Royals Today: 7/2/2008.

If the Kentucky Derby is the fastest two minutes in sports, I’m about to give you the fastest 35 minutes in sportswriting - known around here as "lunchtime." The following may not be particularly insightful or well-written, but eating gruel every now and then just makes real food taste even better, no?

- I’ve ripped Hillman a few times for certain decisions he has made, and I can state with complete confidence that he has cost the Royals two games this season – June 10^th against the Rangers, and May 28^th against the Twins – when the Royals blew huge leads in the late innings because of bad choices about which reliever to use. But those two games have, I think, had a greater impact on the psyche of the team and the fan base than on the team’s record. Other than those two games, the Royals have lost just one game all season that they were leading after 7 innings.

Monday night, Hillman's decisions won the game. Some of his moves were, I thought, questionable, particularly pulling Greinke for Horacio Ramirez after just 86 pitches after Greinke got crushed for four runs in the fifth. But Horacio threw a scoreless inning, and brother Ramon threw two more.

Hillman made a risky call for an intentional walk in the bottom of the 8^th, men on second and third, one out. I don’t usually like an intentional walk that loads the bases, because you’re banking that the next batter’s OBP will be less than the current batter’s batting average. And walking one right-handed hitter (Melvin Mora) for another (Ramon Hernandez) makes little sense.

But with the Royals down by a run already, the value of an insurance run in that situation is enormous (as forthcoming events would prove), and you can argue that putting the double play in order with a slow hitter at the plate justified the move. Ramirez isn’t a huge groundball pitcher – although he hasn’t allowed a homer in over 40 innings this year – but he got the one he needed in that situation, setting up Olivo’s heroics.

It may seem like a no-brainer in retrospect, but the mere fact that Olivo was batting in the ninth is the reason why Hillman, at the very least, has shown more managerial acumen than the man he replaced. Mark Teahen isn’t a great hitter, but neither is he the kind of hitter that’s routinely pinch-hit for in the ninth inning. Buddy Bell, I suspect, would have let him bat. Hillman, on the other hand, isn’t afraid of using all the bullets in his gun, and I love him for it. The Royals have a four-man bench, DeJesus was out, and by pinch-hitting Olivo in that spot necessitated using German on defense should the game continue, which meant that the only player left in reserve would be Tony Pena Jr. Then consider that Olivo’s your backup catcher, and burning him in that spot would lock John Buck into the game no matter how banged up he got – there are all sorts of reasons why Buddy Bell would find a reason not to use Olivo there.

The other field boss of a major professional sports franchise in Kansas City once said, “you play…to win…the game,” and has received an unbelievable amount of crap for that. And yes, on the surface what Herm Edwards said sounds like something Ralph Wiggum would have come up with. But it’s easy to miss Herm’s point. You play to win the game – you don’t play to not lose the game. A lot of managers would have left Olivo in reserve out of fear. And it’s not even a fear of losing the game, but the fear of losing embarrassingly, because of the one-in-a-thousand chance that Buck gets hurt and Ross Gload has to don the tools of ignorance or something. Managers don’t want to be embarrassed; some managers, I hate to say, would rather lose cleanly than gamble that they might lose ugly.

Hillman isn’t afraid. He needed a home run, his backup catcher happens to have a career .293/.324/.539 line against LHP with 28 homers in a little over 500 at-bats, and he took his shot. Make that 29 homers. Throw in two scoreless innings from the suddenly unhittable Ron Mahay, and it was only a matter of time before the Mexicutioner would mete out his punishment.

Hillman was given two right-handed hitting swing-from-the-heels catchers by his boss, and had to figure out how to use them such that he would continue to develop the incumbent while not offending the new arrival. Halfway through the season, Buck is on pace for over 400 plate appearances (more than last year, when his competition was Jason LaRue) - and Olivo is on pace for about 370. Hillman has found regular playing time for both of them, starting Olivo at DH 18 times even without a third catcher on the roster.

- Olivo saved the Royals from a heaping dose of what-ifs. They stranded 11 guys, and after singling his first two times up, Billy Butler rolled into a double play (complete with a questionable call at first) in the sixth right before the next four batters reached base against (need I say it, ex-Royal) Ryan Bukvich. Greinke gave up three consecutive two-out RBI hits before closing out the fifth.

The formula nonetheless worked so well that the Royals tried again last night, spotting the O’s a five-run lead after six innings. The comeback fell two runs short, but the mere fact that the Royals aren’t laying down after falling well behind is a comforting, and unusual, sight to see.

- Mike Aviles’ momma said there’d be days like this. He single-handedly killed the comeback, by flying out to shallow center with the bases loaded and one out in the fifth, then rolling into a double play after the first two batters reached in the 7^th. In those two innings the Royals had six hits (including a homer) and a walk…and scored one run. Aviles hit into two double plays in the game, doubling his career total.

But it’s the two defensive misplays that have to worry you – the failure to throw out a runner at the plate in the second, the bizarre fielder’s choice-but-everyone’s-safe play in the third that allowed the Orioles to score four two-out runs. They have to worry you, because while the Royals realize Aviles is never going to be a defensive standout, if he doesn’t play shortstop any better than Pena handles the bat, they’ll move on to someone else.

