Catching up on Teahen, Greinke, and Moore

by greg-trippiedi on November 18, 2009

It's been widely reported that the Royals are looking to make some noise this offseason, but not quite as widely reported as the fact that the franchise doesn't have any loose cash floating around. Trying to make noise in the offseason without payroll flexibility is like trying to dig out of a well with just a blowtorch. Never-the-less, Dayton Moore is determined to make headlines, if not moves that might actually help the team.

The first element of that strategy is to strike before anyone else was ready to begin the hot stove talk. Hey, if Hot Stove preview articles start to hit the internet the morning after the world series, that gives you a few hours to beat those pesky writers to the punch.

Moore wasted no time lining up a trade that was probably in the works for a few weeks prior: he dealt Mark Teahen to the White Sox for 2B Chris Getz and 3B/OF Josh Fields.

The first thing that needs to be said before anything else is that Teahen absolutely needed to be traded, and the longer the Royals had waited, the less they would have gotten for him. His arbitration cost was going to be relatively insufferable for the capped-out Royals, and he offered a middling bat which at best, would have only blocked younger players if he had stayed. This analysis isn't really fair to Teahen who is a good baseball player and a great clubhouse guy who could play on any team in baseball at a few positions and be pretty valuable. But he just wasn't offering the Royals anything that they shouldn't be able to replace (whether they can or not).

My first thought regarding Getz and Fields coming to KC was, "is that the best we could have done?" With some time to think about it, it does start to seem like this was probably was the best the team could have done. Dayton Moore has a habit for trying to act before the market is set, and it's a strategy that has bit him hard before (see: Farnsworth, Kyle), but it's one of the only methods for beating the market in baseball these days. To beat the market, you literally have to rush to get the trade done before there's something comparable out there.

That makes simple moves a lot riskier, but had the Royals waited, they could have run into a situation where Teahen became a legitimate non-tender candidate. Teahan is a valuable baseball player, but the Royals have been under Dayton Moore (and since the last two Baird years, actually) a team with two weaknesses: consistent competency at premium positions, and no great hitters at any position to balance it out. The Royals are only going to get a great hitter by developing one, but it's really not as hard to have a completely competent team as the Royals can make it seem. Every decent player on the Royals is in the Teahen-mold: questionable defender, limited power, not an OBP butcher, and value pretty much determined by performance in batting average every year. You hit .280-.290, and you'll get good offensive years from Gordon, Butler, DeJesus, Callaspo, Teahen, Aviles, etc., etc. No one else on the roster is going to produce no matter what.

From the Royals eyes, moving Teahen frees up that space in the lineup that was held by a somewhat-replaceable full time player who's role was different from week to week, and from month to month. The problem is that neither Getz nor Fields is likely to reach the level of performance that Teahen is already at. However, the key to this deal is money: the Royals expect to save more than $3 million and that's after you consider they gave up $1 million in the trade.

And both Getz and Fields both have more upside as individuals than Teahen has this season. Problem is, I just can't get excited about a deal that brings the Royals two hitters who, in their current states, just don't offer any immediate lineup improvement. Seriously, while Teahen had to be moved, and Getz and Fields is probably a package above the market rate for Teahen and it's hard to get too worked up about a package that brings in two guys who fit in perfectly with the current group. My god, this isn't a difficult lineup to improve, so the fact that the Royals managed to trade Mark Teahen with no net offensive gain is a tad depressing. Yet, par for the course.

In short, good move, but one that doesn't make the team much better. Just frees up some payroll. Now, with some tweaks and some development...

*******

You might have heard that Zack Greinke won the AL Cy Young Award.

No Royals fan would have been able to handle any sort of argument which concluded that Greinke shouldn't have won the AL's highest honor, but my whole deal with the voting was wondering exactly who wouldn't vote for Greinke. After he nabbed 25 of 28 possible first-place votes (and was given the second place vote by all of the three other writers), that point was rendered moot

He lost two first place votes to Felix Hernandez, who in some ways was every bit as valuable as Greinke this year. He had three more wins, but also pitches all of his home games in a severe pitchers' park, and though clearly consistently dominant, would have been kind of a blah choice to win the award in another year. What Greinke accomplished at times this season bordered on amazing.

