Royals Today: 5/6/2010

As usual, I picked a bad week to disappear. Well, not disappear exactly – I’ve taken advantage of having the Royals in Chicago to spend a lot of time watching them at the ballpark and talking to people connected to the team. I just haven’t taken the time to write. So let’s catch up with the events of the last week:

Zack Greinke pitches brilliantly again, loses again.

I’m not sure what more I can add to this. As Posnanski pointed out a while back, going back to August 16th, 2008, Zack Greinke had made 46 starts with a 2.11 ERA – and the Royals were 22-24 in those starts.

Now, his ERA in that span is 2.08, and the Royals are 22-25.

Sometimes I wonder if the Royals were put on this earth with the express purpose of teaching the world the core principles of sabermetrics. Want to understand the importance of the base on balls? Consider that the Royals are 11-17, and have been outscored 148-113, even though they’ve outhit their opponents this season. The Royals have 270 hits; their opponents have 264. The Royals have been outhomered by a modest margin, 29-25, but the big difference is this: the Royals – as usual – rank dead last in the AL in walks drawn, with 75. And the Royals – as usual – rank dead last in the AL in walks allowed, with 123.

In 28 games, the Royals have allowed 48 walks more than they’ve drawn, a difference of nearly two walks a game. If OBP is life, the Royals are walking zombies, much as they’ve been for the last quarter century.

If you want to know why it seems like so much of the Kansas City media – and increasingly, the Kansas City fan base – is so stat-savvy even though the team itself is stuck in the 1970s, it’s precisely because we’ve seen what happens to a team that ignores 30 years of analytical progress. Royals fans understand the value of a walk, because they’ve seen first-hand the consequences of a dismissive approach to plate discipline.

And now, they understand the worthlessness of win-loss records for pitchers, because they’ve seen how even the most brilliant pitcher the majors has seen in a decade can go winless into May when the other 24 men on the roster stab him in the back.

Run support? The Royals have scored 16 runs in his six starts.

Bullpen support? In the five games that Greinke has turned the game over to the bullpen, his relievers have pitched a total of 13.1 innings – AND ALLOWED 20 RUNS. Greinke’s relievers have allowed more runs in 13.1 innings than his offense has scored in six entire games. In other words, if Greinke had not allowed a single run all season, the Royals still would have been outscored, 20-16, in his six starts.

On Sunday, Greinke was able to eliminate the bullpen from the equation – knowing that Joakim Soria was probably unavailable after pitching in three straight games, he pitched efficiently as well as brilliantly, throwing just 87 pitches in eight innings. Joe Maddon may have been exaggerating when he said that Greinke could have gone 15 innings, but I have no doubt that if the Royals had managed to score one run, Greinke would have pitched the ninth, and probably the tenth as well – becoming the first Royals’ starter to go into extra innings since Kevin Appier went 10 innings in 1992.

But the Royals, of course, didn’t score a run. And Greinke lost a 1-0 complete game for the second time since the beginning of the 2009 season. In that same span, every other starting pitcher in baseball has combined to lose a 1-0 complete game (not counting rain-shortened starts) twice.

As Joe Sheehan tweeted after the game, the Royals don’t deserve Zack Greinke. I wrote that exact phrase in a column with Rob back in 2005, and it remains equally true today.

These two articles are still parodies, I think. At the rate we’re going, one day they may not be.

Royals take advantage of their bullpen depth to trade Carlos Rosa.

It’s too easy, really, to make jokes about the fact that on Sunday the Royals, who at the time of the trade had the second-worst bullpen ERA in all of baseball, traded away Carlos Rosa, probably their most major league-ready relief prospect.

It’s too easy to see that the Royals traded Rosa for a 20-year-old shortstop with a career line in the minors of .256/.304/.338, and say that once again the Royals have made a move that defies common sense.

In this case, though, it really is too easy. The reality is a lot more complicated.

Two years ago today, Rosa was arguably the best pitching prospect in the organization, which says as much about the state of the farm system then as it says about Rosa. He was a starting pitcher with a terrific fastball – excellent velocity, excellent late life. The fastball was good enough to dominate Double-A hitters – in eight starts, he had a 1.20 ERA and allowed just 37 baserunners in 45 innings – despite a lack of a quality off-speed pitch.

The thinking was that if Rosa could just develop his off-speed stuff, he could be a #2 starter. But here we are, two years later, and Rosa is no closer to coming up with a second pitch today than he was then. He tried to develop a changeup, he tried to develop a slider, but both pitches are still below-average. And in the interim, he’s dealt with some arm woes that have sapped his fastball.

He only made 11 starts in Triple-A in 2008 because of arm trouble, and after the season the Royals decided to move him to the bullpen, as much to keep him healthy as to hide the fact that he was still a one-pitch pitcher. That winter, you may remember, the Royals were set to trade him to the Marlins for Mike Jacobs, but the Marlins were sufficiently concerned about the status of Rosa’s elbow that they backed out of the deal – forcing the Royals to substitute Leo Nunez instead. (Nunez has allowed just 3 hits and one run in 11.1 innings for Florida this year. Put him back on the Royals this year, and the team is probably at .500 instead of 11-17.)

Rosa was healthy enough to pitch in 2009, but in retrospect it’s clear that he had lost a little off his fastball, and for a guy who only had that one above-average pitch, he couldn’t afford to lose even a little. He got off to a terrible start in Omaha’s bullpen last year, and while he pitched much better the second half, he still had a 4.56 ERA for the season. In particular, his control was way off – after walking just 19 batters in 96 innings in 2008, he walked 32 batters in 71 innings last year. This year, at the time of the trade, he had walked 7 more batters in just 12 innings.

Since switching to full-time relief last season, Rosa had pitched 83 innings. He had struck out 90 batters, but he had also allowed 82 hits (including 8 homers) and 39 walks. Translated to the majors, those aren’t the numbers of a future major league closer, or even a quality set-up man. Those are the numbers of a garbage-time reliever. Factor in the scouting report on him, and I can see why the Royals were willing to get rid of him. I mean, we just had a reliever on the roster with a good-not-great fastball and no quality secondary offerings. His name was Roman Colon, and he was just sold to a Korean team. For Rosa, at least, the Royals got a prospect in return.

Navarro isn’t a great prospect by any means, but I’ve seen too many people focus on his statistics – as listed above – without mentioning his most important statistic: he’s just 20 years old. He’s 20 years old, and already in high-A ball. He’s a shortstop, and by most accounts a good one. The Royals are coming off a Lost Decade of shortstops, having featured such luminaries as Rey Sanchez, Neifi Perez, Angel Berroa, Tony Pena Jr, and now Yuniesky Betancourt. With Jeff Bianchi out for the year, shortstop glaringly remains the one position where the Royals had no quality prospects in the minors.

So I don’t know about you, but I’m willing to take a flier on a kid barely out of his teens who can switch-hit, who has at least some understanding of the strike zone (he had walked 8 times in 19 games before the trade), and at the very least isn’t a liability with the glove.

It’s a cliché to say that if the Royals make a decision about a player, the exact opposite opinion is likely to be true. But in this case, I really do trust their judgment. The fact that the Royals didn’t call up Rosa, despite a desperate need for a reliever who could keep his ERA under 6, is very telling.

And keep in mind that the Royals traded him to the Diamondbacks, the one team in baseball with a worse bullpen ERA than the Royals at the time. And then keep in mind that Allard Baird’s old assistant, Muzzy Jackson, works for the Diamondbacks and was likely the impetus for their interest in Rosa.

