Luke, and Ned's Cool Hand.

“In my book Out of the Blue I told the story of when my first major league manager, Tommy Lasorda, gave me the nickname “Bulldog.” It was May of 1984, my first full year in the majors. I’ve often referred to the meeting in his office as “The Sermon on the Mound.” Because he had been told to, Ron Perranoski, my pitching coach, escorted me into Tommy’s office. I was carrying a 2-2 record and my ERA was a miserable 6.20. I knew I could do better than that and suspected that Tommy agreed. I was glad that Perry had come along – although Tommy wouldn’t have met with me, or any of his players, without their coach present.

No person had ever been more intimidating to me than Thomas Charles Lasorda. He was an enthusiastic leader, but although I had not played for him for more than a few months, I also knew that he was loud and brash. Verbally, he took no prisoners. A few days before this meeting, I had given up a two-out double in Houston to Jose Cruz with two men on base. Tommy was furious. But his anger was not directed at my mechanics or pitch selection. He was mad at me because he thought I was pitching timidly and didn’t believe in my abilities.

Now I was sitting in his office. “You don’t believe in yourself,” he shouted. “You’re scared to pitch in the big leagues. Who do you think these hitters – are Babe Ruth? Ruth’s dead! You’ve got good stuff. If you didn’t, I wouldn’t have brought you up. Quit being so careful. Go after the hitter. Get ahead in the count.”

Although I was being aired out, I was sure that I heard a compliment hidden in Tommy’s words. I’ve got good stuff? He brought me to the big leagues because he believes in me?

Tommy wasn’t done. “If I could get a heart surgeon in here, I’d have him open my chest and take out my heart. Then I’d have him open your chest, take out your heart, and tell him to give you mine. With my heart and your arm, you’d be in the Hall of Fame! I’ve seen guys come and go, son, and you’ve got it.”

Tommy finished his sermon with a flourish. “Take charge! Make ‘em hit your best stuff! Be aggressive. Be a bulldog out there.” And then, almost like he had surprised himself with a stroke of genius, he announced, “That’s going to be your new name: Bulldog. It’s the ninth inning, we bring you in and you’re facing Dale Murphy. He hears, ‘Now pitching, Orel Hershiser.’ He can’t wait till you get in there. But if he hears, ‘Now pitching, Bulldog Hershiser,’ he’s thinking, Oh, no, who’s that? Murphy’s going to be scared to death!”

I admit that I was a little insulted by the rah-rah pep talk and the nickname, but I knew Tommy had spoken the truth. I had been tentative and too careful. Two days later we were in a tough situation against the San Francisco Giants. The call came from the dugout, “Can anybody down there pitch?” The bullpen was spent so I volunteered, in spite of a tender elbow and an arm weak from overwork.

I’ll never forget the walk to the mound and the three innings that followed. I could hear Tommy shouting from the dugout, “C’mon, Bulldog! You can do it, Bulldog! You’re my man, Bulldog!” I was a major leaguer. I was good enough to be here and had what it took to win. And I started to believe it because it’s what my skipper had told me.

Tommy Lasorda had introduced me to the importance of truth-telling – tactless as it was – and the power of an encouraging coach.

- Orel Hershiser, Between the Lines: Nine Things Baseball Taught Me About Life

It wasn’t readily apparent, but by some measures, Luke Hochevar had a pretty good season in 2009.

In 143 innings with the Royals last season, Hochevar did his job pretty well. By “his job”, I mean the three things that a pitcher has the most control over: walks, strikeouts, and keeping the ball on the ground. Hochevar had a groundball rate of 47%, which is very good. (For comparison’s sake, the major league average is between 43 and 44%.) He walked just 46 batters, or 2.90 walks per 9 innings (the AL average was 3.39). He struck out 106 batters, or 6.67 Ks per 9 innings (the AL average was 6.86).

If that’s all you knew about Hochevar, you’d have to conclude that he was an average, maybe slightly above-average, starting pitcher in 2009. You’d be wrong, of course. Massively wrong.

Hochevar had his moments, as we all recall – the 80-pitch complete game, the 13-strikeout, no-walk gem, and the 3-hit shutout. In his other 22 starts, he got beaten like an extra in The Expendables. Hochevar finished the season with a 6.55 ERA – the highest in baseball for anyone with 100 or more innings.

Take those three starts out, and his seasonal ERA was 7.70.

There are a number of reasons why Hochevar turned a solid set of peripherals into the worst pitching in baseball. For one, despite being a groundball pitcher, he surrendered 23 homers in 143 innings – nearly 14% of flyballs hit against him cleared the fence, which is close to twice the usual average.

