Willie Bloomquist and the Howard Zone.

Man, I’m really getting tired of this sh*t.

I guess it’s appropriate that the Royals decided to interrupt my nostalgic trip to the mid-1990s by signing Willie Bloomquist, because Bloomquist reminds me of no one so much as a certain arch-nemesis of that era.

You see, if there was one player that summed up the frustration of being a Royals fan in the 1990s, it was our old pal David Howard. It’s hard enough to explain how Howard made it to the majors in the first place; he was a 32^nd round draft pick, and he never hit a lick in the minors. Howard actually raised his batting average over each of his first four years in the minors – the bad news is that he started at .194 in 1987, and over the next three years raised that number to .223, .234, and finally .250 for Double-A Memphis in 1990 – the same year he hit a career-high five homers.

Howard started the 1991 season in Omaha and went 5-for-41, but was recalled as a defensive substitution at that point. Then Hal McRae had a hissy fit over his defense at mid-year, and benched Kevin Seitzer and Kurt Stillwell and made everyday starters out of Bill Pecota and Howard. Howard batted 264 times that season, and hit .216/.267/.258. That should have been the end of that, but it wasn’t. From 1991 to 1997, Howard batted at least 100 times in six years out of seven (the exception being 1993, when he was felled by a viral illness called Bell’s Palsy and missed most of the year. Two years later I started medical school, and believe me, I aced that part of the syllabus.)

In those six seasons he never hit better than .243, or slugged better than .325, or on-based better than .310 – all of those numbers coming in 1995, which impressed the Royals so much that he was made a full-time starter in 1996. He hit .219/.291/.305. The following year Howard played Vic Wertz to Jim Edmonds’ legendary catch in centerfield, but what made that play so spectacular was the fact that Edmonds had to race back so far, because he was playing so shallow. Everyone played shallow on Howard.

Howard’s continued employment, and continued performance, was so aggravating precisely because the Royals were not a terrible team at that time, and the two or three additional wins that might have come from replacing Howard with a reasonably competent player might have actually had some relevance. To this day I have not figured out how Howard was able to hold onto his job for so long, but the best explanation was that the Royals were so blinded by his versatility, his athleticism (so many times we heard that Howard was the best athlete on the team), and his clubhouse presence that they simply could not see that DAVID HOWARD COULD NOT HIT.

Howard started a game at every position except pitcher and catcher during his Royals career, and even pitched one day in a blowout, walking five batters in two innings and allowing Scott Cooper (Scott Cooper!) to complete the cycle when Cooper singled to lead off the ninth in a game the Royals lost 22-11. To borrow the line about Moe Berg, Howard could play seven positions, and to the Royals it didn’t matter that he couldn’t hit at any of them.

Every team has a David Howard on their roster at some point; it’s just that usually it’s a different guy every year. It takes a special combination of incompetence and intransigence to willfully trot out the same guy year after year when he’s already proven he can’t hit. I didn’t witness a single comparable situation to David Howard and the Royals anywhere else in baseball throughout the 1990s. But in the 2Ks – that’s what I’m calling this decade – I finally got to laugh at another team’s inexplicable fetish for a (s)crappy ballplayer. For the first time since Howard left the Royals, another player seemed to have an equally mesmerizing hold on his organization. That player was Willie Bloomquist.

Bloomquist, like Howard, has no real track record of offensive prowess even at the minor league level. Bloomquist did hit an impressive .379/.457/.523 for half a season in the California League in 2000 – playing for Lancaster, a ballpark that makes Coors Field look like Chavez Ravine circa 1965. He was promoted to Triple-A at mid-season and hit .225/.253/.277 the rest of the year. The next year, he went to Double-A and hit .255/.295/.310 as a 23-year-old – eerily similar to Howard’s .250/.316/.336 line in Double-A at the same age. In 2002, Bloomquist hit .270/.328/.383 in Triple-A, then had the best-timed one-week hot stretch in the history of baseball, more or less. Called up on September 1^st, he played sparingly for three weeks, going 0-for-4 in that span. He then entered the lineup on September 22^nd and over the next seven games, batted 15-for-29, a performance which basically kept him in the majors for the past six years.

Bloomquist never hit that well – or hit, period – after that, but he was already in the Howard Zone. Versatility? Bloomquist has appeared at every non-battery position at least 30 times in his career (plus 20 career appearances at DH), and has started at each of those positions at least 11 times. (That’s right: on 11 different occasions, the Seattle Mariners – an actual major league franchise – have had Willie Bloomquist in their starting lineup as the first baseman.) Athleticism? I’ll let Trey Hillman speak for the defense: “Not only the versatility, but also the speed that he adds. He's a well-above-average runner and he gives us, depending on how things shake out in Spring Training, another added element because he might be in our lineup.” Character? Dayton Moore, please rise: “He's an on-base guy, a speed-type player and a hustler," Moore said. "He's a Craig Counsell-type who really plays hard, hustles and knows how to play.” (We’ll get back to that on-base thing later.) Hillman would like to take the stand again: “The reports are off the charts on character and team play and fire for the right reasons. That definitely came through in the conversation. He's hungry; he's excited.”

Versatility? Check. Athleticism? Check (he’s like Howard, only with speed!) Character? Off the charts! Can he hit? HELL NO.

Yep, we’re back in the Howard Zone.

Oh, there are reasons to think that Bloomquist isn’t quite as bad as Howard. His career line is just .263/.322/.324, with an OPS+ of 74, but that’s positively Ruthian compared to Howard’s .229/.291/.303 and OPS+ of 57. Bloomquist not only has speed, but seems to know how to use it; he’s 71-for-87 on the basepaths in his career. And he did have a .377 OBP last season, but unfortunately that seems to be Moore’s entire frame of reference for signing him. How else do you explain Moore calling him “an on-base guy”? Ignoring that cup of coffee in 2002, Bloomquist’s career high in OBP prior to last season was .321.

I don’t know what’s sadder: that Moore thinks that Bloomquist has suddenly established a new performance level at age 30, in a sample size of under 200 plate appearances; or that in the best year of his career, Bloomquist had a .285 slugging average. I mean, I’m all about OBP uber alles, but that’s obscene. As a commenter at Baseball Think Factory pointed out – beating me to the punch on the sort of obscure trivia I love – Bloomquist had the most hits (46) in modern major league history for a player with just one extra-base hit.