The final first place vote went to Verlander, which is a pretty big stretch, but the voter in question was from the Detroit chapter, so I mean, that pretty much explains that. If Justin Verlander fails to win at least two Cy Youngs of his own, Zack Greinke will likely be the reason.

*******

Amidst other rumors, Moore is targeting Catchers and Pitchers first, but the team also needs a centerfielder. Will Coco Crisp return after the Royals declined his option? It seems unlikely, but there's 3 million dollars that just came free with the Teahen trade.

No word on whether Mike Jacobs is looking for another handout.

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New Platform; New Hope?

by greg-trippiedi on October 26, 2009

It's been a month since I last updated, and well, looks like I haven't missed much.  I've been off because of MVN's transition to a new platform, which is why this page looks a bit different.  I think you'll like the changes. Seriously.  My last post was: Greinke Powers Royals to 63rd victory; team avoids 100 loss season. -------------------------------------------------------------- No one had hoped for 65-97 back in April, and at the start of May, no one who follows baseball had the Royals pegged for 97 losses.  It's a team that held a 3.5 game lead in the AL Central 30 games in, and they finished 21.5 games back.  On the bright side, they didn't finish in last place (t-4th, Indians), and they won more than 40% of their games (40.1).  So there's those "positives." The 686 total runs they scored over 162 games is disappointing, but not completely unexpected.  Some injuries contributed, and there was some underperformance.  But the truth is that a Royals team that scored 735 runs with the players they employ would have been doing well for themselves.  Even that performance would have only ranked Kansas City 12th in the AL and 4th in the AL Central.  As it stands, they underachieved by about 50 runs, and ranked 13th in the AL and last in the Central. Put simply, offensive injuries and underperformance might have been responsible for about 5 to 6 losses, or the difference between this year's team and the underlying performance of last year's team.  Which, of course, was a non-contender. If you want to find the real reason that things fell apart so quickly, it's the other pythagorean input that holds the key.  The truth is that, only two teams in the AL gave up more runs than the Royals did.  Any hope for the Royals in the short term relies on them to be near the top of the league in runs against.  An average run prevention Royals team is a bad team once you adjust for the lack of talent on the offensive end.  They have to excel on that end to compensate for the fact that they simply don't employ good hitters, whether they are overperforming, underperforming, or what have you. More troubling is that the Royals accomplished this feat while employing the man who had the greatest pitching season in the last seven years, Zack Greinke, who did not miss his turn in the rotation the entire year.  Personal acheievements aside, both the pitching and the defense were bad.  The defense was awful all year.  The bullpen was awful all year.  The starting pitching was not terrible all year, but the aggragate performance looks awful. When you are getting excellent performance from two players (Greinke and Joakim Soria) and still cannot break a level of performance that we could define as "acceptable".  There's an entire bullpen and defense that needs to be completely retooled in the offseason. In conclusion, the Royals shopping list for the offseason includes: - A Center Fielder - A Second Baseman - A Corner Outfielder - A Starting Pitcher - At least two bullpen arms - Anyone who can play defense - All of which on basically no budget What could go wrong?
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Greinke Powers Royals to 63rd victory; team avoids 100 loss season

by greg-trippiedi on September 23, 2009

Yuniesky Betancourt deal successful!  After all, if the goal of every team at the start of the year isn't to lose less than 100 games, I don't know how anyone ever accomplishes their goals.

In all seriousness, it's a remarkable turnaround for a team that two and a half weeks ago looked like it would never be able to correct four straight months of awful play.  There are six different offensive players on the Royals who have an OPS above .840 in the last 30 games, and three of them have done it in a sample of greater than 100 ABs: Billy Butler, David DeJesus, and Alberto Callaspo.  Those three have been the only above average performers all year for the Royals offense, but if you look closely, Alex Gordon is salvaging an otherwise lost season, Mitch Maier looks like a real, live big league outfielder, and who can stop Miguel Olivo at this point?

