Ka'aihue and Hillman.

You know, I want to believe Sam Mellinger when he writes that we shouldn’t be worried that Kila Ka’aihue* isn’t getting more playing time.

*: You’ll notice I added the ‘ in Kila’s name. The ‘ represents a glottal stop, what is known in Hawaiian as the ‘okina. (When you say “uh-oh”, the glottal stop is the hyphen.) Having learned the correct pronunciation of Ka’aihue’s name endears him to me even more, because it turns out we have something in common. The correct transliteration of my last name from the Arabic would actually be Jaza’erli; the letter they call ‘okina in Hawaiian is known as the hamzah in Arabic. My parents elected to simplify the name a little when they came to America – I guess they figured Jazayerli would be hard enough to pronounce without introducing non-Latin letters. But we will be referring to Kila by his phonetically-correct name from now. Glottal stoppers unite!

So yeah, I want to believe that Ka’aihue’s lack of playing time is simply because the Royals want to get a good look at Ryan Shealy, and does not mean that Ka’aihue won’t be the starting first baseman next season. And then Trey Hillman has to open his big mouth.

“I’m not trying to count KK out for a spot next year,” Hillman said. “But he did move two levels this season. He’s getting a taste (in the big leagues).

“Percentages tell us that, typically, you don’t see a guy go Double-A, Triple-A in one year and then be an impact guy (the following year) at what we hope is a slug position at first base.”

Hillman says that he’s not trying to count KK out for a spot next year. Why should he have to say that? When you get to work, does your boss pop into say that he’s not planning to fire you today? When you head to Sonic* for lunch, does your waitress tell you that they didn’t spit in your meal that day? You don’t try to reassure the fans that you’re “not trying to count KK out” unless you’re seriously thinking about counting KK out.

*: I love living in Chicago, because no matter how big a metropolis it is, the city still acts like a Midwestern town that’s perpetually star-struck by getting to hang out with the really big cities like LA and New York. I’d like to present, as my exhibit, this article about the biggest new phenomenon to hit Chicago. That’s right, Sonic finally opened their first restaurant in the area.

As it happens, I drive right by this Sonic every day on my way home to work, and can bear witness that it’s been packed every evening since it opened. My exposure to Sonic primarily comes from their weirdly appealing commercials that play incessantly during Royals games, so I’ll have to ask you all for a judgment: is it any good? It certainly looks appealing, but given that I’m fasting for Ramadan, any food item that doesn’t have mold growing off of it looks appealing at the moment.

So why is Hillman so skeptical about Ka’aihue? Because of the “percentages.” And clearly, he’s a guy who knows all about the percentages. Why else would he start Ross Gload against Kevin Slowey yesterday – Gload was 3-for-7 in his career against Slowey! That’s, like, a .429 average! And seven at-bats is a very meaningful sample size!

And what do those percentages say? That “you don’t see a guy go Double-A, Triple-A in one year and then be an impact guy (the following year).” Well, maybe that’s because you don’t see a guy go Double-A, Triple-A the way Ka’aihue went this season, huh Trey?

37 homers. 104 walks. A .315 average. A 1085 OPS. A lot of guys get promoted to Triple-A mid-season; almost none of them put up numbers like those in the process.

I don’t have a comprehensive list of players who have, and I’m pretty certain that Hillman doesn’t either. But just from memory, I can think of one guy who did exactly what Ka’aihue did: he had a monster season as a first baseman at age 24 in Double-A, moved to Triple-A late in the year, then made his major league debut that September. His name was Ryan Howard.

Howard had a better minor league season than Ka’aihue in one respect: he hit more home runs, 46 of them in 131 games, compared to Kila’s 37 in 124 games. But Kila had more walks (104 to 60), a higher batting average (.291), a higher OBP (.456 to .369), a higher OPS (1085 to 1006), and many, many, many fewer strikeouts (67 to 166).