What is going to make it difficult for me to sleep tonight isn’t that Moore signed Bloomquist. It’s what the signing of Bloomquist says about the thought process of the entire front office. It’s not just that he signed Bloomquist (who, when all is said and done, has a place in the major leagues as the last player on the bench.) It’s not just that he signed Bloomquist for $1.55 million a year (with incentives!) It’s that he signed Bloomquist TO A TWO-YEAR DEAL, which hurts the team not just because of the financial commitment for 2010, but because of the roster commitment for 2010.

Last year Moore offered Ross Gload a two-year contract for no reason whatsoever; Gload wasn’t an impending free agent, and the Royals had all the leverage. Without the two-year deal, Gload likely would have been a non-tender target this winter much like Joey Gathright was. Instead, he’s still on the roster because the Royals feel the need to justify that contract. If Bloomquist craps the bed in 2009, thanks to Moore, he’ll still be back to soil some more sheets in 2010.

I don’t want to hang Moore by his own words, but he leaves me no choice with quotes like these:

“He's never really been an everyday player, but he's always had good people ahead of him like [center fielder Mike] Cameron, [shortstop Yuniesky] Betancourt and [second baseman] Jose Lopez.” Oh God, here we go with Yuniesky “We offered Billy Butler for him straight up” Betancourt. If Bloomquist is the new Howard, Betancourt is shades of Angel Berroa – a .280 hitter who swings at everything under the sun, and who came into the league with a good defensive rep but whose defensive numbers now suggest he’s almost unplayable. Jose Lopez? He never had an OPS+ of even 90 before 2008. The fact that Moore thinks these guys are “good people” is galling. The fact that Bloomquist backed these guys up is not a defense of him – it’s a condemnation.

“He's a winner, he has versatility and he's a very good offensive player.” That’s right: Dayton Moore just called Bloomquist “a very good offensive player”, and that wasn’t even the most counterfactual clause in the sentence. Willie Bloomquist is a winner, Dayton? In 2001, before Bloomquist reached the majors, the Seattle Mariners won 116 games, the most in AL history. The following year, when Bloomquist made his major league debut in September, they won 93 games. Since then, with Bloomquist on the roster each year, their win totals are 93, 63, 69, 78, 88, and 61. Before Bloomquist reached the scene, the Mariners hadn’t lost more than 85 games since back in 1992 – with him, they’ve lost more than 90 games three times in the last five years. Granted, the Royals have done so four times in the last five years – maybe that makes Bloomquist a winner in Moore’s book.

I wonder if the Cardinals thought David Howard was a "winner" when they signed him after the 1997 season, paying him $1.8 million for two years to do for St. Louis what he did for Kansas City. St. Louis went 83-79 and 75-86 with Howard on the roster; in 2000, with Howard gone, they won 95 games and went to the NLCS.

There’s one way that this signing can help the Royals: if it means that they boot Tony Pena off the roster (even better, and in all seriousness, if they try Pena in relief.) If the signing of Bloomquist is an acknowledgment that Pena no longer justifies a roster spot, and that the Royals are willing to pay a slight premium for a utility player who knows his role and isn’t a complete cipher at the plate, then this isn’t a bad move. Unfortunately, all the vibes suggest that Bloomquist is actually going to get to challenge Alberto Callaspo for the starting job at second base.

And that raises the tally on “payroll spent on replacement-level talent” to:

Mike Jacobs: $3 million (approx.)

Kyle Farnsworth: $4.6 million

Horacio Ramirez: $1.8 million (plus incentives)

Willie Bloomquist: $1.55 million (plus incentives)

Total: $10.95 million

I’m not crediting the Royals for the $1.6 million it would take to fill those four roster spots at the league minimum, but then, I’m not counting Miguel Olivo ($2.7 million) and Jose Guillen ($12 million) either. And keep in mind, every one of those contracts (except Guillen’s) was given out in the midst of the worst financial situation (baseball or otherwise) since collusion ended, when an absolute offensive beast like Pat Burrell is getting 2 years/$16 million and the still-imposing Jason Giambi (I'd rather have him in 2009 than Jacobs) got 1 year, $4.5 million.

Here’s an idea, Dayton: instead of spending all this money on a bunch of guys who don’t push you into contention, why not take all this cash and dangle it in front of Ben Sheets, a guy who when healthy is potentially dominant, and as an extreme fly ball pitcher is perfectly suited for Kauffman Stadium and a DeJesus-Crisp outfield? A Greinke/Meche/Sheets front of the rotation, and suddenly the Royals are a Gordon or Butler breakout season away from being the surprise contenders of 2009. But hey, that Willie Bloomquist can hustle.

Two weeks ago I wrote this: “Dayton Moore does many things well, and he still has my support as the man who could lead the Royals to the playoffs once again. But after three off-seasons to prove himself on the free-agent market, with one notable exception (Gil Meche), all he has proven is that he is prone to wildly overspending for highly replaceable talent.” Now that he’s signed Bloomquist, I stand by these words completely. Well, accept for the part that he still has my support.

I thought that we were finally past the point of being a national laughingstock. I thought I wouldn’t have to hear that awful mixture of pity and contempt from fans of other teams anymore. I never thought the Royals would enter the Howard Zone again. Now that they have, I’m having to re-consider every nice thing I’ve said about Moore and this front office. From where I sit, Moore is looking less and less like the GM that will take us to the promised land and more and more like a really good scouting director who’s in over his head every time his owner hands him his checkbook.

Dammit, Rob. I hate it when you’re right. And when it comes to the Royals, you're almost always right.

Royals Time Capsule, Part 1.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that on November 4^th, 1995, my life jumped onto a different track. That was the evening Gary Huckabay formally asked me if I wanted to help him write a baseball book – name TBD – along with the legendary creator of the DTs (well, he was a legend on rec.sport.baseball), Clay Davenport. Secure in the knowledge that the first year of medical school was pass/fail, I said sure, why not – what’s the worst that can happen? (Filed under “be careful what you wish for.”) Along with Chris Kahrl and Joe Sheehan, we were completely oblivious to what we were in for.