All of a sudden, the Royals will enter next year with a bunch of offensive pieces to the puzzle, including Brayan Pena at Catcher, Butler at first base, Gordon at third base, Callaspo somewhere (the fact that he's nominally a second baseman offers a bunch of options, even if none are ideal), DeJesus in the outfield, and Maier preferably off the bench, though at worst in a platoon role.  If the Royals can just find a way to bring Coco crisp back, that's not a bad 1-6 in the lineup.  In any lineup.

Of course, yes, the rest of the team is still an offensive sinkhole.  But what if Mike Aviles returns to form next year?  That's not likely, but let's say he wins the second base job outright.  There's promise here:

LF-DeJesus
3B-Gordon
1B-Butler
RF-Guillen (or someone)
DH-Callaspo
C-B. Pena
2B-Aviles
SS-Betancourt
CF-Crisp

Yeah, we're asking a lot to go right here, and the Royals should seriously consider DFAing Jose Guillen out of spring training, but considering that the only player on this list who would cost the Royals anything additional would be Crisp (assuming the team buys out his contract at 500k instead of paying the 8 million), that's not an unreasonable lineup for next season.

The key to the offseason may be trying to flip Mark Teahen to someone for a mid-level catching prospect or a second baseman with some plate discipline.

Anyway, back to Greinke.

He's been nothing short of remarkable since the middle of August, which is not surprising in the least.  In a six month season, it was completely unrealistic to expect Zack to remain focused while pitching for the Kansas City Royals.  And he had some rough starts in June and July.  But with his performance over the last month and a half, Greinke has regained a stranglehold on the AL Cy Young race.  In fact, it's probably over.

At this point, not even the national media is standing as a obstacle to Greinke winning the award.  He's the top story on SportsCenter today.  I think a lot of people were just waiting for him to finally beat either the Red Sox or the Yankees before they gave in to the hype, and after going 6 scoreless against Boston yesterday, I think the general consensus is that he's passed every test.

I don't think anyone was ever going to hold his lack of wins against him, but it's a convenient dismissal of Greinke should a voter want to reward another player with the Cy Young.  ESPN fabricated a stat last night on Baseball Tonight called "Great Starts", which they defined as having 7+ IP and 2 or fewer ER.  Felix Hernandez had Greinke completely lapped in that category, but it just shows how hard you had to try to use something that isn't wins against Greinke's candidacy.

If CC Sabathia wins his final two starts, Greinke is going to lose votes to the 20 game winner.  Fittingly, Sabathia's final start of the regular season is scheduled to come against the Kansas City Royals, against Robinson Tejada.  But even if Greinke does lose some votes to Sabathia, he's still going to get a plurality and win the 2009 Cy Young.

It's in the bag now.
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Royals win 5th straight, look like real baseball team

by greg-trippiedi on September 12, 2009

Well, at least as real as a team that can't get Zack Greinke a Win (the baseball statistic, not the thing that people actually play for) can look.

The extra inning victory over the Indians makes it 5 straight and 4 in a row over AL Central opponents.  It's the last part of that sentence that's the most critical because if the Royals are going to compete as soon as next season, they aren't going to do it by beating up on a bunch of dominant teams from the AL East and AL West (though that would be nice).  They'll have to play .600-ish ball within the AL Central.

When I wrote last week that Dayton Moore and the Royals needed to have a strong September, this is what I meant.  The Royals are not working with a full deck, and they're winning in the short term.  Of course, the excuse all season was that they were too injured to compete.  Given the way the roster was constructed, too injured to compete seems to have more to do with all other teams in the division NOT losing all of their talented players than anything that happened to the Royals.  The bullpen has probably been more directly responsible for more losses than any other unit, and they didn't lose a single piece for more than a month or so at a time.  In fact, the loss of Joakim Soria overlapped the longest win streak of the Royals season back in May.  So injuries really haven't contributed directly to the Royals' losing as much as it has simply created a big problem out of a small one.