And then keep in mind that Muzzy’s interest in another Royals farmhand was the impetus for the last trade between these two teams, when the Royals traded Billy Buckner to Arizona – in exchange for Alberto Callaspo.

I don’t expect this trade to work out nearly as well, but I do think it’s a good trade for Kansas City. The Royals’ bullpen woes notwithstanding, you’ll rarely get burned trading away relievers, and credit to Dayton Moore for not letting the team’s current situation obscure that fact.

The Alex Gordon Era comes to an end. Sort of.

I hate it.

I hate it that the Royals, after giving Alex Gordon just 31 at-bats to prove himself this season, decided that they had seen enough. I hate it that the Royals let the return of Chris Getz – Chris Getz! – take a job away from a player who, for all his faults, remains one of the few players on the roster capable of hitting 25 homers, or mustering an OBP north of .350.

I hate the fact that once again, the Royals have managed to take a situation that seemed impossible to screw up, and screwed it up. Alex Gordon is probably the most can’t-miss prospect in the history of the organization. The #2 overall pick in the draft. College Player of the Year. Then Minor League Player of the Year, and #1 prospect in all of baseball according to multiple publications. A standing ovation in his first major league at-bat on Opening Day.

Three years later, he’s no longer a major leaguer. And he’s no longer a third baseman.

So yeah, I hate what’s become of Alex Gordon, and I hate what the Royals did to him last Sunday.

I hate it. But I agree with it.

I agree with it because ultimately, I don’t think the Royals made this move because they were dissatisfied with Gordon’s bat. I think they could no longer tolerate his glove. And I think they are right.

That batting average is a vastly overrated statistic is one of the central maxims of sabermetrics. But batting average looks like Win Shares compared to fielding average, which is such a useless stat that even the mainstream media rarely mentions it anymore.

But even fielding average is useful at the extremes. And with four errors in just 10 games at third base, Gordon’s defense was certainly extreme. His fielding average is .765. Seven-six-five. Anything under .950 is terrible; anything under .900 is historically bad. Fielding .765 is like batting .110 – just like there’s no combination of power and walks that can make a .110 average look good, there’s no amount of range that can make up for booting or throwing away a quarter of your fielding opportunities.

Not that Gordon’s range was any good either. In 84 innings at third base, he made just 13 plays, for a range factor of 1.39 plays per 9 innings. That’s exactly half the major league average of 2.78 plays per 9 innings for a third baseman.

Prefer more advanced statistics? Baseball-reference.com puts Gordon at 4 runs below average – 4 runs in just 10 games. Fangraphs.com has him at -4.2 runs. That translates to close to 70 runs below average over a full season.

The only saving grace here is sample size – maybe it was just a bad 10 games. A really, really bad 10 games. If Gordon had a history or a reputation for being a quality third baseman, that would be a legitimate excuse. He has neither. Gordon, at his best, was an average third baseman, and he hasn’t been at his best for much of his career. I’m not sure that this is the right time to pull the plug, but I’m not sure that it isn’t either.

Particularly since the domino effect of moving Gordon away from third base is that the Royals can move Callaspo away from second base. Far, far away. We might not be certain that Gordon will never play a quality third base – but we can be damn well certain that Callaspo will never be even an adequate second baseman. He was bad last year; he was downright intolerable this season. He missed line drives six inches over his head; he couldn’t run down balls in the hole that were ten feet to his left; his double play pivot was neither quick nor graceful.

I’m not nearly as convinced as the Royals are that Chris Getz is an excellent defensive second baseman. Frankly, it doesn’t matter. Even if he’s just adequate, replacing Gordon with Getz upgrades the defense at two positions. Callaspo’s skills translate much better at third base than at second. He has agility and reasonable first-step quickness, which plays well at third – he’s just ungodly slow. On the basepaths, he runs like a catcher, and Craig Biggio aside, there’s a reason you never see catchers move to second base.

My main concern with demoting Gordon to Omaha was that the Royals would move him to first base, which would be unbelievably dumb, given that they have Kila Ka’aihue ready and Eric Hosmer not far behind. But they moved him to left field instead. I suggested that the Royals move him to a corner outfield spot as early as two years ago, and while it’s far from an ideal position given the offensive demands, it’s more ideal than the alternatives.

My other concern was that the demotion was punitive, rather than corrective, in nature – that the Royals were simply fed up with Gordon, and that he likely had played his last game in a Royals uniform. But multiple sources close to the team assure me that the team really is sincere about giving Gordon another chance – maybe just one more chance – as an everyday player, once he’s mastered the nuances of the outfield. There’s a good chance that neither Scott Podsednik nor Rick Ankiel will be back next season, Guillen is as good as gone, and even David DeJesus may not return, either because of a trade or because the Royals elect not to pick up his option.

So the opportunity will be there for Gordon to play regularly in the outfield; he just better be sure to take advantage of the opportunity this time, because there may not be another one. I hate that it’s come to this, that Alex Gordon, superstar third baseman of the future, is now Alex Gordon, hopefully-adequate left fielder of the present. But as I’m fond of saying, what’s past is prologue. Gordon isn’t the player that we thought he would be. But if we accept him for the player that he is, we might be pleasantly surprised by his worth.

More to come, but I have a radio show to get ready for, so I’ll try to pick back up as soon as possible.

Royals Today: 4/29/2010

The wait is over: Rany on the Radio returns this evening at 6 PM. We’ve tried to make an effort to give the show a consistent time slot this year – last year we’d be on Thursday unless the Royals were playing, in which case it would be Wednesday, unless it was a day game on Thursday…it got to be like a third-rate network sitcom that bounced around to accommodate the rest of the schedule. This year, the hope is that you can find us every Thursday at 6 PM on 810 WHB. (This is why we didn’t start last week – evidently some non-baseball sports league was holding a draft or something. Stupid NFL.)

Some quick thoughts before the show tonight:

- It appears that all the talk about Luke Hochevar’s improved fastball was an illusion after all. As Greg Hall recounts here, even the pitching staff thinks the radar gun at the K is hot, and as Jeff Zimmerman analyzes the data here, they’re right – the gun is about 2 mph faster than at other parks. I don’t know how the Pitch F/X data could be this off, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned about the Royals, it’s that they can make the impossible seem commonplace.

- Greg Schaum is reporting that the Royals are putting John Parrish on the DL and calling up Victor Marte. Let me be the first to say: Marte is not the answer. If he goes back down in a couple of days when Chris Getz returns, this is no big deal. But if the Royals send down Alex Gordon instead…well, they are the Royals. They have a reputation to live up to.

- Speaking of Gordon…I’ve defended Trey Hillman to an extent for his handling of the bullpen. But that doesn’t mean his overall body of work is anything to be proud of. Case in point: last night, with the Royals down a run in the 8th, after Alberto Callaspo singled with two outs, Hillman pinch-ran for him with Gordon.

Meanwhile, Willie Bloomquist was still in the lineup at second base, and was due to bat in the 9th.

This is amazing on several levels:

1) Hillman decided that it was more important to upgrade from Callaspo to Gordon on the basepaths than to upgrade from Bloomquist to Gordon with the bat.

2) Bloomquist was in the starting lineup, I suppose, because the Mariners started a lefty on the mound. It so happens that the Mariners’ closer, David Aardsma, is right-handed.

