The season starts in a week and we still have six more items to run down our list, plus I owe you some sort of season preview, so we need to speed things up here. My apologies if some of the upcoming items are not of the absurd length you are accustomed to.
Today I just want to catch up on all the happenings down in Surprise:
1) The Royals made their first trade of the spring, sending a PTBNL to the Reds for reliever Brad Salmon. I certainly see nothing wrong with picking up Salmon in the abstract: he’s been consistently effective in the high minors over the last three seasons, with 214 strikeouts in 212 innings, and held his own in his first major league audition last season (4.13 ERA, 22 Ks in 24 IP). He’s 28, but that’s hardly unusual for a middle relief prospect – most of those guys started their careers as starters, converted to the pen in their mid-20s, then spent a few years refining their repertoire in their new role before getting a shot. Salmon’s just eight months older than Neal Musser, and I don’t see Royals fans claiming Musser isn’t a prospect.
Salmon reminds me a lot, in fact, of Joel Peralta, who was picked up off waivers when he was almost 30, and has given the Royals two fine seasons in middle relief. Besides their age, the other thing they have in common is that both were essentially limited to situational relief because their platoon splits were so extreme. In his brief major league trial last season, Salmon held RHB to a line of .213/.294/.279, but LHB tattooed him at .310/.394/.586. His overall numbers were solid because he faced RHB more than two-thirds of the time. (He had similar, those less-extreme, splits in Triple-A.) Peralta’s line in 2006 was very similar (.234/.268/.403 vs. RHB, .338/.400/.613 vs LHB), so last year he brought out a new cut fastball Bob McClure had him work on, and he actually handled LHB better than RHB. If McClure can work the same magic with Salmon, the Royals will have made quite the pickup.
The difference between the two is that Peralta was picked up on waivers, whereas the Royals had to give up something for Salmon. Until we know what that something is, we can’t evaluate the trade. Some rumors have Blake Johnson going to Cincinnati, which would be a little disappointing – Johnson’s a legitimate prospect – but not heartbreaking. Johnson’s a polished control right-hander with average stuff, and while that can be a useful guy to have in the back of the rotation for a few years, it’s not worth getting upset over losing a slightly upgraded version of Mike Wood.
Who knows? It might turn out to be just cash. We were supposed to send the Reds a PTBNL for Jason LaRue, and unless I missed the transaction that never happened. Given the way LaRue played, I think they owe us a PTBNL. We’ll take Salmon and call it even.
2) Speaking of McClure, he apparently has Brett Tomko throwing a curveball for the first time in six years, and apparently it’s been good enough to be a difference-maker. (Though you wouldn’t notice that from his 8.59 Cactus League ERA.) I still think signing Tomko was a mistake, though I’m appreciative that his poor performance had Trey Hillman at least giving strong consideration to moving him to the bullpen – the days of the Royals throwing Jose Lima and Scott Elarton out there every fifth day just because they made a commitment to them are long over.
At the moment, Tomko appears likely to have a grip on the fifth starter’s role. The disconnect between his stuff and his results is pretty jarring; Joe Posnanski tells the tale of the scout who thinks Tomko could win 15 games this year. Tomko relies almost exclusively on hard stuff, so a pitch that comes in at a different speed could be particularly useful for him. If the curveball takes and Tomko has a good year, we ought to go ahead and sign McClure to a lifetime contract.
3) The reason Tomko’s the fifth starter is that John Bale has, against all odds, all but won the #4 starter’s role. I didn’t think this was likely, but I don’t think this is a mistake either. As I wrote in our book this year on the subject of a move to the rotation, “Given his strong peripherals, it’s not as crazy as it sounds.” And moving a 34-year-old who has made nine starts in the majors – all of them five years ago – sounds awfully crazy. Even in Japan he was used almost entirely in relief, at least in 2005 and 2006 (I don’t have stats for 2004.)
The reason I like this move is twofold. One, Bale struck out 42 batters in 40 innings last year, and surrendered just one homer. He missed the first half of the season with injuries and was slow to get started in July; he walked six batters in 1.1 innings in a memorable July 24th outing. From that point on, he worked 36 innings, and walked just 10 batters against 38 whiffs. I’m not expecting that kind of performance out of the rotation, but 180 league-average innings is a possibility. Secondly, moving Bale to the rotation was the only way to eliminate the logjam of lefty relievers that the Royals had created for themselves with the signing of Ron Mahay. Now the Royals can go with Mahay and Gobble, and still have spots open for five right-handed relievers. Soria and Yabuta have guaranteed spots, but that still leaves three spots open, which means the odds are much better that the Royals keep Leo Nunez instead of exposing him to waivers.
4) One of those bullpen spots may well go to Hideo Nomo, and you can’t deny that’s awfully cool. A month ago I said the signing of Nomo was mostly a gimmick, but I did say that there was a small chance he could get a shot to show us his famed splitter would work well in relief. Well, he’s only topping out at 87 on the gun, but the splitter is working so well that he’s still striking out over a man an inning. It might mean taking advantage of Peralta’s final option, but why not see what he has left?
5) After getting ripped from here to Salina for even suggesting that Alex Gordon might bat 7th, Trey Hillman is now talking about batting him 3rd. That might be swinging the pendulum too much the other way – I thought the whole problem last spring was that the team put too much pressure on the kid, and now we want him in the 3 hole? Anyways, rumors have the lineup going like this:
CF L DeJesus
2B R Grudzielanek
3B L Gordon
RF R Guillen
DH R Butler
1B L Gload
LF L Teahen
C R Buck
SS R Pena
It’s a decent lineup from a pure ranking standpoint; the only quibble I have is that Teahen should move ahead of Gload. But I don’t like the idea of going R-R-L-L when you can easily go R-L-R-L; in today’s game, the proliferation of relievers means that avoiding a run of LH or RH hitters might be a more pressing priority than bunching your best hitters together. Given these nine players, here’s the Rany on the Royals-approved lineup:
CF L DeJesus
2B R Grudzielanek
LF L Teahen
RF R Guillen
3B L Gordon
DH R Butler
1B L Gload
C R Buck
SS R Pena
You can’t do anything about having Buck and Pena bat back-to-back, but frankly if Hillman’s any kind of manager he’s going to pinch-hit for Pena against a tough RHP in crucial situations anyway.
6) The trade rumor mill is churning, and Bob Dutton sends a pair of good ones our way. “One has the Royals discussing a deal to send utilityman Esteban German to the Dodgers for right-handed pitchers Jonathan Meloan and Miguel Pinango.”
Me like. Me like very much. German has been a great asset to the team the past two years, and represents one of Allard Baird’s finest moves. But his defense is legitimately bad, and with Alberto Callaspo around the Royals really have no need for another player who can fill in at second, third, and the outfield. Callaspo plays better defense, might be able to fill in at shortstop in a pinch, and is comparable with the bat, plus he’s five years younger.
