Mayday!

If it’s late August, then I’m probably stuck at work – every kid in the Midwest apparently has to have their acne cleared before they go back to school. So I’ve been too busy, thank God, to spend any time watching the Royals endure what has probably been their worst week of a season filled with bad ones. After getting swept in Chicago to start this road trip – by the combined score of 22 to 2 – the Royals won the opener at Yankee Stadium because Mariano Rivera allowed the go-ahead run to score on a wild pitch and Joakim Soria picked off Justin Christian, who had just come into the game as a pinch-runner. That’s right: the Royals have Rivera to thank for the fact that they’re not on a nine-game losing streak.

The Royals aren’t just losing – they’re getting abused, both literally and figuratively. The team’s last three victories have all been one-run squeakers; they haven’t won a game by more than a single run since August 3^rd. Here’s the last five games in detail:

1) Saturday: lost a 13-inning affair to the Yankees on Saturday because of a total team meltdown – at the plate, in the field, on the bases, and in the manager’s chair.

After battering Sidney Ponson for all of seven hits and two runs in 6.1 innings, the Royals managed a total of one hit against six different relievers. Even so, they scored two early runs and should have scored at least one or two more, except with the bases loaded in the seventh and one out, David DeJesus was doubled off second when Jose Guillen’s liner was caught, then Mitch Maier was put in motion with DeJesus batting in the ninth, resulting in a strike ‘em out, throw ‘em out double play, then Mark Teahen was thrown out trying to steal to end the top of the 13^th.

Even so, those two runs could have held up had Alex Gordon not committed a double error on A-Rod’s grounder to start the 7^th. Rodriguez would score on Robinson Cano’s triple; Cano would score on a two-out wild pitch from Greinke. Not that it would have mattered, since Tony Pena followed that with an error of his own.

Even with all that, the Royals still might have held on long enough to score had Trey Hillman not stubbornly refused to use Joakim Soria in a tie game. After a brilliant performance by Robinson Tejeda, Hillman elected to go with Joel Peralta to start the 11^th inning instead of Soria. Peralta threw two scoreless innings. In the bottom of the 13^th inning, in a tie game at Yankee Stadium, Hillman calls on…Jeff Fulchino.

I’ve written far too many words on the ridiculous conventional wisdom that permeates the game regarding the usage of closers, a CW that Hillman has shown no inclination to challenge. So I’m not going to belabor the point here. True, Soria had thrown 25 pitches the night before – but it was the first time he had pitched in five days. Monday was an off-day, so at that point Hillman knew he could use Soria on either Saturday or Sunday, but not both. He decided that it was safer to hold Soria back for an imaginary save situation that might never (and did not) materialize, rather than use him in the extra-inning tie game that was right in front of him. I can hear the argument: there’s no guarantee that the Royals would score anyway, and even if they did, Soria would have to pitch at least two innings to close out the game.

Addressing the first argument: that’s right, there’s no guarantee that the Royals would score, although given that the Yankees were already down to using somebody named David Robertson, the odds were pretty good that even the Royals could break through eventually. But so what? You can’t save your best pitcher to pitch only in games that you are guaranteed to have a lead. It’s possible that Cliff Lee might pitch a brilliant game but the Indians might still lose because they don’t score any runs – this has actually happened once or twice this year – but he still pitches every fifth day, doesn’t he? This notion that closers should only pitch when you have the lead is a crutch. The Yankees pitched Mariano Rivera for two innings in this game, even though the game was tied, and guess what? While Rivera wasn’t credited with either a win or a save, the Yankees would not have won the game without him.

(In Rivera’s case, he was used because since the Yankees were the home team, once the game went extra-innings it was impossible for a save situation to develop for them. Hillman did the same thing with Soria on August 10^th, when he used Soria for the 9^th in 10^th of a tie game when the Royals were at home; the Royals won in 12 innings. Amazing how, once you take the absurd save statistic out of the equation, managers actually make decisions that maximize their team’s chance of winning, not their closer’s chance of picking up a save.)

Anyway, Jeff Fulchino pitched exactly as you’d expect a guy who just got called up from Omaha to pitch. Game over.

2) Sunday: scored three first-inning runs against a resurgent Mike Mussina, then watched Brian Bannister craft the second-worst start in franchise history.

Using Bill James’ Game Score formula, Bannister’s start (1 IP, 10 H, 10 R, 10 ER, 3 BB, 0 K) registers as a -10. The only worst start in Royals history was Zack Greinke’s disaster in Arizona back in 2005 (4.1 IP, 15 H, 11 R, 11 ER, 2 BB, 2 K) which scores a -11. But Greinke redeemed himself at least a little that day by hitting a homer. As an overall performance, Bannister had a worse day than any of the roughly 6400 starters that preceded him.

(Incidentally, the third-worst performance by a Royal was Luke Hudson’s 10-run first inning in 2006. Only eight times in Royals history has their starter managed a negative game score, all of them since 1994, and five of them since 2004.)

But hey, at least Joakim Soria was well-rested to watch this game from the bullpen.

3) Tuesday: lost to the Indians, 9-4. Luke Hochevar pitched five okay innings but then somehow managed to bruise his ribcage while throwing a pitch – an injury that seems to violate the laws of biomechanics. With help from the newly-signed Kip Wells, the bullpen gives up five runs in three innings to ice the game.

4) Wednesday: Gil Meche pitches brilliantly again, and the Royals take a 5-3 lead into the eighth after scoring four runs in the fifth – a rally keyed by a pitch that broke Mitch Maier’s face in three places. Maier’s sacrifice goes for naught; in the eighth, their two most reliable relievers, Ramon Ramirez and Soria, give up four runs before the second out of the inning is recorded. The first out came on a sacrifice bunt.

I’m sure it’s just a blip in the road, but Soria has allowed nine of the last 12 batters he’s faced to reach base. Maybe he’s out of practice: in the last 11 days, he’s pitched twice.

5) Thursday: the Indians win again, 10-3. Alex Gordon, who already missed a game with a bad back, has to leave this one with a pulled quad.

They score three runs on a two-out bases-clearing triple by Grady Sizemore in the second inning, with Sizemore batting only because Tony Pena had previously let a pop-up drop because the sunglasses he ordered never arrived. (Seriously, I can’t do justice to this one. Fortunately Joe Posnanski can.) The Indians get another unearned run in the third after Billy Butler airmails a throw to first base. (Hey, it’s a long throw for a first baseman.) Here’s all you need to know about how bad the Royals are playing: in his last two starts, Greinke has allowed six unearned runs. He had previously allowed all of 11 unearned runs in his entire career, and just four in the last two seasons.

Here’s what it’s come down to: the Royals just played a team that has already thrown in the towel on their season, trading away their best pitcher and their starting third baseman (for some really good prospects, by the way) – and they got swept. What’s more, they lost every game by at least 3 runs.

In their last 14 games, the Royals have been outscored by 62 runs. They’ve won two games (both by one run), lost by one run once, lost by three runs twice, by four runs twice, by five runs once, by six runs twice, by seven runs twice, and by nine runs twice. If the Royals had been spotted three runs at the start of each game in that stretch, they’d be 3-9-2. For the season, they’ve been outscored by 124 runs – meaning that half of their season deficit has come in the last 14 games – and they Pythagorean record is 51-76. The Royals are 55-72, in last place by 4.5 games, behind last season’s pace, and by all statistical rights they should be even worse.

But hey, help is on the way. Just not this weekend. Tonight, Bannister takes his 5.96 ERA to the mound. And that’s the highlight of the pitching matchups against Detroit, given that we have the same starting pitcher tomorrow and Sunday. I don’t who this TBA guy is, but I doubt he’s any good. (Especially if “TBA” is just a euphemism for “Brandon Duckworth.”)

ones:

too busy to spend any time watching the Royals endure what has probably been their worst week of a season filled w

Well, at least it’s just 16 days until the Chiefs take the field. In New England.

Mommy!

Draft Aftermath.

Well, if you needed another reminder that there’s a new sheriff in Kansas City, you got it last night. For the second straight year, the Royals drafted a Scott Boras client with one of the top three picks in the draft, waited until the dying minutes before the trading deadline…and got the deal done.