I'm in the crowd that says that out of all the reasons you can come up with to why the Royals have face-planted this year, injuries might be at No. 6 or No. 7.  It's not that the Royals' pre-season plan could not have worked, it's that when it didn't work, the Royals reacted in shock and horror and then made a bunch of non-sensical moves designed to...well, we're not exactly sure what "the Process" was.

But this, this last week has been the process gone right, for a change.  We've seen the best of Greinke, the best of Robinson Tejada, the best of Billy Butler, the best of David DeJesus--two game winning runs gunned down at home--the best of Joakim Soria, the best of Mitch Maier, and when Soria had thrown in consecutive days, a save by Carlos Rosa.  That's how the season, even if the Royals were going to fall shy of 80 wins, was supposed to go.  They've gotten contributions from Lenny DiNardo and Dusty Hughes, left-handed pitching not named Horacio Ramirez, Ron Mahay, or Bruce Chen.  This last week has encapsulated much of what the Royals were supposed to be.  Heck, even Alex Gordon has played longball.

It is, however, just September.  The Royals went 18-8 in September last year, and well, it produced this.  The September of the previous year is the MLB equivalent of the pro football preseason.  And the Royals are the equivalent of the Detroit Lions.  But the story doesn't end here, and there's no reason to suggest that these short term successes can't continue, and there's nothing that says the Royals can't make moves to be competitive next year.  They can, and they might.  But if the Process is anything more than a bunch of baloney, then the real goal is 2011 and 2012.

What the Royals have gotten in the last week is contribution from players who could be on that team.  Not that the Jamey Wrights and Kyle Farnsworths of the world have not contributed.  But what's working right now is the future of this franchise, and they've been beating the September versions of the teams they will have to beat in two or three years.  And, well, that's a good thing.

***

MLBTR has a discussion on Coco Crisp's value going.  Give them an opinion.
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Royals Featured at LiveBall Sports

by greg-trippiedi on September 7, 2009

Today, on the primary source of my wasted time, I featured the Royals, pondering the question: should Dayton Moore be the right man to lead them into the future?

If you are familiar with the Royals, there's probably nothing in there you haven't already considered.  Either way, it's well worth a read in my humble opinion.

Go take a look.  I'll be here when you get back.
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The Royals, Dayton Moore, need to have big September

by greg-trippiedi on September 4, 2009

Yesterday, the Royals traded one of their top prospects, Danny Gutierrez, to the Texas Rangers.  Left unqualified, a scored fan might assume that Dayton Moore is at it again.  But this trade might have been more than just simple damage control.

The Royals once again dealt some pitching depth for young lineup depth.  But the guys received in this trade might be more than depth.  Manuel Pino is a Catcher who the Royals have promoted aggressively to Double-A Northwest Arkansas.  He's 22.  Tim Smith is a 23 year old OF with a line of .309/.380/.439 in Double-A after soaring through Advanced A ball earlier this year with a .888 OPS.

It's clear that the Royals are making true on their word to build their roster from within, but the fact of the matter is: they have no choice.  Payroll can not be expanded, and no matter what they choose to do with Jose Guillen, his contract doesn't come off the books until after the 2010 season.  So payroll needs to be cut in other ways: some non-tenders and no splashes in the free agent market.  And that means, for this team with many holes: aggressive promotions.

So the Royals have to find some solutions this September, or it's hard to see anything but a last place finish in 2010.  Maybe the team will dump Jose Guillen's salary and release him.  They'll decline Coco Crisp's $8 million option, but it's possible he'll be back.  The DH (Jacobs) and Catchers (Olivo and Buck) appear to be non-tender candidates.  So in this one trade, the Royals were able to add potential future solutions at two positions.