But the reason you make this trade isn’t to get rid of German, it’s to get a hold of Meloan. You don’t normally want to trade for relievers, given how easy it is to scour one off the waiver wire or from the husks of failed starters. But Meloan could be special. Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus both rated him as the #8 prospect in the Dodgers organization, which is amazing for a reliever in one of the game’s deepest farm systems. He throws a good sinking fastball and a slider that Kevin Goldstein calls “plus-plus” and “a true wipeout offering.” Between Double-A and Triple-A last year he threw 67 innings, allowed 36 hits, 27 walks, and struck out 91. The stuff calls to mind Jeff Nelson, and his numbers resemble vintage (2000-01) Nelson, but with better control.
I’d do this trade in a heartbeat just for Meloan. Pinango is just gravy, and not that processed gravy you find at Old Country Buffet – he’s a polished control pitcher who could be a down-rotation starter for a few years if everything breaks right, perhaps comparable to the rumored-to-be-headed-out-of-town Blake Johnson.
And a not-insignificant bonus is this: if German gets traded, that opens up another roster spot for a hitter. Assuming the Royals are comfortable with Callaspo as their only utility infielder, this opens up a place for Justin Huber to stick around. At this point, it might be his only hope.
Next? “The other rumor has the Royals agreeing to pay half of shortstop Angel Berroa’s $4.75 million salary in order to send him”
Done! Where do we sign? Oh, you mean we get something in return too?
“to Washington for right-hander Zech Zinicola.” Zinicola’s a relief prospect of modest means, more famous for his ZZ initials than for anything he’s done on the mound. But really, does it matter? Someone is offering to give us $2.375 million dollars. Who are we to turn that down?
7) Looks like Billy Butler’s going to be the DH. I’m really not broken up about this at all. It would have been great if he could handle first base, but it’s not a secret that he simply can’t play defense worth a damn. He’s going to be a full-time DH soon enough, and by putting him there now, the Royals have no choice but to confront the fact that they really don’t have a first baseman who can hit. If that forces their hand into selecting Pedro Alvarez or Justin Smoak in the draft, so much the better.
8) Nothing’s official yet, but you might want to keep the weekend of July 25th-27th open. The Rays come to Kauffman Stadium, giving us a look at what happens when a youth movement is done right. Hopefully they won’t be the only attraction at the K that weekend. More details when they’re available, probably not for a while.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Reason #7: The Hitter.
You would think that hitting ability and fielding ability would correlate with each other. Both activities require tremendous hand-eye coordination, after all. And by and large, they do. Even the worst defender in the major leagues would play shortstop in your local beer league, and even the worst hitter in the majors would be the most fearsome slugger in any amateur competition.
Still, every now and then you get a guy like Billy Butler, who holds a bat in his hands like it’s an extension of his body, and wears a glove like he’s never seen one before.
The Royals got a guy like Butler with one of their shrewdest draft picks of the decade. The team had the #14 pick in 2004, still the latest they’ve waited to draft since 1996. The 2004 draft was not particularly strong; I mean, Matt Bush was the #1 overall pick, and Bush’s career as a shortstop progressed so nicely that he’s now a pitcher (and a pitcher who just had Tommy John surgery at that.)
It was weaker still if you wanted to avoid the money and acrimony that would inevitably follow Jered Weaver and Stephen Drew. Every team drafting in the top 10 did, and aside from Justin Verlander at #2, not one player taken in the top 10 looks like a sure thing today. (The Rice trio of Philip Humber, Wade Townsend were all taken in the top 8, and now they look like the second coming of the Mets’ “Generation K.”) The second-best player taken in the top 10 was probably Homer Bailey. The third-best was…uh…Jeremy Sowers?
There were rumors before the draft that the Royals would select Boston College pitcher Christopher Lambert. Lambert would make it to #19, where he was popped by the Cardinals. His stock has since dropped to the point where last summer the Cardinals traded him to the New York Highlanders…er…the Detroit Tigers for Mike Maroth.
As Scouting Director Deric Ladnier would later admit, in their war room the Royals were sure about only two things in that draft: 1) there were no sure things, and 2) if there was a sure thing, it was that Billy Butler could hit. And boy, has he. He hit .373/.486/.596 in his pro debut, topping the collegiate-dominated Pioneer League in both batting average and OBP as an 18-year-old. (It was a good summer for Billy; he also met his future wife there.) It takes a pretty awesome performance in rookie ball to get labeled a “steal” three months after you were drafted, especially when you were taken in the first round, but it was pretty clear that Butler had a chance to be special early on.
You don’t want to get too excited too quickly, though – hitters put up spectacular performances in rookie ball all the time, and many fizzle out quickly. The greatest rookie-ball Royals prospect I’ve ever seen was Sergio Nunez, who in 1994, as a 19-year-old second baseman just off the plane from the Dominican Republic, hit .397 in the Gulf Coast League (no desert thin air to boost his numbers), walked 32 times against just 17 strikeouts, and stole 37 bases in 59 games. (I believe his batting average is the highest by a Royals player, at any level, in their history.) For one season, he looked like the second coming of Joe Morgan. The next year he jumped to high A-ball and hit .237; he topped out in Double-A.
Butler jumped to high-A ball the next year, and he was no Sergio Nunez. He hit .348/.419/.646, finishing in the top 3 in all three rate categories, before he moved up to Double-A at year’s end and hit .313/.353/.527. In 2006 he spent the whole year in Double-A and hit .331/.388/.499, winning another batting title.
He failed to hit .300 in 2007, but his secondary skills bounced back, and he hit .291/.412/.542 in Triple-A for two months and drew more walks than strikeouts for the first time. He spent the rest of the year with Kansas City, hitting .292/.347/.447. He will still be 21 when this season begins.
The Royals simply haven’t had a hitter as precocious as Butler in 30 years, and quite possibly, ever. Butler was an everyday player in their lineup at the age of 21, and in franchise history the only two guys who can say that are George Brett and Clint Hurdle. Brett famously never hit .300 in the minors, whereas Butler almost never hit less than .300, and his career line in the minors is a rather ridiculous .336/.416/.561.
I don’t have access to Hurdle’s complete minor league numbers, but he’s the only Royal ever to crack the starting lineup at age 20, and thirty years ago this month he appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated (the headline was “This Year’s Phenom”,) so you have to figure he was pretty well regarded at one point. Actually, thanks to SI’s recent and greatly-appreciated decision to open up their vault, I can now link to the article from that issue. It looks like Hurdle hit .328 with 16 homers and 66 RBIs in Triple-A in 1976, at the age of 19. Yeah, I think that qualifies as a phenom. (By the way, that’s a great article to read, if only to contrast the cocky wild-eyed 20-year-old Hurdle and the guy who manages the Rockies today. And there’s a Rubin “Hurricane” Carter reference!)
