MVN - Most Valuable Network

Double Your Fun

Conventional baseball lore says that sweeping a doubleheader is a hard thing to do. I did not bother checking the actual stats on this issue as the rarity of doubleheaders anymore pretty much makes it irrelevant. However, a sweep of both the double-dip last night and the series with Oakland is exactly what the Royals accomplished. Sure, this current incarnation of the Athletics is a bad baseball team, but there is something to be said for at least being better than someone (a statement the Royals have not always been able to make!).

Some observations from yesterday’s action:

- Since Brian Bannister’s 10 run naplam attack in New York on August 17th, he has thrown 21.2 innings, allowed 18 hits and only seven earned runs. While Oakland is hardly an potent offensive force, the other two starts since New York were against Detroit and Texas. The common thread? All three starts were home games, where Bannister has a 3.71 ERA this season. His road ERA is an unsightly 9.16. Last year, Bannister’s road ERA was actually almost a full run LOWER than his home ERA, so go figure.

- I am not going to get to wrapped up in the Mike Aviles error that led to three unearned runs in game one yesterday. It was the kind of play - trying to field the ball and get to second to start the double play - that a lot of guys make in their 79th major league game. Most of those guys, and I have no reason to not include Aviles in this group, will not make that same error in the 279th game of their career. A notable excpetion: Angel Berroa. Hey, it’s been a while since we’ve had an Angel dig around here. Besides, aren’t you just a little annoyed that Berroa has TWELVE walks in limited duty for the Dodgers?

- Kila Kaaihue at least got on the field in game two last night, pinch running for Jose Guillen. You can make the case that a gimpy Guillen probably did not need to play in both games last night and hence, Butler could have still played first and Double-K could have seen action at DH. However, given that Guillen was two for four with three rbi and we only saw a couple innings of Ross Gload, it is hard to be too critical.

- Speaking of the Butler: he is 40 for 115 since August 1st, for a salty .348 batting average. Even better, after getting just four extra base hits in the first twenty-six days of August, Billy has eight (five doubles and three homers) in his last seven games. Considering Butler’s recent comments that he has gone back to ‘just being Billy’ at the plate, it appears that perhaps Butler is a guy you just leave alone, don’t coach and just let him hit things with a big wooden stick.

- Despite pitching with a lead, it still took Kyle Davies 101 pitches to get through five innings last night. Sure he was generally effective, allowing just 3 hits and 1 run, but it was a typical ‘Davies outing’, which is typically really not good enough. With Luke Hochevar, as much as he struggled at times, you also saw signs of improvement and indications that he could be a solid number three or four starter. With Davies, we continue to see a guy who might get you five innings, will throw a ton of pitches, give up too many hits (102 in 86 innings) and not strike enough guys out (49 Ks vs. 39 BBs). Unlike a lot of people, I just don’t see Davies becoming a serviceable reliever, simply because of what I related in the previous sentence.

- I would imagine many of you have at times been frustrated with Ramon Ramirez: I know I have been. The guy can be absolutely lights out and be that way for weeks at a time. Good enough to make you entertain thoughts of Soria in the rotation and RamRam as the closer. Ramirez, however, is also prone to stretches of wildness (he walked 9 batters in 11 innings in August). It is worth remembering, that Ramirez still has less than 150 major league innings under his belt and probably is just beginning to mature as a late inning reliever. When you are compiling the short list of players that Dayton Moore should keep this winter, make sure Ramon is on it.

- Look for a Kaaihue start tonight against right hander Anthony Reyes, but don’t get used to it. Trey Hillman is giving every indication that he will use Shealy and Kaaihue in basically a platoon situation from here on it and the Indians are starting lefties on both Saturday and Sunday. Sadly, I have tickets for the weekend games, but not Friday’s contest.

An Appreciation of the Twi-Night Doubleheader

Kansas City is feeling the effects of Hurricane Gustav.  Seriously.

So that means the Wednesday tilt against the A’s is postponed meaning the integrity of the schedule insists they play two on Thursday.

I’m good with that because I absolutely love doubleheaders.  The true kind - not that day/night crap they play in the new parks where they make you leave in between games so they can soak you for two tickets.  While I admire the naked capitalism, the person who first implemented this idea should be banished to somewhere in the world where they don’t play baseball.  Siberia or Antartica perhaps.

Anyway…  The twi-night doubleheader.  I just love the sound of that.  Twi-night… No idea what it means, and I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anyone actually use it in a sentence, but still… It has a nice ring when used as a prefix to doubleheader.

One of my best baseball memories is a twi-night doubleheader from August 1985.

On the heels of the strike that washed out a chunk of the summer of 1981, the players briefly walked out in early August of ‘85.  It lasted one, maybe two days.  I don’t remember because thankfully, it didn’t last.  And because it was so brief, baseball decided that the missed games would be made up.  So on the evening of August 8, my brother and I went to Royals Stadium with my grandfather to catch a pair against the Detroit Tigers.

The best part about the twi-night doubleheaders was the start time was always five o’clock.  That was too early for people who worked to get to the game and too late to justify taking time off for the game.  That meant a sparse crowd for the start was guaranteed.  And no crowd meant optimum opportunity for my brother and I to improve our seats by a row or thirty.

