It Happens Every (Tenth) Spring.

Yesterday, a young left-hander hoping to break camp with the Royals for the first time made his first spring training appearance. The southpaw, who was drafted out of high school in the third round five years ago, faced six batters, and struck out five of them. He was so dominating on the mound that KC Star beat writer Bob Dutton – who never does this – positively gushed about him afterwards.

I am, of course, referring to Danny Duffy. But replace “yesterday” with “ten years ago”, and every word of that paragraph would be equally true for Jeremy Affeldt, in March of 2002.

When I pointed this out on Twitter yesterday, some of you thought I was poking fun at Duffy’s performance, or poking fun at Dutton, by pointing out what he said about Duffy he once said about Affeldt. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Some of you remember this, but for those who don’t: Jeremy Affeldt entered spring training that year as a virtual unknown. He had finally reached Double-A in 2001, his fifth pro season, and while he was reasonably successful (3.90 ERA, 128 Ks and 46 walks in 145 innings), he wasn’t considered a top prospect or anywhere close to it. In Baseball America’s 2002 Prospect Handbook, Affeldt was ranked as the #13 prospect in the Royals’ system – and it wasn’t a good farm system. Here are the 12 guys who ranked ahead of him:

Angel Berroa, Jimmy Gobble, Colt Griffin, Mike MacDougal, Roscoe Crosby, Miguel Asencio, Ken Harvey, Kyle Snyder, Mike Tonis, Brad Voyles, Runelvys Hernandez, and Ryan Bukvich.

As I was saying: the farm system wasn’t good. It actually kind of sucked.

According to the Handbook, Affeldt was “a poor man’s version of Jimmy Gobble,” and “despite his solid arsenal, Affeldt doesn’t consistently throw quality strikes and gets hit more than he should.”

He was not, in other words, expected to make much of a buzz in camp.

And then he took the mound for the first time, against the Pirates in Bradenton – this was the Royals’ last spring training in Florida – and showed stuff that no one had seen from him before. A fastball in the mid-90s. A curveball that dropped like a hot potato. By the time he finished his two-inning stint, scouts and sportswriters alike were at a loss to explain it. “Koufaxian,” was one description I heard, from someone who had actually seen Koufax pitch.

Joe Posnanski was in attendance along with Dutton that afternoon, and wrote a column – which, thanks to McClatchy Newspapers’ Neanderthal approach to the internet, has long been scrubbed from the web – that put Affeldt on the map as not just a prospect, but as a potential star.

And here’s the thing – he came close to fulfilling that potential. Affeldt made the Royals’ roster on Opening Day, despite never having pitched above Double-A before. He began the season in long relief; in seven appearances in April, he threw 17 innings, with a 2.60 ERA and 18 strikeouts. He then moved to the rotation, where he was erratic for seven starts, before developing a blister problem which sidelined him for nearly two full months. He returned in August and pitched out of the pen the rest of the year. He finished his rookie season with a 4.64 ERA – which in 2002, with the fences still in at Kauffman Stadium, was better than league-average.

In 2003, he nearly won the job of Opening Day starter – manager Tony Pena literally flipped a coin, and Runelvys Hernandez won the toss. Once again, blisters wreaked havoc on his pitching – he went on the DL in late April for two weeks, skipped over a start in June, and was pulled out of several games early. But through July 23rd, he had thrown 95 innings with a 4.34 ERA, and the Royals were in first place. At that point, the blister problem became such a drag that the Royals decided to move him to the bullpen, figuring shorter stints would keep the blisters from acting up. In 31 innings the rest of the way, Affeldt had a 2.64 ERA, struck out 33 and walked only nine.

The results on the mound were solid, but the stuff he showed was incredible. His fastball regularly sat at 94-95 as a starter, and in the bullpen he regularly touched 98. (At least that’s what the TV radar guns showed – the official data we have today suggests he was throwing more 92-93.) His curveball broke as hard as any curveball I’ve seen from a Royals’ pitcher in at least 20 years. The only Royals’ pitcher who exceeded Affeldt’s pure stuff this century was probably Zack Greinke. He was a joy to watch; his starts were the closest thing to must-see Royals TV in years.

That winter, he finally had corrective surgery to remove a portion of the fingernail which was responsible for his blister problems. The surgery was successful; Affeldt hasn’t had a blister problem since. But the surgery must have excised a portion of his ability along with the nail, because he wasn’t the same pitcher afterwards.

The Royals didn’t help; they kept moving him from the rotation to the bullpen and back, unable or unwilling to commit to him in one role. In 2004, he made eight starts and relieved 30 times; he threw 76 innings with a 4.95 ERA overall. In 2005, he was used strictly in relief and was pretty awful, with a 5.26 ERA and 29 walks in 50 innings. In 2006 he hit rock bottom – in 70 innings, he walked 42 batters and struck out 28. Dayton Moore was hired in July, and by the end of the month he had traded Affeldt (and Denny Bautista) to Colorado for Ryan Shealy.

After a half-season of struggles with the Rockies, Affeldt figured things out. Left to work strictly in relief, over the last five seasons he has a 3.04 ERA, including a 2.74 mark since joining the Giants three years ago. Ten years after he opened eyes one fine March afternoon, Affeldt is still pitching in the majors, has made over $20 million, and has amassed 7.6 bWAR in his career. That might not sound like much, but that’s more than those 12 guys ranked ahead of him in the Royals system – combined.

So I’d venture to say that in the case of Jeremy Affeldt, one brief spring training performance was deeply meaningful. Before that day, he was a marginal prospect in a marginal system. After that day, he went on to have a career that has stretched over a decade, has been a valued reliever on two pennant winners and one world championship team, and still left some with the nagging sensation that he could have been even better.

Danny Duffy is no Jeremy Affeldt; in terms of pedigree, he’s a lot better. He’s a former Top 100 Prospect, he’s already earned his way to the major leagues, and despite struggling last year, no one’s thinking about turning him into a reliever yet. And while Affeldt was overmatching a bunch of Pirate hitters, Duffy embarrassed the Reds, including strikeouts of Joey Votto, Jay Bruce, and Scott Rolen.

I asked Bob Dutton – who was one of the few people (if not the only one) to see both performances in person, to compare the two. He kindly obliged. “Affeldt's two innings in Bradenton were always my measuring stick until today. I guess Affeldt still gets the nod as someone coming out of nowhere…but Duffy was better. Not a lot better, but he was better. He made big-time hitters look awful. His new cutter simply tied up Votto for a third strike.”

So there you go. Duffy was the better prospect before Breakout Day, and Duffy was the better pitcher on Breakout Day. I know it’s just two innings. And Duffy might take the mound next week, struggle to touch 90 on the gun, and all of this will get forgotten.

But one special day in spring training propelled a lesser pitcher to a long career in the major leagues. Who knows what one special day will do for Duffy? It might mean nothing. But it might mean everything.

“He simply overmatched these guys,” Dutton concluded. “Season-changer stuff if this isn't a complete anomaly.”

I think Dutton meant that it could change the arc of Duffy’s season. But it just might change the arc of the Royals’ season too.

Royals Report Card 2011: Part Seven.

(I hope to give you an extended review of my spring training experience later, but for now, let me just say that it was a wonderful time. Too wonderful, honestly – I intended it to be a working vacation, but it turned out to be less “working” and more “vacation”, which is why I need to start this post by apologizing for not writing about my trip yet. I also unexpectedly got the opportunity to make my national TV debut on the MLB Network, on last Friday’s episode of “Clubhouse Confidential”, which you can watch here. I say “unexpectedly” quite literally, as the suit you’ll see me wearing was graciously loaned to me by our own Joel Goldberg.

While I didn’t get a lot of writing done, I did have some great conversations with some great baseball people, both inside and outside the game, both with the Royals and with other clubs. Hopefully it will inform my writing going forward. I’m also hopeful that I will be able to bring you some of those conversations in the near future.)

And now, the second half of last year’s starting rotation, including anyone who made even a single start for the team:

Luke Hochevar: C+

I’m through with trying to predict what Luke Hochevar is going to do. For years I’ve been defending him with faint praise, arguing that his peripherals are much better than his ERA would suggest, and he’s just been the victim of bad luck*, and anyway he’s still better than Andrew Miller, who everyone thought should have been the #1 pick in the draft that year over Tim Lincecum and Evan Longoria and everyone else.

*: In 2009, Hochevar walked 46 batters in 143 innings, struck out 106, and his groundball rate was 47%. His xFIP that year was a very respectable 4.28. Somehow he wound up with a 6.55 ERA.

Hochevar now has nearly four years of service time in the majors, he’s 28 years old, and it might be time to accept that this is who he is: a below-average starting pitcher. His career 5.29 ERA is the second-highest of any pitcher (min: 500 IP) who was active in 2011, and you can guess who #1 was. His 4.68 ERA last season was his career-best, but 1) his ERA simply tracked the league-wide decline in offense, as his ERA+ of 87 was the same his mark in 2010, and 2) if your career-best ERA is 4.68, you have issues.

But again…his ERA shouldn’t be this high. Hochevar’s xFIP was 4.05 last year. In 2010, when he had a 4.81 ERA, his xFIP was 4.09. His career xFIP (4.27) is more than a point lower than his career ERA.