Secondly, he was a nightmare with men on base. Whether it was a matter of pitching poorly from the stretch as opposed to the windup, or a matter of him putting too much pressure on himself with men on base, or simple luck, the fact is that with no one base, Hochevar held opposing hitters to a line of .238/.302/.411. With men on base, they hit .364/.420/.628. With the bases loaded, batters were 4-for-7 with a double and a homer.

The xFIP stat is one of the best ways to calculate a pitchers’ “true” pitching ability – it calculates his ERA when you strip out all the luck out of his performance, and look simply at his ability to strike out batters, avoid walks, and keep the ball on the ground. Hochevar’s xFIP last season was a very solid 4.34. His ERA was 6.55 – a difference of 2.18.

Since 2002, when batted ball data became readily available and xFIP could be calculated, Hochevar has the greatest disparity between his xFIP and his ERA of any pitcher in a single season (min: 140 IP).

Pitcher Year ERA xFIP Diff.

Luke Hochevar 2009 6.55 4.34 2.20

Casey Fossum 2004 6.65 4.57 2.08

Carlos Silva 2008 6.46 4.64 1.82

Ricky Nolasco 2009 5.06 3.28 1.78

Manny Parra 2009 6.36 4.64 1.72

(Many thanks to Matt Klaassen for procuring this data for me.)

Early this year, it looked like more of the same. Through his first eight starts, Hochevar had made some progress – he had surrendered just one home run all season – but his inability to avoid the big inning saddled him with a 5.86 ERA.

“You manage two ways every night,” Yost said. “You manage for the small picture -- everything you can do to win tonight. But you also manage for the big picture, because we’re trying to change things around here. We’re trying to take ourselves to the next level.”

The last of those eighth starts was Hochevar’s first start under new manager Ned Yost. The start summed up Hochevar’s entire career to that point. He cruised through the first six innings, allowing two hits and one run, and the Royals led 4-1 going into the top of the seventh.

Hochevar had breezed through six innings when, with one out, he banged headlong into the big inning that has often betrayed him. But even as Mark Kotsay and Alexei Ramirez singled and Mark Teahen walked to load the bases, there was no stirring in the bullpen.

“We had that ballgame won. That’s on me; I gave that game away,” Hochevar said. “I need to get it done in that inning and get out of that. That’s not good.”

That’s what Yost and Hochevar discussed in the manager’s office right after the final out.

“Hoch is a guy that, when we get to the next level as an organization, he’s going to be a guy that's probably going to be a No. 2 or No. 3 starter, and he needs to find ways to not let that happen,” Yost said.

After retiring the first batter of the inning, Hochevar allowed five hits and a walk in succession. By the time he was pulled from the game, the game was tied, and Brad Thompson allowed a go-ahead sacrifice fly that would decide the ballgame.

“You can’t run and get him every time he gets in a little bit of trouble,” Yost said. “He has to learn how to pitch his way through that situation before he can really take it to the next level and, I mean, a 15- to 18-game winner and helping us win a championship.”

On Twitter, a frustrated blogger made it clear to the new manager that he needs to have a quicker hook with the shrinking violet that was his former #1 overall pick.

Peavy gave Hochevar a live demonstration on how to survive.

“Like I told Hoch, that's a perfect example,” Yost said. “Callaspo got the big hit in the first inning to give us a three-run lead, but Peavy stopped the bleeding and he settled down and made pitches right into the ninth inning. And that's the kind of guy I see Hoch becoming.”

Only after the game did it become clear that Yost deliberately left Hochevar out there even as his game fell apart. Yost was trying to lose the battle to win the war.

But the little picture was lost, as Yost took a chance on fixing the big picture with Hochevar.

“In terms of that, he has to learn how to take his game to the next level, and you don't do it by getting taken out of situations when you get in trouble,” Yost said. “And sometimes they hurt like tonight, but you can take a night that hurts and learn from it and become a better pitcher.”

There was no Sermon on the Mound that day. (By the way, I apologize for not quoting from Out of the Blue directly. I searched through all the storage boxes in my basement but could not locate my copy. Which is a shame, because after spending $18 for it – a lot of money for a 14-year-old in 1989 – it would be nice to actually get some use out of it.) But in leaving Hochevar out there to battle through adversity, Yost showed a confidence in his pitcher that Hochevar may not have had in himself.

From the time he was drafted, Hochevar has shown himself to be very intelligent, thoughtful pitcher – “thoughtful” in the sense that he is very aware of his strengths and weakness on the mound. He might have been too aware, in fact; perhaps the biggest criticism of Hochevar throughout his career has been that he has been too tentative on the mound, too quick to give the opposing hitters credit, too reluctant to go right after them, match strength against strength. He’s been missing a killer instinct, in other words.

