Out With The New, In With The Old.

(At 2:07 this morning, my wife gave birth to our fourth daughter, who decided to enter the world two weeks early. Both mother and daughter are doing well, and her three big sisters are handling the commotion as well as can be expected. I will likely be missing from this site for the next few days, but this blog post was almost complete before I was rudely interrupted, so I’ve gone ahead and finished it. I hope you’ll understand if it’s even more rambling, incoherent, and error-riddled than usual.)

Well, this spring training just keeps getting better and better.

And by “better and better”, I mean “worse and worse”.

The Royals came into the spring with, essentially, only three roster decisions. Five of the seven bullpen spots were almost assured: Soria, Broxton, Holland, Coleman, and Mijares. A sixth spot was likely going to the loser of the Luis Mendoza/Felipe Paulino rotation battle. That left one open spot and a half-dozen candidates.

Three of the five rotation spots were guaranteed to Luke Hochevar, Bruce Chen, and Jonathan Sanchez. That left Danny Duffy, Felipe Paulino, and Luis Mendoza fighting for the last two spots.

Eight of the nine lineup slots were set: Salvador Perez (C), Eric Hosmer (1B), Alcides Escobar (SS), Mike Moustakas (3B), Alex Gordon (LF), Lorenzo Cain (CF), Jeff Francoeur (RF), and Billy Butler (DH). Brayan Pena was the backup catcher. Yuniesky Betancourt was the utility infielder. Mitch Maier was the fourth outfielder. Jarrod Dyson was the pinch-runner. The only open roster spot was that of the starting second baseman, a battle between Johnny Giavotella and Chris Getz.

Even when guys started getting hurt, there was clarity in who their replacements would be. Soria’s injury just convinced the Royals to leave Aaron Crow in the bullpen. Perez’s bum knee forced the Royals to make a trade, with Humberto Quintero taking his spot for now, and Jason Bourgeois bumping Dyson off the roster. But 22 of the 25 roster spots were spoken for. It’s a credit to the Royals that they have enough talent that they don’t have a lot of decisions to make on who to keep. The lack of open spots also limits the opportunities the Royals have to screw up those decisions.

But man, they’re trying.

Sunday morning, I saw that the Royals’ lineup that day had Yuniesky Betancourt starting at second base, and I tweeted out, “At this point I’d be stunned if Giavotella makes the Opening Day roster.” Not 15 minutes later, the Royals made it official, optioning Giavotella to Omaha.

And I admit: I lost it a little. Those of you who follow me on Twitter were entertained by the live streaming of a man blowing off some steam, and ripping the Royals for holding back their youth movement on the basis of a tiny and irrelevant spring training sample. And just when I was about done, a follower tried to play the “the professionals know more than you” card, and pretty soon I was recapping every brain-dead Royals decision of the last quarter-century. I mean, seriously, if you want to argue that the people who get paid to run a team know more than a well-educated fan, you’re better off picking just about any other franchise in American sports.

Oh, and in the middle of all that, Felipe Paulino took the mound with a rotation spot on the line and flat-out soiled himself. This did not improve my mood.

Anyway, I’ve finally had a chance to breathe, and reflect, and analyze. And I’m feeling a little better.

But just a little.

The Royals are sending mixed messages as to why, after Chris Getz failed to slug even .290 for the second straight season last year, and after he lost his job to Johnny Giavotella in August, and after Giavotella showed more pop in two months than Getz showed in two years, and after Giavotella came into spring training as the favorite for the starting job, they reversed course this spring.

Is it because of defense? “(Giavotella) needs to continue to focus on his defense,” manager Ned Yost said. “Johnny is a much better defender today than he was at this time last year, but we had two better defensive options in Betancourt and Getz.”

Let’s ignore the fact that Ned used the words “better defensive options” and “Betancourt” in the same sentence. I can almost buy this argument. The knock on Giavotella has always been that he is a below-average defender at second base. Getz isn’t as good as the Royals think he is, but he’s probably average, maybe even slightly above, at second base.

And I’ll grant the Royals this: on days when Getz is at second base, and Quintero is behind the plate, this might be the best defensive squad the Royals have thrown out there in a long, long time. Ignoring the pitcher, the worst defensive player in the Royals’ lineup is probably Moustakas, and he’s only a little below average. Assuming Eric Hosmer’s poor defensive numbers can be corrected with positioning, Moustakas would be the only below-average defender on the field.

In particular, having Quintero (and Perez when he returns) behind the plate, Escobar and Getz at the keystone, and Cain in centerfield makes for very good defense up the middle. Gordon and Francoeur only have average range, but their arms are both significant weapons in the field.

If you believe the numbers that evaluate Asdrubal Cabrera to be a below-average shortstop, instead of the highlight reels that argue the opposite, then as they’re constituted now, the Royals might have the best defense in the AL Central. That is worth something. (Although with the Indians going with Jack Hannahan at third base over Lonnie Chisenhall, that claim is now debatable.)

So okay, Giavotella is going back to Omaha purely to work on his defense, and the Royals will platoon Betancourt and Getz until they’re satisfied with his glove. This is a message they’re sending to Johnny, not an indication they’re satisfied with Getz.

“Like I told Johnny, it wasn’t anything that he did,” Yost said. “It was just that Getz came into camp a totally different player, one that I didn’t expect to see and, quite frankly, I thought Yuni would be serviceable at second base, but I didn’t think he’d be nearly as good at second base as he’s been. So we had to players that showed up that were better options defensively for us.”

Oh, God.

Let’s ignore the fact that Ned used the words “good” and “second base” and “Yuni” in the same sentence. Getz came into camp a totally different player? The Royals have remarked since camp opened that Getz has a new swing, one that allows him to drive the ball for more power. Kevin Seitzer is the Bat Whisperer, so maybe it’s true. Let’s see what Getz has done in Arizona with his new-found swing:

He’s 8-for-31 with seven singles and a double. His slash line is .258/.314/.290.

Mercy me. Someone get to reinforcing the outfield walls pronto.

In the warm, thin air of Arizona, where the ball travels so well that Alcides Escobar hit five homers and slugged .636 last spring, Getz’s retooled swing has his slugging average all the way up to… .290.

“I told Getzy this morning,” Yost said, “that when he showed up to camp, I saw no way for him to make our club. But he came as a totally different offensive player – to his credit.”

PLEASE STOP TALKING.

If I’m parsing these quotes accurately, Getz had no chance to make the club at the beginning of spring training, but thanks to a re-tooled swing that has helped Getz slug .300 – well, not .300, but close! – he’s convinced the Royals to change their minds.

The first rule of Spring Training is not Don’t Talk About Spring Training, but it’s close: Don’t Talk About Spring Training Stats. What happens in Arizona and Florida in March, on rocky fields against wildly varied competition, against pitchers who are working on their own weaknesses instead of trying to exploit yours, is worse than meaningless – it’s downright deceptive.

Do you remember who led the majors in homers last spring training? Jake Fox. He made the Orioles’ roster based on his performance – then hit .188/.250/.396 in 52 plate appearances before he was optioned back to Triple-A on June 1st.

But I guess the Royals are ahead of the game here, because they didn’t give Getz the second base job based on his spring training stats. How could they – his stats suck! They gave him the job based on a new swing that hasn’t even shown results in spring training. Now no one can claim that they were deceived by his spring training performance. Savvy!

Sure, I might be overreacting. This could certainly work out. Maybe the talk about Getz’s new swing is just a smokescreen to cover the fact that this is really all about Giavotella’s defense. Maybe Johnny will be back as soon as May if he shows legitimate improvement with the glove, or if Getz is still slugging in the .200s by then. Maybe the long-term impact of this move is minimal, and I’m getting worked up over nothing.

But that’s a lot of maybe’s, and a lot of if’s. All I know with certainty is that the Royals are convinced that, in the here and now, Chris Getz is a better option at second base than Johnny Giavotella. I think that’s troubling.

It would be one thing if Giavotella were one of the scrapheap leftovers from the previous administration. Then it would be understandable (though still not excusable) that they’d rather go with the Proven Veteran, the way they decided they’d rather trade a reliever for an expensive Mike Jacobs then give Kila Ka’aihue the chance to prove whether they were wrong about him. But Giavotella is a Dayton Moore guy through and through. The Royals used an early second-round pick on him in 2008, even though he was seen by most teams as a third-round talent. He was drafted as an offensive-minded second baseman with a questionable glove, but someone who would be a pest at the plate, hit for a good average, find a way to get on base, and hit a bunch of doubles.

And here’s the thing: Giavotella is exactly the guy the Royals thought they were getting. That’s a tribute to their scouting acumen – they pegged him perfectly. He has turned into exactly the sort of player they hoped he would be.

And, having done so, he’s out of a job. Because of Chris Getz.

So what bothers me here more than the implications on the field is the thought process behind it.  I don’t think they’ll bury Giavotella. I think they legitimately do like him, and want him to be the starting second baseman at some point this year. But the Royals’ lack of faith in their own Process is disturbing. Giavotella has his flaws. But if you don’t think he’s a better second baseman than Chris Getz, either you’re making a mistake now, or you made a mistake when you drafted him.

