Upon further review, however, the way in which Gordon is putting up those stats is unlike any other in his career.

Mandatory Credit: Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports

Gordon’s on-base percentage sits at .353, which is right around his career average. But when you remember that his batting average is only 23 points lower than that, you see that Gordon is actually not excelling in that department. Prior to this season, the smallest separation between his AVG and OBP was 67 points, in his rookie season. In that 2007 campaign, Gordon put up a walk percentage of 6.8, which, prior to this season, was the lowest of his career, by far.

Gordon’s current walk percentage? A paltry 3.6.

In 167 plate appearances, Gordon has drawn 6 walks. For comparison, Alcides Escobar, a player who has never been fond of taking a walk, has already received 7 free passes in 165 plate appearances. Mike Moustakas, who has never posted a double digit walk percentage, not even in the minor leagues, has twice as many walks as Gordon this year in almost 30 fewer plate appearances.

So what is it that has transformed Gordon’s walking ability into that of Jeff Francoeur?

One way to attempt to explain it is by looking at how many strikes Gordon is seeing in his at bats. According to pitch f/x data, Gordon sees pitches in the strike zone 49.3% of the time. That number is basically right in line with the major league average and his own career average, so it’s not that he’s seeing more strikes. Since we know he’s seeing the same percentage of strikes, we can correctly assume that his reduced walk rate can be in part due to him swinging at a greater percentage of pitches overall. To put it simply, swinging at more pitches means you generally will not walk as often. His 2013 Swing% is 45.8, which is the highest it’s been since his rookie year. Still, his career average in that category is 44.8, so it is tough to see how that alone could cause such a drastic drop in his walk percentage.

The real differences can be seen when you break his Swing% down based on whether the balls he swings at are in or out of the strike zone. Gordon’s Z-Swing% (percentage of balls in the strike zone the batter swings at) sits at 59.5, which is the lowest of his career by 1.5 percentage points. His O-Swing% (percentage of balls out of the strike zone the batter swings at) is 32.5. Excluding his rookie season (31.3), the next highest O-Swing% of his career was 27.8.

Basically, Gordon is swinging at fewer strikes, while also swinging at many more balls. That, my friends, is not a recipe for success. Unless, of course, you’re Alex Gordon in 2013.

Somehow, Gordon has combined uncharacteristically poor plate discipline with fewer line drives and more ground balls than his career averages to produce a stat line like that of a player deserving of an All-Star bid. Oh, and did I mention that he’s destroying left-handed pitching, too?

For his career, Gordon has averaged .250/.320/.406 against lefties. This season, he’s hitting .424/.443/.644 when facing southpaws. Granted, that’s in only 61 plate appearances, but still, that’s really, really good. It’s also really, really strange.

Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

Looking for another excellent part of Gordon’s 2013 season so far? How about his “clutch” stats? He is currently batting .441/.459/.676 with runners in scoring position. In late and close situations, Gordon has a .964 OPS. In high leverage situations, he’s got an OPS of 1.032. I’m not totally hip to these things, but I think the kids today* would say that this year’s Gordon has “the clutch gene.”

I don’t care if I’m not old enough to say that. West coast road trips always make me feel older than I actually am.

With all of these weird statistical anomalies in Gordon’s season, at least we know his defense is still solid. Or is it?

In Gordon’s two Gold Glove seasons of 2011 and 2012, he posted UZRs of 12.2 and 14.6, respectively. This year, his UZR is -0.7. Of course, defensive metrics should be taken with a grain of salt anyway, particularly in such small sample sizes, so the negative defensive value Gordon has supposedly provided is nothing more than something to chuckle about. I mean, Francoeur has a UZR of 1.2, and he plays right field with a piano on his back and cleats full of lead.

But what do we make of all the other statistical abnormalities?

I personally find it hard to believe Gordon won’t start walking at a higher rate at some point this season. Players in their prime normally don’t just lose all knowledge of the strike zone out of the blue. I don’t know if he’ll get all the way up to his career average BB% of 9.6, but I do think some improvement will come. And if Gordon is hoping to maintain his high level of production, he is going to need that walk rate to climb. His current BABIP is .392, and even though Gordon hits the ball hard enough to maintain an above average BABIP, we have to expect some regression with his batting average. If he can start walking a bit more, a drop in his average won’t hurt much since his OBP will remain strong.

I would also expect some regression to the mean when Gordon faces lefties. Hopefully that will be countered by an improvement in his line versus right handers, though. His current OPS against righties is roughly 75 points lower than his career average, so it stands to reason that Gordon could maintain his overall numbers while his reverse split begins to normalize. Similarly, Gordon likely won’t be able to keep up his torrid pace of hitting with runners in scoring position, but his numbers with the bases empty probably won’t stay as low, either (currently .638 OPS, vs his career number of .788). The overall effect of the regression should be relatively neutral.

While he’s doing it in a somewhat odd fashion, Gordon is having another extremely good season. He should be an All-Star this year, and he will probably be deserving of getting some top 5 MVP votes after the season is over. That’s assuming, of course, Gordon listens to his manager’s plea for a more patient approach.

Cain and Gordon should start things off for this team. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

Needless to say…something’s gotta give. This team has shown very little power and continually seems to either squeak by or come up just short. Lately the trend is to squander a good outing by one of the starting pitchers. I think we can all agree that James Shields should have better than a 2-2 record.

If you go back and look at my last dissection of the batting order, you’ll see I used some of the more modern (nerdy? No, I don’t live in my mom’s basement) ways of thinking when stacking the guys up from 1 through 9. I did a simple breakdown at the time, just looking at building one “master” lineup…but the way these guys are hitting – it might be time to consider not only a shuffle in the order, but some platoons. Once again, I’ll lean on ideas borrowed from The Book. And away we go…

I still believe your best hitters should be in the 1, 2, 4, and 5 positions. With the thought that your leadoff guy should have the highest possible OBP, and the way these guys are hitting…I think our new leadoff guy should be Lorenzo Cain. I’m not making this move lightly, as I’ve been a proponent of Gordon as the leadoff guy…but Gordon is flashing some power and Cain is getting on base more often. I’d stick Gordon in the next spot, though…not moving him too far from that top spot in the lineup.

Moose is heating up…is he ready to bat third? Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

With the top two spots settled, I think our cleanup guy is obviously Billy Butler. After getting off to a pretty slow start, Butler now leads the team in OBP and is third, behind Cain and Gordon, in OPS (these numbers do NOT reflect Wednesday’s game, by the way). But he’s coming on strong.

Our third hitter is a bit tougher to peg. We’ve got Alcides Escobar, Salvador Perez, Mike Moustakas, and Eric Hosmer as the next best hitters in this lineup. Chris Getz and Jeff Francoeur, to the surprise of absolutely no one, bring up the rear and are the most likely candidates to at least be platooned, if not completely replaced, at some point.

The fourth best OPS belongs to Escobar, then we have Perez, and Hosmer. Moose is currently last on the list…but after another pretty impressive game Wednesday night, I think it’s a matter of time before he leapfrogs his way into the mix.

I may be crazy – but combining the way he’s been hitting of late with what is expected of him, I’d put Moose in that third spot versus RHP. Then I think you have to go with (after Butler at cleanup), Perez and Hosmer at 5 and 6. What about Escobar? If he’s not going to hit second anymore, I just can’t see him anywhere from 3 through 6, so we’ll put him at 7. After that, we go with Dyson rather than Frenchy (versus RHP) and then some kind of platoon with Getz and Johnson.

