into the off-season without a firm expectation that they will contend next year. Particularly a team with the youngest offense in the majors for the second straight year, and a team that won’t lose a single meaningful player off its roster to free agency (with the exception of Jeremy Guthrie, I suppose.)

All this talk about 2014 is, frankly, a cop-out. The Royals can win in 2013 if they make the right moves. It is therefore incumbent that they make the right moves.

So in the limited time that I have to devote to this blog, I plan to focus on a few big things. The “For Want of a Pitcher” series is scheduled to return soon, looking at the many, many options the Royals have to upgrade their rotation between now and spring training. I’ll be grading out the current roster once the season ends, figuring out who should stay and who should go. And I’ll be breaking down the Royals’ top prospects as time allows. Aside from being an endeavor I particularly enjoy – dreaming about the future is always more fun than lamenting the present – if the Royals are going to acquire quality starting pitchers, they’re probably going to trade prospects at some point. If they’re going to trade prospects, then it’s a good idea to know which prospects are disposable and which ones are untouchable.

Writing about prospects also makes it easier for me to artificially raise my article count – rather than writing about them 10 or 15 at a time, I might write about them 2 or 3 at a time and get my evaluations in your hands that much faster. Or, like today, I might write about just one of them.

#1: Wil Myers

Pos-B: RF-R

H-W: 6’3”, 205 lb

DOB: 12/10/1990 (Age 21)

Signed: 3rd Round, 2009, NC HS ($2 million)

Overall Rank in Baseball: Top 5

Stats:

2009: .315/.429/.506 in low A/high A

2010: .254/.353/.393 in AA

2011: .314/.387/.600 in AA/AAA

It’s not exactly a stretch to put Myers at #1; he is Baseball America’s Minor League Player of the Year, the third Royal to be so honored (after Tom Gordon and Alex Gordon). It’s important to note that he’s not the best prospect in baseball – the award is given to the top prospect who had the best season, but that’s not necessarily the same thing. Jurickson Profar, who didn’t have the numbers Myers did but is 19 years old and a quality shortstop, is a better prospect. Oscar Taveras probably is. Dylan Bundy, even though he’s a pitcher, probably is.

But after those three, there’s no one clearly better. Myers rebounded from his injury-plagued 2011 and then some, a rebound which started in the Arizona Fall League. He hit 37 home runs, finishing second in the minors, and actually led the minors if you count his postseason exploits. He hits for average, he walks a fair amount, and he has enough defensive versatility that the Royals played him at third base 15 times for reasons not clearly evident. (Myers actually played 87 games in center field, and only 18 in right. But he’s a right fielder, if not right away then soon enough.)

Meanwhile, with Lorenzo Cain out for the rest of the year, the Royals are platooning Jason Bourgeois and David Lough.

You might think that I’m upset with this arrangement, with the Royals giving playing time to a pair of non-prospects while their best prospect, who has destroyed pitching at the highest levels of the minors, got sent home after Omaha was eliminated from the PCL finals. You would be wrong.

I was annoyed with the Royals for not bringing him up in July, or even in early August, when it was clear that he had passed every reasonable hurdle in the minor leagues. But given that the moment has passed, I think it would be a waste of resources to bring Myers up in September. For one, the Royals aren’t playing for anything. The Rangers and Orioles are, which is why Profar and (now) Bundy are both in the majors. If those teams were buried under .500, they would have left their prized prospects in the minor leagues as well.

The Royals have publicly stated that roster issues have forced their hand in keeping Myers in Triple-A. As the prospect wave continues to mature, the Royals have a lot of players who will become eligible for the Rule 5 draft this winter if they are not protected on the 40-man roster. Because Myers was drafted out of high school in 2009, he is not eligible for the Rule 5 draft, so keeping him in the minors and off the 40-man roster opens up a spot for someone who might otherwise be left off and drafted by another team. Whereas someone like Jake Odorizzi, who was drafted in 2008, IS eligible for the Rule 5 draft, needs to be added to the 40-man roster anyway – so he got called up.

There’s nothing wrong with this line of thinking, but I think it’s more a convenient excuse for the real reason than anything else. The real reason to keep Myers on the farm is – or should be – that you have a chance to delay free agency by a year. In order to do that, though, it’s not enough to keep Myers in the minors all of this season – it also means starting next season with Myers in Triple-A, at least for about three weeks.

As well as he played this season, I thought that it would be almost impossible to justify sending him back to Omaha to start next year, which is why I was agitating for him to get called up around the All-Star Break. But having made it this far, there’s a chance the Royals can pull it off. They did so two years ago with Mike Moustakas, who was nearly as dominant as Myers has been. Moustakas hit .322/.369/.630 between Double-A and Triple-A, but in Triple-A hit .293/.314/.564. More importantly, in 52 games he walked just eight times – that was sufficient reason to send him back to start last season, to work on his plate discipline.

Myers didn’t really have that problem – after his promotion to Omaha, he hit .304/.378/.554, and walked a healthy 45 times in 99 games. He did strike out 98 times, and 140 times for the season. That’s not an enormous total, but the Royals have conveniently focused on his strikeout rate as proof that he still has things to work on. Myers had never struck out even 100 times in a season before 2012. He had also never hit even 15 home runs in a season, but if that’s the argument that succeeds in getting him back to Omaha for a refresher next spring, we can overlook the logical fallacy embedded in it.

It’s hardly a lock that Myers will go back to Triple-A at all. I imagine the plan is that he’ll come to spring training “with a chance to win a job”, as it were. But for that to happen, 1) he’ll have to rake in March and 2) Jeff Francoeur will have to look even worse than he has all of 2012. As aggravating as it is that Frenchy is still on the books for 2013 (at $7.5 million!), his presence and that contract will give the Royals the opening they need to send Myers back to Omaha to start the year. It means that Francoeur basically gets the month of April to plead his case for his job, and if he doesn’t hit out of the gate, Myers gets his job by Mother’s Day. Will it be a buzzkill to see Francoeur in right field on Opening Day? Yes. Is it worth losing a few weeks of Myers when he’s 22 to get another year of service time from him when he’ll be 28 (and essentially at his peak)? Absolutely.

Still, this whole situation puts the Royals in a very awkward position, one in which they’re essentially rooting for their best prospect to not play too well and force their hand. Fortunately, I have an idea that eliminates this problem and is a win-win for everyone involved.

Five years ago, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays had a similar problem on their hand. Evan Longoria, who like Myers today was 21 years old, had completed a fantastic minor league season, hitting .307/.403/.528 between Double-A and Triple-A. He hadn’t advanced quite as far as Myers had – he only played 31 games in Triple-A, and hit .269/.398/.490 there – but he was also a superior defensive third baseman. He had entered the season as Baseball America’s #7 prospect in the land, and was #2 overall when the rankings came out the next spring. It was very clear in spring training 2008 that Longoria was ready for the major leagues.

Instead, the Rays (they had just dropped the Devil) sent Longoria back to Triple-A Durham to start the year. It looked like a clear manipulation of service time, especially when they called him up after he had played just SEVEN games there (and was just 5-for-25). Longoria made his major-league debut on April 12th, just two days past the point at which he would have qualified for free agency a year early. It looked to the outside layman like Longoria might even have a grievance on his hands.

Longoria never filed a grievance, because he was too busy negotiating a long-term contract. On April 18th – six days into his major-league career – Longoria signed a six-year contract with the Rays with three option years. He was guaranteed $17 million over the six years, and a maximum of $44 million if all the options were exercised. Obviously, the negotiations had started before Longoria had been called up.  His demotion to Triple-A to start the year was only a formality until the contract was finalized.

The Rays didn’t screw over Longoria by delaying his service time for a year – instead, they got him to sign what is widely considered to be the most club-friendly contract in baseball today, if not of all time. If Longoria had been a free agent after the 2014 season, he’d be in line for $20 million a year or more. Instead, the Rays can keep him for $11 million in 2014 and $11.5 million in 2015. Oh, and sending Longoria back to Triple-A briefly in 2008 didn’t hurt the Rays in the development of their young team – they went from 66-96 in 2007 to 97-65 and the World Series.

Which brings us back to Wil Myers. Myers, unlike Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas, is not represented by Scott Boras, which is a sign that he should be amenable to at least listening to a long-term deal. He got $2 million out of the draft, which is big money to you and me, but compared to the $4 million Moustakas got and the $6 million Hosmer got, it’s not exactly money he can retire on – so he might be amenable to trading long-term upside for the security of a guaranteed payout.

So yes, this is exactly what I’m advocating: between now and spring training, Dayton Moore needs to open negotiations with Wil Myers and his agents on a long-term contract, one that will potentially (if all options are exercised) keep Myers under club control for nine years. Assuming Myers went back to Triple-A for long enough to delay free agency by a year, it would only buy out two years of free agency, which should be acceptable for a young player in exchange for being set for life.

I think I’ve argued for the Royals to offer a long-term contract to every good young hitter they’ve developed since John Hart and the Cleveland Indians pioneered the concept back in the early 1990s. Unless my memory is slipping, though, the Royals didn’t pull it off even once until Dayton Moore was hired. (The closest they came was Mike Sweeney, who was close enough to free agency that they paid close to market value, and the contract turned into an albatross.) For all the mistakes Moore has made, his aggressiveness in this regard has been an enormous boon to the organization.

Starting with Joakim Soria, then getting Zack Greinke signed just before he went all Cy Young on us, buying out two years of free agency on Billy Butler and Alex Gordon, and culminating with the perfectly-timed Salvador Perez and Alcides Escobar deals, Moore has done a fantastic job of keeping his best players in the fold at below-market prices. Obviously, the earlier you start the better – Greinke, Gordon, and Butler gave a modest discount on their services, while Perez’s and Escobar’s contracts are borderline theft. Perez, in fact, might succeed Longoria as the player with the most team-friendly contract in the game. (Grant Brisbee made that very argument earlier this week.)