And then there’s Felipe Paulino, who like Giavotella entered camp as the incumbent, and also entered camp with considerable reason to think that he would be better in 2012 than he was in 2011. In Gio’s case, it’s because of his age and the fact that his hip is now healthy; in Paulino’s case, it’s because of his stuff and the fact that his BABIP is historically high.

Like Giavotella, he hasn’t done anything to warrant losing his job, not because he’s played well in spring training, but because it’s very hard to do ANYTHING in spring training that should cost you your job.

But with Luis Mendoza pitching brilliantly all month long, and after Danny Duffy flashed the best stuff of anyone in his first outing, Paulino’s job was at least in mild jeopardy. After throwing two shutout innings in his first “official” spring training performance, he lost the strike zone in his second outing, allowing four runs in his first inning of work before pitching two more scoreless innings. On March 20th he went four solid innings, allowing one run, striking out four and walking no one.

And then on Sunday, against a Brewers’ lineup that had maybe two players who will start the season in the majors, he was completely awful. He couldn’t get out of the third inning, and allowed six hits, three walks, and five runs in 2.2 innings.

The next day, Mendoza started against the Giants and threw five shutout innings. That lowered his spring ERA to 0.54; in 16.2 innings he has allowed 11 hits, walked three batters, and struck out 16.

I’ll also point out that he leads the Royals with four wins this month, which is of course completely and utterly meaningless, but then so is pretty much ever other stat from spring training. That’s why they call it spring training and not “spring performing” or “spring for-realsies”.

If spring training stats mattered, the Royals would be worried about Bruce Chen’s numbers, which – even after allowing three runs in six innings today – are far worse than Paulino’s: 34 hits and 24 runs allowed in 18 innings. Instead, Ned Yost announced today that Chen will be the Opening Day starter. Which is fine. I would have gone with Hochevar myself, but aside from the fact that the order hardly matters, Chen’s performance in spring training shouldn’t be held against him.

But I am deeply worried that Paulino’s performance will. There is just something about Paulino which rubs his teams the wrong way. The Astros gave him up for Clint Barmes, the Rockies gave him up for nothing. Maybe they just couldn’t see past his BABIP luck, but maybe there’s something else – something that we can’t see from our perch as an educated outsider – that makes Paulino add up to less than the sum of his parts. I don’t know, and I’ll confess that there may be factors in play here that I don’t and can’t understand.

In the abstract, giving up on Paulino ought to hurt the Royals far more than sending Giavotella back to Omaha. But if Paulino gets the shaft in the rotation battle, I’ll probably take it a little better. Partly that’s because, with Paulino out of options, if he isn’t in the rotation he’ll be the long man out of the bullpen.

And partly, it’s because I’ll confess to becoming increasingly curious as to just what the hell Luis Mendoza can do. I’ve already broken down his performance last season here, and my conclusion was that while I would be fine with him in a long relief role this season, that his inability to miss bats, even when he led the PCL in ERA last season, meant that it was very unlikely his success there would translate to being even an average starting pitcher in the majors.

Well, in addition to being the best starting pitcher in camp, Mendoza has also shown the ability to miss bats, having struck out 16 batters in 16.2 innings. Again, it’s spring training, so it’s probably meaningless. However, reader Ed Muller pointed out that Mendoza’s strikeout rate last year, while poor overall (5.1 Ks per 9 innings), improved significantly as last season went on – through June, he had a strikeout rate of 4.11 per nine innings, but from July 1st onwards, he struck out 6.51 per nine.

The basic difference is that, while I don’t think Mendoza has figured things out, there’s at least a chance, as opposed to the odds that Chris Getz has finally discovered the Fountain of Extra-Base Hits. Both players are 28 years old, but Mendoza’s a pitcher, and pitchers don’t follow the aging curve nearly as smoothly as hitters. It’s very rare for a hitter to suddenly figure things out in their late 20s. It happens – hello, Jose Bautista – but it’s rare enough that you have to approach any such claims with skepticism.

But pitchers break out in their late 20s all the time, usually due to a substantial change in their approach, like learning a new pitch. Mike Scott learned a splitter* in 1985, when he was 30; prior to that he was terrible, with a 29-44 career record and a 4.45 ERA in his 20s. (A 4.45 ERA in the early 1980s, pitching in Shea Stadium and in the Astrodome, would be like a 5.45 ERA today.) Then in 1985, he went 18-8 with a 3.29 ERA in 222 innings. In 1986, he led the NL with a 2.22 ERA, struck out 306 batters in 275 innings, had a WHIP of 0.923, won the Cy Young Award, and single-handedly scared the bejeezus out of the 108-win New York Mets in the NLCS.

*: Many people, most prominent among them Orel Hershiser, swear that Scott’s “splitter” was really a “scuffer”. I report, you decide.

Esteban Loaiza was a 31-year-old journeyman going into the 2003 season, with a 69-73 record and a 4.88 ERA (95 ERA+). He then signed with the White Sox, Don Cooper taught him his famed cut fastball, and for one glorious season, Loaiza was one of the game’s best pitchers – 21-9, 2.90 ERA, league-leading 207 Ks in 226 innings, and he finished 2nd in the AL Cy Young Vote.

Ken Hill was only 24 when his transformation occurred, but it was equally dramatic. After a rookie season in 1989 when he led the NL in losses (15) and walks (99), he started the 1990 season with a 5.49 ERA in 79 innings and was optioned to Triple-A. He then learned the split-fingered fastball, and was insanely dominant for Louisville – 85 innings, 47 hits, 27 walks, 104 Ks. He returned to the majors in 1991, with a 3.57 ERA in 181 innings, and was an above-average pitcher for the next six years.

And, of course, just last year Philip Humber learned Cooper’s cutter, and went from Quadruple-A pitcher to one of the White Sox’ best starters. So it’s certainly possible for Mendoza to take a great step forward this year; while he hasn’t learned a new pitch, he completely overhauled his delivery last year, and now throws almost directly overhand, giving his pitches more sink.

I still don’t think it’s likely, because in all those cases above, the improvement went hand-in-hand with a new-found ability to miss bats. Mendoza’s ERA title for Omaha last year was not accompanied by a raft of whiffs. If the uptick in Mendoza’s strikeout rate late last year and this spring is meaningful, the Royals may have something on their hands here. I’m skeptical, but I wouldn’t rule it out completely.

And as I finish writing this, it turns out that most everything I’ve just written is a moot point – the Royals have announced that Paulino will start the year on the DL with a sore elbow, giving Duffy and Mendoza the final two spots in the rotation. Obviously, an injury is concerning, but assuming this isn’t season-threatening, this might even be a good thing in the long term. (It’s being reported as a minor forearm flexor strain, that ought to keep him out for no more than a few weeks.) For one thing, it might explain Paulino’s disappointing performance this spring. It also allows the Royals to give Mendoza a legitimate audition in the majors to put the proof in the pudding.

If Mendoza flames out, then the Royals will have seen what they needed to see, and they can move on from Mendoza without needlessly stunting a more talented pitcher’s career. If he turns out to be for real, well, there are worse things than having six qualified starting pitchers. Particularly since, as we’re seeing with Paulino, the odds that all six are all healthy at the same time is slim. (This, of course, is the reason the Royals’ argument that they didn’t need Edwin Jackson because they already had enough starters was so silly. But that ship has sailed.)

And yes, the timing and nature of Paulino's injury seems a little...convenient. But given his erratic performance this spring, Occam's Razor leads me to give the Royals the benefit of the doubt here.

This has been an awful spring, with more injuries in one month than the Royals had all of last year, and at least one questionable roster decision. Certainly, the shine has been taken off my optimism/blind hope/delusion that the Royals could contend in 2012. I don’t want to minimize the short-term hit the Royals have taken. But in the long-term, the impact of everything that’s happened this month should be contained. For 2013 and beyond, my optimism is unshaken.

You may not want to trust my judgment, though. As a new father, everything looks even rosier than usual.

Joakim Soria, Past & (Maybe) Future.

The elbow injury to Joakim Soria is terribly unfortunate, and possibly career-ending, at least with respect to his career as a member of the Kansas City Royals.

What the injury wasn’t was particularly surprising.

There’s not a ton of analysis to do on Soria’s injury. He blew out his elbow and required Tommy John surgery in 2003, when he was a 19-year-old in the Dodgers organization. The injury caused him to miss all of 2003, and he didn’t pitch in 2004 either, although he was probably in extended spring training much of that time. The Dodgers released him after the season, and he went back to pitching in Mexico in 2005, where he caught the eye of the Padres, he joined their system in 2006 while continuing to pitch in Mexico…and the Royals plucked him in the Rule 5 draft that winter, whereupon Soria, whose stateside experience had peaked with 12 innings in the Midwest League the year before, instantly became one of the best relievers in the American League.

(Quick aside, when I was down in Surprise last month, I was introduced to a group of Royals scouts before a scrimmage. “Rany, have you met Louie Medina?” I was so excited I didn’t even say hi, I just blurted out, “You’re the guy who’s responsible for Joakim Soria!” “Partly,” he responded modestly. “Soria is the guy most responsible for Joakim Soria.”)