3) Jason Kendall was at the plate when Gordon pinch-ran. If the point of bringing Gordon in to run was so that he might be able to score on a double in the gap, wouldn’t it make sense only if the batter could actually hit a double? We’re talking about the player with the lowest slugging average in the majors last year. Kendall has 3 extra-base hits so far this season, and had just 23 all of last year.

4) Rick Ankiel is supposedly available to pinch-hit, but he stayed on the bench in the 9th, while Bloomquist naturally made an out. So either Ankiel really isn’t available and the Royals are pulling our leg (never!), or Hillman really thought Bloomquist was his best option in the 9th.

- I know that Yuni is hitting .325, and we’ve been subject to the requisite articles that he’s become a better, more disciplined hitter. Pardon me if I wait a little longer before acknowledging defeat. His new-found discipline has translated into exactly one walk all season. Last night, he worked the count to 3-1 with two outs in the ninth, prompting Frank White (himself a fair swinger) to recommend that Yuni take a pitch and try to work a walk. He fouled off the 3-1 pitch, then swung on a 3-2 pitch that was high and a foot outside to end the game.

According to Fangraphs, Betancourt has swung at 56% of the pitches he’s seen this season – by far the most in his career. He’s swung at 46% of pitches outside the strike zone – last year he swung at just 31%, and his career high is 34%. All the evidence suggests that he’s LESS disciplined at the plate this season.

This lack of discipline has been most galling when it comes to situational hitting. Seven times this season Betancourt has batted with a man on third base and less than two out, i.e. a situation where you just want to put the ball in play. He has one hit in those seven at-bats, but the problem is that in his other six at-bats he didn’t bring the runner home even once. This cost the Royals the game on Saturday night, when he struck out with the game-winning run on 3rd base in the 10th (he saw four pitches, all of them out of the strike zone, and swung at three of them). It might have cost the Royals the game on Tuesday, when he grounded out weakly with Mitch Maier on third base and one out after Maier had tripled in the game’s first run. Maier didn’t score; the Royals lost 3-2. The major league average for bringing home a runner on third with less than two out is in the 55-60% range. For Yuni so far this year, it’s 14%.

So yeah, he’s hitting .325, but his approach hasn’t changed at all; if anything, it’s gotten worse. Batting average is a notoriously variable statistic, and even a bad hitter can hit .325 for a month. Just look at Betancourt himself:

July 2006: .374

May 2007: .327

August 2007: .317

April 2008: .301

August 2008: .305

September 2008: .343

Hell, Betancourt batted .303 last April, and by June the Mariners were desperate to get rid of him. Because even when Betancourt hits .300, his complete lack of walks and modest power makes him only marginally useful. And when he hits .214, like he did last May, he’s a lineup killer.

If Betancourt is hitting .325 at the All-Star Break, call me. Until then, call me a skeptic.

A Tale Of Two Bullpens.

How bad was it? The Royals’ bullpen broke more records than the White Sox on Disco Demolition Night. Ray Bradbury’s agent was calling them to pose for the cover of “Fahrenheit 451”. In “Close & Late” situations, over 728 at-bats, Royals’ opponents hit a ridiculous .328/.404/.520, turning every hitter into Gary Sheffield. Never before had a team blown more saves than they had recorded; the Royals saved just 29 of 59 games. The Royals were the first team in AL history to record a Rolaids Relief score below zero. According to Tom Ruane, the Royals’ 11-32 record in one-run games was the worst by any team in over 60 years. The four worst winning percentages in one-run games this century:

Year Team W L Pct.

1935 Boston (NL) 7 31 .184

1937 St. Louis (AL) 10 31 .244

1999 Kansas City 11 32 .256

1916 Philadelphia (AL) 11 32 .256

The 1937 St. Louis Browns finished 46-108 - and they were the best of the other three teams on this list. The 1935 Braves finished 38-115, the second-worst record this century. The worst? Those 1916 Athletics (36-117). Three teams with overall winning percentages in the .200s, and last year’s Royals. Wow.

As historic as their futility in close games was, it was the Royals’ collapse at the end of games that is so damning on the bullpen. The Royals, owners of the third-worst record in baseball, were better than .500 through 6 innings. Consider this chart, where “expected wins” assumes the Royals won all the games they were leading, and half the games they were tied:

Inning 6 7 8 Final

Ahead 73 70 66 64

Tied 20 15 14 0

Behind 68 76 81 97

Expected Wins 83 77.5 73 64

Through 6 innings, the Royals were 73-68 with 20 ties, yet by game’s end were 64-97. They slipped 19 games in the standings after the 6^th inning. Nineteen games. Inning-by-inning data is not available prior to 1980, but with Keith Woolner’s help, we found that over the last 20 years, the 1985 Pirates had held the record with an 18-game drop. After 7 innings, the Royals 13.5-game drop broke the record of 12, previously held by the 1997 Cubs.

You get the point. This isn’t your standard “we would have won 10 more games with a good bullpen” sob story. This was the Real McCoy. The 1999 Royals were the worst late-inning team of at least the last 20 years, and the worst close-game team of the last 60.

- Baseball Prospectus 2000

I wrote those words over a decade ago, and I never thought I would see a worse bullpen in my lifetime. I probably won’t – the season is still young, after all. But the 2010 Royals are giving the 1999 Royals a run for the money – and that’s with a shutdown closer in Joakim Soria.

Let’s compare the two head-to-head:

The 1999 Royals were 29 of 59 in save opportunities – as mentioned above, the first team in history to have more blown saves than actual saves. The 2010 Royals are 6 of 13 in save opportunities.

The 1999 bullpen had a composite 5.77 ERA. The 2010 bullpen has a 6.61 ERA. (And remember, 1999 was the peak of the juiced era – the league ERA was 4.86. The ERA of the American League this year – keep in mind that offense usually is down in April – is just 4.11.)

The 1999 bullpen allowed opposing hitters to bat .303/.385/.479. Against the 2010 bullpen, opposing hitters are batting .306/.408/.502.

The 1999 bullpen allowed 124 runs in the 7th inning (0.77 runs per game), and 111 runs in the 8th inning (0.69 runs per game). The 2010 bullpen, through 20 games, has allowed 23 runs in the 7th (1.15 runs per game) and 14 runs in the 8th (0.70 runs per game). That’s right – the team is allowing OVER ONE RUN AN INNING in the seventh.

The 1999 Royals were just 53-20 (.726) in games they were leading after 6 innings, and 55-15 (.786) in games they were leading after 7. The 2010 Royals are 5-6 (.455) in games they lead after 6, but 7-2 (.778) in games they lead after 8.

As shown in the chart above, the 1999 Royals were 73-68 with 20 ties after 6 innings – their “expected record” was 83-78, but they finished 64-97. In other words, they lost 19 games between the end of 6 innings and the end of the game. They lost 10.5 games after 7 innings, and 9 games after 8 innings.

After 6 innings, the 2010 Royals are 11-6 with 3 ties. (Read that again.) Their expected record is 12.5 – 7.5, which would put them in second place, just 2 games behind the Twins. Instead they are 8-12. Just 20 games into the season, the Royals have already lost 4.5 games after 6 innings. After 7 innings, they are 9-10 with one tie; they’ve lost 1.5 games after 7. They are 7-11 with 2 ties after 8 innings; thanks to Soria, their record hasn’t dropped at all after the 8th inning.