So the lineup versus RHP goes like this:

Lorenzo Cain RF

Alex Gordon LF

Mike Moustakas 3B

Billy Butler DH

Sal Perez C

Eric Hosmer 1B

Alcides Escobar SS

Jarrod Dyson CF

Chris Getz/Elliot Johnson 2B

When I switch it up and fill out the lineup card against southpaws…I think we have to make a few changes. First of all – for the time being, I’m not sure you play Moose versus lefties. And if you do, I don’t think you can bat him third. I’d also go with Frenchy over Dyson in this lineup, and give Elliot Johnson the definite nod at second base, with Tejada getting some time when Moose does play.

With that being said…I think our lineup versus LHP shakes out like this:

Lorenzo Cain CF

Alex Gordon LF

Sal Perez C

Billy Butler DH

Miguel Tejada/Mike Moustakas 3B

Eric Hosmer 1B

Alcides Escobar SS

Jeff Francoeur RF

Elliot Johnson/Miguel Tejada 2B

It’s not a radical shakeup by any means, but it is different – both from my initial idea weeks ago and from what we’ve seen on a daily basis courtesy of Yost. It puts our hitters in (arguably) the right spots, while giving the team a legitimate power threat in that cleanup spot. Cain hasn’t flashed a lot of home run power just yet (I do think it will come) and would be allowed to get on base for Gordon, who was slugging at a .484 clip before hitting another homer Wednesday. Those first two spots are now filled by all-around batters who can work the count, drive the ball, run a bit (Cain can run a LOT), and have a knack for coming up with big hits.

Escobar batting lower in the order gives some protection to Hosmer, who would be batting just ahead of him. Hosmer has a good OBP at .343, but has yet to hit for any power. He won’t generally kill a rally though, and if he can get on base Escobar has a decent shot of following with a hit of his own. Another benefit to moving Escobar down – he’s grounding into a lot of double plays this season, leading the team with 7 so far. Would you rather have him killing a rally with Dyson or Frenchy on deck, or with Butler (or, according to what I’ve sketched out – Moose or Perez) waiting to bat?

When all is said and done, this team still won’t succeed by slugging a combined .390, but a slight shuffle might give them a better chance at scraping together 5 runs instead of 3. Then we just have to hope a couple of these guys start hitting the long ball.

What do you think? Am I nuts? How would you stack the order?

April 25, 2013; Detroit, MI, USA; Kansas City Royals left fielder Alex Gordon (4) congratulated by teammates after hitting a grand slam home run in the tenth inning against the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

The Royals are in first place after a tough road trip filled with off days, postponements, and difficult opponents. And they came out of it 4-3 and stay in first place.

While Thursday afternoon’s game was decided by a bases loaded walk by George Kottaras, the punctuation mark on the win was delivered by Alex Gordon:

After Lorenzo Cain doubled, Mike Moustakas walked. A wild pitch to Jeff Francoeur sent both up one base and, to get a force out, the Tigers had Phil Coke intentionally walk Francoeur. Kottaras worked a five pitch walk to bring in the lead run, then Darin Downs took over for Coke. Chris Getz reached on a fielder’s choice that retired Moustakas at the plate and Gordon came up with two outs.

And destroyed a 2-0 fastball.

The Internet lit up (or at least, the Royals fan side of the Internet did):

I’m not sure how far Alex Gordon just hit the first grand slam of his career. But I feel sorry for the baseball.

— robneyer (@robneyer) April 25, 2013

ALLLLEEXXXAANNNDDSEEERRRRRTTHHWEESGFREWATTTESSTTTTJNNKKaAHHHHHHHHGHHHGGGGGHHH — Danny Duffy (@DannyDuffy805) April 25, 2013

Gordon’s slam has to be one of the longest home runs hit this season. That was amazing. #Royals — Kevin Agee (@Kevin_Agee) April 25, 2013

In fact, Alex Gordon ended up being a trending topic on Twitter:

Alex Gordon and #Royals at the top of the trends. Love to see that. twitter.com/matt_yogi_haye…

— Matt Hayes (@matt_yogi_hayes) April 25, 2013

Just as impressive as hitting a home run was the context in which he did it. Comerica Park is a big stadium, especially out to center. Downs was brought in because he was a lefty and Jim Leyland wanted to get the platoon advantage.

Some advantage.

I mean … off a lefty … in extras … dead center … in THAT park? Jeez.

— Sam Mellinger (@mellinger) April 25, 2013

Got busy at work. Just watched Alex Gordon hit a grand slam off a lefty to dead center at Comerica in the rain. Nice!#Royals #A1 — Doug Howard (@IowaRoyal) April 25, 2013

R. Lefebvre: “Been watching games here in this park for 14 years. I’ve NEVER seen anyone hit a home run to dead center into 3rd row!” #Gordo — Greg Hall (@greghall24) April 25, 2013

Immediately after, the thought turned to Gordon’s place on the team and a reminder of his story. Like Jeff Herr, I recall questioning Gordon’s role on the Royals back in 2010 when he was sent down.

So awesome that Gordon has become just about every bit of what we hoped for when he was drafted. #BetterLateThanNever

— Jeff Herr (@TheJeffReport) April 25, 2013

I’ll admit, I was saying to trade Gordon went he went down to AAA in 2010. I was wrong. Glad he’s still here.

— Jeff Herr (@TheJeffReport) April 25, 2013

That provides some hope. The early-season stories have centered around the struggles of Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer, two highly-touted prospects at every step, who have struggled this year (Moose much more so than Hosmer). Gordon had similar struggles, facing a disappointing rookie year, a nice sophomore effort, then a series of injuries during 2009 (torn labrum) and 2010 (broken thumb) that kept him from getting any kind of groove going. He should have been an All-Star in 2011, probably 2012 as well, and this year, well, you can vote here to help him get there this time around.

Alex Gordon is an All Star. Booked. Sign, sealed, delivered. No question.

— Brian McGannon (@BrianMcGannon) April 25, 2013

Gordon is the best player on this team. And 1 of the top 5 players in the AL. This point cannot be debated. #Complete #Royals

— Craig Brown (@royalsauthority) April 25, 2013

I have to agree with those sentiments. Alex Gordon is the man.

Ervin Santana, on pace to give up about 90 home runs in 2013. But other than that..great game! Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

Game two of the 2013 season saw another loss in the young season, and seemingly deflated a fan base hungry for a winner.

Is it too soon to panic? According to the majority of what I witnessed via the Internet and sports radio, the answer is “no”. Seems like a lot of people are already saying, “Same old Royals,” or “Here we go again.”

And I have to admit, today left a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Every home run the White Sox smacked over the wall…every base runner stranded by a KC batter…I couldn’t help but feel at least a little despair. The optimist in me wants to look at the positives – Ervin Santana had a great line on the day, if you ignore that three of the hits he allowed were home runs. The Royals had the bases loaded when they needed a rally, which is great, if you ignore they couldn’t get any of those runners across the plate.

It’s early, but many Kansas Citians are saying, “Here we go again.” I guess year after year of failure will eventually beat a fan down like that. It was just a week ago that I was talking to friends and fans and everyone felt pretty good about the 2013 season. A new rotation. Great young hitters. Good defense. This team has it all. Or does it?

With all the focus this winter on improving what has been a bad rotation for quite some time now, maybe the front office overlooked what as a horrible offense last season. In 2012 the KC lineup was only able to outscore two teams in the American League. So much attention was on the failure to develop any homegrown pitching, and the major failures of the starting rotation, that little attention seems to have paid to the lineup. I understand why. We have a couple of proven guys in Alex Gordon and Billy Butler and a group of youngsters who are expected to come into their own. But…so far…they haven’t.