While Tommy John surgery has revolutionized the game by allowing pitchers to recover from a major injury at 100%, one of its side benefits is that by giving pitchers a brand-new ligament in their elbow, there’s typically a “honeymoon” period, whereby the new ligament is almost guaranteed to hold up for five years after the surgery. It’s very, very rare for a pitcher to fully recover from Tommy John surgery, only to tear the new ligament within five years.

And right on schedule, Soria’s elbow didn’t give him any problems through 2008…but in 2009, his arm started barking a little, causing him to miss a few weeks an dlimited him to just 47 appearances. (I’m honestly not sure if it was his shoulder, his elbow, or both. The Royals initially denied that he had any injury at all, remember.)

Soria was back in peak Mexicutioner form in 2010, but in 2011, something was wrong from the beginning. By the end of May he had a 6.55 ERA and five blown saves, which was already a career high. Everyone panicked, myself included. It wasn’t simply that Soria was pitching poorly, it was that he wasn’t pitching like himself. His once-unhittable curveball had simply disappeared. He was throwing this weird cutter that he didn’t need and that didn’t work.

The Royals were convinced that there was nothing structurally wrong with Soria, and to their credit, he pitched like vintage Soria from June 1st onward: in 38 innings, he had a 2.58 ERA, struck out 41 batters and walked only seven. On paper, it looked like he was back.

On the mound, it wasn’t as clear. He still rarely threw his curveball – according to Pitch f/x data, here is the frequency with which Soria threw the Guillotine:

2007: 14.1%

2008: 14.2%

2009: 13.0%

2010: 6.8%

2011: 7.1%

It’s a testament to Soria’s command and his fearlessness on the mound that, despite missing his best off-speed pitch, and despite a fastball that averaged only 91, he was still an elite reliever in the second half. But the question as to what happened to Soria’s feel for his curveball remained. So did the question as to whether he could ever get back to his pre-2011 form.

Those questions only intensified when Soria started getting lit up from his first outing in spring training. During that same Royals’ scrimmage, Soria gave up three runs to his teammates – every other Royals pitcher on both teams gave up two runs combined. In three official spring training outings, he gave up 10 hits and 7 runs in 3.1 innings. In a “B” game against a bunch of Rangers minor leaguers, he got torched.

And then his elbow went pop. After seeing three different physicians, Soria finally accepted the inevitable and will undergo Tommy John surgery with Dr. Lewis Yocum on April 3rd. In a perverse way, the fact that Soria needs this surgery might be the best thing possible for his long-term career. Even when he was pitching well in the second half of last season, the magic was gone. The way he was pitching early in spring training had me terrified that he was going to reprise last season again, and that he’d cost the Royals three or four wins early in the season before they tried to adjust.

Instead, we now have good reason to think that Soria’s struggles last year were health-related after all. And there’s good reason to think that with a healthy elbow, he can return to being the Soria of old. My friend Will Carroll assures me that a second TJ surgery, while rare, has the same success rate as the first one. Soria’s previous ligament lasted him eight seasons; there’s no reason to think his next one won’t last just as long.

I can’t fault the Royals or their training staff here – at least not since 2009, when their mishandling of his symptoms was just a small part of the injury cluster that caused me to blow my stack. Whether it’s his relatively slight build, his mechanics, or the strain that his curveball put on his elbow, Soria may simply be prone to this kind of injury. It was probably inevitable that this day would come.

Which, of course, makes the Royals’ repeated refusal to even consider trade offers for him so damning.

I don’t feel like re-hashing the did-the-Yankees-offer-Jesus-Montero-or-not discussion. Clearly they were very interested in Soria, not only because Soria was one of the best closers in baseball, but because Soria was pretty clearly the most Riveraesque closer in baseball. His repertoire was different – there’s only one pitcher in baseball who can throw that cutter – but Soria’s demeanor and unflappability on the mound would have particularly appealed to the Yankees, who saw him as someone who could survive the fishbowl of New York, and be perfectly positioned to succeed Rivera whenever the Greatest Closer of All Time decided to abdicate his throne.

Was Montero formally offered? I have no idea. Was Montero discussed? From media reports, up to and including Jayson Stark’s most recent appearance with Soren Petro, almost certainly. Were the Yankees willing to offer a substantial amount of talent for Soria, Montero or not? Without a doubt. Were other teams interested in Soria? Of course.

Did the Royals screw up by not selling high on Soria? Do I really have to answer that question?

Jesus Montero wouldn’t fit the Royals’ roster at all, but then you see what Montero finally brought back – Michael Pineda – and you try to envision what the Royals’ rotation would like with him at the front of it…

I don’t want to come down too harshly on the Royals. Frankly, while I felt that the Royals should have traded him, I wasn’t nearly as forceful on the issue as I should have been. The reason I didn’t lay the hammer down is the same reason the Royals didn’t trade him: we loved Soria too damn much.

From 1998 to 2006 the Royals had the worst bullpen over a nine-year stretch in major league history. Dayton Moore was hired in 2006, when the Royals’ closer was Ambiorix Burgos, who 1) had a 5.52 ERA, 2) blew a franchise-record 12 saves in 30 opportunities, and 3) was one of the most malignant people ever to wear a Royals’ uniform – in a just world he’d probably be locked up for the rest of his life.

The other relievers in the pen were lefties Jimmy Gobble (5.14 ERA) and Andy Sisco (7.10 ERA), and right-handers Joel Peralta (4.40 ERA) and Elmer Dessens (4.50 ERA). Jeremy Affeldt (5.91 ERA) and Mike Wood (5.71 ERA) made cameos. Todd Wellemeyer, with a 3.63 ERA – despite having as many walks (37) as strikeouts (37) – was the best reliever on the team.

Joakim Soria was taken in the Rule 5 draft after the season, and this obscure kid from Mexico who no one had seen before was dropped into the nuclear wasteland of a bullpen the following April, put on a HAZMAT suit, and started kicking ass and taking names. After recording two outs in a 7-1 game in his major-league debut, Soria was brought in to protect a 3-1 lead in the eighth inning his next time out – he had graduated to being the team’s set-up man after one appearance. He threw a scoreless inning. In his third outing, he got four outs to protect a 2-0 lead in the seventh and eighth, only David Riske gave up three runs in the ninth to lose the game.

In his fourth major-league appearance, Soria was the Royals’ closer. It was six up, six down, three by strikeout. He would give up the closer’s role temporarily when Octavio Dotel came off the DL, but it was returned to him when Dotel was traded in July, and he’s held it ever since.

Soria was the vanguard of a revamped bullpen which included Riske (2.45 ERA) and Zack Greinke (3.54 ERA before returning to the rotation). Even Gobble had a 3.02 ERA. In 2006, the ERA of the Royals’ bullpen was 5.41. In 2007, it was 3.89. Dayton Moore had accomplished a miracle, but even he knew that it was Soria who wielded the staff.

That doesn’t excuse Moore’s decision to hold on to Soria at all costs, but it does explain it. Of all the mistakes a sports organization can make, excessive loyalty to its own players is the most understandable from a human standpoint. Bill Belichick is perhaps the most unsentimental executive in sports; he’s always willing to trade his players at the peak of their ability, if he senses an arbitrage that will make his team better. It’s a philosophy that has carried him to five Super Bowls and three championships.

If the debacle with Soria has any silver lining, it’s that it might teach Moore that a touch of Belichickian unsentimentality is a necessary ingredient to a winning franchise. But just a touch. For all his success, Belichick comes off as a bit of a dick. And personally, I’d rather that the guy running the Royals not be a dick. (That’s what we have the Chiefs for.)

And even Belichick is probably going to stick with Tom Brady when the Golden Boy is 47 years old and can’t throw a spiral more than ten yards.

That’s all spilled milk under the bridge now. (I’ll take “mixed metaphors for $400”, Alex.) The question is what do the Royals do going forward, because the sad reality is that while Tommy John surgery might be the best thing for Soria, it might be the worst thing for the Royals. Soria is already making $6 million this year, and he has an $8 million option for 2013 and an $8.75 million for 2014. Those options are worthless at this point; no one’s going to pay him $8 million in his first year off surgery, when he might miss the first month of the season before he’s ready to pitch.

That means that, for all intents and purposes, Soria is a free agent. But it also means the Royals have the opportunity to re-sign Soria and save money in the process. Both sides have shown loyalty to each other – Soria by signing a team-friendly contract early in his career, the Royals by repeatedly refusing to trade him. There should be a strong relationship here, one that the Royals should make use of by offering Soria a new contract for 2013 right now.

Let’s say the Royals tear up his options for 2013, but sign Soria to a guaranteed contract for, I dunno, between 3 and 4 million for next year. (He’s going to earn $750,000 anyway when the Royals decline the option.) This gives Soria the peace of mind that he’s got a guaranteed contract for next year, and it gives the Royals incentive to fully invest in his recovery from surgery.

