Royals Today: 9/16/2010.

Sorry about the long delay between posts. Sometimes real life gets in the way. Let’s try to catch up with a potpourri.

- A little over two weeks ago, I wrote that Wilson Betemit “is going to finish with the greatest partial season in the history of the Royals.” I also suggested that the Royals consider signing him to a 3-year deal after the season, rather than risk losing him to free agency after 2011 (or paying him a lot more to re-sign than they’d have to pay him now.) The comments section was rather skeptical of this suggestion.

“I wouldn't go paying Betemit too much money or commit for too long. He had 1,275 MLB at-bats prior to 2010 in which he had an OPS of 756, and that's also in line with what you'd expect from his minor-league hitting record.”

“If he would take a one year ML deal for 1 mil, fine. Anything more than that, let him walk.”

“[T]here is no need to think about a 3 year deal. Moustakas will be up no later than midseason, and Hosmer should be up to start '11. He will make for a nice utility guy next year, but I don't think there is a spot for him after that.”

So yeah, there was some skepticism, which I’m sure only intensified after Betemit started September in a 1-for-21 slide. But over the last seven games, Betemit has gone 13-for-29, with 3 doubles and 2 homers, including his first career grand slam. His seasonal line is now .317/.399/.552, in over 250 plate appearances. And I ask again: shouldn’t we at least acknowledge the possibility that this isn’t a fluke? And if it’s not, shouldn’t the Royals be looking to sign him to a long-term deal.

My friend Joe Sheehan came back with the retort that in 2008 and 2009, in roughly the same number of at-bats, Betemit hit .252/.287/.406, and that counts too. Which it does. But if we simply add together Betemit’s numbers for all three years, then from 2008 to today, in a sample size of 511 plate appearances (almost a full season), Betemit has hit .284/.345/.478 with 36 doubles and 18 homers. Is it that unrealistic to expect Betemit to hit .284/.345/.478 in a full season next year? And if not, isn’t that a guy worth signing for 3 years?

(Those of you who subscribe to Joe Sheehan’s Newsletter can read a much more extensive back-and-forth between Joe and I. If you don’t subscribe, you’re missing out.)

Or to look at this from another angle, this timely article from Fangraphs breaks down Betemit’s numbers from this season and comes to the unsurprising conclusion that he’s been awfully lucky in the batting average department. That’s hardly a surprise – you ordinarily can’t hit .317 while on pace to strike out 140 times unless you have massive power. But according to Fangraphs, even when you take the air out of Betemit’s batting average, you’re left with a projected line of .287/.373/.522. And I say again: are you sure you wouldn’t want that hitter around for the next 3 years?

Betemit, remember, is just 28 years old. The Royals signed Jose Guillen when he was 32; if the Royals signed Betemit to a 3-year deal, he wouldn’t be 32 when the contract ended.

The terms I suggested ($12 million for 3 years) came under some fire, and in fairness, I just pulled those numbers out of thin air. It’s quite possible that he would sign for less than that. He’s arbitration-eligible for 2011, and arbitration looks at a player’s production for the last two seasons, so Betemit’s brief and ineffective stint in the majors last year would keep his salary down. (As would the fact that he’s been a part-time player.) I’d be astonished if he made more than $2 million in arbitration.

A 3-year, $12 million deal would essentially tack on a 2-year, $10 million extension to his contract. That might be generous – I could see a 3-year, $10 million deal instead, or even 3 year, $9 million, with a $1 million buyout of a generous option for 2014. These are details best worked out by guys like Jin Wong, who do this full time and have access to the terms of every other contract in the major league for comparison’s sake. The point is that regardless of what the terms are, it’s a very manageable contract.

Would Betemit accept such a deal? I’m inclined to think he would. He’s made roughly $4 million in his career, which is good money for you and me but not the kind of money that sets him up for life. Signing a three-year deal now would put him into that kind of financial security, and still allow him to chase big dollars at the age of 32. He might well be willing to give up the chance to get double that money a year from now, in exchange for guaranteed millions today.

Much of the resistance to signing him stems from a concern about where he plays. His defense at third base has been awful – to the naked eye he looks subpar, and the defensive stats have him at around 9 runs below average in just a quarter of a season. That’s tough to do. And anyway, when Mike Moustakas is ready, he yields to no man.

But if Betemit hits like this, he has a better bat than any outfielder in the system except maybe for David DeJesus, who is a free agent after next season. And the corner outfield is perhaps the only position on the field where the Royals don't have a top prospect knocking on the door of the majors. I see Betemit playing third base for most of 2011, then right field for 2012 and 2013. Basically, Betemit can be the player that the Royals thought Mark Teahen would be – a guy who can move from third base to the corner outfield, dabble at first base, and hit well enough for all four positions.

Teahen is a worrisome comp for another reason, which is that Teahen’s 2006 is the closest comparison to Betemit’s 2010 in Royals history. Teahen hit .290/.357/.517 that year in 109 games, but Teahen only started hitting after he was demoted to Omaha early in the season. He returned on June 3rd, and the numbers are eerily similar:

Betemit: .317/.399/.552 in 263 PA

Teahen: .313/.384/.557 in 356 PA

Teahen, of course, never hit like that again, and it’s possible Betemit won’t either.

But I would argue that it’s a risk you have to take. Even if Betemit regresses like Teahen did, he’d still have some value as a super-utility player. Maybe not $4 million-a-season value, but he wouldn’t be Jason Kendall either. Fangraphs estimates that from 2007 to 2009 – the three seasons after his breakout mirage – Teahen was worth a total of $8.9 million. So even if Betemit’s 2010 is a mirage, a three-year deal is unlikely to pay him substantially more than he’s worth. And if it’s not a mirage, then he’ll be an absolute bargain.

If Betemit is going to stay in Kansas City long-term, though, it’s clear that it will be as a corner outfielder and not as a third baseman. Which is why I think that the Royals need to move Betemit to the outfield immediately, and play him out there every day until the end of the season. They simply have to find out if Betemit can play an acceptable outfield before making a long-term commitment. (This would also open up some playing time at third base for Josh Fields, assuming we can all stomach it.) Alex Gordon, who had never played the outfield before, has been surprisingly decent in left field – the defensive numbers put him at roughly league-average – and I’d like to think that Betemit can be as well, but there’s only one way to find out.

The fact that it hasn’t happened yet suggests that the Royals don’t consider Betemit a long-term solution, and will be content to either trade him at next year’s deadline, or let him walk after the season and (possibly) get draft picks for him.

We’ll see what happens. Dayton Moore almost never makes big contract decisions until the off-season, and there’s certainly no urgency to get a deal done in September. There are some valid reasons to be concerned about giving a three-year deal to a guy who was in Omaha barely three months ago. But it needs to be considered this winter, which is why it needs to be discussed – and why Betemit needs to be moved to the outfield – now.

- If the story of the summer months was Betemit’s breakout, the story of September has to be Brayan Pena. After spending five months locked away in a cupboard under the stairs, allowed out only when absolutely necessary and under strict orders not to do anything that would embarrass the family, Pena was finally and grudgingly given the starting job. And he’s run with it.

In the Royals’ first 126 games, through August 24th, Pena started just 12 times and had just 69 plate appearances. The rust showed; he hit .148/.221/.180, numbers that were so awful that they seemed unredeemable.

But Pena has started 15 of the Royals’ last 19 games, and has hit .397/.446/.552, including the first home run by a Royals catcher this season, and with more walks (6) than strikeouts (4). Remarkably, he became the first Royal all season to win Player of the Week honors. Pena’s seasonal numbers are all the way up to .269/.331/.361, which is close to his .273/.318/.442 line from last season.

When Kendall went out for the season, Ned Yost flatly stated that Pena would probably start 4-5 times a week, with Lucas May starting the other 2-3 times. But so far, May has started just twice all month. Which is as it should be. May seems like a decent backup at best, whereas Pena has borderline starter ability.

Even when he wasn’t hitting from April to August, Pena’s defense was very solid – his throws to second base had more zip, and he seemed to be moving better behind the plate. The Royals have spent a lot of time coaching him, and he has worked his ass off to get better. He’s thrown out 34% of attempted basestealers this year, and allowed just one passed ball. Frankly, the defensive concerns about Pena have always seemed overblown – he threw out 35% of basestealers last year. The defensive metrics at baseball-reference.com list him as a dead-average defensive player for both 2009 and 2010.

I hate to be insensitive, but Kendall’s injury has benefitted the Royals, both in 2010 and for the future. A year ago they had three catchers under contract for 2010, all three of whom were better than Kendall, and they went out and spent $6 million anyway. But Kendall is almost certainly out until May, and probably until July or August. In his place, the Royals have a 28-year-old switch-hitting catcher who projects as roughly a league-average hitter and fielder, a great work ethic, a wonderful and infectious attitude, and even after arbitration this winter is unlikely to make more than about $1 million. And they have a perfectly serviceable rookie backup catcher making the league minimum.