The Phillies decided to do something radical: they didn’t just promote Howard in September, they actually played him a little. In 39 at-bats, he hit .282, with 5 doubles and 2 homers. A nice little debut.

But the next season, they decided to send Howard back down for a little more seasoning; they were happy with their current first baseman. When their starter got hurt in May, Howard got a 12-game trial and didn’t hit very well (.214/.267/.393), so it was back to Triple-A. Finally, their first baseman suffered a season-ending injury at the end of June. Howard, who was putting up ridiculous numbers in the minors (.371/.467/.690), got recalled and hit .296 with 21 homers the rest of the way. He finished with numbers of .288/.356/.567, and despite playing in just 88 games, won Rookie of the Year honors.

The Phillies missed out on some accolades of their own, because they missed the playoffs by a single game. Do you think they regret not promoting Howard sooner? I do, Trey.

But the Phillies had a pretty good excuse. Their incumbent first baseman, the guy they decided to go with instead of Howard at the start of the year, was a guy named Jim Thome. He’s a pretty good hitter. You’re starting Ross Gload, Trey. He isn’t.

Anyone who thinks that Ryan Howard wasn’t ready to be an “impact guy” at “a slug position at first base” that season is a moron. The Phillies didn’t think that; they simply had no way to resolve the dilemma of having two terrific hitters at first base. Even so, they made the wrong decision – well, Jim Thome made the wrong decision to wrench his back – and it cost them a playoff spot.

I guess if there’s a silver lining here, then, it’s that whatever Hillman decides to do at first base, we don’t have to worry about it costing us a playoff spot. In fact, I’m becoming increasingly convinced that we won’t have to worry about a playoff spot for as long as Trey Hillman is in charge of deciding who the first baseman is.

Looking to 2009: The Pitchers, Part 1

Turning our attention to the pitching staff and figuring out who should stay and who should go, two things stand out:

1) There aren’t nearly as many holes that need to be filled as there are on offense.
2) Precisely because of 1), it’s a lot harder to make dramatic improvements simply by replacing dead weight.

For 2009 and 2010, at least, the pitching staff starts with The Epic and The Baseball Jonah. Gil Meche and Zack Greinke each have reached 10 wins, which doesn’t sound like a big deal, except that they’re the first teammates to reach double-digits in wins for the Royals since 1999, which is one of the saddest stats I’ve seen all year. (The Royals didn’t have a single pitcher reach 10 wins in 2004 and 2005. In 2003, they somehow won 83 games with just a single 10-game winner (Darrell May), a single 9-game winner (Chris George, with a 7.11 ERA), and a single 8-game winner (Jose Lima). Sad. Just sad.)

More important than their win totals, which of course are subject to the efforts of their mates on offense and in the pen, are their strikeout totals, which are subject to little other than their own talent. And that talent is quite formidable. Last year, Meche struck out 156 batters in 216 innings. This was easily the most strikeouts by any Royals pitcher since Kevin Appier got hurt after the 1997 season. No other pitcher this decade had been with 20 whiffs of Meche. (Mac Suzuki, of all people, had held the team mark for the decade with 135 Ks in 2000.)

This year, Meche is doing even better, with 158 strikeouts in just 186 innings so far. In 30 fewer innings, he has two more strikeouts. He also has two more walks, but the emphasis on power pitching has paid dividends overall, as his batting average against has dropped from .263 to .250. His ERA has crept up slightly, from 3.67 to 3.96, because he was uncharacteristically (and unsustainably) good with runners in scoring position last year. But as an overall body of performance, Meche has been a tick better in 2008 than in 2007. That’s even more true when you consider his trendline: last season, Meche had a 1.91 ERA in his first nine starts and a 4.36 ERA after that, whereas this year he had an 8.00 ERA in his first five starts, but since then has a 3.28 ERA.

There are still analysts who argue that, however well Meche has pitched, it was a mistake for the Royals to spend 55 million dollars for a free agent that wasn’t going to put them over the top. If you believe in the cold, hard calculus that states that any season that ends before the playoffs is a failure, then that may be true. If Meche is only the difference between 65 wins and 70 wins, then he’s not worth the money.