I think the Royals should ride out the season with Aviles as the starter, but if you’re going to keep Pena on the roster, don’t you think you ought to use him? Pena hasn’t so much as stepped on the field in the last six games. A few months ago I advocated a platoon of sorts between Pena and Callaspo, which would translate very well to Aviles. Pena should start when Hochevar is on the mound, given Luke’s groundball tendencies. Aviles starts when Meche and Greinke, both power pitchers who get flyballs, start. Either one can start when Bannister or Davies are on the mound, after taking into account the opposing starter, prevailing wind conditions, and a Ouija board.

But at the very least, Pena should be out there every fifth day. If he had been out there last night, the Royals likely would have won.

Thirty-five minutes. Close to 1200 words, and absolutely nothing consequential to say. Yeah, I’d say I was made to be a blogger.

I'm Not Trying to Jinx Them. Honestly.

So the Royals won their sixth straight game tonight, the first time they've done that since they started the 2003 season 9-0. (By the way, this is ridiculous. The Royals went over five years without so much as a six-game winning streak? Is that a record? If I find out, I'll let you know.)

The Royals lost their tenth game in 2003, but then won their next two to start 11-1. This is relevant, because as of tonight the Royals have matched that streak by winning 11 of their last 12 games.

If they win tomorrow, they will have won 12 of 13 games, a stretch not seen in Kansas City since the 1994 Royals won 14 straight just before the strike.

Tomorrow's game is no gimmie by any means, not with Kyle Davies on the mound. On the other hand, Mark Mulder starts for the Cards, and he hasn't pitched in the majors since last September; he hasn't won a game in over two years.

If they do win, give it up for Trey Hillman, who will have accomplished something that Buddy Bell, Tony Pena, Tony Muser, and Bob Boone never did.

(And as much as I love beating up on inferior competition, can we get back to playing real major league teams soon? Over the last week and a half the Royals have lost ground on the Twins, who have won 10 straight. The Royals won today - but so did every other team in the AL Central.)

Royals Today: 6/25/2008.

Hey, if they keep winning, I’ll keep writing. Does that make me a fair-weather fan?

- You all realize that if the Royals had not blown a 4-0 lead on the Giants last Friday, they’d currently be riding their longest winning streak (11) since 1994?

As it is, 10 of 11 ain’t bad. I almost prefer it this way – an 11-game winning streak might focus attention on the fact that the Royals aren’t a laughingstock anymore. I prefer sneaking up on people. Or in the case of the Indians, sneaking past them.

A few weeks ago I wrote that you’re never as bad as you look when you’re losing, and you’re never as good as you look when you’re winning. We need to remember that adage now that we’re on the other side. At one point in tonight’s broadcast, Denny Matthews said, “the baseball gods have really been smiling on the Royals the last few weeks.” That’s probably the first time you could make that statement about the Royals since 2003, but it bears repeating: for as good as the Royals have been playing, they’ve gotten some breaks as well. The biggest, of course, being that they’ve been playing Quintuple-A (not quite Quadruple-A, not quite major league) teams for the past two weeks.

- You know things are going well when Ross Gload is keying the offense. He went 2-for-4 on Sunday, including a pivotal single in the five-run sixth; he walked and hit his first homer of the season on Monday; a pair of singles on Tuesday, both of which keyed rallies; and he went 3-for-3 tonight, scoring the team’s first run after a double and then driving in the last two runs with another double.

Since June 14^th, when this streak began, Gload is 14-for-42 (.333) with three doubles and a homer. He was hitting .239/.277/.276 prior to then. Mike Aviles became the starting shortstop on June 6^th, and since the 14^th he’s 16-for-44 (.364) with six doubles and two homers. It would be an overstatement to claim that the only reason that the Royals are playing so much better than before is because they are getting some semblance of production from shortstop and first base. It would be an overstatement, but not by much. The Royals spent almost two months trying to compete with a seven-man lineup. If anything Gload’s hot streak only serves to remind us what a difference it makes to have a first baseman who can, you know, hit. If only we had one of those somewhere…

- Counting the brief and ineffective cameos that Callaspo and German have made at the position, Royals shortstops other than Aviles have hit .153 (32-for-209) this season, with six extra-base hits. You want to know how bad that is?

Royals SS: 209 AB, 32 H, 4 D, 2 T, 0 HR, 10 BB, 10 RBI, .153/.191/.191
Cardinals P: 161 AB, 30 H, 6 D, 0 T, 2 HR, 10 BB, 21 RBI, .186/.233/.261

The Royals’ numbers above don’t count Aviles. (And before you ask, the Cardinals’ numbers don’t count Ankiel.) The scouts all know it’s bad luck when your shortstops are out-hit by another team’s pitching staff. Maybe the fans who wanted Zack Greinke to start there on his off-days had it right.

So there you have it: the difference between the Royals of June and the Royals of April and May is Michael Anthony Aviles. Long may he reign.