The first copy of that book, “Baseball Prospectus ’96” (I’m looking at the cover right now, and it’s ’96, not 1996, for some reason), sold maybe 150 copies – less if you don’t count family members. The “cover” is just a thicker piece of paper stock. After the book was printed, we realized that the font we used, when bolded – as it was, for instance, for all of the players’ names – the letters bled together until they were almost illegible. Oh, and that the St. Louis Cardinals’ chapter was missing. (Seriously. The prototype of baseballprospectus.com went up with the immediate intent of making that chapter available.)

Anyway, we were too dumb, too stubborn, or too single to get the hint. A second book followed (with a real cover! And the Cardinals!) Then a third (with a real publisher!) Keith Law, who joined us as writer #6 in 1997, decided a few years later that he’d have more fun working as the Assistant GM of the Toronto Blue Jays instead. A pair of guys who started as BP interns, Chaim Bloom and James Click, got hired by the Devil Rays. Keith Woolner joined the Indians. Dan Fox jumped to the Pirates. Nate Silver showed up on the Colbert Report. And the 14^th edition of Baseball Prospectus comes out sometime next month. As Bono sang, “Uno, Dos, Tres, Catorce!”

And my one copy of that first book would probably be worth hundreds of dollars if I ever lost my mind and put it on eBay.

Oh look! It’s my navel!

The 14^th edition of BP is also the first edition that I have not written for, and just the second that I have not written the Royals chapter for. (I could have written the chapter this year, but that would have been 8000 fewer words for my blog, and that would never do.) So instead I thought it would be fun to pull out that very first book, and see what I wrote about the Royals 13 winters ago.

I don’t think I’ve cracked open that first book in a decade, so re-reading that Royals chapter last week was very much like digging up a time capsule, a time capsule I had created for myself back when I was 20, and finally got to unwrap at age 33. I thought some of you might enjoy this trip down memory lane.

The first half of the essay is below; I’ve added some commentary in colored italics. Enjoy.

***

The Kansas City Royals were once the model of how to operate a successful franchise. (This was around the same time that GM was the model of how to operate a successful corporation.) With a wealthy, patient owner, a commitment to developing players from within the organization, and a GM who concocted some of the best trades in baseball history, the Royals were able to go from the depths of expansion in 1969 to a dominant force in the AL West by 1976. (The Royals built a perennial playoff team from scratch in seven years. In twice as many seasons since the 1994-95 strike, they’ve built absolutely nothing: they have no one to blame but themselves.) The talent amassed in the mid-70s was enough to keep the Royals among the elite teams in baseball for the next decade, capped with an improbable run to the World Championship in 1985.

The fly ball that Andy Van Slyke hit to Darryl Motley to close the 1985 Series closed a chapter in Royals history, however, and the Royals have spent the last 10 years more as a symbol of baseball mediocrity than baseball excellence. (Ah, mediocrity. If only we had known had good we had it then.) Winning the title in 1985 tricked the Royals into thinking that the glory days of the late 70s had come again to Kansas City, and that they would be able to continue dominating the historically-weak AL West for many years to come. The reality, of course, was that 1985 was the last gasp of a team whose once-great offense was a mere shell of itself, a team which owed everything to a great pitching staff and an otherworldly final month by George Brett. (I wrote this in the earliest days of the World Wide Web; there was no baseball-reference.com with daily logs, and a claim like this was simply unverifiable. It turns out that Brett had a pretty terrible September; he hit .210/.319/.340 from September 1^st to 28^th. But from September 29^th until October 5^th, Brett was 11-for-23 with five homers, three doubles, and 13 RBIs as the Royals won five of their last seven games, including three of four in a crucial series against the Angels. He then hit .360 in the postseason; his Game 3 performance against the Blue Jays in the ALCS is the best single-game performance in team history. So if we define “final month” as from September 29^th to October 27^th, Brett hit .397/.489/.808. Yeah, that seems not of this Earth.) The 1976-80 Royals featured a lineup that averaged 788 runs and 93 wins over that five-year span; not once in the last fifteen years has any Royals team matched either of those numbers. (The Royals have scored 788 runs three times since – 1999, 2000, 2003 – in the heart of the high-octane era, and with the fences at Kauffman Stadium drawn in. And 93 wins? Only once since 1995 have they won 78 games.) The World Championship team featured an anemic offense that finished 13^th in the AL in runs scored, and the Royals have consistently finished in the bottom half of the AL in that category ever since.

The Royals have tried a variety of tactics to reclaim the lost greatness of the late ‘70s. Following their most successful season since 1985, the 1989 team which rode Bret Saberhagen, the Royals decided to make up for a dozen years of inactivity in the free-agent market in one offseason. The Royals succeeded only in proving that money is no substitute for intelligence in the front office, as they ignored the team’s biggest weakness – the offense – in an attempt to upgrade what was a stellar pitching staff with Storm “Run Support” Davis and Mark Davis’ evil twin brother. (I still submit that Storm – not Mark – Davis was the dumbest free agent signing in franchise history. There was no reason to think that Mark would develop Mark Davis Disease – analogous to Steve Blass Disease, only instead of suddenly and inexplicably being unable to throw strikes, you become suddenly and inexplicably unable to get anyone out. By comparison, there was EVERY reason to think that Storm Davis would suck. Just look at his 1989 season, but cover up his win-loss record first. His entire stat line is an ode to a borderline #5 starter – and remember, this was 1989, and Oakland had one of the best pitchers’ parks in baseball – but McGwire and Canseco bashed for him, Eckersley closed for him, and the Royals paid him for that 19-7 record.)

