If we can take the start of the season as a microcosm of things to come the rest of the way, it is going to alternate between glimmers of hope and frustrating hours spent watching the Royals trudge their way through this season. The main problem is that we're watching almost the exact same team that we watched come up short last year; good defense and pitching contrasted against a pathetic offense. Not coincidentally, this is just about what everyone picked for the Royals going into the season. There just wasn't enough improvement to make them a real contender unless they got very lucky and the Tigers slipped. These things could all still happen, but nothing so far has made us believe that the Royals are anything but a .500 team, give or take a few wins. Obviously watching an average-ish team play baseball is much more enjoyable than a complete loser. However, you wonder where help is going to come from going forward and even more scary is that it's easy to see the Royals suddenly falling behind the Twins and White Sox as soon as next year. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, here is the PBR's Spaghetti Western™© analysis of the team's performance so far:
The Starting Pitching
The Good: This area has been as good as possible so far. James Shields seems like he will pretty much go the whole season pitching 6-8 innings and giving up 1-3 runs every fifth day, even if he won't quite finish in the top 5 of Cy Young voting this is as close to an ace as we're going to get. Jason Vargas is taking over the Ervin Santana surprise pitcher of the year/make Dayton Moore look smart role. While Jeremy Guthrie is still inexplicably escaping major problems the most important part of the rotation is that we can still dream on the talents of Yordano Ventura based on his first three starts. We'll get to the bad and the ugly soon enough, but it should be stated that if this is your top four in the rotation, you can win the wild card or even a weak division. It may not be quite as good as Detroit, but the results aren't that much different. While we expect Jason Vargas to come back to normal at some point and after his last start Yordano Ventura my not be ready to be called "The next Pedro" it still seems pretty safe to say this area is covered.
The Bad: There are innings eaters and then there are innings eaters. Last year Jeremy Guthrie was the good version of this illustrious title, however this year he's headed toward its bad incarnation. Last year it was 200+ innings of 4.00 ERA, this year that ERA doesn't look so hot at 4.7. Nothing much has changed with Guthrie, but going from lucky to unlucky makes all the difference in the world. This difference is exactly the kind of slight change that the Royals can't afford to have, they are a team built to win precisely because they aren't BAD anywhere. If the year continues exactly like this it will be hard to look at Jeremy Guthrie and say "He's the problem!!!," but if they turn it around and fall just short, him being bad instead of good enough is just enough to tip the scales.
The Ugly: After a fifth inning implosion in Cleveland yesterday which lead to the Royals falling under .500 and losing a four game series to the Indians, Bruce Chen's ERA is a cool 7.45. This clearly qualifies as Ugly. As good as Bruce Chen was down the stretch last year for the Royals, he is still surviving by the slimmest of margins at all times. Bruce Chen has bought himself enough good will in KC to be given a couple more starts to right his crafty lefty ship. However, the same applies here as in the case of Jeremy Guthrie; a simple shift in luck is enough to move the Royals season into the disappointing category. Every year the Royals seem to have at least one pitcher who is among the worst in the league: Kyle Davies, Luke Hochevar, Johnathan Sanchez, Wade Davis and lets not forget Chen is only one year removed from 34 starts of a +5.00 ERA. Needless to say, winning teams usually avoid having these types of pitchers on their team. The Powder Blue Room has decided that Bruce Chen is off limits as far being the brunt of criticism and we wouldn't be surprised if he throws two complete game shutouts in a row on his way to a solid year as the #5 starter, but one more bad start and all Bruce Chen lovers will be foaming at the mouth to get anyone else into his rotation spot.
The Bullpen
The Good: Lots of strike outs and Greg Holland 6/6 in saves. What more could you ask for? When the Royals are winning the Herrera-to-Davis-to-Holland trio is unstoppable. These guys performing well should have been expected, but the Danny Duffy domination is really the best thing we can point to in the bullpen category. It means one of two things: either he's ready to take it to the next level as a starter or at the very least he might have found a very useful role for himself if it doesn't work out as a starter. Lets be perfectly clear, the PBR strongly advocates for a return to the starting rotation as soon as possible, but if Guthrie and Chen pitch well enough to deserve a spot in the rotation, this role works for now.