Neither is a strong prospect, though Smith is intriguing, which makes it all the more important that Dayton Moore and Trey Hillman DO find someone, anyone that can play in September.  Simply: someone else besides Zack Greinke must help the team win.

On that note, Gil Meche has been scratched from his start tonight, two days after Brian Bannister left with an injury.  That's not a good start.

We'll see if the September call-ups can salvage a few games this season.
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Zack Greinke gives up one hit, throws one-hitter

by greg-trippiedi on August 31, 2009

Repeated for the sake of our friends at the BBWAA.

It had been a very long time since Zack Greinke had supreme command of all four of his pitches, but today, he was absolutely unhittable.  And today, he wasn't just unhittable, but was economical with his pitch count, making it the distance in only 113 pitches.

The line: 9 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 5 K

The strikeout total seems a bit low for a Greinke start, but quite the contrary, Zack needed a start like this.  He needed to get a start where his defense was behind him completely.  And he did: 16 of the first 17 Seattle hitters put the ball in play, and the Royals defense somehow managed to retire 15 of them.

From that point, Zack completely took over the game.  Not one hitter got solid contact on him, as he was even throwing his knee-buckling 68-mph curve for strikes.  It didn't even matter that he wasn't really getting much run support, when he throws like this, he's unbeatable.

******
Hitter of the game:  Alberto Callaspo

He broke out of his slump with a lead-off double that started the three run fifth inning for the Royals.  It would be all the offensive help Greinke would get.  Then again, the game was over once Callaspo scored.

Pitcher of the game: Cy Young

******

I would like to get a game recap up for a pitcher not named Zack Greinke, but really, what have we missed?  Lets hope Hochevar goes out and dazzles.
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Zack Greinke Struck out 15 Indians Yesterday

by greg-trippiedi on August 27, 2009

I'm late getting this up, because I woke up at 5 PM Eastern, and had more immediate concerns to take care of.

Greinke struck out 15, walked one, gave up a solo homer, scattered 4 hits over 8 innings, threw exactly 117 pitches for the fourth* time this year.  He also recorded one of the rare, ball-in-play outs himself on a spectacular leaping top of the apex snag, and subsequent flip to first.  This on the same day that a pop-up behind the mound in Boston dropped because Hideki Okajima did not go the five steps necessary to catch it.

*He has yet to throw as many as 118 pitches.

Greinke might not have the best statistical year in baseball at the end of the year, but it's remarkable that EVERY other contender for the AL Cy Young has been shelled this week in their turn through the rotation (Halladay, Verlander, Beckett, King Felix).  Last week, Tim Kurkjian took Greinke in a close call in predicting the AL Cy Young winner, and since then, every other candidate's case has gotten much weaker, and Greinke's has only strengthened.

So, it frames the question quite nicely: how many games does Greinke need to win to get the votes of the AL Cy Young award winners.  If he holds onto the ERA title by this margin, I think he needs 16 wins to get most votes.

I think a majority of voters will look first at the win totals before anything else, but keep in mind that the AL isn't going to have anyone hit that magical win number of 20.  C.C. Sabathia has a reasonable shot.  He's 5 wins away on the best team in baseball.  But he would still have to win more than half his starts.  Josh Beckett and Justin Verlander have 14 wins, and either could get as high as 18 with some luck.  If Greinke could get to 16, or better yet, 17 wins, and doesn't lose 10 games this season (a one start margin for error), there's no one who would qualify for "being a winner" with regards to him.  History suggests that winning percentage doesn't matter as much to the voters as raw win totals.

Sure, there's going to be a bias towards larger markets, but it's not like either Justin Verlander or Felix Hernandez has a particular intangible advantage over Greinke (unless the Tigers lock up the division early).  In the eyes of many, it's still his award to win, and I think Rob Neyer is being a little bit paranoid when he writes:

Of course he's still a long shot for the Cy Young Award, because thanks to his non-hitting teammates he's got only 12 wins. And as we saw earlier, it'll take 17 or 18 wins to even be a part of the serious Cy Young discussion. Felix Hernandez (12-5, 2.73) is in exactly the same boat: brilliant pitching, lousy hitting. So unless one of those guys gets exceptionally lucky down the stretch, they're out.