- Coming into the season, Luke Hochevar projected to be a league-average starter, and that’s exactly what he’s been: in 13 starts, he’s 5-5 with a 4.60 ERA, which is as average as they come. But league-average pitchers come in all shapes and sizes, and the particular shape of Hochevar’s performance has surprised me. Specifically, I had no idea back in April that he was such a groundball pitcher. The talk about Hochevar was that he had four pitches that graded out at average or better, not that he had an outstanding sinker. Today, we know better.

Tonight was a virtuoso performance, one unseen in these parts in a long, long time. Hochevar struck out just 3 of 31 batters he faced, but he was nonetheless brilliant. He got 17 groundball outs, against just three flyball outs. He got two key double plays. Groundballs are less likely to go foul than flyballs, which is why groundball pitchers tend to be more efficient with their pitches – and Hochevar threw just 95 pitches in eight innings. Only once in the last five seasons had a Royal thrown 8+ innings with 95 pitches or less. (You won’t guess right in a million years – Jorge de la Rosa, last April, threw 94 pitches in eight innings.)

Counting tonight’s performance, Hochevar has allowed 140 groundballs and just 71 flyballs this season, a ratio of 1.97 which would rank him 11^th among major league starters (min: 60 IP) this season. The three guys directly above him on the list are Greg Maddux, Chien-Ming Wang, and his opposing starter tonight, Aaron Cook. That’s excellent company for a starter to be in, particular a starter who doesn’t have a huge strikeout rate. We’ve come to grips with the fact that Hochevar won’t be an ace befitting his draft status, but he seems to be on the career track of a guy like Cook or Derek Lowe, a guy who can give you 200 innings a season and keep his ERA a little below league average. There are a lot of #1 overall picks who would have loved to have a career like that.

- The similarities between Greinke and Schilling continue to amaze me. I’ve previously documented the pair’s stinginess when it comes to the unearned run. On Tuesday night Greinke struck out 10 and walked none, but somehow still managed to surrender 9 hits in 6 innings – that’s the sort of start Schilling is famous for. (Although Zack will be hard-pressed to match this start.)

Greinke is the exact opposite of Hochevar - he gets lots of strikeouts and lots of flyballs, and you pretty much have to beat him with the home run, which makes him a perfect fit for Kauffman Stadium. I’m not sure I’d agree with the sentiment that “If you asked me which pitcher will be the most successful over the next seven years I would take Zach [sic] Greinke.” But between now and the end of the season, the single most important step Dayton Moore can take in securing the future of the franchise is to get The Baseball Jonah signed to a long-term deal.

- Last Thursday I was watching the afternoon game from work through my MLB.com connection, which is high-quality for streaming video but still a little choppy. The Royals were nursing a one-run lead in the top of the ninth when Teahen batted with a man aboard. As the 1-0 pitch reached the plate the feed flickered for just a millisecond, enough that I could not see the impact of bat on ball. But in the fraction of a second before the cameras showed the trajectory of the ball, my synapses flashed, “that’s a home-run swing.” And that impression means more to me going forward than the fact that the ball cleared the right-field fence.

Teahen’s plate approach has been discussed and dissected by far greater writers than myself, including both Posnanski and Michael Lewis, to the point where even soccer fans in Uruguay know that Teahen prefers slapping the ball to left field rather than trying to pull the ball for power. Posnanski has written that the Royals should embrace this approach, make Teahen their leadoff hitter, and tell him to hit line drives and get on base – to turn him into David DeJesus, in other words. I love Poz, but this is one issue on which I completely disagree.

The simple fact is that Teahen has been an above-average hitter exactly one time in his career – the one time (2006) when he hit for power. A corner outfielder who doesn’t hit for power has to hit .310-.320 consistently to have much value, and that high a batting average requires either blazing speed or an excellent contact rate. Teahen is fast but not that fast, and he’s averaged 133 Ks per 162 games in his career. He’s a .270 hitter, and that’s not going to change.

What can change is his power, but he’s not going to hit for power until he starts pulling the ball in the air (Monday’s impressive opposite-field homer notwithstanding.) Teahen has the talent, and he has the track record, even if it was just a three-month span two seasons ago. Last Thursday, he showed the kind of swing that we need to see a lot more of. He’s hit five homers this month, and if his power barrage continues, I may withdraw my standing request that hitting coach Mike Barnett be dismissed.

- For the record: I think the acquisition of Robinson Tejeda is intriguing. Tejeda has a 5.01 career ERA in over 260 innings, but he’s just 26 and has a power arm. But what really gives me reason for optimism is that he’s never really been tried as a reliever, either at the major or minor league level. In ten pro seasons he has made just 35 relief appearances. All pitchers have a tendency to pitch better in relief, and as I mentioned a while back when talking about Soria, the pitchers who tend to show the most improvement are Three True Outcome pitchers, i.e. guys who get lots of strikeouts, lots of walks, and lots of homers. That’s pretty much Tejeda in a nutshell. Let’s see what Bob McClure can do with him; “better than Yabuta” would be a nice, and easily reachable, first step.

Royals Today: 6/23/2008.

Powered by the biggest win of the season Sunday, and the random sight of a Royals fan wearing his powder-blue Billy Butler Kauffman Stadium giveaway jersey as I drove by the corner of Grand and Wabash in downtown Chicago after the game, it’s time for a notes column. This one is set to the chronological rhythms of yesterday’s game.