Precisely because of Moore’s track record in this regard, I think the biggest impediment to this kind of contract – ownership signing off on it – is a hurdle that can be overcome. “Mr. Glass, you remember when I came to you and asked if you’d guarantee $7 million to our young catcher no one had heard off? Now he’s the second coming of Johnny Bench, and between now and 2019 we’ll pay him less than Joe Mauer makes this year alone. Our young shortstop who plays Gold Glove defense, has 30 steals, and is flirting with .300? He’s ours through 2017 for the same price. So I hope you’ll trust my judgment when I tell you I think we should guarantee this Wil Myers kid eight figures…”

How much will it take to get Myers signed? The Longoria contract sort of ruined it for top prospects – it’s pretty universally agreed that he gave the Rays too much of a discount. That wouldn’t affect someone like Perez, who wasn’t an elite prospect coming up, but for a can’t-miss guy like Myers that matters. Longoria got $17/6 guaranteed, $44/9 upside. The Royals won’t get a deal that good, and there’s inflation on top of that. So…$26/6 guaranteed, $56/9 upside? Myers wouldn’t be arbitration-eligible for the first three years of the contract, so he’d make no more than about $2 million for those three years anyway. That means he’s being guaranteed $8 million a year for his first three arbitration years, and $10 million a year in options for his last arbitration year and two free agency years. (Probably divvied up as $8M/$11M/$11M.)

That’s a huge chunk of change, enough for Wil Myers to retire on even if he suffers a career-ending injury the next day (unless he spends money like Vince Young). But it’s absolutely something the Royals can afford. If Myers is the biggest prospect bust of all time, they’re out $26 million – so what? They wasted more than that on Jose Guillen. But even if he turns into just a solid-average player, a Hunter Pence or something, that contract represents only a mild overpay. And if he’s a perennial All-Star right fielder, well, the Royals have an All-Star for no more than $11 million all the way through 2021. (2021!)

I don’t think it’s likely that this will happen; no player has ever signed a long-term deal while still in the minors. (Although Longoria was almost still in the minors when he signed his; he was only called up because of an injury.) But Moore has the track record to make me think it’s possible. I'm sure he'd like to get one of the Hosmer/Moustakas/Myers triumvirate signed long-term, and the other two guys ain’t interested. You’d like to think he has earned the confidence of ownership at this point. And as he learned from Salvador Perez, while there’s risk in putting your trust in a player so soon, there’s also immense reward. If you truly believe that Wil Myers can be an above-average regular in the majors – not even a star, just above average – then there’s no better time to get him signed to a contract than before he’s cashed his first big-league paycheck.

So get it done, Dayton. Give us all another spring surprise, get Myers signed in March, and then you don’t have to adhere to some artificial timetable as to when he gets called up – he’ll make the team the moment he deserves to, and not a moment later.

I was at the Futures Game when Wil Myers was introduced, and 40,000 fans gave him a standing ovation. I can’t wait to see what kind of reception he’ll get in his first major-league at-bat at Kauffman Stadium, if the fans know he’s theirs well into the next decade.

Jeremy and Luke.

It’s a cliché at this point, but whether the Royals have a shot at contending in 2013 ultimately comes down to whether they can put together a starting rotation that even approaches mediocrity. Even with an adequate rotation, they could be in for another losing season if their young lineup does a collective Hosmer, or if the bullpen decides to remind us that even the best collections of relievers are ephemeral. But if the rotation once again has an ERA above 5 and ranks 12th in the AL, discussion of the offense and the bullpen will be academic.

From the ashes of one of the most embarrassing trades the Royals have ever made, Dayton Moore may have found a solution for the rotation. A month ago Moore had traded the All-Star Game MVP and NL batting leader for Jonathan Sanchez. Today, he’s traded a disgraced PED user for Jeremy Guthrie. I’m not saying that Moore looks a lot smarter today, but Jeremy Irons is all set to play him in the movie.

Since joining the Royals, Guthrie has a 3.70 ERA in nine starts; after allowing 14 runs in his first three starts, he’s allowed just 12 in his last six. He had a stretch of 22 consecutive scoreless innings, punctuated by a start in which – upon review – he did not give up a hit until there were two out in the eighth inning. I believe that’s the deepest the Royals have taken a no-hitter since Bret Saberhagen threw their last one in 1991.

And six weeks after the Rockies were so desperate to get rid of him that they traded him for Jonathan Sanchez, Jeremy Guthrie is the ace of the Royals’ staff. He’s also a free agent at the end of the season, and the Royals have a difficult decision to make. Guthrie has said publicly that not only would he like to re-sign with the Royals, but that he’s willing to talk about a contract before the season is over. Dayton Moore said yesterday that the Royals will “probably” wait until the season ends before talking contract.

Some caution is warranted here, because it’s so hard to pin down Guthrie’s value. It’s not just that he didn’t look nearly this good six weeks ago. It’s that he didn’t look nearly this good six months ago, coming off a season in which he led the AL in losses, with a 4.33 ERA, and more hits (213) than innings pitched (208). Guthrie also allowed 26 homers, with a strikeout-to-walk ratio of barely 2-to-1 (130 to 61). I wrote about him last winter as a possible acquisition target for the Royals, but 1) I wrote about a lot of guys and 2) I wasn’t that high on him. I had him ranked 10th on my list of trade targets, behind guys like Mike Pelfrey and Charlie Morton.

One of the things that made me nervous about Guthrie is that, quite frankly, his peripheral numbers were never as good as his ERA – he was sort of the anti-Hochevar in that regard. In the five years that Guthrie pitched for the Orioles, his BABIP was never higher than .287, and was as low as .255. Your typical BABIP should be around .300; Guthrie was exceeding that year after year. That might be sustainable if you’re an extreme flyball pitcher (see Chen, Bruce), but Guthrie isn’t quite that extreme.

This year, with the Rockies, Guthrie’s BABIP was .323, which is pretty typical for that ballpark. Since joining the Royals, it’s back down to .281.  His career BABIP is .279. Maybe he really does have the ability to prevent hits on balls in play, but if he does, it seems sort of strange that Jeremy Guthrie is better in that regard than Roger Clemens (.286) or Greg Maddux (.286) or Randy Johnson (.295) or even Pedro Martinez (.282).

But if he doesn’t have the ability, he’s done a remarkably consistent job of faking it for six years now, his Colorado experience notwithstanding.

It’s not even his Colorado experience so much as his Coors Field experience. Even with the Rockies, with whom he had a 6.35 ERA, Guthrie pitched fine away from Denver. Here are his numbers this year:

Coors Field: 42 IP, 67 H, 14 HR, 9.50 ERA

On the Road as a Rockie: 49 IP, 55 H, 7 HR, 3.67 ERA

As a Royal: 56 IP, 53 H, 6 HR, 3.70 ERA

Guthrie made seven starts at Coors Field this year. He allowed at least four runs in all of them, at least five runs in six of them, and at least six runs in five of them. With Coors Field playing as it did in the pre-humidor days, Guthrie’s inability to get anyone out there can hardly be held against him.

So I wanted to take a closer look at Guthrie’s tenure with the Orioles. He wasn’t an elite starter with them; in 983 innings he had a 4.12 ERA, which was 6% better than league average during his time there. But there’s a giant caveat there: he pitched for the Orioles. In the AL East. On the one AL East team that wasn’t a scary juggernaut team for almost his entire time there, or in the case of the Blue Jays, a team that might have contended in any other division in baseball.

Guthrie averaged 31 starts and 197 innings a season, with an above-average ERA, against what I’m guessing was a higher caliber of competition than any other pitcher in the world faced in that timeframe. He threw 441 of his 983 innings (45%) against the Red Sox, Yankees, Blue Jays, and Rays. How much better would he have been had he pitched in a different environment? More to the point, how much better might he be if he stays with the Royals, facing the AL East titans barely one-third as often?

I tallied up Guthrie’s record from 2007 to 2011, and divided it between his performance against the AL East, and his performance against everyone else. The numbers:

AL East: 441 IP, 463 H, 140 BB, 286 K, 65 HR, 4.25 ERA

All others: 543 IP, 508 H, 141 BB, 316 K, 68 HR, 4.01 ERA

Honestly, the difference in ERA is a little less than I expected. The penalty Guthrie paid for pitching against AL East opponents was somewhere around 25 points of ERA – not huge, but not insubstantial either. Now, let’s take him out of Baltimore and put him in Kansas City. Assume for a moment that four of the five AL East teams continued to play at the same high quality that they did from 2007-2011 (a debatable assumption). The Royals average between 7 and 8 games a season against each AL East team, so they’d average 29-30 games, or roughly 18% of their season, against the same competition that Guthrie averaged 45% of his innings against.

So move 27% of Guthrie’s innings from the “AL East” row to the “All others” row, and you’d cut his ERA by…maybe 7 points. That’s hardly worth mentioning.

But there’s another factor to consider. Camden Yards is a modest hitters’ park, and is particularly favorable to home runs, which is problematic for Guthrie, a flyball pitcher. Let’s take a look at his home/road splits from 2007 to 2011:

Home: 494 IP, 516 H, 120 BB, 312 K, 71 HR, 4.25 ERA

Away: 490 IP, 455 H, 161 BB, 290 K, 62 HR, 3.99 ERA

The disadvantage that Guthrie had from pitching at home was roughly the same as the disadvantage he had pitching against AL East teams. But actually it’s worse than that, because typically pitchers are better at home – that’s why there’s a home-field advantage. Over the last three years, AL pitchers have had an ERA 36 points better at home than on the road.

So depending on how you look at it, Guthrie’s ERA was between 25 and 60 points higher at home than it would be for a typical pitcher. Some of that might simply be luck – he had a better strikeout-to-walk ratio at home than on the road, although he gave up more home runs as well. Let’s take the low end of that range, say 28 points, and cut it in half because he pitched half of his innings at home. That works out to about a 14-point drop in ERA if Guthrie had pitched for the Royals, assuming Kauffman Stadium had no effect on his performance. If anything, Kauffman would probably help Guthrie, but let’s be conservative here. (Guthrie has a 3.63 ERA at Kauffman in his career, although he had only pitched 22 innings at the K before this year.)

Add together both factors – the AL East phenomenon and the ballpark effect – and Guthrie’s 4.12 ERA with the Orioles would drop around 21 points – to about 3.91 – with the Royals. Then factor in that the AL ERA from 2007 to 2011 was 21 points higher (4.30) than it is this year (4.09), and you can chop another 21 points off his ERA, to 3.70.

His ERA since joining the Royals this year? 3.70. Funny how that works out.