Hopefully Pena’s performance this month has convinced the Royals that their catching situation for next season is in good hands, and they avoid the temptation of bringing in yet another overpaid veteran catcher to tide things over until Kendall is ready to resume sucking. The Royals caught a break when Kendall went down, and they caught a bigger one when Pena started hitting. We can only hope that they appreciate the break that Pena has afforded them, and leave him in the starter’s role that he has earned.

- Speaking of minor-league free agents made good, what do the Royals do with Bruce Chen this winter? In his second go-round with the Royals, Chen has been a serviceable starting pitcher, a #5 starter in the scouting parlance. In the vernacular of the Royals, that makes him a #2. (Of the nine pitchers who have started at least five games for the Royals this year, Chen’s 4.70 ERA ranks behind only Zack Greinke.)

Chen’s not quite as good as his ERA suggests; he continues to walk too many batters for a guy who’s an incurable fly-ball pitcher. Chen’s xFIP, which is one of the best measures of what a pitcher’s ERA “should” be if he has a normal amount of luck, is 4.92. Last year, Chen’s ERA was more than a run higher (5.78), but his xFIP was barely a third of a run higher at 5.30. Some bad luck last year and some good luck year disguises the fact that he’s basically been the same pitcher both years.

I wouldn’t suggest that the Royals give Chen any kind of long-term deal or anything, but I would be perfectly happy if the Royals offered him a one-year contract in the $1.5 million range. (If they could offer Horacio Ramirez $2 million…) Chen’s in that sweet spot where he’s good enough to pitch in the back of a rotation, but not good enough to command a lot of money.

I’d almost prefer that the Royals re-up with Chen for one year rather than spend a lot of money on a superior starter in the free-agent market, because while the Royals have a lot of openings for next year’s rotation, I’m not sure there are any openings for 2012. Between the Fab Four lefties (Mike Montgomery, John Lamb, Danny Duffy, and Chris Dwyer) and Aaron Crow, the Royals have five pitching prospects, none of whom are likely to earn a rotation spot next April. But all five pitchers might be ready for a major-league audition between April and September.

Put it this way: if at least three of those five pitchers aren’t ready for the Opening Day rotation in 2012, then something’s gone wrong. And with Greinke and Luke Hochevar under contract for 2012, you could argue that the rotation is already set.

For 2011, then, the Royals need some stopgaps, guys who are better than replacement-level, but who won’t cost a ton of money and don’t require long-term commitments. Conveniently, they already have one in Kyle Davies, who has pitched well enough the last month to justify bringing him back for his final year before free agency.

If the Royals re-sign Chen, they go into the season with Greinke, Hochevar, Davies, and Chen, and can leave the fifth spot open for grabs – if someone like Montgomery or Duffy pitches lights out, they might force the Royals’ hand, and if not, then you settle for Sean O’Sullivan again, or one of the many Triple-A veteran options (Bryan Bullington, Philip Humber) or maybe some non-roster invitee. (I'm working under the assumption that Brian Bannister will be released.)

That’s not a particularly appealing rotation, but it’s a very flexible one – flexible in the sense that the minute one of your young studs is ready, you can accommodate him with a minimal amount of pain and effort. For that reason, I think it makes sense to bring back Bruce Chen. The price – both in terms of money and opportunity – is right.

- Finally, you might have noticed a common thread between the three players above. Betemit, Pena, and Chen were all 1) former Braves, and 2) acquired for free.

Dayton Moore’s ex-Brave fetish gets mocked a lot, at least somewhat deservedly. But it can’t be argued that, at least in 2010, his taste in ex-Braves has paid off in spades. If you’re going to have a weakness for players from another organization, at least have the good sense to pick a winning organization.

Forty Men. One Roster. Lots of Decisions.

Last September, the Royals elected not to bring up a prospect who hit .252/.392/.433 in Triple-A, and a certain writer blew his top and took a sabbatical. This September, the Royals have chosen not to promote Mike Moustakas to the majors, even though Moustakas has hit .324/.372/.638 for the season; if you like old-school stats, he has 36 homers and 123 RBIs. (He has 123 RBIs, and it’s not Labor Day yet, and he missed the first two weeks of the season with an oblique strain. Moustakas has 123 RBIs in 115 games*, which speaks as much to the quality of his teammates as to his own production.)

*: In the last 50 years, only 7 major-leaguers have had more RBIs than games played in a season. Six of the 7 played in the heart of the steroid era, from 1994 to 2000. The seventh player was George Brett, who in 1980 drove in 118 runs in 117 games.

And yet this same sportswriter agrees wholeheartedly with the decision to leave Moustakas in the minors, not to mention every other top prospect in what is arguably the game’s deepest farm system. What’s changed?

There are the obvious reasons – Ka’aihue was 25 and had spent two full seasons in the high minors, while Moustakas is just 21 and was in A-ball last year. Also, the Royals left Ka’aihue in Triple-A so they could play Mike Jacobs, whereas Moustakas would take playing time away from the far more intriguing Wilson Betemit (and the at-least-somewhat-worth-following Josh Fields.)

But the biggest reason is simple math. There are only 40 spots on a 40-man roster, and the Royals already have more than 40 players fighting for space.

In fact, the Royals currently have (as you can see here) 42 players on their 40-man roster. They can do this because players on the 60-day DL do not count against the limit. Gil Meche and Fields, both of whom were on the 60-day DL, were just activated, but the Royals asked David DeJesus and Luke Hochevar to take their place. (Jeff Bianchi has been out for the year, but if I understand things correctly, the rules allow teams to option a player to the minors even if they’re injured, so long as they didn’t play in the majors the previous year. Otherwise, Bianchi would be earning major-league service time. But I believe the Royals would have to promote him to the majors – accruing both salary and service time – in order to put him on the 60-day DL.)

Jason Kendall’s season-ending shoulder injury saved the Royals from having to release anyone to make room for Hochevar when Luke was activated yesterday.

(No injury is reason to celebrate, and I won’t. I will simply point out that while Kendall might have been a warrior to play through it, he also hit .200/.241/.225 in August. I love players who are warriors; I love players who don’t hurt their team because they’re too selfish to admit they can’t perform even more. Kendall's injury probably saved Brayan Pena’s career in Kansas City, and makes the acquisition of Lucas May far more significant than I ever thought it would be.)

So it’s no surprise that on September 1st, aside from Meche and Fields, the only player the Royals called up was May, who’s already on the 40-man roster. Even after the minor league season ends next week, I doubt we’ll see anyone called up who’s not already on the 40-man. The Royals have hinted at calling up a third catcher now that Kendall’s out, and conveniently Manny Pina is on the roster (although he’s with Northwest Arkansas, who will probably be playing in the Texas League playoffs until the middle of the month.) I suspect that the Royals will want to scratch their Jarrod Dyson itch, to use him as a pinch-runner and defensive replacement if nothing else. But I won’t be surprised if they are the only two additions to the active roster the rest of the month.

The only other player on the roster who’s a candidate for the 60-day DL would be Kanekoa Texeira. Which means that the Royals have, at most, one roster spot to play with before they start cutting guys. I’m not averse to cutting some of the guys on the 40-man roster – Gaby Hernandez and Victor Marte, I’m looking at you – but it complicates things.

What really complicates things, though, is that the Royals have to add a whole slew of guys to the 40-man roster between now and the Rule 5 Draft. In past years, the Royals looked at the Rule 5 Draft as a potential source of new talent, because they always had a high draft pick, and because they had so little talent themselves that they were rarely at risk of having one of their own players picked.

Here’s a list of all the players the Royals drafted in the last decade (not counting guys who were drafted only to be traded for cash to another team immediately afterwards.)

2009: Edgar Osuna (4th)

2006: Joakim Soria (2nd)

2005: Fabio Castro (1st) – immediately traded to Texas for Esteban German

2004: Andrew Sisco (2nd)

2003: Jason Szuminski (10th) – immediately traded to San Diego for Rich Thompson

2002: D.J. Carrasco (6th)

2001: Miguel Asencio (3rd)

2000: Endy Chavez (5th)

Some of these guys are busts, but when you consider how low the batting average on Rule 5 picks – even high picks – is, the Royals have actually done awfully well. Soria by himself justifies a decade of Rule 5 picks, but snagging Esteban German at the winter meetings in 2005 was one of Allard Baird’s last good moves for the Royals. Sisco gave the Royals one good year in relief, and was later traded for Ross Gload. Carrasco was a key part of the bullpen in the miracle 2003 season; he spent three years with the Royals, and his ERAs read 4.82, 4.84, and 4.79.

