Johnny Giavotella’s Last “Chance”

To end June the Royals finally got rid of Jeff Francoeur and brought up Johnny Giavotella.  There was much rejoicing.  In Dick Kaegel’s article, Giavotella Gets Another Shot At Full-Time Duty, Ned Yost is quoted as saying, “I needed some offense.”  A week later the farce is over, and Gio is getting jerked around again.

Johnny acquitted himself nicely in his first game back on the major league squad with 3 important hits in a win over the Twins.  Then he went 0 for 15 over the next four games and has now been relagated to the bench in the last two games.  Miguel Tejada started instead, another right handed batter who is approaching 40 years of age.  There is nothing to take away from this except that Gio’s last “chance” lasted for a total of 5 games.

Mike Moustakas in over 500 ABs since last year’s All-Star break is hitting .212 and still gets to play nearly every day.  Eric Hosmer was terrible for the entirety of 2012 and for the first two months of 2013, and still got to play nearly every day.  They were given more than a year each to fix their problems, and Gio gets 5 games.  This is so ridiculous I don’t even know what to say about it.  I guess if you are drafted in the first round instead of the second then your leash is infinitely long, otherwise it is non-existent.

Miguel Tejada is not an every day option.  He is 39 years old, and probably can’t play every day without breaking down.  But even more than that, against right handed pitching this year he is hitting .270/.305/.324, which is not good enough.  Johnny has never struggled against same sided pitching in the minors.  He is the only hope on the current 40 man roster for a plus bat at second base.  Elliot Johnson and Chris Getz have failed, but at least they were given about 150 PAs each (and for Getz a couple of years prior as well).  Johnny Giavotella is it for realistic options, but the Royals still won’t give him a chance.

I really cannot figure out what Gio did to make the Royals hate him.  Is Yost, Moore, everyone?  I don’t know the answer to that, but it is clear that the hate will prevent us from ever seeing if Johnny can play here in KC.  What is unforgivable about it is that all the other teams know this too, so if any of them are interested in acquiring him they know that they can do so on the cheap.  The Royals don’t want him anyway.