A disparity that large over the course of a single season can be chalked up to bad luck. Over the course of a career of nearly 600 innings…luck starts to take back seat to other explanations. In Hochevar’s case, there’s a much more compelling one: he’s a different, and much worse, pitcher from the stretch than he is from the windup.

For his career, with the bases empty, opponents have hit .249/.308/.415.

With men on base, his career line is .310/.371/.475.

At least, that’s the charitable explanation. The alternative is that he wilts under pressure, to a degree virtually unseen in a player at the major-league level.

With runners in scoring position, batters hit .314/.388/.497.

With the bases loaded (just 38 career PA) they hit .406/.421/.688.

I prefer the first explanation to the second, because most of the opposing hitters’ improvement occurs the minute someone reaches first base. Also, while many pitchers have shown a difference in performance from the stretch, it’s the rare pitcher indeed who simply collapses under pressure.

Hochevar began 2011 as maddening as ever. After getting knocked out in the fourth inning on July 9th, he had a 5.46 ERA, and had struck out just 60 batters (against 38 walks) in 119 innings. But he came back after the All-Star Break and allowed one run in seven innings on July 15th, and in the second half of the season, a span of 12 starts, Hochevar had a 3.52 ERA. His strikeout rate jumped from 4.6 to 7.7 per 9 innings; in 79 innings he struck out 68 batters, while walking just 21 unintentionally.

Hochevar has been so frustrating in his career precisely because he has been capable, in brief spurts, of being a dominating pitcher, like the time he threw a 3-hit shutout or when he tossed a complete game in 80 pitches. But he’s never been as effective for as long as he was after the All-Star Break last season. The official explanation is that he finally began pitching inside to left-handed hitters, using his slider more effectively. The less-than-official explanation is that, in the words of one baseball guy, “his testicles descended.”

Hochevar has long had a reputation for lacking toughness on the mound. I’m not a fan of questioning a player’s character based on his performance, but when baseball people question a pitcher’s “toughness”, they’re basically saying that the pitcher is either afraid or unwilling to pitch inside. Whether it was due to shedding his fear or simply a change in his approach, I don’t know, but in the second half of 2011, Hochevar effectively used the inside of the plate for the first time.

The other reason for optimism is that Hochevar went a long way towards eliminating his troubles from the stretch in 2011:

With bases empty: .246/.297/.435

With men on base: .261/.337/.420

With runners in scoring position: .274/.364/.405

When you account for the fact that opponents’ OBP in the latter two scenarios was inflated a little by four intentional walks, Hochevar actually pitched a bit better from the stretch than from the windup.

His ERA was still higher than you’d expect, primarily because he gave up more homers than expected. Despite mild groundball tendencies (a 49% groundball rate; league average is around 43-44%), and despite calling Kauffman Stadium home, Hochevar gave up 23 homers in 198 innings. However, his gopher problem was isolated to the first portion of the season. Hochevar gave up 13 homers in his first 10 starts, then just 10 homers in 132 innings the rest of the way.

Again, I’m not going to make any predictions about Hochevar’s future. If you want to believe that he’s finally licked his problems from the stretch, that he can sustain his second-half performance for all of 2012, you have data on your side. If you want to believe that his ERA is destined to trail his peripherals, and that he’ll never be even a league-average pitcher, you have even more data on your side.

I don’t know which Hochevar we’re going to get. For $3.5 million in 2012, and with club control through 2014, it’s a worthwhile gamble to see if he can be a league-average innings muncher at the very least.

The one thing I do know is this: Luke Hochevar is still the odds-on favorite to be the Royals’ Opening Day starter. And you wonder why I wanted Edwin Jackson so bad.

Vinny Mazzaro: F

I don’t have many rules in life, but one of them is this: any time you give up 14 runs in a single relief outing, I’m giving you a failing grade. Just to recap – last year, the Royals’ bullpen ranked 8th in the AL with a 3.75 ERA. Take out Mazzaro’s relief outing on May 16th, and the bullpen’s ERA improves to 3.52 – which would have ranked 3rd in the league, a few thousandths of a point out of 2nd.

It’s not clear what the Royals saw in Mazzaro that made them willing to accept him as the centerpiece of the deal for David DeJesus. He’s not a groundball pitcher; he’s not a strikeout pitcher; he’s not a control pitcher. He had a fluky 4.27 ERA in 2010, due to good fortune, a favorable ballpark, and the flukishness of having 12 of the 70 runs attributed to him as being “unearned”. His RA – “run average”, counting both earned and unearned runs – was 5.15. The Royals should have known better than to think he was an upgrade on what they had. He wasn’t.

Maybe Justin Marks, the second pitcher in the deal, will work out in some fashion. Mazzaro probably won’t. He still has an option, so he’ll probably work in the back end of Omaha’s rotation this season, waiting for an opportunity that, as a Royals fan, I am forced to hope he never gets.

Luis Mendoza: A (minors), incomplete (majors)

Your guess is as good as mine. Mendoza was signed out of Mexico in 2000, when he was 17 years old. Six times in his career he has pitched at least 130 innings in a minor-league season. In none of those seasons has he struck out even 100 batters.

If you can’t miss bats at the minor league level, you’re probably not going to miss the sweet spot of the bat at the major league level. In 2008 Mendoza finally got an extended trial in the majors, with the Rangers, and got obliterated – in 63 innings, he gave up 97 hits and 74 runs. He allowed four runs in a single inning with the Rangers in 2009. This was enough to pique the interest of the Royals, and on April 2nd, 2010 – on the eve of Opening Day – the Royals inexplicably bought him from the Rangers and put him on their roster. Four innings and ten earned runs later, Mendoza’s career line in the major leagues included 122 hits in 84 innings and an 8.43 ERA, he was dispatched to Omaha, and once again we were left wondering if the Royals had any clue what the hell they were doing.

Mendoza spent the rest of 2010 being modestly successful in Omaha, despite striking out 59 batters in 132 innings. He returned to Omaha last season, and…something happened. If you believe the Royals, what happened was that Doug Henry completely revamped Mendoza’s delivery, got him to stand taller and pitch on a more downward plane, and as a result, Mendoza – who hadn’t had an ERA lower than 3.93 in the minors since 2004 – led the Pacific Coast League with a 2.18 ERA.

If you believe the numbers, what happened was that Mendoza just got really, really lucky. In 144 innings, he only struck out 81 batters. He walked 50 batters unintentionally – his strikeout-to-walk ratio was actually lower than in 2010. But he only gave up 5 homers in 144 innings. That’s a fantastic ratio, and if his new delivery came equipped with a killer sinking fastball, I’d be excited. But his groundball percentage wasn’t any better in 2011 than in previous years. I understand the temptation to confuse correlation with causation: the Royals overhauled his delivery, his ERA was cut in half, therefore A caused B. But the evidence strongly backs the notion that it was actually C that caused B – “C” being “outrageously good luck on contact.”

Complicating things is that the Royals gave Mendoza a two-start audition with the big club in September, and he won both starts, allowing a single earned run in each. He only struck out 7 batters in 15 innings, and walked 5, but if you’re inclined to believe in Mendoza – as the Royals clearly are – you’ll take those two starts as evidence that he’s figured it out. Particularly when you let Philip Humber go the previous season and then watched him supply a division rival with 163 innings and a 3.75 ERA in 2011. (Never mind that even prior to last year, Humber’s strikeout rate in the majors was higher than Mendoza’s rate in the minors.)

But here's the thing: back in 2007, in his major league debut, Mendoza put up very similar numbers – in 16 innings, he allowed 4 runs, despite just 7 strikeouts against 4 walks. Finesse pitchers, by their nature, are subject to the vagaries of balls in play – in a small sample, they can be very successful if the balls fall their way. That’s what happened to Mendoza in 2007. In 2008, the Rangers felt the full wrath of regression to the mean. I would prefer that didn’t happen to the Royals in 2012.

Unfortunately, with Mendoza out of options and the Royals hell-bent on seeing what they have, he’s next in line if someone gets hurt or if Felipe Paulino and/or Danny Duffy struggle. Maybe he really has figured something out, but I’d sure as hell rather see him win the job as the team’s long man out of the bullpen, and prove that he can get guys out in two- or three-inning stints in games that are already out of hand. Because I suspect all he’ll prove is that 2011 was a fluke, and I’d rather that he supply his proof without costing the Royals two or three wins in the process.

Sean O’Sullivan: C- (minors), F (majors)

Dayton Moore has had a pretty good run the last two years, but his record isn’t spotless. Three months before he traded DeJesus for Mazzaro and Marks, he dumped Alberto Callaspo – who was a fantastic offensive force in 2009 and showed surprising defensive chops in his first try at third base in 2010, and who was still cheap and club-controlled for years – into Sean O’Sullivan and Will Smith.

Like Mazzaro, O’Sullivan’s youth made him appear promising on the surface – he was just 22 at the time of the trade. But pitchers aren’t like hitters; some pitchers peak in their 30s, while others max out their abilities in their early 20s. O’Sullivan, with his beefy body and lack of projection, was more the latter than the former. The bigger concern was that O’Sullivan had never had good strikeout rates at any level. Yes, he was always one of the youngest players in his league, and debuted in the majors when he was 21 – but to paraphrase Casey Stengel, some 21-year-olds are destined to get better, and some 21-year-olds are only destined to get older.