Asencio is most notable for what might have been. In 2002, as a 21-year-old rookie, he had perhaps the worst major league debut of all time – 16 pitches, 16 balls – but recovered to post a respectable 5.11 ERA. In 2003, he was a big part of that 17-4 start; he worked as the team’s #3 starter behind Runelvys Hernandez and Jeremy Affeldt, and the Royals won his first 6 starts, the last a masterful 114-pitch complete game. That start might have ruined him; he struggled in two more starts, then required Tommy John surgery. Even worse, he was one of the few pitchers who failed the surgery and required a second operation – aside from 8 innings with Colorado in 2006, he never pitched in the majors again.

The Royals kept Endy Chavez on the roster all season, then waived him over the winter – he eventually landed in Montreal and had a nice sophomore season on his way to a nine-year (and counting) major league career.

That list would look even better if the Royals had found a way to hold on to another player – in 2002, the Royals actually drafted twice, and their second pick was Ronny Paulino. Paulino would be sent back to Pittsburgh the following spring, and he clearly wasn’t ready – but 3 years later, as a rookie catcher for the Pirates, he would hit .310, and he’s still catching most days for the Marlins.

The point is that the Royals have found a fair amount of talent in the draft, while losing almost none. Here’s a – much shorter – list of the players that were drafted from the Royals over the last 10 years:

2008: Gilbert de la Vera

2006: Adam Donachie

2005: Seth Etherton

2001: Corey Thurman and Ryan Baerlocher

Neither Baerlocher nor de la Vera made their new team’s roster – de la Vera was a bizarre pick, a pitcher with neither good numbers nor a good scouting report, and it’s never been entirely clear what the Astros saw in him. Etherton had just signed with the Royals as a minor-league free agent two weeks before the Padres drafted him; he didn’t make the Padres roster, and the Royals actually bought him back the following May. Donachie was drafted after a season when he hit .212/.310/.299 as a catcher in Double-A. You will not be surprised to learn that he didn’t make the Orioles’ major-league roster either.

That leaves only one player who made an appearance with his new team – Corey Thurman, who gave the Blue Jays a respectable rookie season (68 IP, 4.37 ERA) in 2002. I can only blame myself for his loss. You see, prior to that draft, in an early iteration of “Rany on the Royals” for Baseball Prospectus, I wrote about the upcoming Rule 5 draft and the risk that the Royals might lose some players. In particular, I wrote that “The Royals' decision to leave Corey Thurman off the 40-man roster, though, is much more dangerous, and nearly inexplicable.”

What I did not know – could not have known – was that at the very same winter meetings, my colleague Keith Law was engaged in discussions with the Toronto Blue Jays, discussions that would soon lead to a job in their front office. Keith would later tell me (after he was officially hired a few weeks later) that he had shared my column with J.P. Ricciardi before the draft. By highlighting a player I thought the Royals might lose, I inadvertently helped them lose him.

Anyway, Thurman would only pitch 15 more innings in the majors after his rookie season.

One of the big concessions the MLBPA made to the owners in the last Collective Bargaining Agreement was to give teams an additional year before drafted players would be eligible for the Rule 5 Draft – it used to be that players under the age of 19 were eligible to be drafted after their fourth season, while players 19 and older were eligible after their third. This was expected to weaken the impact of the draft, and it has.

Ironically, the first draft after the CBA changed yielded two impact players – the Royals took Joakim Soria 2nd, and with the next pick the Cubs drafted Josh Hamilton (who was traded to the Reds in a pre-arranged deal.) And Jesus Flores, drafted 5th, has shown a lot of promise for the Nationals as a catcher, though he's missed all of 2010 with shoulder surgery. But since then, the draft has been kind of pointless.

It’s easy to laugh at the Royals for drafting Edgar Osuna with their pick last year, given that the Braves thought so little of his talents that they declined to take him back for the bargain price of $25,000 at the end of spring training. But of the three players taken before Osuna, two (Jamie Hoffman and Ben Snyder) didn’t make their new team’s roster out of spring training, and the other (John Raynor) got two hits with the Pirates before they tired of carrying him and offered him back to the Marlins in early May.

Of the 17 guys who were selected in last December’s draft, only 3 have survived into September without being cut: Hector Ambriz, who has generally sucked out of the Indians’ bullpen all season; David Herndon, who has quietly pitched garbage relief for the Phillies; and Carlos Monasterios, the best of the lot, who has a 4.02 ERA for the Dodgers and has even made 11 starts this year.

The only other pick of note is Kanekoa Texeira, who was waived by the Mariners in June, but who pitched reasonably well for the Royals before his elbow started barking.

So anyway, the Rule 5 Draft has been declawed, and while that may have kept the Royals from finding some premium talent the last few years, it will almost certainly be a blessing now that the Royals are burgeoning with young talent.

As it is, the following players will have to be added to the roster after the season to keep them from being exposed in this December’s draft:

- Ed Lucas. He’s already 28, but he’s hitting .308/.396/.487 and over the last two seasons has played every position but pitcher and catcher. Scouts seem to think he can be at least a utility guy in the majors, sort of a cheaper, slightly better, Ivy League-educated version of Willie Bloomquist. Need to protect: moderate.

- David Lough. Drafted as a fairly raw college athlete – he played on a football scholarship, I believe – he has been slowly converting his tools into skills. He suddenly learned the strike zone halfway through the season, and since the Triple-A All-Star Break he’s hit .314/.401/.462. Need to protect: high.

- Clint Robinson. Yeah, he’s 25. He’s also hitting .332/.409/.625. Since June 1st, he’s batting .380 and slugging .746. Need to protect: insane.

- Derrick Robinson. He’s cooled off to a .283/.344/.375 line, but he might be the fastest player in the division (50 steals), and he’s still just 22. Need to protect: off the charts.

- Paulo Orlando. Hitting .308/.370/.470, with 24 steals, and excellent defense. Still just 24. And as a bonus, when he makes the majors, millions of young Brazilian boys will throw away their soccer balls and beg their parents to buy them a Royals hat. Need to protect: high.

- Everett Teaford. I don’t know what to make of this guy. The scouting report says he’s your standard-issue soft-tossing lefty. But his character is off the charts – in 2009 he won the inaugural Mike Sweeney Award, “which recognizes a player who best represents the organization on and off the field.” More importantly, after striking out 91 batters in 145 innings in 2009, he’s whiffed 117 batters in 104 innings in 2010. Need to protect: low to moderate.

- Nicholas Francis. I really don’t know what to make of this guy. Francis was suspended by the team and missed the entire 2007 season; the reasons were never divulged, but his co-conspirator Jason Taylor was later suspended by MLB for marijuana usage. He’s behind the development curve, but Francis is hitting .282/.328/.509 for Wilmington, and – you know this is coming – he’s hitting .300/.362/.582 on the road. (If his suspension year doesn’t count for purposes of Rule 5 eligibility, which I find unlikely, then he would not need to be protected.) Need to protect: low to moderate.

- Bryan Paukovits. Pitched great for Burlington, not so well for Wilmington, and he’s 23. Need to protect: low.

- Chris Hayes. Oh, wait…

And I’m not even entertaining the possibility of protecting guys like Tim Smith or Jamie Romak or a million mid-level relievers who might get picked but aren’t worth losing sleep over.

Conservatively, that’s at least five and maybe six guys who need to be added to the roster. I count only two pending free agents on the roster in Bruce Chen and Willie Bloomquist. That means that the Royals will have to DFA at least 3 or 4 guys after the season. That’s not necessarily a difficult point of order – in addition to the minor league guys like Hernandez and Marte, I can think of at least a few guys in the majors (Jesse Chavez, come on down!) who deserve the boot.

But every additional player the Royals add to the 40-man roster will require them to cut deeper, and eventually they’re going to run out of fat and start cutting into muscle. And keep in mind the Royals will probably want to keep at least a spot or two on the roster open for potential free agents to sign. The Royals might wind up promoting one of the guys I listed above this month, figuring that if they're going to be added to the roster anyway, there's no harm in getting a look at them now. But I will be stunned if they add anyone else. If Moustakas hasn't earned a look, no one has.

Be thankful it’s not worse. Under the old rules, where prospects gained their Rule 5 eligibility a year earlier, the Royals would have to protect their 2007 high school picks (Mike Moustakas, Danny Duffy), their 2008 college picks (Johnny Giavotella), and their young Latin American catcher (Salvador Perez) for starters. That would have been a potential bloodbath on the level of the 2003 Pittsburgh Pirates, who – in what has to be one of the most humiliating moments in major league history – had five of their players selected in the first six picks. Other teams were openly laughing in the draft room. (The last of those five players? Jose Bautista.)

So it’s okay to be upset that we won’t get a look at Moustakas this month, and that we probably won’t see Seabiscuit (Tim Collins) launch low-90s fastballs from his batboy frame, and that Louis Coleman won’t get the look-see that he certainly deserves.