The Bad: Way too many early season appearances from Justin Marks and Micheal Mariot. Collectively, they have done just fine. However, dings to Luis Coleman, Fran Bueno and Timmy Collins (not to mention born again Luke Hochevar) show that the Royals can be vulnerable here and are just another twinge or tweak away from AAA cannon fodder pitching meaningful innings. Still, without these dings the Royals might not have called up Duffy and if Fran Bueno going to the DL means that Duffy finally "figures it out," it's a win for the Royals. The other bad here is that this bullpen has no choice but to be one of the best in the league. With a rotation of innings throwers and a non-existent offense, the Royals have to allow nothing from their bullpen. NOTHING.
The Ugly: It's difficult to really come up with anything ugly other than Tim Collins' one inning of work this year. However, there have been a few leaks which have led to some early season losses. Herein lies the dilemma mentioned previously: you can't expect them to be perfect, but unfortunately when your team doesn't score any runs, they have to be. This means you can't allow any inherited runners to score, you can't blow any saves, no walks, no HRs, no bad nights, no Aaron Crows and accepting that a two run lead is a blowout. Basically it means nothing less than perfection and a repeat of last season. Unfortunately, that is a tough act to follow.
The Offense
The Good: Just as expected Alcides Escobar is the Royals' best hitter. Also, Moose leads the team in HRs. Since this is the best I can do, you know The Bad and The Ugly are going to be hideous (But if you're reading this blog, you already know that much). I guess if we want to be glass-half-full people, you could say that Infante is doing pretty much what he's paid to do. Nothing fancy, but SOOOOOOOOOOOO much better than seeing Chris Getz out there. So that's a big win, but only by default and unfortunately that's about it for the good...
The Bad: Sifting between the bad and the ugly requires making some difficult decisions, but the #1 thing the offense is missing relates back to the good category. The lack of anything to write there is what makes this team near the bottom in most offensive categories. Hooray, Eric Hosmer is hitting .300, but he's slugging .373 and still hasn't hit a HR. Alex Gordon just keeps making sliding/diving/running catchers all over left field and he's hitting doubles again, but he's still just an average offensive player. Aoki has the same OPS as Wil Myers!!!!!!!!!!, unfortunately it's .656. This extreme mediocrity from their best players is going to hold the team back just as much as any of what we're about see...
The Ugly: Oh Billy! Billy, Billy, Billy. Watching Butler just smash the ball into the ground seemingly every AB easily ranks as the most disappointing thing so far this year. Two extra base hits, an average under .200, this is not the Billy we need. Just like Bruce Chen, Billy and his BBQ sauce have bought him enough leeway with the fan base to keep letting it go for another month or so before we get too worried. However, a bad season from Billy would undoubtedly lead to a quick end to his tenure as a KC Royal given the $12.5 million team option left on his contract. Also, if this happens, he will go out just like Joakim Soria, leaving us wondering if he could have brought something back in a trade? Could we have sold high on Butler and got a future star??? We'll never know and hopefully we won't have to worry about this as Billy turns it around and finishes second behind George Brett in all offensive categories as a lifetime KC Royal. However, from a personal standpoint, if we ever have to watch him ground into a double play swinging 3-0 again, we're making him PBR enemy #1! It will make our handling of Jeff Francouer/Chris Getz look very lenient. In this category we could have also thrown in Sal Perez's spiral from league leading hitter into John Buck territory or Moosey's .153 average, but really it's Butler by a mile.
The Team
The Good: It was questionable as to whether or not the team could pull off the extreme pitching and defense mantra two years in a row, but so far it seems to be working. Branding the team as such at least gives the Royals an identity. A relatively healthy team is also reason to be happy; knock on wood, fingers crossed, etc., etc., etc. I guess you could also say that there is a lot of room for improvement and we just need a few players to turn it around. I'm drawing a blank...so lets move on.
The Bad: While it's pretty irrelevant at this point, it's still worth noting that they are currently in last place, so a hot start is out of the question for now. Why are they in last place, how about a combined 3-9 vs. Detroit, Minnesota and Cleveland. So far, not so good against some of our division rivals. They'll be playing these teams about 50 more times so they have some time to get revenge, but if they keep that pace up James Shields will be on the trading block by July 1st.