You’d like to know with certainty that his career won’t disappoint like Hurdle’s did, and in your favor is the fact that Butler’s numbers as a rookie, .292/.347/.447, are almost identical to Hurdle’s best season, 1980, when he hit .294/.349/.458. On the other hand, offensive levels are much higher today than they were 30 years ago. Butler’s OPS+ last year was 105; not only was Hurdle’s OPS+ much higher at 120, but Hurdle’s OPS+ as a rookie (when he hit .264/.348/.398) was higher as well, at 108.
But hey, there’s a lot of space between Brett’s career and Hurdle’s. Butler’s not likely to end up like either player – for the simple reason that he can’t handle a defensive position. And it’s hard not to root for him. For one thing, his fielding skills are really the stuff of legend. He spent less than a year at third base, where one scout called him “the worst defensive player I’ve ever seen, at any position.” He then moved to the outfield…and as the story goes, in spring training two years ago, Butler was in the outfield and they were hitting fungoes out to him. It wasn’t going well – he was having all sorts of problems tracking fly balls. Suddenly he bolts in from the outfield and runs up to the coach hitting the fungoes to offer some advice. “You’re hitting the balls too high!”
How can you not love him after hearing that? Especially when you know that his defensive woes are not the product of a lack of effort. The man clearly loves everything about the game – he still has the boyhood innocence about him, the joy of playing a game and calling it work. He gets ribbed mercilessly in the clubhouse for being such a redneck rube, and I get the impression that all that ribbing – and the good-natured way he accepts all the abuse – is really a sign of how much the other players love him. He’s not Mark Quinn, in other words.
The main reason to love him is that, as clueless as he is in the field, he’s incredibly intelligent and intuitive at the plate. I think the best comparison for him is Edgar Martinez, a professional and cerebral hitter with great strike zone command and the ability to spray the ball all over the park.
Whether Butler makes it at first base or not is almost irrelevant; if he’s not DHing this year, he will be as soon as the Royals can find a real first baseman who can hit better than Ross Gload. His position may not be “3” on the field for long, but in the lineup, he’s the prototypical 3 hitter. Mike Sweeney is gone, but his replacement is not only on hand, it might be an upgrade.
Still, every now and then you get a guy like Billy Butler, who holds a bat in his hands like it’s an extension of his body, and wears a glove like he’s never seen one before.
The Royals got a guy like Butler with one of their shrewdest draft picks of the decade. The team had the #14 pick in 2004, still the latest they’ve waited to draft since 1996. The 2004 draft was not particularly strong; I mean, Matt Bush was the #1 overall pick, and Bush’s career as a shortstop progressed so nicely that he’s now a pitcher (and a pitcher who just had Tommy John surgery at that.)
It was weaker still if you wanted to avoid the money and acrimony that would inevitably follow Jered Weaver and Stephen Drew. Every team drafting in the top 10 did, and aside from Justin Verlander at #2, not one player taken in the top 10 looks like a sure thing today. (The Rice trio of Philip Humber, Wade Townsend were all taken in the top 8, and now they look like the second coming of the Mets’ “Generation K.”) The second-best player taken in the top 10 was probably Homer Bailey. The third-best was…uh…Jeremy Sowers?
There were rumors before the draft that the Royals would select Boston College pitcher Christopher Lambert. Lambert would make it to #19, where he was popped by the Cardinals. His stock has since dropped to the point where last summer the Cardinals traded him to the New York Highlanders…er…the Detroit Tigers for Mike Maroth.
As Scouting Director Deric Ladnier would later admit, in their war room the Royals were sure about only two things in that draft: 1) there were no sure things, and 2) if there was a sure thing, it was that Billy Butler could hit. And boy, has he. He hit .373/.486/.596 in his pro debut, topping the collegiate-dominated Pioneer League in both batting average and OBP as an 18-year-old. (It was a good summer for Billy; he also met his future wife there.) It takes a pretty awesome performance in rookie ball to get labeled a “steal” three months after you were drafted, especially when you were taken in the first round, but it was pretty clear that Butler had a chance to be special early on.
You don’t want to get too excited too quickly, though – hitters put up spectacular performances in rookie ball all the time, and many fizzle out quickly. The greatest rookie-ball Royals prospect I’ve ever seen was Sergio Nunez, who in 1994, as a 19-year-old second baseman just off the plane from the Dominican Republic, hit .397 in the Gulf Coast League (no desert thin air to boost his numbers), walked 32 times against just 17 strikeouts, and stole 37 bases in 59 games. (I believe his batting average is the highest by a Royals player, at any level, in their history.) For one season, he looked like the second coming of Joe Morgan. The next year he jumped to high A-ball and hit .237; he topped out in Double-A.
Butler jumped to high-A ball the next year, and he was no Sergio Nunez. He hit .348/.419/.646, finishing in the top 3 in all three rate categories, before he moved up to Double-A at year’s end and hit .313/.353/.527. In 2006 he spent the whole year in Double-A and hit .331/.388/.499, winning another batting title.
He failed to hit .300 in 2007, but his secondary skills bounced back, and he hit .291/.412/.542 in Triple-A for two months and drew more walks than strikeouts for the first time. He spent the rest of the year with Kansas City, hitting .292/.347/.447. He will still be 21 when this season begins.
The Royals simply haven’t had a hitter as precocious as Butler in 30 years, and quite possibly, ever. Butler was an everyday player in their lineup at the age of 21, and in franchise history the only two guys who can say that are George Brett and Clint Hurdle. Brett famously never hit .300 in the minors, whereas Butler almost never hit less than .300, and his career line in the minors is a rather ridiculous .336/.416/.561.
I don’t have access to Hurdle’s complete minor league numbers, but he’s the only Royal ever to crack the starting lineup at age 20, and thirty years ago this month he appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated (the headline was “This Year’s Phenom”,) so you have to figure he was pretty well regarded at one point. Actually, thanks to SI’s recent and greatly-appreciated decision to open up their vault, I can now link to the article from that issue. It looks like Hurdle hit .328 with 16 homers and 66 RBIs in Triple-A in 1976, at the age of 19. Yeah, I think that qualifies as a phenom. (By the way, that’s a great article to read, if only to contrast the cocky wild-eyed 20-year-old Hurdle and the guy who manages the Rockies today. And there’s a Rubin “Hurricane” Carter reference!)