The Royals can’t seem to get out of their own way. Mandatory Credit: David Banks-USA TODAY Sports

Here we are, yes…I know…only two games into the season, with a lineup full of players flailing at bad pitches, not making solid contact, and unable to drive in runs. So far, the team hasn’t had one base hit that has driven in a run. Butler had an RBI on a ground out, and the other run was given to the Royals by poor Chicago defense.

I’m not sure where the fix is in the lineup, but am I the only one who thinks Butler should hit cleanup? Let one of the youngsters hit third and benefit from having Billy hit behind them? I’m not a proponent of the Bob Boone “different day, different lineup” approach…but it might be time to shuffle one or two guys around. Both of these games could have been won with a little offense…a little timely hitting. But here we sit…zero wins, two losses, and a lineup that, at least so far, looks just as bad as it did last season.

And I have to say, turning to Hochevar out of the bullpen didn’t help. In fact, it felt a little like a kick in the crotch. Talk about sucking any and all hope out of your fans…I actually felt nauseous when he took the mound. Something about Luke Hochevar just reeks of failure. Can someone please just make him go away?

Here’s the thing. These were just two games in a LONG season. But, I will admit, I’m disappointed. If the Royals bats don’t come alive against Chicago and continue struggling in Philadelphia…my attitude towards this team will start turning from disappointed to devastated. That’s when I might join the masses and panic a little bit.

Same old Royals? God, I hope not. But if they don’t get a couple of wins on this road trip? Well, if you thought the fans sounded bad after two losses…I can’t imagine how they’ll sound if KC is 0-3…or worse. On the other hand, if the fans are this riled up, at least we know they care. Imagine how they’d support a winner. Hopefully, we’ll find out.

Gordon still has some of the most potential for homerun power out of any batter on the Royals roster. His natural loft swing and patience would normally lend themselves to significant power production, but for most of the past two seasons Gordon’s extra-base pop has been relegated to doubles status, not unlike Billy Butler. The disappointing aspect of that comparison is that Gordon is three years Butler’s senior, and at 29 years-old now, Gordon’s time to fulfill his homerun potential is running thin.

In 2012 Gordon finished 32nd among all outfielders in slugging-percentage, finishing behind power monsters David Murphy and Dexter Fowler, and with only 14 homeruns, his production in the category still leaves a bit to be desired.

Maybe it was the move to lead off that cut Gordon’s development of homerun power, though, you’d be hard pressed to find any objective evidence that Gordon’s approach has really changed much from what he was known for before the 2011 breakout season.

Plus, a hitter’s approach really shouldn’t change much dependent on his position in the lineup. Goal No. 1 is to not make an out; goal No. 2 is to hit the ball really hard. That’s really as far as it should ever go. And the fact that Gordon’s skillset doesn’t make him the prototypical leadoff hitter has to do more with the idea of the “prototypical” leadoff hitter is a really nonsensical ideal more so than any logical reason. Gordon has the most patience and plate-awareness on the team, and is the best base runner. His skills are ideal.

And yet, there’s still a tad missing.

Gordon’s ascension to the game’s elite – if it hasn’t happened already with back-to-back seasons in the top 8 in fWAR among outfielders – hinges on his ability to be a 25-plus-homerun guy, which his talent and swing say he should be.

So why should this spring be indicative of what is to come? Well, other than me being a huge Gordon-homer? Because he’s found left field again.

Gordon is a classic top-hand swinger with an (at times) overactive top hand that causes him to cut balls off resulting in a weekend ball flight. This was a huge problem early in his career, and it’s the same problem Mike Moustakas has now.
By the top rolling too soon (think when you were taught to “shake hands at contact”; that’s wrong, that’s awful, and really, really detrimental to a batters ability to drive the ball) the top hand’s palm doesn’t stay facing upward, allowing the barrel to stay through the hitting zone, resulting in a truer ball flight.

The batters whose top hands are too dominant have a smaller hitting window, finishing the swing around the body too soon, or worse, getting a bad upward angle finish (Moustakas) forcing pop-ups, rolled over ground balls, or well connected pulled balls that hook foul.

In his small-sample at-bats so far this spring, Gordon’s power has shown up, and shown up to left field, which is a huge indicator.

Watch here:

Gordon takes a low-and-away, sinking fastball and hits a homerun to straightaway left. His natural power has never been in question, but his willingness to use that power to all fields has been. Now that he’s shown that willingness, for the most part, the last two season, his ability to keep his swing integrity on opposite field contact is allowing the ball flight to stay true, and carry over the fence.

Here’s another example, this time, off a left hander:

Keeping the front shoulder in and staying through the ball at contact is a tough thing to do for a left-handed hitter and a left-handed pitcher. But it’s swings like these two that show Gordon’s improvement as his career has gone on, and why this year could be yet another step forward for him, this time in the HR column.

Of course, it could also be because he works out like a best.

Nom noms.

The rankings for the Royals are mostly fair, but before I discuss where I think they are off I want to talk about the win projection.  In the end this system has a projection of 80 wins for the Royals.  This is exactly what I predicted in the Kings of Kauffman prediction article earlier this week.  You would think having projections systems along with some good writers over at Fangraphs agree with me would lead to a greater confidence in my original prediction, but that is not the case.

There are a couple of things that I disagree with a little, but can’t argue too much with, in that I think projections are a little low on Alex Gordon and Billy Butler.  These don’t change my mind though, since I think the optimism on Salvador Perez is probably a little too high.  Where this really affected my thinking was in two spots, right field and starting pitching.  The right field WAR is calculated with Jeff Francoeur receiving 630 plate appearances at a total WAR of 0.4, and that is almost surely not going to happen.  If Francoeur is bad then the platooning being discussed will likely become a reality quickly in some form, either acquisition, David Lough coming up, or Jarrod Dyson playing more in center with Lorenzo Cain moving over to play right.  The only other option is that Frenchy does get a full season of PAs, and that will likely only happen if he is producing at a better clip than 0.4 WAR per season.  It would surprise me a lot of the Royals don’t get better production out of right than is being predicted by Fangraphs, so that should add a win.  Possibly more, but I’ll call it one.

The second part, starting pitching, will likely be an even bigger deal.  Here are their projections:

They have James Shieldsat 4.4 WAR, which is fair and possibly even a little too high sinc

September 20, 2012; Kansas City, MO, USA; Kansas City Royals center fielder Jarrod Dyson (1) and team mates celebrate with first baseman Eric Hosmer (35) after the game against the Chicago White Sox at Kauffman Stadium. The Royals won the game 4-3. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

e 4.5 is his career high even if his ERA and FIP could end up better than what is shown.  I would be shocked if Jeremy Guthrie, Ervin Santana, and Wade Davis all end up in the four and half ERA/FIP range, and that is the first part of my disagreement.  Obviously, since they did this things have changed too.  Luis Mendoza is now the number five starter, and will not be getting 40IP.  He will be an upgrade over Bruce Chen, which is why everyone has been hoping for Mendoza to get the spot and the Royals evidently agree as well.  My guess is that this staff will end up with another 2+ wins worth of value at the least.  Especially when I look at rotations like the Rockies getting a better projection.  Jeff Francis got projected at 2 WAR, and I would rather have anyone in the Royals staff, and Jon Garland got 1.4 WAR in projection in 90 IPs which is just plain crazy.  The only way that rotation is better is if guys like Drew Pomeranz bump Garland out of the rotation.

Just adding Mendoza and making it clear that the Francoeur is not going to be given much leash has made this Royals team better than I, and Fangraphs, originally thought a couple of weeks ago.  That is probably another 3 or 4 wins, which is starting to push the Royals toward an expectation of contention.  If they can move into the mid-80s for wins, then I think we are in for a fun September.  Sure, Detroit was projected as the best team in this same article at 94 wins, but Detroit has failed to live up to their hype a couple of times in the past few years.  Monday cannot get here fast enough.