- 5-0 San Francisco, middle of the 2^nd.

I haven’t written about him much, if at all, so far this season. But if you really think that Kyle Davies has turned the corner in 2008…well, think again. Going into yesterday’s game, he had a 1.46 ERA – and as many walks (12) as strikeouts. Even after his performance yesterday his ERA stands at 3.12, the best in the rotation. It’s a fraud. He’s thrown 26 innings, he’s walked 14 and struck out 13, and he’s allowed 29 hits. The results have been as good as they have for two reasons: he hasn’t allowed a home run yet, and opposing hitters are batting .367 with no one on, but just .216 with men on base.

Davies is not a groundball pitcher, so the home run rate can’t hold, and the performance from the stretch is also unsustainable. Even in Omaha, where he had a 2.06 ERA this season, his peripherals were uninspiring (37 Ks, 20 BBs, and any ratio under 2-to-1 in the minors is not the hallmark of a good pitching prospect.) His age and track record suggest he can be better than this, and I’m happy to have him as a fifth starter, but expect more starts like yesterday’s in the future.

- 10-3 San Francisco, middle of the 5^th.

Jeff Fulchino isn’t the most unlikely player the Royals have ever called up, but he has to be on the short list. I don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of the farm system or anything, but I take it to be a bad sign when the Royals call a player up and my first reaction is, “who?” Nothing compares to the immortal Eduardo Villacis, of course, but Fulchino ranks up there with Steve Stemle, a strike-throwing non-entity who was called up in 2005, and spent most of the next two years drawing a major league paycheck on the DL. (Hey, good for him – I’m always happy when a minor league lifer makes some major league coin.)

Fulchino’s a veteran minor league starter who spent 7 years with the Marlins before the Royals signed him as a reliever. This is where I’m supposed to write, “and he was a different pitcher out of the bullpen,” only that’s not really the case. In 38 innings for Omaha this year, he had a 3.99 ERA, allowed 44 hits and 16 walks – this isn’t the second coming of Francisco Rodriguez. This may have been a reaction to Joel Peralta and the Royals wanting a pitcher who wouldn’t surrender a home run every three innings – but if so, it was an overreaction. Fulchino does not resemble a major league pitcher, so until MLB awards bonus points for degree of difficulty in coming back from seven runs down, he has no place on this team. There are half a dozen guys in Omaha I’d rather see manning the last spot in the bullpen.

(Late update: after due consideration, it appears the Royals have re-considered their position. Fulchino was sent down, and Peralta is back. Just keep Joel off the mound when the tying run’s at the plate in the ninth.)

Oh, and remember when people were saying that Yasuhiko Yabuta was coming around? Yeah, not so much. He’s got a 5.46 ERA, and hitters are batting .297/.377/.492 against him. His ex-teammate in Japan, Masahide Kobayashi, has a 3.03 ERA for the Indians – I guess there’s a reason Yabuta was the set-up man and Kobayashi was the closer. Yabuta’s facing an uphill battle to even survive to the end of his contract next year without being released.

- 10-5 San Francisco, end of the 5^th.

The Royals’ modest two-run rally was capped by another RBI single off the bat of Jose Guillen. I’m sure you all know this, but to reiterate:

Jose Guillen through May 5^th: .165/.198/.306
Jose Guillen since: .377/.389/.640, 19 doubles, 9 homers, and 43 RBIs in 43 games.

Guillen deserves a column all on his own, but the point I want to make is that even as Guillen has turned his season around, his plate discipline (never good to begin with) has declined to non-existent. He had five walks through May 5^th, just two since, and the last one came May 15^th. Since then, he has hit .356 with a .611 slugging average in 152 plate appearances, and thanks to a couple HBPs he has a .362 OBP.

Jose Guillen has gone almost 6 weeks without a walk – and in that time he has a .362 OBP. He’s threatening to single-handedly destroy one of the prime directives of sabermetrics. I don’t know how he’s doing it, but I can’t help but be impressed. I mean, Vladimir Guerrero would be impressed.

- 10-10 tie, end of the 6^th.

Hillman deserves all kinds of credit for being aggressive in the bottom of the inning, pinch-hitting for Callaspo with the score 10-6, two on and none out, and getting a key single to continue the rally. And DeJesus just continued what to this point has been his best season; he’s hitting .309/.370/.470, including a .364/.427/.616 mark since May 27^th. Last season was the worst of his career, the result of his batting average dropping 35 points for no reason – he didn’t strike out any more than usual, and his power and walk rate were roughly in line with previous years. It looked like a fluke then, and it looks like a fluke now. I’m thinking my trade proposal that would have sent him to the Cubs for Pie and Cedeno may not have been such a good idea…

…particularly because with Mike Aviles, who needs Cedeno? His two-out, two-run double tied the game. He’s hitting .328 with a .625 slugging average. He has more total bases in 64 at-bats (40) than Pena has in 164 AB (32). It’s been years, maybe over a decade, since any hitter came up and made this dramatic an impression in the first 2-3 weeks of his career with the Royals. I’ll let those of you who go to the games respond – is he a hit with the fans at the park? There was pandemonium when he tied the game yesterday, but that’s to be expected when you come back from seven runs down.