The Ugly: YOU AREN'T GOING TO WIN ANYTHING IF ALBERT PUJOLS HAS ALMOST AS MANY HRS AS YOUR ENTIRE TEAM A MONTH INTO THE SEASON!!!!!!!!!! It can't be overstated, but the extreme lack of power and overall offense is frustrating. It's not fun to watch, it puts so much more pressure on every other part of the team and we have to listen to our hitters continually talk as if the fences at Kauffman were 500 ft. Alex, Billy, Hos, hit the ball over the fence, it's not that hard, you've all done it before; 1 HR every 260 PAs is not going to cut it from you three. I realize that its not that easy either, but if the year continues like this and they're battling the minor league Astros for the worst offense in the league there is no way catching a few extra fly balls, being able to pitch 200 innings and striking out 50% of hitters in the 8th and 9th innings can save them.
Friday, April 25, 2014
Monday, March 31, 2014
2014 PBR Over/Under Prediction Machine
Opening Day is here, the offseason is officially over. Now what? In an effort to avoid long winded descriptions of what the Royals need to do to win, or post a rally the troops piece about how the team is finally READY, we here at the PBR want to read the tea leaves for the future of the 2014 Royals by setting the Over/Under bets that will determine the success of this season. Lets get right into it, the season is about to begin:
James Shields Runs given up on Opening Day +/-3: If Shields goes out and scatters three runs over six innings nobody will read much into that. However if he goes seven, gives up two runs and wins the game versus Justin Verlander then we can automatically assume the division is there for the taking and the youthful Royals will outlast the DL-prone Tigers to win the Division. In contrast, if he can't make it out of the fifth and gives up a handful of runs, the season is over and the Royals better start talking about 2015!
Omar Infante/Jason Vargas DL stints +/- 2: Instead of trying to make a semi-big offseason move the Royals tried the 2-for-1 30 something special by landing an aging 2B and a 4th starter. Thus the only way these two have value is in them actually playing and not sucking. That is being more competent than Chris Getz and Kyle Davis-Luke Hochevar-Wade Davis; tough acts to follow. So if these two amass anywhere near 30-50 days on the DL on the front end of their awkward four year contracts then go full steam ahead on the second guessing Dayton Moore bandwagon.
Hosmer RBIs +/-99: We are purposefully going anti-sabermetric here because this stat will actually tell us about players other than just Hosmer. First, you have to be good to get 100 RBIs, you need to hit for some pop and this means that you actually played the whole season. Second you need players on in front of you, so with Infante and Aoki FIRMLY entrenched in the 1-2 spots in the order this number would lead us to believe that they are both having career years and Hos is getting them home often. Third, this means that whomever is hitting behind you is also having a good year and you aren't being walked all the time. So by extension this means that Billy Butler is hitting like the best version of previous Billy Butler years (last years walks, 2012 HRs and 2009-11 2Bs), i.e. KC's David Ortiz. And finally, it means that the Royals are actually scoring RUNS. After finishing near the bottom last year this would seem to be the missing ingredient when thinking about getting to 90+ wins.
Guthrie/Chen ERAs +/- 5.00: This is a very generous number, realistically we probably could have put it closer to 4.5, but the PBR feels that the likelihood of one of these two putting up a +5.00 ERA is pretty high. In which case, they would be wasting a roster spot and replaced by the equally sketchy duo of Wade Davis or Danny Duffy. Also, it means that the Royals got shelled in some early season games and probably aren't getting off to the hot start they need to make it to the playoffs. Given Moore and Yostie's tendencies to stick with things too long, this would be a bad sign.
Alex Gordon HRs +/-25: I'm betting big here. Alex needs to settle into that OBP/Power guy we have been waiting to see for so long. First he blamed it on playing 3B, then he blamed it on hitting leadoff, now he needs to not worry about anything other than hitting 25 HRs.
Yordono Ventura innings +/-160: I hesitated to put this one out there, but really it is so obvious that it can't be repeated enough: "If the Royals are going to be good this year, they need a breakout performance from Ventura." There we said it too. If he goes under the 160 number, he has most likely lost his control at some point during the season, hit the DL for a hurty elbow, or failed in any one of twenty other ways Royals starting pitching prospects seem to do. If he gets over that number, the Royals have probably started to shed themselves of their reputation as murderers of pitching prospects.
Ned Yost undeniably bad decisions +/- 5: They are coming. Whether it be changing his lineup 57 times before the All Star Break, pulling pitchers at terrible moments, spitting tobacco on a beat reporter or shattering Sal Perez's knees from overwork, we know he is going to make a few. We'll give him five. After that, the season is lost.