Pitchers are generally on the mound 11-12 months after Tommy John surgery, so there’s no reason why Soria can’t be pitching for the Royals on Opening Day or close to it. Stephen Strasburg had surgery on September 3rd, 2010, and returned to the Nationals’ rotation (after three minor-league rehab starts) on September 6th, 2011. Adam Wainwright had surgery on February 28th of last year, and is ready to break camp with the Cardinals this spring. An April 3rd surgery date should put Soria on track to be activated sometime in mid-to-late April next season. Yes, there are risks involved, but about 90% of pitchers return from surgery with undiminished stuff. I think it’s worth the Royals offering him half his salary for the 90% chance that Soria pitches at 90% of his pre-injury talent level for 90% of the season.

(This also would require the Royals to adopt the standard rehab regimen for Soria, as opposed to the incredibly conservative timetable that they have John Lamb on. Lamb hurt his elbow last May, had TJ surgery on June 3rd, but the Royals have said they don’t expect him on a mound until July, that he will make “six to eight legit starts” this year, and that “he may make it as high as High-A this year.” I understand not wanting to push your young starter, but I don’t understand essentially giving up an entire year of development when the industry standard would have him on a mound a month earlier and you might get a half-season’s worth of starts out of him, putting him on course to start in Triple-A next season and be in Kansas City by mid-season.)

Even better for the Royals would be to sign Soria to a one-year deal with an option for a second season – I’m thinking a vesting option with a really low threshold, like 25 appearances or something. Essentially it would be a two-year deal, but it would give the Royals an out in the event his rehab goes really poorly. Just pulling numbers out of the air here, but a $3.5 million contract for 2013, with a $5.5 million vesting option for 2014, might work for both sides. Soria is likely to be better in his second year after surgery than his first, and it would be nice for the Royals to swing a deal that keeps him in a Royals uniform for the next two years, saves the franchise some money, and still pays Soria close to market value for a pitcher returning from a season lost to surgery. (If Soria heads out onto the market, he won't even be the only closer returning from Tommy John surgery - it was announced today that Ryan Madson will be going under the knife and is out for the year as well.)

The best recent comp for Soria would be Joe Nathan, who along with Jonathan Papelbon was Soria’s main competition for the title of “Best Non-Mariano Closer In Baseball”. Nathan had Tommy John surgery on March 25th of 2010. He was back on the Twins’ roster on Opening Day of last year, but it was pretty clear he wasn’t completely ready – on May 24th he went back on the DL with forearm inflammation, having allowed 15 runs in 15.1 innings. He missed a month, but after returning on June 25th he was pretty much the Nathan of old – while he had a 3.38 ERA after returning, in 29 innings he allowed 21 hits, walked 5, and struck out 28. After the season the Rangers were convinced enough that they signed him to a two-year, $14.75 million deal.

So there’s your template – Soria may only be about half as valuable in 2013 as he was at his peak, but he ought to be close to 100% by 2014. Reworking his contract to give him $9 million over the next two years seems a fair deal for both sides. Just today, Soria made it clear he’d like to stay with the Royals, while acknowledging that he won’t be getting $8 million next season to do so:

“I’d like to have the opportunity,” he said, “to sign back here after I become a free agent – if they don’t take the option, which is obvious they won’t take it.

“I just want to get ready as soon as possible to have the chance to pitch on the major-league level again either with this team or another one. I would like to stay here.”

If the Royals are savvy, they’ll take the “after I become a free agent” scenario out of the equation, and get a deal done with Soria a lot sooner than that. The Royals guaranteed Salvador Perez five years and Alcides Escobar four years because they felt that those contracts might save the team money in the long term. The same wisdom applies here.

As to how this affects the bullpen...it is one of the biggest arguments in favor of Dayton Moore as a GM that even with Soria out all year, and even with Blake Wood out for at least the season’s first month, the Royals still have more quality relievers than they have roster spots to accommodate them. The only substantial impact the injury has is that it guarantees Aaron Crow will open the year in the bullpen, but that was likely going to happen either way. Jonathan Broxton, Greg Holland, and Crow are locks, and Jose Mijares seems to have the LOOGY job locked down. Louis Coleman is the ROOGY (Right-handed One Out GuY), the guy who can be used to terrorize a string of right-handed hitters – they hit .180/.250/.360 against him last season – but has the stuff to hang in against lefties as well.

Barring a surprise demotion of Danny Duffy to Omaha, either Luis Mendoza or Felipe Paulino will be the long man, as they’re both out of options. (You know where I stand on that battle. You also know that the Royals are almost guaranteed to make the wrong decision.) That leaves one open spot, for the following candidates, in decreasing order of likelihood:

Tim Collins

Everett Teaford

Kelvin Herrera

Tommy Hottovy

Jeremy Jeffress

That’s quite an extraordinary accomplishment, that even without Soria and Wood, the Royals have no less than 11 pitchers who are worthy of a major-league bullpen spot. (Well, 10 – I’m not sold on Hottovy yet, but his new sidearm motion makes him a potential left-handed specialist if he finds success in Triple-A.) The Royals have seven or eight pitchers who would have been one of their two best relievers in 2006, or 2004, or 2002, or 2000, or 1998.

Emotionally, the loss of Soria hurts. Practically, it may barely be felt at all.

That’s particularly the case of Broxton is back to full health. He has pitched well in limited spring training innings, and he’s running his fastball up into the mid-90s. It seemed a curious decision for the Royals to sign him at the time; they were spending $4 million for a toy they didn’t need, given the strength of the bullpen. It looks like a stroke of genius now, which has led more than one Royals fan to wonder if the team already knew they would be without Soria’s services this season. Given the way Soria finished last year, I doubt that’s the case.

I think this was just another example of Moore being unable to resist a young veteran talent available on the cheap. I can’t say I blame him: Broxton is 27, the same age Jeff Francoeur was when the Royals signed him, and just a year older than Melky Cabrera was. Like Francoeur and Cabrera, Broxton is coming off a couple of poor seasons, but with reason to think he may improve – in Broxton’s case, it’s because the downturn in his performance can be traced to a 48-pitch outing in July of 2010, and that persisted until he was shut down last year to have bone spurs removed from his elbow. Broxton was a good bounce-back candidate regardless; with Soria out, his value to the Royals intensifies.

I’ve been asked by Royals fans – and by more than a few fantasy baseball players – who I think will replace Soria in the closer’s role. While Greg Holland is clearly the team’s best reliever based on performances last year, I would actually give Broxton the first crack at the job myself, and I think the Royals will decide the same thing in the next week or so.

For one thing, given the straitjacket that is put on closers in today’s game, it’s not entirely clear that you want your best reliever to close anyway. You don’t want a Burgos or a Ricky Bottalico in that role, but if you have two relievers, one of whom is capable of a 2.00 ERA and the other is capable of a 3.00 ERA, I’d probably prefer the latter in the closer’s role. That role involves an awful lot of two-run and three-run leads, and almost always requires no more than three outs of work. Let Broxton take the glory role, and let Holland do the heavy lifting, coming into tie games and coming in with men on base and staying in to pitch multiple innings.

Last season, Holland made 46 appearances with the Royals, and in 21 of them he was brought in with men on base. In 20 of them, he recorded four outs or more. Nine times he pitched at least two full innings. You won’t see that kind of usage if he’s in the closer’s role, which would be a shame.

There are ancillary benefits to making Broxton the closer. Broxton’s a free agent at year’s end, but Holland is under club control for five years, and will be arbitration-eligible in 2014. Adding saves to his resume will increase his future salary without increasing his future worth. Letting Broxton close also makes for much less drama if and when Soria returns next season; his interim replacement will have signed somewhere else, so Soria won’t be taking the glamour job away from one of his teammates.

The bottom line is that this injury is not nearly as painful on the field as it is in our hearts. Losing a half-season of Salvador Perez is probably worth two wins in the standings, but an entire lost year of Soria, based on what we saw from him last year, is likely worth only a single win. There’s still a chance for a happy ending to this, if Soria re-signs and re-discovers the magic from the first four years of his career. The thought that Soria has thrown his last pitch for the Royals is a difficult one to stomach. But I’m optimistic that we won’t have to digest that thought just yet.

Absence.

Joakim Soria may have thrown his last pitch in a Royals uniform.

That was not the worst injury news the Royals received last week.

Oh, and they also made a silly trade, giving up legitimate prospects at least in part to acquire a player who creates a roster crunch without being notably better than what the Royals already have on hand.

Other than that, it’s been a fantastic week.

Let’s start at the beginning, when Salvador Perez reached for a Jonathan Sanchez pitch during warm-ups, caught his spike in the ground awkwardly, and limped off the field. The roller-coaster of emotions began – maybe it’s nothing, oh my God maybe he tore his ACL (out for the year!), oh the MRI shows it’s just a torn meniscus (4-6 weeks!), oh he’s come out of surgery and they’re saying…12-14 weeks?!

I don’t know about you, but I enjoyed the previous drama surrounding Salvador Perez a lot more.

While it was a meniscal tear, my understanding is that the tear was on the lateral (outside) part of his knee, and that the tear went all the way through the meniscus, both things which lengthen the recovery time. I’m also under the impression that 12-14 weeks is a conservative recovery time; I’m hopeful that with the training staff the Royals have in place these days, that Perez will be back towards the lower end of that estimate. (Speaking of which, Perez’s injury will be the first major test case for the quality of Nick Kenney, Kyle Turner, et al. Last year they did such a fantastic job of keeping guys healthy that we didn’t get a chance to see how effective they could be at nursing a player back to health.)