But at some point, you have to spend money on talent, and trust that eventually you’ll have enough talent to make a playoff run. And as a fan, there’s value in knowing that tonight’s starter is capable of completely shutting down the opposition, no matter how many games out of first place the Royals are. So far Meche’s performance hasn’t impacted the standings one bit. But with three years to go, and with Meche still making the kind of incremental improvements that may presage a complete Jason Schmidt/Chris Carpenter breakout season, I’m still hopeful that he’s going to have an impact on a pennant race at some point before his contract runs out.

When he was signed, one of the biggest complaints about his contract was that, by extending him to five years, the Royals were taking a huge risk that he might get hurt early on and be a dead weight on the payroll for years. Instead, at this point that fifth year looks like a blessing in disguise, because it keeps Meche under contract for 2011, a year that increasingly looks like the Royals first good opportunity for contention.

Meche has more strikeouts than any Royals pitcher had in the previous 11 years, but he doesn’t even lead this year’s team. Greinke does. In 182 innings, Greinke has 167 strikeouts, enough to rank fifth in the league in both Ks and Ks per 9 innings. He’s walked just 52 batters, meaning that he’s just the second starting pitcher since 1991 to post a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 3 or better. (The other was Paul Byrd in 2002, when Byrd walked just 38 batters in 228 innings.)

Greinke hasn’t had a true breakout year, partly because he’s given up 21 homers, and partly because his BABIP is an unimpressive .315, leading to more hits than innings pitches. Some of that is bad luck, some of that is bad defense. But the important thing to take away from this is that when you look at the things that are within a pitcher’s control – innings, walks, strikeouts, homers – Greinke has had arguably the best season of any Royals starter this decade.

While Meche is under contract through 2011, Greinke can be a free agent after 2010. I’ve said this a million times, but let’s go ahead and make it a million-and-one: signing Greinke to a long-term deal is Dayton Moore’s #1 priority, whether he realizes it or not. I understand that Moore does not offer long-term deals with his players during the season out of principle, a principle that stems from his days in Atlanta. (Apparently Soria’s long-term deal is an exception because Soria approached the team first.) That’s the only explanation I can muster for why Moore hasn’t put the full-court press on Greinke to sign.

A month from now, Moore needs to do the right thing. Money shouldn’t be a problem; the Royals have enough of it, and the comparable contracts out there suggest that a three-year deal in the range of $11 million per, with an option year for the same, should get it done. Maybe even less; Scott Kazmir, who is very comparable to Greinke in terms of overall value (albeit a very different pitcher) and who, like Greinke, would be a free agent after the 2010 season, signed a three-year extension in May, for $28.5 million ($9.5 million a year) with a fourth-year option for $11 million.

I’d go further and offer Greinke a four-plus-one or (ideally) four-plus-two deal, because while we’re not privy to the current state of Greinke’s mental health, his physical health is stellar for a young pitcher. His mechanics are excellent, he’s reasonably efficient with his pitches, he’s never suffered an arm injury, and the time off in 2006 may have helped keep his arm healthy.

There’s a lot of talk about how the Royals can cash in Greinke this winter, put their rebuilding into overdrive the way the A’s have, maybe walk away with half of the Rangers’ farm system or something. If Greinke won’t sign, that’s an option that has to be considered. But it’s an option of last resort. It’s not just that Greinke has the potential to be a legitimate #1 starter, but that he already is a legitimate #2 starter. So long as Meche and Greinke stay healthy, the Royals’ top two starters can hold their own with the top two starters for every team in baseball.

It’s the other 60% of the rotation that’s a problem. We’ll get to them soon enough.

Potpourri.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Royals Today: 9/3/2008.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[snip]

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

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

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

Um, yeah. About that OBP thing, Trey.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gordon Redux.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Big News at the Hot Corner.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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