The Royals decided that they were in full-time development mode no more this offseason and while there’s never consensus on transactions, the moves were particularly worthy of discussion. That being the case, there are a lot of questions about what the future holds for 2013 and how the Royals will do.

For that reason, we’ve put our heads together to try to get a range of opinions about how this year will turn out. We’ll give our thoughts on who will be the Royals MVP, some thoughts on the team, we’ll make a bold prediction or two, make a prediction for a final win total and, for the brave souls who can stand the pain of memory, some of us have gone with a “fun” idea of projecting how many home runs Wil Myers will hit. Because why not torture ourselves, right?

March 12, 2013; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Kansas City Royals left fielder Alex Gordon (4) hits a single in the fourth during a spring training game against the Oakland Athletics at Phoenix Municipal Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

Royals MVP

• Mike Vamosi: Alex Gordon - Country Breakfast is valuable but Gordo is the key factor for what he does everyday on offense and defense. He continues to improve and I think this will be the best year yet.
• Brian Henry: Billy Butler – I really think he is going to repeat or exceed last year, and if he does will be the anchor of the offense.
• Marcus Meade: Mike Moustakas – He’s having a great spring, the most impressive thing being his more patient approach.
• Tony Botts: Salvador Perez – He’s a serious All-Star candidate, while also one of the few offensive stars from last season’s offensively weak team.
• Jordan McLaughlin: Alex Gordon – For the third year in a row, he will be the team’s most consistent performer at the plate. Another Gold Glove and a few AL MVP votes will set him up as the team MVP.
• Bob Ellis: I’ll play it safe and say Alex Gordon. With his offensive and defensive skills, I think he’s the best all around player on the roster. There are guys who hit better, run better, and so on…but nobody has put it all together like Alex has over the past couple of seasons. A healthy Lorenzo Cain could give Alex some competition though…
• Hunter Samuels: I’d like to pick an unexpected player here, but I’ll go ahead and echo what seems to be the popular sentiment and go with Alex Gordon. Not only do I think he has the best all-around season for the Royals, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in the top 5 of AL MVP voting, especially if Kansas City can make a push to the playoffs.
• Jeff Parker: Alex Gordon –  He’s been the team’s best all around player the last two seasons. I have no reason to believe he won’t be again this year.
• Ethan Evans:  Salvador Perez – I think Sal puts together an entire season and asserts his dominance.
• Kevin Scobee: (He actually laughed because we all know his vote is for Alex Gordon)
• Michael Engel: Alex Gordon – He’s the best overall player on the team and after two consecutive seasons with all-around performance, he’s got the best chance of anyone to contribute in every facet of the game.

Mar 16, 2013; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Kansas City Royals batter Mike Moustakas (8) hits a home run in the third inning during a spring training game against the Chicago Cubs at HoHoKam stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jennifer Hilderbrand-USA TODAY Sports

Bold Predictions (Big League Edition)

• Vamosi: Alex Gordon will finish in the top three in the AL MVP race in 2013 and start in the All-Star Game in Flushing, New York.
• Meade: Wade Davis leads the Royals in ERA and wins.
• Botts: With the current roster the Royals are carrying, the Royals could potentially send three to four players to the All-Star this year. James Shields is sure to get a ton of fan support if his numbers with the Rays transition to the Royals club house. Alex Gordon is tearing up spring training and has the ability to continue his tear through the first half of the season. Finally, Salvador Perez is sure to ‘wow’ American League fans with his explosive arm and steady bat.
• McLaughlin: Billy Butler, who keeps adding power and strength, challenges and breaks Steve Balboni‘s franchise single season home run record of 36.
• Ellis: A healthy Lorenzo Cain pushes Gordon for the team MVP. If he does what I think he’s capable of…look for top-notch defense, 15 homers, 30 steals…he could be a real key to a Royals playoff run this year.
• Samuels: The Royals will, in fact, replace Jeff Francoeur in right field at some point this summer, and there will be much rejoicing in basements everywhere.
• Parker: Mike Moustakas becomes the first Royal since 2000 to hit 30 home runs in a season.
• Evans: Jeff Francoeur takes over 50 walks. Ok, that’s kind of tongue in cheek, but, hey, bold.
• Scobee: Alex Gordon gets voted in as an All-Star starter.
• Engel: I have a weird hunch about Ervin Santana. I think he stays healthy all year, controls the long ball, and looks like Santana of 2011.

July 8, 2012; Kansas City, MO, USA; World pitcher Yordano Ventura throws a pitch during the first inning of the 2012 All Star Futures Game at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

Bold Predictions (Prospect Edition)

• Vamosi: Kyle Zimmer will be in Kansas City by the end of the season in the bullpen.
• Henry: Cheslor Cuthbert is going to have a good year and reestablish his status as a top prospect.
• Meade: Kyle Smith dominates in high A, moves up to AA and continues to pitch well. He becomes a top-100 prospect.
• Botts: Yordano Ventura will occupy the fifth spot in the rotation as a permanent move before season’s end.
• McLaughlin: Sam Selman continues to dominate after his impressive first professional season and has a fast rise to High A. Reminds people that Kyle Zimmer wasn’t the only top college pitcher drafted by the Royals in 2012.
• Ellis: The barely seen Bubba Starling will impress this year and make the jump from Rookie league up to AA with an impressive display of power and speed, putting critics (like those at Fangraphs) and questions to rest. This is the year Starling earns his lofty Baseball America ranking. Bubba puts himself on the map in a big way this year…and challenges for a spot in the Royals OF in 2014.
• Samuels: Miguel Almonte starts to soar up the prospect rankings by dominating the competition at the Low A level, before finishing the season at Wilmington as a 20 year-old.
• Parker: At some point in the second half Christian Colon becomes the team’s starting second baseman.
• Evans: Yordano Ventura moves into the starting rotation by September. I don’t know, why not? Although, I feel that this may only happen if the Royals are out of contention. So maybe I shouldn’t predict this?
• Scobee: Maybe not so “bold”, but Yordano Ventura is dominating the minors so much the Royals are forced to bring him to the big leagues. At first he’s used as a long man, spot starter, but then he forces his way into consistent starts, and ends up the second best starter by the end of the year. (Which isn’t so bold considering there’s only one above average starter on the roster)
• Engel: Outfielder Alexi Rivera crushes in the rookie league and jumps into the Royals top 15 prospects.

Mar 18, 2013; Surprise, AZ, USA; Kansas City Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer (35) at bat during the first inning against the Texas Rangers at Surprise Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

Win Total Predictions

• Vamosi: 78-84
• Henry: The Royals will have a better season, and finish it in a Royal sort of way at 80 and 82 coming up just short of .500 and leading to an interesting off season.  The rotation is very average, and the offense is as well unless there is some major progression from Moose and Hosmer.
• Meade: 90-72. I stated as much in a post a couple weeks ago, and I’m sticking to it.
• Botts: Between Wade Davis, Ervin Santana and James Shields, Royals improve win total from 2012 by 15 wins. 87-75 finishing second behind Detroit.
• McLaughlin: 85-77. Hochevar to the pen and James Shields anchoring the staff puts this team above 500 for the first time since 2003.
• Ellis: 87-75
• Samuels: 85-77, good enough for 2nd place in the AL Central, and 4 games out of a wild card berth. I really want to see a division title, but the Tigers are going to be a very good team. The Royals will hang around and play meaningful games in September for the first time in 10 years, which is an exciting, yet sad, statement to make.
• Parker: 80-82. The Royals are getting closer but aren’t quite there yet though I do think they’ll hang around the top of the division until the middle of August. That will likely disappoint some people, but considering they haven’t hung around the race that long since 2003, I’ll take it.
• Evans: 85-77. I’m not comfortable jumping into the 90-win pool. It’s a bit too out of my comfort zone. I don’t think the Royals win enough to take the division. I think wild-card is a possibility if everything falls into place. But again, “if everything falls into place” sounds like something I said last year.
• Scobee: 78-84. The so called upgrade in pitching ends up being negligible combined with only having three above average bats on offense. The Royals once again finish last in the majors in walks, and once again no one can figure out just way the offense won’t live up to its “potential”.
• Engel: 82-80
• Kings of Kauffman average win total: 84.8

