The Score Board: 4/18/12.

In the past, when the Royals eliminated themselves from playoff contention with an early-season dive, I’d start a column with some variation of “Mayday!”

The problem is, it’s only April 18th.

That the Royals are in the midst of a long losing streak this early in the season is so unremarkable that it’s remarkable. For those of you who missed it on Twitter last night or the discussion on the radio today, here you go:

This is the ninth consecutive season in which the Royals have lost six games in a row by the 14th of May.

Nearly as remarkable is that this is the seventh time in those nine seasons – only 2009 and 2010 are exempt – in which the Royals lost six in a row by the end of April. Which means the losing streak had to begin no later than April 25th.

By comparison, the Royals once went over five years – from April 2003 to June 2008 – without a single six-game winning streak at any point in the season.

And now, they’ve lost seven in a row. Far be it from me to suggest that Dayton Moore and Ned Yost might not live up to the standards set by their mentors John Schuerholz and Bobby Cox, but the Atlanta Braves went nearly 16 years – from August 1990 to June 2006 – without a seven-game losing streak.

The Braves lost 10 in a row in 2006, and in 2009 they had a nine-game losing streak in April which dropped their record to 8-14. If you’re looking for a silver lining, the Braves recovered that year to finish 91-71 and make the playoffs.

If you’re looking for a silver lining, you’re best off not reading the remarks that Ned Yost made after tonight’s game. The Royals blew a 3-2 lead in the seventh inning, thanks to Jose Mijares allowing two-out singles to Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder sandwiched around a wild pitch, plating the tying and winning runs. After the game, Yost admitted that he made a mistake in the inning.

The mistake? After Mijares’ wild pitch tied the game and moved Cabrera to second base, he should have had Mijares intentionally walk Fielder.

Here’s what Yost said about giving up a hit to Fielder after giving up one to Cabrera: “The second time was pure stupidity on my part, plain and simple that’s what it was. After the wild pitch, we had a runner on second. I started to overthink the situation.”

This is where things start to go off the rails, my friends. Jose Mijares is on the roster for one reason: to retire left-handed batters. (Or at least, he should be.) I didn’t get around to commenting on his signing this winter, but I liked the acquisition. We saw a lot of Mijares the last four years when he pitched for the Twins, and he was generally effective as the quintessential left-handed specialist. Pitching from a near three-quarters delivery, his career line against left-handed batters was .212/.278/.331. For $925,000 guaranteed, he was a good gamble that he might bounce back from a disappointing 2011 season and fill that role, freeing Tim Collins up to pitch longer outings against hitters from both sides of the plate.

Coming into the game, Mijares had pitched well, allowing one run in five innings, walking two and striking out five. It’s his job to get left-handed hitters out. Prince Fielder bats left-handed. If you don’t trust Jose Mijares to get Prince Fielder out, why the hell is he on the roster?

What really bothers me about Yost’s comments is that THIS EXACT SAME SITUATION essentially sealed his fate as manager of the Milwaukee Brewers. Read this article. Please. On September 14th, 2008, with the Brewers in the thick of the wild-card hunt, with the game tied 3-3 in the bottom of the eighth, Yost brought Brian Shouse – like Mijares a card-carrying member of the International Brotherhood of Left-Handed Specialists – in the game to pitch to left-handers Chase Utley and Ryan Howard. After Utley bunted a runner over to second, Yost had Shouse intentionally walk Howard.

THAT Ryan Howard. The Ryan Howard who has maybe the biggest platoon split of any left-handed hitter in the game. When you have the chance to face Howard with a left-handed pitcher in a key situation late in a game, you’re supposed to get on your knees and kiss the ground.

Instead, Yost walked Howard, so that Shouse could face Pat Burrell, a right-handed hitter who crushes left-handers. Burrell singled in the go-ahead run. Shane Victorino, batting from the right side, then hit a three-run homer off Shouse.

On September 15th, 2008, Ned Yost was fired. The Milwaukee Brewers would rebound to win the wild card by a single game.

I wrote about this extensively when the Royals hired Yost, which you can read here. My conclusion then was that while Yost has never shown tactical decision-making to be a strength of his, that we shouldn’t let a single horrific decision overshadow the terrific work he had done in developing young talent.

I stand by that. I think Yost has generally done a good job of bringing the Royals’ young players along, and that Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas and Salvador Perez and Danny Duffy might benefit from his presence the way Fielder and Ryan Braun and Rickie Weeks and J.J. Hardy did.

But if he really thinks that the mistake he made tonight was not giving the Tigers a free baserunner, then he’s starting to panic. He’s letting the outcome dictate his decisions. Never mind that pitching to Fielder with Mijares was the best matchup the Royals had at that time – Fielder drove in the winning run, and that’s all that matters.

Which is ridiculous. Look at the real outcome of the at-bat – Fielder hit a hard groundball to the left of second base, about where the shortstop would normally set up. But because the Royals had the shift on against Fielder – which they should – Escobar was to the right of second base and the ball got through for a single.

In the bottom of the ninth, with two on and one out, Escobar hit a ball just inside the third-base line. But because the Tigers were playing their no-doubles defense – as they should – Miguel Cabrera was in position to snag the ball, step on third base, and throw to first to end the game.

As painful as it was, the game was essentially decided by defensive positioning and the vagaries of ground balls. One grounder had eyes, the other didn’t. Mijares was the right matchup against Fielder, and more than that, he did what he was supposed to do: he got a ground ball. No less an authority than Mariano Rivera once said after a blown save – I’m paraphrasing here – “I can only get ground balls – I can’t point them in the direction I want them to go.”

This isn’t quite as bad as what happened in Milwaukee, because Yost did indicate he would have then brought Louis Coleman in to pitch to Delmon Young. But if Yost really regrets letting Mijares pitch to Fielder, then he’s saying that he cares more about the results than he does about the process. And if Yost doesn’t trust the process, why should we trust The Process?

It’s unfortunate and upsetting that the Royals are 3-9. But it’s the job of the fans to overreact to the losing streak, to beat their fists against their chest and wail and gnash their teeth. It’s the job of the manager to stay the course, to trust the process more than the results, to have faith that the team he thought was good enough to compete two weeks ago is still good enough today.

It’s not his job to panic. If Ned Yost is starting to let the losing get to him, we’re going to be in for a long summer. And it’s still early spring.

The Score Board: 4/16/12.

Hey, no one said this would be easy.

The Royals were two outs away from starting the season with a 4-2 road trip. Then Jonathan Broxton couldn’t find the strike zone, Luke Hochevar gave up seven runs in the first inning of the home opener, and the Royals gave up 32 runs in a three-game series to the Indians.

Three days ago, the Royals had surrendered the second-fewest runs in the league. Now, they’ve given up the third-most.

The point here is that the standings can change wildly in the first few weeks of the season, and no matter how many times you tell yourself not to put too much meaning in such a small slice of the season, it’s human nature to ignore that advice. Just remember: the team that has given up the most runs in the AL right now is…Tampa Bay.

The Tigers started the year 4-0, and were leading game five 2-0 in the ninth with Justin Verlander on the mound, and I heard otherwise sensible people suggesting the Tigers could win 110 games this year. They lost that game and two of their next three; at 6-3 they still look like a good team, but not the unstoppable juggernaut that they resembled on Wednesday.

So let’s keep perspective here. If the Royals were 6-3, it wouldn’t mean that they were playoff-bound; we all remember just how meaningful an 18-11 start was. On the extremes, a team’s early-season record may portend something – the Royals’ 9-0 start in 2003 famously presaged a winning season a year after 100 losses. But 3-6 has no inherent meaning other than the fact that the Royals have lost a couple of games they could have won. It sucks that they’re 3-6, but it’s hardly time to jump ship on the youth movement because the pitching staff got its brains beat in for one weekend.

- Jarrod Dyson had an eventful weekend, and I say that as politely as possible. A terrible read on the flyball in the first inning on Friday set the tone, as he took the wrong route on another ball on Saturday, and then had the chance to throw Asdrubal Cabrera out at the plate in the fourth inning, but double-clutched the throw and then air-mailed the throw, allowing Cabrera to score easily. He then got thrown out trying to steal second in the ninth inning, killing what would have been the capper on a seven-run rally.