Dayton Moore Trade Deadline important moves +/-1: Either he will be faced with the prospect of trying to make a move that gets the Royals into the playoffs or selling high on a lost season. We sincerely hope it is the former and Moore is looking to add the final piece at the All Star Break as the Royals lead the Division by 5 games. If so, will he have the guts to shed another propect for a big bat? In contrast, if things go terribly wrong, will Moore have the guts to cash out James Shields or others?
James Shields Runs given up on Opening Day +/-3: If Shields goes out and scatters three runs over six innings nobody will read much into that. However if he goes seven, gives up two runs and wins the game versus Justin Verlander then we can automatically assume the division is there for the taking and the youthful Royals will outlast the DL-prone Tigers to win the Division. In contrast, if he can't make it out of the fifth and gives up a handful of runs, the season is over and the Royals better start talking about 2015!
Omar Infante/Jason Vargas DL stints +/- 2: Instead of trying to make a semi-big offseason move the Royals tried the 2-for-1 30 something special by landing an aging 2B and a 4th starter. Thus the only way these two have value is in them actually playing and not sucking. That is being more competent than Chris Getz and Kyle Davis-Luke Hochevar-Wade Davis; tough acts to follow. So if these two amass anywhere near 30-50 days on the DL on the front end of their awkward four year contracts then go full steam ahead on the second guessing Dayton Moore bandwagon.
Hosmer RBIs +/-99: We are purposefully going anti-sabermetric here because this stat will actually tell us about players other than just Hosmer. First, you have to be good to get 100 RBIs, you need to hit for some pop and this means that you actually played the whole season. Second you need players on in front of you, so with Infante and Aoki FIRMLY entrenched in the 1-2 spots in the order this number would lead us to believe that they are both having career years and Hos is getting them home often. Third, this means that whomever is hitting behind you is also having a good year and you aren't being walked all the time. So by extension this means that Billy Butler is hitting like the best version of previous Billy Butler years (last years walks, 2012 HRs and 2009-11 2Bs), i.e. KC's David Ortiz. And finally, it means that the Royals are actually scoring RUNS. After finishing near the bottom last year this would seem to be the missing ingredient when thinking about getting to 90+ wins.
Guthrie/Chen ERAs +/- 5.00: This is a very generous number, realistically we probably could have put it closer to 4.5, but the PBR feels that the likelihood of one of these two putting up a +5.00 ERA is pretty high. In which case, they would be wasting a roster spot and replaced by the equally sketchy duo of Wade Davis or Danny Duffy. Also, it means that the Royals got shelled in some early season games and probably aren't getting off to the hot start they need to make it to the playoffs. Given Moore and Yostie's tendencies to stick with things too long, this would be a bad sign.
Alex Gordon HRs +/-25: I'm betting big here. Alex needs to settle into that OBP/Power guy we have been waiting to see for so long. First he blamed it on playing 3B, then he blamed it on hitting leadoff, now he needs to not worry about anything other than hitting 25 HRs.
Yordono Ventura innings +/-160: I hesitated to put this one out there, but really it is so obvious that it can't be repeated enough: "If the Royals are going to be good this year, they need a breakout performance from Ventura." There we said it too. If he goes under the 160 number, he has most likely lost his control at some point during the season, hit the DL for a hurty elbow, or failed in any one of twenty other ways Royals starting pitching prospects seem to do. If he gets over that number, the Royals have probably started to shed themselves of their reputation as murderers of pitching prospects.
Ned Yost undeniably bad decisions +/- 5: They are coming. Whether it be changing his lineup 57 times before the All Star Break, pulling pitchers at terrible moments, spitting tobacco on a beat reporter or shattering Sal Perez's knees from overwork, we know he is going to make a few. We'll give him five. After that, the season is lost.
Dayton Moore Trade Deadline important moves +/-1: Either he will be faced with the prospect of trying to make a move that gets the Royals into the playoffs or selling high on a lost season. We sincerely hope it is the former and Moore is looking to add the final piece at the All Star Break as the Royals lead the Division by 5 games. If so, will he have the guts to shed another propect for a big bat? In contrast, if things go terribly wrong, will Moore have the guts to cash out James Shields or others?
