Tony Abreu or Irving Falu?

I’m going to be honest with you. I’ve not really been able to watch the Royals much lately. I’m living in Southern Missouri right now and I don’t have access to Fox Sports KC.

That being said, I’ve not had much of a chance to watch Tony Abreu play. Here’s his offensive slash line in the 19 games he’s appeared in this season:

.266/.273/.375/.648

I don’t pretend to be able to make an assessment of defensive ability, so if you’ve got an opinion on that, throw it out there. But when questioning whether Abreu should be retained on the 40-man roster next season, I have to ask the question: Can you tell the difference between Abreu and Irving Falu?

Here’s Falu’s line in 20 games:

.375/.384/.486/.870

Falu has been a lot more successful offensively this season in a similar, albeit small sample size of games and plate appearances. Again, my ability to assess Falu’s defensive capabilities is limited based on my inability to watch the games and or decipher advanced defensive metrics. However, a quick eye test tells me that both Falu and Abreu are fairly similar in physical capabilities. They both throw right-handed and they both switch-hit. They both have last names that end in “u.” Falu is 29 and Abreu is 27 which means that they’re both probably too old to become much more than decent fill-in guys.

Honestly? These guys are the same player to me, which means I only think we need one of them on the bench when next year rolls around. I think I like what I’ve (briefly) seen from Falu more than what I’ve seen from Abreu. If you’re an Abreu apologist or someone that thinks both guys need a spot on the bench or even the 40-man roster, explain yourself to me. Otherwise, I think Falu has more value than Abreu.