Dyson, unlike most low-power speedsters (think Juan Pierre), actually has an above-average arm. He also has well above-average range. He has elite speed. What we saw from him defensively for those two games was very much out of character for him. He’s played great defense in the past – remember, he already shares the Royals’ team record for most putouts (10) by an outfielder in one game. He was 20-for-22 in stolen base attempts in the majors - now 20-for-23 - and he had already stolen 6 bases in one week in Omaha this year. Frankly, if he was three inches taller, he might have erased all his bad mojo this weekend, because he would caught Shin-Soo Choo’s tenth-inning double, which would have been one of the most fantastic and clutch catches of the season – he got to the wall in plenty of time and timed his leap perfectly.

I point this out only because I’ve heard many fans ripping Dyson as a terrible fielder who has no business in the major leagues. I’m not defending his performance in those two games, but to judge him on those two games would be like judging a highly-touted hitter for going 0-for-8 with 6 Ks after getting called up. Ultimately, what will determine whether Dyson has a major-league career or not isn’t his defense or his speed; it’s whether he can sustain a .330 OBP or not. On that, the jury is still out.

- Through two starts, Luis Mendoza has thrown 9.2 innings, allowed 14 hits, walked 8 batters (one intentional), and struck out 3. The Royals wanted to believe his performance in Omaha last year was for real, but at some point the fairy tale has to end. His place in the rotation isn’t in imminent jeopardy, as it will be 2-3 weeks before Felipe Paulino is ready to return. But at some point the Royals need to confront reality.

- Then again, confronting reality has long been a weakness of the organization, e.g. Yuniesky Betancourt. I don’t want to waste precious minutes in every column ripping on Yuni, and he certainly had a good game on Saturday, including the game-tying homer in the eighth inning.

But I just want to point out that in the sixth inning, after he had reached base on an error with two outs, Betancourt failed to score on Mike Moustakas’ double that Choo had in his glove before he hit the wall and the ball popped out.

They barely mentioned it on the broadcast, and there was no replay that showed Betancourt running the bases at all, but I heard from a fan who was at the game that Betancourt stopped between first and second base when the ball was hit, because he forgot there were two outs. (The same fan claims that the fans were booing Betancourt after the play, but on the replay it’s impossible to tell whether they’re booing or yelling “Moooose”. Another reason why I’ve never been a fan of Moose calls – it’s impossible to separate approbation from reprobation.)

Given that the Royals lost in extra innings, you might argue that Betancourt’s failure to score on that play was important. You might even argue that it cost the Royals the game. Betancourt has his uses on the roster, and I even defended the notion of having him as a utility infielder when the Royals signed him. But this is just another example of how he just kills the Royals with things that don’t show up in the box score. The irony is that non-sabermetric types accuse people like me of overlooking the little things, while they praise Betancourt because he led the Royals in homers and RBIs in 2010.

The Score Board: 4/13/12.

(Thanks to reader “kctiger” for the title of this new column. “Score” as in 20, “Board” as in my analysis of where the Royals are at the moment.)

After the Cleveland Indians rendered this afternoon’s game the most anti-climactic home opener in Royals history, scoring seven runs before the Royals came to bat, the general consensus among fans was to blame Luke Hochevar for the full-on face plant.

That’s a reasonable first reaction. Hochevar did give up seven runs in the first inning, all of them earned. He allowed more runs in the first inning than the Royals had allowed in any of their six previous games. He allowed as many earned runs in the first inning as the Royals’ starters had allowed in the six previous games combined.

I’m not here to defend Hochevar. He was not sharp at all at the beginning of the game. He allowed eight hits in the inning. But let’s look at what happened in a little more detail:

Michael Brantley singled to center. This was a bloop single, a Texas Leaguer, not anything to get riled up about.

Asdrubal Cabrera doubled to deep right. This was a bad job by Hochevar – giving Cabrera a hittable pitch on a 1-2 count.

Shin-Soo Choo singled to right, Brantley and Cabrera scored. This is the turning point of the inning – Choo dribbled a ground ball to the right side, and Yuniesky Betancourt inexplicably was unable to move ten feet to his left to field the ball before it scooted past his outstretched glove.

You know how Alcides Escobar makes a fantastic play from deep in the hole and you have to rewind the play several times to figure out how he did it? This was the exact same thing, only the exact opposite – I had to watch the play over again just to figure how on God’s green earth Yuni didn’t get to this ground ball.

And on this one play, in the first inning of the first game at Kauffman Stadium this year, the concept that Betancourt might be a less atrocious defender at second base than he was at shortstop shattered. It was already fragile, mind you, but all spring long we heard the Royals make the claim that oh-my-God Betancourt is just such a good defender at second base, and we have to get him in the lineup, and you just wouldn’t believe the range he has at his new position.

And then he waves at a groundball that Frank White would have personally escorted to second base. I mean Frank White today. Rex Hudler could have come down from the announcer’s booth in his suit and tie and made that play.

Instead, it went for a two-run single, and the rest of the inning went downhill. If Yuni gets one out on that play, the inning ends with just two runs scoring. There’s no way to know what would have happened in subsequent innings; maybe Hochevar just keeps giving up line drives the next inning. But the arc of the game would have been completely different.

Carlos Santana struck out swinging. Shin-Soo Choo stole second base.

Travis Hafner grounded out to first. Choo advanced to third base.

Shelley Duncan singled to right. Choo scored.

This was one of the luckiest hits you’ll see all year. I’m serious. On an 0-1 count, Duncan was just trying to get out of the way of an up-and-in fastball, and somehow the ball hit the barrel of the bat – Duncan wasn’t even looking at the pitch as he tried to pirouette out of the way – at such an angle that it drifted over Eric Hosmer’s head and plopped down in no-man’s land down the right field line. It happens.

Casey Kotchman singled to right. Duncan advanced to second base.

Bad pitch. A hittable fastball on an 0-2 count.

Jason Kipnis tripled to deep center. Duncan and Kotchman scored.

The other brutally bad defensive play in the inning. Jarrod Dyson, who has played outstanding defense in his limited major-league playing time in the past, either completely misjudged the ball or completely misjudged the wind, allowing the ball to get over his head and land just out of his reach. This should have been the fourth out of the inning.

Jack Hannahan then singled, then Hochevar threw a wild pitch, then Brantley – who had one hit all season before the game – got his second hit of the inning, a double to cap the scoring. When Hochevar falls apart, he falls apart. That’s nothing new for him – his biggest weakness throughout his career has been his poor performance with runners on base compared to when the bases are empty.

But with a decent defense behind him, the Indians score two or three runs in that inning, and the Royals tie the game by the fourth inning. Dyson’s miscue was terrible, but it was also completely out of character for him. But while Dyson’s misplay was more obvious, it was Betancourt’s misplay that was inexcusable.

Not inexcusable for Betancourt himself – this is who he is. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an infielder who has more difficulty going to his left. (Hard to blame him – he is a Cuban defector, after all.) When he played shortstop, it was the groundball up the middle that he couldn’t reach – now it’s the groundball in the 4-3 hole. But again, we knew that going in. The Royals, inexplicably, did not. The Royals sent down Johnny Giavotella because of his defense, but somehow are convinced that playing Betancourt over Chris Getz – against a right-handed pitcher, mind you – makes perfect sense.

It does not. It has not. It will not. Yuniesky Betancourt is a defensive liability, the one liability on the field this afternoon, and if the Royals want to give their pitching staff the best possible defense, they need to stop with this charade.

Maybe it’s a good thing that this happened in the home opener, because the Royals have the Field f/x equipment installed at Kauffman Stadium now. I can only hope that when Mike Groopman and John Williams get the data for that play, they’ll react with the sort of urgent panic you’d expect from the army translator who just picked up some chatter that the Soviets are about to launch.

If Getz is in tomorrow’s lineup, we can hope that Jin Wong burst into Dayton Moore’s office early this evening with a printout in his hand and a look on his face that said, “I have bad news.” The Royals’ mystifying commitment to Betancourt has cost them enough games.