That’s how we ended up in the front row behind the Detroit dugout as Bret Saberhagen faced off against Frank Tanana.  Sabes was on his game that afternoon.  But the thing I remember… Sitting so close to the action, with so few people in the stands, you could actually hear the seams zip through the air.   And with the late summer afternoon sun combined with the stadium lights, there was a clarity to our view.  It was as though we could see the rotation on Sabes curveball.   I’m sure the passage of time has helped with the clarity of the moment, but that day remains vivid in my memory.  And it was because the stadium was virtually empty.  Fans, beer guys and some of the ushers… It was as though my brother and I were the only spectators in the stadium.  It was as though they were playing the game for us.

I also remember that bastard, Kirk Gibson walking back to the dugout after his second or third strikeout of the game… Just shaking his head in surrender.  He knew.  There was no way he was going to get his lumber around any of Saberhagen’s pitches.  No way.  And I also remember one of the few fans in attendance at the time yelling at him, “Gibby!  Gibby!  Take a seat, Gibby!”

Sabes was brilliant that day, going the full nine for his 13 win of the year as the Royals thrashed the Tigers by a final of 10-3.

Gibby went 0-4 with three strikeouts.

By the time the second game rolled around, my brother and I were evicted by a diabolical usher and banished to our usual seats in row MM of section 117.  The Royals won that game as well by a score of 6-4.  Mark Gubicza got the win in relief and Dan Quisenberry shut the door for his 25th save.

The perfect ending to the perfect twi-night doubleheader.

Moore Looks To Make Changes

“I’ve made up my mind on this team,” he said. “I’ve got a pretty good idea on where we need to go and what we need to do. I’ve been watching this team for two years now. It’s the same (core) group of guys.” - Dayton Moore via the Kansas City Star -

It could be that Dayton Moore’s comments in Bob Dutton’s article yesterday were just the usual lip service to soothe an ever more annoyed fan base staring down the spector of another September collapse.
However, Dutton is not usually a mouthpiece for the organization and Dayton Moore has never struck me as a sunshine blower.

Read that opening quote again. Translation: I’ve watched the same team lose 180 games in two seasons and these guys are not good enough. There is nothing in Dutton’s article or in Moore’s quotes that gives me reason to doubt that the Royals’ GM truly is mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore.

The Star’s article (and as an aside, I think Bob Dutton probably is one of the finer beat writers in the country) goes on to note that other clubs indicate that only Gil Meche, Joakim Soria and Zack Greinke are off-limits in trade discussions. Actually, Greinke might be on the table, but only for an Erik Bedard like haul, which is unlikely. Noticeably absent from the list of untouchables: Alex Gordon and Billy Butler. Yeah, I think Moore might be a little ticked at this team.

Like at least 25 other teams, the Royals are going to be looking for a corner power bat (pick a corner, any corner), middle infield help and a starting pitcher in the off-season. We all know the off-season is tricky stuff - how lucky were the Royals that Andruw Jones didn’t sign with them? You can overpay and get your money’s worth (Gil Meche) or get a problem with a sub .300 OBP (The Outlaw Jose Guillen). You can go cheap and lose the best years of the career of a Raul Ibanez. In their zest to get better, the Royals have to be careful they don’t trade away a DeJesus and Gordon for an established star and have him go Richie Sexson on you.

In that zest to change the environment (and let me say I AM onboard with the basic premise. MY GOD am I on board!), Dayton Moore would be wise to avoid the pitfalls of his predecessor and not pigeonhole himself into thinking he must have a shortstop or he must have a right handed power hitting leftfielder. That’s the kind of thinking that netted the Royals Mark Teahen and John Buck instead of Robinson Cano and Dioner Navarro.

At last, we reach the actual topic of the day: one Mr. Mike Aviles. The common thinking, and I’ve said it as much as anyone, is that Aviles is probably a second or even third baseman instead of a fulltime shortstop. The conventional wisdom is that Aviles’ bat will play at either spot and that he simply does not have the defensive tools to handle shortstop day in day out for seasons on end. Deep down, I still kind of believe that.

However, there is some statistical data that might suggest otherwise. Defensive stats do not even come close to giving one the entire picture of a player’s fielding abilities. John Dewan’s Fielding Bible probably came closest, but even then there were variables that simply cannot be accounted for. Still, I think it is worthy to note the following in regard to Aviles at shortstop:

Stats Inc. Zone Rating: .843 - That is fourth among all AL players with 500 or more innings at the position (Erick Aybar is first at .857). Two regulars, Orlando Cabrera and Jason Bartlett post ratings of .845. Tony Pena Jr. has an .829 zone rating.

Stats Inc. Range Factor: .468 - Second in the AL, again behind Aybar and ahead of Cabrera’s 4.63.

Hardball Times Revised Zone Rating: .860 - Best among all those in the AL with 500 or more innings played at short, edging out Aybar (.859) and Cabrera (.851).

Hardball Times Outs Made Outside of Zone: 24 - That is the same number of outs that Derek Jeter has made in 1103 innings (Aviles has 576 innings at short), two more than Yuniesky Betancourt has made in 1123 innings. Aviles makes an ‘out outside of zone’ once every 24 innings, virtually the identical rate of both Cabrera and Bartlett.