Last year, the Royals took Mike Moustakas with the #2 overall pick. Moustakas was represented by Boras, who probably wasn’t pleased when Moustakas gave quotes to the media that made it clear that he really wanted to play baseball. Leverage is worthless if the other side doesn’t think you’ll use it, and all summer the expectation around baseball was that Moustakas would sign. He did, for $4 million, the same bonus that Alex Gordon got as the #2 overall pick two years prior. In light of the depressed bonuses throughout the first round, Moustakas did well, but the Royals certainly did well too.

Eric Hosmer, by comparison, played his Boras client role to the hilt. He never deviated from the script: he would love to sign if the money was right, but if not, he would be thrilled to attend LSU. Whereas everyone thought Moustakas would sign, everyone thought Hosmer would sign for the right offer. It was clear from the beginning that the right offer wasn’t $4 million. Once Tim Beckham, the #1 overall pick, signed early on for $6.15 million (but spread out over five years, as for some reason two-sport athletes are allowed to have their bonus spread out over time) I felt this set a good ceiling for Hosmer. It would be hard to argue that Hosmer deserved more than Beckham given that 1) he was drafted after Beckham and 2) the Royals had made it clear before the draft that they would have drafted Beckham over Hosmer if they had had the opportunity. So mentally I pegged Hosmer’s price tag at between $5 and $5.5 million.

He got $6 million. While the Royals can claim they gave Hosmer less guaranteed money than Beckham, the reality is that when you discount Beckham’s contract for the time value of the next five years, Hosmer got more money. If both players put their money in a money market account earning 4% interest the day they get paid, at the end of four years (i.e. the day Beckham gets his last check) Hosmer will have $7,019,000; Beckham will have $6,662,000.

So the Royals blinked. On the other hand, so did every other team in the top 5. The Pirates signed Pedro Alvarez, the #2 overall pick, for the same $6 million bonus. (Although they didn’t give Alvarez a major league contract, a big win for them given that Pedro’s a college hitter and might be ready for the majors by next summer.) Brian Matusz, at #4, got only $3.2 million guaranteed but got a major league contract which could make his total contract worth over $6 million (but could be worth less than $4 million if he’s slow to reach the majors.) Buster Posey, the #5 overall pick, got $6.2 million from the Giants.

Would the Royals have been able to sign Hosmer had they held firm at, say, $5.25 million? Only Hosmer and Boras know for sure. The risk, from the Royals’ standpoint, is that Hosmer’s alternative was to go to college – and while a lot can happen in three years, as a college junior his price tag might be even higher. Someone like Alvarez, on the other hand, is already a college junior – if he doesn’t sign, then the next time he gets drafted he’ll be a college senior, with even less leverage.

The conventional wisdom has always been that college juniors have the most leverage, because they only have to wait a year to get drafted again. But with the new rules that force an August 15^th deadline – eliminating the tactic of simply not returning to school in the fall, allowing you to negotiate for an entire year – I would argue that since a college junior has more to lose by not signing before the deadline than a high school senior, that high school picks actually have more leverage. They also have more risk – a lot can happen in three years – but going forward we might see premium high school talents command even more money than college juniors. (We might also see a premium talent threaten to attend a junior college, allowing him to be draft-eligible again the following year, when he’s just 19.)

Anyway, the important thing is that Hosmer signed. If he signed for $6 million instead of $5.25 million – what’s $750,000 in baseball terms? Less than two weeks of Jose Guillen, that’s what. In the long run, the continuing escalation of signing bonuses at the very top of the draft is a concern. But from the Royals’ perspective, if they still have a top-five draft pick in the next few years, we have much bigger concerns than the draft bonus structure.

So today, give it up to David Glass. Say what you want about his past – I certainly have – but he’s had a pretty flawless 2008. His name has all but disappeared from the newspaper, and that in itself is a good sign. Owners are like umpires – you never give any thought to the best ones. Ideally, the only input you want from an owner is that he opens his wallet when asked. Glass has opened his wallet for free agents each of the last two winters, and he’s opened his wallet for draft picks each of the last two summers.

As a result, this year’s draft has the potential to be one of the best in Royals history. They landed Hosmer, who has much power potential as anyone the Royals have ever drafted. Yesterday they also signed fourth-round pick Tim Melville, who was a Top-20 talent who dropped because teams were worried he was asking for too much money. Melville’s signing was an open secret for almost a month now, but the final reports are that his bonus was just $1.25 million. If that’s the case, the Royals got a steal – and that’s already the consensus around the game. Melville’s signing bonus would have been roughly slot money for the #28 pick; of the 27 first-rounders who signed, only two got less money. There may be more to the story here, but it looks from here like Melville would have made more money if he had just let the draft play out, as he likely would have gone somewhere in the middle of the first round.

That’s two of the top 20 players in the draft who just signed. The Royals already had supplemental first rounder Michael Montgomery, a polished high school lefty, and third rounder Tyler Sample, a 6’7” beast of a right-hander who was was considered a solid second-round talent by most people. Montgomery has a 1.76 ERA in rookie ball, with just 22 hits and 7 walks to go along with 24 Ks in 31 innings. Sample was wild as sin at first – 23 walks in his first 16 innings – but over his last two starts walked just one batter in 9 innings, allowing just 6 hits and striking out 12. Montgomery and Sample are polar opposites as pitchers, but along with Melville they were considered three of the 7 or 8 best high school pitchers in the entire draft. Pitching has been Moore’s focus since he was hired, and the farm system had impressive depth in that department even before this draft. With Melville signed, only two or three teams in baseball have more good pitchers in the minor leagues than the Royals.

Then there’s Johnny Giavotella, the 5’8” runt of a college second baseman taken in the second round, the exact antithesis of the tools guy that Moore and Ladnier like to draft. The fact that the Royals deviated from their script so strongly to take Giavotella suggested that they really, really, really liked him, and so far he’s done nothing to disappoint. He signed almost immediately, went straight to full-season ball with Burlington in the Midwest League, and in 54 games so far is hitting .297/.357/.420. He’s also a little young for a college junior, having turned 21 just last month. He’s got a long way to go, but so far he’s rolling along the Chuck Knoblauch/Dustin Pedroia track nicely.

The Royals threw a bunch of six-figure bonuses at other guys well down the draft list, but even if no one else pans out, the Royals’ first five picks alone have the potential to make this a historic draft. They also have the potential to burn out in Double-A; high school pitchers will break your heart. But so far so good.

The only blemish on the draft is that seventh-rounder Jason Esposito didn’t sign. Esposito is a third baseman from New England with a scholarship to Vanderbilt in hand, and those guys are tough to pry away. On draft day I speculated that since Esposito was drafted in the seventh round – the first round on the draft’s second day – that it suggested the Royals had time to contact him overnight and make sure he was signable before spending the pick. As it turns out, I was right – this report makes it clear the Royals kept throwing more money at him until he finally caved in the morning when he was offered $1.5 million. Unfortunately, after the draft he had second thoughts and decided to attend Vandy after all. It’s easy to be upset with the kid, and if this were a negotiating ploy I would be. But I’m not going to fault anyone for wanting a college education. I don’t know what my price tag would have been to forego college, but I’m glad I didn’t have to find out.

(Sources have told me that the Royals were close to signing Esposito up until the deadline, which makes me wonder if money was the issue after all. I guess everyone has their price tag.)

Even without getting Esposito to take their money, the Royals spent an obscene amount of money in the draft. Jim Callis of Baseball America raved about the Red Sox this morning for breaking the $10 million barrier, stating that this “may be a first in draft history.” Callis seems to have missed the fact that the Red Sox didn’t even spend the most money in this year’s draft. The Royals did. Kansas City’s first five picks alone cost $9,525,000; factor in bonuses to the rest of their top 10, and you reach a figure of $10,165,000. I don’t have signing bonus information after the first 10 rounds, but I’m fairly certain that Derrick Saito (16^th round), Jake Kuebler (17^th), and Greg Billo (28^th) got six-figure bonuses, and there may be more.