Royals Today: 4/12/12.

So here’s the deal: if I’m going to keep this blog active and productive, I’m going to have to make some changes around here. Mainly, I’m not going to be able to write for long stretches at a time, so I’m going to have to make up for it by writing more often.

A few years ago, back when he was writing his blog, our dearly departed friend Chris Hayes used to have “One-Minute Mondays”, where he would blog as fast as he could for one minute and then post, usually in mid-sente

I can’t give you anything worth reading in one minute, but hopefully 20 minutes will suffice. The clock is ticking, down to 17:14 and counting. I’ll try to do this three of four times a week, sacrificing quality for quantity. We’ll try this out; let me know if this works for you in the comments. Oh, and if you have a catchy name for this column, let me know. “Plenty in Twenty”?

- The big news in the first week of the season is the rotation, which has been sensational – through six games, the starters have a 1.85 ERA, second in the major leagues behind only the Phillies.

There’s two ways of looking at this: you can argue that the rotation is going to be a lot better than we thought – or you can argue that the Royals just got one of the best weeks they’ll get from their starters all season, and they’re still just 3-3.

I argued before the season that the rotation isn’t quite as bad as everyone thinks, but I’m not about to claim victory based on one week. In 34 innings, the starters have combined for 15 walks and 25 strikeouts – hardly anything to boast about. Their success has come from allowing just 22 hits (meaning a .233 BABIP) and a single home run. The team as a whole has allowed just two homers in six games.

That’s not going to last. I think Luke Hochevar may have figured things out, and Danny Duffy’s first outing certainly was exciting. But I wouldn’t read anything into the first week’s performances.

- The bullpen, on the other hand, looks legit. They have a 3.38 combined ERA, and with just 5 walks and 25 strikeouts in 19 innings, they may be even better than that. (The bullpen’s BABIP is actually .400.) Tim Collins has thrown strikes so far, which potentially gives Ned Yost yet another late-inning power option he can trust.

He might need that new option if Jonathan Broxton doesn’t quickly bounce back and prove that his meltdown on Wednesday was a fluke. It was a save outing straight out of the Ricky Bottalico/Roberto Hernandez catalog, complete with an error, two walks, and two first-pitch hit batsman.

I don’t want to push the panic button just yet. In Broxton’s previous outing, he came in for the save, faced three batters, and struck out all three of them. That’s only the eighth time a reliever has done that in Royals history. In the first week, we’ve seen Broxton at his very worst, but also at his very best. We don’t know which is the anomaly yet.

I argued before that I’d rather have Broxton in the anointed closer role even though Holland’s the better pitcher, and you saw why on Wednesday – in a tie game, Holland came in to pitch the bottom of the eighth, and was allowed to get six outs. As a Capital-C Closer, he wouldn’t have done any of that – he wouldn’t have pitched the eighth, he wouldn’t have entered a tie game, and he wouldn’t have been allowed to pitch more than one inning.

The downside, though, is that when the Royals did have a one-run lead to protect, they brought in Broxton. The theory is sound; the problem is that the theory implies that while you use your best reliever in the most key situations, you use your second-best reliever in the closer’s role. It’s quite possible that Broxton is the fourth or fifth-best reliever in the pen.

For now, I’m fine with letting Broxton pitch the next time a save situation rolls around. But the second his control wavers, I’d have Aaron Crow or Holland or Collins getting loose as quickly as possible. Yost is a patient man, and his patience is a great asset when it comes to handling young players. It’s not an asset when it means sitting on your thumbs while your closer allows the tying and winning runs to score without the benefit of a base hit.

- This might – okay, this is – one of the dorkier things I’ve ever suggested, but for those of you attending the home opener tomorrow, may I make a suggestion?

Go ahead and cheer Eric Hosmer lustily when he’s introduced before the game. But save even louder cheers for Alcides Escobar. And when Alex Gordon’s name is announced, rustle up enough noise to make the stadium shake.

There is essentially nothing fans can do to influence the business decisions that teams and players make. If Eric Hosmer wants to sign a long-term deal with the Royals, it will get done, and if he doesn’t, then no amount of pleading on the part of the fanbase is going to change that.

But this is the “essentially” part. There’s a buzz about this team, and there’s a momentum that comes from having three players sign long-term contracts in the span of one spring training. That’s not enough to get Hosmer to sign, but it might be enough to get him to think about it. Tomorrow, send a clear signal to him, and to Moustakas, and to whoever else might be thinking about making a long-term commitment to the team: we take care of our own. We love all you guys, but the ones who love us back are getting the biggest cheers of all.

And if Salvador Perez – who is in town – gets introduced, bring the damn stadium down.

Royals Season Preview 2012.

It might seem a little ridiculous to publish a season preview after the opening series of the season, but then, my life has been a little ridiculous lately. Before Friday’s first pitch, I put out my prediction on Twitter for an 81-81 season. I’d like to explain that projection in a little detail.

As much as I would have loved to predict a postseason run for the Royals this season, I could not in good conscience do so. Maybe if they had signed Edwin Jackson, and maybe if Salvador Perez and Joakim Soria hadn’t been hurt, and maybe if the Tigers hadn’t signed Prince Fielder, I would have been tempted to. I certainly think the Royals could win the division – if we were setting odds on it, I’d put the Royals around 15% to win the AL Central, which is probably three times higher than those odds would have been in any of the last seven seasons. But I still think the Tigers have to be the favorite, and I felt that way even before they opened up an entire case of whoop-ass – and a couple of cans of last-at-bat magic – on the suddenly hapless Boston Red Sox this weekend.

But I think .500 is a very reasonable expectation for the Royals this season. Most objective projection systems out there don’t agree. Dan Szymborski, who does his ZIPS projections for ESPN these days, projects the Royals to finish 74-88 and in fourth place. Szymborski is an incurable optimist compared to Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA projections, which have the Royals tabbed for a 68-94 record.

No, seriously: 68-94. PECOTA thinks the Royals are the second-worst team in the major leagues, ahead of only the Astros.

It is perhaps for the best that you can’t actually wager on the lines that PECOTA sets, as that would sorely test my religious convictions against gambling. (I mean, that’s not gambling – that’s taking candy from a baby. Totally different.) The real Vegas lines, from what I understand, are somewhere in the 77-80 range for the Royals’ win total. That’s certainly more reasonable, but I expect the Royals to do better. Here, in a nutshell, is why.

1) They were a lot better last year than their record suggests.

The Royals were 71-91 last season. They were outscored by just 32 runs all season.

In 2003, the Royals were 83-79. That team was outscored by 31 runs all season.

We’ve known for over a quarter-century now that an estimation of a team’s win-loss record by looking at its runs scored and runs allowed, is a better predictor of the following year’s record than looking at its actual wins and losses. Bill James invented what he called the Pythagorean Theorem to express what a team’s record should have been based on how many runs they scored, and how many they allowed. By that formula, the Royals shouldn’t have finished 71-91; they should have gone 78-84.

That’s a pretty big difference. The Royals were ten games under .500 in the standings, but just three games under .500 on paper. I don’t think predicting the Royals to improve their underlying performance by three games is all that big a deal.

It’s worth noting, by the way, that the Tigers, who won 95 games last season, only outscored their opponents by 76 runs, and had a Pythagorean record of 89-73. The Tigers were nearly as lucky as the Royals were unlucky. The Tigers were 29-17 in one-run games, the Royals were 25-32. What looks like an insurmountable 24-game gap in the standings is cut by more than half simply by looking at the runs each team scored and allowed.

That doesn’t mean it’s likely the Royals will close the entire gap this season, but it’s certainly a lot more likely than you would think simply by looking at win-loss records.

That’s also why I think the Baseball Prospectus prediction is so…weird. Somehow, PECOTA thinks that the youngest team in the majors last season, a team with one of the game’s best farm systems, is going to decline by 10 wins in terms of actual team quality. I find this unlikely.

2) I believe in Kevin Seitzer.