February 21, 2013; Port Charlotte, FL, USA; Tampa Bay Rays outfleder WIl Myers (60) poses for a picture during photo day at Charlotte Sports Park. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Wil Myers Home Run Predictions

• Vamosi: MLB 10, MiLB 18, I think Tampa Bay will keep him in the minors for most of the first half and when he gets called up playing at the Trop will hurt this numbers.
• Henry: He will likely be in the minors for a couple of months, and that will limit him to 300 to 400 PAs and 11 HR.
• Meade: Major League 7, Minor League 12
• Botts: MLB 6, MiLB 19
• McLaughlin: 14 at the major league level after a fast start in triple A gets him called up to the big club very early in the season.
• Ellis: Myers will start off the year in AAA again, and will likely get off to another hot start. I don’t know when he’ll be promoted, but I think he will hit come up to the big leagues and, while adjusting, will still put up some decent numbers. I look for 12 homers at the big league level.
• Samuels: I think Myers hits around 15 in AAA before being promoted, and he gets another 7 at the major league level. I also predict that the Myers/Shields trade will be proclaimed as a victory or a loss based on Myers’ performance, which will cause me to shake my head in derision.
• Evans:  27 – 12 in the minors, 15 in the majors. Breaking up is hard to do.
• Engel: He’ll come up in June and hit 15 homers for Tampa.

Mar 5, 2013; Surprise, AZ, USA; Kansas City Royals catcher Brett Hayes (right) is congratulated by manager Ned Yost (left) after hitting a solo home run during the second inning against the Oakland Athletics at Surprise Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

Final thoughts

Vamosi:

While I think Kansas City will be better in 2013 than they’ve been in sometime I feel they fail to get to .500. Starting pitching will be better but can KC solve the Detroit problem of last (lost a lot of one run games in going 5-13 against the Tigers) season. I’ve got the Royals making a six game improvement from last season and will be competitive all season long, but the optimism is as high as its been.

Henry:

My general feeling is that without an upgrade at right field, and my fear of Hosmer struggling again, this offense still needs more time to mature.  The pitching staff is not good enough to carry the team yet.  Next year with Duffy and Paulino back, and maybe Zimmer or Lamb improving along with another year for the young guys in the offense, then we can start talking about contention.

Meade:

I’m extremely optimistic about the season, especially with how healthy the Royals currently are. The talent is there for them to be a playoff team, and the players they need to be good look solid so far.

Botts:

Overall, the Royals have definitely put themself in a spot to contend. The Royals main goals, especially early on, is to stay healthy from a pitching stand point. As for Dayton Moore, his role is to find a suitable replacement for Jeff Francoeur in right field, whether that is through the trade market or possibly the Royals’ farm system.

McLaughlin:

Optimism and anticipation are at the same levels as last season but with additions to the rotation, which were badly needed, this team competes as contends all the way into September.

Samuels:

I’m more optimistic about this team than I have been in years, and while I do expect significant improvement from the 2012 squad, I don’t think it will be enough to steal a playoff spot from Detroit. On the positive side, the city will be buzzing all summer long, and crowds will flock to the K in hopes that the longest active playoff drought in sports will come to an end.

Engel:

A lot of things have to go right, and there are questions about nearly every player, but the talent is improved and the rotation will be better. The Royals have more depth than last year as well, which should help them weather injuries. I’ve always been a James Shields fan and I like what I’ve seen from Wade Davis. A little luck, a little progression from the hitters and there could be some surprises. But nobody can expect the playoffs yet.

For a history of the franchise’s struggles with walks go check out this post by Rany last year.  Last year the Royals were dead last in the majors in walk rate at 6.6%, while the average rate is typically 8 to 8.5%.  As constructed the line-up in 2013 will not likely improve significantly in walk rate:

Salvador Perez has never shown a propensity to walk.  A 4% or so walk rate is the expectation, and getting above 5% would be shocking and exciting.

Eric Hosmer coming through the minors was supposed to have good pitch recognition, and his walk rates were great, walking 11.6% of the time.  He will probably have a walk rate of 9% or better and be a bright spot on this team for this particular facet.

Chris Getz has been named the 2B starter as expected.  He has been around long enough that we know what he is, and that is a below average walker.  He will have a 7% walk rate, give or take half a percent.

Alcides Escobar has managed to put up 6.5% walk rates only twice in any major or minor league season.  The last two years he has walked in 4.2% of PAs, so better than 5% is not likely.

Mike Moustakas may actually be able to put up average walk rates at some point in his career, but so far he has not at the major league level.  His major league time, about a year and a half, says that a 6.5% walk rate is the expectation with some hope for improvement as he ages.

Mar 16, 2013; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Kansas City Royals batter Mike Moustakas (8) hits a home run in the third inning during a spring training game against the Chicago Cubs at HoHoKam stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jennifer Hilderbrand-USA TODAY Sports

Alex Gordon knows how to take a walk.  He finished 35^th in the majors in walk percentage last year with a 10.1% rate.

Lorenzo Cain has gone back and forth on walks.  Projections have him hanging around 7% mostly.  He may be able to be better than that, but it remains to be seen in the big leagues.

Jeff Francoeur’s disdain for the walk has been well chronicled.  Hopefully there is a platoon partner at the least to offset him.  Jarrod Dyson seems to be decent at walking, but David Lough, not so much.  The plate appearances for the outfielders not named Gordon or Cain could help if Francoeur does not get a majority of the plate appearances.

Billy Butler is almost certainly going to be above average in walk rate.  He has been, and he is a very good hitter.  Last year he walked at an 8% rate, but he was better than that in each of the three seasons prior.  That puts him with Alex Gordon and Hosmer as the only players we should expect above average walks from.

Those players are going to cover the majority of Royal plate appearances in 2013 unless injuries or something unforseen changes things significantly.  If more than three of the nine places in the line-up are above average it would be surprising.  Even if that happens, Perez, Escobar, and Frenchy are likely to be way below average, and Moose and Getz will likely be below average, which is going to be hard to make up for.  Getting this team to an 8% walk rate would be amazing, and I am not expecting it.

This one thing could preclude the Royals from being an above average offense this year.  Typically there are only two ways to make up for a lack of ability in getting on base, and one of those things is luck.  Counting on luck aside, power is the only way to make significant headway.  Last year the Royals were a middle of the pack team in slugging if you look at the major leagues, but only 10th in the AL.  That says to me that the only way this offense is above average is for more power to come from Moose, Hosmer, Cain, and Perez.  The others are either already sources of power (Billy), or will never be (Getz).  Off-season comments from Ned Yost make me think the Royals are at least aware of this, and in a week we will start to see if a more powerful version of your Kansas City Royals can make this team more competitive.

Alex Gordon the disappointment has been redeemed, which is a great story.  He has posted 6.9 and 5.9 fWAR in the last two seasons respectively which puts him 5^th in the majors in fWAR over that time behind only Ryan Braun, Miguel Cabrera, Robinson Cano, and Andrew McCutchen.  He is a bona fide star by statistical nerd standards.  That being said, Gordon prior to 2011 had had only one season where his bat had been a positive versus a replacement player, and even then it was only good for half a win.