Now, I think that the Royals’ shift their infield as much or more than just about any other team and that may well allow Aviles to get credit for more OOZ’s than he really makes. We also know that Range Factors and Zone Ratings are imperfect metric: if for no other reason than they do not account for Mike’s disturbing inability to routinely capture pop flies.

Still, the above is a fair amount of data that would seem to indicate that, at worst, Aviles is an adequate to average defensive player at shortstop. His error rate would put him on a pace for around 18 or so over or a full season, which isn’t bad for the position, and some of the mental gaffes of earlier this summer seem to have disappeared over the past month - as you might expect for a rookie.

My point is not that the Royals should not go get a top notch shortstop like Rafael Furcal (assuming he is both healthy and not outrageously priced), but that the Royals do not have to get a shortstop. Maybe you go after second baseman Orlando Hudson instead and keep Aviles at short or make a deal for a big time third baseman and move Gordon to first or the outfield (as suggested by Rany).

If Aviles truly is an average defender at short (and keep in mind, your two best pitchers are fly ball/strikeout guys, as is your number one prospect), then his bat is a much bigger plus at that position than anywhere else. Particularly when you make the assumption that Aviles BABIP probably is not going to stay at .366 for his entire career.

Hopefully, the Royals learned from Mike Aviles to not tie themselves to assumptions. It took the organization a long time to decide that Aviles deserved even a look in the majors and it took his manager a good six weeks to decide that Mike could at least hold his own at shortstop. The conventional wisdom probably still is that Aviles is not the long term answer at shortstop (second base maybe, but not short).

As they enter an off-season promising changes, Dayton Moore and staff would be wise to remember that conventional wisdom and assumptions are wrong almost as often as they are right. Number 30 in Royals’ blue is reminding them of that every day.

Goodbye To The Dog Days and Hello To Kila

The Royals entered August with a 50-59 record.  At that time, they were 11 games out of first in the Central, in fourth place a game an a half ahead of last place Cleveland.

Thirty days later, the Royals stand at 57-79 and are firmly entrenched in last place, 20 games behind leaders Chicago.

Thirty days.  That’s all it took to take the positive strides that were made in the first four months of the season and flush them straight down the toilet.  Although odds don’t favor another 100 loss season, there’s no joy in that.  Not when most of us though the Royals would finish somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 wins.

Now the Royals have some scrambling to do.  They need 12 wins in their final 26 games to match last year’s total of 69 wins.  Such thoughts would have been blasphemous at the beginning of August.  But that’s what the Dog Days can do.

The Call-Ups

The front office greeted September by making some additions to the roster.  Kila Ka’aihue, Ryan Shealy, Yash Yabuta, and Devon Lowry were recalled from Triple-A.  Recalled from rehab assignments were Jimmy Gobble and John Bale.

Uh, I’m aware that no one cares about the pitchers.  We want to talk about the first basemen.

Shealy gets the call after hitting .280/.374/.500 with 22 home runs for the O-Royals.  Honestly, I’m kind of confused why the Royals didn’t get him up here sooner, but better late than never I guess.

This seem to be the point to bring up Ross Gload’s name.  Several commenters over the past couple of months have defended Gload as a player who more often than not does what is asked of him while flashing a decent glove at first.  I tend to agree.  Gload is a solid role player… The types of which are often found on contending teams, getting an at bat here or there and getting into a game in the later innings as a defensive replacement.  The problem is, on a non-contending team like the Royals, a player like Gload is a waste.  When he’s getting most of the starts, you know your team is in trouble.

Back to Shealy.  I was surprised to find out he turned 29 last week.  Wow.  For some reason I thought he was younger.  But I guess you celebrate birthdays in Triple-A.  His age, combined with his 465 major league at bats mean he’s about as removed from prospect status as you’ll find.  It also means any kind of talk along the lines of, “We need to see what he can do” is a colossal waste of carbon dioxide.  We know what he can do:  In those at bats he has a line of .267/.332/.402 with 12 home runs.

Shealy joins alums such as Kit Pellow and Les Norman in the pantheon of players who can be All-Stars at the Triple-A level, but dead weight in the majors.  And the Royals know this.  At least they’re 95% sure that he’s not their future first baseman.  If they truly believed in him, they wouldn’t have wasted so many at bats on Gload.  However, his OPB and slugging percentage he posted in Omaha would lead this current team and by far.  He deserves the reward of spending the final month of the season in Kansas City, but please… Spare us the company line of, “We need to see what he can do.”

The Hawaiian Punch, on the other hand, still has a future with this club.  He spent the entire 2006 in Double-A Wichita where in 327 at bats he hit .199/.303/.300.  That’s like failing a grade in school, so the next year he began in High-A Wilmington.  He did OK hitting .248/.359/.435 in 207 at bats before moving back to Wichita.  The second time around the Texas League was much kinder to Ka’ahuie.  He hit .246/.359/.447 in 244 at bats with 12 home runs.

Still, the Royals weren’t convinced he was ready for Triple-A.  By the way, that’s not a slam on the Royals or the people who evaluate their minor leagues.  Ka’aihue was never considered to be much of a prospect at any level.  Besides, the Royals had Shealy biding his time in Omaha, so Ka’ahuie began the year for his third stint in Double-A.  This time, he was ready for whatever the pitchers were throwing at him:

.314/.463/.624 with 26 home runs in 287 at bats.

To put it in the simplest terms possible, he was crushing the ball and destroying the psyches of pitchers throughout the Texas League.