You’d like to know with certainty that his career won’t disappoint like Hurdle’s did, and in your favor is the fact that Butler’s numbers as a rookie, .292/.347/.447, are almost identical to Hurdle’s best season, 1980, when he hit .294/.349/.458. On the other hand, offensive levels are much higher today than they were 30 years ago. Butler’s OPS+ last year was 105; not only was Hurdle’s OPS+ much higher at 120, but Hurdle’s OPS+ as a rookie (when he hit .264/.348/.398) was higher as well, at 108.
But hey, there’s a lot of space between Brett’s career and Hurdle’s. Butler’s not likely to end up like either player – for the simple reason that he can’t handle a defensive position. And it’s hard not to root for him. For one thing, his fielding skills are really the stuff of legend. He spent less than a year at third base, where one scout called him “the worst defensive player I’ve ever seen, at any position.” He then moved to the outfield…and as the story goes, in spring training two years ago, Butler was in the outfield and they were hitting fungoes out to him. It wasn’t going well – he was having all sorts of problems tracking fly balls. Suddenly he bolts in from the outfield and runs up to the coach hitting the fungoes to offer some advice. “You’re hitting the balls too high!”
How can you not love him after hearing that? Especially when you know that his defensive woes are not the product of a lack of effort. The man clearly loves everything about the game – he still has the boyhood innocence about him, the joy of playing a game and calling it work. He gets ribbed mercilessly in the clubhouse for being such a redneck rube, and I get the impression that all that ribbing – and the good-natured way he accepts all the abuse – is really a sign of how much the other players love him. He’s not Mark Quinn, in other words.
The main reason to love him is that, as clueless as he is in the field, he’s incredibly intelligent and intuitive at the plate. I think the best comparison for him is Edgar Martinez, a professional and cerebral hitter with great strike zone command and the ability to spray the ball all over the park.
Whether Butler makes it at first base or not is almost irrelevant; if he’s not DHing this year, he will be as soon as the Royals can find a real first baseman who can hit better than Ross Gload. His position may not be “3” on the field for long, but in the lineup, he’s the prototypical 3 hitter. Mike Sweeney is gone, but his replacement is not only on hand, it might be an upgrade.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Defending the Tenth
I remember the good old days – some of you might remember them as “January” – when, if Rob Neyer disagreed with my opinion (which was pretty much all the time), he’d respond in the little chat window that pops up in my gmail account, and pretty soon we’d have a dialogue, and the next thing you’d know another Rob & Rany would appear on his website.
Now, when Rob disagrees with me I get to find out about it the same way the rest of you do, in his ESPN.com column. Rob politely disagreed with my take that the changing economic climate that I talked about in Reason #10 is a good thing for small-market teams like the Royals:
“Are teams really smarter? Probably. But that doesn't help teams like the Royals. It hurts them. When rich teams throw stupid money at free agents it makes things easier for the poor teams. Not a lot easier; all that stupid money drives up payroll costs for everybody, rich and poor. But if the rich teams aren't overspending -- if they're valuing players correctly, and thus are willing to pay only a small premium for short-term success -- then where do the poor teams find their edge?
Jazayerli correctly notes that the gap between rich and poor is shrinking, due largely to various revenue-sharing measures. I still think a smart rich team has a massive advantage over a smart poor team.”
I’m not picking on Rob. I can’t, since many of you feel the same way. The comments on my post include: “For the forseeable future, small market teams won't be able to re-sign many of the great players they develop. They will lose out on the bidding for top free agents. They will be able to sign fewer good free agents than large market teams.
It seemed like your post was saying that for the [m]ost part significant economic disparity will soon be gone. I don't think that is even close to correct. The facts simply don't support such a contention.”
And this one: “One question. Wouldn't the money that's being spread to all 30 teams also increase the pockets of the large market teams? Since the revenue is equal in these situations, it does nothing to level any playing fields. It increases the amount all teams have to spend, on an even basis. Just because the Yankees don't immediately dump it into a crappy Juan Pierre type contract, doesn't mean they lose any ground.
The small market team definitely benefit in the short term by an influx of immediate funds, but the large market teams are reaping the exact same benefits as well.”
When one person disagrees with what I say, the resolution to that conflict is easy: that guy is a moron. When multiple people disagree with me…well, I have to entertain the notion that I’m the moron. (To quote one of the great first lines in movie history: “Listen, here’s the thing. If you can’t spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker.”)
In this case, I don’t think I’m the moron, I just think I didn’t explain myself very well. I don’t mean to state that because the Royals are now spending $70 million and the Yankees are spending $150 million, they can contend more easily than when it was $30 million and $100 million. The payroll ratio may have improved, but the payroll gap has stayed the same or even increased.
But it’s not just that the Royals have more money to spend, or that teams are getting smarter about how they spend their money. It’s that teams are spending less of their money on the talent they put on the field. And what this means, more or less, is that every team in baseball has the money to keep their own talent.
Rob argues that when rich teams throw money at bad free agents, that it helps poor teams because the rich teams are wasting their money. I disagree. When the Dodgers gave Juan Pierre $44 million for 5 years, it meant that the Dodgers had just set 44 million dollars on fire. That’s good if you’re a Royals fan. But it also meant that the market for even average outfielders just went way up – that’s bad if you’re a Royals fan. The Royals wanted Torii Hunter and Andruw Jones, and weren’t able to sign them because if
But if – and granted, it’s a big if – teams are getting smarter about spending their free agent dollars, then contracts like Pierre’s and Matthews’ are going to become less common. (It’s telling that both the Dodgers and Angels are suffering buyer’s remorse, to the point that both Pierre and Matthews may be fourth outfielders this year. That also means both teams understand the concept of sunk costs – something that wasn’t true in baseball five or ten years ago.) And if all 30 teams decide that it’s not worth paying half of A-Rod’s salary for a player that’s half as good, suddenly the market for middle-tier free agents is going to crater. You’re already seeing signs of this, the Lohse contract being the most recent example.
Yes, the Yankees and Red Sox can blow the Royals out of the water. But what if they choose not to? In other words, what if those teams, rather than continuing to increase their payroll into the $200 million range to insure they’ll challenge 100 wins every year, decide they can keep their payroll about where it is by cutting out the $5-10 million free agents and blending the occasional rookie into the lineup, and still win 92-95 games every year? The Yankees and Red Sox (and other big-market teams) may decide that reducing their playoff odds by maybe 15% may well be worth an additional $50 million in profit. Baseball is a business, after all. These teams can have their cake and eat it too.
I think we might be entering an era in which the distinguishing factor between large-market and small-market teams won’t be their competitiveness on the field, it will be their profitability off the field. Yes, a huge bidding war could erupt between the large-market teams and C.C. Sabathia might get $30 million a year when he hits free agency next winter. But I don’t see it. There was hardly a market this winter for Alex Rodriguez, for God’s sake. Teams seem to have reached the joint conclusion – and I don’t think it’s collusion, just multiple teams engaging in good business practices – that they don’t have to chase after every free agent that hits the market. And if they are confident that other teams aren’t pushing the market higher, there will be even less pressure to set the bar higher themselves. Revenues will continue to increase, at least in the short term, but salaries may not. Every team will be profitable – some teams will be immensely profitable.