Just understand that there’s a very good reason why. It’s the best of reasons, actually.

Royals Today: 8/30/2010.

The Royals might be making progress, but it’s not evident from watching them on the field. With a win on Sunday the Royals are now 55-75, putting them on pace to win 68 or 69 games, after winning 65 last season. It’s actually worse than that, though. The Royals have been outscored by 154 runs this season. Six major league teams have a worse record than the Royals, but only two – the Orioles and Pirates – have a worse run differential. The Royals were outscored by 156 runs all of last season. At the major league level, at least, whatever steps the Royals have taken forward have been small ones – and they all pale to the giant regression to the mean taken by Zack Greinke.

- That the Royals have a better record (55-75) than their run differential would suggest (50-80) is one part luck, and one part Joakim Soria. Despite – or perhaps because – the Royals are playing so poorly, Soria is quietly having one of the best seasons by a Royals’ closer ever. In terms of saves – which, to be fair, is a pretty weak stat to evaluate closers by – his season might wind up as being the best ever.

The Royals’ record for saves was set by Dan Quisenberry in 1983, with 45, which at the time was the all-time major-league record. Ten years later Jeff Montgomery tied Quiz’s mark. With 30 games to go, Soria is at 36 saves, which puts him on pace for 44 for the season. (The Royals, by selfishly scoring two runs in the ninth inning yesterday afternoon, deprived him of a save that might turn out to be vital in his pursuit of the record.)

The Royals have obliged him by playing an awful lot of close games of late. Under Trey Hillman, it seemed like it was a lot of feast-or-famine for Soria; the Royals would have four save situations in a row, and then Soria would go a week without pitching before Hillman threw him into a 10-3 game just to get some work. But the Royals have provided him with a steady diet of save situations over the last six weeks. Prior to yesterday, every game Soria had entered since July 16th was either a save situation, a tie game, or a game the Royals were losing by just one run. In that span, Soria never had to pitch three days in a row, and never went more than four days without pitching.

The Royals have the most one-run decisions in all of baseball, and thanks to Soria they’ve done well in that regard. They’re 24-25 in one-run games, and 31-50 otherwise. They still have a perfect record (41-0) in game that they lead going into the ninth inning. In 2006, the last season before Soria arrived on the scene, the Royals lost seven games that they led with three outs to go.

Baseball Prospectus has a stat known as WXRL, for “Win Expectation Above Replacement, Lineup-Adjusted”. Ridiculous name aside, what the stat does is evaluate the odds that a given team will win the game when a reliever comes in, and the odds that the team will win when the reliever comes out, and then gives the pitcher the credit for the difference. For a closer, in other words, it rewards a pitcher for closing out “difficult” saves – with men on base or a one-run lead – a lot more than “easy” saves like starting the ninth with a three-run lead.

The Royals have asked Soria to close out a lot of tight wins this year – 19 times he has entered a game protecting a one-run lead. In addition, he has entered a tie game nearly as often (6) as he’s been asked to close out a three-run lead (8). He has of course been phenomenally successful at whatever job he’s been asked to do; he’s currently working on a franchise-record streak of 29 successful save opportunities in a row.

Add it all up, and Soria’s WXRL is 5.78, which is to say he’s been worth nearly 6 wins over a replacement-level pitcher in his role. That not only leads all of baseball – Heath Bell is about half-a-win behind – it’s already the fifth-best season in Royals history, behind Monty’s 1993 (6.86) and Quisenberry in 1980 (8.16), 1983 (7.04), and 1984 (6.65).

Quisenberry’s 1980 is probably out of reach, but if he finishes strong, Soria has a good shot at the second-best season by a Royals reliever ever. When you consider that he’ll only throw in the range of 70 innings, while Quisenberry threw over 128 innings in all three of those seasons, that’s a remarkable accomplishment.

(By the way, this is Soria’s fourth season in the majors, and every season ranks among the 12 best relief seasons in Royals history. That includes his rookie season, when he only served as the closer for about half the year. Montgomery has three seasons in the top 12, and Quisenberry has the other five. The demarcation between the top three relievers in Royals history and everyone else is as clear as anything I’ve ever seen in baseball.)

The Royals have 99 problems, but a closer ain’t one.

- On the other hand, the guy he usually throws to might be. You have to give it up for Jason Kendall – his ability to command playing time despite the inability to hit the ball more than 300 feet is not just impressive, it’s historic.

You probably noticed that Kendall has not hit a home run this season. You might have noticed that he has also not hit a triple this season. And you’ve certainly noticed that despite those two shortcomings, he continues to catch nearly 90% of the games. (Two weeks ago Ned Yost committed to playing Brayan Pena about a third of the time the rest of the season. Only on the Royals is limiting Jason Kendall to playing two-thirds of the time considered progress.)

But you might not have put all that information together, and realized that in 487 plate appearances, Jason Kendall has yet to hit a triple or a home run. And you probably didn’t realize that since World War II, only two players have batted 450 times in a season without a triple or home run.

One of those players is the remarkable Frank Taveras, who in 1980 batted 598 times and topped out with a double. Taveras was your classic jitterbug who hit the ball on the ground and ran like hell. He led the NL in steals in 1977 with 70, but his career high in OBP was .321, and he of course had no power. The Pirates, for whom he toiled for many years, traded him to the Mets early in the 1979 season, and perhaps not coincidentally the Pirates won the World Series that year.

The other player is Ron Hunt, who hit nary a triple or homer in 1972…or 1973…or 1974. He was a full-time player all three years and amassed over 1500 plate appearances in that time.

Hunt is, for my money, one of the most fascinating baseball players of all time. For one thing, over that three-year stretch he was actually a pretty decent player despite his comical lack of power. Take 1973, for instance: he hit .309, walked 52 times against just 19 strikeouts, led the league with 24 hit-by-pitches and had a .418 OBP. He played second base, which added to his value, even if he didn’t play it all that well. He had a 112 OPS+ and even got some MVP votes. He was sort of like Luis Castillo, in that he was a below-average defensive second baseman whose entire game revolved around OBP, except with less speed.

The really remarkable thing about Hunt is that he seemed to have made a conscious decision halfway through his career to get on base in any way possible – specifically, by going out of his way to get hit by pitches. He averaged 10 HBPs a year for the first five years of his career – and then, from 1968 until 1974, he led the NL in HBPs seven straight years. In 1971, he was nailed FIFTY times – the all-time major-league record. He came close to making a mockery of the rules – I’m fairly surprised that MLB didn’t alter the rules somehow to discourage this kind of overt gamesmanship. Awarding first base to a batter that’s hit by the ball is meant to discourage pitchers from hitting batters; it’s not meant to encourage a pesky middle infielder who can’t hit the ball over an outfielder’s head to lean into a pitch twice a week.

I get the impression Hunt wasn’t a particularly popular player with his peers, and it shows in the stat record – in early September, 1974, he was abruptly waived by the Expos. The Cardinals claimed him, but he never played for St. Louis, and he was released the following March, still 34 years old.

Anyway, the reason for the digression is this: Hunt finished his career with 243 HBPs, ranking sixth all-time. The player directly above him on that list? Jason Kendall, with 254. It all comes back around.

(Kendall isn’t even contributing in this regard – he only has 6 HBPs all season, which would be the lowest number in his career, and the odds that he breaks Hughie Jennings all-time record of 287 are looking increasingly remote.)

- I’m just going to throw this list out there:

Highest Single-Season OPS by a Royal (min: 200 PA)

1) George Brett, 1980, 1.118

2) George Brett, 1985, 1.022

3) Wilson Betemit, 2010, 1.001

4) Danny Tartabull, 1991, .990

5) Bob Hamelin, 1994, .987

Yes, I’m cheating a little bit. I set the minimum at 200 plate appearances, and Betemit just had his 200th plate appearance of the season yesterday.

But still.

If you look at the list of the top 30 OPS’s in Royals history, you’ll find that the list is basically the same whether the minimum is 200 plate appearances or 400 plate appearances. Aside from Betemit, the only players on the list who had fewer than 400 plate appearances were Hamelin (374 PA, but in a strike-shortened season) and Carlos Beltran in 2004, when he was traded in mid-season. There’s a good reason for this – it’s hard to sustain an OPS north of 900 for even 200 plate appearances, unless you’re actually a pretty damn good hitter.

If we look at the best seasons by a Royal hitter with between, say, 150 and 400 plate appearances, here’s what we get:

1) Wilson Betemit, 2010, 1.001

2) Bob Hamelin, 1994, .987

3) Carlos Beltran, 2004, .901

4) Tony Solaita, 1975, .884

5) Esteban German, 2006, .880

When you factor in the special circumstances that put Hamelin and Beltran on this list, then barring a collapse over the last month of the season, Betemit is going to finish with the greatest partial season in the history of the Royals.