In 58 innings for the Royals last year, O’Sullivan struck out 19 batters, and walked 26. There is no way to spin that as anything other than horrifying. He was much better in Omaha – in 75 innings, he struck out 55 and walked just 16. It’s possible he will one day find modest success as a middle reliever who compensates for his hittability with excellent control (c.f. Minnesota Twins). But if he does, it won’t be in Kansas City. O’Sullivan is out of options, and barring unforeseen circumstances will be in another organization a month from now.

The saving grace of the Callaspo deal is that unlike the DeJesus trade, where Marks was clearly the second player in the deal, the second pitcher the Royals got for Callaspo – Will Smith – was a legitimate prospect, arguably more integral to the trade than O’Sullivan was. Smith is sort of a left-handed version of O’Sullivan, in that he’s young, has good command for a pitcher his size, but lacks an out pitch. But he is left-handed; sometimes those guys surprise. If the Callaspo deal isn’t destined to go down as a complete dud, it will be up to Smith to rescue the trade.

Felipe Paulino: A-

If you’re not familiar with my opinion on Paulino, you must be new here.

Paulino was claimed off waivers on May 26th, and from the day he joined the Royals until the end of the season, he led the pitching staff in strikeouts. In 125 innings, he had a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 119 to 48, and allowed only 10 homers. His 4.11 ERA was second among Royals’ starters behind only Bruce Chen. He continued to blaze one of the fastest heaters in the majors, averaging 95.1 mph on his fastball. If Paulino simply pitches as well this year as he did last year for the Royals, he’s a league-average starting pitcher. Those guys are worth eight figures on the open market, making Paulino, who will earn $1.9 million this season, a steal.

The Royals were able to claim Paulino on waivers in the first place because of his persistently bad luck. In 223 career innings, his BABIP was a ridiculous .356. Despite a strikeout-to-walk ratio of better than 2-to-1, he had a 5.93 career ERA. (Pitching in Houston, and then Colorado, didn’t help.) So what makes Paulino intriguing is that after the Royals picked him up, he still pitched in bad luck – his BABIP with the Royals was .331, which is better but still about 30 points higher than normal. It’s just that his peripherals were so strong that he managed a league-average performance even with one hand tied behind his back.

Paulino has a career BABIP of .347, in nearly 350 career innings, and it’s a fair question to ask if he’s one of those rare pitchers who, for whatever reason, doesn’t have a BABIP that normalizes to the league average. Bruce Chen, after all, has a BABIP well below average for his career. But in Chen’s case, there’s a specific reason – he’s an extreme flyball pitcher, and flyballs (that stay in the park) are less likely to turn into hits than groundballs.

But in Paulino’s case, there’s no obvious reason why his BABIP should be so high. His career groundball rate is 44.0%, right around league average. His career line-drive rate is 17.8%, also right around league average.

And here’s the thing: Paulino’s BABIP isn’t simply high – it’s historic. Since 1950, which is about as far back as we have play-by-play data that allows us to calculate batting average on balls in play, just under 2000 different pitchers have thrown at least 250 career innings in the major leagues.

FELIPE PAULINO HAS THE HIGHEST CAREER BABIP OF THEM ALL.

Maybe Paulino, for reasons we can’t fathom, is more susceptible to giving up hits on balls in play than the average pitcher. Maybe his fastball straightens out, maybe his delivery lacks deception, I dunno. But I refuse to believe that he is THIS susceptible to giving up hits. A .347 BABIP is simply unsustainable. Not only does he have the highest BABIP of anyone with 250+ innings, but if we raise the bar to 500 career innings – which Paulino may reach this season – the highest career BABIP is Glendon Rusch’s .331. Zach Duke is at .329; no other pitcher with 1000 career innings is above .320.

Paulino showed last year that he can be successful even with a BABIP of .331. There’s excellent reason to believe his “true” level is lower than that, simply because no pitcher has a true level that high. If his BABIP normalizes this year, Paulino could take a major step forward as a pitcher. He doesn’t need to change anything on the mound. He simply needs to be himself, and trust that Lady Luck will stop kicking him in the ass.

Everett Teaford: B+ (minors and majors)

It’s a credit to the Royals, I think, that they have several viable pitching options that 1) may not make the Opening Day roster and 2) aren’t getting any attention for the fact that they may not make the Opening Day roster. Teaford is probably the best example of this.

A quick recap: Teaford was a nothing prospect, a loyal organization soldier with a great attitude and no shot at becoming a viable major-leaguer, until the middle of 2010, when his pitching coach in Double-A tweaked his delivery, his fastball gained 5 mph, and his strikeout rate jumped through the roof.

The biggest news for him in 2011, then, was simply that he seemed to maintain the gains in velocity that he made in 2010. Pitch f/x judged his average fastball at 91.7 mph last year, plenty good enough for a left-hander with good command and secondary pitches.

He spent so much time on the I-29 shuttle between Omaha and KC that his overall performance gets overlooked. He threw 35 innings in Omaha with a 3.34 ERA, and 44 innings for the Royals with a 3.27 ERA. While I don’t normally recommend mixing major and minor league stats together, combining his line makes it easier to see the shape of his performance:

79 IP, 59 H, 25 BB, 61 K, 13 HR, 3.30 ERA.

Teaford was sort of the mirror opposite of Paulino last year – he owed a great deal of his success to luck on balls in play. His BABIP was just .228 for the Royals, and .205 for the Storm Chasers. That’s not going to continue, obviously.

But while Teaford was extremely fortunate on balls in play, he was quite unfortunate when it came to balls going out of play. He gave up a homer every six innings last year, including eight homers in 44 innings for the Royals, which would make you think he’s a flyball pitcher. But at least in his brief time in Kansas City, he was not. His groundball rate (44.6%) was average, but just under 20% of the fly balls he surrendered turned into homers. The typical rate is around 10%. I expect him to give up a lot more hits this year – but I also expect him to give up fewer home runs.

It’s not a wash – I don’t expect him to pitch as well as he did last year – but then, he doesn’t need to match his 3.27 ERA from last year in order to have value. If he simply matches his xFIP last year of 3.95, he’ll be a valuable pitcher in some role. Whether that comes in the bullpen, in the rotation, or in the minors is more dependent on the performance of the other pitchers on the roster than on Teaford himself.

To start the season, Teaford’s best bet is to make the team as a second lefty out of the pen, although to even win that job he’ll either have to beat out Tim Collins or wait for Jose Mijares to implode. But pitching staffs have a way of creating opportunities for pitchers on the bubble. I think we’ll see more of Teaford this year than we did last year, and I think he’ll take advantage of the opportunities that arise.

Perezence.

Three years ago, Salvador Perez was a nobody. He was an 18-year-old kid, a name without a face, just another Latin American kid signed by a rudderless organization, indistinguishable from hundreds of other Latin American kids with big dreams and bigger odds against them.

Or at least, that’s what it looked like from a distance. Within the organization, even then, Perez stood out. Maybe it was the strong arm and preternaturally quick release, maybe it was the massive legs that belied a dancer’s agility behind the plate. Maybe it was his passion for the game, his baseball intellect, his easy bilingual rapport with his teammates and his pitching staff. But there were already stirrings that the Royals may have found a gem.

Back in 2008, Joe Hamrahi, who had attended scout school under the auspices of the Royals, had already filed this report on Perez. And in May of 2009, Kevin Goldstein made his first appearance on my radio show. My final question for him for was to give me the name of a sleeper in the organization. He gave me Salvador Perez. Never mind that Perez was in the process of hitting just .189/.230/.236 for low-A Burlington, necessitating a demotion back to rookie ball. He now had a face to go with his name, or at least some skills – he was a teenage catcher with strong defensive chops. It was something to build on.

Two years ago, Perez was a name to keep an eye on, but that’s all he was. Even as he jumped to high-A Wilmington, a terrible place to hit – particularly for right-handed hitters – and batted .290/.322/.411, he hardly stood out in the organization. It wasn’t his fault – that was The Year Of The Royals Prospect. Just among his Wilmington teammates, Eric Hosmer hit .354/.429/.545 and was promoted to Double-A at mid-season. And then there were the pitchers he caught, guys like Mike Montgomery and John Lamb and Chris Dwyer and Danny Duffy and Aaron Crow. They got the glory; Perez got the reflection.

A year ago, Perez was a prospect, but that was all he was. He looked like he had a major-league future, but didn’t project as an impact player, and in a Royals system being crowned as the Best Farm System Ever, that wasn’t enough – Perez was ranked somewhere between #17 and #20 on the team’s prospect list. True, he might have been considered #1 in the Brewers’ system, but that was true of most of his teammates, several sportswriters, and roughly a quarter of the KC metro area.

Seven months ago, Perez had quietly become of one of the organization’s best prospects, as much because he filled a position of need as for his talent. He showed up in spring training last year and was the talk of camp, with 1.8 pop times to second base and a rapport with pitchers that you just don’t see from 20-year-olds*.