Sure, that number may be inflated by the fact that Hosmer got $6 million, where as the Red Sox never got the chance to draft anyone worth $6 million. But the dollars count the same no matter who the money goes to. This summer, the Royals have apparently spent more money on their draft picks than any other team. Ever.

It’s hard to remember this when the Royals are getting their brains beaten in at U.S. Cellular Park every other month, but help is on the way. For all the money the Royals have spent, it better be.

How About A Nice Hawaiian Punch?

If you haven’t read it already, I heartily recommend Sam Mellinger’s piece on Kila Kaaihue in the Sunday Star. I think this column strikes the perfect balance of wonder, optimism, and skepticism for the most monstrous season any Royals minor leaguer has put together in years.

Here’s the gist of the column:

1) Kaaihue, out of nowhere, is having an utterly ridiculous season.

2) A lot of baseball men, both inside and outside the organization, still have major reservations about him.

3) Those same baseball men agree that if he continues to put up these kinds of numbers, he deserves a chance to prove them wrong.

Let’s take these one by one.

1) Kaaihue, out of nowhere, is having an utterly ridiculous season.

Kila Kaaihue — pronounced KEE-la KY-uh-hooey — is as close to an overnight, Internet sensation as we can have in this time of oversaturated sports coverage. Four months ago, he was a non-prospect. Baseball America didn’t list him among the Royals’ best 30 prospects, and nobody in the team’s scouting department would’ve disagreed.

Since then, he has torched minor-league pitching, putting up on-base and slugging numbers comparable to recent big-league MVPs, and strong-arming his way to the Royals’ top affiliate here in Omaha.

Since this article posted, Kaaihue has played in four more games, hitting two more homers and drawing four more walks. He started the year for Northwest Arkansas in the Texas League, and in 91 games hit .314 with 26 homers and 80 walks. Then he was promoted to Omaha and got really hot: in 13 games so far, he’s hit .386 with seven homers. For the season, he’s hitting .323/.467/.656 with 33 homers and 90 walks. (Lay your eyes on his pretty numbers here.)

If you translate Kaaihue’s minor league numbers this season into what he would have hit had he played at the major league level, here’s what you (or more precisely, Clay Davenport, the creator of the Davenport Translations) will arrive at:

356 AB, 93 H, 10 D, 28 HR, 78 BB, 58 K, .261/.394/.525. Yeah, that'll play.

I struggle to come up with more than a handful of Royals who have ever had comparable seasons in the high minors. Calvin Pickering, as Mellinger pointed out, was the last player with a season even remotely as good – in 2004, he hit .314/.444/.712 with 35 homers and 70 walks in 89 games. There are a few others I’ve been able to come up with, as we shall see.

2) A lot of baseball men, both inside and outside the organization, still have major reservations about him.

[T]here are real questions to go along with the faux skepticism Kaaihue sees in those text messages.

“I still don’t see him as an everyday major-league player,” says a scout for an opposing American League team. “I still see a slow bat. But I hope I’m wrong, because he’s a guy you root for.”

You can’t blame scouts for their skepticism – Kaaihue has simply never done anything like this before. He has 33 homers this season; in six previous minor league seasons, his previous high was 21. He’s hitting .323; his previous high was .304, and that was set in 2005 in the thin air of High Desert, which was such an unrealistic environment for baseball that the Royals bolted out of town back to Wilmington at their first opportunity. Aside from that season, Kaaihue had never hit better than .259, and that was in rookie ball.

The plate discipline, at least, is not a new thing. Kaaihue drew 97 walks that year in High Desert. He drew 76 walks last year. In his first two full pro season, he drew over 60 walks despite getting fewer than 400 at-bats each year.

Kaaihue came into pro baseball with what we call “old player’s skills” – good plate discipline, and the ability to use that plate discipline to hit for power because he’d see a lot of 2-0 and 3-1 counts, but no speed or defensive value. Prospects with old player’s skills can be immensely valuable, but the downside is they tend to age very poorly. Almost all players lose foot speed as they age, and eventually bat speed, but they compensate by judging pitches better as they age. A lot of guys reach the majors with tremendous tools but no concept of the strike zone, and the aging process works in their favor. Sammy Sosa is the classic example of this; if you want a player closer to home, look at Jermaine Dye.

The problem with a guy with old player’s skills is that he already does a good job of pitch recognition; that’s how he has compensated for his lack of athleticism in the first place. If he loses even a little bat speed over time, he has no ace in his sleeve; he has no other skill he can improve to compensate. When the bat speed goes south, the career can follow in a hurry. See also Hafner, Travis.

And this is a significant concern with Kaaihue. Consider the comparison to Pickering, which is hardly a flattering one. But I would submit the comparison is both unfair and not particularly relevant. Unfair, because Pickering didn’t flop in Kansas City so much as he just disappeared. The big guy came up in August of 2004 and hit two homers in his first game, and batted .246/.338/.500 over 35 games. The following year he was the DH on Opening Day, started the year 4-for-27…and was sent to Omaha, never to return. Pickering had tendonitis in his knee, if memory serves, and got off to a horrible start in Omaha, but recovered to hit a respectable .275/.384/.528 for the O-Royals. He hasn’t played a game in organized baseball since; the last I saw him he was playing with the T-Bones in the Northern League.

The Royals didn’t like Pickering, didn’t think he would succeed, and looked for every piece of evidence that would confirm their suspicions. Not that Pickering would have been an All-Star or anything, but the Royals replaced him at first base with Matt Stairs, who moved in from left field to accommodate…Terrence Long. I fail to see how Pickering could have been a significant downgrade over Long.

More specifically to our discussion, Pickering and Kaaihue are very different players. Pickering was a one-time top prospect with the Orioles who had gotten hurt and missed most of the previous two seasons; Kaaihue was drafted by the Royals and aside from one season ruined by a knee problem has developed steadily over the past six years. Pickering was 27 at the time; Kaaihue is 24.

Pickering was a 6’5”, “275”-pound monster who didn’t hit for power so much as he took advantage of the basic principles of Newton’s Second Law of Motion. Kaaihue is listed as a well-built, but less freakish, 6’3” and 233 pounds. Pickering was sort of a poor man’s Ryan Howard; he swung hard because his sheer mass gave him a chance at a home run every time he made contact, which meant that with home runs came tons of strikeouts; he struck out 85 times in 89 minor league games, and for his minor league career averaged more than a whiff per game. Kaaihue, on the other hand, has just 52 strikeouts this season in 104 games. That is a phenomenal ratio – 33 homers against just 52 strikeouts, a ratio of 0.63 HR/K. In Royals history, no player other than George Brett has had that high a ratio in a season of 400 plate appearances. (Brett did it four times.)

So I think that Pickering’s failures have essentially no bearing on Kaaihue, who is younger, in better shape, and has much fewer holes in his swing. The problem is, Pickering isn’t the only bad comp.

A decade ago this season, the Royals had a player who hit .372/.466/.634 in Omaha. Unlike Kaaihue, this player was a more well-regarded prospect, having been drafted in the 6^th round out of a top college program two years prior, and who had hit .326/.426/.529 between A-ball and Double-A the year before. He was just 23 years old the entire season. He had a decent cup of coffee that September, then returned to Omaha the following year and in 35 games hit .346/.475/.685. I would have bet my car that Jeremy Giambi was going to be a star. He wasn’t.

Of course, there are extenuating circumstances. We must start with the fact that, well, he took steroids. I don’t know how much of his success through the minors was a chemically-induced mirage, but it certainly explains why his career would quickly go in the toilet along with all his syringes.

And even then…Giambi had his moments. The Royals never liked him – as you probably know if you’re a Royals fan, the Royals don’t like guys who do nothing but walk and hit homers – and after a rookie year in which he hit .285/.373/.368, they traded him to – surprise! – Oakland, for Brett Laxton, whose career peaked when he pitched LSU to an NCAA championship as a college freshman. Giambi was just okay for the A’s in 2000, but in 2001 and 2002 he hit .283/.391/.450 and .259/.414/.505 before his career came crashing down over him.