This is a really long way of saying that Guthrie’s performance since joining the Royals is probably for real, and that three-month purgatory in Denver never happened, like that season of “Dallas” or the Neifi Perez trade. (Never. Happened.) There’s always the chance that Guthrie shows natural decline; he turns 34 right after Opening Day next year. But at least so far, there’s no degradation in his stuff. His fastball velocity ranged between 92.5 and 93.3 mph from 2007 to 2011; it’s averaged 92.8 mph this year, and 93.0 since joining the Royals.

So I’m on board with an extension, at least within reason. Given his age, it seems reasonable that the Royals shouldn’t be expected to commit longer than two years. I’ve been saying two years, $15 million on Twitter for a while now; Sam Mellinger has made his own suggestion of two years, $18 million with an option. That seems a little high to me; I don’t think Guthrie would have gotten 2/$18M if he had been a free agent last winter, and I don’t think you can argue that he’s increased his stock this season. Maybe his time in Colorado never happened, but it’s still on his stat sheet.

But somewhere in that range seems reasonable. The Royals can absolutely afford to pay it, and they can absolutely afford to pay Guthrie and still spend even more money to get a better, younger starting pitcher in free agency.

But if they’re looking for change in between the sofa cushions – or even if they’re not – I have an easy way for them to save money: let Luke Hochevar go. It’s time to cut bait.

Remember that fantastic stat last season, that Kyle Davies had the highest ERA in major league history for anyone with 120 starts? Well, Luke Hochevar now has 123 starts in his career, so here’s that list again:

1. Kyle Davies, 5.59

2. Casey Fossum, 5.45

3. Jimmy Haynes, 5.37

4. Kevin Ritz, 5.35

5. Luke Hochevar, 5.30

6. Scott Elarton, 5.29

7. Jose Lima, 5.26

(I couldn’t resist running the list seven deep. Four of those seven pitchers have toiled for the Royals within the last seven years.)

Here’s the thing – with the exception of Davies, all of those other guys pitched in the 1990s or early 2000s, when league ERAs were much higher. If we look at ERA+ - ERA adjusted for league context and ballpark – here’s a list of the worst pitches with 120 or more starts:

1. Phil Ortega, 75 ERA+, 141 GS

2. Wade Blasingame, 77 ERA+, 128 GS

3. Kyle Davies, 77 ERA+, 144 GS

4. Pete Broberg, 78 ERA+, 134 GS

5. Steve Arlin, 78 ERA+, 123 GS

6. Luke Hochevar, 80 ERA+, 123 GS

7. Elmer Myers, 80 ERA+, 127 GS

What’s important to take from this list is that while every pitcher on that list made it to 120 starts, NONE of them made to 150. There’s a natural limit to how long a pitcher can pitch this poorly and still con teams into giving him more opportunities. Hochevar is approaching the end of his rope.

I’ll give him credit – Hochevar sets up his marks with skill that Robert Redford and Paul Newman would appreciate. He outwardly manifests all the signs of a mid-rotation starter – acceptable strikeout rate, good command, groundball tendencies. That’s why the Royals keep sending him out there even with an ERA above 5. And he’ll put it together for weeks, even months at a time. Last year he had a 3.52 ERA in 12 starts after the All-Star Break – then started this season by allowing 28 runs in 28 innings in his first six starts.

But from May 12th through the end of August, Hochevar put together arguably his best extended stretch of pitching – in 20 starts, he allowed a 4.02 ERA in 125 innings. Sure, there were some stinkers in that stretch – in six of those 20 starts, he allowed at least five runs – but if you chose your selective endpoints carefully, you could actually depict him in a favorable light. His seasonal ERA was down to 4.93; with a really, really good September he might have even been able to set a new career-low in ERA, breaking last season’s mark of, um, 4.68.

And then on Saturday he went out and laid another turd, giving up 8 runs in 1.2 innings to the worst team in the AL, punctuated by a grand slam to Joe Mauer when Hochevar decided to throw a 1-2 pitch right down the middle.

That’s the 18th time since 2008 that Hochevar has allowed at least 7 runs in an outing. That leads the major leagues:

18: Luke Hochevar

17: A. J. Burnett

17: Paul Maholm

16: Livan Hernandez

16: Roberto Hernandez

(Hochevar, it should be pointed out, has made only 122 starts since 2008, an average of fewer than 25 starts per year. Burnett, by comparison, has made 157.)

His ERA on the season is now 5.34. He’d need to throw 22 consecutive scoreless innings to lower his ERA down to match last season’s mark of 4.68. That won’t happen, which means that Hochevar will now have made 15+ starts in five different seasons, and has never had an ERA lower than 4.68.

IN THE HISTORY OF MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL, NO PITCHER HAS MADE 15 STARTS IN AT LEAST FIVE SEASONS WITHOUT HAVING AT LEAST ONE SEASON WITH AN ERA LOWER THAN 4.68. I mean, even Kyle Davies had a 4.06 ERA one year.

And I’m sorry, but I’m done with him. I don’t think there’s ever been a Royals player – maybe any player – as exasperating for me to analyze as Hochevar, because he should be better than this. The stat “xFIP” is one of the most accurate measurements of what a pitcher’s ERA should be, given his walks, strikeouts, and groundball/flyball tendencies. Since reaching the majors in 2008, here’s a comparison of Hochevar’s ERA and xFIP:

2008: 5.51 ERA, 4.64 xFIP

2009: 6.55 ERA, 4.28 xFIP (!)

2010: 4.81 ERA, 4.09 xFIP

2011: 4.68 ERA, 4.05 xFIP

2012: 5.34 ERA, 4.34 xFIP

Hochevar has a substantially better career xFIP (4.28) than Jeremy Guthrie (4.65) does. His xFIP is better than that of Jair Jurrjens (4.32) and Bronson Arroyo (4.44). It’s a tick worse than Gavin Floyd’s (4.18). That’s the pitcher he’s supposed to be – not an ace, but a solid #3 starter who gives you 190 innings a year. And if was just that pitcher, he’d be an enormous asset to a franchise that desperately needs exactly that.

But he’s not. He’s one of the worst starters in the majors this year (fourth-worst ERA of any qualifying starter), for the same reason that he’s been one of the worst starters in the majors for the last five years: he can’t pitch from the stretch.

I’ve written about this multiple times in the past, and nothing has changed. In 2012, here are Hochevar’s splits:

No one on base: .255/.330/.444

Men on base: .297/.356/.476

Runners in scoring position: .309/.366/.530

You know what else hasn’t changed? The Royals haven’t acknowledged that this is Hochevar’s fundamental problem. We’ve seen every explanation under the sun – tipping pitches, not mixing in his pitches, not pitching inside, using too many pitches – and yet not once have I seen the Royals so much as mention that Hochevar is MUCH MUCH more effective when there’s no one on base. (If they have mentioned it, please point it out to me, and I’ll be happy to apologize.)

Enough. Hochevar is making $3.51 million this year. If the Royals go to arbitration with him, he will almost certainly end up with a salary of around $5 million for 2013. Playing time matters, and Hochevar’s ability to take the mound every five days will insure him a healthy raise. That’s $5 million that could go to someone far more deserving. Take that money and add another $6 million – what the Royals are paying Joakim Soria this year – and you could get a real pitcher this winter, someone like Anibal Sanchez or, yes, Edwin Jackson.

Given that the Royals won’t even acknowledge the problem, I have no faith that they will acknowledge that there isn’t a solution, and let Hochevar go. (When I tweeted after his last start that “the Royals can’t bring Hochevar back. They just can’t,” a baseball insider responded to me with three words: “Want to bet?”) I expect that they’ll do what they did with Kyle Davies last season, when they gave Davies the highest salary of his career because they thought that he was this close to turning the corner.

Because, you know, that worked so well the last time around.

Money Comes In. Excuses Go Out.

I wish I had a great story for why I haven’t written in over two weeks, and I could make one up, but that would take some time and I’ve been gone for too long already. I was going to try to catch up with a bit of everything, but I sort of got going on topic #1, and figured I’d let this stand on its own.

Earlier today, it was announced that ESPN had signed a new eight-year rights contract with Major League Baseball. The contract gives ESPN the same things they already had – the rights to broadcast Sunday Night Baseball, games on Mondays and Wednesdays and occasional special days – but it gives MLB a lot more of what they were already getting. ESPN will be paying MLB $700 million a year, twice what they paid ($350 million a year) in the current contract, which expires at the end of next season. Do the math, and that’s nearly $12 million per team in extra cash per year.

And that’s just for ESPN’s current contract, which doesn’t even include any playoff games (though I believe the new contract includes one of the Coin Flip Games between the two wild-card teams). The contracts for Fox and TBS are also up for negotiation, and NBC Sports is desperate to make a splash to add some actual game content to the fledgling network. Add it up, and there’s good reason to think that in 2014, every team in baseball will be earning $30 million a year above and beyond what they’re already making – just from their national TV contract. This is margin-free cash – same product, same expenses, vastly increased revenue.

Which is to say, if anyone claims that the Royals can’t afford a payroll of at least $80 million going forward, you have my permission to clock them in the nose. Sports revenue is rocketing upwards as advertisers realize how precious DVR-proof programming is, and even though the Royals are locked into their local TV contract for years to come (great planning, guys!), they’re going to be raking in the cash in the next 18 months.

I have largely stayed on the sidelines in the whole Is-David-Glass-The-Antichrist? debate that has festered over the last few years, and has metastasized to the point where a grassroots organization of fans spent thousands of dollars on an ad in the Kansas City Star asking Glass to sell the team (and are now raising money to run a banner ad over Arrowhead Stadium at the Chiefs’ home opener). I’ve stayed out of this debate because, whatever sins the Glass family committed early in their tenure, they found religion when Dayton Moore was hired.

If they’ve limited Moore’s ability to spend money on amateur talent, I don’t know about it. If they’ve meddled significantly in baseball decision-making, I’m not aware of it. They haven’t gone all Mike Illitch in free agency, but they authorized big contracts to Jose Guillen and Gil Meche, and it’s not their fault that Moore elected to use their money on Jose Guillen and Gil Meche. (More precisely, it’s not their fault that Moore presided over the decision to throw Meche’s arm to the wolves.)

But over the past year, I’ve grown increasingly uneasy over where the Royals’ payroll is going (or not going). I don’t blame the Glasses for cutting the payroll to around $36 million last year; for one thing, it was only that low because Meche decided to walk away from around $12 million. Last season was the beginning of a flowering youth movement, and when half the guys on the active roster are making minimum wage, it’s understandable that you might have a payroll that’s one-fifth that of the New York Yankees. But ever since Moore made comments last summer hinting that the Royals might be limited to a payroll no higher than $65 million – less than what they paid to a team going nowhere in 2009 and 2010 – I’ve waited for evidence that Moore merely misspoke, and that the payroll will be allowed to grow to accommodate the needs of a developing contender.