It's absolutely factual that Greinke has to be better than simply "the best" to win an award that has historically gone to the pitcher with the most wins and best ERA, but unlike the MVP award, the voters are not inherently biased to the best pitcher on the best team.  That's Sabathia, but people are aware that he has not pitched quite as well this year as in the last two seasons.  Greinke absolutely has been lapping the field this year, and if his September looks anything like last September, he's going to win the award.

If Zack goes 3-3 with a 3.80 ERA down the stretch, well, it'd be hard to complain that he got jobbed as at that point, you could pretty much pick him or any of three other candidates and be justified in your reasoning.

*******

Congrats to Mitch Maier on his first major league homer, a two run bomb in the 7th inning yesterday.  Maier is a homegrown talent, and I think this organization can find a place for him on the roster next year.

Hitter of the game:  Mitch Maier

Pitcher of the game: Zack Greinke

*******

Today, the Royals lost a rather unremarkable 4-2 game to the Indians.  Luke Hochevar threw well, but not in the kind of way that makes him look like a future No. 2 starter.

Hitter of game: Billy Butler

Pitcher of the game: Luke Hochevar

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Zack Greinke Gives up Homers, Royals Extend Jose Contreras’ Career

by greg-trippiedi on August 19, 2009

Zack Greinke's performance in Chicago on Wednesday afternoon was not as spectacular as you'll ever see him, and it's about time to point out that Greinke's command of his pitches is simply not all that different right now than it has been for a majority of his career.  He's a guy with a strong home run tendency, and when he was at his most dominant earlier in the season, at his most unhittable, he was able to get two months into the season without giving up a homer.  It was a remarkable streak regardless of who the pitcher was, and an even more impressive streak for Greinke.

This is who Greinke is.  We've seen flashes of who he might become in the future: unquestionably the best pitcher in the AL.  In his current form, you might take Felix Hernandez, Justin Verlander, or Roy Halladay (but not Josh Beckett) over him.  He's a 3.30-2.80 ERA/xFIP guy who can completely take over a game when he offers you that rare, but fleeting command of the strike zone.  All those guys fit that profile.

Still, I would go to battle with Greinke over anyone else in the AL any and every day of the week, and his increasing ERA has more to do with the way his defense is victimizing him than anything else.  That was not the case today.  Greinke, when you consider that plenty have adjusted to him by hitting him early the count, is probably still the best strikeout pitcher in the AL.  But he's got an increasing walk rate, and a normalizing home run rate, and that combination is probably going to cost him a cy young.

It doesn't help that the Royals offense continues to give him no run support whatsoever.  There's no explaination for this anymore.  Sure, back in the small sample days, an argument like "the Royals are minimizing run production in an attempt to scratch across those 2-3 runs and improve win percentage" might have flown.  This is a bad offense, but Brian Bannister and Luke Hochevar can get run support.  Recently, even Gil Meche has gotten some help.  It's Greinke who almost never gets more than two runs from his team, and it just doesn't make any sense.  Jose Contreras is one of the very worst pitchers in the American League, and the Royals put five baserunners on off him in seven innings.  It's embarassing to be associated with these guys right now, but with Alex Gordon down in Omaha, there's not a 9 man lineup that can score a league average amount of runs, positioning be damned.

Take the 9 best hitters on the active roster:

1. Billy Butler
2. David DeJesus
3. Alberto Callaspo
4. Brayan Pena
5. Mark Teahen
6. Mike Jacobs
7. Miguel Olivo
8. John Buck
9. Yuniesky Betancourt

So even if you remove Josh Anderson, Willie Bloomquist, and Mitch Maier (your speed, but no hit guys), which you can't do because that will leave you with not enough outfielders, you can't make a league average offense out of the current guys.  You put Gordon in for Buck or Betancourt, and then you probably have something close to a league average lineup, but again, this is just pointing out how desperate the season has become where if you DIDN'T HAVE TO PLAY DEFENSE, there's still about 20-25 regular lineups in MLB who would outscore you.  This should never happen.