Besides, the Royals aren’t really competing with the Yankees and Red Sox. Four out of 14
So do you really want to argue that the Royals can’t compete in the AL Central? Well, their payroll last season was $67.1 million, which pales to the White Sox at $108.7 million, or the Tigers at $95.2 million. Even the Twins had a higher payroll at $71.4 million. The only team in the division the Royals outspent was…um...the division-winning Indians, at $61.7 million.
Do you want to know why the Tigers and White Sox had a higher payroll than the Royals? Because they had better players, and better players cost more to keep – not because they were able to afford more expensive players in free agency than the Royals could. This isn’t specifically true of the Tigers, who loaded up on guys like Magglio Ordonez and Ivan Rodriguez, but as I’ve documented before, the Tigers’ resurrection is pretty unique, and few people in history have the eye for talent that Dave Dombrowski has. (Besides, if you want to use the Detroit Tigers as your reason for why the Royals can’t contend, be my guest. The Tigers were the most hopeless team in baseball five years ago – suddenly they’re being talked about as a large-market team swinging with the big boys in
The six most expensive players on the White Sox last year were Jim Thome, Javier Vazquez, Paul Konerko, Jon Garland, Mark Buehrle, and Jose Contreras, who combined made a fraction more than the entire Royals team last year. Buehrle was drafted by
The Indians, on the other hand, won with a young, mostly homegrown team, and nothing keeps payroll down like young talent. Grady Sizemore made $916,667. C.C. Sabathia led the team in salary at $8.75 million; Paul Byrd and Kenny Lofton were the only high-priced imports at 7 and 6 million respectively. The Indians won the division because they did the best job of developing young talent in the division, and not only were they able to keep all their young players, they did so without breaking a sweat.
The Royals may well lag the other teams in the division in payroll for the next year or two, simply because they haven’t developed young talent that’s worthy of a big payday. (Or hopefully, talent that’s worthy of a big payday yet.) But the financial realities today are much different than they were in the early part of the decade, when Jermaine Dye, Johnny Damon, and Carlos Beltran were all dealt away because the Royals couldn’t or wouldn’t pay them what they were worth.
Maybe the Royals wouldn’t be able to keep Carlos Beltran if he were about to become a free agent today. There’s always a chance that a potential Hall of Fame player is going to test the market regardless. The Twins felt compelled to trade Johan Santana because they weren’t willing to pay him $20 million a year…but on the other hand, they signed Justin Morneau to a six-year deal this winter, and Michael Cuddyer got three years. Anyway, if a team isn’t willing to offer a long-term deal to its best young talent years before free agency strikes, they don’t deserve to keep him anyway.
We’ll know just how able or willing the Royals are to keep their young talent a year from now. If Alex Gordon, Billy Butler, and Zack Greinke all get long-term deals that keep them in a Royals uniform for at least a year past their scheduled free agency, then you can be pretty certain the Royals have the money it takes to keep the talent they develop. Really, that’s all that you can ask for as a fan of a small-market team. If the team is willing to spend money to grab other team’s free agents…that’s a bonus.
Just keep in mind that the Royals gave out the largest new free-agent contract of any team in the AL Central…both in 2007 and in 2006. If that’s not a team that can compete financially, I don’t know what is.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Reason #8: The Voice.
I made the transition from fan to Superfan shortly after my 14th birthday, in August of 1989, when the Royals – on their way to winning 92 games, still their winningest season since 1980 – went on a nine-game winning streak against the White Sox, Mariners, and Angels. What made that streak special was that, for the first time in my life, I was listening to their games on the radio. (At least the ones that weren’t on TV, which in those days was pretty much all of them.)
I had no idea what a radio broadcast was supposed to sound like. I had no idea if Denny Matthews was the best or the worst announcer in the business. All I knew was that the voice on the radio described the details of the game in such a way that I could recreate the game in my own head with almost perfect detail. Which pitches were thrown, where they were thrown, how the infield was positioned, which way the wind was pushing the flags – all this information came through the set with perfect cadence, keeping me constantly informed without overloading me with information.
Listening to the Royals on the radio quickly became an addiction. I was only home in
I moved to
A pitch would be thrown, and all I’d hear was “ball” or “strike.” I had no idea if the first baseman was playing behind the runner or not, whether that foul ball was lined into the seats behind the first base dugout or drifted lazily in the upper deck. I remember vividly the broadcaster telling us the pitch was popped up and that the shortstop was moving under it…and then five seconds later telling us the ball landed way back in the seats. And in between, we had no idea that the popup was in foul ground, let alone whether it was catchable.
A few minutes later I realized I was listening to Ernie Harwell.
I’m sure I caught Harwell on a bad day – I would later be introduced to other Tigers announcers, and Harwell on a bad day was better than almost all of them. Harwell, I should point out, really is as nice as they say; it’s hard to find someone in
But if I hadn’t been convinced already, that’s the moment I realized what a gem we have in Denny Matthews.
Don’t listen to me. Listen to Bill James, who years before I ever heard Matthews’ voice had this to say about him, in the 1983 Abstract:
“Among the pleasures of being a Royals’ fan, few rank any higher than turning on the radio each evening to receive the
James spends the next page-and-a-half explaining, in far better terms than I ever could, what makes Matthews such a great announcer. If any of you readers have ambitions of becoming a broadcaster in any sport, it’s absolutely essential reading.
The Royals canned Matthews’ partner, Fred White, after the 1998 season. White didn’t deserve it; he wasn’t as good as Matthews, but he was better than 90% of the announcers around the country. The problem, if there was one, was that they had exceedingly similar styles. Every radio and TV broadcast in the country seems to pair a play-by-play guy with the ex-jock that mixes rare bursts of insight with a long stream of clichés and non-sequiturs. Matthews and White provided very little contrast, which was fine with me. I’m not listening to the set of an NFL pre-game show; I’m listening for someone to describe a baseball game to me, and they both did it very well.
Anyway, White was replaced by Ryan Lefebvre, and for the first year or two Lefebvre was awful, or at least awful by the standard of what Royals fans were used to. But then a funny thing happened: broadcasting game after game with one of the greatest broadcasters in the country, Lefebvre improved. He learned the nuances of the craft from one of its masters, and over time he started to sound more and more like Matthews while still retaining some individual flourishes. He started engaging in witty banter with Matthews during downtime – and with the Royals over the last 10 years, there have been plenty of 12-3 games that needed filler in the late innings. The generational gap between the two added just enough tension to make it interesting. I don’t live in Kansas anymore, and I don’t have summers off, but I do have XM radio, and I do have a 30-minute commute, and I’m just as sure to listen to the Royals in my car as I was 15 years ago.