Moved to Omaha, he continued:

.309/.429/.636 with 11 home runs in 110 at bats.

Wow.  Ka’aihue is 24 this year.  They say that young players from Hawaii mature later than players from the mainland because of the gulf in competition.  There just aren’t that many quality players on the islands that you would find in California or Florida.  Maybe, he just needed some time to find his stroke.  Whatever the reason, because he’s destroyed pitching at two levels, he’s now become a bona fide prospect.

His bat earned him the opportunity to be with the Royals in September.

But now that the Royals have decided to recall both Shealy and Ka’aihue, they have created a logjam at first.  Who are they going to give most of the time to?  Gload, who has been with the team all year?  Shealy, who was once considered the future at the position?  Or Ka’aihue who now has to have moved past Shealy on the organization depth chart?

I’ll wager that Shealy will see most of the at bats with the final month of the season along with Gload.  It will continue the same frustrating pattern we saw with Buddy Bell who favored veterans ahead of prospects.  The jury is still out on Hillman, but he certainly has shown the same tendencies in his season with the Royals.  He seems like the kind of manager who would play Gload for 20-some September games because, “It wouldn’t be fair to Ross” to remove him from the starting lineup.  Prepare to be frustrated.

This means that at bats will be difficult to find for Ka’aihue.  Supposedly, there was much debate within the organization whether to even call him up this month.  That means there are still some who feel he’s not ready for the final step in his journey.  I have no idea who those people are, but I have a feeling they have some say as to who makes it onto the lineup card on a daily basis.

I think the Royals will consider this to be a “get acquainted” time for Ka’aihue.  It’s his reward for a monster minor league season and an opportunity to see how life is at the major league level.  He’ll be lucky to start more than a third of the remaining games.

That’s going to be a horrible decision.  The season is pretty much over, so why not give The Hawaiian Punch a long look at first?  If he has a shot at the position next year or beyond, it would make too much sense.  As I said, Gload is a waste on a team like this and Shealy is no longer a prospect.  To give them at bats in September would be like listening to a song like Hotel California over and over again - no matter how many times you listen to it, it’s still going to suck.  Repetition isn’t going to change anything.  Same with Shealy and Gload.  We can see them over and over, but they’re not going to do anything new or surprising.

Instead, the Royals should be bold and give some time to a young player who wasn’t on their radar when the season began.  Why not?   What exactly do they have to lose by not giving Ka’aihue at bats?

September might be just as frustrating as August.

Walk On

In my previous post on Wednesday, I griped about the Royals approach at the plate and how it was costing them games. It came after an incredibly hacktastic performance where Royal hitters sent nine batters to the plate in the eighth and ninth innings and forced Texas starter Kevin Millwood to throw 14 pitches. That was amazing even by Kansas City standards.

Even more amazing, it was the 25th time this year the Royals played a game and had a grand total of zero base on balls. Does that number sound high to you? It should, because it is. Stratospherically high, actually.

In games through Wednesday, teams failed to collect a single walk in a game 272 times. Here is how that number breaks down by team.

Team                 Games
Royals                  25
Mariners                13
Pirates                 13
Angels                  13
Marlins                 12
Blue Jays               11
A's                     11
Twins                   11
Dodgers                 11
Tigers                  11
Rangers                 10
Indians                 10
Giants                   9
Astros                   9
Reds                     9
Nationals                8
Padres                   8
Rockies                  8
Cubs                     8
Braves                   8
Cardinals                7
Brewers                  7
Diamondbacks             7
Phillies                 6
White Sox                6
Orioles                  6
Red Sox                  5
Rays                     4
Yankees                  3
Mets                     3

In a league with 30 teams, the Royals own over 9% of these games. Unreal.

This has some historic undertones.

The 25 games played without a walk is the most by any team since the 2005 Detroit Tigers who had 29 games without a free pass. Going back to 1956 (the first year of data is available at Baseball Reference) the record for most games without a walk in a season is 31, set by the 1964 New York Mets. I know some of you are searching for reasons to watch this team over the last month of the season. Might I suggest keeping an eye on this record. The Royals need to have only six more games without a walk and they tie the record. Believe!

Here’s a worthless little nugget to chew on: The Royals went 63.1 innings this year against the Twins before they drew their first walk. That’s right… In the Royals first seven games against Minnesota this season, they did not work Twins pitchers for a single, solitary base on balls. Oh yeah, the Royals record in those games was 1-6.

Here’s another: In a stretch of games from May 23 to May 31, the Royals had a total of three walks in 327 plate appearances. That’s a walk rate of less than 1%. Do you understand what that means? They could have a lineup nine Angel Berroa’s and odds are good he would have walked more than three times in those nine games. To be exact, based on his 2.9% walk rate from 2005 and 2006 he would have, on average, walked 9.4 times.

Grrrrrrrrrr.

Overall for the season, the Royals walk rate stands at 6.9% which is dead last in the AL. Here’s how individual hitters are doing this year:

Name                  BB%
Alex Gordon           12.2
Mark Teahen            8.2
David DeJesus          8.0
John Buck              8.0
Esteban German         7.7
Billy Butler           7.4
Joey Gathright         6.2
Ross Gload             5.9
Mark Grudzielane       5.4
Mike Aviles            3.9
Jose Guillen           3.8
Miguel Olivo           2.8
Tony Pena              2.4

There aren’t many teams that spread the walks around like that. Most clubs have more than one hitter in double digits in walk rate.