(Tony Solaita had an awfully interesting tenure with the Royals. As a rookie in 1974, he hit .268/.361/.406, then hit .260/.369/.515 in 1975. In 1976 he started slow, batting .235/.286/.294 in just 68 plate appearances…and was promptly waived. Solaita, who was from American Samoa, serves as a reminder that the Royals’ reluctance to put faith in take-and-rake hitters from the Pacific islands is not new.)

Betemit, who was signed to a minor-league contract over the winter, is pretty clearly the greatest free talent acquisition by Dayton Moore since Joakim Soria. Moore has actually quietly had a terrific season in terms of picking up contributors out of the pool of unwanted free agents. Along with Betemit, he re-signed Bruce Chen to another minor-league deal. Chen leads the team in wins with nine; more meaningfully, with a 4.76 ERA in 102 innings, he’s been the second-best starter on the team this year.

Kanekoa Texeira, who was claimed off waivers from Seattle, had a 4.64 ERA out of the bullpen before he went on the DL; despite his lack of a strikeout pitch, his extreme groundball tendencies make him a nice guy to bring in with men on base in the middle innings. And hey, Bryan Bullington did pitch the game of his life against the Yankees.

While the pickups of Betemit and Chen have made a big impact this year, it’s not like they are rookies who are under contract for the next six years. Chen is a free agent after the season; while he’s re-established himself as a major leaguer, I don’t expect teams to be beating down the door to sign him. I could see the Royals offering him a one-year, $1-1.5 million contract to return as a stopgap next season, and I could see Chen accepting the offer.

Betemit, if I understand his service time correctly, would be a free agent after next season. This makes for a very difficult decision for the Royals. If you think Betemit’s season is a fluke, then you’ll either him trade him this winter or bring him back next year to babysit third base until Mike Moustakas is ready, but with the plan to trade Betemit to a contender if he’s still hitting well.

But what if it’s not a fluke? What’s so striking about Betemit’s numbers is that they don’t look like a fluke. Yes, his batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is .405, which is unsustainably high. Betemit is hitting .331 overall, and there’s no way that can last. If his BABIP drops into the .330 range, which is realistic, then his “true” batting average is closer to .280.

But even if he hits .280, he can be a heck of a hitter. While batting average is subject to a lot of fluctuation, power and plate discipline are not. Betemit has 27 walks in just 172 at-bats – that’s not a fluke. He has 13 doubles and 10 homers – that’s not a fluke.

(By the way, with 10 homers, Betemit is just three behind Yuniesky Betancourt for the active team lead. Last week I was on with Soren Petro, and he asked me who I thought would finish with the team lead in homers. Billy Butler was the obvious choice, but I thought Betemit was a heck of a sleeper pick. Well, I’m changing my tune – Betemit isn’t a sleeper anymore. I honestly think he’s the favorite to hold the team’s homer title at season’s end.)

So even if you knock 50 points off his batting average, his numbers this season would be .281/.370/.531. Now, I doubt he’s even that good. He spent a month in Omaha and hit just .265/.358/.407 earlier this year; last year, he hit .241/.294/.441 in Triple-A Charlotte. But at the same time, Betemit was once one of the best prospects in all of baseball, and from 2005 to 2007, when he was 23-25 years old, he hit .265/.337/.455 in nearly a thousand plate appearances in the major leagues. He’s only 28; maybe he’s just figuring things out. It bears mentioning that, according to Fangraphs, Betemit is hitting fly balls at the highest rate of his career.

If he is, then he has to factor into the team’s future. Even if Moustakas takes over at third base sometime next year, Betemit has the bat to play somewhere else. We’re talking about a guy who played shortstop in the majors as recently as two years ago, so he should have the athletic ability to play any corner position. First base and DH are filled, but the Royals are still weak in outfield prospects. Betemit could play third base the first half of next season, then move to right field if and when David DeJesus gets traded.

So the Royals have a decision to make. If they think his numbers are for real, then they may have a chance to sign him to a long-term deal this winter at a huge discount relative to what he would get the following year on the free market if he continues to hit. Is it crazy to suggest that the Royals should offer Wilson Betemit a 3-year, $12 million contract this winter? Maybe. But it’s not any more crazy than suggesting in April that Wilson Betemit would be the best hitter on the Royals this season.

Royals Today: 8/26/2010.

When fans of most teams think of the most memorable moments in their franchise’s history over the last 10 or 15 years, they’re likely to think of game-winning hits in the playoffs, or a clutch homer in a pennant race in late September. Royals fans are a little different.

9:38 am. HoltzyKC Lineup for Motown matinee: Blanco 8, Aviles 6, Bloomie 5, Billy DH, Kila 3, Pena 2, Mitch 9, Miller 7, Getz 4. O'Sully pitching.

We can’t reminisce over game-winning hits in the playoffs, because we haven’t been to the playoffs. We don’t have clutch homers in a pennant race in late September, because our team has been mathematically eliminated by late September for 24 – about to be 25 – straight years.

9:52 am. royalsauthority Any lineup with Bloomquist hitting 3rd is the worst lineup EVAR. #Royals

We have to take our memorable moments where we can find them, even if they occur in a meaningless August game pitting a pair of sub-.500 teams against each other. Like, say, yesterday.

10:02 am. Tom_Gage Miguel Cabrera: 10 more home runs (31) than entire #Royals lineup today

One of Ned Yost’s idiosyncrasies is that, whereas most managers look at a day off in the schedule as a built-in opportunity to get his players some rest without taking them out of the lineup, Yost actually likes to use a scheduled day off as an opportunity to sit some of his regulars the day before, giving them two days off in a row – but at the cost of fielding some of the weakest lineups you’ve ever seen. Like, say, yesterday.

10:03 am. Royals_Report Willie Bloomquist really is batting third today for the #Royals against the Tigers. It's the first time ever in his career as a starter.

In the 20-plus years since I started following the Royals closely, the weirdest lineup decision I had ever seen were these two games, on May 10 and May 16, 1992, when the Royals started Bob Melvin in the cleanup spot. The same Melvin who would finish with a career slugging average of .337, and had a .317 slugging average and a total of seven homers from 1989 to 1991. Melvin started the 1992 season 9-for-23, and the Royals faced left-handed starters in both games, and…yeah, there’s really no explanation for it. Melvin did have a huge platoon split in his career - .284/.325/.410 against LHP, .196/.225/.283 against RHP. It was still a comically bad decision. The Royals lost both games.

10:05 am. mellinger Galarraga's best chance at a perfect game in six weeks.

But batting Melvin cleanup was genius compared to batting Willie “Boom-Boom” Bloomquist third…against a right-handed pitcher, no less. Against left-handers, Bloomquist has an almost respectable career line of .273/.335/.366. Against right-handers, he’s hit .256/.302/.314. Ladies and gentlemen, your #3 hitter!

10:49 am. royalsauthority Can't believe I want Yuni in the lineup. RT @brokenbatsingle: @royalsauthority maybe Yuni and gordon stayed up late playing scrabble.

As it turned out, not only had Bloomquist never batted third in the majors, he had never batted third in the minors. Naturally, his teammates seized on the opportunity.

Teammates chimed in as the minutes ticked down in the clubhouse before heading to the field for batting practice.

“He’s my pick to click,” Jason Kendall said.

Alex Gordon added, “You’re going to go big fly all day.”

When asked whether he was playing a hunch, Yost replied, “You have a better idea?” Well, given that he had a couple of guys hitting under .180 (Kila Ka’aihue and Brayan Pena) batting fifth and sixth, and Jai Miller making the second start of his major league career batting eighth…yeah, I still had a lot of better ideas. But let’s be frank – this was one ridiculously bad lineup, no matter where Bloomquist was batting.

11:11 am. Royals_Report Manager Ned Yost on Willie Bloomquist batting third for #Royals against Detroit: "I guarantee you he’ll get a couple of hits. You watch."

11:22 am. devil_fingers Let's be honest: Batting Bloomquist #3 isn't nearly as stupid as hitting Kendall #2, which the #Royals have done 67 times this season.

Early on, the lineup performed exactly as well as you’d expect, mustering just two hits – one a double by Bloomquist in the first – and two walks in the first six innings. Sean O’Sullivan righted the ship after giving up 3 runs in the second, but the Royals were still down 3-0 heading into the seventh.

1:35 pm. Royals_Report Bloomy watch: Flies out to right in sixth. Now 1-3. Needs one more hit to meet Yost's pre-game guarantee. Royals trail Tigers 3-0 in sixth.

Ka’aihue homered leading off the seventh. Pena and Mitch Maier followed with singles, but Phil Coke came on to end the threat with the Tigers still leading 3-1.