Monday, February 24, 2014
I guess that was the offseason
If you had announced to us here at the PBR before the offseason had started that the Royals would trade a reliever for a cheap undervalued upgrade in RF, sign a free agent pitcher to a four year deal and then give another four year deal to .300-hitting 2B, there would have been almost no way in which this wasn't going to be a monumentally better team starting in 2014. However, once you throw the names out there you realize that hibernating during the offseason was actually a good decision. It's not that they weren't good signings in some contingency based scenarios, it's that there wasn't one really overwhelming move in the whole lot (i.e. getting them to 90 wins). Since we here at the PBR are just waking up from Royal's Winter Hibernation we'll leave the "if Eric Hosmer turns into a superstar and Moose bounces back and Alcides is not the worst hitter in the league and Billy and Alex remember to how hit doubles and if Kyle Zimmer becomes Michael Wacha then we'll win the World Series" talk for another day. For now, we still are left wondering how any of the moves this offseason improve the team???
The Bruce Chen Question: There are so many different questions to ask when talking about B Chen that it's hard to focus. Lets begin here: is it possible for B Chen 2014 to outperform B Chen 2013? Not a chance in hell. 2013 B Chen was the best version of B Chen that B Chen can be. A swing starter who comes on at the end of the season to give your team a boost while desperately trying to get into the playoffs. An almost 40 year old soft tossing lefty giving you 130 innings of 3.27 ERA. These things aren't easily replicated, and most certainly won't be bested this year. So the short answer is, NO, he doesn't improve the team from 2013. But the next question is: without him were the Royals worse? Here is where it gets confusing, specifically because signing Chen led to the release of Emilio Bonifacio. Lets take a look at part one first, because this really becomes a question of team insurance policies. Before Chen you had Shields, Guthrie, Vargas and two of the Duffy/Davis/Ventura/Zimmer/Hochevar/et. al. grab bag that was headed for Spring Training. We would love to say that obviously you give Wade Davis another chance, hope for Duffy to put it together and then Ventura gets the first crack after someone gets injured and/or leads the league in ERA. You were already spending $5 mil on Davis and you NEED to develop one pitcher from the organization eventually, so this seems like the proper course of action. However, we'll give Dayton some credit here and say that things never quite work out the way you want, especially with pitchers. Fine, sign Bruce Chen or more appropriately the Blue Cross and Blue Shield SP Full Coverage Plan. No problem, wait one problem. This resulted in Moore dropping their slightly cheaper Do-It-All Back-up Infielder High Deductible Coverage Plan and paying a $600K penalty for having pre-purchased it. So we have to ask: is B Chen really more valuable than Bonifacio? If he does what he did last year, probably. If the current 3B, SS and 2B all play 150+ games while hitting at career high levels, then Yes Bonifacio wasn't needed. If Omar Infante misses as many games as he did last year, maybe not so clear. If Alcides Escobar gets Jeff Francouer Depression Syndrome, definitely not. So now we have an extremely murky answer; Chen only makes us better if at least Duffy and Wade Davis suck AND the infield stays healthy and productive AND Chen is his same old decent self. This was the last and final significant offseason move in what can only be described as a quantity over quality strategy from Moore. Take this under consideration: Chen + Guthrie + Vargas + Hochevar + Davis = $30 mil. Carlos Beltran + Matt Garza will make less money this year. So it will be interesting to see if those previously mentioned insurance policies actually pay off or if they just end up taking up space that could be given to someone making 10% of their salary and the Royals are yet again left a few wins shy of the wild card.
The Omar Infante Question: As the writer of a blog that has dedicated hundreds, possibly thousands, of words to complaining about Chris Getz taking up a roster space over the past couple of years you would think we're ecstatic about this signing. Unfortunately, it seems likely to disappoint, even in the short term. The bottom line for me is that we outbid the Yankees for him, this being a year in which the Yankees spent almost half a Billion dollars on free agents. So I have to question how valuable a player is when the Yankees aren't willing to spare a few extra million on him when they didn't have a true 2B option AND spent that much money. That being said, I have to take the fact that almost no other team in baseball wanted Emilio Bonifacio as a pretty clear indication that he wasn't going to repeat his performance at the end of last season. Ultimately, the real question to be asked is how many games will Infante play? I'm setting the over/under at 135. Over = best Royals 2B since Alberto's Callaspo's Career Year. Under = bad sign of things to come. It's not that it doesn't make them better its just that he is a 30-something 2B who only played in 118 games last season, albeit 118 very good games. I would be the least surprised person in the world if he starts the season on the DL, still he could probably outperform Chris Getz while injured and not playing.