Besides, the average walk rate in the American League this year is 8.6%. Take a look at that list again. Yep, the Royals have exactly one player who is above league average in walks. One. And he’s on the DL. Perfect.

But there’s something even more interesting to be gleaned from this list: It’s fairly bottom heavy with Dayton Moore players. Gathright, Gload, Olivo, Guillen and Pena were all acquired by GMDM and they occupy five of the bottom seven spots on the team ranked by walk rate. (If we want to be picky about it, we could add Grudz to that list making it six of the bottom seven. Allard brought Grudz to KC, but GMDM kept him here with an extension.)

The funny thing is, we knew before they ever became Royals that these players were OBP-intolerant. Pena had a .285 career OBP in the minors, for crying out loud. Olivo had the lowest OBP among regulars in all of baseball last season. Guillen walked 6.5% of the time last year, which was the highest rate of his career.

And on and on and on…

GMDM has been with the Royals for just over two years, so it’s unfair to lay the blame for this fiasco entirely at his feet. But it is fair to say that he hasn’t done anything to improve this problem. It is his job as general manager to identify talent and obtain said talent to make this team competitive. Unfortunately, it’s a slow process. If I listed all the problems this organization had when he arrived from Atlanta, I would chew up so much bandwidth it would cause the entire internet to crash.

GMDM may very well have some special healing powers, and he’s made positive strides. Expanding the reach of the scouting departments for one. Drafting based on talent, not cost is another. And some of his pitching acquisitions (Gil Meche and Joakim Soria to name the highest profile) have been outstanding.

As I said, it’s a slow process. However, his moves to fortify the lineup haven’t been as positive.

The lack of walks (and by extension, lack of base runners) is just one issue on a team with myriad problems. Boneheaded base running, a first baseman with a .665 OPS, dropped popups on the infield, an outfielder who wants to fight fans, a second baseman in left, a bullpen teetering on the brink of disaster, a lack of power throughout the lineup… The combination of the wrong personnel with a lack of sound fundamentals has brought us to this point where we’re talking draft position instead of post season.

But this is about walks and OBP.

It’s time to send a message that this team values OBP and base runners. They need to bring up Ryan Shealy (.378 OBP, 12.4% BB rate) to play first and Brayan Pena (.374 OBP, 10.4% BB rate) to catch. Those are two guys who are leading the way in Omaha, and while I have no idea how those numbers will translate to the majors, it’s worth a shot. Why stick with Gload and the Buck/Olivo tandem when you know exactly what you will get from them?

Then, as I said on Wednesday, it’s time to cut ties with hitting coach Mike Barnett. Honestly, I have no idea how much influence a hitting coach has on major league players. But it’s pretty clear that whatever role Barnett plays, it isn’t working. A new approach from a new coach can only help.

And a move has to be made either through free agency or trade to bring in a quality bat with the ability to lead the team in OBP. A new guy who has had success at the major league level who can serve as an example to everyone on this team.

When GMDM took over, there was a bunch of talk about the Royals and the “culture” of losing. In other words, there were people holding pretty important jobs with this team that weren’t so bothered by losing. The accepted it. Slowly, GMDM is working to change that. Spending money on free agents, the stadium renovations and just the way the employees go about their business… It’s all changed in the last two years. But what about the “culture” of the team? The Kansas City Royals haven’t shown any plate discipline for the last 15 years. For some reason, it’s been ingrained that it’s OK to “grip it and rip it.” But it’s not. From Mark Quinn to Angel Berroa to Tony Pena, this has been a team that for some reason doesn’t value the base runner like it should.

Moves need to be made. More importantly, the right moves need to be made. Getting new players in who are as OBP challenged as this current group does nothing. Treading water isn’t an option.

It’s time to try something different.

Please.

Done In By Infield Flies Once More

Brian Bannister’s dropped infield fly on Wednesday night marked the second night in a row that the Royals lost a game via an unearned run. Exactly how many infield flies that the Kansas City defense has let drop this year has reached a seriously stupidly higher number. For an organization that had a stated objective this spring of being a good fundamental ballclub these continual gaffes are a rather disturbing undertone to what is turning into a bad year.

That begs the question (and given that I am currently traveling it also is a quick way to put up a post): what can you expect major league players to improve upon at the major league level? Here is my list of what can and cannot be expected, chime in with your thoughts on this subject:

What Can Be Changed
- Team defense: communication on fly balls, throwing to the right base, etc. If you demand it, you can get it…even from Jose Guillen.
- Situational hitting: we’re talking hitting the right side with a runner on second, laying down a bunt, executing on a hit and run.
- SUBTLE changes in plate discipline: you cannot take a hacker and make him an on-base machine, but you can enstill the idea of working a count. Maybe a player cannot improve his walk rate, but you can reasonably expect a hitter with some skill to increase the number of good pitches he swings at.
- Base running: this is different than stealing bases. Running into outs in the majors is inexcusable…almost as bad as letting one in five infield flies drop.