Billy Butler on the other hand has raked pretty much from day one.  In 2008 he struggled some posting his worst line of his career (.275/.324/.400) as a 22 year old.  Last year he had his best year yet by turning some doubles into dingers.  As the WAR statistic takes hold in the popular baseball world a little more, I would like to caution people in using it to completely evaluate anyone.  While trying to be unbiased context tends to be lost, and I believe within this team Billy has a lot of contextual value because he is the only guy I trust to be a significantly above average hitter in the coming year.  First let’s break down their WAR value differences, and then look at their positional value versus the league, and finally what would replacement look like to see the comparison.

September 24, 2012; Detroit, MI, USA; Kansas City Royals left fielder Alex Gordon (4) receives congratulations from designated hitter Billy Butler (16) after hitting a home run during the fourth inning against the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

So last year Billy had an fWAR of 3.2, or 1.7 WAR below Gordon.  Billy is ahead of Alex by almost 10 runs (1 win and almost 50 percent more runs above average) due to his bat, but he loses 2.7 when you add base running, fielding, and positional adjustments.  The base running I legitimately believe.  Billy cannot ever stretch for an extra base and he gets thrown out more often than he should, while Alex is a solid base runner.  After that adjustment the two are very close with Butler still slightly ahead, and it is fielding that makes the difference in the overall numbers.  Please don’t take the next part as me demeaning Gordon.  He is very good in LF, and his arm is valuable out there.  Still, defensive metrics, especially over one year samples, are very hard to trust.  So saying Alex’s defense makes him significantly more valuable than Billy is fine, but it may not be enough because…

It is not terribly difficult to find a left fielder.  The average WAR last year and projected 2013 (approx.) for the expected starters in LF for the American League this year are 2.83 and 2.33 (without Trout 2.32 and 1.99) respectively.  For the expected 2013 designated hitters the same two numbers are 1.27 and 1.49, so even if you throw Trout out because he is too awesome, this year’s Left Fielders were a little over a win better than the DHs and are projected to be half a win better in the coming year.  This could be taken to mean that it is harder to find a productive DH right now than you think.  I am tempted to go see what the production change when someone becomes a full time DH looks like.  Has anyone seen a study along those lines?  Anyway, DH gets a major ding on position in WAR that has to be completely made up for with the bat.  So what?  Isn’t that what WAR is supposed to do?  Maybe, but let us look at an example of what replacement means in this context.

If Alex Gordon was hurt the most likely scenario is that Cain slides over into left and Dyson starts in center.  That makes Jarrod Dyson our replacement player with some additional time for a guy like David Lough.  Projections have Dyson as better than replacement by a significant amount.  Given a full season, most would have him in the 1.5 to 2 WAR range.  That is a drop from Gordon, but not terrible.  Lough is closer to replacement if it ended up giving him a lot more time.  The three projections for him if extrapolated to a full season are .2, .8, and somewhere just above 1 WAR.  Let’s be conservative and say he is worth half a win above replacement over a full year.  Now think about Country Breakfast being out of the line-up.  Who would DH?  Dyson loses a ton of value without his speed in the outfield, and quite frankly the idea of a DH with 1 career home run is a bit absurd.  Lough is probably a liability at the plate as well.  I have no idea what the Royals would do if Billy was gone for an extended period of time.  They would be lucky to find replacement level.

Billy Butler is the best and most important bat in this line-up.  In fact, the whole extra interleague thing has me a little worried because it means more games where Butler is relegated to pinch hitting so that we can see our pitchers hack away.  Seriously National League, why?  Do you actually enjoy watching your pitchers flail about and/or lay down a bunt?  Billy was a win better than Gordon last year with the bat, and as far as expectation the difference may be larger than that (projections back this up).  Coupling the hitting value difference with the lack of a viable replacement for Butler, it would probably be more detrimental for the Royals to lose him than Gordon.  If I were starting a team from scratch I would rather have Gordon because he plays left so well, and will probably age better, but for this year and this team give me Billy Butler.

Hit us up at KoKMailbag@gmail.com. On to the bag:

Should Kelvin Herrera move to starter? Why won’t Crow? – Jeremy in Blue Springs

I love the idea of Herrera as a starter and I’m not sold on the reasons being given that he wouldn’t be able to do it. Just because a reliever transitions to starter doesn’t automatically mean that they need to start pacing themselves in an effort to get deeper into games. Of all the pitchers I’ve coached, trained, and all the innings I’ve thrown myself, to have the thought that pitch No.2 needed to be thrown with any less conscious effort than pitch No.88 is befuddling to me. And if I have a pitcher that’s worried about pitch No.88 in the first inning, then I don’t want him pitching for me.

And if there’s a worry that he’ll run out of gas, train better. The biggest misconception about pitchers is that they need some kind of outwardly endurance that can only be acquired by running lots and lots of miles; that pitching is a marathon. It’s not. It’s just not.

Pitching is just a bunch of sprints run one after another with somewhere between a 5 and 10 minute break every 18 or so. If you’re telling me that Herrera’s 100 mph, or any other pitcher’s fastball, can’t last for 6 to 7 sequences of 18 pitches over the course of 2 ½ hours, then I’ll show you an pitcher and an organization that doesn’t know how to condition.

What’s your deal with Gordon? – Steve in Wichita

I’m assuming this one is for me personally since I’m the resident Gordon fanboy around these parts.

I’m a sucker for elite athletes, and as much as I use statistics to frame my arguments, at my core I’m still a baseball fan with a player/coach/recruiter/scouts eye. And because of that the first thing I look for before anything else is the natural body control and movement skills that are unmistakable in terrific athletes. Gordon is one of those guys. There is no weakness to what his athleticism can do – except elite speed – and those are the guys that turn into All-Stars and top tier players. Those are the ones you bet on to fulfill their potential.

How would you have advised Dayton Moore this offseason? – Jordan in Ames

Use the only resource you are truly in abundance of: money. Not talent.

Wil Myers may or may not have been better than Jeff Francoeur this season, but given what we know of Francoeur and his career, the odds are not in his favor. And the idea that prospects are just prospects and they bust is the most self-fulfilling form of dis-logic imaginable. Under that same line of thinking Billy Butler would have never been good, Alex Gordon would have never been good, and any star on any team would have been, and will never be good. It’s the easy way to defend the players that are currently on the team without ever establishing who will be next…

I’m off the rails now…this offseason…

Attack with offense. This is still a lineup that is vastly unproven in the spots that need to improve, and incredibly proven in other spots that will most certainly see 600 plate appearances. The central focus on pitching and pitching only never made much sense to me. There are still at least three glaring holes in the every day lineup with at least two more that could easily be. That’s not a recipe for success.

Wil Myers may have been what the Royals needed to get a return like James Shields, but in the immortal words of Dr. Malcom in Jurassic Park: “you were so preoccupied with whether or not you could that you didn’t stop to think if you should.”

Alex Gordon was scratched on Monday by the Royals but it shouldn’t be a long term issue. Photo Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

Ned Yost told the media that Gordon noticed the tightness after taking some swings and the team gave him the day off. When Yost was asked about the concern of the injury he initially said he had none before saying he had one percent of concern.

Xavier Nady took his spot in left field with Jarrod Dyson batting leadoff against Arizona in a game in which KC belted 19-hits.

While Gordon’s injury appears to be nothing fans could feel a little worried considering the MASH unit the team turned out to be after Spring Training last year. Thankfully the club is taking the precautionary route since we’re only four games into camp.