*: Quick diversion to a (second-hand) story from last year’s camp: the first time Perez caught Joakim Soria, he took charge the way he did with every pitcher, gently encouraging Soria, chatting up his pitches, and generally acting like he was the veteran helping the kid along instead of the other way around.

Soria was a little taken aback by the way this 20-year-old from A-ball was projecting his authority, so he decided to test out the kid: without warning, he purposely buried his next pitch three feet outside and in the dirt. In one smooth motion, Perez slid over, snagged the ball out of the dirt like he was fielding a grounder, yelled out some more words of encouragement, and threw the ball back to Soria like nothing had happened. To no one in particular, Soria mouthed a single word: “nice”.

Perez had gone to Double-A Northwest Arkansas to start last season, and hit .283/.329/.427, much as he had in Wilmington – well, but not too well. He was then promoted to Omaha in July and started off hot – he hit .333 in his first 12 games.

Yesterday, Salvador Perez signed a contract that could keep him in a Royals uniform through 2019, guarantees him $7 million, and almost everyone in baseball agrees: the Royals got themselves a bargain.

In some ways, a lot has happened in the last seven months to justify the change in perception. And in some ways, not much changed at all.

What changed, certainly, is that Perez was called up to the majors in August – originally it was a temporary promotion while Matt Treanor recovered from a concussion – and forced the Royals to make him the everyday catcher. He picked off two baserunners in his major league debut. He hit .331 in 148 at-bats, and while that was somewhat of a fluke – hitting .331 almost always involves some degree of good luck – he also hit line drives on 29% of his balls in play, compared to the major-league average of 18%.

So yes, he definitely improved his stock during his audition with the Royals last year. He definitely caught a lot of general (i.e. non-Royal) baseball fans off-guard, the same people who were trying to figure out yesterday who the hell was this kid the Royals just gave a five-year contract to. But within the organization, and to fans who have watched his meteoric but steady rise through the ranks, Perez’ performance last year didn’t change their perception of him so much as it confirmed it.

The most important statistic associated with Perez isn’t .331, it’s 21. As in, Perez was 21 years old last year. If Perez had been 23 years old, he’d project today as a solid everyday catcher in the majors, possibly an above-average catcher at his peak. But he wouldn’t project as a star, and while this five-year contract would look like a sensible piece of risk mitigation by the Royals, it wouldn’t be perceived as a coup.

But he wasn’t 23 years old. He was 21. The rate of improvement in a position player’s baseball skills at that age are dramatic, and a performance of Perez’s caliber at that age is almost unprecedented. As I wrote a few months ago, Perez had the best offensive performance ever for a 21-year-old catcher with at least 100 plate appearances. But forget his performance – the mere fact that he was catching in the big leagues at all was remarkable. Jeff Zimmerman covered this at Royals Review, but here’s a list of all the catchers since 1980 who had 100 plate appearances in a season at the age of 21:

Rich Gedman

Joe Mauer

Brian McCann

Orlando Mercado

Yadier Molina

Dioner Navarro

Salvador Perez

Ivan Rodriguez

Mike Scioscia

Orlando Mercado is the black sheep of the group; I don’t recall that he was ever considered a top prospect, he hit .197 as a rookie, and he never hit in the major leagues. Dioner Navarro generated as much controversy over his abilities as any prospect I’ve ever covered – he hit .341 for half a season as a 19-year-old in Double-A, but scouting reports were very mixed, and he never hit over .300 at any other minor league stop. He’s had his moments in the majors, but has been disappointing overall, held back at least in part by concerns about his focus and work ethic. But everyone else on that list had a long, and in most cases stellar, career in the majors.

Perez wasn’t just 21 last year – he was a young 21. His birthday is May 10th, meaning he’ll still be 21 for the first month of this season. Eric Hosmer was also 21 last year, but he turned 22 in October – Perez was, by over four months, the youngest player on the Royals last year. As I’ve written out repeatedly, when talking about players in their teens or early 20s, the difference between an October and a May birthdate matters. (And in case anyone was wondering, Perez is Venezuelan, where birth records are kept much more securely than they are in the Dominican Republic.)

Perez’s age also explains why his breakout performance wasn’t all that shocking. He played in a full-season minor league when he was still 18 – he didn’t play well, but it’s rare for a player to impress his organization enough to even get the opportunity at that age. He debuted for high-A Wilmington when he was still 19, and played well. Last year, he started in Double-A at age 20 and didn’t miss a beat, and was in the majors three months after he turned 21.

Before last season ended, I postulated that after Hosmer, it was Perez – not Mike Moustakas – who was the most important young player in the organization. No one questions his defensive skills, which are above-average at worst and project as potentially Gold Glove-caliber. He has a reputation for having a fierce work ethic, a reputation which certainly isn’t hurt by the immense strides he has made as a player the last few years. Really, the only question about Perez’s future is how he will hit. Most see a guy who can hit .270-.280, and who ought to develop into a 12-15 homer hitter in his prime. That’s a good hitter for a catcher, but with his free-swinging tendencies and his lack of speed, that’s not a star.

Statistical analysis doesn’t help us a whole lot with projecting a player’s desire or his ability to call a game, or even with his defense. (Although statistics are certainly helpful in quantifying the value of what Perez has already done.) But statistics are highly useful for trying to project a player’s offense, and fortunately, this is where the statistics would argue in Perez’s favor. Perez isn’t really a .331 hitter, but we can translate his performance for all of 2011 and say that he was roughly a .280/.315/.415 hitter (that’s approximate – my copy of Baseball Prospectus 2012 should be delivered to my home today. The problem is that I’m currently in a hotel in Arizona.)

And we can use statistical analysis to project a 21-year-old hitter forward and say that, by the time Perez is in his mid-20s, there’s a good chance he will have blasted his way past those projections of him being a good #7 hitter. I think Perez can hit .280 with 12 homers this year. By 2016, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s flirting with .300 annually, and hitting 20-25 home runs. That’s the power of a favorable date of birth.

To this point, I’ve written thousands of words on Perez the player, and nothing on the contract that he signed. Well, really, what’s there to write? It’s a tremendous deal for the Royals, the rare contract that combines terrific upside with virtually no risk. Perez will make $7 million over the next five years, and isn’t guaranteed a penny after that. Even if Perez’s 2011 turns out to be the biggest tease ever, and he settles in as nothing more than a good catch-and-throw guy who hits .260/.300/.330 in the majors, he’ll be paid about what a decent backup catcher makes on the open market.

Perez’s contract runs through 2016. At the end of that season, he will have made less money in his career – all the way back to his signing bonus in Venezuela – than Bubba Starling was guaranteed on the day he signed. Starling was worth $7.5 million even though there’s a lot of risk with him – how could anyone argue that Perez, who has already earned the job of everyday catcher in the majors, isn’t worth $7 million over the next five years?

If Perez hadn’t signed this deal, he would make roughly the major-league minimum over the next three years, or about $1.5 million. By signing this deal, the Royals essentially locked in his first two arbitration years at a total of $5.5 million. If he reaches the low end of his projections – the .270 hitter with 10-12 homers – he’d earn roughly that amount in arbitration. If his bat develops from there, the Royals may save millions.

(By the way, anyone notice how Perez is getting paid more than the major-league minimum the next few years? The Royals have not back-loaded the contract as much as you might think. This is a smart thing, because the Royals have the payroll space now, whereas in 2 or 3 years, when Hosmer and Moustakas reach arbitration eligibility, the Royals will face pressure to keep payroll costs down elsewhere.)

But of course, the real savings come in the option years. The Royals can keep Perez for his final arbitration year, as well as his first two years of free agency, for about $20 million in total. The upside here – if Perez turns into an All-Star – are tremendous. Yadier Molina, who is a pretty good comp for Perez overall, is about to earn something like $14 million a year on a long-term deal with the Cardinals. The Royals have the option to keep Perez for less than half that – and considering inflation, free market salaries will likely have gone up considerably more in five years.

The downside here – Perez turns into a good-not-great catcher – is that the Royals would have the option to keep Perez at roughly free-market prices, but they’d only have to commit to him for one year at a time. The odds that the Royals don’t pick up Perez’s options at all are low, and mostly limited to catastrophic occurrences like a severe injury or something. (I hate to even mention this, but given what happened to another young, right-handed hitting Venezuelan catcher this winter, when Perez goes home can we get him a security detail at all times?)

Put it this way: this is probably the most unambiguously good move of Dayton Moore’s career. Very limited downside; very substantial upside.

This contract is unprecedented in so many ways. Start with this: the Royals now control Salvador Perez’s employment for the next eight seasons. Since George Brett retired and the days of the “lifetime” contract (which really weren’t lifetime contracts, but whatever) ended, I’m quite certain the Royals have never had a player under contract eight years into the future.