Frankly, I’m being charitable by saying the Royals can afford an $80 million payroll. If they could afford a payroll between $70 and $75 million in 2009 and 2010 without losing money – and if they had lost money, trust me, we’d have heard about it – their breakeven number by 2014 has to be at least $90 million, and probably around $100 million. Remember, not only are the Royals’ share of national revenues going up by somewhere around $30 million, but their player development costs have dropped by almost $10 million. That’s not their fault – that’s a provision of the new CBA, which limited the Royals to around $9 million in amateur spending this year ($6.1 million in the draft, $2.9 million in international signings). Last year, the Royals spent close to $19 million - $14 million on four players alone (Bubba Starling, Bryan Brickhouse, Elier Hernandez, and Adalberto Mondesi).

So let’s see – revenues are going up by $30 million, and amateur player acquisition costs have dropped by almost $10 million. That’s $40 million in additional money to spend on free agents even if the Royals don’t sell one extra ticket. If the Royals start winning, attendance is sure to pick up. The Royals drew 2.48 million fans in 1989 – they drew 1.72 million fans last year. The Royals might be the only team in baseball that hasn’t set an attendance record in the last two decades – Americans generally have more disposable income and spare time today than they did 20 years ago, so if the Royals could average 30,000 fans a game in 1989 (for a team that won 92 games but was only on the fringes of the pennant race) they should draw at least that many fans if they put together a consistent winner in the next few years.

So $80 million, $90 million, even $100 million – these are CONSERVATIVE estimates of what the Glass family can afford to spend on the Royals’ payroll. That is, of course, assuming that the Glass family is willing to make winning a higher priority than profit-taking. No one’s asking them to lose money on the Royals. No one’s begrudging them the $30 million-plus they made on the Royals with a bottom-of-the-barrel payroll last season. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask that, just this once, they satisfy themselves with a hugely profitable year, as opposed to an obscenely profitable year, and spend most (not even all!) of their new-found windfall on the team’s roster.

Keep in mind, salaries around the game are escalating along with revenues. It’s not a coincidence that the Dodgers were willing to take on a pair of bad contracts in Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett just for the privilege of also paying over $20 million a year to Adrian Gonzalez. (The Dodgers have a $181 million payroll – FOR NEXT SEASON. And that’s for only 17 players, several of whom won’t be on the roster. They’re almost certain to get to $200 million.) As my colleague Jonah Keri wrote, the Gonzalez trade is a terrible one from the Dodgers’ perspective – UNLESS they’ve already decided that payroll doesn’t matter. Major League Baseball is swimming in cash, and every team – I mean EVERY SINGLE TEAM – is in the black. EVERY SINGLE TEAM can afford to spend more money on player salaries, and they’re going to prove it over the next several off-seasons.

But if salaries just keep pace with revenues, at least in the short term, the Royals should fare well. That’s because most of their roster is cost-controlled for the next few years, either because they’re already under contract or because they’re not arbitration-eligible. Look at the lineup: Salvador Perez, Alcides Escobar, Billy Butler, and Alex Gordon all have their salaries determined through at least 2015. Johnny Giavotella and Wil Myers won’t be arbitration eligible until 2016. That leaves Lorenzo Cain, Eric Hosmer, and Mike Moustakas, all of whom will be first-time arbitration eligible in either 2014 or 2015. They’ll get raises, but none of them are seeing more than $5 million a year any time soon.

So yes, the Royals’ current payroll obligations will slowly rise – but not at nearly the rate that their revenues will. Other teams that are less flush with young talent and more beholden to the free agent market may be forced to raise their payrolls dramatically to keep pace. But the Royals, with so much of their roster cost-controlled, can use the money saved there to bid aggressively on a few key pieces to the puzzle.

I’ve avoided criticism of the Glass family since I started this website, because I have never felt it was deserved. But if they don’t spend money – significant money – this off-season, the gloves come off. They don’t have to jump the payroll into the nine-figure range in one off-season; there are only so many free agents worth spending money on in the first place. But the argument that the Royals can’t afford to sign quality starting pitchers on the open market has officially expired. If the Glass family continues to use the old arguments, my support for them in the owner’s box will expire as well.

The 2012 Royals And The Illusion of Chemistry.

This may sound incredibly funny in retrospect, but when I was in Arizona to watch the Royals during spring training, the article I wanted to write was about whether the Royals would outperform expectations because of their fantastic chemistry.

Hold your laughter for a moment. As ridiculous as that might sound today, it was essentially accepted as fact then that, in addition to having a roster chock-full of young talent, the Royals had assembled a team full of good personalities. Let’s just take a look at the projected lineup. Keep in mind this is the impression I had of each of these players back in early March, an impression informed by people around the team as well as my own observations:

Catcher: Salvador Perez is one of the most popular players in any clubhouse he’s been in. Pitchers love to throw to him. He has an infectious personality that transcends the language barrier.

First Base: Eric Hosmer is a popular guy, but more germanely to a guy who was thought to be the Royals’ best young player, he has the swagger of being the alpha male in the clubhouse. He was the straw that stirred the Royals’ drink, minus Reggie Jackson’s narcissism and divisiveness. Basically, he was The Man.

Second Base: Johnny Giavotella has tremendous makeup, the kind of grinding mentality that got him named captain of his college team as a sophomore, and turned a 5’8” 185-pounder into a major leaguer.

Shortstop: Perhaps it’s because he’s from Latin America, or perhaps it’s because he came up in a different organization, but I don’t have a feel for Alcides Escobar’s clubhouse presence one way or another. I certainly haven’t heard anything bad about it. For lack of better information, we’ll say he’s neutral.

Third Base: We heard nearly as much about Mike Moustakas’ leadership skills in the minor leagues as we did about his bat. His leadership is more vocal than some of the other guys on this list – whether it’s talking to the media or to his teammates. Obviously, the way he’s made himself into an excellent defense third baseman this year is testament to his work ethic.

A quick story about Moustakas – I was in the clubhouse after a game last year and there was a scrum of reporters around Moustakas, who was lounging in his chair taking questions. Moustakas suddenly noticed a TV crew had showed up and was pointing the camera at his face, and he said, “oh, sorry,” and immediately stood up so the camera could get a better view.

Now, you could take this as a story that Moustakas was image-conscious and wanted to look as good as possible in front of the camera – but that’s not how it looked to me at all. Maybe Moose is just a fabulous actor, but in that moment before he stood up he looked genuinely apologetic. He was, for lack of a better term, trying to be considerate. Maybe it wasn’t a big deal. But I’m guessing Jose Guillen wouldn’t have done the same thing.

Left Field: Alex Gordon’s leadership is very different than Moustakas’ – much more measured and much less vocal. But when it comes to leadership by example, he might be unmatched. Gordon works his ass off – works out like an animal, adheres to a diet that would make you and I cry – and turned himself into a Gold Glove left fielder in his first full year at the position. If anything, what held Gordon back early in his career was that he tried too hard.

Center Field: When the Royals acquired Lorenzo Cain in the Greinke deal, I heard as many comments from insiders about the Painkiller’s personality as his talents. “He’s a GREAT dude,” I heard. You never heard him pout or complain once when he went back to Triple-A last year and spent the whole season there while Melky Cabrera put up a 200-hit season.

Right Field: Helloooo – it’s Jeff Francoeur.

Designated Hitter: Billy Butler is who he is – a simple man with a freakish ability to hit a baseball. He doesn’t have the clubhouse presence of some of the guys above, and early in his career he was an easy mark in the clubhouse for some of the more malignant personalities on the team. But you won’t find anyone who has anything bad to say about Butler.

It’s not just the starting lineup – even the bench players were great in the clubhouse. Brayan Pena is a fantastic guy, a Cuban defector who’s as proud of his American citizenship as any accomplishment on the field, a bilingual chatterbox who helps bridge the gap between Americans and Hispanics. Mitch Maier started twice a month last year without complaint, and was always prepared to come off the bench to pinch-hit or pinch-run or play defense for an inning. Jarrod Dyson runs his mouth as much as his legs, but in a way that’s more endearing to his teammates than annoying.

And then, of course, there’s Yuniesky Betancourt. I was obviously predisposed to thinking he was the fly in the ointment, and there were multiple incidents with Yuni’s lack of effort that precipitated his departure from Seattle. But when I asked around at spring training, I was told that at least in his time with the Royals, Yuni was considered a likeable teammate, and in fact was looked up to by the younger Hispanic players on the team. We’ll get back to him later.

Of 13 hitters on the roster, at least nine had what scouts would call plus makeup, if not plus-plus. Yuni aside, no one was expected to be a negative in the clubhouse.

Moreover, many of these guys came up together in the farm system, and had played together for years. Perez was the first player Hosmer met when he signed and headed to Idaho Falls in 2008. Hosmer, Moustakas, and Giavotella were all big contributors to the 2010 Northwest Arkansas team that was named Baseball America’s Minor League Team of the Year.

The Royals’ front office hadn’t just put together one of the most talented young lineups in the game. They had, whether by luck or by design, put together a roster of position players that was completely bereft of character issues.

For whatever reason, I have much less of a handle on the pitching staff. But the Royals clearly had their share of chemistry guys there too. Bruce Chen was re-signed to be the Jeff Francoeur of the rotation, basically. He obviously has a great sense of humor – they aren’t running the “Bruce Chen Joke of the Day” on the jumbotron for nothing – and he’s bilingual. In fact, I was told during spring training that Chen is the rare pitcher who serves as a liaison between the English and Spanish speakers on the team. That’s a pretty rare role for a starting pitcher, though I suppose it’s not as rare as being a Chinese-Panamanian in the major leagues.

Danny Duffy is my favorite Twitter follow on the roster; granted, the competition isn’t steep. Both on Twitter and in personal interactions, he comes across as a caring and sensitive kid, which gives fuel to the rumors that he briefly walked away from the game at least in part because he didn’t feel comfortable with the ultra-jock culture of the minor leagues. Luke Hochevar may be an enigma on the mound, but off the field he comes across as thoughtful and articulate.