The Aoki Question: I would have loved this deal sometime last season when Jeff Francouer was making us cry. However, on a per game basis, David Lough and Justin Maxwell were one of the best RF combos in baseball. The possibility of David Lough repeating his Superman defensive levels and hitting just enough might have been slim-to-none. However, at least one other team in baseball thinks its possible. In the end, the Royals basically swapped David Lough for someone who has done what David Lough did last year for two full seasons (the difference is that Aoki walks more whereas David Lough has played better defense, but both come out as slightly above average RFs). Again, we must admit, for a Blog that has spent entirely too much time worrying about who hits leadoff to complain about trading for a solid leadoff hitter seems a little counter intuitive. So on the face of it we have to say that yes, the team should be better. However it will be difficult for Aoki to outperform the Lough/Maxwell platoon numbers from last year - no matter how unlikely it would have been for them to repeat those numbers - and that leaves you wanting more from a RF (nobody mention his name). The PBR proposed a way for the Royals to take a giant step forward in the outfield, but the Royals took what might amount to lateral move with slightly more predictability. So while this trade looks like a smart play, its hard to see the Royals making up ground on the Tigers (Oh yeah, and the Indians) with a RF who has 18 career HRs (and that was in Milwaukee).
The Vargas Question: It never fails, the classic Dayton Moore jump-the-gun offseason strategy. He just can't help himself. I can imagine Sports Agents sitting around playing drinking games based on how many times Dayton Moore calls before the Winter Meetings. Now, more than three months later, Ervin Santana still hasn't signed and the Royals might not even get the draft pick he was supposed to bring them. The Royals thought he was going to be too rich for their blood and now he might go for less than Vargas. After seeing them sign Bruce Chen for nothing, Chris Capuano and Paul Maholm go for nothing, etc., etc., you have to wonder why this was necessary. Did Dayton do it just because he could? Is he the guy who buys things just because they're on sale? How many bad suits does he own? Does he have a time-share in every state? It's hard to see how they couldn't have done better. More importantly, it's nearly impossible to see him replacing the innings that Santana gave the Royals so even at the time he clearly didn't make the team better. Obviously Ervin Santanta wasn't worth $80 mil, he might not even be worth the Money Vargas got, but this is just another example of how Dayton's lack of patience rarely ever pays off. The chances of The Royals wanting Jason Vargas on their team four years from now are so slim that I wouldn't take 100 to 1 odds. However, we must again temper this by saying that it is hard to complain too much about paying a pitcher capable of giving you 200 league average innings less than $9 mil per year. This move, more than any, shows that for now Dayton (and ownership) are content to be just as good as last year and will leave the rest to pixie dust and four leaf clovers.
The Bruce Chen Question: There are so many different questions to ask when talking about B Chen that it's hard to focus. Lets begin here: is it possible for B Chen 2014 to outperform B Chen 2013? Not a chance in hell. 2013 B Chen was the best version of B Chen that B Chen can be. A swing starter who comes on at the end of the season to give your team a boost while desperately trying to get into the playoffs. An almost 40 year old soft tossing lefty giving you 130 innings of 3.27 ERA. These things aren't easily replicated, and most certainly won't be bested this year. So the short answer is, NO, he doesn't improve the team from 2013. But the next question is: without him were the Royals worse? Here is where it gets confusing, specifically because signing Chen led to the release of Emilio Bonifacio. Lets take a look at part one first, because this really becomes a question of team insurance policies. Before Chen you had Shields, Guthrie, Vargas and two of the Duffy/Davis/Ventura/Zimmer/Hochevar/et. al. grab bag that was headed for Spring Training. We would love to say that obviously you give Wade Davis another chance, hope for Duffy to put it together and then Ventura gets the first crack after someone gets injured and/or leads the league in ERA. You were already spending $5 mil on Davis and you NEED to develop one pitcher from the organization eventually, so this seems like the proper course of action. However, we'll give Dayton some credit here and say that things never quite work out the way you want, especially with pitchers. Fine, sign Bruce Chen or more appropriately the Blue Cross and Blue Shield SP Full Coverage Plan. No problem, wait one problem. This resulted in Moore dropping their slightly cheaper Do-It-All Back-up Infielder High Deductible Coverage Plan and paying a $600K penalty for having pre-purchased it. So we have to ask: is B Chen really more valuable than Bonifacio? If he does what he did last year, probably. If the current 3B, SS and 2B all play 150+ games while hitting at career high levels, then Yes Bonifacio wasn't needed. If Omar Infante misses as many games as he did last year, maybe not so clear. If Alcides Escobar gets Jeff Francouer Depression Syndrome, definitely not. So now we have an extremely murky answer; Chen only makes us better if at least Duffy and Wade Davis suck AND the infield stays healthy and productive AND Chen is his same old decent self. This was the last and final significant offseason move in what can only be described as a quantity over quality strategy from Moore. Take this under consideration: Chen + Guthrie + Vargas + Hochevar + Davis = $30 mil. Carlos Beltran + Matt Garza will make less money this year. So it will be interesting to see if those previously mentioned insurance policies actually pay off or if they just end up taking up space that could be given to someone making 10% of their salary and the Royals are yet again left a few wins shy of the wild card.