I haven’t done my front office/coaching grades for 2011, but it won’t be a spoiler to tell you that Seitzer grades very highly. I loved his approach to hitting when he was a player, I loved his philosophy when the Royals hired him to be their hitting coach, and I loved the results last season.

One of the biggest reasons the projection systems are relatively down on the Royals is that they foresee regression – in some cases, massive regression – from many of the Royals’ best hitters last seasons. PECOTA’s weighted mean for Alex Gordon, for instance, is .262/.348/.432 – almost identical to his career numbers, which is to say that it doesn’t believe in last season’s breakout at all. Jeff Francoeur is projected to hit .270/.315/.411 – actually a touch worse than his career line of .270/.313/.433.

I don’t think that either Gordon or Francoeur will hit quite as well as they did last season. But I do think that the dramatic improvements in their performance were at least partly structural. I think that Seitzer altered their approach and their swing, and I think that was at least partly responsible for their improvement. And I think much of that improvement will hold this season.

PECOTA, by the way, projects the Royals to score 671 runs this season – fewer than every other AL team except the A’s and Mariners, both of whom play in pitchers’ parks. The Royals finished sixth in the AL in runs scored last year, with an offense that was nearly two years younger than every other team in the league. (Royals’ hitters averaged 25.8 years of age. The Minnesota Twins, at 27.6 years old, were the second-youngest offense in the AL.) Sorry to bite the hand that once fed me, but the idea that an offense that was both the youngest in the league and above-average in production should suddenly fall apart strikes me as unlikely. Very unlikely.

Speaking of youth and offense…

3) I think Eric Hosmer is about to go off.

He might have already gone off, actually, with two home runs in the season’s opening series. But even before that, all signs were there. The swing that lures scouts into thinking sinful thoughts. The statistical beauty of a .338/.406/.571 line in the minors at the age of 20. The .439 average in a month of Triple-A. The .293/.334/.465 line, with 19 homers, as a 21-year-old rookie.

I’ll say it again: rarely has any prospect compared to a former elite player as closely as Hosmer has compared to Will Clark. As a sophomore, Clark hit .308/.371/.580 with 35 homers. That slugging average may be a little optimistic for this season – particularly playing in Kauffman Stadium – but I don’t think Hosmer will be far off the pace.

4) I don’t think the starting pitching will be quite as bad as people think.

We’ve already seen a brilliant outing from Bruce Chen, which was gratifying to be sure, but shouldn’t change our perception of him too much – we know that he is capable of keeping a lineup off-balance for six innings. But I am optimistic – maybe hopeful is a more honest word – that we’re seeing a new Luke Hochevar. Or more precisely, we’re seeing the same Hochevar we saw in the second half of last season, which was a different guy than the pitcher we saw in the previous three-and-a-half seasons. He really does seem to have a different approach on the mound, working inside with much greater frequency to left-handed hitters, and his cutter - as Alberto Callaspo told Joel Goldberg yesterday - has become a real weapon.

A full-season of second-half Luke Hochevar, compared to what has passed for a full season of Hochevar in the past, would be worth something like 40 runs. That ain't beanbag.

I don’t know what to expect from Danny Duffy or Luis Mendoza, and I don’t think anyone knows what to expect from Jonathan Sanchez. I don’t know when or whether Felipe Paulino will return to form. But you throw those guys together, and I think that two of the four pitchers will emerge as reliable starting pitchers. The back-end of the rotation may be messy for the next month or two as the Royals sift through their options, but I’d rather have a bunch of high-variance pitchers then a bunch of safe Jeff Francis types. The Royals may take their lumps early, but by June they might have four starting pitchers who are average or close enough to average.

And regarding that fifth spot…

5) I think someone from the minor leagues will step up.

I don’t know who it will be. But the whole point of having depth in your farm system is so you don’t have to know who will step up. It might be Mike Montgomery, if he works out the kinks in his command. It could be Jake Odorizzi, who was brilliant in his season debut (5 innings, three hits, no walks, 8 Ks) and could be ready for the majors late in the season. It could be a complete wild card like Chris Dwyer. But I think that by August, the Royals will have a legitimate starting pitcher on the mound every night. They may not all be great; they may not even all be good. But they will be better than people think.

6) The defense will make the pitching staff look better.

Alcides Escobar. Lorenzo Cain. Salvador Perez by mid-season, and until then, probably a lot more Humberto Quintero than the FDA recommends. Even the Chrisiesky Getzancourt platoon at second base is there in part for (perceived) defensive skills. Gordon and Francoeur with cannons on the corners. Last year’s defensive numbers aside, Hosmer has the reputation of being a well-above-average first baseman. Even Moustakas, having lost a noticeable amount of weight this winter, has been a pleasant surprise so far at third base.

I wouldn’t say this is a great defensive team. But it’s a good one, maybe even a very good one. It’s probably the best defensive Royals squad since 1999, when Johnny Damon, Carlos Beltran, and Jermaine Dye patrolled the outfield, when Joe Randa and Rey Sanchez and Carlos Febles played the infield. It’s not a panacea for the rotation, but it will make a below-average rotation look slightly less below-average.

7) Bullpens keep taking on a more prominent role in run prevention, and this is a good bullpen.

It’s a universally agreed principle that bullpens have continuously become a more important part of the game pretty much since the NL was founded in 1876. Somehow, though, a lot of people seem to miss the corollary that goes with that: that as bullpens become more important, rotations by definition become less important. We saw it last year in the World Series, when the Cardinals won while getting more innings from their relievers than their starters, and yet people persist in dismissing the Royals in large part because their rotation is so weak.

It is weak, but it’s a weakness that is much easier to overcome when you have a bullpen that 1) should be well above-average, and 2) should throw an awful lot of innings. Last year, the Royals’ starters averaged 5.82 innings a start, and relievers tossed 35% of the team’s innings. There’s no reason to think that the relievers will contribute less this season; given the wealth of options in the pen, and the reinforcements (like Louis Coleman) biding their time in Omaha, they might contribute even more. I mean, it’s annoying that Jonathan Sanchez can’t get through five innings on Sunday without throwing 99 pitches, but on the other hand, if he can go five innings and allow two runs every time out, the Royals have the bullpen depth to take it from there.

They say you can’t win with a terrible rotation, and it’s true – you can’t win with a terrible anything. But even if the Royals’ rotation is as bad as people think, their offense should be average to above-average; their defense should be above-average; their bullpen should be above-average to well above-average. Pitching isn’t 90% of the game; it’s not even 50% of the game. (Run prevention is 50% of the game, but run prevention includes pitching and defense.) This runs counter to conventional wisdom, but starting pitching is probably about 30% of the game. So I refuse to believe that the 30% is going to take the other 70% down with it.

If you’re looking for goals to set for this season, the Royals’ incompetence over the last umpteen years facilitates this task for you. Here is a list of accomplishments the Royals can shoot for, in approximate order of difficulty:

1) Win 76 games, the most by any Royals team since 2003.

2) Win 78 games, the second-most by any Royals team since 1993.

3) Finish in third place, the highest rank by any Royals team since 2003.

4) Reach .500 for the first time since 2003 and the second time since 1994.

5) Outscore their opponents for the first time since 1994.

6) Finish in second place, the highest rank by any Royals team since 1995.

7) Win 84 games, the most by any Royals team since 1993.

8) Win 85 games, the most by any Royals team since 1989.

9) Win the division or qualify for the playoffs, for the first time since 1985.

10) Win 93 games, the most by any Royals team since 1980.

Just shoot me now, by the way.

Royals fans grade on a curve; we evaluate our teams on a different scale than most. Knocking off even just the first item on this list would qualify the season as a modest success, albeit a modest disappointment as well. We’ll see how things go, but I’m confident that by year’s end, you can cross the first four items off. Items #5 and #6 are definitely in play; with a little luck we could get down all the way to #8.

All that really matters, of course, is #9. I don’t think they’ll get there this year. But I think we’ll have a lot of fun watching them try.

Royals Report Card 2011: Part Eight.

Alright, we’re into the lightning round. Let’s do this fast.