On May 15th, Ned Yost, who had a long track record of instilling confidence in his young charges in Milwaukee, started to put his stamp on his new team, starting with his biggest enigma.

In Hochevar’s next start, threw his first complete game of the year, in a tidy 107 pitches. After allowing a two-run homer in the sixth inning – the Royals still led 6-3 – Hochevar retired the last 10 batters of the game. His next time out, Hochevar protected a 2-1 lead into the sixth inning. With one out, he gave up a single to Elvus Andrus and a game-tying triple to Michael Young. Hochevar stranded the tying run at third on a pair of grounds. The Royals re-took the lead with two runs in the bottom of the inning, and Hochevar worked two more scoreless innings before Joakim Soria closed out the 5-2 win.

Hochevar would give up five runs in his next outing, though he pitched well (two walks and 7 Ks in 7 innings). He was a hard-luck loser his next time, taking the loss despite allowing just one run in seven innings, striking out ten. He struggled in his start after that, on June 11th, after which it was revealed that his elbow was bothering him, and he missed nearly three months before returning. After a pair of abbreviated outings while he got his stamina back, he was let loose in his last start and threw six solid innings, allowing three runs.

All told, since Ned Yost sat him down for a talk, Hochevar has thrown 49 innings, allowed 46 hits, and has an excellent strikeout-to-walk ratio of 41 to 11. He has allowed 7 homers, but even so his ERA in that span is a very solid 3.86. In terms of runs allowed, this is easily the best stretch of Hochevar’s career.

For the season, Hochevar’s ERA is 4.79 – nearly two runs lower than last year’s mark – even though his xFIP is barely lower this year (4.25) than last (4.34). Is he really pitching better, or is his luck just evening out? I think it’s both. Certainly he was hurt by bad luck last year, and hurt by bad defense (only one of those things has evened out). But I also think that Hochevar has learned to staunch the bleeding. Last year, you knew that the minute Hochevar ran into some trouble, the wheels would come off. This year, he’s stayed on track through adversity. Maybe that’s the confidence imparted him to by Yost, simple maturation, or maybe it’s a mirage. But I don’t think it’s a mirage.

The simplest way to show the change in Hochevar’s results is to look at how many times he’s given up 3 or more runs in an inning. Hochevar started his career pitching long relief in September 2007, and began with a run of 15.2 consecutive non-3-run innings. That doesn’t sound like a particularly impressive streak, and it isn’t. But in his rookie season of 2008, he would have only one streak that was longer: after he was chased from the game by a 3-run sixth inning against the Twins on May 29th, Hochevar would make it until July 1st before giving up another 3-run inning, this time a 4-spot to the Orioles in the 3rd inning. In between, he threw 33.1 innings. They weren’t particularly good innings – he allowed 37 hits and 17 runs – but at least he was able to avoid any seriously crooked numbers in that span.

In 2009, Hochevar’s longest stretch without a 3-run inning was 24.1 innings. Over the last two months of the season, his longest stretch was just 13 innings. In his last seven starts, Hochevar had at least one 3-run inning in six of those starts (and in two of those starts he gave up 3 runs twice!) – the other start was his complete-game shutout.

Hochevar finished the season by allowing 12 runs in his final four innings – a 5-spot to end his start on September 28th, then a 3-spot and a 4-spot in the first three innings against the Twins on October 4th, helping the Twins to the sweep they needed to tie the Tigers for the AL Central.

Suffice it to say, by the end of the season he was a mess.

Hochevar started 2010 with the second-longest stretch of his career, 26.1 innings without allowing a 3-run outburst. His stretch ended when he gave up 5 runs to the Rays in the second inning on April 29th…and naturally, he gave up another 4 runs in the very next inning.

He allowed the Rangers to score 4 runs in the third inning on May 9th, and then on May 15th, with Ned Yost watching on, Hochevar surrendered the four runs in the seventh inning that cost the Royals the ballgame.

I’m not saying that Yost’s pep talk transformed Hochevar into a new man. All I’ll do is state the evidence, which is this:

Hochevar hasn’t given up three runs in an inning since.

Last Sunday, Hochevar gave up a two-run homer to Shin-Soo Choo in the first inning, then started the second inning by giving up back-to-back-to-back singles to plate a third run. The old Hochevar would have melted like the Nazis when they opened up the Ark of the Covenant. The new Hochevar retired the next three batters in succession, then went on to pitch four more scoreless innings and got the win.

Hochevar has now made 8 appearances and thrown 49 innings since Ned Yost gave him a talking-to, and has yet to allow more than 2 runs in any inning. That streak might well end tonight, but even if it does, it’s easily the longest such stretch of his career. And it makes me optimistic that Hochevar’s physical abilities, which are formidable, now come with the mental fortitude to match.