2:24 pm. Royals_Report Bloomy watch: Likely to finish 1-4 in first game as No. 3 hitter. Just struck out in eighth inning. Royals trail Tigers 3-1.

Bloomquist’s strikeout in the eighth left Mike Aviles on first base with one out. Ryan Perry then got Butler to fly out, but rather than face Ka’aihue – who had homered off of him the night before – Perry was pulled in favor of Jose Valverde, who hadn’t blown a save since the first week of the season (against the Royals, mind you.)

Instead, Valverde offered up a data point for why Yost has decided to reserve his closer for the ninth inning only. Going for the four-out save, Valverde couldn’t even get the first one. Ka’aihue doubled in Aviles, and Pena followed with another double to tie the game. Maybe Bloomquist would bat again after all.

2:50 pm. jazayerli That said, if Willie fulfills Yost's 2-hit prophecy with a game-winner, I'll never criticize him again. By "again", I mean "for a few days."

The frightening combination of Dusty Hughes and Jesse Chavez got out of the eighth inning unscathed, helped by a nice play by Ka’aihue that saved a run. Philip Humber came in to pitch the ninth and retired the side in order.

3:04 pm. Royals_Report Bloomy watch: He does get another AB but grounds out to first in the 10th. Now 1-5. Royals and Tigers tied 3-3.

You don’t have to believe me, but watching Bloomquist’s at-bat in the 10th, I was fully expecting – and even hoping for – a home run. In a world where Yuniesky Betancourt can be a useful player, why can’t Ned Yost be a prophet and Willie Bloomquist be a hero? Instead, the game continued, and Humber continued to stymie the Tigers in the 10th and 11th. (I would be performing a minor surgery when Bloomquist batted in the 12th, and was unable to watch live.)

3:22 pm. mellinger I like Ned Yost for the #Royals. Wonder if batting Bloomy 3rd and guaranteeing two hits will become his take-a-shower-with-clothes-on...

3:26 pm. devil_fingers Yost not PHing Gordon for Bloomy made sense: Ned said Bloomquist would get a "couple" hits, so he's still got at least one more left in him.

Bloomquist batted again in the 12th, with one out and nobody on. He ran the count full against Alfredo Figaro.

3:44 pm. Royals_Report Bloomy watch: Yes, a sixth AB as game reaches the 12th in Detroit. Gets second hit as Yost promised...homer on full-count pitch.

3:45 pm. mellinger In your face, @Mellinger!!! #bloomy

3:45 pm. devil_fingers Wow. Boom, Yosted.

3:45 pm. nate_bukaty Ned Yost: prophetic!

3:49 pm. nate_bukaty Or will it be his Broadway Joe moment?! ;-) RT @mellinger: Wonder if guaranteeing two hits will be his take-a-shower-with-clothes-on...

3:49 pm. robneyer Meanwhile, Willie Bloomquist just became the Royals' No. 3 hitter for the rest of the season.

3:51 pm. mellinger Can Yost do this with all the #royals? Can he make Butler fast by batting him leadoff? Or Davies good by just guaranteeing it in pregame?

3:52 pm. jazayerli And by "ever again", I mean "ever again". Holy moly.

Joakim Soria retired the Tigers in order in the bottom of the 12th – his 29th converted save opportunity in a row.

3:56 pm. mellinger If Yost is willing, I have a friend who could really use a guarantee that he finds a woman.

It was a meaningless win in a meaningless game that brought the Royals to within 19 games of .500. The only impact that Bloomquist’s homer might have is that it might knock the Royals back a slot or two in next year’s draft.

But you know something? It might have been the highlight of the season. What can I say – we’re Royals fans. We’ve got low standards.

3:58 pm. jfishsports Yost's post-game should be him just walking in, taking the microphone, throwing it down, and walking out with two middle fingers raised.

---

The irony of Yost’s prophecy and Bloomquist’s homer is that it takes the spotlight away from the real story of the ballgame. The Royals did, in fact, win this game because of Ned Yost’s strengths as a manager, but it had nothing to do with the Spork.

Going into his final at-bat on Tuesday night, Kila Ka’aihue was hitting .152 for the season (10-for-66), and was just 1-for-his-last-19. He wasn’t striking out a ton – he had whiffed just 10 times, which is to say that despite hitting .152, he was only on pace to strike out about 90 times over a full season. This is Ka’aihue’s hidden talent, and the reason why it’s not fair to compare him to the Calvin Pickerings of the world: for a power hitter who draws a ton of walks, he very rarely strikes out.

The problem is that he wasn’t drawing a lot of walks either, having taken a free pass just four times so far.

“I just had to go back to what I need to be doing. I was trying to do some things I was not capable of doing. I was looking out of my zone and trying to hit more pitches. Stuff like that. Just not playing my game.”

Despite his struggles, Yost showed no signs of giving up on him. Quite the contrary; he kept moving Ka’aihue up in the lineup. After batting fifth against the Yankees on August 13 and 14, Ka’aihue moved into the cleanup spot in his next three starts, and then moved into the #3 hole last Saturday. It was because he was batting in the #3 hole that Ka’aihue got one last chance to bat on Tuesday, with the Royals down 9-0 in the ninth, with two outs and no one on.

And the Hawaiian kid with the slider bat-speed connected on a 95-mph fastball (granted, it was right down the middle) for his first homer of the season.

“Going into that at-bat,” manager Ned Yost said, “I was thinking about giving him a day off (today) to let him regroup a little bit. Now, that might be something that will get him going. He just needs a couple of hits to relax a little bit.”

Yost dropped Ka’aihue down to fifth in the lineup yesterday, because hey, when you have the opportunity to bat the Spork third, you have to take it. But Ka’aihue was in the lineup, and he delivered – multiple times. He led off the top of the second with a walk, and while he was stranded, it was a good sign that he was finally letting the game come to him.

After Armando Galarraga shut the Royals down for six straight innings, Ka’aihue went down and got a slider – not a hanging slider, but a decent pitch that was down and in – and pulled it into the right field seats. In the eighth, facing the Tigers’ closer while representing the tying run with two outs, Ka’aihue doubled, then scored the tying run on Pena’s double. In the tenth inning, he batted with Alex Gordon on first base; after Gordon took second base on a wild pitch, the Tigers elected to intentionally walk Ka’aihue on a 2-0 count. That’s quite a turnaround given that, just last week, the Indians twice intentionally walked Billy Butler in order to face Ka’aihue.

Kila Ka’aihue has been the premier power-and-plate-discipline hitter in the entire organization for the last three years, and he finally delivered on that promise for just one game. He had two extra-base hits and two walks in Wednesday’s game. That might not sound that impressive, but it’s just the sixth time in the last six years that a Royals player has done that.

I’m not going to argue that one home run is going to change the course of Kila’s season. After all, twice this year Alex Gordon has hit game-winning homers, and we’re still waiting for him to sustain any kind of a breakout.

But I will argue that by keeping him in the lineup, by publicly supporting him despite his struggles, Ned Yost has given Ka’aihue the opportunity to change the course of his season. As I wrote in May, while young hitters in Milwaukee like Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun hit right out of the gate, Yost also stayed firm with hitters who didn’t, like Rickie Weeks and J.J. Hardy and Corey Hart. Yost’s blend of patience and optimism with young players is his single best trait as a manager.

So go ahead and revel in the Bloomquist Prophecy, and sing Ned Yost’s praises. Or go ahead and mock Yost for being foolish enough to bat Willie Freaking Bloomquist third, results be damned.

As far as I’m concerned, though, Yost can bat Bloomquist third – and Jason Kendall second – in every game the rest of the season if he wants, so long as Ka’aihue adjusts to the major leagues and proves himself to be an everyday player by the end of the season. Yost seems committed to giving him that chance. That, not Bloomquist’s home run, is the real story of yesterday’s game.

YUUUUUUU-NEEEEEEE!

This is an article I was sort of hoping I wouldn’t have to write, and I’m still not sure needs to be written now.

But in light of Yuniesky Betancourt’s recent hot streak, which coincides with the birth of his first child*, I think the time is right.

*: It seems like half the players on the club have had children this season. And it seems like they’ve all played exceedingly well afterwards**.

**: Maybe Manny Ramirez was on to something when he was caught using fertility drugs as a performance enhancer.

Over an 11-game stretch from August 3rd to 18th, Betancourt was 16-for-38 (.421) with five homers. Even after an 0-for-4 performance on Thursday, as I write this he’s hitting .267/.287/.422 for the season. His .422 slugging average would be a career best, and his 12 homers are already a career high. His OPS+ of 91 is a hair’s breadth behind his career-best of 93, set in 2007, when he hit .289/.308/.418 for the Mariners.

There’s no denying that Yuni is having a better season that most people, yours truly included, expected. But I will say that the recent fawning over him is a bit much.