Louis Coleman: B+

The Royals drafted Coleman in the fifth round of the 2009 draft, and he was seen as a signability pick – he was a college senior, so he had less leverage to sign. But he was an excellent college pitcher, the ace of the LSU staff and the guy who recorded the final out of the College World Series that year.

Because he didn’t throw that hard and threw from a three-quarters delivery, teams didn’t see him ever succeeding as a starting pitcher in the pros. But the Royals quite sensibly thought that he had the ability to be a situational right-handed reliever at the very least, and when it’s the fifth round, it makes perfect sense to draft a guy who may have a limited ceiling but also is a safe bet to have a major-league role in some capacity.

And that’s exactly what the Royals got. He made it to the majors in less than two seasons, after a minor league career that included a 2.16 ERA in 121 innings, just 76 hits and 31 walks*, and 141 strikeouts.

*: From now on, just assume that “walks” means “unintentional walks” in my writing. I’m tired of writing out the qualifier, but I think it’s silly to lump the two together.

Coleman was the first callup of last season, after he had whiffed 16 of the 30 batters he faced in Triple-A, and had a very good year: 2.87 ERA in 60 innings, 44 hits, 20 walks, 64 Ks. His fastball is a little straight, leading to nine home runs, and he not surprisingly had a big platoon split: right-handed hitters hit .180/.260/.360, while LHB hit .257/.371/.432. (Although that OBP against LHP is larded with six intentional walks in just 74 at-bats.) But let’s be honest: he would have been the best pitcher in the Royals bullpen in most years between 1996 and 2006.

And now, he’s back in Omaha, because the Royals felt he wasn’t one of their four best right-handed relievers. You could quibble with the decision to keep Everett Teaford ahead of him, but the Royals do need at least one reliever who can go 2 or 3 innings at a time, and Coleman isn’t that guy. This is a deep bullpen.

The gambit to take Coleman in the middle rounds of the draft worked so well that the following year, the Royals did the same thing, using their fourth round pick on a senior college left-hander out of Florida. Kevin Chapman may well turn out to be an even more useful bullpen piece than Coleman, but he’ll be doing so in Houston.

Tim Collins: C

The biggest compliment I can give Collins is that while he started last season as a bit of a freak show – hey, everyone, come see the “5-foot-7” pitcher! He looks like the batboy! – by the end of the year, what I was hearing about Collins were complaints from fans that he walked too many guys, and even some doubts about whether he was all that he was hyped to be. In other words, he was being treated like every other pitcher, height be damned. That’s a victory in itself.

No question, Collins’ control needs refinement. He walked 46 batters in 67 innings, or 6.2 per 9 innings. The only pitcher in the majors last year (min: 50 IP) with a higher walk rate was Aroldis Chapman.

But when I watched Collins pitch last year, I didn’t get the vibe that he couldn’t throw strikes, the way Mitch Williams, to name another 21-year-old left-handed rookie who walked a ton of batters, did. I got the vibe that Collins simply chose to work the edges of the strike zone, and was willing to walk a batter rather than give him something good to hit. It seemed to me like he wasn’t walking a lot of guys on four or five pitches, but that he was getting to 3-and-2 on everyone, and then daring them to take a pitch.

Of course, perception doesn’t always fit reality. But the data is suggestive.

While Collins had the second-highest rate of walks per nine innings, he had the tenth-lowest percentage of pitches that were strikes, at 59%. Kyle Drabek, at 55%, was the wildest pitcher in the majors by this metric, but other guys who threw fewer strikes than Collins included Francisco Liriano and Trevor Cahill.

Of the 295 batters Collins faced, 60 of them – over 20% - reached a full count. Of those 60 batters, nine struck out – but 26 walked, more than half the walks Collins surrendered.

I don’t have the data mining skills to know how those numbers compared to a typical pitcher. But I can compare him to Chapman, who faced 207 batters, and only 33 reached a full count. (17 walked, 8 struck out.) I looked at two other wild hurlers, Henry Rodriguez and Carlos Marmol. Rodriguez reached a full count on 60 of 295 batters; Marmol did so on 58 of 327 batters.

Not counting intentional walks, Chapman walked a batter on four pitches 9 times. Marmol did as well. Rodriguez did so 12 times. Collins only did so 7 times.

The sample size is small, and the differences may well be meaningless. But I’m glad to see that the data is at least suggestive that my theory makes sense. If Collins’ high walk rate was partly a matter of choice, it would seem to be an easier problem to fix than if it was a matter of him simply not being able to find the plate.

Mind you, there are other, more fundamental reasons to think his walk rate will improve this year. He was just 21 last year, and a rookie, and young pitchers tend to improve their command more than any other skill as they reach their mid-20s. While he was wild in the minors, it wasn’t nearly to this degree – he walked 94 batters in 223 innings, or 3.79 per nine.

It’s possible Collins takes the Mitch Williams path and never learns to harness his command. But I’m optimistic he goes more the Scott Radinsky route. Radinsky was a 22-year-old left-handed fireballer who walked 35 batters in 52 innings as a rookie. The following year he walked just 21 batters in 71 innings, and was one of the best left-handed relievers in the majors. Despite a shoulder injury that cost him the 1994 season, Radinsky still had an ERA under 3 five times in an eight-year span before his career petered out.

Aaron Crow: B+

I mean, sure, Crow was coming off a season in which he managed a 5.73 ERA in 163 innings split between A-ball and Double-A, so yeah, I’d have to say he exceeded expectations. He made the All-Star Team as a rookie; when he was selected he had a 1.36 ERA in 40 innings, having allowed just 26 hits and 15 walks with 39 strikeouts.

In his very next outing, he allowed 3 runs in 1.2 innings and blew a 4-2 lead in the eighth inning on July 4th. From that point until the end of the season, Crow threw just 22 innings, allowed 29 hits and 14 walks, with a 5.24 ERA. He missed several weeks with a sore shoulder.

Still, it was a successful year overall, and if the goal was to give Crow a year to acclimate himself to the majors by pitching in the bullpen, allowing him to gain confidence in getting hitters out by airing out his fastball and concentrating solely on his fastball and slider, with the intention to then move him to the rotation – you know, the way teams used to break in promising young arms – it would have been a great stepping-stone year.

But that’s not how it works anymore, unfortunately. Teams have placed such an emphasis on their bullpen – even as we know that it’s much easier to find quality relievers than quality starters – that they’re afraid to mess with success. They can’t risk losing 70 good innings, even if it might one day lead to getting 200 good innings. The Royals officially moved Crow back into the pen after Joakim Soria’s injury, but the odds were always slim that he was going to be in the rotation this year. And the Royals have already made noises about how Crow, having thrown only 62 innings last year, would have to be gently moved back to a starting role by stretching out his arm.

I’ve tried to be polite about this in the past, but it hasn’t worked, so pardon me for being more explicit: THE VERDUCCI EFFECT IS BULLSHIT. There is NO NO NO evidence that a pitcher who exceeds his previous year’s innings total by 30, or 40, or even 200, is more likely to get hurt than a pitcher who doesn’t. Yes, if you take a list of young pitchers who exceeded their innings total, some of them will get hurt the following year, and some will see their performance erode. But young pitchers get hurt. And young pitchers who exceeded their innings total probably did so because they were pitching better than they have before. When those pitchers decline the following year, that’s not the Verducci Effect: that’s regression to the mean. Every serious statistical study that has looked at this concept has come to the same conclusion: there is no magic threshold of innings increase that a young pitcher should not cross.

Aaron Crow threw 163 innings in 2010. That’s actually an incredibly high total for a minor-league pitcher in today’s era. I don’t have the time to check, but I’d wager that’s the most innings thrown by a Royals’ farmhand in the last five years. But you’re trying to tell me that because he threw only 62 innings last year, now Crow is suddenly incapable of throwing more than 100 or 130 innings this year? Please.

The injury concern I have with young pitchers is more general: they shouldn’t throw too many pitches in any given start. Thankfully, the baseball industry has completely overhauled their approach to pitch counts in the last 20 years, to the point where that hardly is a concern at all.