Lefebvre won’t be working with Matthews anymore, because the Royals have been so pleased with his occasional forays onto the team’s TV broadcasts that they’re moving him over to that side permanently. Paired with Paul Splittorff, this has the potential to give the Royals one of the best TV tandems in the majors.
Splittorff has been doing color for the Royals for something like 20 years, which is amazing when you consider how many different play-by-play guys he’s been paired with. The PBP guys generally sucked, which is why there were so many of them, but Split is as serious a student of broadcasting as he was about pitching, and is one of the better color men around. (I’ve never been able to figure out how Splittorff won 166 games – most in team history – despite striking out 100 batters in a season exactly twice. One of my favorite pieces of stat trivia of all time: Paul Splittorff has more career wins than Sandy Koufax.) He’s also willing to call out the home team when they do something wrong, a trait found in precious few ex-jocks.
The additional upside here is that this takes Bob Davis out of the TV booth.
The downside here is that this puts
The one regret I have with Matthews is that I’ve never really heard him call a meaningful game. There were the 14 wins in a row in 1994, when the Royals were in the hunt all the way until the strike killed the season. And there was 2003. But other than that, the Royals have simply never been closer to the playoffs than they were during that nine-game winning streak in 1989 that got me hooked in the first place.
Matthews’ style doesn’t exactly lend itself to animated theatrics; he’s no Dave Niehaus. The most excited – maybe incredulous is a better word – I’ve ever heard him was at the conclusion of this game on April 11th, 2000, when Rey Sanchez hit a walk-off three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to improve the Royals to 7-3; it was the third straight game in which the Royals won on a walk-off homer. (Brian Johnson hit one in the 12th the night before; Johnny Damon led off the ninth with a homer the day before that. Incidentally, those three games are what brought the term “walk-off” into the baseball lexicon. That’s right – the Royals are responsible for making “walk-off” popular, and more incredibly, they were the ones hitting them.) I believe Matthews’ call after Sanchez’s flyball floated inside the left-field fair pole was, “What is going on?” That’s about as animated as he gets.
So far as I know. Of the many, many, many things I plan to enjoy if and when the Royals start contending again, getting to listen to an excited Denny Matthews ranks high on my list. Matthews is no spring chicken; he’s been behind the radio for the Royals since day one, and even though he was just 26 when he started, he turned 65 last November. Let’s hope that the Royals turn things around while he’s still around to enjoy it. And while we’re still able to enjoy him.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Reason #9: The Closer.
Joakim Soria was not the greatest Rule 5 pick of all time. He may not have been the best Rule 5 pick of last season, depending on whether or not Josh Hamilton can continue to tear baseballs and demons apart. But man, you’d be hard pressed to find a Rule 5 pick who, from the moment he first stepped on the mound in spring training, had people saying, “how the hell was he available?”
He was available only because he had spent essentially his entire career in the hinterlands of baseball:
I wonder if part of the reason is the fact that
Anyway, with Soria you didn’t have to wait until spring training to know that the Royals had pulled off a huge coup. The Royals almost didn’t get him in the first place; there was a growing buzz about him at the winter meetings even before the draft, and there was some talk the A’s (who had worked out a deal with Tampa Bay to select the first pick) would take him. Instead they took Ryan Goleski. Thanks, Billy – you owed us one. Forty-eight hours later Soria threw a perfect game in the Mexican winter league, and the hype had begun.
Not to toot my own horn – oh, who am I kidding, of course I’m tooting my own horn – this is what I wrote about Soria in last year’s Baseball Prospectus: “When contemplating Mexican League statistics, it’s important to remember three things: 1) While ostensibly a Triple-A league, the level of competition actually falls between Double-A and High-A; 2) The league, as a whole, is a tremendous hitters league, even more so than the old PCL; 3) There is tremendous variation in altitude between teams, which makes park effects extremely relevant. The first two points make it virtually impossible for hitters to cross the Rio Grande, but the third makes the adjustment for some pitchers surprisingly easy. Soria played in Mexico City, which at
Soria was available because
Soria made his debut on April 4th, in the Royals’ second game, with two men on base and the Royals down by two. He walked the first batter he faced, then gave up a sacrifice fly and a popout to end the inning. Two days later his name was called again, this time to start the 8th inning just after the Royals had broken a 1-1 tie with two runs. He allowed just a harmless single in a scoreless inning. Two days after that, Soria came in with two outs in the 7th, two men on and the Royals protecting a 2-0 lead; after walking the first batter, he stranded the bases loaded on a foul out, then pitched a perfect 8th inning.
And two days after that, Soria was so dominant in the eighth inning that Buddy Bell sent him out to pitch the ninth with a 6-3 lead; Soria retired the side in order again, striking out the last two hitters. Soria was the de facto closer from that point until Octavio Dotel’s return from the DL, and then returned to the role after Dotel was traded.
I suspect it’s highly unusual for a pitcher – any pitcher, let alone one who had never pitched above A-ball in the United States – to be utilized as his team’s primary setup man in his second major league outing. But to get the closer’s job in just your fourth appearance? That’s almost literally unprecedented. The only pitcher I’m aware of who earned the role more expeditiously was Salome Barojas, who was anointed the White Sox closer in spring training in 1982, despite the fact that he had never pitched in the majors. Five games into his major league career, Barojas had five saves; he finished with 21, which exceeded the total number of saves he would earn (14) in the rest of his career.
Soria’s a testament to good scouting – Louie Medina saw him in
Soria’s success is the product of an excellent cut fastball, a changeup that he hides very well and rides in on right-handed hitters, and with two strikes, the occasional sloooow curveball that he apparently borrowed from Zack Greinke. (Here’s an outstanding analysis of Soria’s repertoire.) And he throws all his pitches with precision. As one AL Central front office source told me after getting a look at Soria in April, “he’s the Mexican Zack Greinke.”
In terms of pure stuff, there’s really not much difference between the two, and the Royals considered moving both of them to the rotation late last year before splitting the difference, moving Greinke while leaving Soria alone. If anything, Soria’s a victim of his own success. He was so good in relief last year, and the Royals have such a long history of brutal closers stretching back to when Jeff Montgomery lost his stuff, that they don’t want to mess with a sure thing.
The question is: should they? It’s the classic dilemma in modern baseball: do you take a pitcher that has proven they can succeed in a high-leverage relief role, and move him to the rotation, where he might give you three times as many innings?
Soria threw 69 innings last year. Factor in two additional weeks that he spent on the DL for precautionary reasons more than anything else, and you figure he’s good for 75-80 innings as a reliever. Projecting any starter for more than 200 innings is risky anymore, so let’s say that he’s worth 200 innings in the rotation.