When that attempt crashed and burned, the Royals tried a new tack. They made a big trade in an attempt to beef up their offense – Saberhagen for Gregg Jefferies, Keith Miller, and Kevin McReynolds. (Quite possibly the most underrated trade in team history, largely because of the next sentence.) When the Royals saw how bad their defense had become with the influx of ex-Mets, they made an ill-advised trade to address that – Jefferies for Felix Jose. (One of the ten worst trades in Royals history, and probably the least-remembered of the top ten. Jefferies didn’t have a great 1992 season – he hit .285/.329/.404 in his one year in Kansas City – but it wasn’t a bad year, all told, for a 24-year-old third baseman, and there was plenty of reason to think he was capable of better than that – Jefferies was Baseball America’s Minor League Player of the Decade for the 1980s. But Herk Robinson traded him for Felix Jose, who had put up pretty much the same numbers in 1992, only he was three years older, an outfielder, and had nothing like Jefferies’ track record. In two years with St. Louis, Jefferies hit .342 and .325 with power and speed, and made the All-Star team and garnered MVP votes both years. Jose hit .253 his first year in KC, .303 the next year, and was released just nine games into the 1995 season.) And, with the Royals now a hodgepodge of questionable talent that wasn’t going anywhere, they tried the free agent market again in an attempt to build a scrappy pitching-and-defense team that resembled that “great” Royals team of 1985. Greg Gagne and Wally Joyner were signed, Jose Lind was acquired in trade, the Royals offense continued to suffer, and the team continued to finish around .500. (Ah, .500. If only we had known how good we had it then.)

***

Reading this part of the essay 13 years later, I have to say that I’m impressed at how well it holds up. Last spring, I wrote the Royals chapter for a Baseball Prospectus book on the 1980s – a book that is currently on indefinite hiatus – and the analysis of the Royals decline in the 1980s that I wrote in 2008 isn’t much different than the analysis I wrote in 1995.

At least the first half of the essay. In the second half, let’s just say that Optimistic Rany makes an appearance. That’s right: in the winter of 1995-96 I was quite optimistic about the future of the Royals. Yeah, this isn’t going to end well.

Auld Lang Syne.

This is the most frustrating time of year for baseball fans. The year is almost out and the nation is shutting down for the holidays – which would be well and good if baseball shut down as well, affording all of us two weeks to detox from the Hot Stove League and re-introduce ourselves to our families and all that.

The problem is that while baseball almost shuts down, there’s always the possibility of some news, a trade, a free agent signing, so you can’t help but refresh on MLBTradeRumors.com (hi Tim, and thanks for the links) or your sports portal of choice. As soon as you think nothing’s going to happen while you’re on vacation between Christmas and New Year’s, bam! Ken Caminiti and Steve Finley are traded to San Diego for Derek Bell and Phil Plantier in a 12-player deal on December 28^th. So you have to stay plugged in, even though 99% of the time you’ll be watching the paint dry. (Yankees fans are exempt from this.)*

*: You could argue that the Royals – or at least David Glass – should be happy that Mark Teixeira signed with the Yankees. After all, the Yankees are always over the luxury tax threshold, so adding Teixeira means more luxury tax means more money in Glass’s pockets. The details are still coming in, but Tex’s contract looks to be about for $22 million a year. Multiply that by the 40% luxury tax rate = $8.8 million. Divide that by 29 other teams, and you get about $300,000. That’s 300 grand a year in David Glass’s pocket, and the actual number is probably higher than that, as (I believe) luxury tax revenue is apportioned to teams at least partly based on their own revenues, so a low-revenue team like the Royals will get more. So let’s say 500 or 600 grand a year. The Yankees get Mark Teixeira, and in return the Royals get a month of Kyle Farnsworth. Or, if they’re smart, a quality amateur signing out of Latin America.

If you’re desperate for any Royal rumors, Ken Rosenthal is reporting that the Royals would like to sign Jerry Hairston, but don’t have the payroll flexibility to afford him. If that’s true, that’s unbelievably sad and criminally negligent on the part of Dayton Moore. It’s one thing to not afford Furcal, but Jerry Hairston? And with Furcal off the board, Hairston isn’t a bad fit for the team – he’s a decent hitter, knows how to draw a walk, and can play shortstop well enough that he’s a reasonable fill-in option, but not so well as to tempt the Royals into moving Mike Aviles off the position.

But the Royals can’t afford him, because they just spent $4.6 million a year on Farnsworth; $3 million (approximately) on Mike Jacobs; $2.7 million on Miguel Olivo; and $1.8 million on Horacio Ramirez. That’s $12.1 million for 2009; subtract out the league minimum for the four roster spots those guys will hold, and that’s $10.5 million spent on four players who do not materially improve the Royals next season (especially since you’d still have Leo Nunez.) That’s enough money to sign Rafael Furcal. Instead the Royals don’t have enough money to sign Jerry Hairston.

The Royals would have enough money to sign Furcal and Hairston if Dayton Moore hadn’t spent $12 million a year on Jose Guillen last winter. I don’t want to beat a dead horse into the ground, but I just have to point out that the Angels just signed Juan Rivera to a three-year deal for $12.75 million. Not $12.75 million a year - $12.75 million for all three years.

This is amazing and more than a little galling if you’re a Royals fan, because Juan Rivera and Jose Guillen are pretty much the same player. Guillen’s career line is .273/.323/.446, with a career OPS+ of exactly 100. Rivera’s line is .284/.331/.468 with a 106 OPS+. Rivera is 30 years old – Guillen was 31 when he signed with the Royals. Granted, when Guillen signed he had the better recent numbers, whereas Rivera missed almost all of 2007 and hit poorly in part-time play in 2008 (but mashed the ball - .310/.362/.525 – in 2006).

Baseball analysts (I dislike the term “sabermetricians”, because of the stereotypical images that it conjures up more than anything else) are constantly accused of caring about the numbers. The reality, though, is that we couldn’t care less about the numbers – we care about what the numbers mean. I couldn’t tell you off the top of my head what Jose Guillen’s batting average was last year – but I can tell you that his overall mix of baseball skills is highly overrated and barely merits an everyday job, let alone $12 million a year. I don’t particularly care whether Jose Guillen or Juan Rivera is 1% better than the other. What I care about is that the established record suggests that Guillen and Rivera are pretty much the same player – highly-aggressive right-handed hitters with good power and questionable defensive value in a corner outfield spot. That one player is making three times the other is 10% a reflection of the economy, and 90% a reflection of the way these two players are perceived, a perception that does not jibe with reality at all.