I don’t claim to have an exhaustive knowledge of every minor league star in Royals history, but I’d be remiss to not bring up Ken Phelps. Phelps was – like Kaaihue – a 15^th-round pick in 1976, but out of college, and hit out of the gate. He reached Omaha in 1979, and in 1980 he hit .294/.456/.532 with 23 homers and 128 walks, numbers as impressive in that era as Kaaihue’s are today. The Royals didn’t really have a place for Phelps, but that doesn’t excuse John Schuerholz for trading him for Grant Jackson (career innings in Kansas City: 38).

With the Expos in 1982, Phelps reversed Kaaihue’s travels and played for Wichita (then a Triple-A team) and had a remarkable season, one of the best minor league seasons by anyone in the 1980s: .333/.469/.706 with 46 home runs. The Expos, duly impressed, gave him to the Mariners for cash. (And you wonder why Bill James was so revolutionary.) Seattle finally gave him a shot, albeit in a strict platoon role, and at-bat for at-bat he was one of the best hitters in the American League from 1984 to 1988, when the Mariners cashed him in for Jay Buhner.

Then there was Dwayne Hosey, who signed as a minor league free agent with the Royals before the 1994 season, at age 27, and hit .333/.420/.628 for Omaha. He wasn’t called up in September because there was no September, but the following year he was sent back to Omaha and hit .295/.363/.535 when, on August 31^st, he was finally called up to the majors…by the Red Sox. After the Royals had designated him for assignment the same day. Hosey hit .338/.408/.618 for the Red Sox in September and helped them reach the playoffs, while I spent hours carefully crafting a Herk Robinson voodoo doll so that I could stick pins into it. But Hosey hit just .218 in 28 games for the Red Sox in 1996, and never played in the majors again.

And finally, we reach my favorite comparison, that of Karl Derrick Rhodes, best known as Tuffy. Rhodes was a decent Astros prospect in the early 90s who got a few short opportunities and didn’t do much with them. After languishing on the Astros’ bench in the early part of April 1993, he was released and signed by the Royals. Sent to Omaha, he hit .318/.382/.603 with 23 homers in 88 games. Like Kaaihue, he was just 24 years old; he looked for all the world like a tremendous pickup, a guy who could start in our outfield for years to come. The Royals had other plans for him, just like every other player on this list. On July 30^th that year – the Royals were nominally in contention that year, but not really – they sent Rhodes to the Cubs in a three-way deal. In exchange, from the Mets, they got…wait for it…John Habyan. (The next day, the Royals traded Jon Lieber and Dan Miceli to the Pirates for Stan Belinda. The day after that, Ewing Kauffman passed away. Bad, bad weekend.)

Habyan threw 14 innings in his Royals career. Rhodes, on the other hand, went to Triple-A Iowa and continued to mash, so the Cubs called him up in September and he hit .288/.413/.538. Intrigued, the Cubs elected to start the 1994 season with Rhodes in center field. On Opening Day, Rhodes went 4-for-4 with a walk. Oh, and he hit THREE HOMERS, all off Dwight Gooden. If Hosey made me break out the voodoo doll, Rhodes had me frequenting all the firing ranges in the neighborhood and inquiring about advertising rates in Soldier of Fortune. But Rhodes, like others on this list, could not live up to the promise; he finished the year hitting just .234/.318/.387, and was even worse in a brief appearance in the majors in 1995.

In 1996, Rhodes headed to Japan, and has had arguably the greatest career of any American player in Japanese history, punctuated by his 2001 season when he tied Sadaharu Oh’s Japanese record with 55 homers in a single season. Last year, he came out of retirement at age 38 and hit .291/.403/.603.

With three weeks left in the season, Kaaihue is on pace to have one of the most prodigious, if not the most prodigious, season of any Royals minor league player. As you can see, that’s hardly a guarantee for success.

3) Those same baseball men agree that if he continues to put up these kinds of numbers, he deserves a chance to prove them wrong.

“You gotta believe what you’re seeing,” says Royals general manager Dayton Moore. “He continues to earn the opportunity and a reputation as a future major-league player. But I’d rather (promote him) a month or two too late than a month or two too early.”

Here, at least, we see that the Royals are willing to take a different perspective with Kaaihue than just about every player listed above. They have a healthy skepticism, as they should. They just don’t have an unhealthy skepticism. It’s true that none of the guys above, with the possible exception of Phelps, ever gave the Royals any long-term regrets for letting them go. At the same time, it’s not like they should be patting themselves on the back for cutting bait on these guys. Giambi did have three good years after the Royals traded him for a guy who never won a game in the majors. Phelps for Grant Jackson was a terrible trade, and just because the Expos made an even worse decision to let him go doesn’t mean the Royals get off scot-free.

Hosey and Rhodes at least temporarily looked like they had big futures, and Rhodes certainly might have had he stayed stateside. As far as I’m concerned, the Royals were very, very lucky that none of these guys didn’t come back to burn them. Just remember, the Royals were just days away from adding a sixth guy to this list, a young hitter without a position who hit .301/.372/.539 in the high minors in 1996 at age 22. But just before Opening Day, a roster spot opened up for Mike Sweeney when – talk about your coincidences – Jeremy Giambi got hurt. I’d venture to say that this was the most fortuitous injury in Royals history.

The Royals weren’t always so dismissive of young, slow, patient power hitters with monster numbers. On the contrary, one of the great trades in franchise history came at the 1971 winter meetings, when GM Cedric Tallis snookered the Astros into giving up John Mayberry for Lance Clemens and Jim York. Mayberry’s minor league numbers are a little sketchy, but we know he was playing in Triple-A at age 20, and over the next three years he slugged .522, .498, and .559 – amazing numbers in that era. He was no more than an average hitter after age 26, but from 1972 to 1975 was one of the best first basemen in baseball, and his peak outshines Sweeney’s as the best first baseman the Royals have ever had.

So the mere fact that the Royals are taking Kaaihue’s production seriously means something has changed. Maybe the Royals are taking statistical analysis a little more seriously than they used to. Maybe they recognize that when Ross Gload has played 70% of your team’s innings at first base, you don’t have anything to lose by letting a guy with Kaaihue’s credentials get a shot. Or maybe they look at Kaaihue and see a different player than all the failed sluggers of the past.

Kaaihue, after all, has been with the organization since he was 18, and was well regarded from the beginning. He dropped to the 15^th round, but if memory serves it was thought he would be drafted much higher; certainly he was considered a draft steal by the end of the summer. If you ignore his injury-riddled 2006 and account for the hot air in his 2005 numbers, he has shown signs of steady development as he has moved up the minor league ladder. It’s quite possible that the Royals don’t see Kaaihue as a flash in the pan, as a guy whose numbers won’t translate to the major leagues. Mellinger quotes an AL scout as not being a believer in Kaaihue, but I can tell you that’s not a consensus opinion at all.

I asked my colleague and minor-league expert Kevin Goldstein to give me 25 words about Kaaihue. Understand that Goldstein is not one to mince words or hedge his bets with prospects; if he (or the scouts he talks to every day) thinks that someone’s no good, he’ll say so. For instance, if you’re a Royals fan you probably don’t want to hear what he has to say about Joe Dickerson.

So I was expecting to hear the typical pessimism about Kaaihue that I’ve heard about almost every hitter in the farm system other than Mike Moustakas. I was pleasantly surprised. “Two words: Scouts Believe.” He gave me a few more. “His approach, power, and hitting skills project as an everyday MLB first baseman. A scout I talked to put a 50 on him.” On the scouting scale that runs from 20 to 80, 50 is dead average – so a scout felt he could be a league-average first baseman in the majors, perhaps along the lines of what Carlos Pena is doing this season (as opposed to the highs and lows that Pena has traversed in previous years.)

And I think that is what’s really different about this situation. The Royals look at Kaaihue differently than they did Pickering because they see a different player. They see a player who really has taken a giant step forward this season, a player who may not be a future star, but someone who can play every day at first base.