Still, given the timeframe here, it’s unlikely Perez will be on the field again for the Royals until mid-June. Furthermore, the Royals have already made it clear that even upon his return, he’s likely to catch no more than 3-4 times a week the rest of the season. Do the math, and the over/under on the number of games Perez plays this season is 65, maybe 70 tops.

By comparison, Perez started 39 games for the Royals last year. On the list of reasons why the Royals could be substantially improved from last year, “a full season of Salvador Perez” was near the top. That won’t be happening now.

While this sucks for 2012, my understanding is that if rehabbed appropriately, this injury should have a minimal impact on Perez’s career going forward. The key is “if rehabbed appropriately”, which is why, as painful as it is in the short term, limiting him to 65-70 starts is absolutely worth it if allows him to return to full-time duty in 2013. Perez is the first Royal in a quarter-century to be under club-control for eight seasons; if ever there was a player where long-term health takes precedence over short-term performance, it’s him.

The injury is unfortunate, and it only reinforces why a player like Perez might sign a long-term deal that could cost him millions of dollars over going year to year. But it’s still a great deal for the Royals, and if they had the option to re-consider the deal, they would (and should) still do it. Dayton Moore made a reasonable point after the injury, stating that because Perez had the security of a long-term deal, he would be less inclined to try to rush back onto the field before he was ready. Many a player has jeopardized his long-term future by downplaying or flat-out lying about his pain symptoms. There’s no guarantee Perez won’t still do that, but you have to hope that the security of a long-term deal, as well as the responsibility of a long-term deal, will keep him from doing that.

The Sandy Alomar comparisons have followed Perez around for at least the past year. We can only hope that the comparisons don’t extend to his fragility – after playing 132 games as a rookie in 1990, Alomar wouldn’t play in even 90 games again until 1996.

Perez, unfortunately, was perhaps the single player the Royals could least afford to lose to injury. I mean, even an injury to Eric Hosmer – perish the thought – would only open up an opportunity for Clint Robinson to play, and maybe even establish some trade value in the process. The dropoff from, say, Alex Gordon to Mitch Maier or Jarrod Dyson would be substantial, but at least the Royals have someone available to replace him.

In the case of Perez, it’s not just that the difference between him and Brayan Pena is significant – it’s that you have to carry two catchers, and it just so happens that the Royals’ third catcher, Manuel Pina, suffered the exact same injury a few weeks before Perez. The next two guys on the depth chart, Max Ramirez and Cody Clark, are not guys you want to go to war with on Opening Day.

So the Royals went shopping for short-term options, even kicking the tires on Ivan Rodriguez, a reasonable short-term option given that Pudge can still throw with the best of them (he nailed 13 of 25 runners last year). But from the beginning, the Royals appeared to be focusing on Humberto Quintero, who has been with the Astros for seven years and has worked his way up to playing about half the time.

I like Quintero, and thought he was a good guy to be focusing on – particularly since he looked like he was out of a job in Houston. Jason Castro, the Astros’ first-round pick in 2008, missed all of last season with a torn ACL but is back this year; between him and backup Chris Snyder, who was signed as a free agent this winter, there wasn’t a place for Quintero.

I like Quintero because, sort of like Brayan Pena, he’s not quite starter material but a step up from your typical backup catcher. In Pena’s case, his bat is a notch better than most backups; in Quintero’s case, he hits like a backup catcher but his defensive skills are near-elite. He’s thrown out 28% of attempted base-stealers in his career, which is about average, but as Jeff Sullivan summarizes here, the numbers suggest he is terrific at both framing and blocking pitches. The numbers agree with the scouts, who have long been high on his defense.

Quintero almost replaces Perez with the glove, which is a good thing, because his offensive skills are almost comical. He’s a career .234/.268/.321 hitter. (As Craig Brown points out, only one player this century – the immortal Jeff Mathis – has a lower OBP than Quintero in 1000 plate appearances or more.)

In 1075 at-bats, he’s walked 37 times. It’s actually worse than that, because eight of those 37 walks were intentional. And it’s actually worse than that, because about 80% of his career plate appearances have come in the #8 hole, in front of the pitcher, so no doubt many of his unintentional walks were not completely unintentional. (In 194 plate appearances outside the #8 spot in the lineup, Quintero has walked six times.) Quintero figures to be one of the least patient hitters in the recent history of the Royals, and that’s saying something.

Oh, and his power, modest as it is, is mostly a creation of Minute Maid Park. Ten of his 15 career homers were hit at home; his career slugging average on the road is .299.

Still, Quintero fills an obvious need, he’s only getting paid $1 million this year, and he seems to be a real impact-maker on defense. The Rays – who kinda know what they’re doing – signed Jose Molina to a $1.5 million contract this winter because of his defensive skills, even though his career line is .241/.286/.344 and he’s 37 years old. Given the Royals’ predicament, Quintero isn’t a bad acquisition. I expect him and Pena to share the job about 50-50 until Perez comes back, and at that point, well, Pena better hope he justifies my belief in his bat, or Quintero won’t be the one looking for gainful employment elsewhere.

It’s the second player in the trade that makes no sense. The Royals also acquired 30-year-old outfielder Jason Bourgeois, who hit .294/.323/.357 for the Astros last year, and also stole 31 bases in 37 attempts, despite playing in just 93 games.

I don’t get it.

Bourgeois had nice numbers for a fourth outfielder last season, but his performance was out of character for him. In 2010, he hit .220/.294/.268 in 123 at-bats. That was his rookie season, when he was 28 years old. That alone should tell you something.

Bourgeois’ career line in the majors is .262/.307/.324. His career line in Triple-A is .296/.348/.405.

By comparison, Mitch Maier’s career line in the majors is .253/.332/.346. His Triple-A line is .295/.342/.447.

Maier is also five months younger than Bourgeois. He also bats left-handed. Consider the makeup of the Royals’ bench. Yuniesky Betancourt bats right-handed. Quintero bats right-handed; when he starts, Brayan Pena is a switch-hitter. If Bourgeois takes Maier’s place on the roster, then the Royals essentially have no pinch-hitting options for Alcides Escobar against right-handed relievers in the late innings. The lineup already tilts to the right side – the only left-handers in the lineup are Hosmer, Gordon, and Moustakas. The first two aren’t being pinch-hit for in any circumstances; if the Royals want to sit Moose in a tight spot, that’s what they got Yuni for.

So the Royals have to have a legitimate left-handed hitting option on the bench. It’s hard to see how Bourgeois could take Maier’s spot.

That leaves the final bench spot, tentatively being given to Jarrod Dyson. In some respects, Bourgeois is a hybrid between Maier and Dyson; he doesn’t hit as well as Maier or run as well as Dyson, but he does a little of both. But it seems to me that you’d rather have a player with Dyson’s skill set on the bench, because Dyson is the rare player with speed that can truly be game-changing, as we saw last year. He’s also an elite defender, something Bourgeois – despite some pretty fielding numbers from one of the defensive metrics last year – isn’t.

Bourgeois did start a game at second base for the Astros last year (his only start at second base in the majors) and it was his primary position in the minors – up until 2007 or so, when he became a full-time outfielder. It’s nice to have a guy with some experience at the position in a pinch, but you don’t design your roster around what might happen in the 17th inning of a game. Or at least you shouldn’t.

So I don’t get what Bourgeois does. He does have an option, so maybe he just goes to Omaha and is injury insurance – but then why bother to acquire him in the first place? You already have David Lough for that anyway. Or maybe the Royals truly think that Dyson still has the ability to be an everyday outfielder, and want him playing every day in Omaha. That’s about the only explanation I can come up with for why they wanted Bourgeois in the deal. (For what it’s worth, Bob Dutton is suggesting that this is the likely outcome – Dyson returns to Omaha to make way for Bourgeois.)

In exchange, the Royals gave up left-handed reliever Kevin Chapman, who Baseball America ranked as the 18th-best prospect in the system. Chapman was drafted in the fourth round in 2010 as a college product who ought to move through the system quickly, and while there have been some bumps along the way, he’s done mostly that. Lefties who throw 94 don’t grow on trees; even though his command is iffy and his slider is only average, he could be a seventh-inning guy in the majors.

Ignore his 4.94 ERA last year; in 62 innings, he struck out 90 batters – nearly one-third of those he faced – which is an impressive ratio. He finished his first full season in the minors in Double-A. He’s sort of the left-handed version of Louis Coleman, who was drafted in the fifth round the year before. While I don’t think he’ll be as good as Coleman was last year, I do think he could be a part of a major-league bullpen for several years. In the Astros’ system, he might be a Top-10 prospect.

Having said that, Chapman alone is not a terrible price to pay. The Royals have Tim Collins and Everett Teaford, and they signed Jose Mijares cheap, and Tommy Hottovy is trying to remake himself as a sidearm specialist, and they still have Blaine Hardy, and they picked up Ryan Verdugo and Antonio Cruz in trades…they have options. Unless Chapman develops into a true impact reliever, they won’t miss him.