The only warning flag that we saw in spring training was that even then, Jonathan Sanchez gave off the body language of someone who would rather be somewhere – anywhere – else. That’s what we in the business call foreshadowing.

Relievers have their own culture, owing to the hours they spend together in the bullpen every day, and I can only speculate as to the personalities there. Joakim Soria is a gem. Tim Collins has attitude; he didn’t get to the majors as a 5’6” pitcher by being timid. Everett Teaford is very intelligent, and owing to the fact that he was a late bloomer and is already 28*, was a mentor for many of the relievers when they were in the minors together. Louis Coleman went back for his senior season at LSU to win a championship, and was rewarded by being on the mound when they won the College World Series. With one exception, which we’ll get to later, the bullpen seemed to be a bunch of good guys. I don’t think this picture sees the light of day if they weren’t.

*: Teaford is one month older than Jonathan Broxton. Yeah, I was surprised too.

Look, I can only give you the perspective of an informed outsider, and I’m sure my impressions on a few specific players are dead wrong. But taken as a whole, there’s no doubt that going into the season, the clubhouse culture of the Royals was strongly positive. I ran that assessment by a lot of people around the Royals in spring training, and everyone agreed with it.

And so my thinking was this: if chemistry matters, the 2012 Royals would surprise a lot of people.

Chemistry is one of the persistent flashpoints (along with things like “clutch” and “momentum” and “closer’s mentality”) between baseball insiders and statistical analysts. Insiders will tell you that chemistry matters. They’ll tell you that chemistry can help a team play beyond its talent, and vice versa. And whenever a team plays surprisingly well (or surprisingly poorly) someone will drop the C-bomb as an explanation.

The 2007 Colorado Rockies come back from 6.5 games behind on September 15th, and win 22 of their next 23 games (including a 13th-inning tiebreaker with the Padres) to win the NL pennant? Great chemistry. The White Sox won the World Series in 2005 when no one thought they had a chance? Great chemistry. Never mind that the Rockies were under .500 the following year, or that the White Sox were under .500 two years later.

As for the opposite…just look at everything that’s been written about the Red Sox over the last 11 months.

The problem with these explanations are that they are always – almost literally always – ex post facto. They are explanations after the fact. The people who make these arguments have the luxury of knowing which teams have played better or worse than expected before they bestow capital-C Chemistry on them. Which is disingenuous at best and fraudulent at worst. If Chemistry matters, then you should be able to tell me BEFORE THE SEASON which teams will surprise us because of the mix of personalities in their clubhouse.

To be more precise, you should be able to tell me ACCURATELY which teams will surprise. Before the season, you’ll hear pundits talk about chemistry – if you watch team-by-team pre-season previous, you would be led to the inescapable conclusion that 90% of teams have above-average chemistry. And then once the season starts, those proclamations are forgotten.

And that’s the argument us statistical analysts have against the importance of chemistry: the people who argue most vociferously about its importance are the same people who can’t use it to predict which teams will benefit from it. Good chemistry doesn’t lead to winning, we argue: winning leads to good chemistry. The people who talk about the importance of chemistry weren’t the ones who predicted the Phillies would fall apart this year, or that the Nationals would be playoff-bound. We were the ones who did that, and we didn’t make those predictions based on whether guys in the clubhouse got along – we said the Phillies would decline because they’re older than dirt, and the Nationals would break out because they had a fantastic rotation and the most underrated manager of the last 30 years.

But having said all that…I was willing to entertain the notion that chemistry might make a difference. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But if it does make a difference, you have to point it out before the fact.

And IF there was a situation where chemistry would matter AND be discernable beforehand, I thought it would be on a young, promising team that was still widely thought to be a year or two away from making its mark. I thought it would be on a team like the 2012 Kansas City Royals, in other words.

I ultimately decided not to write the article, largely because I felt that to do the article justice would require skills that were more journalistic than analytic. Getting revealing quotes from players and coaches isn’t my core competency, and the article wouldn’t have been taken very seriously without them.

Obviously, I’m glad I decided not to write it, because I’d look like even more of an idiot than I usually do. But part of me wishes I had, because it’s harder to convince people now that the Royals had good chemistry before the season, simply because of their record on the field.

If you believe in the Chemistry argument, you can certainly make the case that the Royals’ chemistry was hurt by personnel changes, albeit some of them self-inflicted. Giavotella’s job was given to Chris Getz. (On the other hand, Getz is also a hard worker and a good chemistry guy in his own right.) Salvador Perez got hurt, and was replaced by Humberto Quintero, a big dropoff in terms of personality as well as talent. Lorenzo Cain missed most of the first half of the season. Danny Duffy blew out his elbow.

But the core players have been there all season. If Chemistry really matters, you would expect an offense that was 6th in the AL in runs scored last year and was the youngest offense in baseball to take a step forward this year. You would at least expect that they wouldn’t take a step backwards.

They didn’t take a step backwards; in the spirit of the Olympics, they took more of a triple jump. The Royals are 11th in the AL in runs scored. They’re 49-65, the exact same record they had after 114 games last year. They’re tied for the worst record in the league. And keep in mind, since Perez and Cain returned to the lineup and the Royals finally put their projected lineup on the field after the All-Star Break, they have a worse winning percentage (.400) than they did (.440) before.

All the positive vibes in the clubhouse haven’t kept Eric Hosmer from a nightmare season. It’s August 13th, and our star first baseman has a .299 OBP. It hasn’t kept Jeff Francoeur from returning to his previous haunts as one of the least valuable position players in baseball. Strong relationships between the hitters haven’t kept the offense from being dysfunctional – the Royals rank 11th in runs scored despite being 9th in OBP and 8th in slugging average. Good chemistry hasn’t kept the rotation from qualifying for emergency federal relief funds. Jonathan Sanchez may or may not have been a bad guy in the clubhouse – but what hurt the Royals wasn’t his clubhouse presence, it was the fact that he had a 7.76 ERA and gave up over two baserunners an inning.

And when it turned out that chemistry couldn’t save the 2012 Royals, a funny – but predictable – thing happened: all the losing started to turn the chemistry sour. First base coach Doug Sisson was fired, for reasons that the team won’t divulge, but given that Rusty Kuntz was summoned from Omaha with such haste that he didn’t even know who he was replacing until he arrived, I’m guessing a specific incident occurred. The next day, the Royals designated Yuniesky Betancourt for assignment. And while I was busy saying Hallelujah that the Royals finally recognized Yuni’s .256 OBP and embarrassing defensive skills were not worth employing, Ned Yost made it clear that other factors triggered the move:

“We have been living in a losing culture here for many, man years,” Yost said. “We cannot get over the hump. In order for us to get over the hump, we have to have 25 guys that are solely invested in one goal, and that’s turning this organization around to become a champion. That’s it. It’s not about, ‘How much do I play?’ It’s not about, ‘Do I have a job?’

“This is about 25 guys with one goal: That we’re going out to try to win this baseball game tonight, and you have that goal night in, night out. Anybody else that’s not on page with that, we will never change our culture. It’s about 25 guys who respect each other, 25 guys that have the same common goal. That’s how we’re going to turn this losing culture into a winning culture.

“And Yuni did a great job for us, but he was a guy that wanted more playing time. He would get upset when he didn’t, but (Chris) Getz was playing good. There were just situations. We’re trying to win the ballgame, and we’re going to put the best team on the field every day.”

It’s hard to know where to begin with this. As I wrote about here when Yuni signed, I was at least as concerned by how he would adapt to being a part-time player as by how well he would play. This paragraph summed up my post:

So as strange as this is to say, I don’t object to the Betancourt signing in terms of his talents as a player. I object to the signing because I think he’s a poor fit with the rest of the roster, I think he’s being paid too much, which will incentivize the Royals to play him more than he should, and I think that there’s a very real chance he will have trouble adjusting to his sudden loss in playing time. Bringing back Yuni was a bad idea.

If I had concerns that Yuni would adjust to being a part-time player, don’t you think the Royals’ front office should have? Well, as Sam Mellinger tweeted when Yuni was let go, maybe they did:

Had this convo w/ a #Royals exec before the season: Me: You told Yuni he'd be a backup, right? Exec: Yes, but I don't know if he believes it

That’s really a phenomenal statement. The Royals KNEW that there was a chance Yuni would upset their carefully-crafted clubhouse culture. They knew that BECAUSE THEY HAD ALREADY EMPLOYED HIM BEFORE. And THEY SIGNED HIM ANYWAY. Never mind that he can’t play defense and can’t get on base – they gave two million dollars to a player to accept a role that they themselves weren’t sure he would adjust to.

For those of you who want to argue that us bloggers can’t possibly make better decisions than a major-league front office – I dare you to defend this. Try. I need a good laugh right now.

Anyway, I don’t think that Yuni single-handedly destroyed the Royals chemistry in the first half of the season, because he was playing almost every day. He missed 27 games on the disabled list in May, but in the 57 games that he was on the active roster before the All-Star Break, he played in 44 of them. After the Break, when it was clear that the Royals weren’t going anywhere and Getz was healthy, Yuni played in just 13 of 23 games before he was cut.

And finally, at the same time the Royals were firing Sisson they put Jose Mijares on waivers – and when the Giants claimed him, they let him go without asking for so much as a nothing prospect in return.

The Royals have suggested that they did this because even though Mijares wasn’t making much money this year, he was likely to earn a couple million in arbitration this winter, and they weren’t going to pay him that kind of money. To be polite, I find that argument ridiculous. Mijares is making all of $925,000 this year, so counting the salary given to his replacement on the roster, letting him go saves the Royals $200,000, max.

Even if the Royals couldn’t trade Mijares this winter – and you figured there’d be a market for a left-handed reliever with his numbers this year – keeping him around for two months is worth a lot more than $200,000. Letting go of a player who is both playing well AND is dirt-cheap, simply because you think he is going to become more expensive in the future, would be a move almost without precedent in baseball history.

No, this was a move to lance the last clubhouse abscess. Mijares does not get stellar marks for comportment – I asked around – and it’s telling that he was claimed by the Giants, meaning every AL contender and at least a few NL contenders passed on him despite his salary.

Even if he is a pain the ass to deal with, the Giants claimed him because they’re in a pennant race, and you’ll put up with a pitcher like that if he gets outs for you. If the Royals were in a pennant race, Mijares would still be here. If you want proof, read this article, which was published literally one week before Mijares was let go.