The evidence that we do have, dating back to Craig Wright’s book The Diamond Appraised, is that the concern with pitchers is primarily before the age of 25. You can’t find a 20-year-old pitcher who threw 250 innings in the live-ball era that didn’t live to regret it. You’ll only find a few 22-year-old pitchers who did the same. But once a pitcher turns 25, you can ramp up the pitches and the innings a little.

Aaron Crow turned 25 this winter. I think he can handle the workload. When Nolan Ryan turned 25 years old, he threw 284 innings, and he did just fine, in large part because he threw relatively few innings before he turned 25. The year before, he threw just 152 innings. That’s a 132-inning bump in one year. Verducci Effect, my ass.

Sorry, Tom. You’re a great writer. But you’re not an analyst, and you really need to stop promoting this debunked concept.

Anyway, the sad thing about the Royals and Crow is that they’re hardly out of step with the industry on this one. Look at how the Yankees screwed up Joba Chamberlain, or how the Reds are doing their best to screw up Aroldis Chapman. Or look at the Astros, who have taken Brett Myers – who has averaged 220 innings with an above-average ERA the last two years! – and made him their closer. That’s right, because there’s nothing the worst team in baseball needs more than a closer.

At least the Rangers, after using Neftali Feliz as their closer for the past two years, are finally willing to gamble that he can render more value throwing 180-200 innings than throwing 60-70. The Rangers, of course, take their cues from Nolan Ryan.

I have no idea if Crow can succeed as a starter; some scouts whose opinions I respect very much don’t think he can. But don’t you have to find out? Especially when you already have a phenomenally deep bullpen, and a rotation that most consider among the worst in baseball? Maybe the Royals are taking the Feliz route with Crow, and have every intention of moving him back to the rotation soon. But if the Royals aren’t willing to do so now, you have to wonder if they ever will.

Kelvin Herrera: A

A year ago, Herrera was full of promise, and completely devoid of health. He was talented enough that he reached a full-season minor league at the age of 18, making three appearances for the Burlington Bees in 2008 (and pitching well.) He then pitched in a total of nine games in 2009 and 2010 combined. He slipped onto the back end of Baseball America’s Prospect Handbook, ranking 30th in the Royals’ system this time last year.

An oft-injured starting pitcher can make for an often-healthy reliever, and that’s what we saw from Herrera last year. He jumped three levels in one season, from high-A to Double-A to Triple-A to the majors. In 68 minor league innings, he allowed 42 hits, walked 13, and struck out 70. Those of you who saw him pitch on TV a couple of days ago saw why – in addition to throwing a high-90s fastball, Herrera throws a changeup that’s almost unfair.

A lot of prospect experts – I’m thinking of Kevin Goldstein here, although it holds true for almost all of them – hate using comps for prospects. Every player is unique, and comparing a prospect to a major-leaguer is inaccurate and usually overly optimistic. I get their concerns, but personally, I love comps, because it makes my life easier. It’s hard to keep track of literally thousands of different ballplayers from the majors down to rookie ball. Maybe it’s not entirely accurate to say that Eric Hosmer resembles Will Clark – but it’s accurate enough, and it conveys a skill set much more succinctly than to say “Hosmer is a left-handed hitting, slick-fielding first baseman with the ability to challenge for a batting title, hit 30+ home runs, and even steal a few bases.”

Anyway, for the past six months or so I’ve been using one particular comp for Herrera: Rafael (not Yuniesky) Betancourt.

They’re obviously not identical – Betancourt actually started his career as a middle infielder, didn’t convert to pitching until he was 22, blew out his arm and missed most of three seasons, and didn’t reach the majors until he was 28. But the similarities are real:

- Both throw upper-90s heat

- Both throw excellent changeups

- Both have outstanding control

- Neither throws a good breaking ball

Betancourt’s control is beyond outstanding, actually. In 560 career innings, he has 99 walks (unintentional, again). When Herrera hit the very first batter he faced in the major leagues, he equaled Betancourt’s career total – Betancourt has hit one batter in his nine-year career. From 2005 to 2009, he threw two wild pitches – total.

Betancourt has never been entrusted to be a closer – at least until this year, when the Rockies finally acknowledged the fine work he’s done over the last decade. (He throws so many strikes that he’s susceptible to the homer, having allowed 59 in 560 innings, which might have held him back.) But he has a 3.18 career ERA, including a 3.00 ERA since joining the Rockies in 2009. With the exception of one awful season (2008), he’s alternated between being good and being very good from year to year. I argued at the time that his 2007 season was the best season by a middle reliever ever.

The arc of Betancourt’s career, as a pitcher who hasn’t quite been good enough to be an elite closer, but certainly good enough to be an elite set-up man, seems like a reasonable expectation for Herrera. That will play.

Greg Holland: A+

The best grade for 2011 goes to the guy who didn’t even make the Royals’ Top 30 Prospects list, a guy I ranked behind Blake Wood before the season began, a guy who started the year in Triple-A, then came up in mid-May and had, inning for inning, one of the most dominant relief seasons in the franchise’s history. His 11.10 Ks per 9 innings ranked second in team history (min: 50 IP), behind Soria’s 2009. His 5.55 hits per 9 innings ranked third, behind Soria’s 2008 and Robinson Tejeda’s 2009. (I love how two different Soria seasons rank ahead of him.) Holland’s WHIP of 0.933 ranks fourth, behind Soria’s 2008, Roger Nelson’s 1972, and Dan Quisenberry’s 1983.

Not only did Holland have a 1.80 ERA, he allowed only 2 of 33 inherited baserunners to score, which lowered his teammates’ ERA by a considerable amount. While acknowledging that relievers are fickle and he could turn into a pumpkin as quickly as he busted out of one, he’s pretty clearly the best reliever on the roster at this moment.

Which is why I’m pleased that Ned Yost just announced Jonathan Broxton will be the closer.

While the closer is an important role, so is the role of the guy who comes in with the game tied, or who comes in with men on base and the game on the line. If Holland had been named the closer, he wouldn’t have seen 33 inherited runners – he might not have seen five all year. Let Broxton take the glory role, particularly since he’ll be a free agent at year’s end. If Holland were named the closer, all those saves would just increase his salary come arbitration time in two years. Furthermore, if Soria does come back, it will make for a lot less drama if the guy who kept his closer’s spot warm was on his way out the door anyway.

Jeremy Jeffress: D

The stuff is still there. Jeffress still throws 100, and his curveball still buckles hitters’ knees and flutters scouts’ hearts. Pitching in the Arizona Fall League All-Star Game, Jeffress came in and struck out the side – including two players named Bryce Harper and Derek Norris.

He was only pitching in the AFL because he couldn’t throw enough strikes to stay in the majors after breaking with the team on Opening Day. After walking 11 in 15 innings, he went to the minors and walked 40 more in 56 innings, with just 44 strikeouts – necessitating a demotion all the way to Double-A. (He also got arrested – though the charges were later dropped – on a domestic assault charge this winter. Idiot.)

The stuff is still there, and I certainly wouldn’t dismiss the chance that the light bulb goes on at some point and he becomes an elite reliever overnight. But for now, I’d treat Jeffress as a lottery ticket. Maybe you cash in at some point, but for now you just stuff him in your wallet and check back later.

Joakim Soria: D+

I’ve already said everything I need to say about Soria. If he never throws another pitch for the Royals, I’d still put him in the team’s Hall of Fame whenever he becomes eligible. By bWAR, Soria’s first four seasons were all better than Holland’s 2011, and all rank among the 15 best relief seasons in team history.

Robinson Tejeda: F

Listed more as a cautionary tale than anything else. Tejeda was claimed off of waivers from the Rangers in 2008, and for the next two-and-a-half seasons was a very valuable reliever – valuable enough to start seven times, and do well in that role. In 174 innings, he allowed just 120 hits. He walked 92, but struck out 184, and allowed only 12 home runs and a 3.47 ERA. He was great.

In 2011, he started the season with no velocity on his fastball, was disabled after 7.1 ineffective innings, and when his velocity didn’t come all the way back, he was placed on waivers. No team was willing to pick up his modest $1.55 million salary, so he toiled the rest of the year in Omaha, finished with a 3.80 ERA and decent peripherals there, and signed a minor-league deal with the Indians this winter.