It's a shame they have to give up a guy like Chapman, because while he might not have earned a spot with the Royals, and while he wasn't going to bring back big talent in a trade on his own, he's the perfect third or fourth guy to throw in a trade when the Royals are ready to cash in their prospects for an elite player, and they need one more guy to get the deal done. Think Jeremy Jeffress in the Zack Greinke trade, or Brad Boxberger from the Reds in the Mat Latos deal. A strong-armed reliever isn't worth much on his own, but he makes for a nice clincher. Chapman won't serve that role for the Royals going forward, which is a shame. But you have to give something to get something, and Chapman was something.

The problem is that Chapman’s not all they gave up. There’s also a Player To Be Named Later, and in a deal like this, that PTBNL could be anything from a courtesy throw-in to a legitimate prospect. Astros GM Jeff Luhnow was quoted after the deal as saying that the PTBNL was a “key component” of the trade.

I have no idea what that means. He’s obviously not going to say that the player is a nobody. On the other hand, there’s no incentive for him to pump up the player if it’s some kid in Idaho Falls that no one’s heard of. And then there’s the question of why the player’s a PTBNL in the first place.

My guess - perhaps I should say hope - is that it might be a player who is out of options, but the Royals want to see how their roster shakes out first. Would Sean O’Sullivan or Vinny Mazzaro qualify as a “key component” of the trade? They might, simply in the sense that they’d go right to the Astros’ major league roster and maybe even into their rotation. (It’s the Astros, people. Look at their team. No, really: go look at it. It’s like looking into a Royals time capsule from 2005.)

If it’s someone along those lines, someone the Royals probably would have lost on waivers in the first place, I can live with the trade. If it’s an actual prospect, then you have to ask why the Royals would give up so much talent for a backup catcher who was going to struggle to make his team’s roster, and a 30-year-old fourth outfielder who doesn’t bring any skills that the Royals’ two backup outfielders don’t already have.

Ten days ago, the Royals were rolling, Danny Duffy was dealing, and some of us (okay, me) were thinking ambitious thoughts. One injury later, the Royals have lost probably two wins in 2012, there’s at least a small chance that their prized young catcher may be injury-prone going forward, and they’ve given up at least one and maybe two fine prospects for a catcher they need for only half a season and an outfielder they didn’t need at all. Suddenly, that Grantland article I wanted to write about how the Royals could be this year's miracle team doesn't seem like such a smart idea.

And that was just one injury. I’ll talk about the other injury next time.

It Happens Every (Tenth) Spring.

Yesterday, a young left-hander hoping to break camp with the Royals for the first time made his first spring training appearance. The southpaw, who was drafted out of high school in the third round five years ago, faced six batters, and struck out five of them. He was so dominating on the mound that KC Star beat writer Bob Dutton – who never does this – positively gushed about him afterwards.

I am, of course, referring to Danny Duffy. But replace “yesterday” with “ten years ago”, and every word of that paragraph would be equally true for Jeremy Affeldt, in March of 2002.

When I pointed this out on Twitter yesterday, some of you thought I was poking fun at Duffy’s performance, or poking fun at Dutton, by pointing out what he said about Duffy he once said about Affeldt. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Some of you remember this, but for those who don’t: Jeremy Affeldt entered spring training that year as a virtual unknown. He had finally reached Double-A in 2001, his fifth pro season, and while he was reasonably successful (3.90 ERA, 128 Ks and 46 walks in 145 innings), he wasn’t considered a top prospect or anywhere close to it. In Baseball America’s 2002 Prospect Handbook, Affeldt was ranked as the #13 prospect in the Royals’ system – and it wasn’t a good farm system. Here are the 12 guys who ranked ahead of him:

Angel Berroa, Jimmy Gobble, Colt Griffin, Mike MacDougal, Roscoe Crosby, Miguel Asencio, Ken Harvey, Kyle Snyder, Mike Tonis, Brad Voyles, Runelvys Hernandez, and Ryan Bukvich.

As I was saying: the farm system wasn’t good. It actually kind of sucked.

According to the Handbook, Affeldt was “a poor man’s version of Jimmy Gobble,” and “despite his solid arsenal, Affeldt doesn’t consistently throw quality strikes and gets hit more than he should.”

He was not, in other words, expected to make much of a buzz in camp.

And then he took the mound for the first time, against the Pirates in Bradenton – this was the Royals’ last spring training in Florida – and showed stuff that no one had seen from him before. A fastball in the mid-90s. A curveball that dropped like a hot potato. By the time he finished his two-inning stint, scouts and sportswriters alike were at a loss to explain it. “Koufaxian,” was one description I heard, from someone who had actually seen Koufax pitch.

Joe Posnanski was in attendance along with Dutton that afternoon, and wrote a column – which, thanks to McClatchy Newspapers’ Neanderthal approach to the internet, has long been scrubbed from the web – that put Affeldt on the map as not just a prospect, but as a potential star.

And here’s the thing – he came close to fulfilling that potential. Affeldt made the Royals’ roster on Opening Day, despite never having pitched above Double-A before. He began the season in long relief; in seven appearances in April, he threw 17 innings, with a 2.60 ERA and 18 strikeouts. He then moved to the rotation, where he was erratic for seven starts, before developing a blister problem which sidelined him for nearly two full months. He returned in August and pitched out of the pen the rest of the year. He finished his rookie season with a 4.64 ERA – which in 2002, with the fences still in at Kauffman Stadium, was better than league-average.

In 2003, he nearly won the job of Opening Day starter – manager Tony Pena literally flipped a coin, and Runelvys Hernandez won the toss. Once again, blisters wreaked havoc on his pitching – he went on the DL in late April for two weeks, skipped over a start in June, and was pulled out of several games early. But through July 23rd, he had thrown 95 innings with a 4.34 ERA, and the Royals were in first place. At that point, the blister problem became such a drag that the Royals decided to move him to the bullpen, figuring shorter stints would keep the blisters from acting up. In 31 innings the rest of the way, Affeldt had a 2.64 ERA, struck out 33 and walked only nine.

The results on the mound were solid, but the stuff he showed was incredible. His fastball regularly sat at 94-95 as a starter, and in the bullpen he regularly touched 98. (At least that’s what the TV radar guns showed – the official data we have today suggests he was throwing more 92-93.) His curveball broke as hard as any curveball I’ve seen from a Royals’ pitcher in at least 20 years. The only Royals’ pitcher who exceeded Affeldt’s pure stuff this century was probably Zack Greinke. He was a joy to watch; his starts were the closest thing to must-see Royals TV in years.

That winter, he finally had corrective surgery to remove a portion of the fingernail which was responsible for his blister problems. The surgery was successful; Affeldt hasn’t had a blister problem since. But the surgery must have excised a portion of his ability along with the nail, because he wasn’t the same pitcher afterwards.

The Royals didn’t help; they kept moving him from the rotation to the bullpen and back, unable or unwilling to commit to him in one role. In 2004, he made eight starts and relieved 30 times; he threw 76 innings with a 4.95 ERA overall. In 2005, he was used strictly in relief and was pretty awful, with a 5.26 ERA and 29 walks in 50 innings. In 2006 he hit rock bottom – in 70 innings, he walked 42 batters and struck out 28. Dayton Moore was hired in July, and by the end of the month he had traded Affeldt (and Denny Bautista) to Colorado for Ryan Shealy.

After a half-season of struggles with the Rockies, Affeldt figured things out. Left to work strictly in relief, over the last five seasons he has a 3.04 ERA, including a 2.74 mark since joining the Giants three years ago. Ten years after he opened eyes one fine March afternoon, Affeldt is still pitching in the majors, has made over $20 million, and has amassed 7.6 bWAR in his career. That might not sound like much, but that’s more than those 12 guys ranked ahead of him in the Royals system – combined.

So I’d venture to say that in the case of Jeremy Affeldt, one brief spring training performance was deeply meaningful. Before that day, he was a marginal prospect in a marginal system. After that day, he went on to have a career that has stretched over a decade, has been a valued reliever on two pennant winners and one world championship team, and still left some with the nagging sensation that he could have been even better.

Danny Duffy is no Jeremy Affeldt; in terms of pedigree, he’s a lot better. He’s a former Top 100 Prospect, he’s already earned his way to the major leagues, and despite struggling last year, no one’s thinking about turning him into a reliever yet. And while Affeldt was overmatching a bunch of Pirate hitters, Duffy embarrassed the Reds, including strikeouts of Joey Votto, Jay Bruce, and Scott Rolen.

I asked Bob Dutton – who was one of the few people (if not the only one) to see both performances in person, to compare the two. He kindly obliged. “Affeldt's two innings in Bradenton were always my measuring stick until today. I guess Affeldt still gets the nod as someone coming out of nowhere…but Duffy was better. Not a lot better, but he was better. He made big-time hitters look awful. His new cutter simply tied up Votto for a third strike.”

So there you go. Duffy was the better prospect before Breakout Day, and Duffy was the better pitcher on Breakout Day. I know it’s just two innings. And Duffy might take the mound next week, struggle to touch 90 on the gun, and all of this will get forgotten.

But one special day in spring training propelled a lesser pitcher to a long career in the major leagues. Who knows what one special day will do for Duffy? It might mean nothing. But it might mean everything.