What Cannot Be Changed
- Major Plate Discipline: you cannot take a player with a .320 OBP and expect him to turn into a .380 on-base machine. You either have to draft college guys with a sense of the strike zone or draft high school players and teach them all the way up the chain to work a count.
- Throwing Strikes: you can take a pitcher with good control and tell him to throw the ball over the plate, but you cannot suddenly make Ambiriox Burgos a strike thrower after letting him toss fastballs all over the world on the way up the chain.
- Base Stealing: David DeJesus never was a prolific base stealing in the minors and he is never going to be good from more than 12 or 15 in the majors. Now, take a Derrick Robinson or Joey Gathright type, with some natural ability to steal a base, and make them more successful at stealing bases - that’s doable. Making a ten stolen base guy in AA into a 40 steal guy in the majors is never going to happen.

There’s a couple of short lists. What do you think?

Hacktastic

Two errors, two unearned runs, ballgame.

Holding the Rangers to two runs is an impressive feat.  We’re talking about a Texas team that leads the AL in runs scored by a wide margin (They have 738 runs compared to the White Sox 676.)  But if it’s not the home runs, it’s the walks.  If it’s not the walks, it’s the errors.  Something new every night.

Zack Greinke was good, but not great. He struck out five and walked only one, but Ranger hitters took him deep into the count all night.  He needed 101 pitches to get through six innings.

Contrast that to the Royals approach to Ranger starter Kevin Millwood.  He struck out only two batters all night, didn’t walk anyone and needed only 94 pitches to complete the game.

Some numbers on Millwood and his pitch count:

– He had a three ball count on only one batter all game.  Alberto Callaspo flied out on a 3-1 count in the first inning.

– He faced four batters in the eighth inning and each batter put the first fricking pitch into play.

–  After throwing only four pitches in the eighth, he threw 10 pitches to five batters in the ninth.  Three of those five swung at the first pitch.

–  Simple addition tells us he got the final six outs of the game on 14 pitches.

Damn, that makes my blood boil.

Actually, I don’t have a problem with an aggressive approach against Millwood - in the early innings of the game.  He is incredibly hittable.  This season, batters are pounding him for a .323 average and are hitting line drives at a rate of 27%.  Coming into the game, he allowed 164 hits in 122 innings - or 12.1 H/9.  By all means, take your hacks because it’s not often you get to face a pitcher like that in a game situation.

But when the game moves into the late innings and you’re trailing by a run, YOU HAVE TO CHANGE YOUR FREAKING APPROACH.

(There was no way I was going to get through this and not hit CAPS LOCK at least once.)

The truly sad thing about this is the Royals somehow put three runners on base over the final two innings.  That means, they had opportunity to score.  Yet in three at bats with runners in scoring position, the Royals saw a grand total of three pitches.

Yeah, Millwood was laying it in there, basically saying, “Here it is.  Take your cuts.”  And the Royals were too happy to oblige.  And sure, it’s difficult to lay off some of those meatballs, but my argument is late in the game, take a pitch or two and see what happens.  What’s the worst that can happen if you take a pitch?  Maybe it will be called a ball!  Maybe you’ll get a chance to hit with the count in your favor!  Swinging at the first pitch is ultimately doing Millwood a favor and hurting the Royals.

The Rangers bullpen sucks.  With a capital S.  Just today, they announced that Frank Francisco would pitch in the games where they held the lead in the ninth inning.  The same Frank Francisco with 0 career saves.  Do you think that with Millwood cruising, someone would have suggested taking a few pitches to try to get him out of his rhythm, forcing him to (hopefully) pitch behind to a hitter or two and working the pitch count in an effort to get him out of the game and into the bullpen?  Personally, I think the closer role is overrated, but I still would have like to have seen Francisco try to close it out.

The problem is, I’ve seen too much of this crap the last several years to let it go.  There’s an article on the Royals website where Dayton Moore is raising his hand to take the blame of this recent slide.  That’s all well and good, but he can take some positive steps to correct this problem.

He needs to fire Mike Barnett.

Barnett has been the Royals hitting coach since May 1, 2006.  Here’s the Royals OBP since 2006:

2006 - .332
2007 - .322
2008 - .315

Here’s the Royals slugging percentage since 2006:

2006 - .411
2007 - .388
2008 - .385

See a trend?

The offensive approach has been sliding down the drain for a few years, but this season it’s reached a critical point.  GMDM can stick with the status quo and let his team continue to try to swing their way out, or he can do the right thing and overhaul a system that is clearly broken and bring in a new hitting coach.

Fire Mike Barnett.

Finally, a couple of links because all of this anger is unproductive:

– First, Eddie at Detroit Tiger Thoughts has cracked the formula to the Elias Player Rankings used to determine free agent compensation.  His list currently has catchers, first basemen, outfielders and the DH.   Warning:  It’s depressing.

The only potential free agent of that group is Miguel Olivo.  He’s potentially a free agent in that the Royals hold the option at next year for $2.7 million.  If he rated an “A” in the rankings, I suppose they could decline the option and offer him salary arbitration, which he would then have to turn down for the Royals to gain a draft pick.  As it stands, it’s really much ado about nothing.

Players like Billy Butler are low because the rankings are a rolling 3 year total.  The lists also omits Alex Gordon, so I don’t know how compete it is.

– Second, Full Count Pitch has a couple of interviews up with Bob Dutton.  Click here for the first installment which is a straight Q & A.  Click there for the second part, which is written in a more traditional informative style. Both are quality reads and highly recommended.