If the Royals were in a pennant race, Betancourt would probably still be on the team, and Sisson would probably still be the first base coach, and we wouldn’t be hearing a peep about the team’s chemistry issues. Winning begets chemistry, not the other way around, and losing begets bad chemistry. Or at least losing brings bad chemistry out into the open.

I’m trying to still keep an open mind about the importance of chemistry. Maybe it’s true that while good chemistry doesn’t guarantee winning, that bad chemistry is enough to derail it. (Although the counterargument to that has been, and always will be, the 1972-1974 Oakland A’s, who won three straight World Series with a roster that was a hair-trigger away from a clubhouse brawl every night.) Maybe Betancourt and Mijares, by themselves, made the clubhouse miserable enough to counteract all the good done by the other 23 guys.

Or maybe – just maybe – chemistry really doesn’t matter all that much. Maybe what really matters is talent. Maybe employing fantastic human beings like Jeff Francoeur and Bruce Chen makes great sense when Francoeur has 71 extra-base hits, and Chen leads the rotation in wins and ERA – and it makes terrible sense when Francoeur is batting .244/.285/.382, and Chen has the second-worst ERA (5.56) of any AL qualifier.

Maybe giving two-year deals to veteran players with a spotty track record of performance, largely because of their winning personalities, leads to the predicament the Royals are in right now, where they owe $12 million next season to two players who, if they weren’t already under contract, would be lucky to get more than an invite to spring training.

I’m not saying that the Royals made moronic decisions by re-signing them. (Well, except for Yuni. That’s a given.) I had reservations about both Francoeur and Chen, but I didn’t protest too much, in part because I was genuinely curious as to whether having a pair of hard-working, gregarious veteran leaders in the clubhouse would make it more likely that an extremely talented but extremely inexperienced roster would go off.

It didn’t. All it did was saddle the Royals with a pair of expensive paperweights. If the 2012 Royals were an experiment in Chemistry, consider the experiment a failure. That won’t stop former major leaguers sitting behind a desk on television from crediting the C-word for every good team in baseball. There’s no cure for that, unfortunately. But next time, at least you’ll know better than to believe them. I know I will.

The Broxton Trade.

Five years ago, the Royals traded free-agent-to-be Octavio Dotel at the trading deadline. In return, they received Kyle Davies.

Two years ago, the Pirates traded free-agent-to-be Octavio Dotel at the trading deadline. In return, they received James McDonald.

In those two transactions, we can see the agony and the ecstacy of trading a relief rental. If you’re really lucky (and shrewd), you trade Dotel for McDonald (and Andrew Lambo), immediately put McDonald in your rotation, and he gives you a 3.52 ERA in 11 starts the rest of the season. McDonald hasn’t left the Pirates rotation since; after a solid 2011 (4.21 ERA but just 171 innings in 31 starts), he’s taken a step forward this year, with a 3.38 ERA in 131 innings so far, one of the biggest reasons why the Pirates are still in the playoff race. McDonald isn’t even arbitration-eligible yet; he won’t be a free agent until after the 2015 season.

If you’re not lucky, you trade Dotel for a minor leaguer who never reaches the major leagues.

If you’re really unlucky (or just a poor judge of talent), you trade Dotel for Davies, a pitcher who looks good enough to pitch in the majors – and pitches just barely good enough to keep his job for four years. Davies made 99 starts with the Royals, with a  5.34 ERA, and that constitutes the good part of his career. He was actually worth 1.6 bWAR during his time with the Royals, so he was nominally better than a replacement-level pitcher – but given the millions spent on him, the roster spot he occupied, and the opportunities he was granted, you could argue that the Royals would have been better off trading Dotel for shares in Lehman Brothers.

If you want to blast the Royals for their ineffectual trade history at the deadline, you can start here – my friend Soren Petro certainly has. The Pirates traded the exact same player, only two years older, and got a pitcher who was willing to step into their rotation immediately and become a mid-rotation starter in time. The Royals got Kyle Davies.

But to me, lamenting the relatively poor return that the Royals got relative to the Pirates misses the bigger point, which is that it’s crazy that two months of a set-up man should bring back a pitcher with any shot of turning into James McDonald. I mean, Dotel threw a total of 19 innings for the Dodgers, with a 3.38 ERA. His impact was clearly minimal, because the Dodgers fell so far out of the race that they traded Dotel again, in mid-September, to the Rockies (for a non-prospect named Anthony Jackson). And the Dodgers got more value out of Dotel than the Braves did – Dotel threw eight innings for them before he hurt his arm and missed the rest of the season. The Royals may have lost that trade, but the Braves certainly didn’t win it.

Twenty-two years after the Red Sox traded Larry Andersen for Jeff Bagwell, teams certainly have a better handle on the value, or lack thereof, in one or two months of a relief pitcher. But I’d argue that relievers are still overpriced on the trade market. James McDonald proves that, and if he doesn’t, then Josh Reddick does, or Jed Lowrie, or…

So it is in that context that we have to evaluate the Jonathan Broxton trade. The most important thing you need to know is simply that he was traded. The Royals got something for a relief pitcher who might throw 20 innings between now and free agency, a reliever whose strikeout rate is less than half what it was three years ago, a reliever who had allowed a .400 OBP to the first batter he faced, but had weaved his way out of enough jams to fashion a 2.27 ERA at the time of the trade. That the Royals were able to convince another team that Broxton was worth giving up prospects is testament to a lingering market inefficiency: relievers are overvalued. Credit Dayton Moore for exploiting it, even if it was an obvious move to make.

Last week I gave Moore a lot of flak for trying to target a “major-league-ready” starting pitcher, given that the kind of major-league-ready arm he was likely to get for Jonathan Broxton was going to be in the Sean O’Sullivan/Vinny Mazzaro class. To his credit, Moore clearly set his standards higher than that. The arm that the Royals apparently targeted was Justin Grimm, a very good arm that gets overlooked in the stacked Rangers farm system. Grimm combines #3 starter upside with being very close to the majors – he actually made a couple starts for the Rangers earlier this year, and while he allowed 12 runs in 10 innings, he also struck out 10 batters against just three walks. Grimm has a 1.96 ERA between Double-A and Triple-A this year, with 84 strikeouts and 22 walks in 101 innings, and trading Broxton for him would have been a coup. If there was a Jason McDonald to be had, Grimm was probably the guy.

The Rangers were only looking for a reliever because acquiring one would have allowed them to move Alexi Ogando back into the rotation, as starting pitching was their true need. In the end, once the Cubs couldn’t work out a deal for Ryan Dempster with the Dodgers, the Rangers elected to eliminate the middleman and trade for a starter directly. But the Rangers were clearly interested in Broxton, and I’m guessing at least one other team (probably the Giants) were too, which gave Moore the leverage to work the Reds over for some real talent.

The choice of trading partner matters; some teams have a history of overpaying at the deadline, and you’d certainly like to do business with those teams if you can. It’s not a coincidence that the Royals got Kyle Davies from the Braves, who over the past 20 years have done a very good job of identifying which prospects they should keep and which they should trade away. Meanwhile, the Pirates traded with the Dodgers and Ned Colletti, the man who once gave up Casey Blake for Carlos Santana.

Colletti and Brian Sabean are sort of the Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne of GMs. They’ve had a reasonable amount of success – particularly Sabean, who has run the show in San Francisco for 15 (!) years, and has two NL pennants and a world championship to his name – but I’m still convinced they rank close to the bottom among all the general managers in baseball. Certainly they’re among the most generous GMs at the trade deadline, which is why – for all the crap I’ve given him – I have to give Ruben Amaro credit for making deadline deals with both of them, getting a good return on Hunter Pence and an excellent one on Shane Victorino.

The Reds are somewhere in between the Braves and the Dodgers. On the one hand, Walt Jocketty was a master of the trade deadline acquisition during his time with the Cardinals; on the other, Dusty Baker loooooves his veterans, and I imagine must have pushed his bosses hard to get him another proven arm for his bullpen. Which is curious, given that the Reds already had a deep bullpen, while their leadoff hitters this year have combined to hit .199 with a .244 OBP. Anyway, Baker couldn’t care less what I think; the Reds are in first place and have won 21 of their last 24 games.

The dynamics of the Reds’ front office are such that I certainly think it’s possible that they would overpay for a proven veteran, which is important, because when you look at the return the Royals got, it’s so good that it almost makes you wonder if the Reds know something we don’t. They might – but the evidence suggests they just really wanted to add a reliever, and got enticed into a bidding war.

In return, the Royals got J.C. Sulbaran, who as you might have heard was Eric Hosmer’s teammate at American Heritage High School, which won the Florida state championship in their senior year. Sulbaran was a 30th-round pick, but dropped because of signability; he got $500,000 to sign. He skipped short-season ball entirely, impressive for a high school draftee, but has moved very deliberately through the Reds system since; he made it to Double-A this year, and in 19 starts had thrown 105 innings, struck out 111 batters, but allowed 54 walks and 17 home runs.

The first thing that stands out about Sulbaran is that he misses bats – working as a starter his entire career, he has managed to strike out more than a batter an inning every year of his career. The second thing that stands out is that despite his ability to miss bats, he hasn’t been all that effective at missing runs – a career 4.68 ERA, although it’s improved every year of his career (down to 4.04 this season).

Sulbaran was ranked by Baseball America as the Reds’ #12 prospect coming into the season, which isn’t shabby – this was before the Mat Latos trade, and the Reds system was pretty deep. (Todd Frazier, who might be the best rookie in the NL this year, was #9 on the list.) Sulbaran’s fastball ticked up in 2011, sitting in the low 90s and occasionally higher, and his curveball was ranked as the best in the Reds’ minor leagues. The biggest issue for him, bigger than his difficulty in developing a consistent changeup, was consistency on the mound. Some days he looked like a future #3 starter; some days he looked like a future insurance broker. There have been accusations of poor focus on the mound.

From the Royals’ perspective, that lack of consistency makes him more appealing than a strike-thrower who gets the most out of his stuff but might top out as a back-end starter. Sulbaran is a lottery ticket, but if he pays off, he could be a mid-rotation guy. He’s not ready for the majors, but he’s not that far away – he’s made the biggest jump in the minors, from A-ball to Double-A, and hasn’t missed a beat. If the Royals smooth out his mechanics a bit and if he shows improved maturity, he could be ready for the majors by this time next year.