The longest case of club control I can think of is when Joakim Soria, early in his second full season in the majors, signed a long-term deal for three years with three club options – keeping him under control for six years plus the remainder of the 2008 season. Both contract bought out two years of free agency and bound the player to the Royals for the first eight full seasons of their career, so let’s compare the two contracts:

Year   Perez       Soria

0      ML minimum

1      $0.75M       ML minimum

2      $1.00M       ML minimum

3      $1.50M       $1.00M

4      $1.75M       $3.00M

5      $2.00M       $4.00M

Option Years

6      $3.75M*      $6.00M**

7      $5.00M*      $8.00M

8      $6.00M       $8.75M

*: Plus incentives worth up to $5 million over the 3 seasons combined.

**: Or a $750,000 buyout. Perez’s options do not appear to have a buyout.

Perez’s contract guarantees him less money than Soria’s did. If both players had all their options exercised, Perez would make less than Soria. There’s essentially no way that Perez will make as much money as Soria will over the same number of years. This despite the salary inflation that has occurred between 2008 and 2012. And this despite the fact that Soria is a closer, while Perez is an everyday catcher.

There’s a reason for this, of course – Soria had proven himself as an elite player, and had done so for longer than Perez. But even an elite closer isn’t worth more than an above-average everyday player. Basically, by being willing to sign Perez now – with just 39 games of major-league playing time to his credit – the Royals were able to lock in an even bigger discount than you see in most long-term deals to young players.

(The Royals should probably thank Matt Moore for setting a precedent in this regard. Moore signed a contract with the Tampa Bay Rays with the same framework this winter – 5 guaranteed years, three option years. Moore is guaranteed $14 million over the next five years. As good as Perez is, Moore is indisputably the best pitching prospect in baseball – it’s no insult to Perez that he got half as much guaranteed money. If Perez is half the player Moore is, he’ll be a good one.)

Here’s something to consider – the all-time list of most games caught by a Royal:

Mike Macfarlane: 798

Brent Mayne: 620

John Wathan: 572

John Buck: 562

Here’s the list of the highest career bWAR by a Royals’ catcher.

Darrell Porter: 17.3

Mike Macfarlane: 13.1

Fran Healy: 3.8

John Buck: 3.4

If Perez earns out his options and starts for the Royals for the next eight years, he will almost certainly be at the top of both these lists – and with room to spare. This might sound ridiculous when talking about a player with all of six weeks of major-league experience, but if Salvador Perez is not the best catcher in Royals history when all is said and done, then something went wrong.

(Perez, with 1.1 bWAR last season, already ranks 12th all-time among Royals catchers. With a good year in 2012, he could jump all the way to third.)

When the press release was sent out, heralding a “major announcement” about the “contract status” of a Royals player, the assumption was that Alex Gordon had finally agreed to terms. When it was revealed that the press conference had nothing to do with Gordon, there was certainly a lot of disappointment, myself included. And I still think I’d be even more excited about a Gordon extension – depending on terms – than I am with the real news. Royals baseball in 2018 and 2019 is a hazy event that I’m hardly thinking about, whereas the presence of Gordon’s bat in the lineup in 2014 and 2015 is a very real thing that will have very tangible effects on the team’s ability to contend in those two years.

But in its own way, Perez’s contract should have at least as much impact on the course of the franchise as Gordon’s would have. And certainly, the two contracts are not mutually exclusive – the money guaranteed to Perez is so minimal that it should have no impact on the Royals’ ability to afford Gordon.

When the Royals drafted Moustakas and Hosmer with back-to-back top-3 picks in the draft, we knew what the deal was: by drafting Boras clients, the Royals knew that even if they got them signed and even if they developed into stars, the odds that the Royals would ever get them to sign long-term deals, the sort of deals that revived baseball in Cleveland in the mid-90s when John Hart pioneered the concept, were slim-to-none. The Royals knew this winter that if they were going to lock up a player long-term, it wasn’t going to be their third baseman or first baseman. It wasn’t going to be a pitcher, for obvious reasons. Johnny Giavotella was too unproven, and the Royals had too many alternatives at second base. Lorenzo Cain was too old.

Salvador Perez was none of those things. He played a key defensive position, and played it well. He was extremely young. He had no real competition for his job anywhere in the organization. He was the perfect guy to approach.

More than that, he was the perfect guy to trade the potential for untold riches for lifetime security. I’ve mentioned the St. Petersburg Paradox before, which is the notion that people prefer a guarantee of a small amount of money over the potential for large sums of money, because the marginal utility of the small money is greater, i.e. the first million dollars you make will generate more happiness for you than the second million. This notion works best, of course, with people who don’t already have a ton of money. One of the things that makes Boras clients relatively impervious to long-term deals is that he’s usually already earned them a huge payday when they were drafted. Hosmer got $6 million when he signed; assuming he’s been reasonably responsible with his money, he should be set up well even if his career goes completely south.

But Perez? Perez’s signing bonus as a 16-year-old out of Venezuela was so small that I can’t locate it. He made about $100,000 after the Royals called him up last August, and that probably represents well over half his lifetime earnings. The cost of living in Venezuela is less than in America, so Perez might have quite reasonably decided that a guaranteed $7 million today means that he and his family are taken care of for life. What 21-year-old wouldn’t want that?

So as much as this deal looks like a bargain for the Royals, that doesn’t mean it can’t be win-win. Perez guarantees himself and his family a lifetime of security. The Royals ink a potential star catcher, a player they adore and who they think can be the catcher on a championship club, at a significant discount. The rest of us get to invest in a Salvador Perez jersey with the knowledge that he will likely be here for the rest of the decade.

I love happy endings. Especially when they may lead to the beginning of something even better.

How The Farm System Resembles Mark Twain.

Last year at this time, you might recall, the Royals were considered to have the best farm system in baseball. More than that, their farm system was deemed by many prospect experts as possibly the best they had ever seen. Nine different Royals made Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospect list, something no team had done before, and BA has been compiling their list since 1990. (Baseball Prospectus had ten Royals in their Top 100.) The Royals also became the first team ever to land five prospects in BA’s Top 20. By any reasonable calculation – Baseball America did one here – the Royals clearly had the best farm system of any team in at least 20 years.

A year later, and the Royals don’t have the #1 farm system in the game. This has provoked the occasional sarcastic tweet from my friends at Royals Review – best exemplified here – that maybe the Royals’ farm system wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Maybe it really wasn’t the best farm system ever, or maybe having the best farm system ever isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The second complaint – that even the best prospects bust at a higher rate than we’d like – is certainly valid, and was addressed here (with my rebuttal – featuring a relative unknown by the name of Salvador Perez – here and here). But the notion that the Royals’ farm system was overrated last year is, to my mind, absurd.

Yeah, the Royals don’t have the #1 farm system in baseball right now. According to Baseball America, they currently have the…#2 farm system in baseball. In the organizational rankings that Baseball America includes in their annual Prospect Handbook, the Royals ranked #3 overall, behind the Washington Nationals and the Toronto Blue Jays. But those rankings went to press before the Nationals cashed in a huge chunk of their talent on Gio Gonzalez – trading away Brad Peacock (their #3 prospect per BA), A.J. Cole (#4), Derek Norris (#9), and Tom Milone. I’m fairly certain that taking out those four players would drop the Nationals at least two spots in their rankings.

(At ESPN.com, Keith Law ranked the Royals’ farm system as #5 in the majors. Baseball Prospectus has yet to unveil their organizational rankings.)

So yes, the Royals don’t still have the best farm system in baseball. But they do have one of the five best farm systems in baseball. Which is incredible, when you consider how much talent they graduated last year. TWELVE different players made their major league debut for the Royals last year, ten of whom (all but Manuel Pina and Kelvin Herrera) exhausted their rookie status. That’s ten players who are not eligible for “Top Prospect” consideration. They are:

Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Johnny Giavotella, Salvador Perez, Danny Duffy, Nate Adcock, Aaron Crow, Louis Coleman, Everett Teaford, and Tim Collins.

That’s four starting infielders, a starting pitcher, and an entire freaking bullpen. With the caveat that it will be a decade or more before we know for sure, that’s probably the greatest rookie crop in the history of the franchise. (Oooh, oooh, I smell an idea for an article! Or five of them!)

There is a consensus that the three best prospects in the game right now are Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, and Matt Moore, in some order, and that there’s a big gap between them and whoever is #4. But if Hosmer had been left in Omaha all season, the Big Three would be a Big Four. Hosmer was hitting .439 when he was called up – while I don’t think he would have kept up that pace, he probably would have hit something like .360 or .370, with an OBP approaching .450 (it was at .525 when he was called up), and a slugging average around .600. Fierce debates would have taken place between Hosmer’s pure hitting skills and Harper’s power and Trout’s all-around skill set. (It's worth noting that from the people I talked to, Hosmer clearly passed Jesus Montero around mid-season.)

If Moustakas had stayed in Omaha all season, he’d probably be a Top 20 prospect, like he was last year.

Forget Hosmer and Moustakas – if Salvador Perez had stayed in the minors one week longer, he’d be eligible for Rookie of the Year and still a “prospect”. (Perez had 148 at-bats for the Royals – the rookie cutoff is 130.) Perez probably would have been a Top 100 prospect this season. Look at his resume: a 21-year-old catcher with excellent defensive skills, who hit .290/.331/.437 in the high minors, then hit .331 in the majors. I could see him somewhere between catcher Yasmani Grandal (#51 on BA’s Top 100) and Wilin Rosario (#87) on BA’s list this spring.