“He simply overmatched these guys,” Dutton concluded. “Season-changer stuff if this isn't a complete anomaly.”

I think Dutton meant that it could change the arc of Duffy’s season. But it just might change the arc of the Royals’ season too.

Royals Report Card 2011: Part Seven.

(I hope to give you an extended review of my spring training experience later, but for now, let me just say that it was a wonderful time. Too wonderful, honestly – I intended it to be a working vacation, but it turned out to be less “working” and more “vacation”, which is why I need to start this post by apologizing for not writing about my trip yet. I also unexpectedly got the opportunity to make my national TV debut on the MLB Network, on last Friday’s episode of “Clubhouse Confidential”, which you can watch here. I say “unexpectedly” quite literally, as the suit you’ll see me wearing was graciously loaned to me by our own Joel Goldberg.

While I didn’t get a lot of writing done, I did have some great conversations with some great baseball people, both inside and outside the game, both with the Royals and with other clubs. Hopefully it will inform my writing going forward. I’m also hopeful that I will be able to bring you some of those conversations in the near future.)

And now, the second half of last year’s starting rotation, including anyone who made even a single start for the team:

Luke Hochevar: C+

I’m through with trying to predict what Luke Hochevar is going to do. For years I’ve been defending him with faint praise, arguing that his peripherals are much better than his ERA would suggest, and he’s just been the victim of bad luck*, and anyway he’s still better than Andrew Miller, who everyone thought should have been the #1 pick in the draft that year over Tim Lincecum and Evan Longoria and everyone else.

*: In 2009, Hochevar walked 46 batters in 143 innings, struck out 106, and his groundball rate was 47%. His xFIP that year was a very respectable 4.28. Somehow he wound up with a 6.55 ERA.

Hochevar now has nearly four years of service time in the majors, he’s 28 years old, and it might be time to accept that this is who he is: a below-average starting pitcher. His career 5.29 ERA is the second-highest of any pitcher (min: 500 IP) who was active in 2011, and you can guess who #1 was. His 4.68 ERA last season was his career-best, but 1) his ERA simply tracked the league-wide decline in offense, as his ERA+ of 87 was the same his mark in 2010, and 2) if your career-best ERA is 4.68, you have issues.

But again…his ERA shouldn’t be this high. Hochevar’s xFIP was 4.05 last year. In 2010, when he had a 4.81 ERA, his xFIP was 4.09. His career xFIP (4.27) is more than a point lower than his career ERA.

A disparity that large over the course of a single season can be chalked up to bad luck. Over the course of a career of nearly 600 innings…luck starts to take back seat to other explanations. In Hochevar’s case, there’s a much more compelling one: he’s a different, and much worse, pitcher from the stretch than he is from the windup.

For his career, with the bases empty, opponents have hit .249/.308/.415.

With men on base, his career line is .310/.371/.475.

At least, that’s the charitable explanation. The alternative is that he wilts under pressure, to a degree virtually unseen in a player at the major-league level.

With runners in scoring position, batters hit .314/.388/.497.

With the bases loaded (just 38 career PA) they hit .406/.421/.688.

I prefer the first explanation to the second, because most of the opposing hitters’ improvement occurs the minute someone reaches first base. Also, while many pitchers have shown a difference in performance from the stretch, it’s the rare pitcher indeed who simply collapses under pressure.

Hochevar began 2011 as maddening as ever. After getting knocked out in the fourth inning on July 9th, he had a 5.46 ERA, and had struck out just 60 batters (against 38 walks) in 119 innings. But he came back after the All-Star Break and allowed one run in seven innings on July 15th, and in the second half of the season, a span of 12 starts, Hochevar had a 3.52 ERA. His strikeout rate jumped from 4.6 to 7.7 per 9 innings; in 79 innings he struck out 68 batters, while walking just 21 unintentionally.

Hochevar has been so frustrating in his career precisely because he has been capable, in brief spurts, of being a dominating pitcher, like the time he threw a 3-hit shutout or when he tossed a complete game in 80 pitches. But he’s never been as effective for as long as he was after the All-Star Break last season. The official explanation is that he finally began pitching inside to left-handed hitters, using his slider more effectively. The less-than-official explanation is that, in the words of one baseball guy, “his testicles descended.”

Hochevar has long had a reputation for lacking toughness on the mound. I’m not a fan of questioning a player’s character based on his performance, but when baseball people question a pitcher’s “toughness”, they’re basically saying that the pitcher is either afraid or unwilling to pitch inside. Whether it was due to shedding his fear or simply a change in his approach, I don’t know, but in the second half of 2011, Hochevar effectively used the inside of the plate for the first time.

The other reason for optimism is that Hochevar went a long way towards eliminating his troubles from the stretch in 2011:

With bases empty: .246/.297/.435

With men on base: .261/.337/.420

With runners in scoring position: .274/.364/.405

When you account for the fact that opponents’ OBP in the latter two scenarios was inflated a little by four intentional walks, Hochevar actually pitched a bit better from the stretch than from the windup.

His ERA was still higher than you’d expect, primarily because he gave up more homers than expected. Despite mild groundball tendencies (a 49% groundball rate; league average is around 43-44%), and despite calling Kauffman Stadium home, Hochevar gave up 23 homers in 198 innings. However, his gopher problem was isolated to the first portion of the season. Hochevar gave up 13 homers in his first 10 starts, then just 10 homers in 132 innings the rest of the way.

Again, I’m not going to make any predictions about Hochevar’s future. If you want to believe that he’s finally licked his problems from the stretch, that he can sustain his second-half performance for all of 2012, you have data on your side. If you want to believe that his ERA is destined to trail his peripherals, and that he’ll never be even a league-average pitcher, you have even more data on your side.

I don’t know which Hochevar we’re going to get. For $3.5 million in 2012, and with club control through 2014, it’s a worthwhile gamble to see if he can be a league-average innings muncher at the very least.

The one thing I do know is this: Luke Hochevar is still the odds-on favorite to be the Royals’ Opening Day starter. And you wonder why I wanted Edwin Jackson so bad.

Vinny Mazzaro: F

I don’t have many rules in life, but one of them is this: any time you give up 14 runs in a single relief outing, I’m giving you a failing grade. Just to recap – last year, the Royals’ bullpen ranked 8th in the AL with a 3.75 ERA. Take out Mazzaro’s relief outing on May 16th, and the bullpen’s ERA improves to 3.52 – which would have ranked 3rd in the league, a few thousandths of a point out of 2nd.

It’s not clear what the Royals saw in Mazzaro that made them willing to accept him as the centerpiece of the deal for David DeJesus. He’s not a groundball pitcher; he’s not a strikeout pitcher; he’s not a control pitcher. He had a fluky 4.27 ERA in 2010, due to good fortune, a favorable ballpark, and the flukishness of having 12 of the 70 runs attributed to him as being “unearned”. His RA – “run average”, counting both earned and unearned runs – was 5.15. The Royals should have known better than to think he was an upgrade on what they had. He wasn’t.

Maybe Justin Marks, the second pitcher in the deal, will work out in some fashion. Mazzaro probably won’t. He still has an option, so he’ll probably work in the back end of Omaha’s rotation this season, waiting for an opportunity that, as a Royals fan, I am forced to hope he never gets.

Luis Mendoza: A (minors), incomplete (majors)

Your guess is as good as mine. Mendoza was signed out of Mexico in 2000, when he was 17 years old. Six times in his career he has pitched at least 130 innings in a minor-league season. In none of those seasons has he struck out even 100 batters.

If you can’t miss bats at the minor league level, you’re probably not going to miss the sweet spot of the bat at the major league level. In 2008 Mendoza finally got an extended trial in the majors, with the Rangers, and got obliterated – in 63 innings, he gave up 97 hits and 74 runs. He allowed four runs in a single inning with the Rangers in 2009. This was enough to pique the interest of the Royals, and on April 2nd, 2010 – on the eve of Opening Day – the Royals inexplicably bought him from the Rangers and put him on their roster. Four innings and ten earned runs later, Mendoza’s career line in the major leagues included 122 hits in 84 innings and an 8.43 ERA, he was dispatched to Omaha, and once again we were left wondering if the Royals had any clue what the hell they were doing.

Mendoza spent the rest of 2010 being modestly successful in Omaha, despite striking out 59 batters in 132 innings. He returned to Omaha last season, and…something happened. If you believe the Royals, what happened was that Doug Henry completely revamped Mendoza’s delivery, got him to stand taller and pitch on a more downward plane, and as a result, Mendoza – who hadn’t had an ERA lower than 3.93 in the minors since 2004 – led the Pacific Coast League with a 2.18 ERA.

If you believe the numbers, what happened was that Mendoza just got really, really lucky. In 144 innings, he only struck out 81 batters. He walked 50 batters unintentionally – his strikeout-to-walk ratio was actually lower than in 2010. But he only gave up 5 homers in 144 innings. That’s a fantastic ratio, and if his new delivery came equipped with a killer sinking fastball, I’d be excited. But his groundball percentage wasn’t any better in 2011 than in previous years. I understand the temptation to confuse correlation with causation: the Royals overhauled his delivery, his ERA was cut in half, therefore A caused B. But the evidence strongly backs the notion that it was actually C that caused B – “C” being “outrageously good luck on contact.”