As a prospect, he’s clearly behind the Zimmer/Odorizzi/Ventura class, and probably behind John Lamb and Jason Adam as well. But he’s right there with Mike Montgomery and Chris Dwyer. That might be damning with faint praise, given how lost in the weeds those two are, but Sulbaran is clearly someone to keep an eye on. If things click, he’s an average starting pitcher in the major leagues. For Jonathan Broxton? Yes, please.

Only it turns out Sulbaran wasn’t the only prospect the Royals received. He wasn’t even the best prospect the Royals received. When the details of the trade leaked out on Twitter and Sulbaran’s name was divulged, I was satisfied with the trade – not thrilled, but it was a fair return. And then rumors came out that there was a second piece. And then it was reported that the second piece was Donnie Joseph.

Which meant that Sulbaran was really the second piece. Joseph was a third-round pick out of college in 2009, drafted as a left-handed reliever with closer potential. He has dominated at times in the minors; in his first full season in 2010, he struck out 103 batters in 65 innings and jumped from low-A ball to Double-A. But 2011 was a nightmare; he posted a 6.94 ERA in Double-A, allowing 67 hits and 30 walks in 58 innings. That dropped him from #13 to #27 in the Reds’ system per Baseball America.

Joseph throws in the mid-90s, and his slider is unhittable when he’s on, but he’s been hampered by a combination of iffy command and inconsistent mechanics. But this season, he’s cleaned up both of them, and it shows: just 17 walks in 52 innings, with a 1.72 ERA and 68 strikeouts between Double-A and Triple-A. As Kevin Goldstein said at the time of the trade, “I’m not sure Joseph isn’t a better pitcher than Broxton right now.”

Joseph’s already in Triple-A – he debuted for the Storm Chasers last night – and is a good candidate to get called up in September (since he’ll have to be added to the 40-man roster or be exposed to the Rule 5 draft anyway). While Sulbaran has a higher upside – because a #3 starter is more valuable than all but the most dominant closers – Joseph is a much safer bet, and will probably be a part of the Royals’ bullpen next year.

Joseph, in fact, reminds me of a slightly discounted version of Tim Collins. Compare their minor league careers:

Collins: 223 IP, 141 H, 11 HR, 94 UIBB, 329 K

Joseph: 208 IP, 164 H, 11 HR, 79 UIBB, 279 K

Joseph can’t match Collins’ absurd strikeout rate – few pitchers can. But he also has slightly better command, even including his awful 2011 season. Collins is two years younger and is in his second major-league season; on the other hand, Joseph is 6’3”.

Actually, there is one big difference between them: while Collins relies on a very good curveball and changeup, Joseph’s out pitch is his slider. This is relevant because curveballs and changeups are more effective on opposite-side hitters, and in fact Collins has been significantly more effective against right-handed batters than left-handed batters in his career. But sliders are murder to same-side hitters, and at the time of the trade, left-handed batters were 7-for-54 against Joseph this season.

Which makes Joseph the perfect complement to Collins, and means that the job he ought to be taking in the Royals’ bullpen is the one that belongs to Jose Mijares. Joseph not only becomes the Royals’ best left-handed relief prospect, he gives the team the flexibility to move Mijares this winter. Mijares is under contract through 2014, and should have significant value, whether on his own or as part of the package to bring in an established starting pitcher.

Either pitcher would have been a good return for Broxton. Asking for both of them would just be greedy. Dayton Moore was greedy, and with multiple teams looking for relief help, and with Huston Street off the market, he had the leverage to be greedy. Greed, in this case, is good.

I don’t know if I’d call this a great trade, simply because I’m not sure it was momentous enough to be a great trade. But it was certainly a great return. The Royals turned a $5 bill into a pair of stocks that are each worth $10. It’s hard to imagine how Moore could have done better without getting Ned Colletti involved.

So it was a good trading deadline for the Royals. It wasn’t a great deadline, because Broxton was the only player they moved. Admittedly, I would have been beyond astonished if Francoeur had been dealt. And while I was hoping for a Jose Mijares trade, it appears that the teams looking for bullpen help were focused on right-handed relievers. No left-handed reliever was traded to a contender* at the deadline; the Dodgers got Randy Choate from the Marlins, but he was the fringe benefit in the Hanley Ramirez trade.

*: The Red Sox traded for Craig Breslow, but I’m not certain the Red Sox are a contender, and I’m quite certain that I have no idea what the Red Sox are doing anymore.

My only real disappointment stems from the fact that Yuniesky Betancourt, the bane of my existence, is still a Royal. I had hoped that his contract status – he’s owed about $800,000 and is a free agent in two months – would make him a favorable target for a team in need of a utility infielder type. But the Giants traded for Marco Scutaro, the Nationals elected to hold pat, and we’re stuck with Yuni and his .260 OBP through the end of the season. Meanwhile, Johnny Giavotella continues to rake in Triple-A, and continues to get one day older with each passing day.

So it wasn’t a perfect trade deadline. But it could have been much worse, and honestly, it couldn’t have been a whole lot better. It was just one day in a nightmarish season. But it was a good day.

Royals Today: Trade Deadline Edition.

I’ll be frank with you: I’ve pretty much checked out of 2012. Not in a temper tantrum sort of way, but just in the sense that there’s no joy in continuing to keep tabs on the Royals in what might be their most disappointing season of the century. Yeah, 2009 was disappointing after their 18-11 start, but based on my expectations before the season, it wasn’t nearly that disappointing. It’s just sad that the Royals found a way to waste the most valuable season by a pitcher since Pedro Martinez was in his prime.

But this year? I legitimately thought on Opening Day that they were a .500 team. Instead, they’re on pace to lose 95 games, and gaining steam – they’ve lost 19 of their last 25 games. And it’s not just that they’re a bad team – it’s that they’re so uninteresting to watch.

I don’t know how that’s possible. Last August and September, after the Royals promoted Johnny Giavotella and Salvador Perez to the majors, they were as fun to watch as they’ve been since at least 2003. Most days they fielded a lineup in which Jeff Francoeur, at age 27, was the OLDEST player in the lineup. And they were winning – they were 15-10 in September.

They finished sixth in the league in runs scored, with the youngest offense in baseball. The prospect of watching them take a step forward as one of the best young lineups in the game was, itself, reason enough to watch the Royals this year.

Instead they’ve taken a step into the abyss. The Royals are 11th in the league in runs scored. This is true even though:

- Mike Moustakas has been an above-average hitter (.263/.318/.463), and one of the best defensive third baseman in the league. He doesn’t turn 24 until next month.

- Alcides Escobar is hitting .301 and is on pace to finish with 38 doubles. He’s 25.

- Eric Hosmer is 22, and when he was 21, he was a very good hitter.

- Alex Gordon is 28, and after a rocky start is hitting .351/.423/.492 since May 29th. For the year he’s hitting .292/.375/.428.*

- Billy Butler is having a Billy Butler season. This is the fourth straight year he’s hit between .291 and .318, and the fourth straight year he’s had an OBP between .361 and .388. But his slugging average is a career-high .507, because he’s already hit 20 homers, just one off his career high. He’s only 26.

*: No, he’s not hitting homers, and no, I have no idea how a guy with as much raw power as him has hit one more homer than Escobar. But he leads the league in doubles, plays great defense in LF, is the only guy on the team who takes a walk, and hasn’t missed a game. For the second straight year, Gordon leads the Royals in Wins Above Replacement (according to Baseball-Reference). And yet no one seems to acknowledge just what a fine year he’s having. That contract he signed still looks like a dandy.

The Royals got their starting catcher back on June 22nd, and their centerfielder back on July 13th, so now we can add:

- Lorenzo Cain is hitting .273/.316/.455 on the season, .314/.356/.549 since returning from the DL, and has played very good defense, even though his legs are still about 85%. He’s 26, and this may be all he is, but this is plenty good enough.

- Salvador Perez is 22 – the youngest guy in the lineup – and he’s hitting .326/.351/.543. Put it this way: he has five home runs – and six strikeouts. I don’t expect him to finish with that kind of a ratio, but just to put it in perspective: since 2000, only three players have finished a season with a HR/K ratio of 0.8 or better, with at least five homers: Barry Bonds (three times), Albert Pujols (twice), and…Paul Lo Duca, of all people, in 2001. And, at least at the moment, Salvy.

That’s seven building blocks in the lineup. And yet the Royals still feel like a drag to watch, probably because the other two spots are such a drag on the lineup.

Jeff Francoeur is hitting .238/.276/.368. So to those of you who thought he would regress back to the mean, and return to being the hitter he was in 2010, you were wrong: he’s regressed way past the mean. He’s worse than he was in 2010, or any other year other than 2008, when he hit .239/.294/.359 and was worth 1.9 Wins BELOW Replacement.

And while defensive metrics are notoriously unreliable in the span of a single season, it bears mentioning that his defensive numbers are even worse than his offensive ones. According to Baseball-Reference, Frenchy has been 1.1 Wins Below Replacement as a hitter this year – and a full 2.0 WBR on defense. I’m not sure how that’s possible – while Francoeur’s range has never been great, his arm is worth something. But despite 12 assists in 95 games, BB-Ref says his range has been just that bad.

I feel some degree of responsibility for Francoeur. I mean, I advocated for the Royals to bring him in years ago, and I took a lot of credit when he responded with a year of redemption in 2011: .285/.329/.476, a 20-20 season, 71 extra-base hits. I wasn’t thrilled with the two-year extension he got last August, but I wasn’t angry about it either – my preference was to move Melky Cabrera to right field to make room for Cain, but that was about keeping the switch-hitting bat and getting a draft pick for Francoeur more than because I wasn’t convinced Francoeur’s bat was for real.

Obviously, his bat wasn’t for real; if Francoeur’s 2011 was any more of a mirage, Siegfried and Roy would have been performing there. I admit that I didn’t see this coming, and I was wrong to not foresee the possibility of this level of performance from him. But while I should have known that this amount of regression was possible, I still don’t think that I should have known it was likely.

Because in my defense, I present to you…Melky Cabrera. Like Francoeur, Cabrera had an excellent 2011; like Francoeur, it was completely out of sync with the rest of his career.