The narrative of Luke Hochevar is that he’s another failed #1 overall pick, another college starting pitcher who never showed the same stuff as a pro. That narrative is driven by Hochevar’s performance, but it isn’t supported by his stuff. Hochevar isn’t Bryan Bullington, who got hurt and never threw as hard after he signed with the Pirates as he did in college. He’s not Jeff Austin, who held out for 9 months and then showed up with 3-4 mph mysteriously missing off his fastball. Hochevar doesn’t have a dominant fastball, but he throws plenty hard, generally 92-93, and he has a full four-pitch repertoire. He never profiled as a prototypical ace, maybe, but he definitely projected as a #2 starter, and frankly his stuff still projects that way.

According to Pitch F/X data, Hochevar’s fastball has jumped in velocity this year, from an average of 91.8 mph to 93.6 mph this year. I’m a little skeptical about that, because the Pitch F/X data from Kauffman Stadium has been notoriously hot all season. (Analyst Mike Fast estimates that the average reading on pitches at Kauffman Stadium is 1.1 mph faster than at other ballparks.) But even if you factor in an adjustment for that, it appears Hochevar is throwing a little harder this year. Whether that’s a maturation thing, or whether he’s throwing harder because he’s learned to stop trying to be too fine with his pitches and just go after hitters, I don’t know. But it’s something.

I don’t think that Hochevar is going to suddenly turn into the second coming of Orel Hershiser. (For one thing, as I’ve detailed here, we’ve already seen the second coming of Orel Hershiser, and his name is Brandon Webb. I wrote that comparison three years ago, and since then the similarities between the two have only grown stronger. Four starts into his seventh full season in the majors, Hershiser tore his rotator cuff, and missed a season and a half. One start into his seventh full season in the majors, Webb tore his rotator cuff, and has missed almost two full seasons.)

But I do think that Hochevar has the power to re-write the narrative of his career. Hochevar has, unfairly I think, been labeled as another big draft mistake by the Royals, and all because a guy named Tim Lincecum was drafted by the Giants and won two Cy Young Awards in the next three years.

If you want to label, say, Alex Gordon a draft bust, the evidence is far stronger for that. Not only is Gordon a year further into his career, but the 2005 draft already is considered to be one of the best ever. Justin Upton went first overall; Ryan Zimmerman went fourth, Ryan Braun fifth, Troy Tulowitzki seventh. Ricky Romero, who went sixth, and who two years ago was considered the black sheep of this group, has suddenly turned into one of the better left-handed starters in baseball. Only Matt Jeff Clement, who went third, saves Gordon from being the worst pick in this group.

(And that’s not it. After the Rays whiffed on Wade Townsend with the eighth pick, the next four players selected were Mike Pelfrey, Cameron Maybin, Andrew McCutchen, and Jay Bruce. Of the first 12 picks in the 2005 draft, Gordon might have been the third-worst – and he’s still an average major league player.)

But the 2006 draft was far weaker, and the decision to take Hochevar first overall is far more defensible. Everyone likes to talk about Tim Lincecum, but you know where he was picked? Tenth – meaning that eight other teams also passed over him. If you think Hochevar was a bad pick, do you know who went second overall? A guy named Greg Reynolds – whose major league resume consists of 62 innings and an 8.13 ERA. That’s a bad pick.

Evan Longoria went third, but Brad Lincoln went fourth, and he’s still trying to establish himself in the majors. Brandon Morrow went fifth, and he’s suddenly emerged as one of the best power pitchers in the league. But none of those guys were considered to be worthy #1 overall picks. The guy who was the consensus Best Player in the Draft went sixth overall: Andrew Miller. Miller has a 5.74 career ERA, has suffered arm troubles, and this year was relegated to Double-A – where he had a had an ERA over six.

Yes, the Royals could have had Lincecum, who Kevin Goldstein recommended they take. They could have taken Clayton Kershaw, who went seventh overall and was my favorite (after Miller) heading into the draft. Or they could have taken Drew Stubbs, who went eighth. (I swear I remember reading somewhere – and I don’t remember where – that Dayton Moore, who had just been hired by the Royals but who was not allowed to participate in the draft, wanted the Royals to take Stubbs. That would have been a fascinating pick – Stubbs isn’t a star player, but his combination of power, speed, and great defense makes him one of my favorite breakout candidates for 2011.)

But they could have had Greg Reynolds, or Brad Lincoln, or Andrew Miller as well. It’s time to stop regretting what the Royals could have had with that pick, and recognize that the player we did get is better than a lot of the alternatives. And he’s only getting better. The Royals have a lot of problems to solve in their rotation. But Zack Greinke isn’t their only solution.

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.