There are many skills that are required of a general manager, and defining a GM as “good” or “bad” is terribly simplistic. Dayton Moore does many things well, and he still has my support as the man who could lead the Royals to the playoffs once again. But after three off-seasons to prove himself on the free-agent market, with one notable exception (Gil Meche), all he has proven is that he is prone to wildly overspending for highly replaceable talent. For all he does well – and really, Moore has done almost everything else well – the Royals are unlikely to make the playoffs unless and until he learns to ration his disposable dollars with more care.

We’ll probably be going dark here at RotR for the next week or so. Muslims don’t celebrate Christmas per se, but we certainly honor the spirit of the holiday. It is written in the Qu’ran (19:33) that when Jesus spoke from the cradle, he said, “So peace is on me the day I was born, the day that I die, and the day that I shall be raised up to life (again)!” We unfortunately don’t know what day he was born, but December 25^th works for me.

So if you’re celebrating Christmas on Thursday, then let me wish you a Merry Christmas. If you’re celebrating Hanukkah, then let me wish you a Happy Hanukkah. If you’re celebrating Kwanzaa or Festivus or any other holiday that I fail to mention – we Muslims just celebrated our Eid two weeks ago – I hope it is a happy and safe one. And I hope to see you all next year.

In the meantime, if any of you want to suggest ideas for what I ought to write about between now and Spring Training, please feel free to comment, with the caveat that I may feel free to ignore your idea. I do have at least one project I plan to write about in January – call it the Royals Time Capsule if you will. But that’s a project for another day.

Rany's Royal Ramblings.

Bill Simmons calls it The Ramblings. Joe Sheehan calls it Bullet Point Friday, or sometimes Short Attention Span Theatre. I call it The Column You Write When Your Brain Is So Fried By The Chiefs That You Can’t Focus On Any Topic For More Than A Hundred Words.

- My Spanish literacy is very limited, so I’m grateful to the Royals for their recent efforts to educate me. I mean, who knew that “Jairo Cuevas” is Spanish for “Tim Pugh”? (And how many of you even get that reference?)

- I lumped Doug Waechter in with Kyle Farnsworth in my last post, as the news had just come across the wire before I hit “publish”. Now that we know the details of his contract, it’s clear that was unfair of me. Waechter signed a one-year deal for $640,000, and there’s just no way you can describe a $640,000 deal to anyone as a bad deal. Waechter will be making about 14% of what Farnsworth will make in 2009, and even that understates the difference, because the league minimum is about $400,000 (it’s now indexed for inflation, so I’m not sure the exact figure). Waechter is making just $240,000 in marginal salary over some career minor leaguer – in terms of marginal salary, he’ll earn just 6% of Farnsworth’s income.

I don’t know much about Waechter except that he was once a crappy starting pitcher for the Devil Rays – back when that was sort of a requirement for his job – then blew out his shoulder and was re-invented as a useful reliever for the Marlins last year. The major difference between 2008 and the rest of his career was his performance against RHB. His line against LHB (.303/.358/.486) was along the lines of his career numbers (.289/.351/.521), but his numbers against RHB improved dramatically (.216/.281/.338 vs .267/.322/.432). It’s hard to compare Waechter the post-injury reliever to Waechter the pre-injury starter, but he did appear to be a fundamentally better pitcher last season; his strikeout rate (6.54 per nine) was easily his career best. At worst, he’s a useful ROOGY, a pale but still useful simulacrum of Ramon Ramirez.

- It’s been a week, and the Kyle Farnsworth signing continues to baffle me. I appreciate that Dayton Moore probably does not have time in his busy day to read my blog, but after I defended the Coco Crisp trade in large part by detailing how Moore has built a high-end bullpen almost entirely on the cheap, it just amazes me that he would suddenly rip a page out of the Allard Baird playbook by trying to spackle the holes in his bullpen with hundred-dollar bills. We’ve seen this play run before. It didn’t work with Roberto Hernandez. It didn’t work with Ricky Bottalico. It didn’t work with Doug Henry. I see no reason to think it’s going to work with Kyle Farnsworth.

- Here’s a friendly wager for Moore. Here’s a list of a number of players that are or were available for around the league minimum: Waechter, Eduardo Morlan (Rule 5 pick by the Brewers from Tampa Bay), Jesus Colome (non-tendered by Washington), Joe Nelson (non-tendered by the Marlins), and Muntader Al-Zaidi (just signed by the Yankees.)

Using whatever metric you prefer – ERA, ARP, WXRL, whatever – I’m willing to bet that including Farnsworth and the first four pitchers on that list (I’m not sure the shoeicide bomber is ready for prime time), Captain Tightpants will rank no higher than third among these five pitchers at the end of 2009. Unless the metric you prefer is “salary”.

- On the other hand, this almost made the Farnsworth signing worthwhile.

- When he’s not signing pitchers with big fastballs and big ERAs to big contracts, Moore continues to do good work on the margins. A few weeks ago the Royals designated Tyler Lumsden, once considered the key to the Mike MacDougal trade, for assignment. That gave them 10 days to trade him or let him go on waivers – when a player is DFA’ed, typically he’ll get traded for scraps or some spare change, as the alternative is that some other team will pick him up on waivers anyway. Lumsden had a 7.21 and 5.88 ERA in Triple-A the last two years; the wonder is that anyone would want him at all. Well, the Astros did, because the Astros’ farm system looks like the landscape to “Fallout 3”. So the Royals traded Lumsden to Houston for the ubiquitous PTBNL, a player whose name typically winds up being “Cash”, and I don’t mean Kevin. (I have this sinking sensation that I’ve used that line before.)

So I was dumbfounded when, immediately after the Rule 5 draft (i.e. as soon as the player was guaranteed not to be selected by another organization), the Astros completed the deal by sending the Royals Jordan Parraz. Parraz isn’t a great prospect, but he’s a prospect, the sort of prospect teams never get when they’re clearing their rosters of the Tyler Lumsdens of the world. Parraz was a sixth-round pick of the Phillies in 2003 as a high school pitcher; after a year of community college, he was a third-round pick of the Astros as an outfielder.