Complicating things is that the Royals gave Mendoza a two-start audition with the big club in September, and he won both starts, allowing a single earned run in each. He only struck out 7 batters in 15 innings, and walked 5, but if you’re inclined to believe in Mendoza – as the Royals clearly are – you’ll take those two starts as evidence that he’s figured it out. Particularly when you let Philip Humber go the previous season and then watched him supply a division rival with 163 innings and a 3.75 ERA in 2011. (Never mind that even prior to last year, Humber’s strikeout rate in the majors was higher than Mendoza’s rate in the minors.)

But here's the thing: back in 2007, in his major league debut, Mendoza put up very similar numbers – in 16 innings, he allowed 4 runs, despite just 7 strikeouts against 4 walks. Finesse pitchers, by their nature, are subject to the vagaries of balls in play – in a small sample, they can be very successful if the balls fall their way. That’s what happened to Mendoza in 2007. In 2008, the Rangers felt the full wrath of regression to the mean. I would prefer that didn’t happen to the Royals in 2012.

Unfortunately, with Mendoza out of options and the Royals hell-bent on seeing what they have, he’s next in line if someone gets hurt or if Felipe Paulino and/or Danny Duffy struggle. Maybe he really has figured something out, but I’d sure as hell rather see him win the job as the team’s long man out of the bullpen, and prove that he can get guys out in two- or three-inning stints in games that are already out of hand. Because I suspect all he’ll prove is that 2011 was a fluke, and I’d rather that he supply his proof without costing the Royals two or three wins in the process.

Sean O’Sullivan: C- (minors), F (majors)

Dayton Moore has had a pretty good run the last two years, but his record isn’t spotless. Three months before he traded DeJesus for Mazzaro and Marks, he dumped Alberto Callaspo – who was a fantastic offensive force in 2009 and showed surprising defensive chops in his first try at third base in 2010, and who was still cheap and club-controlled for years – into Sean O’Sullivan and Will Smith.

Like Mazzaro, O’Sullivan’s youth made him appear promising on the surface – he was just 22 at the time of the trade. But pitchers aren’t like hitters; some pitchers peak in their 30s, while others max out their abilities in their early 20s. O’Sullivan, with his beefy body and lack of projection, was more the latter than the former. The bigger concern was that O’Sullivan had never had good strikeout rates at any level. Yes, he was always one of the youngest players in his league, and debuted in the majors when he was 21 – but to paraphrase Casey Stengel, some 21-year-olds are destined to get better, and some 21-year-olds are only destined to get older.

In 58 innings for the Royals last year, O’Sullivan struck out 19 batters, and walked 26. There is no way to spin that as anything other than horrifying. He was much better in Omaha – in 75 innings, he struck out 55 and walked just 16. It’s possible he will one day find modest success as a middle reliever who compensates for his hittability with excellent control (c.f. Minnesota Twins). But if he does, it won’t be in Kansas City. O’Sullivan is out of options, and barring unforeseen circumstances will be in another organization a month from now.

The saving grace of the Callaspo deal is that unlike the DeJesus trade, where Marks was clearly the second player in the deal, the second pitcher the Royals got for Callaspo – Will Smith – was a legitimate prospect, arguably more integral to the trade than O’Sullivan was. Smith is sort of a left-handed version of O’Sullivan, in that he’s young, has good command for a pitcher his size, but lacks an out pitch. But he is left-handed; sometimes those guys surprise. If the Callaspo deal isn’t destined to go down as a complete dud, it will be up to Smith to rescue the trade.

Felipe Paulino: A-

If you’re not familiar with my opinion on Paulino, you must be new here.

Paulino was claimed off waivers on May 26th, and from the day he joined the Royals until the end of the season, he led the pitching staff in strikeouts. In 125 innings, he had a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 119 to 48, and allowed only 10 homers. His 4.11 ERA was second among Royals’ starters behind only Bruce Chen. He continued to blaze one of the fastest heaters in the majors, averaging 95.1 mph on his fastball. If Paulino simply pitches as well this year as he did last year for the Royals, he’s a league-average starting pitcher. Those guys are worth eight figures on the open market, making Paulino, who will earn $1.9 million this season, a steal.

The Royals were able to claim Paulino on waivers in the first place because of his persistently bad luck. In 223 career innings, his BABIP was a ridiculous .356. Despite a strikeout-to-walk ratio of better than 2-to-1, he had a 5.93 career ERA. (Pitching in Houston, and then Colorado, didn’t help.) So what makes Paulino intriguing is that after the Royals picked him up, he still pitched in bad luck – his BABIP with the Royals was .331, which is better but still about 30 points higher than normal. It’s just that his peripherals were so strong that he managed a league-average performance even with one hand tied behind his back.

Paulino has a career BABIP of .347, in nearly 350 career innings, and it’s a fair question to ask if he’s one of those rare pitchers who, for whatever reason, doesn’t have a BABIP that normalizes to the league average. Bruce Chen, after all, has a BABIP well below average for his career. But in Chen’s case, there’s a specific reason – he’s an extreme flyball pitcher, and flyballs (that stay in the park) are less likely to turn into hits than groundballs.

But in Paulino’s case, there’s no obvious reason why his BABIP should be so high. His career groundball rate is 44.0%, right around league average. His career line-drive rate is 17.8%, also right around league average.

And here’s the thing: Paulino’s BABIP isn’t simply high – it’s historic. Since 1950, which is about as far back as we have play-by-play data that allows us to calculate batting average on balls in play, just under 2000 different pitchers have thrown at least 250 career innings in the major leagues.

FELIPE PAULINO HAS THE HIGHEST CAREER BABIP OF THEM ALL.

Maybe Paulino, for reasons we can’t fathom, is more susceptible to giving up hits on balls in play than the average pitcher. Maybe his fastball straightens out, maybe his delivery lacks deception, I dunno. But I refuse to believe that he is THIS susceptible to giving up hits. A .347 BABIP is simply unsustainable. Not only does he have the highest BABIP of anyone with 250+ innings, but if we raise the bar to 500 career innings – which Paulino may reach this season – the highest career BABIP is Glendon Rusch’s .331. Zach Duke is at .329; no other pitcher with 1000 career innings is above .320.

Paulino showed last year that he can be successful even with a BABIP of .331. There’s excellent reason to believe his “true” level is lower than that, simply because no pitcher has a true level that high. If his BABIP normalizes this year, Paulino could take a major step forward as a pitcher. He doesn’t need to change anything on the mound. He simply needs to be himself, and trust that Lady Luck will stop kicking him in the ass.

Everett Teaford: B+ (minors and majors)

It’s a credit to the Royals, I think, that they have several viable pitching options that 1) may not make the Opening Day roster and 2) aren’t getting any attention for the fact that they may not make the Opening Day roster. Teaford is probably the best example of this.

A quick recap: Teaford was a nothing prospect, a loyal organization soldier with a great attitude and no shot at becoming a viable major-leaguer, until the middle of 2010, when his pitching coach in Double-A tweaked his delivery, his fastball gained 5 mph, and his strikeout rate jumped through the roof.

The biggest news for him in 2011, then, was simply that he seemed to maintain the gains in velocity that he made in 2010. Pitch f/x judged his average fastball at 91.7 mph last year, plenty good enough for a left-hander with good command and secondary pitches.

He spent so much time on the I-29 shuttle between Omaha and KC that his overall performance gets overlooked. He threw 35 innings in Omaha with a 3.34 ERA, and 44 innings for the Royals with a 3.27 ERA. While I don’t normally recommend mixing major and minor league stats together, combining his line makes it easier to see the shape of his performance:

79 IP, 59 H, 25 BB, 61 K, 13 HR, 3.30 ERA.

Teaford was sort of the mirror opposite of Paulino last year – he owed a great deal of his success to luck on balls in play. His BABIP was just .228 for the Royals, and .205 for the Storm Chasers. That’s not going to continue, obviously.

But while Teaford was extremely fortunate on balls in play, he was quite unfortunate when it came to balls going out of play. He gave up a homer every six innings last year, including eight homers in 44 innings for the Royals, which would make you think he’s a flyball pitcher. But at least in his brief time in Kansas City, he was not. His groundball rate (44.6%) was average, but just under 20% of the fly balls he surrendered turned into homers. The typical rate is around 10%. I expect him to give up a lot more hits this year – but I also expect him to give up fewer home runs.

It’s not a wash – I don’t expect him to pitch as well as he did last year – but then, he doesn’t need to match his 3.27 ERA from last year in order to have value. If he simply matches his xFIP last year of 3.95, he’ll be a valuable pitcher in some role. Whether that comes in the bullpen, in the rotation, or in the minors is more dependent on the performance of the other pitchers on the roster than on Teaford himself.

To start the season, Teaford’s best bet is to make the team as a second lefty out of the pen, although to even win that job he’ll either have to beat out Tim Collins or wait for Jose Mijares to implode. But pitching staffs have a way of creating opportunities for pitchers on the bubble. I think we’ll see more of Teaford this year than we did last year, and I think he’ll take advantage of the opportunities that arise.