Billy Butler and Mike Moustakas each had two hits apiece while combining for five RBIs before being removed. In addition, Chris Getz, Jeff Francoeur and Elliot Johnson had two-hit games. Getz also scored twice before Irving Falu came in to play. Max Ramirez hit a grand slam and Adam Moore hit another home run for KC

The Royals had three big innings scoring five runs off Texas starter Randall Delgado in the bottom of the first inning. Kansas City scored four in the fourth and five in the fifth inning before putting the final two more on the board in the eighth inning.

Chris Dwyer made his first start of the spring getting in 1.2 innings allowing just one hit but three runs though two earned and three walks, before Nate Adcock came in for 1.1 innings in which he allowed just one hit. Probably the most anticipated appearance on Monday was Noel Arguelles whom many have waited to see in live action.

Arguelles got two innings of work, allowing one run on three hits but did strike out two Rangers during his outing. J.C. Gutierrez, Blaine Boyer, Sugar Ray Marimon and Atahualpa Severino combined to not allow a hit or runs. Tomorrow Kansas City will play Cleveland with Wade Davis making his first start of the spring.

1. Alex Gordon
2. Alcides Escobar
3. Eric Hosmer
4. Billy Butler
5. Salvador Perez
6. Mike Moustakas
7. Jeff Francoeur
8. Johnny Giavotella
9. Jarrod Dyson

Feb 21, 2013; Surprise, AZ, USA; Kansas City Royals left fielder Alex Gordon (4) poses for a picture during photo day at the Royals Spring Training Facility. Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

Ned Yost hit a home run by putting Gordon at the top and Francoeur in the lower third. What’s not to love? I’m usually quick to criticize a bizarre batting order so I thought that even though it’s only Spring Training, I’d show Ned some love.

Gordon should remain at the top of the order. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

Piggybacking off a great Marcus Meade article regarding flawed logic and proper use of talent…I thought I’d take a closer look at how the batting order should shake out this year.

The “rules” of the lineup generally dictate a speed guy at the top, a decent bat handler in the second spot…a guy who can slap the ball around, bunt, etc. Then of course your best hitter slots in at three, with the best power hitter in the cleanup spot, and so on, and so on. Not all teams follow this blueprint, though. Sometimes due to a forward thinking manager, and sometimes out of necessity.

This team, for example, has gone with Alex Gordon at leadoff, who many would argue is not  your typical leadoff man. He’s not a prolific base stealer. He’s got some good pop in his bat, which most would argue belongs in the middle of the order. He has, however, been very productive out of the spot and I’m not ready to cave to the old school train of thought. As we’ve shown over the past few months HERE (Jeff Parker) and HERE (yours truly), at least a couple of us like the idea of leaving him as the leadoff batter. I bring up the Alex Gordon debate to highlight different school of thought. Where, according to a more sabermetric approach, should Alex (and everyone else, for that matter) hit?

In a book titled, well, The Book, authors Tom Tango, Mitchel Lichtman, and Andy Dolphin have done extensive research on topics, including lineup optimization, and compared their findings to the old school, unwritten rule book of baseball. What did they find? According to the authors, while the general consensus has always been to go with the fast guy up top, the new train of thought says OBP is king. If we go on that idea alone, Billy Butler would lead off, which seems laughable, right?

The numbers say the three best hitters on a team should bat in the #1, 2, and 4 spots of a lineup, while the fourth and fifth best hitters should take the #3 and 5 positions. The first two guys in the lineup should have more walks than those batting in the fourth and fifth spots, and from the sixth spot through the bottom of the order, you just arrange the hitters in descending quality.

Simple enough…but wait…there’s more.

The researchers also assessed the run value of each possible batting event. They claim that hits by the first two batters in the lineup will usually generate more runs than hits from any other spot in the order, with the exception of the cleanup hitter. They go on to point out these two batters will start every game for you (obviously), and then generally come to bat later with runners on base. So what’s wrong with having guys who hit for a little power in those spots? Absolutely nothing, in my opinion.

If these two batters will hit more often than anyone else in the game, and hits by these players generate more runs than hits anywhere else in the lineup, it does makes sense to place a couple of your best guys here. That said, just because Butler had the highest OBP last year, I don’t think he’s the ideal leadoff guy. He’s got some power that would be wasted at that spot (he could homer with a man on base versus bases empty, for example). So I will start off by saying that yes, it appears Alex Gordon was the ideal leadoff man in 2012, given that he also led the team in walks.

But let’s not base this lineup on last year’s numbers. I’m going to jump over to Fangraphs and look at the various projections available for each player, and we’ll build from there. Taking the four available projections for each player, I’ll come up with their average projections for OBP, SLG, OPS, and home runs, and we’ll build from there.

Is Hosmer a number two hitter? Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

According to the projected OPS numbers, our best three batters in 2013 are likely to be Butler (.867), Gordon (.823), and Eric Hosmer (.797). I have to admit, I was surprised at Hosmer ranking third…not that I don’t think he’s fully capable. So now we plug these three into the first two slots of the lineup, along with choosing our cleanup hitter.

Butler and Hosmer are both projected to have a similar walk rate, somewhere in the range of 9-10%, with Gordon closer to 11%. Their home runs are projected at 25 for Butler, 20 for Hosmer, and 19 for Gordon. Based on all this, I say we go with Gordon and Hosmer at the top, and Butler as our cleanup guy.

Now that we’ve tackled that piece of the lineup, we move on to the third and fifth spots.

The Book says one problem with the common lineup is that managers put their best hitter (and often the guy with the highest OBP) in the third position of the order. The authors found that the #3 hitter has more plate appearances with two out and the bases empty, leading to the theory that the value of any hit other than a homer (the only way to generate a run in that circumstance) is lower in this spot than any of the other top five. Given this information, we should place our fourth best hitter in #5 spot, while our fifth best hitter bats third.

Batting third…. Mandatory Credit: Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports

Going back to the projections, our fourth best hitter should be Mike Moustakas, so I’ll plug him in as our #5 hitter, while our #3 hitter becomes Salvador Perez. The top of the order now goes like this: Gordon, Hosmer, Perez, Butler, Moustakas. This allows Butler, our best hitter, more situations with runners on base, where Perez could hit more often in less impactful (bases empty) situations.

At this point, we basically just place the remaining hitters in order from best to worst. That would be Lorenzo Cain, Jeff Francoeur (not that I’d be sad to see Jarrod Dyson get plenty of playing time – although he’s projected to pretty much match his 2012 OPS of .650), and then some combination of Alcides Escobar and whoever is on second base. Depending on who wins the battle between Chris Getz and Johnny Giavotella, it could place Escobar as either the #8 hitter (with Getz batting last), or the #9 (with Gio taking the #8 spot). Of course, predicting what will happen at second base is a crap shoot at this point. I think Getz should get the job at this point, so we’ll just go with him as our guy for this exercise.

That leaves us with the following:

Alex Gordon, LF (.823 OPS, 19 HR)

Eric Hosmer, 1B (.797 OPS, 20 HR)

Salvador Perez, C (.766 OPS, 16 HR)

Billy Butler, DH (.867 OPS, 25 HR)

Mike Moustakas, 3B (.767 OPS, 22 HR)

Lorenzo Cain, CF (.738 OPS, 12 HR)

Jeff Francoeur, RF (.721 OPS, 14 HR)

Alcides Escobar, SS (.684 OPS, 5 HR)

Chris Getz, 2B (.655 OPS, 1 HR)

After all this, I feel like running on the field at a game this year and reenacting the famous scene from …And Justice For All.

While not the lineup I would’ve scratched out on paper, it’s not too outlandish. What do you think? Would you be comfortable with this as the opening day lineup for your Kansas City Royals?