By almost every metric, the 2010 Royals have performed worse to this point than their 1999 counterparts. This is astonishing, given that the Royals have one of the best closers in baseball at their disposal. Partly thanks to Soria, and partly thanks to the Royals coming back after Kyle Farnsworth had given up the go-ahead run in extra innings against Detroit, the Royals’ record in one-run games is actually 4-4. Which, if anything, makes the performance of the bullpen even worse. The 1999 Royals suffered from bad luck as much as a bad bullpen; the bullpen found a way to give up just enough runs to lose, and the offense shut down in the late innings. By contrast, the 2010 Royals have actually come back in the late innings twice – once against the Tigers in the 11th, and once on Rick Ankiel’s bloop single in the 8th to beat the Red Sox. Without a more productive offense, the situation could be even more dire.

The closer for the 1999 Royals was Jeff Montgomery, who was on his last legs – he would retire after the season. Monty had just 12 saves and a whopping 6.84 ERA. Take out his performance, and the team’s middle relievers had a 5.64 ERA. Take out Soria’s performance this season (just 2 runs allowed in 9 innings), and the middle relievers this season have allowed 44 earned runs in 53.2 innings – a 7.38 ERA.

Yogi was right. It’s déjà vu all over again.

Bullpen Redux.

First off, I want to address the main criticism I’ve heard about my last article. As reader Dan wrote in the comment section:

“I’m really surprised that Rany missed Craig’s point, which many have already pointed out. The best use of the best reliever in your bullpen is not necessarily as a closer. Bring him in anytime in the last three innings when the scoring threat is greatest (men are on base, middle of the order, etc). Let him get out of that jam, and whether he gets three outs or stay[s] in for six, he got you out of the jam and you still have the lead. Worry about keeping a lead in the ninth when there is actually a lead in the ninth to worry about.”

I’ve seen a lot of comments like these, saying that it’s okay for Soria to come in to pitch the 7th inning in a key situation, because he doesn’t necessarily have to finish the game – once the crisis has passed, someone else can pitch the ninth.

I get this point, I really do. And I agree with it to some extent – in a perfect world, we wouldn’t have “closers”, we’d have “stoppers”, who are brought in to stop an opponent’s rally cold.

But the whole point of my article was that the way teams use their bullpens has evolved so drastically over the last 30 years that it’s a foolish utopian dream to argue that Trey Hillman should immediately jump back into the Dan Quisenberry model. Before we turn Joakim Soria into Quisenberry, I argued, let’s first turn him into Jeff Montgomery. Once the Royals see that Soria can handle that kind of role without the world ending, then we can talk about extending things further.

But to idea that the Royals should bring Soria in to pitch in the 7th and then come out of the game, letting someone else to pitch the 9th (and earn the save), is even more of a pipe dream than having him go 7 or 8 outs for the save. It’s simply never been done before. Never mind that the fans and media will absolutely revolt the first time Robinson Tejeda or Josh Rupe blows the 2-run lead in the 9th that Soria hands off to him. (This to me is actually a minor concern, because – for reasons I may get into in a future post – the media and fan base in Kansas City is probably more willing to accept sabermetric and other “unconventional” baseball ideas than anywhere else in America.)

Here’s a rough description of the four ways a team can use its closer, from the least efficient to the most efficient:

1) The Eckersley model: 9th-inning save situations only.

2) The Montgomery model: pitch the 9th, and sometimes the 8th, usually save situations but also in tie games.

3) The Quisenberry model: come in whenever the game is on the line, from the 6th inning on, and stay in to close out the game.

4) The Utopian model: come in to put out fires at any point in the game, then exit the game and let a lesser reliever pitch once the fire is out.

Currently, pretty much every team in baseball follows the first method; a few teams (including the Royals) will dabble with the second method. In my last article I argued for the Royals to whole-heartedly adopt Method #2, and worry about Method #3 later. The response has been “what about Method #4?” To which I can only say, “let’s get the Royals to embrace Method #2 first.” Sure, I’d love to see the Royals adopt Method #4 – but I’d also love to see them embrace the 4-man rotation, and carry just 10 pitchers, and build a platoon at a couple of positions, and clone George Brett. But step by step, guys.

Otto Von Bismarck once said, “Politics is the art of the possible.” I am trying to be political here, because I want to see the Royals (and every other team) use their best reliever more efficiently, and I’d rather push for a small change that’s possible than a large change that isn’t. I’m not saying that the people pushing for the Royals to use Soria in the Utopian model are wrong. They’re not. I’m not even saying that they’re wasting their time, because they’re not. As I’ve learned from reading Nate Silver, if nothing else, suggesting the Utopian model may help move the Overton Window, which may make a less extreme but still radical idea like using Soria for 6 outs become more palatable.

So by all means, let’s keep reminding the Royals that there’s a better way to use Soria. But let’s also temper our expectations. It took 30 years for teams to make a complete mess of the way they use their closers. It’s going to take time – and a lot of intermediate steps – to reverse the damage.

- Last night, Hillman brought Soria in to pitch the 9th in a tie game. This isn’t that notable – once the game goes into the 9th inning tied, it becomes impossible for the home team to have a save situation, so you have no choice but to use your closer in a tie game. Still, there are a lot of managers who would have waited at least until extra innings before bringing in their closer. Then, after Soria worked a rather efficient 9th inning with just 12 pitches, Hillman let him throw the 10th as well. If Yuniesky Betancourt had ever bothered to learn that you don’t actually have to swing at every pitch, Hillman might have been rewarded for his willingness to defy conventional wisdom with a victory. (In the bottom of the 10th, with the winning run on third and one out, Betancourt saw four pitches. None of them were in the strike zone, yet he swung at three of them, and struck out.)

The bullpen remains a cluster**** of the highest order, but I stand by my position that Hillman is mostly an innocent bystander in all this. It’s hard for any manager to look smart when he has exactly one reliable reliever. Hillman deserves better than to be scapegoated because his GM has made such a mess of things.

- Speaking of Dayton Moore and his mess, Moore turned the impressive trick of dumping Luis Mendoza without actually improving the bullpen. Mendoza was replaced with Bruce Chen, and while Chen pitched poorly for the Royals last season, his career ERA (4.71) is barely half that of Mendoza (8.43). Moreover, in three starts for Omaha he had allowed just 13 hits in 21 innings, with 20 strikeouts against just 5 walks. Chen is one of those Quadruple-A guys who always dominates in Triple-A but struggles in the majors, so I’m not expecting much from him, but he’s better than Mendoza.

Unfortunately, Moore also released Juan Cruz and replaced him with Brad Thompson. This is mystifying. I understand that Cruz has been an unbridled failure with the Royals, and it’s impressive that Moore was willing to accept the sunk cost of his contract (and that David Glass let him). But at least Cruz has a history of success, something Thompson really doesn’t. Cruz went on the DL late last year, and based on the results I suspect he was pitching hurt for most of the season. After striking out 33% of the batters he faced in 2007-2008, he struck out just 17% of opposing batters last year.

This year, he was ridiculously ineffective with men on base (he allowed all 6 runners he inherited to score), but he also struck out 7 of the 28 batters he faced. There was at least a glimmer of hope there. I don’t see how, in just 5.1 innings of work, he showed the Royals enough to release him – particularly when they’re keeping Kyle Farnsworth, who’s been almost exactly as ineffective. (Farnsworth has thrown 5.2 innings. Both pitchers have allowed 9 hits. Cruz walked four; Farnsworth has walked only two, but also hit two batters, and he’s given up a homer. And Farnsworth has only three strikeouts.)