The Omar Infante Question: As the writer of a blog that has dedicated hundreds, possibly thousands, of words to complaining about Chris Getz taking up a roster space over the past couple of years you would think we're ecstatic about this signing. Unfortunately, it seems likely to disappoint, even in the short term. The bottom line for me is that we outbid the Yankees for him, this being a year in which the Yankees spent almost half a Billion dollars on free agents. So I have to question how valuable a player is when the Yankees aren't willing to spare a few extra million on him when they didn't have a true 2B option AND spent that much money. That being said, I have to take the fact that almost no other team in baseball wanted Emilio Bonifacio as a pretty clear indication that he wasn't going to repeat his performance at the end of last season. Ultimately, the real question to be asked is how many games will Infante play? I'm setting the over/under at 135. Over = best Royals 2B since Alberto's Callaspo's Career Year. Under = bad sign of things to come. It's not that it doesn't make them better its just that he is a 30-something 2B who only played in 118 games last season, albeit 118 very good games. I would be the least surprised person in the world if he starts the season on the DL, still he could probably outperform Chris Getz while injured and not playing.
The Aoki Question: I would have loved this deal sometime last season when Jeff Francouer was making us cry. However, on a per game basis, David Lough and Justin Maxwell were one of the best RF combos in baseball. The possibility of David Lough repeating his Superman defensive levels and hitting just enough might have been slim-to-none. However, at least one other team in baseball thinks its possible. In the end, the Royals basically swapped David Lough for someone who has done what David Lough did last year for two full seasons (the difference is that Aoki walks more whereas David Lough has played better defense, but both come out as slightly above average RFs). Again, we must admit, for a Blog that has spent entirely too much time worrying about who hits leadoff to complain about trading for a solid leadoff hitter seems a little counter intuitive. So on the face of it we have to say that yes, the team should be better. However it will be difficult for Aoki to outperform the Lough/Maxwell platoon numbers from last year - no matter how unlikely it would have been for them to repeat those numbers - and that leaves you wanting more from a RF (nobody mention his name). The PBR proposed a way for the Royals to take a giant step forward in the outfield, but the Royals took what might amount to lateral move with slightly more predictability. So while this trade looks like a smart play, its hard to see the Royals making up ground on the Tigers (Oh yeah, and the Indians) with a RF who has 18 career HRs (and that was in Milwaukee).
The Vargas Question: It never fails, the classic Dayton Moore jump-the-gun offseason strategy. He just can't help himself. I can imagine Sports Agents sitting around playing drinking games based on how many times Dayton Moore calls before the Winter Meetings. Now, more than three months later, Ervin Santana still hasn't signed and the Royals might not even get the draft pick he was supposed to bring them. The Royals thought he was going to be too rich for their blood and now he might go for less than Vargas. After seeing them sign Bruce Chen for nothing, Chris Capuano and Paul Maholm go for nothing, etc., etc., you have to wonder why this was necessary. Did Dayton do it just because he could? Is he the guy who buys things just because they're on sale? How many bad suits does he own? Does he have a time-share in every state? It's hard to see how they couldn't have done better. More importantly, it's nearly impossible to see him replacing the innings that Santana gave the Royals so even at the time he clearly didn't make the team better. Obviously Ervin Santanta wasn't worth $80 mil, he might not even be worth the Money Vargas got, but this is just another example of how Dayton's lack of patience rarely ever pays off. The chances of The Royals wanting Jason Vargas on their team four years from now are so slim that I wouldn't take 100 to 1 odds. However, we must again temper this by saying that it is hard to complain too much about paying a pitcher capable of giving you 200 league average innings less than $9 mil per year. This move, more than any, shows that for now Dayton (and ownership) are content to be just as good as last year and will leave the rest to pixie dust and four leaf clovers.
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