Watching Tokyo Trey fill out the line-up card everyday with Willie Bloomquist at #2 has become an unbearable source of frustration. The merits of Willie playing everyday are in and of themselves highly questionable but with Gordon having been inexplicably sent down to the minors its either him or Josh Anderson in Right so unless we plan on giving John Buck or Brayan Pena a shot in Right I'll take Willie on most days. Which leads us to the question of why he should be hitting 2nd everyday - his numbers are at best those of a major league 9-hole hitter - when we have one very good candidate for a classic two-hole hitter and another option far better than Willie. Lets start with the obvious, On Base Percentage, Lil' Wil currently sports a .301 OBP (yes, for all of the anti Mike Jacobs sentiment out there he actually gets on base more than Willie), while Callaspo carries the third highest on the team at .342 and Mr. Teahen gets on base at a rate of .336. Remember these are the guys hitting in front of Billy Butler, the ONLY hitter that can be confused for a run-producer on the team, MORE GUYS ON BASE EQUALS MORE RBI FOR BILLY. Fun facts: Callaspo is the best contact hitter on the team (best BB/SO ratio) and Teahen leads the team in runs scored.
Lets think about what is going on in Trey's brain for one sec, I'm guessing his thinking would go like this; speed speed speed, Willie fast, Willie steal bases, Willie bats 2nd. Teahen and Callaspo have 31 and 30 doubles respectively while Willie has gone for a grand total of 7. Do his stolen bases make-up for this? 18 SB + 7 2B = 25, so no they don't and Teahen even steals a few bases and runs quite well.
Future development; in a perfect world yes, Teahen would be our everyday 5-hole hitter, knock in 100, hit 25 homers, but if he has proven anything it is that he will not be this guy, although who knows maybe it is still worth a shot given the alternatives. However, Callaspo is in no way an ideal run producer but he could be the Royals starting 2nd basemen and 2-hole hitter for a few years, are we grooming Willie for this? I really hope not.
What is one of if not the biggest problem for the Royals? Scoring Runs. Why don't we want our best OBP guys hitting in front of Billy Butler? Is it too obvious? Doesn't there have to be an explanation? This is just Trey at his best; confusing, frustrating and dissappointing. For all of the tinkering with the line-up that he does one of the constants is that if Willie plays he hits two-hole, wouldn't you think at some point he would get around to this change? Actually with Trey not trying this makes the most sense.
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