Aviles doesn’t have a nickname yet – yes, I owe you a report on that – and our friends at Royals Review are debating a nickname for Aviles while making fun of my hair. (Just as you’re not supposed to field between hops, apparently I’m not supposed to be photographed between haircuts. This photo is a few years old; I’ve since given up and go with the nearly-shaved-head look. Or as we call it at Baseball Prospectus, “The Carroll.” Also, “The Goldstein.” Or if you want, “The Sheehan.” Keith Woolner didn’t leave us because the Indians offered him a job – he got out while he still had his hair.) Where was I…oh, yeah, you can vote on a nickname here. Though none of these grab me just yet.

Aviles is not going to keep hitting like this. If he settles in as a .280 hitter with 30 doubles and 10-15 homers a year, he can play every day. If he settles in as a .260 hitter with 25 doubles and 8-10 homers a year, Moore will find a glove to replace him. More and more, I’m betting on the former.

- 11-10 Kansas City, middle of the 8^th.

I think I’ve said this before, that one of the most compelling reasons why I’m such a big fan of Dayton Moore is that the vast majority of his moves look far better six months after the fact than they do at the time they’re made. It looks like he’s fooled me again. I didn’t like the Ron Mahay signing at all. I didn’t think the Royals needed to spend $4 million a year on a situational reliever, but specifically a left-handed situational reliever. The Royals had Jimmy Gobble, John Bale, and Neal Musser already on hand, and adding a fourth lefty specialist to the pile made no sense whatsoever.

Except that John Bale made a stunningly successful transition to the rotation in spring training, and then was stunningly unsuccessful in the regular season, both in terms of pitching and in remembering to take his frustrations out with his non-throwing hand. And then Jimmy Gobble decided to see how far he could push the envelope with the concept of the LOOGY, as he’s been deadly against LHB (.118/.167/.265) but is reaching the point with RHB (.410/.510/.744) that has left-handed hitters debating the merits of trying to switch-hit for the first time in their lives. Ignore his 8.15 ERA – Gobble’s usage is so bizarre that many of the runs charged to him are the fault of other relievers, and many of the runs that are his fault are charged to other relievers. But you can’t expect to get a full inning out of him, and by and large Hillman hasn’t tried.

Mahay, on the other hand, went two scoreless innings yesterday to get the win, the day after he went 1.1 scoreless to earn the hold. He has pitched more than an inning 15 times in his 32 appearances, which is almost unheard of in this day and age for a left-handed reliever. The reason for this is that he has almost no platoon split – for his career, RHB hit .249/.340/.394, LHB hit .229/.309/.391, and much of that OBP difference is explained by intentional walks. This year LHB are hitting much better than RHB, although that’s a sample size fluke.

One of the biggest criticism I have of the LaRussa-ization of bullpens is that so many relievers, particularly lefty relievers, have been pegged as one-sided specialists even though they have the ability to get both sides out. Mahay is too good a pitcher to be limited to one-batter appearances. Gobble is not. Hillman has correctly differentiated between the two, which is why Gobble is averaging 3.4 batters per appearance, and Mahay is averaging a fraction over 5.

I still believe there should be a spot on the roster for Neal Musser, who in Omaha the last two seasons has thrown 95 innings, allowed 64 hits and 32 walks, struck out 100, and has an ERA of 1.89. But Mahay has, more than anyone, kept the bullpen from falling apart since Nunez got hurt and Ramirez hit a rough patch. He’s justified his contract, and then some.

(Now, why the Royals just called up Horacio Ramirez instead of Musser…I have no answer for that.)

- 11-10 Kansas City, final.

What more can I say about Joakim Soria? I know he’s the Mexicutioner, and I don’t want to discourage poster Jack Jester from his hard-hitting reporting on the crime wave sweeping the nation, but I really would like to call him Mr. Sandman. Not the Sandman in the Mariano Rivera, “Enter Sandman” way, but more like the “Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream” way. He’s the guy who puts everyone into a tranquil sleep when he comes in, no matter how wild and crazy the game was before he showed up. Before Soria, would any Royals fan have felt safe in the ninth inning yesterday? Of course not. A seven-run comeback, both teams scoring in double digits, 30 hits, 13 walks, a game that took nearly four hours to play…why would anyone expect the ninth inning to be easy?

But when Soria came out for the ninth, were any of you worried? I know I wasn’t. And that’s what Soria provides – a sense of tranquility that hasn’t been seen in these parts in over ten years. He's not just ridiculously effective – he’s also ridiculously composed. On a day like Sunday, it's like he’s the only sane man in an insane world. He never appears to be caught up in the tension of the moment – he never even appears to be aware of the tension. I noticed this in his very first save opportunity, a week after his major league debut, when he struck out the final two Blue Jays to end the game. You’d expect a rookie in his fourth appearance to be a little pumped, a little psyched, a little stoked. Soria trudged off the mound and exchanged…no, make that he accepted high-fives from the other Royals. He was acknowledging that his teammates were happy for him, but he personally didn’t see what the fuss is about.