– Third, if you’re like me and came of age collecting baseball cards in the late ’70s and early ’80s while worshiping the Royals check out this great piece from Josh Wilker at Cardboard Gods on Al Cowens and the Royals.  On second thought, check it out no matter when you grew up.

– Finally, there’s a new blog out there.  A couple of posters from the Royals board at Scout.com, JoakimTough and ChiTownRoyalsFan are posting their email exchanges at the aptly named JoakimTough And ChiTown On The Royals.  They’re off to a good start.

By the Numbers Through the Royals’ System

You don’t really want to read about the big league Royals do you? Instead, we’ll take a quick and overdue tour through the farm system.

4: With Carlos Rosa and Angel Sanchez on the disabled list, the number of players on the Omaha active roster under the age of 25. The four are Kila Kaaihue (perceived by many as too old to be a prospect), Chad Spann (acquired in the last 30 days after hitting less than .200 for Pawtucket), Brett Bigler (an emergency callup from High A that had little to do with his performance there) and Chris Lubanski (generally regarded as a lost cause).

1: Excluding Kila Kaaihue’s fantastic run at AA Northwest Arkansas, that is the number of players on the Naturals’ roster with an OPS above .800. That player is 29 year old AA retread Juan Richardson.

106: Team leading strikeout total for Daniel Cortes at Northwest Arkansas in 110 innings pitched. Cortes leads the team despite throwing at least 33 innings less than fellow starters Rowdy Hardy, Julio Pimentel and Blake Johnson.

32: Doubles hit by Jeff Bianchi in High A Wilmington. Despite hitting just .260, Bianchi sports a solid (for a middle infielder) .453 slugging percentage. Although it seems like Bianchi has been around forever, it is important to keep in mind that his first two seasons out of high school were washed out due to injuries.

.520: Outfielder Paulo Orlando’s slugging percentage for Wilmington since being acquired in exchange for Horacio Ramirez. In 12 games, Orlando has four doubles, a triple and two home runs: not bad for a speed guy.

61: Stolen bases by the Blue Rocks Derrick Robinson, who has been caught just 16 times. Now, about that .316 on-base percentage….

0: Number of players in the Low A Midwest League with more home runs that Mike Moustakas (21).

6: Number of players in the Midwest with a better slugging percentage than Moustakas’ .466. That is pretty encouraging considering Mike’s slow start. I bet you didn’t know, however, that one of those six players is teammate Clint Robinson.

.193: Opponent’s batting average against 19 year old lefty Daniel Duffy. Last year’s number three pick has struck out 102 in 82 innings of A ball and walked just 25 batters. In my book, Duffy has to be a favorite for the organization’s pitcher of the year.

31: Strikeouts by 2008 supplemental first rounder Mike Montgomery (37 IP). It is also the number of walks given up by 2007 4th rounder Peter Hodge Nielsen (30 IP).

13: Strikeouts per nine innings by 2008 3rd round pick Tyler Sample.

Long Walk Home

I’m trying to maintain my optimistic edge.  That and I spent last night at the Sprint Center watching in awe as some guy approaching 60 put on a hell of a concert.   Rosalita, Hungry Heart, Candy’s Room… He could have played all night.

Thanks to Springsteen’s penchant for three hour concerts, my head hit the pillow last night kind of late.  That’s my excuse for the late post.  Let’s get to the goods…

Friday - Out At Home

You know the old baseball axiom about how you never make the first or third out of an inning at third base?  While I’ve never heard it extended to home plate, it kind of makes sense.  And even then we can manipulate it to say you never make the last out of the game at home.  That sounds about right.

Someone should have told that to David DeJesus on Friday who tried to scamper home on a passed ball and was thrown out to complete a 4-3 loss to the Tigers.  It was a bit unlucky (the Royals theme of the last 20 years) as the ball hit the backstop and bounced right back to Brandon Inge who got the ball to Fernando Rodney covering.  Ballgame.

But really, it shouldn’t have come down to that.

The Royals tallied 13 hits on the night.  Eight over the first seven innings (to go along with three walks) and they couldn’t push a single run across against Tiger starter Justin Verlander.  No, they couldn’t break through until the eighth, scoring all three of their runs over the final two frames.

I’m tempted to call Brian Bannister a “hard luck loser” in Friday’s game.  It wasn’t a bad outing (especially coming after his disaster in New York) but he’s become prone to the long ball and is causing some of his own trouble with walks and wild pitches and such.  It was after Bannister’s last good outing that I tried to ring the optimism bell.  I tried to unring it after New York.  And now, his Friday start wasn’t too bad.

He’s making me bipolar.

Saturday - Zero

Zach Minor owns the Royals.  That’s fact.

He’s now thrown 15 innings against KC this year and they’ve scored just two runs - and those came in a two inning relief appearance in the second game of the year.

Of course the fact the Royals can only get five runners on base isn’t going to help the cause.  And when Minor is going against Kyle Davies, I’m not liking the Royals odds.

Davies was all about the number four.  Four hits.  Four walks.  Four strikeouts.  And four runs.

Not a horrible start, but not good enough.