And if Giavotella had been called up two weeks later – he had 178 at-bats for the Royals – he would have been a fringe Top 100 guy as well. Second baseman rarely get top prospect consideration – BA’s list only has two second basemen in its Top 100 – but Giavotella has hit .322 and .338 in back-to-back years in Double-A and Triple-A, gets on base at a .390 clip, and slugged .460 and .481. Kolten Wong, a college second baseman who was the Cardinals’ #1 pick last June, ranks #93 on BA’s list. Wong projects to be a tick better than Giavotella all around, but Giavotella has considerably less risk. I’m not as certain that Gio would have made BA’s list, but he probably would have made someone’s list.

Even without Perez and Giavotella, the Royals did fine. They didn’t land nine guys on BA’s Top 100; they landed five – only four teams had more. They didn’t land five guys in BA’s Top 20, but they had three guys in BA’s Top 30, a feat only two other teams matched. The Royals were the only team that did both.

So pardon me if this seems obvious, but rumors of the Royals farm system’s demise are greatly exaggerated. It’s still terrific.

Look, many of the Royals on last year’s Top 100 saw their stock drop during the season. While Hosmer and Duffy and Jake Odorizzi took a step forward, and while Moustakas held steady, there was a lot of attrition from the other guys. Mike Montgomery was an enigma all season, featuring his usual nasty stuff but also sporting a 5+ ERA all year. John Lamb blew out his elbow and won’t be back on a mound until June or so. Christian Colon was a huge disappointment after being picked #4 overall. Chris Dwyer stopped throwing strikes, and Wil Myers struggled all year with a knee injury before picking it up in the Arizona Fall League.

But even those disappointments come with silver linings. When it comes to Tommy John surgery, a prospect delayed is not a prospect denied – Lamb is likely to be at 100%, if not this year than in 2013. (Kevin Goldstein ranked Lamb in his Top 101 despite the injury.) Montgomery did feature his usual stuff, and while evaluations of him are all over the map – Goldstein didn’t rank Montgomery in his Top 101 – he’s still seen as a potential ace if everything comes together. Myers not only hit the crap out of the ball in the AFL, but scouts were uniformly convinced that, with his knee finally healthy, he looked like the top prospect he was the year before. Among the nine prospects in BA’s Top 100, only Dwyer and Colon lost a significant amount of their prospect luster. That’s the nature of prospects – two out of nine is an acceptable rate of attrition.

Myers, Montgomery, and Odorizzi were all repeat Top 100 guys this year, and they were joined by a teenage breakout player from Latin America (Cheslor Cuthbert) and the #5 overall pick in the 2011 draft (Bubba Starling). They were nearly joined by another breakout Latin American, Kelvin Herrera, who according to BA’s Jim Callis was one of 10 prospects who just missed the Top 100 list.

Do the Royals have The Greatest Farm System Ever anymore? No. Were they supposed to? Of course not. They were supposed to graduate a lot of that talent to the majors last year, and they did. And with that talent in place, they outscored their opponents after the All-Star Break. If you had told me, prior to the season, which Royals would have lost their rookie eligibility, I wouldn’t have guessed that the Royals would rank even as high as 3rd on Baseball America’s organization rankings this spring.

What I find interesting is that, because the Royals graduated so much talent last season – some of it ahead of schedule – they are unlikely to have many prospects come up this year. Which means that, with a year for all these prospects to ripen and mature, the Royals’ farm system is likely to be as good, if not better, a year from now.

Mike Montgomery, who BA ranks as the Royals’ #1 prospect, is likely to lose his rookie eligibility this season, unless the Opening Day rotation somehow replicates last year’s outfield in terms of both health and effectiveness. (Hint: it’s not going to happen.) But after Montgomery? Take a look:

#2: Bubba Starling. If Starling, who has yet to make his pro debut, plays in the majors this season, either something has gone spectacularly wrong or something has gone spectacularly right. Probably both.

#3: Wil Myers. Myers certainly could earn a promotion by mid-season, if he goes to Omaha and picks up where he left off in the AFL. But between Gordon, Cain, and Francoeur, there’s no room at the inn for Myers. Unless Francoeur tanks completely – always a possibility – or there’s a serious injury, Myers is probably going to stay in Omaha until September.

#4: Jake Odorizzi. A breakthrough performance from Odorizzi is possible, and if you talk to the Royals, you’ll get the impression that it’s very possible. But for him to get called up before August, he’d have to step forward significantly and a couple jobs would need to open up and he’d still probably have to wait his turn behind Montgomery. The odds he loses his rookie eligibility this season are no more than 25%.

#5: Cheslor Cuthbert. He’s awesome, but he’s also 19 and probably starting the season in Wilmington. In a best-case scenario he might be ready for the majors late in 2013 – when he’d only be 20 years old.

#6: John Lamb. I love Lamb and he has the polish to move quickly once he returns from Tommy John surgery…but that won’t happen until June at the earliest, and it sounds like the Royals are being very conservative – bordering on too conservative – with his timetable. If he’s on a mound in June, I could see him being ready for the majors in September – but he’ll still be rookie-eligible at year’s end.

#7: Kelvin Herrera. Along with Montgomery, the most likely guy on this list to lose his eligibility this season. Herrera’s essentially ready for a bullpen spot today, but the Royals’ bullpen depth gives him an uphill battle to claim a spot in spring training.

#8: Jason Adam. Slated for Wilmington this year, and it would be considered a success if he reaches Double-A by year’s end.

#9: Chris Dwyer. I honestly have no idea where he’ll be by the end of the year. He could be back in rookie ball trying to figure out how to throw strikes. He could be in the majors, throwing 97 from the left side as a one-inning reliever. But the odds he throws 50 innings in the major leagues this year are slim.

#10: Yordano Ventura. See Jason Adam.

So of the Royals’ ten best prospects this year, only two are unlikely to be eligible for next year’s prospect list. That also goes for almost every Royals prospect between #11 and #20, whether it’s Jorge Bonifacio (slated for Kane County) or Elier Hernandez (17 years old) or Noel Arguelles (headed for Double-A) or Brett Eibner (Wilmington) or the half-dozen guys the Royals gave $700,000 or more to in last year’s draft. Christian Colon could bounce back and hit .300 in Omaha…and if he does, he’ll still be blocked at shortstop by Alcides Escobar and at second base by Johnny Giavotella.

In other words, the Royals’ farm system is likely to take a significant step forward this season, simply because they’re likely to graduate little, if any talent, to the major leagues. Meanwhile, they have a ton of teenage prospects who have yet to make a dent as professionals, either because they were drafted last year or because they were signed out of Latin America and are only now reaching full-season leagues. They also have the #5 pick in this year’s draft, who will almost certainly be on next year’s Top 100 list.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say the Royals are the favorites to have the #1 farm system in the major leagues next year. That would probably be the Blue Jays, who have a better system right now, and who – aside from #1 prospect Travis D’Arnaud and maybe Deck McGuire – are not likely to graduate many of their prospects either.

But I think the Royals are in excellent position to have a Top-5, if not Top-3, farm system yet again next spring. Having a Top-3 farm system as ranked by Baseball America for three straight years, unlike having nine prospects in their Top 100, is not unprecedented. However, a look at the teams that have done it since BA started ranking organizations back in 1984 is instructive. Three franchises have had Top-3 farm systems for three years in a row:

Los Angeles Dodgers, 2004-2006. There was a time, not long ago, when baseball analysts of all stripes sang the praises of Logan White, then (and now) the Dodgers’ scouting director. Guys who were top prospects with the Dodgers during that time include Matt Kemp, Russell Martin, Chad Billingsley, and Jonathan Broxton. (Clayton Kershaw, who was drafted in 2006, didn’t factor into these rankings.)

The Dodgers’ farm system has since fallen on hard times, possibly due to the fact that they have one of the worst owners in the history of baseball. But it’s worth noting that said owner – Frank McCourt bought the team in 2004 – didn’t keep the Dodgers from winning the NL West that year, or winning the wild card in 2006, or winning the NL West and going to the NLCS in both 2008 and 2009.

Florida Marlins, 1997-1999. This is a weird example. The Marlins had a fantastic farm system going into the 1997 season, and several of their best prospects, including Luis Castillo, Edgar Renteria, and Livan Hernandez, came up that season and helped the Marlins win a world championship. After the season, owner Wayne Huizenga order the team stripped bare, which caused the team to lose 108 games in 1998, but did replenish the farm system in time for them to have a Top-3 ranking again before the season began. They did a good enough job of restocking the system – and benefited from sucking so bad in 1998 that they had the #2 pick in the 1999 draft, which they used on Josh Beckett – that they won another world championship in 2003.

But I’m not sure there’s a lesson to learn here, unless that lesson is that it’s awfully easy to build up your farm system if you’re prepared to tear down your major league roster. Then again, you could learn that just by looking at the Oakland A’s over the past four months.

New York Mets, 1984-1986. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better example of a franchise that went from rags to riches on the backs of its farm system. The 1983 Mets won 68 games, despite having the Rookie of the Year, former #1 overall pick Darryl Strawberry. But they had the best farm system in the game, headlined by a pitcher named Dwight Gooden, who struck out 300 batters (!) in the minor leagues in 1983, at the age of 18.