Nothing grates me more than the line, which I’ve seen repeated in a bunch of different media outlets, that Betancourt is leading the Royals in home runs. I hate to be a stick in the mud, people, but HE’S NOT LEADING THE TEAM IN HOME RUNS. Jose Guillen is. Just because Guillen was designated for assignment doesn’t mean his homers don’t count. (And the fact that Guillen was DFA’ed, despite leading the team in homers, should tell you not to put too much stock in that accomplishment.)

Still, if you want to give credit to Betancourt for ranking second on the team in homers, as a shortstop, go right ahead. Just don’t forget to point out that along with his 12 homers, he also has exactly 12 walks. He might lead all current Royals in homers, but he also ranks dead last on the Royals in walks (among player with more than 150 PA). Betancourt has drawn a walk in just 2.8% of his plate appearances; the only Royals with a lower walk rate are either 1) pitchers or 2) Jai Miller, who has batted once.

So please, people, keep things in perspective. Betancourt has shown some pop, yes. That doesn’t make up for the fact that of the 145 players who have batted 400 or more times this year, he ranks dead last in walks drawn. Every other player has walked at least 18 times.

Never forget: power is nice, but OBP is life. Betancourt’s .287 OBP ranks third from the bottom among those same 145 players. That’s not an inconvenience, or a blemish on an otherwise sterling stat line. That is the single most important offensive statistic in the game, and Betancourt’s performance in that category is beyond awful.

So if we can agree that Betancourt, while a surprisingly good hitter this season, is nowhere near the best hitter on the ballclub, I’ll agree that he’s been a much better player than I expected him to be.

No analysis of Betancourt is complete without an evaluation, or perhaps a humiliation, of his defense. His glovework, or lack thereof, was the single biggest reason analysts like me panned the trade for him. His defense also represents a flashpoint in the minor skirmish that still takes place at times between statheads and scouts. (Or at least Royals scouts.) At the time the trade was made, the Royals were comfortable saying that Betancourt was at least an average defensive shortstop. Meanwhile, every 21st-century defensive stat evaluated Betancourt’s defense as among the worst, if not the worst, of any everyday shortstop in the majors.

Specifically, the defensive metric of choice at Fangraphs (Ultimate Zone Rating, or UZR), which graded Betancourt’s defense as exactly average in 2005 and 2006, ranked him 4 runs below average in 2007, 11 runs below average in 2008, and an amazing 17 runs below average in 2009. The defensive metric favored by Baseball Info Solutions gave him similar scores: dead average in 2005 and 2006, then -7, -13, and -19 over the next three years.

There’s been a lot of talk this season that Betancourt’s defense looks better, at least to the naked eye. I would share in that assessment; at least 2 or 3 times this year I’ve seen him make plays on balls headed up the middle that he wouldn’t have reached last year. Of course, in each case they were grounders that a good defensive shortstop would have gobbled up like candycorn before throwing onto first for a routine play, but in Betancourt’s case, he was only able to reach them by lunging for them, snaring them into his glove in a full dive, then getting to his feet before nipping the runner at first.

In other words, he’s looked better. He hasn’t looked good. And the numbers back that up. UZR ranks Betancourt’s defense as 7 runs below average so far; BIS is even less charitable, ranking his defense 14 runs below average already. A third defensive metric, Total Zone, ranks Betancourt’s defense as dead average this year after being 12 runs below average last year.

Defensive metrics are imperfect, and so it is best to take a look at multiple different measures to get the most accurate picture. Averaging these three different metrics together, and we can estimate that Betancourt was 16 runs below average last year, and 7 runs below average so far this year. Again: he’s better. He’s still not good.

Nonetheless, he can make a pretty play in the hole, as he did in the ninth inning to preserve victories on back-to-back nights earlier this week. His supporters will point to plays like those as proof that the numbers can’t be right. To which I say: we’ve been down this road before.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…a shortstop with a solid defensive reputation, but brutal defensive numbers…a shortstop who makes the highlight reels with dazzling plays in the hole but who is an absolute sieve on balls hit to his left. Sound familiar? It should, since I just described Derek Jeter.

I think the battle over Betancourt’s defense is the war over Jeter’s defense writ small. Betancourt moves well to his right, has a strong arm, and can make the flashy play from the hole. But he simply has no range to his left. He’s a little more mobile this year, but it’s still a problem, and there’s no reason to expect it to get better.

Admitting you have a problem is Step One, and it would be nice if the Royals acknowledge that Betancourt has an issue. Prior to the 2009 season, the Yankees and Derek Jeter publicly acknowledged that his Gold Glove reputation aside, he could stand to work on his lateral movement, and he focused his off-season exercises with that specific flaw in mind. As a result, Jeter – at the age of 35 – had arguably the best defensive numbers of his career.

That’s a textbook case of a team using statistics as a tool – not as the end-all and be-all, but as a tool – to make their team better. I don’t expect the Royals to acknowledge that Betancourt’s defense is still subpar. But it’s not too much to ask that they acknowledge that his defense could be improved. He’s clearly made some strides this year, but he just as clearly has a ways to go.

Alright, enough dancing around the main point of this article. I’m not prepared to concede that we were wrong about Betancourt. He’s put up some nice power numbers, but we’re still talking about a bad defensive shortstop with a .287 OBP. The Royals are on the hook for $3 million of his $4 million salary next year, plus a $2 million buyout of his 2012 option. That is to say, the Royals will pay him $5 million in 2011. As well as he’s played this year, if Betancourt was put on the trade market after the season, does anyone really think there would be any interest in him? Unless the Royals kicked in some money, I’d say no. Which is to say that even now, even with the Mariners paying some of his salary, Betancourt’s contract has no value.

And I still won’t concede that we were wrong about Betancourt, because everything I know about the situation at the time was that the Royals didn’t have to pay the price that they did. The Mariners were desperate to get rid of him. The Royals could have had the Mariners pick up more money, or do the deal without including Dan Cortes. (Cortes, by the way, was finally moved to the bullpen by Seattle a few weeks ago – a move that was long predicted – and has been dominant in that role: in 13 innings out of the bullpen in Double-A, he allowed just one run and struck out 20, and since being promoted to Triple-A he’s allowed one run in four innings.)

But if I’m not prepared to concede that we were wrong, I am prepared to concede that Dayton Moore was right. Moore was frank about the reason he made the trade at the time: that he didn’t see Betancourt as an All-Star player, but that he was better than anything the Royals had on hand, and the money the Royals would have to pay him was perfectly reasonable for an everyday player.

I hated the trade as much for what Betancourt represented – a giant middle finger to those of who believe that statistics matter – as who he was. But if you take the personal feelings out of the equation, the fact is that Moore was, generally speaking, right. Betancourt has been unquestionably better than the alternatives the Royals had on hand. This is an indictment of Moore’s work, that three years after he was hired the Royals were still forced into hoping that Tony Pena Jr. would hit, or that no one would notice that they were actually starting Willie Bloomquist at shortstop on a regular basis.

If the Royals had not traded for Betancourt, they would once again be petitioning the federal government to declare the area between second and third base a disaster zone. Jeff Bianchi, the one prospect in the system who might have been big-league ready, tore his elbow in spring training. Mike Aviles came back faster than expected from Tommy John surgery of his own, but he hasn’t shown nearly the fielding chops he did as a rookie. The Royals likely would have gone out of the system to find a stopgap anyway, and they would have been hard-pressed to find a player that would have matched Betancourt’s 1.3 Wins Above Replacement this season.

(Quick aside: how much of the credit we’re giving Betancourt should be reflected onto Kevin Seitzer? When you consider the talent the Royals had in the lineup at the beginning of the season, it’s a miracle that the team has even hit as well as it has. Jose Guillen, given up for dead, had an above average OPS+ before he was let go. Scott Podsednik, who had hit .270 just once in the last four years, hit .310 before he was traded. David DeJesus had the best numbers of his career before he got hurt. Wilson Betemit is having one of the great half-seasons in Royals history. And Betancourt has been more than tolerable at the plate. If only he can get Kila to hit…)

I don’t think the Betancourt trade is going to go down in the books as a win for the Royals in a strict accounting sense. The Royals gave up a potential quality reliever for the right to slightly overpay a below-average shortstop. But in a strategic sense, the trade is looking more and more like a small victory. In 2010, at least, Betancourt has done everything the Royals expected him to do. Good for him, and good for them.

As you know, I’ve taken a much softer stance towards Moore this year, for a variety of reasons, primarily the farm system, but also out of recognition that almost every GM makes dumb decisions occasionally, and that it’s not fair to judge Moore in a vacuum. On that note, as hard as it is for me to believe that he’s won this round, as a Royals fan I’m happy that what looked like Moore’s signature move of incompetence instead has me looking like the fool. I’m happy to play the fool this time around, if it means having a GM who might not be the fool I thought he was.