He’s a very good athlete, and has hit pretty well throughout his career, but for some reason has been promoted very slowly through the system – he’s now 24 and has yet to play in the high minors. But he has speed (54 steals the last two years) and plate discipline (lifetime .372 OBP, and .399 last season), and has shown flashes of power. If he were two years younger he’d be a great prospect; even as old as he is, I love athletes who have shown secondary skills even if they haven’t exactly learned how to hit yet. I would have traded Lumsden for him straight up even if Lumsden wasn’t on the 40-man roster and didn’t have to be DFA’ed.

This summer the Royals traded Horacio Ramirez to the White Sox for Paulo Orlando, a trade I heartily endorsed. I asked Kevin Goldstein who he liked better, and with the caveat that neither one is a great prospect, he preferred Parraz to Orlando. If it was shrewd to trade Ramirez, having a decent year as a middle reliever at the time, for Orlando, trading Lumsden for Parraz is larceny. Petty larceny, maybe, but still a criminal offense.

- Unfortunately, relaying this story just reminds me that Moore just paid Ramirez $1.8 million (plus $1.1 million in incentives!) for a return engagement. Let’s review, class, since some of you weren’t paying attention:

1) Signing a failed major league starter to a minor league contract, and trying him in relief: smart.

2) Signing the same pitcher, who was moderately successful as a reliever, to a seven-figure contract while attempting to move him back to the rotation: dumb.

- To clear payroll, the Royals axed John Bale and Joey Gathright. Bale might still re-sign, for less money than he would have earned in arbitration (a minimum of $1.6 million). If he can be resigned for less, I’d say he’s worth it; if you eliminate the three starts in his ill-fated trial in the rotation, over the last two years Bale has a 3.16 ERA in relief. Like Ron Mahay, he doesn’t have a big platoon split, so he can be used both ways, allowing the Royals to save Jimmy Gobble for LOOGY situations only. There’s some untapped potential here.

Few players have more untapped potential than Gathright, but cutting him was the right move for this team. Gathright doesn’t do anything that Coco Crisp can’t do; Gathright is faster, but he has yet to show he can translate that speed into game impact yet. Cutting Gathright is painful, given that Moore gave up J.P. Howell to get him, but it’s precisely because it was painful that I like this move. Howell is a sunk cost, and holding on to Gathright in the hopes that he might redeem that trade would have just thrown a bunch of money at a player who isn’t going to get enough playing time to justify his salary anyway.

On the other hand, this clears a path on the roster for Ross Gload. Speaking of sunk costs…

- The Royals are still doggedly in pursuit of Rafael Furcal, and while it doesn’t appear they can afford him, I can’t help but believe that Moore is going to find a way to shake down David Glass for the extra cash. If he can’t, he has no one to blame but himself. I’m not even talking about the Jose Guillen contract, though I certainly could spend 5000 words re-visiting the stupidity of that move.

I’m talking about the fact that Moore will be paying somewhere between $6.5 million and $8 million in 2009 for the services of Farnsworth and Ramirez – roughly 70% of the money needed for Furcal’s contract was wasted on two pitchers who are barely worth a roster spot. Furcal appears to have a 4-year, $40 million contract offer from Oakland (and let’s be honest: doesn’t the fact that Billy Beane is in the running to sign Furcal elevate Furcal’s standing in your eyes?) I think a 4/$44 contract will get it done, and in a world where A.J. Burnett is getting 5/$82.5, 4/$44 for one of the top 10 shortstops in baseball looks like a bargain.

So get it done, Dayton. Unless you want your next press conference to lead off with a question from an Iraqi journalist.

- This is just so sad on so many levels. In 2003, Rob Neyer and I met up in Kansas City for a weekend of baseball, and the first place we met on Friday morning was at the Negro Leagues Museum. Rob had some business to attend to – he was interviewing Buck O’Neil for one of his books, or maybe for his ESPN.com column. I would have had a chance to meet Buck as well, but I had never toured the museum before, and I lingered inside so long that by the time I finished Buck had came and went (immaculately dressed in a white suit, I was told.) I didn’t regret taking my time – the museum was that powerful. Afterwards I did get the opportunity to meet Bob Kendrick briefly, and was moved by the level of enthusiasm and passion that he had for the museum, Buck, and the greater cause that both were serving.

I don’t live in Kansas City and can’t speak to the specifics on this case. But when Joe Posnanski and Jason Whitlock agree on something this passionately, I defer to their judgment. I’m glad I’ve been through the museum already, so I’m not conflicted about not seeing it again. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend going once, because you’re just hurting yourself if you don’t. But if you have, well, if Poz ain’t going back, I ain’t going back.

- I wondered how long it would take for someone to make fun of my crush on Connor Barth after yesterday’s game. Looks like it took reader Dave about 3 minutes.

I could respond by saying that until yesterday’s game, not only had Barth converted all of his kicks, he would have made all his kicks if the uprights had been squeezed together by five feet on each side. I could respond by saying that both of his misses yesterday were by just a foot or two, and that I don’t know a Chiefs fan alive who thought there was any chance, given all that had just transpired, that Barth was going to nail his 50-yard attempt at the buzzer. Even KC Wolf was shaking his head before the kick. (I have no response for missing a 34-yarder. Yeah, that was pretty inexcusable – almost, dare I say it, Tynes-esque.)

But instead, I’ll just respond by saying that if Barth had squeezed his final kick through the uprights, this would not have happened. I said Connor Barth was The One…I just didn’t say that he was The One Who Will Get King Carl Fired. Hey, I told you he was money.

Farnsworth.

“We’ve added two productive everyday position players for about $9 million,” Moore said. “We would not have been able to do that in the free-agent market.”

No, Dayton, you’ve added two everyday position players – I’d hold off on proclaiming them both “productive” for the moment – for over $14 million.

Coco Crisp: $6.25 million

Mike Jacobs: $3.25 million (estimate)

Kyle Farnsworth: $4.625 million

You can’t claim that Coco Crisp only costs you $6.25 million when you spend almost as much money to replace the guy you traded to get him. That assumes Farnsworth is a true replacement for Ramon Ramirez – and given that the former had a 4.48 ERA last year, and the latter a 2.64 ERA, that’s an awfully bold assumption.