Now factor in leverage. A closer’s innings will be necessarily more valuable than a starter because (presumably) he is being leveraged in situations where a single run allowed has far more impact on the game than it would in, say, the first inning of a tie game. Fortunately, at Baseball Prospectus we have a statistic to measure that, conveniently called Leverage. Soria’s Leverage was 1.53 last year, so roughly speaking you can argue that his 69 innings were as important as 69*1.53=106 innings from a starting pitcher would be.
But Soria’s Leverage last year reflects the time he spent in middle relief as well as his time as the closer. The Leverage of the other four closers in the division last year ranged from 1.59 (Bobby Jenks) to 2.09 (Joe Borowski). A typical closer has a Leverage rating between 1.7 and 1.8. So Soria’s 75-80 innings in relief would be the equivalent of about 135 innings as a starter.
Then you have to account for the fact that, almost without exception, all pitchers will be more effective in relief than in the rotation. This is not a controversial statement, but the size of that difference might be surprising. Research that Nate Silver did as part of his annual improvements to PECOTA showed that, if you hold all other factors equal and move a reliever into the rotation, his ERA will rise a full 25%.
Now, Soria had a 2.48 ERA last season; tack on 25% and you’re at 3.10, and a starter with a 3.10 ERA is a damn sight more valuable than a reliever with a 2.48 ERA, Leverage be damned. But what if Soria’s true talent is more in the 3-3.5 ERA range? Would you rather have a closer with an ERA of 3.20, or a starter with an ERA of 4.00? In that case, you’d still want the starting pitcher. According to Nate, in fact, “a 2.00 ERA closer is roughly as valuable as a 3.69 ERA, 200-inning starting pitcher.”
Not all pitchers improve equally when moving from the rotation to the bullpen. As Nate found in a subsequent article, there are certain factors that make it more likely that a starting pitcher will blossom in relief. Those factors are 1) a high strikeout rate; 2) a high walk rate, i.e. poor command; 3) lots of isolated power, i.e. a flyball pitcher who gives up homers.
In other words, a pitcher with great stuff and little idea where the ball is going should see more improvement, moving from the rotation to the bullpen, than average. Nate brings up the examples of Bobby Jenks, Jonathan Papelbon, and J.J. Putz as guys who took to the bullpen like a fish to water. Conversely, that means that such a pitcher who was already in the bullpen would struggle more than average if he was moved to the rotation. For that reason, Nate argued against the idea of moving Papelbon back to the rotation after his rookie year (an opinion the Red Sox eventually agreed with, and an opinion that was borne out last year.)
But look at Soria. Soria had a terrific strikeout rate,
I understand why the Royals are keeping him in the bullpen, because it’s just so easy to look at him and envision a young Mariano Rivera on the mound. There are some visual similarities, and of course Soria has a great cutter, and like Rivera he used that cutter to just saw off the bats of left-handed hitters last year (they hit just .167/.217/.229 against Soria, which is filthy). And like Rivera he gave up very few extra-base hits.
But we shouldn’t be making momentous decisions like this based purely on his superficial similarities to one admittedly unique pitcher. Rivera has thrived in the bullpen as essentially a one-pitch pitcher, but Soria has four good pitches, he’s young, he’s worked as a starter for most of his pro career, and there’s a lot of statistical evidence to suggest he will adapt to the rotation just fine.
The Royals need their security blanket for now, so they’re leaving Soria in the closer’s role, but they have not shut the door on him returning to the rotation in the future. Unfortunately, time will shut that door for them soon enough. Assuming the Royals aren’t actually in a pennant race in the second half and can afford to experiment for the future, they need to put Soria in the rotation for the last month or two of the season and see what they’ve got. Worst-case scenario, in 2009 he goes back to being the team’s first bona-fide closer since Jeff Montgomery. Best-case scenario…the Royals have something even more valuable than a bona-fide closer.
In whatever role they use him in, he’s a joy to watch. Good thing we’ll be watching him in
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Reason #11: The Park.
Kauffman Stadium is older than I am, and a lot better looking. Between 1970 and 1973, 4 new major league stadiums opened their doors, all of them round, symmetrical fields with artificial turf, the sort of place for which the term “stadium” was somehow more appropriate than “park” or “field”. Riverfront Stadium, Three Rivers Stadium, and Veterans Stadium have been long since retired, as has Busch Stadium (which originally opened with grass in 1966, but switched to turf a few years later.) And this doesn’t even count places like the Metrodome, which opened in 1982 and is already slated for destruction, or the dearly imploded Kingdome, or Jack Murphy Stadium, or the monstrosity that was Stade Olympique.
Only Kauffman Stadium remains. Only Kauffman Stadium, among the parks of its era, was built solely for baseball, with proper sightlines and seats pointing the right way and that enormous crown which focused all your attention towards centerfield. Once the A’s, Mets, and Yankees move into their new ballparks, Kauffman Stadium will be the fifth-oldest park in the majors.
Wrigley Field: 1916
Dodger Stadium: 1962
Angel Stadium: 1966
Kauffman Stadium: 1973
Skydome...er, the Rogers Centre, which opened in the middle of the 1989 season, will rank sixth.
The bond measure which passed a few years ago all but assures it will remain the Royals’ home for another quarter-century, for good reason: it’s a terrific ballpark. It’s easy to get to, the parking lot is the biggest this side of Great America, and the fountains are one of the most distinctive flourishes for any stadium in baseball, if not all of sports. Once they ripped out the turf a decade ago, you really could not file an aesthetic complaint against the place. The one legitimate gripe was that the sports complex, set off from
But today, when more than half the teams in baseball play in a mallpark that’s less than two decades old, and almost every one of them has been wedged into an urbanized downtown setting where you can walk from the business district to your seat, then stop at a bar on the way out – Kauffman Stadium feels almost delightfully retro. The ballpark isn’t a way station between dinner on the waterfront and a nightcap at a piano bar. It’s a place you go to watch a baseball game, and it was designed for that singular purpose. I love it. And I can’t wait to see what it looks like when all the ongoing renovations – an enormous jumbotron, an even larger crown scoreboard, wider concourses, more food options, etc. – are completed by Opening Day 2009.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Reason #12: The Epic.
But Meche pitched like an ace for six weeks – he had a 1.91 ERA in his first nine starts – and was a still-better-than-league-average pitcher after that, with a 4.36 ERA and strong peripherals the rest of the way. He never tired, he never turned into a pumpkin, he never gave an opening for his detractors. His season totals wouldn’t look out of place in Kevin Appier’s prime, right down to the lousy run support. Compare these two seasons:
Year Pitcher GS IP H BB K HR W L ERA RS
2007 Meche 34 216.0 218 62 156 22 9 13 3.67 3.84
(RS is run support.)