In his place, the Royals have brought up Thompson, who had a 4.84 ERA for the Cardinals last year, and is an extreme finesse pitcher who struck out just 34 batters in 80 innings. Given how bad the team’s defense still is – as put on vivid display each of the last few nights – I’m not sure a pitcher who’s primary skill is pitching to contact is going to be any better than Cruz.

The Royals have a wealth of relief options in the minors, from the just-waiting-for-his-turn Carlos Rosa to the nearly-ready Blake Wood to the always-forgotten Chris Hayes to some intriguing Double-A options like Blaine Hardy and Federico Castaneda. None of these guys are sure things; they’re all still better than recycling yet another failed major league pitcher.

- Just to make it clear how much the bullpen has hurt the Royals, consider this: if games ended after six innings, the Royals would be 8-6 with 3 ties. Instead, they’re 6-11. Get this: the Royals have a losing record when leading after six innings. In the eight games they’ve led after six, they’re 3-5.

The 7th inning is the culprit. Thanks to Soria, the Royals have won all 5 games they’ve had a lead going into the 9th. And they’ve only lost 1 game where they had a lead entering the 8th. But between the beginning and the end of the 7th, the Royals go from 8-6 with 3 ties to 6-10 with 1 tie.

- What is most amazing to me about the pitching staff this season is that, despite a middle relief corps that is historically inept, no one has even suggested that one possible solution might be to let the starting pitchers work a little deeper into the game.

The Royals have played 17 games so far, and not once has their starter thrown even 110 pitches. Only six times has the starter thrown 100 pitches. Neither Kyle Davies nor Brian Bannister has thrown 100 pitches yet.

I’m not saying this is a bad thing, necessarily – the usage of starting pitchers today is much more sane than it was 10 or 15 years ago. I’m just saying that if you had told me back in 1998, when I first invented Pitcher Abuse Points because Jim Leyland was letting Jesus Sanchez throw 146 pitches and Livan Hernandez throw 153 pitches and Tony Muser was grinding Jose Rosado’s arm into dust, that a scant 12 years later a team would rather lose game after game in the 7th inning than let its starting pitchers (none of whom are younger than 26, mind you) throw even 110 pitches…well, let’s just say I would have been surprised.

The starting pitchers have averaged 5.82 innings per start this year; even if you take Gil Meche out of the equation, it’s 6.17 innings per start. The Royals’ starter has completed the 7th inning just twice all season. The Royals could easily let their starters get another out or two – allowing them to complete the 7th more regularly – without letting them exceed 115 or 120 pitches. For pitchers with mature arms (i.e. older than 25), I don’t really get concerned with their pitch counts until they approach 120.

It’s clear the Royals don’t have a reliever capable of protecting leads in the 7th. Maybe the solution is to see if their starters are capable of protecting leads in the 7th.

Hillman and the Bullpen.

Jason Kendall is hitting .352, Yuniesky Betancourt is hitting .309…and the Royals are still 6-9. Apparently not even Lucifer can guarantee the Royals victory. If Joe Hardy played for Kansas City, “Damn Yankees” would end with the Royals losing their 100th game of the season.

The Royals incessant failures have allowed another meme to crop up, a meme that is explained well by Craig Brown here:

‘Asked by the traveling reporters if he considered bringing closer Joakim Soria into Tuesday’s seventh inning, Hillman offered this:

“There’s a thought there but, No. 1, it’s a very unusual time for Joakim Soria to pitch in a ballgame. No. 2, you’ve still got those same bats coming up in the ninth in a higher-leverage situation — because it is the ninth, even if there are no runners on base.”

I added the emphasis because Hillman’s use of term “high leverage” is impressive. It would be more impressive if he knew what the hell he was talking about.

Following his logic, the higher the inning number, the higher the leverage. Sometimes, it actually works that way. Other times, like Tuesday, not so much.’

I’m going to do something a little unexpected here: I’m going to defend Trey Hillman – to a point. I don’t mean to pick on Craig specifically – he’s a great guy and one of the best Royals bloggers in the business. He wasn’t the first person to criticize Hillman for this quote; he just had the misfortune of being the last, or at least the one whose article I was reading (after Rob Neyer linked to it) when I decided to respond.

I’ve written many times (it’s not original; Bill James wrote this a quarter-century ago) that bad teams inevitably focus on their failures on their best players. (Just witness the manner in which the Royals have treated Alex Gordon this season; as Bob Dutton wrote last night, Gordon’s “time in the big leagues might hinge on his production while Chris Getz recovers from a strained right oblique”. I like Chris Getz, but the notion that Gordon might lose his job to Getz is nutz.)

But I think that we can add a Fan’s Corollary to The Rule of Bad Teams, that goes something like this:

A fan base that has endured too much losing for too long inevitably focuses on minor or secondary causes for their team’s failures, because the primary cause of those failures are too basic to warrant mentioning.

In the Royals’ case, the root cause of the team’s failure so far this season is pretty simple: the bullpen can’t pitch worth a damn. But that’s too easy and definitive an explanation. It’s hard to admit that the problem is that we have exactly one good reliever, because that’s a problem that no amount of massaging can fix. So instead it’s tempting to say that the real problem is that Trey Hillman is doing a lousy job of using his one good reliever. It’s tempting to say that the problem would be solved by simply using Joakim Soria in the seventh inning.

It was Voltaire who originally said, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” We could use a little Voltaire right now, and not just because he probably had a better slider than Roman Colon.

Look, I would love to see Soria come in when the Royals are in a jam in the 7th inning, work his way out of it, then close out the game in the 8th and 9th, just like my grandpappy told me Dan Quisenberry did it in the good ol’ days. I fervently believe that the reliever usage patterns of the 1970s and early 1980s were significantly better than those of today. But to think that the Royals, or any team, is going to turn the clock back 30 years in one jump is ridiculous, and holding on to that kind of hope will only lead to frustration.

I’m going to define a “Long Save” as a save in which the pitcher recorded 7 or more outs, i.e. he entered the game in the 7th inning or earlier, but stayed in to close out the game. By that definition, here’s a brief history of the Long Save:

Prior to 1960, the most Long Saves in a season was 9, by Hoyt Wilhelm in 1953.

From 1960 to 1969, a pitcher recorded 9 or more Long Saves in a season 11 times (three times by Wilhelm again); the record was 13, by Bob Lee in 1964.

In the 1970s, eighteen pitchers recorded 9 or more Long Saves in a season, and a 5 Long Save season was accomplished no fewer than 119 times. In 1979, Jim Kern broke Lee’s record with 16 Long Saves.

The Long Save was still prominent in the 1980s; 16 pitchers reached the 9-Long Save mark, and 117 pitchers had at least 5 Long Saves in a season. In 1982, Dan Quisenberry recorded 17 Long Saves, still the all-time record. He had 13 in 1983, and 15 (third-most all-time) in 1984.

But during this decade the counter-revolution began. In the first half of the 80s (1980-1984), there were eleven 9 Long Save seasons, and 68 seasons with 5 Long Saves. From 1985 to 1989, there were just 5 and 49, respectively.

In 1989 and 1990, the Oakland A’s had probably the best bullpen in major league history of a 2-year span. This was partly due to the way Tony La Russa handled Dennis Eckersley, protecting the broken-down starter by using him in one-inning roles almost exclusively. Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, the Long Save disappeared from the game almost overnight.