In 1984, Gooden was Rookie of the Year (he only struck out 276 batters) and the Mets won 90 games – although they were very lucky that year, as they were outscored. But along with Gooden and Strawberry, they had Lenny Dykstra and Roger McDowell and Rick Aguilera and Kevin Mitchell, and they had the depth to trade a bunch of guys for Gary Carter, and they stole Bobby Ojeda and Sid Fernandez and Ron Darling, and in 1986 they had one of the greatest baseball teams of all time.

Three franchises have had Top-3 farm system for more than three years. They are:

Montreal Expos, 1991-1994. It still makes me angry to think about this. The 1994 Expos didn’t just have the best record in the majors, they had one of the most talented teams of the last generation. Pedro Martinez. Larry Walker. Marquis Grissom. Moises Alou. Cliff Floyd. John Wetteland. Mel Rojas. Sean Berry. Ken Hill. Mike Lansing. Darrin Fletcher. Kirk Rueter. None of those players were older than 28 that season. Bud Selig has had a long and generally successful reign as Commissioner, but killing baseball in Montreal will probably go down as his most unforgivable act. Yes, even more than the strike that killed the 1994 World Series. (Granted, one begat the other.)

Atlanta Braves, 1992-1996. There are two amazing things about this stretch. The first is that it began after the Braves came within a Lonnie Smith baserunning error of a world championship. The second is that it actually undersells how strong the Braves’ farm system was. The Braves were ranked by Baseball America as having one of the 7 best farm systems in baseball every year from 1992 to 2005. Fourteen straight years with one of the seven best farm systems in baseball? That’s almost as impressive as making the playoffs 14 straight years.

Toronto Blue Jays, 1987-1989 AND 1992-1995. The Blue Jays also ranked in the top 6 in 1990 and 1991, so they had a top-6 farm system for nine straight years. (They had a top-7 farm system every year from 1986 to 1997.) After blowing the AL East in 1987, they bounced back to win the division in 1989 and again in 1991. They then won back-to-back World Series in 1992 and 1993.

It’s not entirely fair to compare the Royals to these teams, because some of them were winning at the major-league level by the time their farm systems received acclaim. The Braves had been to the World Series in 1991; the Blue Jays had won 86 games in 1986, and won the AL East in 1985. And while the Marlins and Dodgers were both under .500 the year before their farm systems reached the top, they both made the playoffs (and the Marlins won a championship) in their first year. The Royals, despite the #1 farm system in the game last year, went 71-91.

But the other two examples provide some comfort. The Mets were 68-94 in 1983, much as the Royals were 67-95 in 2010, and that was actually the Mets’ best record in seven years. (Sound familiar?) Yes, the Mets went 90-72 in 1984, but they were outscored by 24 runs on the season. (Last year’s Royals were outscored by only 32 runs all year.) In 1985, the pitching arrived, and the Mets won 98 games while outscoring their opponents by 127 runs.

And then there are the Expos. The 1991 Expos went just 71-90, but they already had some key building blocks in place – notably, Larry Walker, Marquis Grissom, and Delino DeShields were all rookies in 1990. But behind the ageless Dennis Martinez, the rotation featured such luminaries as Chris Haney and Brian Barnes and even Oil Can Boyd. A year later, they had traded three prospects for John Wetteland; traded incumbent first baseman Andres Galarraga to St. Louis for Ken Hill; replaced Galarraga with rookie Greg Colbrunn; promoted Moises Alou to the majors; and watched as Mel Rojas and Jeff Fassero emerged as impact relievers. They won 87 games in 1992, and were on their way.

I understand if this article seems overly optimistic, given that most of these teams began their stretch of farm system dominance in nearly as big a hole as the Royals were in a few years ago. And I certainly understand if this article seems wildly premature, given that the Royals still need to prove that they can maintain a Top-3 farm system for another year. But, having proven the point last year that an elite farm system is almost always a gateway to contention within a few years, I felt compelled to point out this year that sustained excellence from a farm system is not only a gateway to contention, but in most cases, to sustained contention.

I told Soren Petro on radio a few weeks ago that I thought the Royals were a good bet to have multiple playoff appearances during what we’ll call the Hosmer era, and I’ll stand by that. An analysis of historical comps to the Royals has me confident that between 2012 and 2017, the Royals have a better than 50/50 chance to win at least two AL Central titles. The fun won’t necessarily begin this year; the Tigers are still the divisional favorites. But the anticipation certainly will. Our Time, indeed.

Royals Report Card 2011: Part Six.

You go to war with the rotation you have, not the rotation you want. So enough pining for what we don’t have – here’s a report card for everyone who started a game for the Royals last season:

Nate Adcock: B

Adcock, I think, is a reminder of how difficult it is to strike gold in the Rule 5 draft. By any reasonable expectation, his season had to be considered a success. For one thing, he actually stayed on the Royals’ active roster for the entire year, which is in itself a rarity – of the 19 players selected in the 2010 Rule 5 draft, just six of them made it through the season with their new teams unscathed.

Adcock finished with mediocre but acceptable numbers for a bottom-of-the-bullpen guy – a 4.62 ERA in 60 innings, with 36 strikeouts and 23 unintentional walks. He made three starts during the season, and while he was blasted in one of them – he gave up 7 runs in 2.2 innings on a day when the ball was flying in Arlington – he pitched very well in the other two: five shutout innings against the Cardinals on May 21st, and two runs allowed in 5.1 innings in Detroit on August 31st.

The problem is that, despite sticking on the roster all season, he pitched in just 21 games in relief. He went 13 games without pitching from April 8th to April 22nd. He pitched in just three games in all of June, and just twice in September. After throwing three innings on June 16th, he didn’t pitch again until July 1st, when he threw two innings in a 9-0 loss – and then didn’t pitch again until July 22nd, when he closed out a 10-4 victory.

The Royals gave all sorts of reasons for why they had to employ seven and sometimes eight relievers all season, but really the reason boils down to this: they were carrying a pitcher they had so little faith in that they allowed him to take the mound one time in five weeks. That will play havoc with your roster.

But in the end, they made it through the season with Adcock…so now what? Adcock wasn’t a top prospect before they snagged him – he didn’t rank among the Royals’ top 30 prospects last year per Baseball America, nor did he with the Pirates in 2010. He had an acceptable rookie season, but didn’t do anything that made you think he’s ready for a more prominent role. I mean, is he one of the Royals’ eight best bullpen options for 2012? Is he one of their five best options for the rotation? No and no.

Which means the best outcome for him is that the Royals send him to Omaha and put him in the rotation, and see if he can become something – which is great, except that the CBA prohibits teams from cutting a player’s salary by more than 20% from one year to the next, even if they’re in the minor leagues. Adcock made the major league minimum of $414,000 last year – so the Royals will owe him about $330,000 to pitch in the minors this season. That’s not an insignificant amount of money for someone who lights up neither radar guns nor the eyes of prospect gurus.

But while Adcock doesn’t throw hard – his fastball averaged 90.4 mph last season per Fangraphs – he was drafted with a reputation for having a lot of sink on his heater, and that certainly bore out. Adcock’s groundball rate as a rookie was 55.6%, which was the highest of any Royals pitcher with at least 20 innings. Adcock turns 24 this month; there’s not a lot of projection left with him, but he’s at least young enough to refine his pitches.

Adcock might wind up a lot like Kanekoa Texeira, who stuck on the Royals’ roster for much of 2010 and then quietly faded away after struggling in Omaha early in 2011. But that groundball rate tells me that it’s worth keeping an eye on him. Adcock may not have the pedigree of his teammates, but the Royals clearly saw something in him when they drafted him. If they allow him to make up for missed development time in Triple-A this season, they might still get something out of their investment.

In the meantime, perhaps it’s a blessing that the Royals didn’t try to snag another pitcher in December’s Rule 5 draft. They’ve got a hill to climb if they want to contend in 2012, and playing with a 24-man roster wouldn’t help.

Bruce Chen: B+

A year after surprising everyone by going 12-7 with a 4.17 ERA for the Royals, Chen came back on a one-year deal and went 12-8 with a 3.77 ERA. Chen became only the second Royals pitcher since 1999 to win 12 games in back-to-back years – Zack Greinke did it in 2008 and 2009.

Which is why Chen is now back on a two-year deal.

Chen’s ability to continue to pitch well depends on whether he has the rare, almost mythical ability to consistently beat the odds on balls in play. To reiterate: balls in play turn into hits roughly 30% of the time, and that rate is almost completely independent of the pitcher on the mound. Against Roy Halladay, batters have hit .295 on balls in play in his career; against Oliver Perez, they hit .292. The difference between Halladay and Perez is entirely the result of walks, strikeouts, and home runs – not balls in play.

Last season, on balls in play against Bruce Chen, batters hit just .280. In 2010, they hit .279. Those numbers look like he was the beneficiary of good luck – until you notice that for his career, in a career spanning nearly 1200 innings, batters have hit .282 on balls in play. If that’s a fluke, it’s a particularly persistent one.