Actually, this game was kind of unique in that Detroit scored three of their four runs on sacrifice flies.  Like Bannister’s start the night before, Davies helped Detroit advance runners with walks, balks and the wild pitch.  There’s so much focus in the game about preventing base runners (which is a good focus to have… duh) but it seems the Royals need to address how to pitch once those runners actually get on base.  Stop letting them advance on the cheap!

Saturday saw the return of Alberto Callaspo from the DL.  I’m extremely glad he’s back and hope he has most of his problems behind him.  This is the perfect opportunity for him, with Grudz on the DL, to get some playing time at 2B for the rest of the year.  Hopefully, Trey Hillman will keep Callaspo and Mike Aviles up the middle.  Now if we could only do something about Ross Gload at first.

Sunday - Rare Sweet Victory

If you’re going to tell me Brandon Duckworth and Kip Wells are going to contribute seven innings in a Royals win, I would advise you to seek psychiatric help.  (On second thought, we’re Royals fans so we probably could use that help anyway.)  Yet there they were… A pair of outcasts, salvaging a series and snapping a Royal seven game losing streak.

At this point, I don’t care if the corpse of Cy Young is on the mound.  A win is a win.

If Minor owns the Royals, the Royals have the deed to Kenny Rogers.  Can we have some more please?

Taking a page from the Detroit playbook, the Royals scored four of their seven runs on two sac flies, a fielders choice and a wild pitch.  Not complaining… I’ll take runs however they can get them.

A couple of other things to note from Sunday…

Guillen homers and then leaves the game a few innings later with “tightness” and is now “day to day.”

Detroit chose to intentionally walk Esteban German to pitch to DeJesus with the bases loaded in the sixth inning.  Wow.

Just another day at the K.

It IS Easy to Second Guess

“Easy to second-guess?” Hillman said. “Well, he’s over 100 pitches. It’s late in the season. He’s not going to have any extra rest. We’re already falling apart with our rotation.

“I don’t understand why there would be second-guessing. It’s a no-brainer for me. But if people want to second-guess that decision, that’s fine.” - Trey Hillman courtesy The Kansas City Star

That was the comment from Royals’ manager Trey Hillman about pulling Gil Meche on Wednesday night. As you will remember, Meche had given up two home runs in the first two innings and then retired 17 batters straight. He was throwing 95 mph consistently in the 7th inning and wanted to go back out for the eighth. In fact, Gil’s 103 pitch and second to last of his outing was a 95 mph fastball.

Now, managers cannot win when it comes to pitching changes. If Meche had returned for the 8th and gotten lit up, then no doubt some would have been writing about how Hillman pushed him too far. However, let’s go back to Hillman’s statement.

To begin with, the Kansas City bullpen has been awful this month. Sure, Hillman went with the two guys who have been good in Ramon Ramirez and Joakim Soria and got bit by it, but the question has to be why was he so eager to go to the pen at this point? Frankly, he did it in New York in Meche’s last start there, too and only by the grace of the baseball gods did the Royals manage to win that game. There’s an old baseball line, maybe credited to Whitey Herzog: “The more pitchers you use, the more likely you are to find one that doesn’t have IT that day.”

Oh, but it was the pitch count right? At 104 pitches, Hillman was concerned about protecting Meche. Okay, but Gil Meche has thrown 110 or more pitches 9 times this year, including throwing 117 as recently as August 10th. He has tossed 98 or more pitches TWENTY-THREE times this year.

In 2007, Meche threw 110 or more in 13 different starts, including a 124 pitch outing on September 24th. Oh yeah, in September of 2007, at the end of a season of career high innings and pitches thrown, Gil put up an ERA of 2.67. In 2006, still with Seattle, Meche threw 110 or more pitches 10 times, including two of over 120. Pitching into the 110 to 119 pitch range is hardly foreign territory for him.

I took a quick survey around the league over the past week with regard to pitch counts. What I found is no noticeable decline in numbers for some of the more heralded starters.
- Roy Halladay threw an efficient 94 pitches last night, but had thrown 113, 130 and 111 in the three starts prior. He has topped 110 pitches 13 times this year.
- Cliff Lee has thrown 115, 104, 117 and 102 in his last four starts.
- Carlos Zambrano tossed 119 pitches on August 15th.
- Kevin Millwood in a meaningless Texas-Oakland game threw 113 pitches and 114 two starts prior to that.
- Dice K threw 115 on August 14th.
- Minnesota’s Kevin Slowey threw a SEASON HIGH 110 pitches on August 19th. Instead of slacking off, the Twins are ramping their guys up in pitch counts.
- Of course, the easiest one to use is C.C. Sabathia, who tossed 130 pitches on August 18th, 114 on the 13th and 124 on July 28th, with two outings of 100+ interspersed in there.

Well, I hate to be sarcastic, but to me it’s a ‘no-brainer’ that Gil Meche, who had thrown 16 pitches in the 7th and 18 in the 6th AND was going to face the bottom of the Cleveland batting order, should have been sent out for the 8th inning. You especially send him out when your bullpen had done nothing but let you down for the past three weeks. You want a ‘no-brainer’, THAT’S a no-brainer.

On a brighter note…
Be sure to check out Craig’s great piece on Mike Aviles for The Hardball Times.

Also, look for an interview with me on page 28 of the USA Today Sports Weekly on stands now. Keep in mind that this was done a couple of weeks ago, so I’m not sure I would give the same answers now that I did then.