Then again, I was right about Mike Jacobs. And Kyle Farnsworth. And overworking Gil Meche. And Jose Guillen. And Horacio Ramirez. And Jason Kendall. And…

Addendum: As I put this post to bed, the Royals have just completed an epic double-header with the White Sox, a double-header which didn’t start until 6:10 PM, featured a pair of extra-inning games, and was briefly delayed due to a power failure. And it was one of the best days of Yuniesky Betancourt’s career. In the opener, he cost the Royals early with a defensive misplay, but made up for it and then some in the 7th inning, hitting a game-tying, two-out grand slam. It was his third grand slam of the season, which not only tied for the major-league lead but also tied the all-time Royals’ single season record held by Danny Tartabull. He came up again with the game still tied in the ninth, with two out and nobody on, and doubled. He did not score then, but in the 11th, he batted again with two outs, this time with the winning run on third, and delivered the walk-off single.

And then, in the nightcap, he batted in the ninth with the Royals down a run, and Mitch Maier on third base – and once again lined a single up the middle to tie the game. The Royals gave up the go-ahead run in the tenth, and lost because they couldn’t find a way to get Yuni to the plate one more time.

The most surprising thing about his performance, though, was this: in the second game, at nearly 1 in the morning, with Betancourt representing the Royals’ final hope in the ninth – I was able to root for him unabashedly, with no mixed feelings at all. I’ve put my reservations behind me, and learned to embrace Yuni, warts and all. He’s not my kind of player. But he’s still my player. And he’s a better player than I ever thought he’d be.

Royals Today: 8/15/2010.

Watching the Royals these last two weeks, you can kind of get a sense for why Zack Greinke is so frustrated. It’s not that the Royals are losing, although they’ve lost 8 of their last 11; or that they’re not scoring, although they haven’t scored more than 4 runs in any of those 11 games. It’s that the roster that takes the field every night is still, after all this time, predominantly made up of stopgaps.

Of the 25 men on the active roster, the only players who are good bets to be on the Opening Day roster in 2012 are Greinke (if he’s not traded), Billy Butler, and Joakim Soria. Alex Gordon and Kila Ka’aihue might be if the Royals don’t find a way to dump them. Mike Aviles and Mitch Maier have a shot. One of the relievers, most likely Blake Wood, will probably still be around. Maybe Sean O’Sullivan.

But that leaves at least 16 roster spots, and probably closer to 20, where the Royals are just spinning their wheels. Those roster spots will probably remain functionally empty until sometime around next May, at which point, if everything goes to plan, you might see a new player shuffle into Kauffman Stadium on each homestand. Tim Collins might show up first…then Mike Moustakas…a left-handed starter (pick one) around Flag Day…then another one around the 4th of July…

The future is getting closer. But it’s still in the future. The present, meanwhile, consists largely of counting time. It’s not simply that the Royals are bad, although they are. It’s that they’re largely pointless to watch.

- The struggles of one of the above players, Kila Ka’aihue, has some wondering whether he has a future with the ballclub after all. This is the danger that the Royals were courting by waiting until August to cut ties with Jose Guillen and giving Ka’aihue an everyday job. If Ka’aihue had come out of the gate crushing the ball, then ultimately the extra time in the minors would have been more of an inconvenience than anything else.

But because Ka’aihue started 4-for-35, suddenly there’s a very real danger that the Royals won’t get an accurate assessment of his abilities this year because they’ll simply run out of time. The Royals have another 44 games left this season, which means at most Ka’aihue is going to end up with a little over 200 plate appearances. That’s hardly enough playing time to properly evaluate a player, particularly a player getting his first opportunity in the big leagues.

Travis Hafner, to pick a very similar player, hit .242/.329/.387 in a 70-plate-appearance audition in 2002, and then started 2003 hitting .230/.302/.415 through the end of July, in 44 games. At that point, Hafner was 26 years old, had 219 career plate appearances, and had an unimpressive career line of .234/.311/.406. It’s a fair bet that Ka’aihue’s career line, at the end of this season, may approximate Hafner’s numbers both in quantity and quality.

From August 1st through the end of the season, Hafner hit .276/.349/.545. In 2004, hit .311/.410/.585 and led the league in OPS+, the start of a 3-year run in which he was arguably the best hitter in the American League.

I am not saying that Ka’aihue will hit like Hafner did; in fact I find it distinctly unlikely. But by giving him such a small window of opportunity, the Royals run the risk of making a poor evaluation of Ka’aihue’s talents at the end of the year, and even if he is the next Travis Hafner, the Royals might wind up discarding him anyway before they find out.

He’s hit into some tough luck, no question; he missed a home run by just a few feet in his first two starts after his call up, and in his first 5 games back he was 2-for-20 despite just 2 strikeouts. But he seemed to press after that, striking out 3 times in a game against the Angels and then uncharacteristically swinging at bad pitches over the past few games. On Thursday night, facing lefty specialist Boone Logan in the 8th inning, he fouled off the first two pitches, both down at his shoetops, then watched as the third pitch ran right through the heart of the plate for strike three. I’ve seen this movie before, with Alex Gordon in the starring role.

Hopefully he’ll come out of it soon. On Saturday he mustered two hits, including one off of Logan. On Sunday…he was on the bench, against a right-handed pitcher, so that Willie Bloomquist could play third base.

I still believe that Ka’aihue is going to be an above-average hitter in the majors. Check that: I believe Ka’aihue already is an above-average hitter, and just needs enough of a sample size to prove it. But the Royals have made his path needlessly difficult, and they aren’t doing him any favors by sitting him on the bench against opposite-side pitching.

- Speaking of Guillen, I have tried and failed to come up with a permutation of “cash considerations” or “player to be named later” which would cause the Royals to come out on the short end of the trade with the Giants. Perhaps if “cash considerations” meant “one billion dollars” – or worse, if the PTBNL was…Jose Guillen. Otherwise, the Royals got something for nothing. Don’t expect the PTBNL to be a real prospect, but even so, the Royals saved a quarter-million dollars. That’s enough to pay for a decent prospect out of the Dominican.

- I don’t think Bryan Bullington is ever going to live up to even a fraction of the expectations that come with a #1 overall pick. There’s no evidence to suggest that his Sunday start was anything more than the vagaries of baseball showing themselves, a reminder that it is baseball, not football, where on Any Given Sunday the worst team can beat the best team, even with a 29-year-old journeyman in search of his first career win on the mound.

But what a win it was. By Game Score, Bullington’s start was the best one of the season by a Royal. (Although tellingly, the Royals had six starts that were better than this in 2009.) It was just the third time in their history that the Royals had beaten the Yankees 1-0. (Amazingly enough, the other two times occurred in the same series – on June 9th and June 11th, 1972. Jim Rooker and Dick Drago threw shutouts; Paul Schaal and Amos Otis drove in the only runs.)

Most impressively, Sunday was the first time ever that the Royals shut out the Yankees on two hits or less.

I still don’t think that Bryan Bullington has any more upside than to be another Brian Bannister-type. But I’d say he’s earned another start. With the original Bannister not doing too well these days, the Royals could do worse than to let Bullington prove whether they’ve found a successor.

- Bullington’s performance was a testament to the veteran influence of Jason Kendall, who called a brilliant game, sagely guided his inexperienced hurler through the gauntlet of one of the game’s toughest lineup, and even threw out the speedy Brett Gardner trying to steal second base in the sixth inning.

Or at least, I’m sure Kendall would have done all those things had he actually started the game. Instead, Brayan Pena did.

In Pena’s last four starts behind the plate, the pitching staff has been so traumatized that they’ve given up a total of 9 runs. I don’t think it’s humanly possible to destroy the canard that the Royals need Kendall behind the plate for the sake of the pitching staff, but if the fact that the team is dead last in the AL in ERA wasn’t enough, the performance of their pitchers with Brayan Pena is just another data point.

Ned Yost, to his credit, seems to have noticed that Pena doesn’t call a fastball down the middle on every pitch, and that he’s even thrown out 5 of 13 potential basestealers. Yost has said that Pena will start almost every day game from now until the end of the season, and a few other assorted games, which should add up to about a third of the games on the remainder of the schedule. On any other team, allowing a 36-year-old washed-up catcher to play two-thirds of the remaining games for a last-place team would incite all kinds of protests. On the Royals, we call this progress.

- Well, it would be progress if Brayan Pena could actually hit. Instead, he’s now 1-for-his-last-23, and has grounded into 4 double plays in that span. After hitting an impressive .273/.318/.442 last season, he’s down to a line of .161/.238/.196 this year, and has struck out nearly as many times as he did last year, in barely one-third of the at-bats. If I didn’t know better, I’d say getting to play twice a month is bad for a player’s development.

- Twenty-one of the Royals’ next 24 games come against divisional rivals. Now’s the perfect time to make their move.