In 1990, Duane Ward had 7 Long Saves for the Blue Jays. The following year six different pitchers had 5 Long Saves. Since 1992, only two pitchers – Derek Lowe and Scott Williamson, both in 1999 – have had 5 Long Saves in a season. Since 2000, the only pitcher with more than 5 Long Saves FOR THE DECADE is Tim Wakefield, with 6. That should be a clue that, in virtually every case, the rare Long Save that occurs in today’s game goes to pitchers who are long relievers, not closers, who happened to come into the game in the 6th inning of a 10-2 game, and went ahead and completed the game, thus earning a save by the rule that any pitcher who throws 3 innings to close out a victory gets one.

While it’s possible I’ve missed someone, as best as I can tell there has not been a single instance of a closer pitching more than 2 innings for a save this century. Williamson had a 7-out save for the Reds on May 5th, 2000, but he was sort of the co-closer with Danny Graves at the time. The closest I can find is Salomon Torres, who had a 3-inning save on April 4, 2008, and saved 28 games that year – but his next save wasn’t until May 24th, so it’s pretty clear he wasn’t in the closer’s role yet.

So yes, it would be perfect if Soria became the first closer in over two decades to enter a game in the 7th inning. But it’s not going to happen, and it won’t happen until we first see closers being regularly used in the 8th inning.

And in that category, Hillman is actually ahead of the curve. Let’s call a save of at least 4 outs a Medium Save. Like the Long Save, the Medium Save has become more and more rare over the years, but is still occasionally seen in the wild. In 1983, Quisenberry had 35 (!) Medium Saves – meaning only 10 of his then-record 45 saves were of the 9th-inning variety. In 1993, Jeff Montgomery had 18 Medium Saves – John Wetteland had 19 – and no one has had that many in a season since. But as recently as 2004, John Smoltz had 16 Medium Saves, the most of any pitcher in the last 17 seasons.

Here’s a list of the pitchers with the most Medium Saves in 2009:

8: Brian Wilson

7: Joakim Soria

7: Mariano Rivera

7: Ryan Franklin

7: Andrew Bailey

Now yes, it’s true that Hillman only started stretching Soria out after it was clear he had no choice – he recorded his first one on July 7th, and the second one on July 25th, after the memorable meltdown against Tampa Bay when the Royals lost three straight games in the 8th inning. But at least he did adapt. That’s more than I can say for other members of the organization.

If you want to argue that Hillman is not using Soria correctly, you’ll have to talk to someone else – I agree with you. But I have to point out that Hillman’s usage of his closer is no worse, and in many cases is better, than the way that 29 other managers use theirs. You could respond, as Rob Neyer frequently does, that when you’re the Royals, being “no worse” than other teams isn’t enough – given the inherent disadvantages to your market, you have to do things better than the competition.

I would agree to that as well. But Hillman doesn’t have to use Soria in the 7th inning to accomplish that. He simply needs to use him in the 8th more regularly.

Hillman has shown a willingness to do that. Twice this season, Soria has come in for the save with two outs in the 8th. Not impressed? Consider that he is the only pitcher in baseball with 2 Medium Saves this year.

Really, my only beef with Hillman’s usage of Soria is his bizarre delineation between the four-out save and the six-out save. Hillman has said on multiple occasions that he feels there’s a big difference between the two, which I find curious. To me, the bigger difference would be between the three-out and the four-out save – in the latter case, you come in to pitch, then sit down for 15 minutes, then get up again. Being forced to warm up twice instead of once would seem to me to be a bigger difference than throwing an extra 10 pitches in the 8th.

The refusal to use Soria for more than 4 outs nearly cost them the game yesterday, and did cost Greinke the victory. Yesterday was the perfect day to stretch Soria out a little – he hadn’t pitched since the 18th, and today is an off-day. With a one-run lead on the road, it was madness to start the inning with anyone else – and yet Hillman did just that, bringing in the guy who was in Triple-A ten days ago to start the inning. The Blue Jays predictably tied the game up.

Our story has a happy ending, because in the 9th Robinson Tejeda threw one of the most overpowering innings I have ever witnessed*, and then Alex Gordon had one of the most important hits of his career, a two-out, extra-inning home run off a left-handed pitcher after he had gone 0-for-3 with 2 Ks and a throwing error in the game. Soria got his 3-out save opportunity, and everyone went home happy. But they almost didn’t.

*: Tejeda threw 8 pitches in the inning, all strikes, and all (I believe) fastballs. He struck out Vernon Wells on 3 pitches, got Lyle Overbay to hit a lazy flyball on an 0-1 count, then struck out Jose Bautista on 3 pitches. It was a ridiculous display of power pitching, and proof that if he can just throw strikes, Tejeda can be that bridge to Soria the Royals so desperately need.

What makes Hillman’s refusal to use Soria to start the 8th so maddening is that he finally broke down and gave in to the impulse last season, and it worked beautifully. After the bullpen collapse against Tampa Bay, Soria came in to start the 8th six times the rest of the season. In one of those games, he came in with a 5-4 lead, gave up three runs in the 8th and was pulled after getting just two outs. In the other five games, he pitched two scoreless innings for the save. In another game Hillman brought him in to pitch the bottom of the ninth in a tie game at Detroit; the Royals scored in the 10th and Soria finished out the game to earn the win.

Soria earned 5 saves of the 6-out variety in 2009. No other pitcher in baseball had more than 2. The last pitcher with 5 such saves was Aquilino Lopez in 2003.

The Twins are frequently held up as the smartest team in the division; Joe Posnanski thinks that Ron Gardenhire is the best manager in the game. You know how many times Joe Nathan has gone 6 outs for the save in his career? Once – on June 15th, 2006.

Let’s go around the division. How many 6-out saves does Bobby Jenks have in his career? One – against the Royals, in September of 2005. The last Indians closer to go 6 outs for a save was Steve Karsay, in 2000. The last Tigers closer to go 6 outs was Matt Anderson, in 2001.

So is the difference between the Royals and the other teams in the division really the way that Trey Hillman uses his closer? Or is the difference that the other teams in the division actually have someone to pitch the 8th inning? Which is a bigger mistake – that Hillman didn’t go to Soria in the 8th yesterday, or that he did go to Josh Rupe – and that aside from Soria, Josh Rupe was probably the best option?

If Tejeda had pitched the 8th, and pitched it as well as he would end up pitching the 9th, this is all an academic exercise. And going forward, on a team that’s so starved for middle relief that literally one good outing can move you right behind Soria in the pecking order, we might well see Tejeda in that spot the next time the Royals need a bridge to their closer.

If the Royals continue to struggle this season, Hillman is probably going to get the axe, and I can’t say that I’ll be particularly sad to see him go. But his usage of Soria wouldn’t make my top ten list of reasons why he should be fired. Yes, I would argue that Hillman should use Soria for two innings instead of one, that he should use him in tie games rather than to protect three-run leads, and all that.

But look around baseball. On Saturday night, Jerry Manuel used every other reliever in his bullpen to pitch in a scoreless game in extra innings, before he finally got around to using his closer, Francisco Rodriguez, in the 19th inning. And Manuel out-managed Tony La Russa, who double-switched Matt Holliday out of the game, putting the pitcher in the lineup right behind Albert Pujols; inexplicably hit-and-ran with Pujols at the plate in the 19th inning, costing the Cardinals the game; and made a half-dozen other ridiculous decisions. Managers – even good managers – make sub-optimal decisions all the time. Hillman’s track record in this regard is hardly unusual.