I know Mariano Rivera has the Sandman name locked up, but Mr. Sandman would have been perfect for Soria. But so long as he continues to make hitters look positively stupid every time he takes the mound, I suppose the Mexicutioner will do just fine.

A Hero Is Born! (?)

Mike Aviles might be the biggest surprise of the Royals season so far, but to me, the biggest surprise of all is simply that he’s had an opportunity to play. Aviles wasn’t considered strong enough defensively to play shortstop regularly in the minor leagues. In Omaha the last two-plus seasons, Aviles has played 87 games at shortstop – but 66 games at second, and 144 games at third base.

In spring training, you could have told me almost everything that’s happened to the Royals so far this season – the 12-game losing streak, Jose Guillen’s streakiness, the Milton Bradley-Ryan Lefebvre peace summit – and I would have believed it. But Mike Aviles as our starting, everyday shortstop? That would have been tough to imagine. In hindsight, as always, these things are easy to understand. I didn’t expect Tony Pena to hit .154, but if you had to guess on Opening Day that some everyday player in the majors would be hitting .154 in June, who else would have come to mind besides Pena? Brian Bocock with the Giants, probably, but even he was just considered a stopgap until Vizquel returned.

So you have a team with a shortstop who can’t hit, and two shortstops who can’t field, and no obvious solution in the minor leagues. Put it that way, and you’d expect Aviles to get the call – only you couldn’t really expect Aviles, at age 27, to take another quantum leap forward with the bat. In 2006, at age 25, Aviles hit .264/.307/.373 in Triple-A. He improved across the board last season, hitting .296/.332/.463. This year, he hit .336/.370/.631, and is hitting .306/.333/.633 for the Royals.

You can’t expect this to continue. I was going to list his PECOTA projection from the start of the year to make my point, except it appears we didn’t even bother to run a projection for him (which is my fault, as I didn’t even bother to give Aviles a player comment in this year’s book.)

But when you take the air out of his Omaha numbers this year, his Davenport Translation converts his performance into a line of .273/.304/.495 in the majors. His defensive numbers are quite good, +7 runs…at second base. Factor in his performance with the Royals so far, after some regression you’re looking at a guy who will probably hit .270/.300/.460 or so. Is that worth giving up defense for?

When the alternative is Tony Pena Jr: hell yes. But don’t fool yourself: it’s a miracle that Dayton Moore has allowed Aviles to get this far. Moore believes in defense uber alles, and if you don’t believe me, ask Sam Mellinger, who reported a few days ago that Moore offered Billy Butler to the Mariners for Yuniesky Betancourt two winters ago. (Bill Bavasi, bless his heart, declined.) Suddenly, trading Eric Cordier for Pena doesn’t look so bad.

If Aviles keeps hitting, and keeps making the routine play, he’ll keep playing. But if he’s hitting .240 a few weeks from now and fails to come up with a play in a few key situations, don’t act surprised when another change is made. Aviles has fought an uphill battle valiantly for the last few years, but the summit has just come into sight.

This has been brought up in the comments section, but to pile on: in two straight games, Aviles has batted in the top of the eighth, and the Royals went to the bottom of the eight leading by one run. Tony Pena was not brought in for defense either time. I can not possibly fathom what would possess Hillman to decide he’d rather stay with his bat-first shortstop when he has a terrific defensive shortstop on the bench, he’s trying to nurse a one-run lead, and it is unlikely that spot in the lineup will come up to bat again?

Maybe Hillman has come to the conclusion that Aviles isn’t such a bad defensive shortstop after all. In that case, great – then why is Pena on the roster? He can’t hit, he’s not even a good pinch-runner. If you’re not going to use your glove, why is he here?

Which is why I think he won’t be here as soon as tomorrow, when the Royals return home and return to DH rules for the rest of the season. Butler’s flirtation with hitting .400 in Omaha will cease, and the Royals will hold their breath and hope against reason that 29 other teams will somehow not claim a .154 hitter off waivers.

I think the Royals should still keep their eye out for a long-term option at shortstop, which only continues a state of affairs that has been in place since Greg Gagne’s tenure ended. But if nothing else, Aviles keeps the Royals from making a move out of pure desperation. And personally, I think they should keep him at shortstop all year and see what happens.

Aviles is a player who has been overachieving his whole life. He’s undersized to begin with at 5’9”, 195 pounds. He went to a Division II school (Concordia College) and was the DII Player of the Year when he was drafted in the 6^th round. He was forced to sign for the grand total of $1,000 when David Glass forced the Royals to penny-pinch and draft college seniors in the middle rounds. (Aviles’ daily salary in the majors is greater than his signing bonus.) He has improved his production two straight years at an age (25-27) when most players have mostly peaked.

He was named the Royals’ minor league player of the year last season, but was neither given a September callup nor added to the 40-man roster. He was passed over in the Rule 5 draft. He got called up, inserted in the lineup for one day, then didn’t play for a week. He’s got his shot now, and he’s running with it. And I can’t help but think of another short middle infielder who moved the minor leagues slowly, and despite hitting .297/.378/.502 as a 25-year-old in Double-A was left off his team’s 40-man roster.