Talk is cheap, of course. I understand Moore’s line about not promoting him too soon, but let’s face it: when Omaha’s season comes to an end on September 1^st, there’s nothing left for Kaaihue to do at the minor league level. If the Royals have learned nothing else from Mike Aviles this season, they’ve learned that no matter how skeptical you are, sometimes you just have to let a player prove his minor league performance is a fluke. Come September, if Kaaihue isn’t playing at least semi-regularly for the Royals, it will be time to break out the voodoo dolls and the Soldier of Fortune magazines again. I’m hopeful I won’t have to.

Barely two months ago, I wrote that “Other than shortstop, there isn’t a position the Royals need filled more than first base.” Who would have thought when the season began that the Royals might have filled those two holes with Mike Aviles and Kila Kaaihue? And moreover, that we’d be thrilled with that arrangement?

But that’s why baseball’s such a great game: it always surprises you, if only you’re willing to let it surprise you. The Royals let themselves be surprised by Aviles. Let’s hope they give Kaaihue the same opportunity.

Weird Thoughts Late On A Saturday Night.

First off, many thanks to all of you for the wondrous outpouring of support that you have given me and my friend Mazen. It’s easy to search the web and come across forums and comment boards that make me double-check the locks on my doors and wonder what kind of country my daughters are growing up in. It is deeply gratifying to be reminded once again that the vast majority of Americans are wonderfully tolerant people who not only believe in our constitutional rights, but are willing to stand up in defense of the rights of every other American. I thank God every day that I was born here. I don’t thank my parents enough that they immigrated here.

And thanks to those of you who shared a different perspective as well. You have as much right to your opinions as I have to mine, and it’s not fair for me to expect you to see my point of view if I refuse to see yours. Social progress comes from a free exchange of ideas, and that can’t happen if free speech is muzzled.

So let us not speak of this again, and hope that there will be no reason for me to break into our regularly scheduled Royals coverage again anytime soon. (Or, God forbid, that I should have to write something like this again.)

Perhaps unsurprisingly in light of what I’ve been preoccupied with lately, I’m in a weird philosophical mood about the Royals. Maybe it was the sight of Kyle Davies proving, once again, that what limited success he has had this year has been the product of serendipity more than talent. Davies has a 4.66 ERA this season, and all things considered you’d take a 4.66 ERA from your fifth starter.

But even that modest ERA is deceptive. Batters have hit .298/.368/.477 against him this year, virtually indistinguishable from what they hit last year (.284/.369/.494), when he had a 6.09 ERA. The reason he’s been able to walk the tightrope this year – at least occasionally – is that while hitters are slugging .563 against him when the bases are empty, they have a modest .375 slugging average with men on base. There’s no reason why a pitcher should do that much better from the stretch than from the windup – if there was, pitchers would pitch from the stretch all the time. Davies’ performance is a mirage, one that seemed to evaporate before our eyes on Friday.

But my point isn’t that Davies is worthless and should be discarded like so many pitchers before him. On the contrary, my point is that Davies is clearly a pitcher with talent, and the fact that Davies – and so many pitchers like him – bounce around from team to team tasting only occasional success represents a failure of creativity on the part of major league baseball teams.

The Royals have another guy on their staff who, like Davies, debuted to much promise only to see that promise leak out over time. Robinson Tejeda had a 3.57 ERA as a rookie with the Phillies in 2005. His ERAs after that read 4.28, 6.61, and 9.00 (in 6 innings) this season before the Rangers designated him for assignment.

Tejada was used exclusively a starter in 2006 and 2007 even as he became increasingly ineffective. He’s been used exclusively as a reliever since he was picked up by the Royals, and you’ve seen how effective (if not flat-out dominant) he’s been ever since: in 21 innings, he’s allowed just 10 hits while striking out 23.

Tejeda fits the profile of struggling starter turned dominant reliever: a hard-throwing right-hander with control and home run issues. But the Royals have another converted starter in their bullpen who, like Tejeda, was picked up for nothing and has been a revelation after his career as a starter went up in flames. What’s interesting is that Horacio Ramirez is the polar opposite of Tejeda: he’s left-handed, pitches to contact, and keeps the ball down. Tejeda owes his improvement in the pen to the fact that he’s blowing hitters away a lot more; Ramirez’s secret is that he’s getting even more sink on the ball (his G/F ratio this season is an excellent 2.63, compared to a career figure of 1.68) while throwing nothing but strikes. In 24 innings he has just 11 Ks, but he’s surrendered just one homer and walked just one batter.

I can’t stress this point enough: relieving is easier than starting. It’s much easier to go through a lineup once then it is to go through it four times. It’s easier to air it out – or focus on hitting the corners and keeping the ball at the knees – for an inning or two than to pace yourself for six or seven innings. Some pitchers may benefit more than others, but almost every starter in the majors would perform better on an inning-for-inning basis if they pitched in relief. The difference isn’t enough to justify making your 200-inning ace into a 70-inning closer (the Joakim Soria debate revisited), but it is enough to justify taking your borderline #5 starter and seeing if he can become a quality setup man. As a general rule of thumb, you should never give up on a pitcher until you see what he can in relief.

Just take a quick look at the closers around baseball. Bobby Jenks was released – flat-out released – by the Angels in 2004, and a year later as closing for the world champs. Granted, his release was precipitated by being hurt, but the fact is that Jenks pitched for the Angels for five seasons, and made a grand total of three relief appearances. The man threw 100 mph and was wild as sin off and on the field – and the Angels never thought to try him in the pen. You would think the Angels would have learned from their experience with Francisco Rodriguez, who was a wildly inconsistent starter for three years in the minors, was moved to the pen to start 2002 and ended the year with a major-league record five postseason wins and a world championship ring.

Mariano Rivera never made a relief appearance in the minors; he was a solid prospect as a starter, but never showed a hint of dominance until he was moved to the pen. Joe Nathan started for two years with the Giants, with ERAs of 4.18 and 5.21. After one good year in middle relief he was packaged to the Twins in the infamous A.J. Pierzynski deal. And that’s just a look at the AL saves leaders. The NL seems to be the home of the broken-down starter turned closer – Brad Lidge, Kerry Wood, Salomon Torres, etc.

My point isn’t just that the Royals should hesitate to give up on Davies until they see how he handles a stint in the bullpen, although that’s certainly true. My larger point is that the inherent advantage to pitching in short stints presents a hell of a market inefficiency that a small-market team with nothing to lose could exploit. If 12-man pitching staffs are here to stay – and unfortunately that appears to be the case – why not use all that manpower to try something really radical? Why not make all your pitchers relievers? Take your three best starters and tell them they’re going to throw 3 innings or 60 pitches every third day. Pair them up with a good reliever – ideally someone who throws from the other side – who will be expected to throw 2-3 innings or 50-60 pitches every third day as well. Now you’ve got 5-6 innings covered in every game from 6 pitchers, and you can use the other 6 guys on your staff in traditional relief roles.

Your three best pitchers would be limited to roughly 160 innings in this kind of setup, but on the other hand, being limited to short stints probably means they’ll be 160 awfully effective innings. If Greinke or Meche know they’re only out there for 60 pitches, they’re going to be able to step it up a notch. And if three innings a start doesn’t sound like much, keep in mind you’re getting 54 starts from them.

By now some of you are thinking that all the stress I’ve been under the last few days has knocked a couple of screws loose. But not only is this idea not inconceivable, it’s not even that original: it’s already been tried before, albeit briefly.

On July 19^th, 1993, with his once-vaunted A’s languishing at 39-49 and in sixth place in the AL West, Tony La Russa went to a three-man rotation of sorts. La Russa had a 13-man pitching staff at the time, which would be a little unusual today and was utterly unthinkable back then, and divided nine of the pitchers into three “groups” – Ron Darling was paired with Todd Van Poppel and Kevin Campbell, Bobby Witt with Mike Mohler and John Briscoe, Bob Welch with Kelly Downs and Goose Gossage. The other four pitchers were used as traditional relievers in the late innings.

Darling, Witt, and Welch were the traditional “starters”, but did not actually start the games, entering in the middle innings instead. Why? Because they would not have been eligible for the win had they started and thrown less than five innings. (Many thanks to this link for the exact details.)