There’s reason to think it isn’t. Chen is one of the most extreme flyball pitchers in the major leagues. Last season, just 35% of balls in play against Chen were on the ground, right at his career average, while 45% were in the air. Flyballs – the ones that don’t clear the fence – are more likely to be turned into outs than grounders. While his flyball tendencies make Chen prone to the home run, they also make a .280 BABIP seem sustainable.

What will determine whether Chen can keep it up is not whether he can keep his BABIP down; it’s whether he can keep his homers down. He gave up 18 homers in 155 innings last year, 17 in 140 innings in 2010, and while those aren’t good ratios, they’re much better than his career norms. Prior to 2010, Chen had allowed 166 career homers in 869 innings, nearly one every five innings. Kauffman Stadium is the perfect fit for him, but not even the K suppresses home runs that much.

So did Chen, at the age of 33, finally figure out how to avoid surrendering meatballs in 2010? He wouldn’t be the first crafty, soft-tossing lefty to put it together in his early 30s, but believing that he figured it out requires a small act of faith. I’ll be honest: I’m skeptical, and I’m worried that the Royals will regret this contract before the end of its first quarter. Of the five guys who are supposed to open the season in the Royals’ rotation, Chen is the one most likely to lose his job for cause by June.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not rooting for him. Chen is one of the most fascinating players in the game. How many former top prospects – Chen was Baseball America’s #4 prospect in 1999 – finally find success over a decade later, when their fastball hits 87 on a good day? How many Chinese-Panamanians learn English so well and embrace their adopted country so tightly that the “Bruce Chen Joke of the Day” will be a new feature at Kauffman Stadium all season long? How many Chinese-Panamanians play major league baseball, period?

On paper, Bruce Chen looks like one of the Royals players most likely to give us grief in 2012. And yet he’s also one of the easiest players to root for. It’s another subtle reason why the Royals seem headed in the right direction – even their mistakes are loveable. Chen could certainly earn his contract, his clubhouse presence is key for a team building with youth, and I'm happy he's here. At least in February.

Kyle Davies: F

Last season was a mixed bag for Davies. On the one hand, he had his worst season as a member of the Royals, posting a 6.75 ERA; he lost eight straight starts and finished with a 1-9 record in 13 starts; he went on the DL twice with shoulder problems; it was revealed that Davies had the worst ERA in the history of baseball of any pitcher with 120 or more career starts; he was arrested for disorderly intoxication while on the DL in August and was released the next day – the Royals insist it was just a coincidence.

On the other hand, he was paid $3.2 million. We should all have such terrible years.

I’ve been saying for years that Davies should be tried in the bullpen, and after his release, the Blue Jays picked him up and tried him in relief in Triple-A Las Vegas. He pitched well in six appearances, but then he always pitched well in the minors – his career ERA in Triple-A is 2.65. We probably haven’t heard the last of Davies, but we’ve probably heard the last of him in a Royals uniform. Which is just as well.

Danny Duffy: B+ (minors), C- (majors)

While the other three lefties in the Royals’ vaunted quartet were struggling (Mike Montgomery and Chris Dwyer) or blowing out their elbows (John Lamb), Duffy took a big step forward early last season, moving up to Triple-A and striking out over a batter an inning before getting called up after just seven starts. In 82 career innings in the high minors, Duffy now has 89 strikeouts and just 19 walks. Duffy, remember, briefly walked away from the game just a year before. If you had told me on May 18th, 2010, while Duffy was still retired, that he’d be in the Royals’ major-league rotation one year later, I would have asked you to pass the pipe.

But all Duffy managed to accomplish during his time in the majors was to remind us how difficult it is for even highly regarded prospects to adjust to the majors. The stuff was there; Duffy averaged 93.3 mph on his fastball, which is terrific for a left-hander, and struck out 87 batters in 105 innings. But he left both his command and his control in Omaha. His lack of control manifested in his 51 walks; his lack of command is evident in the 15 homers he surrendered.

In 20 starts with the Royals, Duffy finished with a 5.64 ERA. I think we’ve become numb to ERAs in the upper 5s as Royals fans, both because of how bad our pitching has been and because, when the fences were brought in 10 feet between 1996 and 2003, Kauffman Stadium was one of the best-hitting parks in the majors during one of the best-hitting eras in history.

So perhaps you don’t appreciate how bad a 5.64 ERA is. It’s really, really bad. It was bad ten years ago; in 2011, when the league ERA was 4.08, it was awful. Duffy’s ERA+, which adjusts his ERA for the context of his league and ballpark, was 73. That’s the same ERA+ Runelvys Hernandez had in 2006 – when Hernandez had a 6.48 ERA. In Royals history, in fact, only five pitchers have had a lower ERA+ than Duffy did in a season of at least 100 innings.

It’s not quite as bad as it looks, though, because while Duffy gave a ton of earned runs, he didn’t give up a single unearned run all season. The distinction between earned and unearned runs is very ambiguous, and the case has been eloquently stated that we should abandon the distinctions entirely – pitchers have nearly as much control over “unearned” runs as they do over “earned” runs. Given a normal percentage of unearned runs, and Duffy’s ERA would have been about 30 points lower – bad, but not historically so.

I’m rambling…the point is that Duffy, despite having the tools to succeed in the majors, gave up a toxic mix of walks and home runs as a rookie. He still has the tools to turn it around, but it’s far from a fait accompli. A look at some comparables gives you an idea of the wide range of outcomes possible.

In the divisional era, 11 other pitchers have made 15+ starts in a season at the age of 22, with a strikeout rate of at least 7 per 9 innings, but with an ERA above 5 anyway. Basically, this is a list of pitchers who were good enough to be in a major-league rotation at the age of 22, but were ineffective despite a good strikeout rate.

The 11 included pitchers of almost every flavor. There were future stars in Greg Swindell, Javier Vazquez, and John Danks, along with Bobby Witt, one of the great teases of my lifetime. There was a future set-up man in Eric Plunk. There was a steady, reliable innings-eater in Randy Wolf. There were the inevitable pitchers whose careers were ruined by injuries, including Rocky Coppinger, Jesse Foppert, and Adam Loewen. And there were the guys who washed out quickly, and probably shouldn’t be in the discussion at all: Rick VandenHurk and Sean Gallagher.

Based on that cohort, there’s about a 50/50 chance that Duffy will make something of himself. The comps don’t really give an indication as to which way he will go, but they do suggest we’ll know soon. The pitchers that wound up as successes all improved significantly, and in some cases dramatically, at age 23. The failures didn’t; in most cases they didn’t even last the year in the rotation. The range of variation on Duffy’s 2012 season is enormous. On this team, that just makes him one among many.

Jeff Francis: C+

Ten years from now, I suspect that when you ask Royals fans to come up with a list of pitchers who made 30 or more starts with the team, Jeff Francis’ name will be about the last one anyone will remember. His tenure with the team was eminently forgettable, not because he was awful, but precisely because he wasn’t. He was just there, every fifth day, tossing six innings and giving up three or four runs.

He wasn’t the pitcher the Royals hoped to get – after a 4.77 ERA in six seasons in Coors Field, they probably weren’t expecting his ERA to be higher pitching half his games in Kauffman Stadium. On the other hand, they also could not have expected that he’d make 31 starts, given that he had missed nearly two full seasons with a rotator cuff injury and had just returned the year before.

(It’s worth pointing out that while Francis signed for $2 million, he almost certainly made a lot more than that. His contract called for $2 million in “performance bonuses”, but remember that MLB’s rules prohibit bonuses for stats other than those pertaining to playing time, i.e. games played, innings pitched, etc. Francis tossed 31 starts and threw 183 innings, which means he had to have come close to maxing out his bonus money. He still wasn’t a terrible signing, but at close to $4 million he wasn’t exactly a bargain either.)

His superficial stats indicate a 6-16 record and a 4.82 ERA, which both look terrible, but they easily could have been a lot better. The Royals averaged just 3.86 runs in his starts. Every year some pitcher draws the short straw in run support, and 2011 was Francis’ year. (In the Royals’ other 131 games, they averaged 4.70 runs a game.) Francis was also slightly unlucky on balls in play, as opposing batters hit .319 in those situations, higher than the team average of .303.

Francis was as dependent on balls in play as anyone last year, because he was a strike-throwing machine. He walked only 39 batters in his 31 starts, five of them intentional. Only one other qualifying Royals starter since the 1994-95 strike walked fewer batters per nine innings than Francis: Paul Byrd, who walked just 38 batters in 228 innings in 2002, and went 17-11 with a 3.90 ERA. Francis didn’t strike anyone out either – just 91 in 183 innings, just under one every other inning – but with a better defense and/or better luck, he might have had a much better season.

Francis signed a minor-league deal with the Reds, and they’re a terrific fit for him. He’s even more suited for NL competition than the typical pitcher, and the Reds have a very underrated defense – Drew Stubbs and Jay Bruce are fantastic defenders, Scott Rolen can still pick it, Brandon Phillips is very good, and Zack Cozart has a good reputation as well. His shoulder history will always make him a poor bet to get through a season unscathed, but if Francis makes their rotation out of spring training, a nice little comeback season wouldn’t surprise me a bit.

Back with the second half of starting pitchers soon.