Only Dan Uggla was selected in the Rule 5 draft, won the starting job for the Marlins at second base, and hit .282 with 27 homers as a 26-year-old rookie. And unlike another 26-year-old rookie – the one we just traded to Los Angeles – Uggla has only gotten better since, swatting 83 extra-base hits last year and hitting .288/.371/.627 this season. He’s probably the second-best second baseman in the majors, even if he’s not the best second baseman whose last name starts with “U”.

I feel comfortable saying that Aviles will never be as good as Uggla is right now. I feel equally comfortable saying he doesn't have to be.

I’ve given Hillman a lot of flak for his bad tactical moves, and I stand by them. But tactics, by definition, take a back seat to strategy. The minutiae of tactical maneuvering means little if you can’t get the big-picture strategic decisions right – like, say, who your starters are. It seems obvious today that Mike Aviles should be the starting shortstop. And maybe, given how bad Pena has been and how few other options appear to be available, the Royals would have ended up starting Aviles no matter who the manager was.

But maybe not. If Buddy Bell were still here, he might have insisted that the Royals trade a low-level prospect for John McDonald or some other hitless wonder, and we would have started this cycle all over again. Hillman’s lost a few games with his decisions this year. But he won one back when Aviles went yard Tuesday night. And the more opportunities he gives his new shortstop, the more opportunities Aviles will have to win a few more games for us.

NL, How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways.

In honor of the Royals’ first two-game winning streak in two weeks (and second such streak in a month), I’m going positive tonight.

The Royals are now 33-27 (.550) against the NL over the last four years. In that same timeframe, they’re 182-314 (.367) against AL opponents. Sixty games is a pretty substantial sample size, and in those 60 games the Royals have outscored their opponents by 46 runs, so their record is representative of how well they’ve played. How much would the perception of this franchise be altered if they simply had the good fortune to play in the inferior league? The general consensus of smart people who have studied the subject is that the difference between the leagues in 2006 and 2007 was on the order of 8-10 games. Which is to suggest that had the Royals played in the NL, they would have had a record of approximately 71-91 in 2006, and 78-84 last season. A lot more wins, a lot fewer Jay Leno jokes.

There’s a meme going around this year that the NL is starting to catch up on the AL, primarily because offense levels are so much higher in the NL this year, prompting claims that the NL has all the young hitting talent. That may be so, but color me unconvinced, and not just because the AL went 25-17 against the NL this weekend. I just don’t understand why we have to interpret the higher offensive levels in the NL this year as the product of good young hitting in the NL, as opposed to good young pitching in the AL. Scoring levels tell you nothing about the quality of play – an increase in scoring could be the result of better hitting, worse pitching, or both.

As I write this, a total of 22 pitchers have thrown 50 or more innings this season with a better-than-league average ERA (i.e. an ERA+ of over 100), and are no older than 25. Fifteen of them are in the American League. In descending order of ERA+, they are: Scott Kazmir, John Danks, Aaron Laffey, Felix Hernandez, Fausto Carmona, Gavin Floyd, Jon Lester, Zack Greinke, Ervin Santana, Chad Gaudin, Jesse Litsch, Greg Smith, Dana Eveland, Edwin Jackson, and Matt Garza. Only seven toil in the NL: Edinson Volquez, Tim Lincecum, Cole Hamels, Scott Olsen, John Lannan, Chad Billingsley, and Jair Jurrjens.

So can we dispense with this idea that the NL is making a comeback? The dregs of the American League just went to the home of the NL West leaders and won two out of three, outscoring the Diamondbacks 20 to 7. A month ago they played the Marlins on the road and won two out of three. An extended run against the NL could be just the tonic the Royals need to right the ship. Three games in St. Louis against the NL Wild Card leaders? Bring it on. Especially since that means Bannister and Greinke both get to swing the bat, and that’s always fun.

Inexcusable.

If you're wondering why my posts are becoming rarer and rarer, tonight's game should explain why.

Trey Hillman may be a great leader of men. He may have a clubhouse presence that would impress Barack Obama. He may be a shrewd judge of talent. He may have any number of traits that will one day render him an excellent baseball manager.

But when it comes to in-game tactical maneuvering, he is a liability. Tonight, he absolutely, positively cost the Royals a win.

The Royals entered the top of the 8th with a 5-1 lead. They were playing the Rangers, not the Yankees. They had the home-field advantage. They set the first two men down in order. They had this game in the bag.

And Hillman pissed it away.

Michael Young walked. Joey Hamilton hit a routine groundball to Mike Aviles at shortstop. Aviles' throw was a little low, but did not hit the ground. Teahen could not hold on to it.

Mistake #1: What is Tony Pena on the roster for, if not to play defense with a four-run lead? Aviles was scheduled to bat in the bottom of the inning, but again, you're up by four runs - you want the defense in. Maybe Pena's throw is more on-line, and the inning is over. Admittedly, this is a small mistake. They will get bigger.

Mistake #2: With two on, two out, tying run on deck, Trey Hillman calls upon Brett Tomko.