The plan lasted for about a week, partly because of the resistance to the idea and partly because it didn’t seem to work. Looking at the names above, it’s obvious why it didn’t work – none of the pitchers were any good. The entire pitching staff consisted of longtime veterans who were pitching on fumes, or overhyped rookies who would never amount to much (I’m looking at you, Todd.) The A’s gave up the most runs in the league that year – which is why La Russa was desperate enough to try something that radical to begin with.

I’m not frustrated with the fact that the Royals would never consider such a move so much as I’m frustrated that no team in the majors would consider it. Say what you want about La Russa (I know I have) – as a manager he’s creative, and he’s original. The fact that we lament the “LaRussaization” of modern baseball – the incessant pitching changes, the pitchers who appear in 70 games and throw 40 innings – is not the fault of La Russa so much as it is the fault of so many other managers who, lacking any originality of their own, simply ape what the successful guy is doing.

I had to watch “Casablanca” when I was in college and at first I wondered what the big deal was, because the film was full of movie clichés – until it hit me that the reason so many scenes seemed clichéd was because so many of the movies I had seen had cribbed ideas from “Casablanca” in the first place. La Russa is sort of like “Casablanca” – its easy to look at his handling of his pitching staff and pan it as conformist, until you realize that it’s the other managers that learned to conform to him and not the other way around.

It’s easy to forget that baseball strategy from a generation or two was radically different than it is today. Fifty years ago, the notion of a “pitching rotation” didn’t exist: managers selected their starting pitchers based on the team they were facing and the park they were in, and if that meant starting Whitey Ford on 2 days’ rest, or letting him skip the series against the Senators and letting him pitch on 6 days’ rest instead, so be it. Thirty years ago, it was absurd to suggest that a team should use its best reliever in save situations only. Twenty years ago, the notion that your closer only came in to start the ninth inning was ridiculous.

Baseball strategy has evolved, but in the case of pitching strategy it has devolved – there are piles of evidence that suggest the straitjacket approach to pitcher usage is counterproductive to the whole goal of winning. Today it’s considered radical to use your closer for two innings; it’s considered unthinkable to go to a four-man rotation. One of these years a team is going to break out of the box and try something new, and it’s going to win them some games. It’d be nice if that team were the Royals.

Hey, I said I was feeling philosophical. And weird.

Anyway, on some level Dayton Moore does get it, because he’s the guy who put together this bullpen in the first place. Right now, six of the seven guys in the Royals’ pen have ERAs under three, and yes you read this sentence correctly. Two of them (Tejeda and Horacio) are failed starters who were picked up for free. One of them (Leo Nunez) is a converted starter who was inexplicably rushed to the majors by Allard Baird. Two of them (Mahay and Ramon Ramirez) were relievers before the Royals acquired them. And Soria, of course, was starting in the Mexican League when the Royals drafted him.

Relievers come from all walks of life, and pretty much the most inefficient way to acquire a good reliever is to pay the going rate for established talent. Compare this with Allard Baird’s approach, which included paying actual US currency to sign Ricky Bottalico, and which was followed by trading Johnny Damon to land Roberto Hernandez – well, there’s really no comparison.

Even as I'm writing this, Moore has proven again that he gets it, because he just sent Horacio Ramirez to the White Sox in exchange for a toolsy outfield prospect named Paulo Orlando. Orlando’s a Grade C prospect because he’s still learning how to hit (.264/.310/.412 in A-ball) and he’s 22, but as Grade C prospects go he’s got a lot of upside. He’s fast as hell, plays great defense in center field, and he’s from Brazil, and as you would expect from a Brazilian baseball player, he has a lot less experience than most guys his age.

Given that the Royals picked up Horacio for nothing just three months ago, they just got an intriguing outfield prospect for free. Josh Newman, another lefty recently acquired on waivers, takes Horacio’s place. Given the nature of relief work and Moore’s track record, there’s no reason why Newman can’t be equally successful.

Caution: This Post Has Absolutely Nothing To Do With The Royals.

Or baseball. Or sports at all, for that matter.

Apparently the Royals have been beaten badly in their two games since I last posted. I can’t say I’ve been paying much attention. I’m afraid I’ve been a little distracted by the fact that one of my friends has been accused in the national media of being a terrorist sympathizer.

When I started this blog, I warned you all that “I may even write about religion or politics from time to time, particularly if I feel my readership base has grown too large and I want to alienate half of you in one fell swoop.” Today I have to write about politics and religion at the same time, but fortunately I've found a better venue for this particular piece of writing than a Royals blog. If you want to see what I'm like when I'm really angry about something a lot more important than baseball, click here.

But if there’s the slightest chance that you might be offended by my personal opinions, peppered with a few words you can’t hear on network television, then please don't. You've been warned.

This isn’t about politics or religion for me, though. This is intensely personal.

Hopefully I'll be back to talking Royals in a few days.

Royals Today: 8/5/2008.

Geez, tough crowd. I decide to go off-topic one time and revisit some nicknames – something I had promised to do for months – and I get booed off the stage. I guess I should stick with safe topics, like commenting on John Buck’s shaved head or asking for the millionth time, “why is Tony Pena Jr. still on the roster?”

I thought this was a good time for an off-topic post because there’s not much else to talk about in the dog days of August*. The trading deadline has past, enough season has been played that our impressions of each player are not likely to be swayed by a single 4-for-4 performance, and we already have a handle on how the manager uses his roster. There are few surprises this time of year. The team is what it is.

*: Do you know why they call them “dog days,” and have for thousands of years? Because it’s the time of year when the Dog Star – Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky – would rise with the sun. The exact dates vary on the source, but generally they run from early July to early August. According to Wikipedia, “The ancients sacrificed a brown dog at the beginning of the Dog Days to appease the rage of Sirius, believing that the star was the cause of the hot, sultry weather.” And you thought this blog was just about the Royals.

I was actually planning to start a review of the minor league system today, but last night’s game intervened. Monday’s win over the Red Sox may not have taught us anything new, but it certainly reinforced what we already knew. To wit:

- The Epic – sorry, so sorry, I forgot, Gilbert Allen Meche – has justified his contract this year as well as last. Since April 27^th, he’s 9-6 with a 3.31 ERA, with 95 Ks against 37 walks, and just nine homers in 120 innings in that span. I don’t believe in selective accounting; unless it’s 1981, you don’t make the playoffs because of how you played over a portion of the season. But Meche’s recent performance is reassuring given that he had the exact opposite trendline last season – a hot start followed by a below-average performance for the final four months. If you break down Meche’s career with the Royals into three parts, you get this:

First 9 starts: 1.91 ERA, .250/.301/.360 against.
Middle 30 starts: 4.90 ERA, .275/.329/.434 against.
Last 19 starts: 3.31 ERA, .239/.294/.369 against.

Over the span of nearly a full year, Meche was a below average starter. But for a span of nearly a full season before and after that middle stretch, he has been a Cy Young contender. Note that he’s pitched just as well over the last three months as he did the first six weeks of last season – his sub-2 ERA last season was a bit fluky.

So which is the real Meche? Right now, both. When Meche was going through his rocky times earlier this year, you could understand why Mariner fans were so exasperated with him for so long. He had his usual good stuff, but he pitched timidly. He was overly reliant on off-speed stuff and did not challenge hitters. He fell in love with his curve, and while it’s an excellent curveball, it’s not so good that hitters can’t pound it if they know it’s coming.

After every rough start Meche would talk candidly about he wasn’t aggressive enough on the mound…and then the same thing would repeat itself the next time out. But in the last two months he’s gotten into a groove, he’s working off of his fastball more, and he’s using his changeup and slider more for show than anything else. And he’s challenging hitters. The Red Sox walked five times yesterday because they’re the Red Sox and do that to everyone, but Meche also struck out nine.

Take this opinion for what it’s worth, coming from someone who has no contact with the team, but I think the difference has been John Buck. There are piles of evidence that show that catchers have a negligible, if not undetectable, impact on the quality of a pitcher’s performance. Nonetheless, there are probably instances on the margins where a catcher really does make his pitcher better.