One of the most common mistakes a GM can make is to spend money just because he can. Moore has received a license from Dayton Moore to raise the team’s payroll, and he deserves full credit for obtaining that license, something Allard Baird, for whatever reason, could never do. But a license to spend money is not a mandate to spend money. Kyle Farnsworth will not be paid with a big pile of $100 bills that Moore had just rescued from a bonfire. That was money in David Glass’s bank account, and whatever your feelings are on the creditworthiness of banks at the moment, if Moore had left that money where it was, there’s a good chance it still would have been there if he came back with a request for more money later.

Like, say, if he had wanted to pull out all the stops to signing Rafael Furcal. I’m not 100% sold on the idea of signing Furcal – I think Aviles deserves a chance to prove he can’t play shortstop, and I think Callaspo deserves a chance to prove he can’t maintain a .360 OBP. But I’ve come around to Joe Posnanski’s point of view, which is that the Royals are a lot closer to contending than most people realize, and while Furcal is a risk given his age and recent injury history, if he’s healthy he’s going to be an impact player for at least the next two years. It’s not unreasonable to think he can have enough of an impact to alter the outcome of the AL Central.

The Royals could offer $11 million a year on Furcal, who might prove irrelevant but at the same time might have a huge, postseason-caliber impact on the team. Or they could spend nearly half that much money on a player who at his best is a decent middle reliever, and hasn’t been at his best in four years.

More and more, it’s clear that Moore is aggressively trying to make the Royals into a contender in 2009-2010, with the caveat that he won’t do anything that might hamstring the Royals from building a year-in, year-out juggernaut in 2012 and beyond. In that vein, I understand why he’d sign someone like Farnsworth over Juan Cruz, who several readers have pointed out is a Type A free agent and would have cost the Royals their second-round pick. All Farnsworth costs the Royals is some of David Glass’s money. If you’re of the opinion that the Royals are still two years away from contention, then this move doesn’t matter one way or the other.

But if you’re of the opinion that the Royals can contend in 2009 or 2010 – and so long as Zack Greinke is under contract, I think they can – then you have to ask yourself, was there a better way to spend this money to win more games over the next two years? Maybe Glass’s bank account is inexhaustible, and there’s still money left in the till for Furcal. But if there isn’t, then Moore just blew his chance to sign an impact everyday shortstop for a hot-headed, over-rated, meatball-grooving middle reliever.

(Make that two relievers: Doug Waechter?)

Winter Meetings.

Every year, we look forward to a winter meetings event filled with big trades and surprising free agent signings – and every year, it turns out to be a dud. This year has been no exception so far, although things usually start moving a little in the last 24 hours.

One player we hope will not be moving is Zack Greinke. Here’s how things have changed under Dayton Moore: when I first heard the rumor that Moore was talking to the Braves about a Greinke-Francoeur swap, I didn’t even bat an eye. I had no doubt that this rumor was grossly mischaracterized at best, and more likely just an outright fabrication. I do not always agree with Moore, but he and I agree on one thing: he is not an idiot.

The best part of the rumor was the fact that Moore actively sought out more than one reporter to debunk the rumor. Moore likes to run a tight ship when it comes to rumors, but he also can’t help himself when it comes to shooting down rumors that are false (or rumors that he wants everyone to believe are false.) The downside to that is that when he doesn’t deny a rumor, you know there’s some fire with that smoke. (You’ll notice the lack of denials regarding the Royals’ interest in Rafael Furcal, for instance.)

But in this case, I think Moore was justified to speak out, and speak out forcefully, that there was nothing to the notion of trading Greinke for Francoeur. It was as if Moore wanted to send a message to all Royals fans that can be translated as, “I just wanted to reassure all of you that not only am I not stupid enough to trade Zack Greinke for Jeff Francoeur, I’m not stupid enough to even think about trading Zack Greinke for Jeff Francoeur. Thank you for your support.”

But at some point the Royals are going to do something, so let me try to run down the likely possibilities as I battle through this nagging cold. There are two types of moves the Royals are looking at: they almost certainly will add a reliever or two to their bullpen, and they might open the vault for a big addition either in the lineup or in the rotation.

We know they’re looking at relievers right and left – well, mostly right, as I think Moore is satisfied for now with Ron Mahay, John Bale, and Jimmy Gobble from the left side. (Assuming that Gobble fixes whatever ailed him last season, that’s a reasonable complement of left-handed relievers.) Some quick thoughts on the guys who have been publicly linked to the Royals:

Kyle Farnsworth: His name has come up several times as someone the Royals are strongly pursuing. I don’t see it. Farnsworth throws really hard, and as a 25-year-old setup man for the Cubs, he struck out 107 batters in 82 innings, with a 2.74 ERA. The problem is, now he’s 32 years old. He signed a three-year deal with the Yankees before the 2006 season, and over the last three years his ERAs are 4.36, 4.80, and 4.48. As much as I appreciate his service on behalf of Yankee-haters everywhere, I’m not sure his mediocrity was intentional, especially since he had a 6.75 ERA last season after the Yankees foisted him on Detroit.

Farnsworth still strikes out about a man an inning, and walks about a man every third inning – that’s something to build on. But he’s way too prone to the long ball. Kauffman Stadium will help some, and maybe Bob McClure will help some, although Farnsworth isn’t exactly famous for his coachability. If the Royals are looking at a 1-year, $2 million deal or something, he’s a nice flyer to take. But he’s coming off a 3-year, $17 million contract, and is probably looking for something comparable. The danger is that the Royals pay a 32-year-old pitcher based on his potential, not on his reality.

Brandon Lyon: Lyon’s coming off a disappointing year with the Diamondbacks, but I like his overall track record more than Farnsworth. Lyon isn’t the power pitcher that Farnsworth is, but he has better command and is stinger with the long ball, especially when you factor in Arizona’s ballpark. He’s coming off a 26-save season and may want closer money even though he gave nothing like closer performance last year. Farnsworth has more upside, Lyon’s the safer bet, and I wouldn’t sign either for Mahay money.

Russ Springer: Two years ago, Springer was a 38-year-old pitcher who had never had an ERA lower than 3.42 in a season with 15 innings or more. Over the last two years, he has ERAs of 2.18 and 2.32, and merely adds to the argument that Dave Duncan, not Leo Mazzone, is the best pitching coach of the last generation. I love McClure, but even I’m skeptical he can keep the magic going as Springer enters his 40s. Avoid.