With relievers, it’s easy come, easy go. The Royals may have a great bullpen today, but it could fall apart in a hurry. And with as many arms as they have, they’d be fools not to trade one or more of them while their stock is still high.

Blake Wood: B

He wasn’t exactly good last season, but Wood was certainly adequate, and that was more than I expected from him. He was drafted as a starter in the third round in 2006, the transitional draft when Dayton Moore had been hired when no one was in control, the draft that gave us Luke Hochevar as a #1 pick and the execrable Jason Taylor in the second round. Wood looked like a blown pick himself, as a starter who simply didn’t have the command to get guys out. But he started 2010 in the bullpen, his velocity ticked up, and he showed at least a glimmer of hope.

Then last season, in 70 innings, he allowed 66 hits, walked 25, and struck out 62, with a 3.75 ERA. If that’s your eighth-inning guy, you have problems. But at this point, even if he were healthy he would be the last guy in the Royals’ bullpen at best. I don’t think he’s got more upside than what he showed last year – his fastball is too straight to fool batters more often than he did. And I don’t see where he fits on this team even after his elbow heals up.

But he’s 26 years old, he’s not arbitration-eligible until next year, and he’s five years from free agency. There are probably a few teams out there that would be happy to have a guy like Wood on their roster. Holding on to him is kind of pointless, and I’d be happy to see him traded away for some magic beans that may or may not sprout in a few years. If not Wood, then someone.

The Royals have a wealth of relief talent, but it’s not going to do you any good in Triple-A, and it’s likely to evaporate soon enough, so best to extract as much value out of it now as possible. Moore has shown an admirable ability to build bullpens on the cheap in Kansas City – his one big failure was the year he actually decided to throw money at the problem. If you’ve got that ability, you ought to be aggressive in cashing those guys in at their peak, knowing you have the resources to replace them soon enough.

Dominated.

(The Royals open their season in less than 72 hours, and I’ve got contracts to review, spring training decisions to cover, last year’s report card to finish, and who knows what else. I’ll do my best to get through them all, but I may not be as thorough as usual. Which is probably a good thing.)

Lee Judge, who when he isn’t making fun of sabermetrics actually does a good job of covering the Royals from an inside perspective, had a story about Alex Gordon last week. Gordon had taken a bite of a cupcake.

This was apparently big news within the Royals’ clubhouse. Gordon does not eat cupcakes. He does not eat pizza. He presumably does not eat anything that might be construed as the slightest bit unhealthy.

It’s a silly anecdote, a throw-away one-liner about what happens inside the clubhouse. But when I read that anecdote, the first thing that crossed my mind was, “Damn, the Royals have to get him signed.”

They did. And suddenly, this doesn’t look like the spring training from hell anymore.

Dayton Moore can keep screwing up the little things as long as he keeps getting the big things right. Yes, I’m annoyed that Johnny Giavotella is in Omaha while Chris Getz and Yuniesky Betancourt platoon at second base. But if, two weeks ago, you had told me that Giavotella would get optioned, but that Gordon would sign a long-term deal before Opening Day, I would have taken that deal in a heartbeat.

Baseball fans outside of Kansas City may not appreciate just how fantastic Gordon was in 2011. He was, in many ways, the quintessential five-tool player, finally showing off the breadth of talents that were on full display in Wichita in 2006. He hit for average (.303) and hit for power (72 extra-base hits, 23 homers) and stole bases (17 for 25) and played defense (a Gold Glove in left field, although Brett Gardner would have been a much better selection) and showed off a cannon arm (a major-league leading, and Royals franchise record, 20 baserunner kills.)

He did important things that don’t fall under the rubric of the Five Tools. He showed patience at the plate, leading the team with 67 walks. He grounded into only 9 double plays all year. According to Baseball-Reference.com, he was worth 5.9 Wins Above Replacement last year. While Gordon got a couple of MVP votes – he finished 21st overall on the ballot – he was actually one of the ten best players in the American League last year.

He probably won’t be that good again this year, and may not be that good again in any year. He doesn’t have to be. Even a regressed Alex Gordon is an above-average left fielder, and even if he regresses Gordon will likely be worth the money he’ll earn.

While I was hoping that the Royals would have been able to get a club option in the deal – or at least avoid a player option – I also expected the dollars to be more. Gordon’s contract replaces his $4.775 million deal for 2012 with a $6 million salary, then $9 million next year, $10 million in 2014, and $12.5 million in 2015. Gordon holds a player option for 2016 at $12.5 million.

(It’s worth noting that a team’s ability to get club options in a long-term deal is directly correlated with how far the player is from free agency. Salvador Perez, six years away from free agency, gave the Royals three option years. Alcides Escobar, four years away, gave them two option years. Last year, Billy Butler (three years away) gave them one option year. Neither Gordon nor Zack Greinke (two years away) gave them any.)

The player option is all downside; if Gordon is as good as we think he is, it won’t be exercised, but if last year proves to be a massive fluke, then the Royals will be saddled with a $12.5 million commitment. But look at it this way: while Gordon got an out clause for the final year, he also signed a 5-year, $50 million contract. For the same number of years, that’s less money than the Royals signed Gil Meche or Mike Sweeney for.

Of course, since Gordon was already signed for 2012, essentially this comes down to a $45.225 million guarantee for the next four years, with an out clause. That makes the deal look a little better for Gordon. But it’s still a good deal for the Royals even if Gordon falls back to earth a little. If he doesn’t, it’s a great one.

The only thing about Gordon’s 2011 that looks a little fishy is his batting average; it’s difficult to hit .300 and strike out 139 times without massive power. Gordon’s batting average on balls in play was .358. While hitters have a lot more control over that stat than pitchers, .358 is on the edge of sustainability. It’s more likely that he was a little lucky last season, and even with his new swing he’s more of a .330 BABIP guy. That would drop his batting average to around .280 or so.

If Gordon hits .280, but with the same amount of power, plate discipline, speed and defense he showed last year, he’s a hell of a player. He’s 28 years old now; he’ll be 32 the year of his player option. Contrary to popular perception, he is not entering his prime – most players peak at age 27, and we likely just saw Gordon’s peak season, when he was 27. But I think it’s likely he’ll perform at a level close to his peak for at least the next 3-4 years.

Gordon fits the profile of a player who is likely to age gracefully almost to a tee. He is a tremendous athlete, and he has both power and speed – players with both skills age better than both plodding sluggers and punch-and-judy speedsters. He takes such phenomenal care of himself that it’s a minor story when he takes a bit from a cupcake.

The one thing in Gordon’s profile that works against him staying productive into his mid-30s is his injury history. But he’s more durable than you’d think from looking at his stat line – he played 18 games in the minors in 2009 and 75 games in 2010. Counting his minor league time, his games played the last five years goes 151, 134, 67, 149, 151. He’s only been on the DL three times in his career, and two of those were fairly minor: a quad strain in 2008 cost him three weeks, and a fractured thumb from an awkward slide into second base in spring training in 2010 cost him the first two weeks of the season.

The only serious injury Gordon has suffered was the torn labrum in his hip he suffered early in 2009, which cost him three months. He recovered from surgery on schedule, and has had no sequelae since. He’s not Cal Ripken, but he’s not exactly Chris Snelling.

I could see Alex Gordon resembling another ex-Royal, in the sense of never having a season quite like last year’s, but still having a long and productive career into his mid-to-late 30s. In 2000, his last season with the Royals, Johnny Damon hit .327/.382/.495, led the league with 46 bases, and was worth 6.6 bWAR. (He was worth 20 runs with his legs alone – at the plate, Gordon had the better season.)

He would never again have a season that good again. But over the next 11 years, Damon was worth an average of 3.2 bWAR a year, and was worth 2.8 bWAR as recently as last year, when he was 37. Damon is amazingly durable – he’s one of the few players in history to have played in 140+ games 16 years in a row. But the two players have similar profiles in terms of how likely they are to age gracefully. Damon’s game was more speed and batting average based, which if anything made him more prone to ups and downs offensively. When Damon hit .327 he was a stud; when he hit .256 the following year in Oakland, he was a cipher with the bat. If Gordon hits .245, in today’s depressed offensive environment, he should still hit with enough power to provide some value.