After every rough start Meche would talk candidly about he wasn’t aggressive enough on the mound…and then the same thing would repeat itself the next time out. But in the last two months he’s gotten into a groove, he’s working off of his fastball more, and he’s using his changeup and slider more for show than anything else. And he’s challenging hitters. The Red Sox walked five times yesterday because they’re the Red Sox and do that to everyone, but Meche also struck out nine.

Take this opinion for what it’s worth, coming from someone who has no contact with the team, but I think the difference has been John Buck. There are piles of evidence that show that catchers have a negligible, if not undetectable, impact on the quality of a pitcher’s performance. Nonetheless, there are probably instances on the margins where a catcher really does make his pitcher better.

Consider that Olivo started behind the plate three times in Meche’s first six outings. Since then, Olivo has only caught Meche twice, on May 15^th (7 innings, 3 runs) and June 5^th (5.2 innings, 5 runs.) Since June 5^th Buck has caught all 11 of Meche’s starts – during which time Meche is 7-1 with a 2.69 ERA. Buck has gotten rave reviews from the team all year for his ability to work with the pitchers, which is why he has emerged from the time-share with Olivo as the undisputed starter. I think that Meche has felt that impact more than most. Meche won’t run the risk of overthinking on the mound when he has a catcher who does the thinking for him.

On the season, batters are hitting .244/.302/.392 against Meche with Buck catching, compared to .287/.348/.434 with Olivo back there. Meche clearly feels more comfortable with Buck, a comfort level that was there last year as well. Buck caught roughly two-thirds of the team’s innings in 2007, but caught every one of Meche’s 34 starts. Jason LaRue was behind the plate for about two innings of work.

I don’t like the idea of letting a starting pitcher have a personal catcher, primarily because the “personal catcher” usually winds up being the backup who can’t hit. Greg Maddux would have Eddie Perez catch him in Atlanta instead of Javy Lopez for years, which was a real problem come playoff time and the Braves were starting a .220-hitting scrub behind the plate. But in this case, Buck’s the starter on merit. If Meche feels more comfortable throwing to Buck – and the evidence says yes – I think his wishes should be accommodated. As they are.

- Jose Manuel Guillen is best utilized at DH until his groin heals up. He still can’t run – he probably would have been thrown out at second on his first double if Jason Bay had realized he had a play – but he can swing the bat.

- Alex Jonathan Gordon keeps getting closer and closer to blowing up as a Three True Outcomes masher. First time up – 402-foot homer to right field. Second time up – walks on a full-count. Third time up – works the count to 3-1 before getting an intentional ball four. Fourth time up – sends Coco Crisp back to the wall in deepest centerfield. Tick tock. Tick tock. There’s a bomb about to go off here. I can feel it.

- Esteban (Guridi) German can play five or six different positions – and can’t field a lick at any of them. The way he plays the outfield reminds me of Kevin Nealon’s character on Saturday Night Live: Mr. No-Depth Perception.

- The way Thomas Brad “Trey” Hillman used Joakim Agustin Soria on Saturday night is the exception that proves the rule. As you may recall, on a sweltering evening in which Ronald Matthew Mahay and Ramon Santo Ramirez allowed four runs in the eighth inning, Hillman called on Soria with the tying run on second and just one out in the eighth. Soria was his usual brilliant self, and recorded just his second save of the season of more than three outs. It was the first time all season Soria came in to pitch with men on base.

Let’s repeat that: Soria had never come in to pitch with men on base all season. Ryan Lefebvre breathlessly repeated that for us last night, but said it in such a way as to convey how amazing it was that the Royals finally required Soria to clean up a mess – not how ridiculous it was that Hillman had never before summoned his best pitcher, having one of the best relief seasons in the history of the franchise, with men on base. I realize I never played professional baseball and thus am considered unqualified by some people to speak on such matters, but I’m fairly sure that most key situations in baseball (define “key situations” however you like) occur when there are men on base.

In 1983, when he set the then all-time saves record, Daniel Raymond Quisenberry came in with men on base 25 times. When Jeffrey Thomas Montgomery tied Quisenberry’s record with 45 saves of his own in 1993, he came in with men on base 21 times.

In 48 appearances so far this year, Soria has done so once.

Last night would have been an ideal opportunity for a repeat engagement. Ramirez got three quick outs in the seventh and two more in the eighth, but then Sean Thomas Casey sold the umpire on a claim that the squibber off his bat bounced off his shin and was a foul ball, and given another chance, Casey singled. Jed Carlson Lowrie followed with another, bringing the go-ahead run to the plate in the person of Jason Andrew Varitek. Tying run is on base, and Soria had the previous day off. Perfect time for a four-out save, right?

Nope. Mahay came in, even though Varitek’s a switch-hitter who has batted about 30 points higher against LHP in his career. The move worked – Mahay got the key strikeout after falling behind 3-0. But the fact that Soria was never even considered an option (he didn’t warm up the entire inning) really sticks in my craw.

Maybe I’m making too much of this. The Royals don’t simply have a great closer; they have a great bullpen. Baseball Prospectus has a stat known as WXRL – expected wins above replacement level – which calculates how much value a reliever has, based not just on his performance but how important the situation is when he comes into the game. A closer who is entrusted with a one-run lead and gives up a pair has hurt his team a lot more than the relievers who gives up 5 runs with his team down 10-0.

By this metric, Soria is the fourth-best reliever in all of baseball, having been worth 4.2 wins to the Royals. But Mahay is just behind him, in 7^th place, at 3.6 wins. Mahay, in fact, is the most valuable set-up man in baseball by this metric, as the six guys ahead of him are all closers.

Limiting Soria to the ninth inning hasn’t hurt the Royals much, because they have Mahay and Ramirez to pitch the seventh and eighth. What bothers me so much isn’t that the bullpen roles have hurt the team, it’s that Hillman has shown no creativity whatsoever. He was sold to us as a guy who thinks outside the box. Instead, all he’s done is put his relievers into boxes. Soria pitches the ninth – no ifs, ands, or buts. And never mind if that means your best reliever has thrown fewer innings than the two guys who set up for him.

Jim Caple just wrote a great article for ESPN.com on how overrated the modern closer is. Here’s the money quote:

“Why do teams do this [limit closers to save situations] when this is such a readily apparent poor use of resources?

‘I'll tell you why,’ Oakland general manager Billy Beane says. ‘It's the same reason more football coaches don't go for it on fourth-and-1. Because when it doesn't work, 30 of you guys come storming in wondering why the manager didn't go to the closer. It's turned into a situation where a lot of emotion is tied to that decision, just as a lot of emotion is tied to the fourth-down decision. Even if you know the odds, it's more comfortable being wrong when you go to the closer or the punter.

‘The position has become very media-driven. It became a national story when Boston announced it would go with a bullpen by committee.’”

Beane’s point is that managers – like football coaches – are unbelievably risk-averse. (I think we’d all agree that Hillman’s got nothing on the guy across the Truman Sports Complex.) But Beane also points out that if a manager uses a closer in an unconventional method and it doesn’t work, the media will crucify him.

This may be true for 29 major league franchises – but not in Kansas City. The Royals have the perfect opportunity to do something non-traditional. They’re not in contention, and they haven’t been in years. They’re not a team with a big national following, so outside of Kansas City no one will care what they’re doing. The local media isn’t particularly large, nor is it particularly nasty or negative. And best of all, the local media gets it.

Let’s say that Hillman suddenly announces that he’s going to use Soria whenever the game’s in doubt, that he’ll bring him in to pitch two innings if need be, that he’ll use him in the 7^th if the game’s on the line. And let’s say that the first time he uses Soria in this manner, it fails spectacularly – Soria doesn’t get out of the jam, or he does but then he blows the game in the ninth. Who’s going to crucify him?

You think Posnanski, who’s been complaining about modern closer usage almost as much as I have, will second-guess Hillman? You think Bob Dutton, who has bitten his tongue through a decade of nearly historic incompetence, will suddenly unleash his venom in a game recap? Sam Mellinger won’t complain; he’s one of us. Jason Whitlock has the temperament, but he’s smart enough to know that this topic is beyond his jurisdiction. Some of the radio guys might stir things up for the fun of it, but Soren Petro and Danny Clinkscale, among others, know as much about baseball analysis as any radio guy in the country.