Juan Cruz: Now here’s a guy I can get behind. Cruz has power (158 Ks in 113 IP the last two years) and effectiveness (2.61 ERA in 2008; 3.10 ERA in 2007.) He has one save in his major league career, so you don’t have to pay a premium for a service you don’t need. I can’t imagine that he’ll be any cheaper than the three guys listed above, but it’s better to spend good money on a good reliever than any money on a mediocre one. I’m confident that Moore can scrounge up a reliever from the ranks of free talent out there that can duplicate what Springer will do over the next year or two. Cruz, on the other hand, is not an easily duplicated talent.

I’ll try to be back soon with my thoughts elsewhere on the diamond.

Glass.

After the season ended, I was hoping to hand out quick, Whitlock-like end-of-season grades for everyone associated with the Royals, but ran into a time crunch instead. (Although a comparison of Tony Pena’s 2008 with Eddie Drummond’s 2007 might have been interesting, in a grisly-car-wreck sort of way.)

If I had, though, the grade that might have surprised the most people was the grade I would have given to David Glass: an A. Glass (and particularly son Dan) had as much to do with the Royals’ stretch of 100-loss seasons as anyone, but things have changed dramatically in the Dayton Moore era.

There’s really three things you want from an owner: 1) open up the pocketbook when necessary; 2) hire the right people; and 3) stay the hell out of their way. In 2008, at least, Glass has done all that. The Royals have money to spend on free agency every year; Dayton Moore is highly-regarded in the industry, and just as importantly, has been allowed to hire a number of highly-regarded baseball men to assist him, most recently Mike Arbuckle.

And on the third point…when was the last time you saw David Glass’s name in the paper? Unlike five or even three years ago, you never see Glass weighing in on baseball matters. Occasionally he’ll talk about the finances of the club or the ongoing renovations, but that’s it.

Like today:

Royals owner David Glass has an easy explanation for the anticipated increase of 20 percent or more in the club’s payroll for the 2009 season.

“You just put money in,” he said with a chuckle. “It’s simple.”

The increase figures to boost the Royals to about $70 million — nearly $12 million more than last season’s franchise-record $58.2 million — and comes at a time when several teams are trimming payrolls because of concerns over the economy.

Glass cites two reasons for the increase:

•The Royals are making measurable progress in their rebuilding plan after winning 75 games last season and escaping last place in the American League Central for the first time since 2003.

•A sign of good faith to the fan base upon completion of $250 million in public-funded renovations to Kauffman Stadium.

Those are both good reasons. Let me add a third reason, far more compelling than the first two.

I want you to compare these three stocks:

  
Stock   July 2 2007    December 4 2008 Change 
  
A         35.51         27.55         -22.4%
  
B         36.23         14.11         -61.1%
  
C         48.33         55.11         +14.0%
  

Stock A is Wells Fargo & Company, which represents the bulk of Carl Pohlad’s fortune. Last year the Twins’ owner ranked 114^th on Forbes’ list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, with an estimated net worth of $3.1 billion, $1.3 billion of which was tied up in Wells Fargo stock.

Stock B is Cablevision Systems Corporation, which is the primary source of wealth for the Dolan family. Larry Dolan, who bought the Cleveland Indians in 2002, doesn’t appear to be involved with the company all that much – it was founded by his brother Charles. (If only idiot nephew James could have bought the Indians instead. Based on the way he’s run the New York Knicks into the ground, you’d figure that by now the Indians would have a permanent hold on last place.) But it does appear from this article that Dolan’s wealth is tied into the company. He’s a successful Cleveland lawyer, but you don’t amass enough wealth to buy a major league baseball team just by being a successful lawyer. (Now is not the time for a Miles Prentice joke. Actually, scratch that – now is a perfect time for a Miles Prentice joke.)

And Stock C, of course, is Wal-Mart.

The stock market is in the midst of its worst decline since the Great Depression, but if your portfolio consisted mostly of Wal-Mart stock, you’d almost be forgiven for thinking otherwise. It’s a cliché to say that companies which service the bargain-basement sector of the economy are recession-proof, or even a hedge against the market, but in this case the cliché is absolutely true.

I can’t find a recent estimate of David Glass’s net worth; the best I can do is this KC Pitch article which (quoting a KC Star article that is behind the wall) estimates his net worth at $323 million in 1999 – before he bought the Royals. It’s instructive to note that from 1999 until mid-2007, Wal-Mart stock was essentially flat – the stock price was 47.94 in July, 1999, which meant the stock price went up about 1% in eight years. Where Glass has made a real killing this decade is on the Royals themselves – he paid $95 million for them in 2000, and in April Forbes appraised them at $301 million.

But over the last 18 months, while Carl Pohlad has lost hundreds of millions of dollars, and the Dolan family has seen their net worth cut in half…Glass has done well for himself. His net worth is still a fraction of Pohlad’s, but Pohlad has never seemed interested in using his financial assets to the Twins’ advantage anyway. A team like the Indians, though, are feeling the pinch. Most teams in baseball are.

The Padres are having a fire sale (in addition to everything else, their owner is going through a costly divorce.) The White Sox have unloaded Nick Swisher and Javier Vazquez in the last month, though if anyone knows how to rebuild and compete at the same time, it’s Kenny Williams. Meanwhile, the Royals felt they could take a risk on offering Mark Grudzielanek arbitration, even as the Yankees didn’t feel they could take the same risk with Andy Pettitte and Bobby Abreu.

So why is Glass willing to raise payroll while other teams are looking to cut costs everywhere? Partly because he can afford to. With the White Sox retrenching, with the Tigers adrift, and with the Indians’ ownership watching their net worth crater – Cablevision stock is down almost 10% today as I write this – Glass may be thinking that a well-timed cash spend this winter might put the Royals into contention much sooner than anyone thinks.

If there’s a silver lining to the economic meltdown – at least if you’re a big fan of schadenfreude – is that some of the richest and most successful titans in America have been brought down with it. But at least a few of them have survived nicely. As a Royals fan, I guess I can’t complain that David Glass is one of them.