Whether Gordon is still a valuable player when he’s 36 is sort of irrelevant, because the Royals are only on the hook through his age-32 season. Compare Gordon to Joey Votto and it becomes even more clear how good this deal is. Both players are 28 years old (Votto is five months older than Gordon.) Both signed contracts two years away from free agency. Yet Gordon will make almost exactly half annually what Votto makes with his new deal, and the Royals are committed to Gordon for five years, compared to TWELVE years for Votto. The Royals are out from Gordon’s contract after his age-32 season; the Reds are on the hook for Votto until after his 40th birthday.

Sure, Votto is a better player than Gordon, but THAT much better? Gordon was worth 5.9 bWAR last year; Votto was worth 6.5 bWAR, but in the National League. Of course he has the vastly better track record, and he’s the safer bet going forward, etc, etc. But the Reds made a financial commitment to Votto that is FIVE TIMES what the Royals made to Gordon.

Six weeks ago, there was only one skill we could state, with a fair degree of certainty, that Dayton Moore’s front office possessed: they knew how to identify and develop talent. But with three players signed during spring training to contracts that buy out two years of free agency – I still have to get around to discussing Escobar’s deal – I think we can add a second skill to Moore’s ledger: he has the ability to get those players to commit to the organization long-term.

Yes, there are plenty of things Moore does which drive me nuts, and I’m sure he will continue to drive me nuts at times in the future. But really, if you’re the General Manager for a small-market team, and you could only do two things really well, aren’t these exactly the two things you’d ask for? Acquire amateur talent – when it’s still in your price range – and then sign that talent to contracts which make them fit into your payroll for as long as possible?

It might seem like a no-brainer for the Royals to offer these long-term deals. It might even seem like a no-brainer for Salvador Perez and Escobar and Gordon to sign those deals. But getting a player to commit to your organization isn’t simply a matter of dollars. It’s a matter of building a culture in the clubhouse that makes those players want to stick around. It’s a matter of developing a level of trust with your players, that they trust your ability to build a winning team around them, and that they trust your integrity enough to accept security in exchange for the chance to make more money elsewhere.

In the case of Perez and Escobar, you could argue that with free agency being so far away, and with neither player having earned enough money to be secure on their own, that they would have signed those deals no matter who their GM was. But Gordon was two years away from free agency, and counting the money he was due to earn this year, had earned about $12 million since he was drafted. If he didn’t trust Dayton Moore, he wouldn’t have signed. That he did sign says a lot about how the players feel about their front office.

Unlike the other team at the Truman Sports Complex, the Royals have kept virtually every player they’ve wanted to keep since Moore was hired. The one exception to that would be Zack Greinke, who nonetheless signed the same kind of deal Gordon did – a four-year contract when he was two years away from free agency. (The terms were virtually identical – Greinke got $38 million for four years, Gordon gets $37.5 million plus his option. Greinke’s deal was slightly more back-loaded, earning him $13.5 million each of the last two years.)

Greinke ultimately demanded an out, because he lost the trust in Moore’s ability to build a contender in Kansas City by the time his contract is up. But I don’t sense that Greinke lost trust in Moore as a person, and if he makes it to free agency next winter, I honestly think he would consider returning to Kansas City if the offer was there. Besides, the Royals got a good return in the trade. Greinke’s departure from the Royals would have occurred after the 2010 season even if he hadn’t signed a long-term deal, but instead of getting two draft picks as compensation, they got their starting shortstop (who himself is now signed through 2017), their starting centerfielder, a lottery ticket reliever, and one of their best pitching prospects.

Aside from Greinke, the Royals have kept everyone they’ve wanted to. You could argue that they shouldn’t have kept the players they wanted to keep (e.g. Bruce Chen), but it’s an impressive trait, given the Royals’ limited financial resources, that they’ve managed to convince every key player they’ve had in the last five years (Gordon, Butler, Soria, Greinke) to commit to the team past the point of free agency.

Signing Gordon has a few other benefits. First, it keeps the lineup from becoming precariously right-handed over the next few years. With Gordon, Eric Hosmer, and Mike Moustakas, barring injury the Royals can depend on having at least three left-handed hitters in their lineup most nights. (They may have five in the lineup on Opening Day, with Chris Getz and Brayan Pena, but Perez will be back soon enough, and if Getz doesn’t lose his job to Giavotella, he’ll lose it to Christian Colon, both of whom bat right-handed.)

As I’ve pointed out before, the Royals’ top hitting prospects almost exclusively bat right-handed. There are 15 hitters in Baseball America’s list of the Royals’ Top 30 Prospects, and twelve of them are right-handed. Clint Robinson (#21) and David Lough (#30) are left-handed, and Daniel Mateo (#28) is a switch-hitter. It’s hard to envision any prospect currently in the system who doesn’t bat right-handed becoming an everyday player for the Royals.

You can survive with three left-handed bats in your lineup. Losing Gordon and replacing him with a right-handed hitter would have crossed the tipping point, I think, where every team brings in their version of Louis Coleman in the late innings to rip through four or five right-handed bats in a row. Now, the Royals don’t have to worry about that possibility for the next four years, by which time they’ll hopefully have scrounged up a left-handed bat or two.

The other benefit to signing Gordon is that he was really the only key player on the roster who was eligible for free agency between now and the end of the 2014 season. Now, the Royals are well-positioned to lose a minimal amount of talent to free agency over the next five years, which means their window to contend should be over multiple seasons. These are the only players on the 40-man roster that have the right to leave as free agents at the end of each season:

2012: Yuniesky Betancourt, Jonathan Broxton, Humberto Quintero, Jonathan Sanchez

2013: Bruce Chen, Jeff Francoeur, Brayan Pena

2014: Chris Getz, Luke Hochevar, Mitch Maier, Jose Mijares, Felipe Paulino, Joakim Soria

In 2014, the only players currently on the roster that might have left would be a pair of backup catchers, a utility infielder, two starting pitchers of questionable worth, and an everyday right fielder – the one position where the Royals have an elite prospect likely to be ready in the next two years.

Before the 2015 season, the Royals might lose Hochevar and Paulino, but 1) they might not be worth keeping at that point anyway, and 2) if they are worth keeping, the Royals have three years to work out an extension.

After the 2015 season, both Gordon and Butler may be free agents, which would hurt. But that’s four years away. The Royals have four full years to build on their current roster before they lose a single one of their core players.

And finally, having signed Perez, Escobar, and Gordon in quick succession, the Royals have now increased the odds that they might get a long-term deal done with Hosmer. Now, “increased” is a relative term. I think the odds are still very slim – but six weeks ago I would have said they were non-existent.

Votto’s contract signals the new world we’re living in, where TV contracts are going through the roof and there’s more money for everyone – but where there’s potentially an even bigger financial gap between the haves and the have-nots. In such a world, if the Royals want to get a deal done with Hosmer, they need to do it now. Not next year: now.

If Hosmer is going to sign a deal, it’s going to be a straight contract, no option years – Scott Boras doesn’t operate like that. Does 8 years, $80 million sound reasonable? Hosmer’s going to make about $1 million over the next two years combined, so that’s basically a 6-year, $79 million deal once Hosmer reaches arbitration. That might sound ridiculous, but if Hosmer is as good as everyone thinks he is, he’ll challenge for $10 million his first year of arbitration, and could easily be at $15 million by 2016. If Hosmer goes year-to-year, he could easily make $50-60 million in his four arbitration years, and then another $50-60 million in his first two free agent years alone.

But $80 million guaranteed today might appeal to him more than the non-guaranteed opportunity to make $100-120 million over the same time frame. At the same time, 8 years/$80 million ought to fit – it’s a tight squeeze, but it will fit – into the Royals’ payroll structure.

Getting Gordon signed, on top of the contracts to Perez and Escobar, was a coup for Dayton Moore. But if those contracts lead to the biggest, boldest signing of them all, well, that would be a true revolution.