Two years ago, Soria saved 42 games, yet only twice did he pitch more than 3 outs for the save. Yet no one was complaining too loudly about Hillman’s use of his bullpen, because the Royals had Ramon Ramirez and Leo Nunez to pitch the 8th. That the Royals no longer have Ramirez and Nunez to pitch the 8th is regrettable, but don’t pin the blame for that on Hillman.

The Royals have a bullpen of horrors for the second straight season, but the root cause for that is not a failure to manage their personnel. It’s a failure to select their personnel. And the fault for that does not reside primarily with Hillman. If you’re looking to blame someone for that, you have to aim higher.

Having Soria pitch in a tight situation in the 7th or even 6th inning would be perfect, but simply having Soria start the 8th inning to protect a one-run lead would be good. The perfect is the enemy of the good. Let’s concentrate our efforts on convincing Hillman to send Soria out there for six outs instead of four. I still hold out hope that one day baseball teams will go back to the way bullpens were run in 1977. But we have to get back to 1993 first.

Another Post About The Training Staff.

Put down the pitchforks, guys – I swear I come in peace this time!

If you haven’t read Bob Dutton’s article about Jose Guillen from the other day, I suggest that you read it now. The take-home story from the article is this: it’s a minor miracle that Guillen is playing at all right now, let alone ranking second in the league with 5 homers and an .861 slugging average.

If Guillen really spent three weeks in a hospital with blood clots in both legs, that certainly explains the Royals’ outfielder buying spree this offseason. All winter I said that the Royals were acting as if the rules were going to be changed to allow a 26-man (or larger) roster. Guillen played the outfield last year as if he was in a wheelchair – but he really was in a wheelchair over the winter, and I can’t imagine that the Royals thought he’d be an active member of the roster on Opening Day.

But he was not only active, he’s been crushing the ball from day one. On Opening Day I noticed – as many of you did – that his bat speed seemed a lot quicker; he was actually turning on fastballs instead of topping grounders to the second baseman. Tonight he has a chance to tie Mike Sweeney’s team record by homering in five straight games.

There’s a lot to this story that doesn’t really add up – in particular, the fact that Guillen kept suffering leg injury after leg injury, seemingly for more and more trivial reasons (like the torn MCL suffered while putting on his shoes). If I understand the story correctly, he then had ankle surgery after the season, and then developed blood clots (a.k.a. deep venous thrombosis, a possible complication after surgery) in both legs, which is a little unusual unless he had surgery on both legs, which - although the details aren't clear - doesn’t seem to be the case.

But if there’s one thing I take from this story, it’s that Guillen – ahem – wasn’t well served by the team’s training and medical staff last year. Guillen’s legs looked awful all season, both defensively – last year he might have been the slowest outfielder I’ve ever seen – and offensively, where he admits now he didn’t have the strength in his legs to drive the ball. And remember, that’s before he ended up in the hospital for three weeks. Now, we have no idea if he shouldn't have been playing because playing made his injuries worse. But we have a very good idea that he shouldn't have been playing because he wasn't able to play.

And yet here he is, seemingly healthy, and undoubtedly crushing the ball. On Wednesday, BEFORE this article came out, I mentioned to my radio co-host Jason Anderson (Rany on the Radio returns soon!) that Guillen looks like a completely different player this year, and what looks on the surface to be a hitting success may in fact be a trainer success. As you know, the Royals have a completely new training staff with Athletic Trainer Nick Kenney and Assistant Athletic Trainer Kyle Turner. Is it a coincidence that Jose Guillen, coming off a potentially career-ending series of health woes, is on perhaps the hottest stretch of his Royals career?

Trying to evaluate a trainer based one on month of data is ridiculous; it’s like evaluating a farm system based on one day’s worth of box scores. And the health of a roster is dependent on so many factors, from the players’ work habits to the age of the roster to sheer luck, that sussing out the trainer’s role in all this is inordinately difficult. On that note, I understand the team’s reaction to my takedown of Nick Swartz last year. But my frustration with Swartz was the culmination of literally 20 years of bad results, from Benito Santiago’s broken hand in 2003 to Jose Rosado’s shoulder in 2000 to Jim Pittsley’s elbow in 1994. There’s a point where even with trainers, sample sizes become meaningful.

With the new training staff, the sample size isn’t even measurable, let alone meaningful. But let’s try anyway, and look at all the injuries that the Royals have suffered since spring training started:

- Alex Gordon broke his thumb trying to slide. A purely traumatic, unavoidable injury for which only Gordon deserves blame for sliding head-first. His thumb has healed on schedule, and if he were, say, Ryan Zimmerman he might well have been in the lineup on Opening Day. Instead, he’s Alex Gordon, who the Royals have become so frustrated with that seem to be treating him punitively – he’s rehabbing all the way down in A-ball.

- Rick Ankiel twisted his ankle somehow, and what seemed like a minor injury became somewhat worrisome when he ended up missing more than a week with it. But once Ankiel returned to the lineup, he hasn’t had any issued with his ankle, and has hit well so far this year.

- Alberto Callaspo tweaked his oblique muscle. A fully strained oblique muscle is a 4-6 week injury at the minimum, so this was taken very seriously, as he was held out of the Opening Day lineup to give it a couple of extra days to heal, even though his public pronoucements made it sound like he was ready to play. He’s been in the lineup since the second game, and has had no further issues with it.

- Gil Meche developed shoulder stiffness in mid-March, and we all feared the worst from a pitcher who hasn’t been right since he threw too many pitches in a series of starts in late June and early July. He was brought back slowly, and worked in some minor league games late in spring training, before he made his first start on April 11th. He wasn’t effective, but he did strike out 4 batters in 3.1 innings and was timed at 95 on the radar gun. I’m skeptical that he’ll hold up all season, but I’m impressed that he came back as quickly as he did in the first place.

- Mike Aviles came back at least 6 weeks ahead of schedule, and hit over .400 in spring training.

- John Parrish, who had torn his shoulder up and missed all of last season, not only was the biggest surprise to make the roster, but has been the most (only) effective middle reliever on the team so far.

On the minor league side, Dan Duffy had a sore elbow before he went AWOL, and Mike Moustakas strained his oblique muscle enough that he probably won’t be playing in Double-A for another two weeks. But looking at the track record so far, I can’t help but be impressed by the results. Players who suffered minor injuries were allowed to heal completely, and have yet to suffer any setbacks. A player who suffered a major injury returned to the field well ahead of schedule, and showed no lingering effects. Another player came back from a potential career-ending injury and is pitching as well as he ever has. A player who hasn’t looked right in two years looks like he was run through the Juvenation Machine this spring.

It’s way too early to have any kind of hard-formed opinion on the new training staff. But the results I’ve seen so far are truly impressive. Teams that underestimate the importance of health on a roster do so at their own peril. The Royals no longer are one of those teams, and it seems to me that their change in heart is already paying dividends.

You Can't Make A Bullpen Out Of Bull****.

Eight games into the season, we should be talking about how impressive the offense looks. The Royals have scored 38 runs in eight games, ranking fifth in the league; they’re hitting .290/.348/.438 as a team. Jose Guillen has four homers and is slugging .781. Rick Ankiel had hits in 8 straight at-bats at one point. Jason Kendall has started all eight games (no surprise) and has an 8-game hitting streak (big surprise). Scott Podsednik is hitting .452 and is on pace for 121 steals.

And yet the Royals are 3-5, because they’ve allowed the second-most runs in the league. They’ve done so even though their rotation has a perfectly respectable 4.21 ERA. The bullpen, on the other hand, has a 7.96 ERA, and has allowed more than two baserunners per inning.