From 2008-2010, Jeff Francouer: .256/.301/.389, 83 OPS+

From 2008-2010, Melky Cabrera: .260/.319/.372, 82 OPS+

Cabrera is younger than Francoeur, but only by six months – at this stage of their careers, that difference is negligible. And while it was in the distant past, Francoeur’s performance early in his career (.300/.336/.549 at age 21, .293/.338/.444 in a full season at age 23) dwarfed anything that Cabrera had ever done.

And yet Cabrera has not only proven that 2011 was a true improvement in his performance level, he’s taken a further step forward, leading the NL in hits and batting .359/.400/.530 at the moment. If there was something in their track records that suggested that Cabrera was likely to build on his 2011 and Francoeur was likely to regress, please point it out to me. I don’t mean that in a snarky manner – I genuinely would like to be educated, because obviously, that’s the sort of differentiation that can make or break a team.

The only thing I see that distinguishes them was that even when he was not hitting, Cabrera had a good strikeout-to-walk ratio – from 2008 to 2010 he had 114 walks and 181 Ks. But his K/BB ratio actually worsened in 2011 – he had 94 strikeouts and 35 walks. Even this year, his K/BB ratio is higher than it was in 2009 or 2010. Francoeur, meanwhile, has struck out three times as often as he’s walked throughout his career: 282 Ks vs. 92 walks from 2008 to 2010, then 123 Ks and 37 walks in his breakout season last year. (This year he has 74 Ks and 16 walks.)

Given two players with identical offensive performances, I would lean towards the player with better command of the strike zone. But at least in 2011, Francoeur walked a little more often than Cabrera. He struck out 30% more often – but was that, alone, enough to distinguish between them? I don’t think so, but if there’s a definitive study out there on the predictive value of K/BB ratios, please send it my way.

The Royals obviously couldn’t distinguish between the two outfielders – they offered them identical 2-year, $13.5 million contracts. If Cabrera had been the one to take the Royals up on the deal, that would have been worth literally seven games in the standings. Plus, the Royals would have spent the Jonathan Sanchez money on another pitcher, who almost certainly would have been worth two or three additional wins simply on account of not being Jonathan Sanchez.

The Royals are 41-58 at the moment, 13 games out of first place – and yet I can say without hyperbole that if the decision between Francoeur and Cabrera had played out differently, they would probably be above .500 and in the thick of a pennant race right now. That’s baseball. And that’s the Royals.

Francoeur, of course, has a higher OBP than Yuniesky Betancourt.

I don’t know what else I can write about Yuni. He’s hitting .241/.270/.422. Yes, he has genuinely above-average pop for a middle infielder. And…well, that’s about all I can come up with. He’s not hitting for a high average. He never walks. His defense is the subject of the next installment of the Saw franchise. And he has more plate appearances (212) than Chris Getz and Irving Falu combined.

When the Royals re-signed him, I didn’t like the deal, but I was not apoplectic about it – I figured he would be used in a utility role, which would limit the damage. I was wrong. I should have been apoplectic. Dayton Moore’s inability to see that Betancourt is a below-replacement-level player (I mean that literally – the Royals would be better off with Falu, who is the very definition of a replacement-level player) is Exhibit A in the case that Moore is an excellent scouting director who has been promoted past his competence level.

Johnny Giavotella, meanwhile, went 0-for-4 on Friday night, which is notable because it ended his 21-game hitting streak. Even with the 0-for-4, Giavotella is hitting .333/.422/.513 in Omaha, and .385/.464/.635 in July. He turned 25 two weeks ago. He has spent nearly three seasons and played 314 games in the high minors, and has raked the entire time. He has not taken advantage of his major-league opportunities, but they have been scarce – 67 games overall. Scouts do not feel he is another Kila Ka’aihue – the consensus is that he can be at least an average-hitting second baseman in the majors.

And as for his glove…when you’re playing Yuniesky Betancourt instead, you have forfeited the right to pass judgment on Giavotella’s defense.

It would be nice to see the Royals exhibit a modicum of common sense and let Giavotella play regularly in the majors, but at this point they can’t even find it fit to give the lion’s share of playing time to Chris Getz, who’s hitting .295/.328/.380 for the Royals.

I feel like I’ve written this many times before, probably because I’ve written this many times before. So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to stop banging my head against this particular wall.

- While Giavotella has been crushing the ball of late, Wil Myers is in a massive slump that seemed to start after he flew around the country playing in various feature games (the Futures Game in KC, the Triple-A All-Star Game in Buffalo). He’s 6-for-his-last-49; in his last 10 games he has two walks and 19 strikeouts.

He’s still hitting .280/.362/.560 in Triple-A, with 16 homers in 63 games; for the season he’s hitting .302/.381/.621. He’s still a leading candidate to be named the Minor League Player of the Year.

This is what keeps me from giving up hope entirely: the solution is so simple. Replace Betancourt with Giavotella, and replace Francoeur with Myers. Suddenly you can field an offense where all nine hitters are potentially average or above this year, and an offense full of guys still in full ascent. Gordon is 28, and every other hitter in the lineup is 26 or younger.

It seems so simple. But no one makes the simple seem so hard quite like the Royals.

- With the trade deadline approaching, the good news is that the Royals seem to be focusing their efforts on trading four players: Francoeur, Betancourt, Jonathan Broxton, and Jose Mijares.

The bad news is that two of those players have no trade value. Actually, that’s not true. Betancourt might be useful for a team that has a need for a utility infielder – he can play three infield positions, albeit poorly, and he’s got a lot more sock than the typical futility infielder. He’s only under contract for 2012. He’s owed around $800,000 the rest of the season.

Unfortunately, the San Francisco Giants, one of the few teams with a need for such a player and with a GM that has a genuine fetish for mediocre veterans, filled their need Friday night by trading for Marco Scutaro from the Rockies. That doesn’t leave a lot of other options. The Pirates are winning with Clint Barmes and his unprintable .206/.231/.298 line, but Barmes can at least play defense, and I doubt they’d want to take the defensive hit just to get Yuni’s bat in the lineup. The Nationals might have a need, now that Ian Desmond is out for a month, and Davey Johnson uses his bench so masterfully that Betancourt would probably slug .500 for them the rest of the way. But other than those two teams, I don’t see a fit anywhere.

It’s also not true that Francoeur has no trade value. He has substantially negative trade value, and if Moore can find a way to trade Francoeur – even if he eats 80% of his salary – that would be a major win. He won’t, and with $10 million owed to him, and the Royals unwilling to eat a sunk cost, that almost certainly means Frenchy will continue to play every day. Myers’ recent slump only gives the Royals a convenient excuse. At this point, you have to be genuinely concerned that Francoeur will be in the Opening Day lineup next year, sabotaging another season’s playoff hopes before the Royals own up to their mistake.

The other bad news is this tweet from ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick: #Royals want young starting pitching for Broxton. They’d like it as close to MLB-ready as possible. No interest in A-ball types.

If this is true – and I have no reason not to trust Crasnick – this might be the single most depressing thing I’ve read about the Royals all season.

The Royals want MLB-ready starting pitching for Jonathan Broxton? HAVE THEY LEARNED NOTHING FROM THEIR OWN FREAKING HISTORY?! Somewhere, George Santayana is shaking his head sadly.

The Royals wanted “MLB-ready starting pitching” for Alberto Callaspo. They got Sean O’Sullivan. They wanted “MLB-ready starting pitching” for David DeJesus. They got Vinny Mazzaro.

Both of those guys were MLB-ready, in the sense that they were already as good as they were going to be, so they didn’t need any more development time in the minors. O’Sullivan, in 129 innings with the Royals, had a 6.63 ERA; he allowed 24 homers, and had a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 56-to-52. They sold him to the Blue Jays last month. Mazzaro, in 61 innings with Kansas City, has a 7.12 ERA. He’s in Omaha at the moment, I believe; he’s traversed I-29 so many times this year he’s turning into the Royals’ version of Schrodinger’s cat, where we can only state his location in probabilistic terms. (Yes, I make physics jokes too!)

The Royals wanted MLB-ready talent in those deals, and they got it – crappy, no-good, awful MLB talent. WHICH IS WHY THEY STILL NEED MLB-READY STARTING PITCHING IN THE FIRST PLACE.

And beyond that: IT’S JONATHAN BROXTON. We’re talking about a guy whose strikeout rate is less than half of what it was three years ago. Yes, he has a 2.27 ERA – and a WHIP of over 1.4. His save percentage (23 of 27) is below the average for closers. I’m not saying he’s chopped liver, but he’s chopped steak – certainly not filet mignon. AND HE’S A FREE AGENT IN TWO MONTHS. If a team had a MLB-ready starting pitcher worth acquiring, they wouldn’t trade him for Jonathan Freaking Broxton.

Six years ago, Dayton Moore traded his soon-to-be-free-agent closer, and got Kyle Davies for Octavio Dotel. If he’s still insisting on getting a ready-to-go major-league starter for Broxton, then he’s learned absolutely nothing in six years – and he’d be lucky to get another Davies-caliber starter in return. If the Royals are going to get anything of real value for Broxton, it would be precisely if they targeted an A-ball type. Trade for the 19-year-old kid who touches 95 but has no command; maybe you can teach it to him. Or the 19-year-old kid who tops out at 89, but has a projectable arm and might add 3 mph to his fastball in the next two years. The kid probably won’t, but if they do they might actually turn into an impact player, and I’d rather the guy with the 20% chance to be an impact player over the guy with the 90% chance to be on the Omaha shuttle for the next two years.

Or better still: try to find a way to use Broxton – and Mijares if necessary – as a means to get Francoeur off your roster. Offer Broxton to any team, and don’t even ask for a prospect back – just ask them to take Francoeur as well, and you’ll still pay half the money due to him. Hell, throw in Yuni while you’re at it. Getting those two off your roster would do more to help this team win games, both this year and next, than anyone you could actually get for Broxton in return.

We all know this won’t happen. We all know that we’re stuck with Francoeur, and probably Yuni as well. That Giavotella is stuck in Triple-A. And that we’re all stuck on the fast track to 100 losses, something which seemed inconceivable four months ago, and not just in the Vizzini usage of the term.

But of course, we’re the Royals. Nothing is inconceivable on the low end, and it’s my fault for thinking otherwise. So I guess it’s time to look to 2013, when Dayton Moore will either prove he deserves his job, or I – and all of you – will strive to see him fired in earnest. One 2012-caliber disaster is more than enough, thank you very much.