Of course, this team can't play defense anyway.

Hitter of game: David Dejesus

Pitcher of game: Zack Greinke
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Royals lose; Offense not at Fault (for once)

by greg-trippiedi on August 18, 2009

The White Sox did outlast the Royals 8-7 on a rainy Monday night at the Cell in Chicago, but the story of the night is that the Royals are showing improvement in the facets of the game they need to.  The White Sox got all of their runs--save the decisive one--off of Brian Bannister, but he put in seven well-pitched innings, and just found himself uncharacteristically victimized by the long ball.

Mike Jacobs played for all of one pitch.  I'm pretty sure that's not the first time that's happened this year, but I'm certain that this is the first time it was a good thing.  Down 7-4 in the 8th inning with two outs, Mark Teahen and Mitch Maier drew walks, and then Trey Hillman went with Mike Jacobs as a pinch hitter, in a all-or-most-likely-nothing move of despiration.

Flashback to June of 2008, and you'll find that this is not the first time Hillman has employed this strategy.  Down to his final out down by a run with the bases empty last season, Hillman hit for Ross Gload with Miguel Olivo.  In a vacuum, you're probably better off with Gload.  He's a better on-base guy, and with no one on, power hitting has limited value, even in a one run game.  The Royals do not play in a vacuum, and are in fact one of the worst hitting lineups in recent memory.  Given the quality of the team, an all or nothing shot might be your only weapon.  Olivo homered off the first pitch and sent the game into extras, where the Royals won in 10.

This decision was easier to make.  Down by three, you've got to take some sort of shot in that situation as not to give up.  It's kind of sad that pulling Yuniesky Betancourt from the game actually makes the Royals a worse defense, but yeah, I'd take Yuni and Bloomquist up the middle any day of the week over Bloomquist and Callaspo.  Anyway, that's neither here nor there.  Mike Jacobs saw one pitch, a get-me-over fastball, and he hit it to Kentucky (you can test a Chicagoian's knowledge of his own geography.  Go ahead, it checks out).  One pitch, tie game.

Trey Hillman has employed this all or nothing tactic with Olivo and Jacobs unsuccessfully this year, so it's not like he's charmed or anything, but the percentages have been in his favor thus far.

Unfortunately, the Royals bullpen gave up the game in the 8th inning.  Which, I'm not sure you needed to be told regardless of whether you saw the game or not.  One run loss, you probably could have just assumed that fact on your own.  Scott Podsednik drove in the game winning run which means he gets to stay in the league at least until the next Royals series.

****
If Dayton Moore didn't view defense as an intangible (seriously), he might have actually gotten a decent player in Betancourt.  The guy is a hacker, but the Royals have him taking pitches, and he's showed a pretty quick bat.  It remains to be seen whether or not getting ahead in the count makes him a better hitter, as hackers tend to hack in all counts, but I wouldn't label his future offensive value as completely hopeless.

Problem being that the above scouting report is the kind of optimistic report you could use to pump up a defensive-minded shortstop who has an issue with the bat.  Think Angel Berroa circa 2004.  "Well, his offensive numbers are gone, but if he can play defense, and takes some pitches, we've still got a good player".  Betancourt may have "Defense" the intangible, but he certainly can't play defense, the skill.  He's never going to be good at defense, the skill no matter how much Defense he has.  And when you combine his hacking with his lack of defense, the skill, you have a player that isn't worth the time invested in his batting abilities.  Considering how much the Royals have wasted on their gut feeling already, what's another hundred hours of your batting coaches' work hours, really?  Kevin Seitzer's just working his way on up.

***
Hitter of the game:  Mark Teahen/Mike Jacobs

Pitcher of the game:  Brian Bannister
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