Appier would hurt his shoulder the following winter; the official story was that he fell off his sister’s porch carrying her wedding presents, but there were a lot of unofficial stories out there. In 1997, though, he was continuing an eight-year run as one of the five best starting pitchers in baseball. Meche wasn’t that good, but then, no one in Royals history was as good as Kevin Appier.
I’m not going to be able to just let that comment hang out there, so…let me say it again: Kevin Appier is the best pitcher in the history of the Royals’ franchise. In terms of overall value, he was more valuable than the legends before my time (Dennis Leonard, Paul Splittorff, Larry Gura), or the heroes of my youth, the Leibrandts and the Danny Jacksons. He was better than Bret Saberhagen.
Yes, he was better than Bret Saberhagen. Saberhagen won two Cy Young Awards; Appier won none. But Appier, by any reasonable measure, was the best pitcher in the American League in 1993, and that Jack McDowell won that season was a crime – a crime aided and abetted by the local writers (I don’t know their identities, though I have my suspicions) – as only one of the 28 BBWAA voters that year put Kevin Appier at the top of their ballot. Twenty guesses and you’ll never guess right…it was Phil Rogers, then of the Dallas Morning News.
McDowell won because he went 22-10; Appier went 18-8. But if you simply look at their team’s overall record when each pitcher started – what Joe Posnanski calls “True Wins” – both pitchers were 23-11. And while Appier’s run support was 4.52 per game; McDowell’s was 4.97.
Saberhagen’s 1989 is the best single season by a pitcher in team history; by WARP1, he was good for 12.4 wins over replacement that year. He was also over 10 wins in 1985 (10.3) and 1987 (10.1). Appier’s 1993 scores at 11.1, the second-best season by a Royal; he was
The problem for Saberhagen is that those three years are pretty much all he’s got. He was at 8.1 WARP in 1991, but was pretty much a league-average pitcher in all the even years in between (1984, 1986, 1988, 1990). And then he was gone. Appier was at
If you arrange their seasons from best to worst, here’s what you get:
Saberhagen Appier
Year WARP Year WARP
1989 12.4 1993 11.1
1985 10.3 1992 10.0
1987 10.1 1996 9.3
1991 8.1 1997 8.0
1988 6.9 1995 7.6
1990 5.2 1990 7.2
1984 4.5 1992 6.7
1986 4.5 1994* 5.2
Saberhagen wins the top four seasons, by narrow margins. Appier wins the bottom four seasons, by big margins.
By career WARP in a Royals uniform, Appier wins, 68.2 to 62.0. No one else comes close; Paul Splittorff had 54.6 WARP (despite a career high of 6.4; his best season was not as good as Appier’s worst), Quisenberry had 53.6 (amazing for a reliever), and Dennis Leonard was at 52.8.
Actually, there is one other pitcher I haven’t mentioned who I’m amazed to say had the exact same WARP as Appier – Mark Gubicza. Gubie really had two careers, one as a power pitcher and one as a garbage/finesse guy, sort of the Royals’ version of Frank Tanana. From 1987 to 1989 he was as good as Saberhagen; his 1988 WARP of 11.0 is third all-time. He hurt his arm after throwing about 770 innings over three years – imagine that – but after a period of adjustment to losing his fastball, he settled in as a league-average pitcher for a few years, capping it off with a very fine 1995 when he managed to throw 212 innings in a somewhat strike-shortened season because Bob Boone had the audacity to try a four-man rotation for half the year.
I think the tie clearly goes to Appier ahead given that his value was almost entirely packed into eight seasons, whereas Gubicza’s value was spread out over 13 years. Peak value means something – a team is more likely to win a pennant with a pitcher who’s brilliant for a short period of time than with a pitcher who’s simply good for a longer period of time. On the other hand, when Appier’s time was up, the Royals dealt him for three piles of dung (or, if you prefer, Blake Stein and two piles of dung, which isn’t much better.) Gubicza, on the other hand, somehow fetched Chili Davis, who gave the Royals a fantastic season as a DH in 1997.
If I had to subjectively rank the best starters in team history, it would like this:
1. Kevin Appier
2. Bret Saberhagen (that World Series performance counts for something)
3. Mark Gubicza
4. Dennis Leonard
5. Paul Splittorff
Anyway, we got off track here…while Meche is no Kevin Appier, he has an excellent shot at becoming the Royals’ best starter since Appier. This is partly because the Royals have not had any good starters since Appier. Since the 1994-95 strike, only three Royals than Appier) have amassed even 15 WARP, which equates to about three seasons of league-average pitching. Those three are Jose Rosado (21.3), Jeff Suppan (20.4), and Tim Belcher (17.8). Belcher departed in 1998, Rosado’s arm went boom in 2000, and Suppan left after 2002; things have only gotten worse since then.
Since 2000, what pitcher has the most WARP in a Royals uniform? Would you believe Zack Greinke? On the basis of a good year in 2004 (for four months), a good year in 2007 (as a swingman), and a disastrous 2005, Greinke has 14.7 WARP. Suppan has 14.4, and then the list goes Darrell May, Paul Byrd, Jeremy Affeldt, Jason Grimsley…you know what, I’ll stop there. Once you reach Jason Grimsley, there’s really no point in going on.
Meche is already in 11th place, with 6.9 WARP; he had the second-best season of any Royals’ starter this decade, behind only Paul Byrd’s 2002 (7.7).
I see no reason why he can’t do it again. PECOTA is unrepentant, predicting Meche to finish with a 4.47 ERA. His top comparable is last year’s version of Vicente Padilla, followed by the immortal Roger Pavlik of 1997. I’ll remember to slap Nate Silver upside the head the next time I see him, though in the meantime a dose of humility is warranted: pitchers who have a sudden breakthrough in performance, as Meche did last season, don’t always hold onto it.
I’m confident Meche will, though. His performance spiked corresponded to a specific event, the change in his delivery that had him land on his toes instead of his heel. His injury woes, the ones that kept him off a mound entirely for all of 2001 and 2002, seem long behind him. His control dramatically improved last year, and walk rate is perhaps the one category where a sudden improvement by a pitcher is most likely to be sustained.
It’s too early to say he can make the mid-career leap from solid starting pitcher to Cy Young contender that Jason Schmidt and Chris Carpenter made. But Schmidt and Carpenter both made their leaps when they were 29. Gil Meche is 29.
So long as Meche gives us four more years like his last one, he’ll be an enormous free agent bargain. Who would you rather have over the next four years, Gil Meche or Carlos Silva? Keep in mind, Silva will make a million more per year than Meche.
The Epic of Gil Meche has yet to be fully written. But whereas a year ago I thought it would be a tragedy, today I’m hopeful that it will be a resounding and heart-warming triumph.
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