We get it. We remember what a game-changing force Quisenberry used to be. We know the Royals have nothing to lose. We’re willing to take the gamble. Why is it that the only people in Kansas City who are afraid to try something different with the Royals are the guys who run the team?

- I’m advocating that the Royals use Soria in a more creative way, because I’ve about given up on advocating that they move him to the rotation. If you want to know why, look at last night’s game. As Will McDonald wrote last night at RoyalsReview.com, “A pitcher without Soria's core competence gives up four runs there.” I disagree with Will – a pitcher without Soria’s core competence gets chased out of the game, whereupon Hillman calls on Joel Peralta to clear the bases with a gopher ball. Six, seven runs easy.

Let’s recount: after Soria gives up a line-drive by Covelli Loyce Crisp to lead off the inning, he strikes out David Jonathan Drew on a full-count check-swing. (Wait…David Jonathan? J.D. is actually D.J.? Weird.) Dustin Luis Pedroia then hits a lazy popup to shallow left-center field; German, naturally, doesn’t break on the ball at all and it falls in for a hit. David Americo (Arias) Ortiz – and no wonder he’s so clutch, his middle name is Americo – hits a sharp grounder to Ross Peter Gload, but Gload hesitates for a moment before settling for just one out.

With two on, two out, and Kevin Edmund Youkilis at the plate, Hillman does what any of us would do – he orders the free pass. Wait, scratch that. Hillman does what none of us would do. He intentionally walks Youkilis for…Jason Raymond Bay? He intentionally walks an outstanding hitter to load the bases for…another outstanding hitter?

We can argue all day over whether Youkilis or Bay is a better hitter. Youkilis has slightly – very slightly – better numbers this year, Bay has the better track record. They have similar styles – right-handed hitters, good power, excellent walk rates. At the plate, at least, they’re almost identical players.

So why on earth would you walk one to face the other? Especially with two outs, when there’s no double play to set up? Until recently, intentionally walking the go-ahead run was considered a cardinal sin. It no longer is, but you still better have a damn good reason to do so. What was Hillman’s reason?

With the tying run in scoring position, maybe he was worried that Youkilis was more likely to get a hit. Youkilis does have the better average this season, but for their careers Youkilis has hit .288, Bay .282. For a six-point advantage, Hillman loaded the bases, giving Soria no room for error, and allowing the Red Sox to advance the runners with a walk.

The only explanation I’ve heard uttered is that Bay had never faced Soria before. A number of studies have looked at the issue of whether a pitcher has an advantage on a hitter the first time they face each other. I believe the consensus is that there is an advantage – of about 5 points of batting average. Big deal. (And if you believe that Soria has an advantage over Bay because they’ve never faced, wouldn’t you believe that Soria’s track record against Youkilis – 0-for-2 with a whiff – matters as well?)

Hillman has only ordered nine intentional walks all year, which is hard to believe, because I've singled out at least four of them for criticism in this space. Thank God he’s so stingy with them, because he clearly has no idea what they’re supposed to be used for.

After all that, Bay hits a routine grounder to the left side, only to have Gordon and Tony Francisco Pena Jr. collide trying to both field it. The only way this situation could be funnier is if Pena, German, and Gload had all moved to their current positions for defensive purposes in the top of the 8^th.

Finally, Soria hangs an 0-2 curveball to Casey – his worst pitch of the night – but Casey’s liner hangs up long enough for Mark Thomas Teahen to catch it and end the game. Karma’s a bitch, Sean.

So let’s recap: in the span of four batters, the Royals commit three defensive misplays sandwiched around a managerial blunder. In the ninth inning. Of a two-run game. And they still hung on to win.

I’ve written this many times before: at times like this, Soria is the only sane man in an insane world. And unless and until the insanity ends, unless and until the Royals prove they can catch routine flyballs and field routine groundballs and make sane managerial decisions when the game is on the line, Soria isn’t going anywhere. Nor should he. I just wish they’d use him more.

Yabba-Dabba Do!

There’s nothing like a summer weekend under the sweltering hot sunshine watching the Royals wage war on the White Sox pitching staff. (Especially when you can watch the games in your lovely air-conditioned home.) The Baseball Jonah has shaken off his White Sox demons, Mike Aviles is hitting .340 (wait…what?), Billy Butler has eight hits in his last three games, and Robinson Tejeda was absolutely dealing today.

Trey Hillman has apparently taken my advice – or yielded to common sense – and moved Guillen to DH, Butler to first base, and Gload to left field. This gives Butler some much-needed reps at first base, gives Guillen some time to heal up, and may have actually improved the defense all at the same time. Lo and behold, in two games at DH Guillen has two homers and two walks. The Royals have 19 hits in back-to-back games for the first time in their history, and if you squint you can almost see .500 again.

Let’s enjoy it while we can. Boston comes to town next, then the Twins, then it’s off to Chicago and New York…52-60 could be 55-69 awfully fast. If the Royals can tread water over the next two weeks, maybe we can start dreaming of a .500 season.

In the meantime, it’s time to revisit the Nickname Project, something I’ve been promising to do for a few months now. I find it incredibly amusing that if I were to end this blog today, its one enduring legacy would be The Mexicutioner. Amusing, but also gratifying. The goal of this blog is to write about the team from a fan’s perspective, objectivity be damned, but because of the healthy attitude that the Kansas City media has towards blogs, this particular fan’s perspective has been amplified by the power of the newspaper and radio. How many star players have their nickname decided, not by themselves or their teammates or the media, but by the fans? That’s what happened here, and I am very grateful for this.

I’m also greedy. The Mexicutioner got the Dutton Seal of Approval™, as did Shake Yabuta, who unfortunately (or fortunately) is unlikely to ever require use of that nickname again. But we’ve still got a few dozen players to go.

So it’s time to unveil the official Rany on the Royals nickname for another member of the team.

Henceforth – with a nod to poster Zach, who I believe was the first person to suggest this nickname – Billy Butler shall be known as Bam Bam.

If you heard my interview with Kevin Kietzman on Thursday you know the reasons why I love this nickname so much. In summary:

- Billy Butler. Bam Bam. A little alliteration never hurts.

- Bam Bam is a baby. Billy Butler has been the youngest player on the team every day that he has spent in the majors. As a rookie, he was younger than all but two other players in the American League; even this season, only three players younger than Butler have appeared in even one game with an AL team. (There’s also the matter of Jose Guillen’s little rant that the Royals have “too many babies” that ties in nicely here.)

- Most importantly, all Bam Bam ever did was hit things with a wooden stick, and despite his youth was phenomenally destructive with one. All Billy Butler does (at least well) is hit things with a wooden stick – and when he makes contact, hide the women and children.

The key to any nickname catching on is that there should be no ambiguity about who you’re referring to. If you told a Royals fan that one of the team’s players was called “Bam Bam”, even a casual fan would know immediately that you were referring to Butler. The nickname is not overly highbrow like The Baseball Jonah or The Epic, and it rolls off the tongue. The marketing tie-ins are obvious. Instead of playing music before every at-bat, they could just play a Flintstones clip of Bam Bam yipping his name over and over again. Then there’s the poster of Butler dressed up like a caveman. You get the point.

(Wikipedia lists the son of Barney and Betty Rubble as “Bamm-Bamm.” I think we’ll stick with the simpler spelling here, if for no reason than to avoid the ire – and the lawyers – of the Hanna-Barbera folks.)

The only possible concern with the nickname is that Butler would not be the first player with that nickname. Hensley “Bam Bam” Meulens was a top Yankee prospect two decades ago…back when the Yankees sucked so bad that they thought a guy like Meulens was a savior. (Man, I miss those days.) In parts of seven seasons in the majors, Meulens hit .220 with 15 homers. As a rule of thumb, I think that in order for a player to be given a recycled nickname, he must be a superior player to the man whose name he is taking. Butler already has had more success than Meulens had in his entire career, so no worries there.

We can work on Greinke and the Brain, Mr. Incredible and The Smirk and Stubble and Sybil later. Right now, the Mexicutioner needs a friend. I think he and Bam Bam will get along famously.