How many runs does Brett Tomko have to give up, how many leads does he have to blow, before the Royals realize that he has no business pitching in a tight game? Tomko entered the game with a 6.34 ERA. It was not a fluke. Batters are hitting .298/.331/.506 against him. He has a 6.17 ERA as a starter. He has a 7.94 ERA as a reliever. He had a 5.55 ERA last year. There is no way you can spin the evidence in such a way as to suggest that he should be pitching in a tight situation. You gambled $3 million that Bob McClure could figure him out. It was a decent gamble, but it failed. Choosing to be in a state of denial is only making matters worse.

Milton Bradley doubled on an 0-2 count - classic Tomko - to drive in two. David Murphy singled home Bradley. It's 5-4, tying run at first base. Gerald Laird and Chris Shelton are due up next.

Mistake #3: Hillman calls on...Yasuhiko Yabuta.

Maybe Hillman was enamored with Yabuta's performance the night before, when Yabuta heroically earned the win by...retiring a single batter. I don't want to minimize his effort - he retired Bobby Abreu with two men on in a tie game - but still, he faced one batter. Even in the worst (non-Bonds) matchup the odds are better than 50/50 that a pitcher will retire a single hitter.

Anyway, Hillman suddenly felt that with four outs to go, with the tying run at the plate, the situation didn't call for his closer Joakim Soria, or his set-up man Ramon Ramirez, but instead, Yasuhiko Yabuta, he of the 4.91 ERA.

That's bad enough. What's worse - much, much worse - is that Hillman seems completely oblivous to the whole notion of platoon splits. When Bradley and Murphy (a switch-hitter and left-handed hitter) were due up, he called on Tomko, a right-hander who, like most right-handers, fares somewhat worse against left-handed hitting. With Laird and Shelton - two right-handed hitters due up - Hillman calls on Yabuta.

Here's how Yabuta has fared so far this year:

vs. RHB: .390/.463/.610
vs. LHB: .152/.235/.283

That's not a misprint. Even though Yabuta is right-handed, right-handed hitters have numbers that are literally twice as good as their left-handed counterparts across the board. The size of the discrepancy is a reflection of a small sample size, but the discrepancy itself is very real. Yabuta's best pitch (his only good pitch, really) is his splitter/changeup, and pitchers who rely on a forkball or changeup as their out pitch generally have reverse platoon splits - they do a better job of getting guys out from the other side of the plate.

Laird singled. Shelton singled, and Murphy scored the tying run.

From that point on the outcome was academic - I started writing this post when the game was still in the top of the 9th. I did think it was a nice touch that Ramon Ramirez struck out Josh Hamilton on three pitches with the tying run at third base and one out in the ninth, only to surrender the winning run on a passed ball immediately thereafter.

Hillman was instrumental in that, too. Yabuta had stayed in to face a couple of left-handed hitters after the game was tied, and after walking Brandon Boggs he got Ramon Vazquez to fly out and end the inning. Showing that he had learned nothing from the sequence of events, Hillman (or as we shall see, his proxy Dave Owen, not that it matters) let Yabuta pitch to Ian Kinsler (a right-handed hitter) leading off the ninth. Kinsler doubled. Yabuta stayed in to pitch to another right-hander, Michael Young, who moved Kinsler up with a grounder to second, and only at that point did Ramirez come in.

So Ramon Ramirez, he of the 3.30 ERA, who's clearly the second-best reliever on the active roster, was not deemed necessary with two outs in the eighth, a one run lead, and the tying run on base - but he was deemed necessary once the game was tied, and the go-ahead run was on third base with one out. (By the way, Ramirez came into the game having thrown four wild pitches in just 30 innings. Bringing him with a man on third base was probably the worst possible time to do so. But we're just piling on at this point.)

Oh, and Ramirez's platoon splits? Ramirez's best pitch is probably his slider, and pitchers who rely on their slider tend to have larger-than-normal platoon splits. Sure enough, against Ramirez LHB are hitting .309/.356/.364...but RHB are hitting just .182/.250/.218.

So let's sum this up: with a one-run lead, two outs in the eighth, the tying run on first, and two right-handed hitters scheduled, Trey Hillman had to choose between a reliever with a 4.91 ERA and a reliever with a 3.30 ERA, a reliever against whom RHB were hitting .390 and a reliever against whom RHB were hitting .182...AND HE CHOSE THE FIRST GUY?

Buddy Bell was an awful, awful tactical manager, but I'm willing to bet that I could go through his entire log as Royals manager and not find more than two or three games in which his moves cost the Royals a game as clearly as Hillman's tactics cost them tonight.

The shame of it is, if there's any attention placed on Hillman from this game, it's that he was thrown out arguing a questionable ball/strike call in the bottom of the eighth inning. The pitch was probably a ball, and Hillman probably did nothing that warranted being thrown out. But the mere fact that the pitch meant anything all is absolutely, positive, 100% Trey Hillman's fault. If Hillman, or the writers covering the team, attempt to pin even a fraction of the blame for tonight's loss on the home-plate umpire, they're doing the team and its fans a disservice.

The box score says Yabuta took the loss tonight. It won't tell you that Hillman shoved it down his throat. But he did. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.