Karl Marx once wrote that “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” Marx never delineated the third step, which is unfortunate, as we entered the farce stage sometime last summer. And speaking of Communism, when your poor beleaguered beat reporter suggests that the best way to deal with your bullpen is “lining them all up like the Romanovs” – you might have a problem. (A more recent version of that article has softened the opening line a bit. Bob Dutton has watched damn near every Royals game this century; I wouldn’t blame him one bit if he finally snapped.)

That the Royals have a massive bullpen problem should not be a surprise to anyone. They finished last season with a massive leaking hole between their starters and Joakim Soria, and then over the offseason, while they were signing hitters like they were a kid in an outfielder store, they didn’t make a single move to address their bullpen. Every single member of their bullpen today was in their bullpen at the end of last season, with two exceptions: Luis Mendoza, who was picked up right before the season after he couldn’t make the Rangers staff, because the Royals felt that one Roman Colon just wasn’t enough; and John Parrish, a left-hander who missed all of 2009 with arm surgery.

It’s telling that Parrish has been the only middle reliever who’s been even remotely effective. Parrish has retired all 10 batters he’s faced, including a host of tough left-handed hitters he was brought in specifically to face: he made four one-batter appearances before being left in to pitch two perfect innings in his last outing.

It’s also telling that Soria has also faced only 10 batters all season – along with Parrish, the fewest of any reliever on the roster. Colon has faced 14 of them. Robinson Tejeda has faced 21 batters (and walked only 6!). LUIS MENDOZA has faced 18. But the best reliever on the squad by a factor of about 100, one of the three best relievers in the history of the franchise, has faced only ten. If he doesn’t pitch again soon, the Royals may need to shut him down for the rest of the season to keep him healthy.

So the problems with the bullpen should not be a surprise. Nor should it be a surprise that finding solutions to this problem are awfully difficult in mid-April. Trading for middle relief is almost always a fool’s enterprise, and while there are a few decent free agents still looking for a home, I’m not aware of any quality relievers who are still on the open market. (If there were, Ed Wade would have signed them already.)

Nevertheless, there a few simple things that can be done:

Stop carrying eight relievers. This might be the funniest sub-plot of the Royals’ bullpen – that the Royals think that quantity can somehow substitute for quality. It brings to mind the old woman’s complaint to a restaurant that “the food is terrible, and the portions are so small.” Maybe we don’t have any good relievers – but at least we have lots of bad ones!

It’s not like the Royals have a rotation that needs coddling. With the exception of Meche’s disaster start, the team’s starter has gone at least 5.2 innings in every start. The idea that any team needs eight relievers to get the last ten outs of each ballgame is laughable. The idea that a team needs an eighth reliever more than a fourth bench player is repugnant.

The solution here is obvious. Luis Mendoza has a career 8.32 ERA in the majors. He has a career 4.67 ERA IN TRIPLE-A. He has a career 5.06 ERA IN DOUBLE-A. I could pull out a host of more advanced statistics, but really, does anything more need to be said? He sucks. The Royals have nothing invested in him. Designate him for assignment, and if by some miracle another team claims him – count your blessings.

In his place, bring up a hitter. I know that Kendall’s hitting .310 at the moment, but between him and Betancourt, there are going to be a lot of opportunities for opposing teams to use a tough right-handed pitcher on two of the weakest hitters in baseball. In six games in Omaha, Kila Ka’aihue already has three homers and eight walks. He would give opposing pitchers fits as a lefty Three True Outcomes hitter off the bench, occasional fill-in at first base at DH, and give the Royals an opportunity to evaluate him as a potential everyday player next year.

Replacing Mendoza with Ka’aihue is an astonishingly common-sense move to make. Which is why I don’t expect it will happen.

Release Roman Colon. I’ve already called Roman Colon “the Yuniesky Betancourt of the bullpen”, and frankly that might not be fair to Yuni. Betancourt, at least, was at one time a reasonably useful player whose skills have simply regressed over the past 3 years. Colon, on the other hand, has never been a usable major-league pitcher. In 2004, he had a 3.38 ERA in all of 19 innings for the Braves, and that was his high-water mark. The following year he had a 5.58 ERA; in 2006, he had a 4.89 ERA; and he spent all of 2007 and 2008 in the minors. (Where he was basically kicked out of the Tigers’ organization after breaking a teammate’s jaw in a fight, remember. Classy.)

While in the minors he was no better – he had a 4.43 ERA in 2007, and a 4.74 ERA in 2008. He was better in 2009, with a 2.84 ERA for Omaha, but only pitched 25 innings before the Royals hustled him to the majors.

Colon has not remotely approached a major-league caliber pitcher in at least six years – but the Royals have treated him like God’s Gift to Pitching since the moment they acquired him, overlooking both his off-field incident and the fact that he doesn’t get anyone out. This spring, the Royals raved about his new slider and boasted that it would take him to a new level.

Well, that slider has been so intimidating that of those 14 batters he’s faced, he’s struck out exactly one of them. He’s walked two, hit a batter, and allowed 5 hits. The Royals are right: he’s not the same pitcher he was last year. He’s worse.

The same scouting eye that tells the Royals that Yuniesky Betancourt’s lateral range is just fine must be the same eye that tells the Royals that Roman Colon’s stuff is good enough to get hitters out. The difference is that the Royals haven’t guaranteed millions of dollars to Colon. Ship him out, and bring in someone who has actually proven he can retire major-league – or at least minor-league – hitters.

Bring up Carlos Rosa. The Royals have many intriguing minor-league relievers, but Rosa is probably the only one who is ready for the majors.

Blake Wood has seen his stuff improve significantly since moving to the pen this spring, but he has all of eight relief appearances in his career.

Chris Hayes would be the third- or fourth-best reliever on the roster immediately, but he has not pitched at all this season. One source has told me that he’s on the minor-league DL. Another source, though, swears that Disco isn’t hurt at all, and that the Royals are playing shenanigans with the DL because they don’t have enough Triple-A roster spots and they deemed Hayes to be expendable. The Royals have gone out of their way to avoid giving Hayes an opportunity, so this wouldn’t surprise me at all.

The idea of giving Aaron Crow and Mike Montgomery an apprenticeship in the bullpen before graduating to the rotation is an inspired one. But both are still a few months away from being ready for that sort of promotion, and I’d worry that success in that role would only tempt the Royals into keeping them in a relief role for the long term.

I don’t trust Victor Marte one bit, and Greg Holland needs more seasoning. Louis Coleman and Brandon Sisk are very intriguing but not quite ready. That leaves only Rosa.

Rosa made the move from the rotation to the bullpen last season, and was terrible at first; through the end of June he gave up 21 walks and 5 homers in 38 innings. But from July onward he was much better, allowing just 11 walks and one homer in 34 innings, while striking out 39. This year he has thrown four scoreless innings, though he blew the save in his last outing by allowing inherited runners to score. He has a very live fastball in the mid-90s, but his secondary stuff needs work. He’s not going to be a savior, or even a primary set-up man at first, but at least he can come in with a 5-1 run lead in the seventh inning and get some outs, unlikely the guy he would be replacing.

Pray. Maybe Juan Cruz will start to pitch like he did prior to becoming a Royal. Maybe Kyle Farnsworth will pitch as well with the game on the line as he does in garbage time. Maybe Robinson Tejeda will throw strike one. Maybe Joakim Soria can throw 150 innings this year. At this point, all we can do is put our faith in God that things will get better. Because we can no longer put faith in our front office.