The rest of this story is 5 minutes and 46 seconds of pure swoon-inducing enjoyment as Gordon beasts out on some ankle straps, makes an agility ladder his bitch, and reps through some side-to-side pull ups while the “And 1” hype dude does a voice over.

Commit to be fit. Enjoy yourselves. (h/t @speck60)

Hosmer’s entire 2012 was upside down. Mandatory Credit: John Rieger-USA TODAY Sports

I’ve harped on the starting pitching quite a bit over the past few months, so I thought it only to pick on the position players for a change. I’ve discussed how bad the rotation was in 2012, and where it should needs be in 2013. So…what about the other guys?

Like I did with the pitchers, I’ll take a simple look at this by using fWAR (from Fangraphs). In the American League last year, the average team had a total position player WAR of 21.27. For all the talk about how bad the starting pitching was last season, we tend to overlook how bad the other guys were…the Royals total WAR for position players was 17.3, good for tenth place in the AL.

It’s not that fans are oblivious to the down years guys had at the plate (and in the field)…it’s just that the pitching was so terrible…and at least these hitters have potential. That said, even with the improved pitching rotation, these hitters are going to have to produce. Eric Hosmer has to bounce back. Alex Gordon and Billy Butler need to keep doing what they do. Salvador Perez needs to stay healthy. The list goes on and on.

So where did we go wrong? Well, we may as well go ahead and throw this name out there first – Jeff Francoeur. We are all fully aware of the negative impact on the team…his fWAR was a -1.2, and he put up negative numbers in both the fielding and base running categories. While I don’t expect to see him play that poorly again, I hope that if he does, he finds himself watching more games from the dugout.

The next major problem? Our golden boy from 2011, Eric Hosmer, was just as bad. Sure, we give him a pass…he’s young, he’s having a sophomore slump, he’ll improve…it’s just a matter of time. Well, he better improve. Last year he had a -1.1 fWAR and a terrible season in the field according to every defensive metric I’ve seen. It’s not time to hit the panic button on Hosmer, we know he can hit and play defense, but he needs to get on track if this team’s going to win in 2013.

No other player of consequence was below zero on the fWAR scale. Together, these guys had a significant negative effect on the overall number. Even if we just brought them back to zero, that removes a -2.3 impact on the fWAR of the team, bringing it up to 19.6, which is still below average, but it’s getting there.

Moooooooooose…. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

Bright spots on the team were, of course, Alex Gordon (5.9) and Billy Butler (3.2). Mike Moustakas, who wound up struggling at the plate, posted a solid 3.5, good for second best on the team. Perez was so productive at the plate and behind the dish, he posted a 2.6 in just 76 games, a number matched by Alcides Escobar. Those five players alone add up to an fWAR of 17.8. Lorenzo Cain, a player  I think highly of, added a 1.7 fWAR in only 61 games. If he stays healthy, I predict that number could more than double.

Fans are excited when it comes to this group, and with good reason. This is a talented bunch of players. The hopelessness surrounding the 2012 starting rotation does not apply here. The team had some bad luck with Perez and Cain, and Hosmer struggled to make adjustments in year two. But over at Fangraphs, the Bill James projections have him batting .276 in 2013, with 20 homers, and an OPS of .784. That’s more in line with his rookie campaign, and very much within reach. For all of his struggles last year, Hosmer showed an improved walk rate (up 3.4%) and was a solid base runner, racking up 16 steals. Hopefully the rest of his game catches up. Soon.

If Cain and Perez stay healthy (knock on wood), it’s a safe assumption we can move their numbers up the scale a bit. Let’s say Perez is a 3.5, Cain is a 3.4, and Hosmer bounces back to post an fWAR of 2. If those other four – Gordon, Butler, Moose, and Escobar – play at the same level, that gives us 22.4 between those eight players. That’s the kind of production, along with the overhauled rotation, that makes for a pretty good baseball team – even with Frenchy and an unsettled second base situation (hey…nobody has a perfect lineup).

The rotation was definitely not the only problem in 2012. This part of the puzzle, however, seems to come with a much simpler solution, and the pieces are already in place.

August 22, 2012; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; Kansas City Royals left fielder Alex Gordon (4) on deck to bat against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

The Royals in their history have been prone to throwing a speedster at the top of the lineup regardless of an ability to get on base. I single Kansas City out here because this is a Royals blog but this line of thinking is popular across all of baseball. It’s why somebody like Omar Moreno can accumulate over 3500 plate appearances at leadoff despite a .306 career on-base percentage. Speed kills, but it also blinds.

Despite the presence of Kenny Lofton Jarrod Dyson on the roster I firmly believe that Gordon remains the best option to bat first. He’s one of the better leadoff hitters in team history, if not the best. Ned Yost hit a home run when he inserted Gordon at the top of the order two years ago. It was an outside the box type of thinking that we’re not accustomed to seeing in Kansas City. All Gordon has does in that spot is put up two of the top four highest on-base percentages by a Royals leadoff hitter (min. 250 PAs).

In a perfect world you would absolutely want a Lofton type of player batting first. Kansas City doesn’t have one though. Luckily they just happen to have someone better.

Sure, Billy Butler was an All-Star last year and Eric Hosmer is the wunderkind, but after two Gold Glove Awards and two strong seasons in a row (plus his pre-majors hype and pedigree), Gordon fits the bill. He’s a local-ish kid (Lincoln, Nebraska’s close enough right?) playing for a team he grew up following. He does just about everything in the field. He looks the part. There’s a contest to see which Major League player gets put on the cover of MLB ’13 The Show for Playstation 3 and if the Royals had a candidate, I’d say it’d be Gordon.

Aug 18, 2012; Kansas City, MO, USA; Kansas City Royals left fielder Alex Gordon (4) drives in a run with a double in the first inning against the Chicago White Sox at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: John Rieger-USA TODAY Sports

But if it weren’t for Gordon realizing success in 2011 and proving it in 2012, he wouldn’t be in line for that kind of stature. Dubbed “the next George Brett” – an unfair set of expectations – Gordon is now setting himself up to be his own player and, if the Royals can get some playoff games over the next few years, is setting himself up to be among the most beloved players in franchise history. He’s already in the middle of one of the best stretches in franchise history.

I was thinking about which batters might break out in 2013, but started to think that Butler is established. Salvador Perez has had two parts of seasons combine for a strong debut, and he’s drawn a share of buzz. Eric Hosmer had a strong rookie year, Mike Moustakas had a strong end of 2011 that carried into 2012, and Alcides Escobar has been on the map for a while. So rather than dig into who that might be, my mind drifted into Gordon’s breakout two years ago and some other reasons for it occurring.

I read this article from Beyond the Box Score regarding which hitting metrics correlate from one year to the next. Gordon’s batting average on balls in play was .358 in 2011 when he finally produced for a full season. He seemed like a prime regression candidate as that measurement would, presumably, fall more towards the league-average .300 range. It didn’t. His BABIP was .356 in 2012 and his numbers were similar other than his home run and double numbers (which isn’t a huge difference in extra base hits, but does create a gap in his slugging percentage).

BABIP doesn’t correlate strongly from one year to the next, but what helped Gordon maintain his production so well was that he had high line-drive percentages both seasons (22% and 25% according to FanGraphs) and line drives usually turn into hits.

We know that he did a lot of work with Kevin Seitzer and made slight changes to his approach to hit the ball the other way more. His hit charts from TexasLeaguers.com show some of those results:

On the left, Gordon’s hit chart for 2007-2010. On the right, his hits from 2011-2012.

Hits are bunched more towards center and left field in 2011 and 2012. He also worked more gap-to-gap from the looks of the charts.

What the BtB article showed as the metric that correlated most from year-to-year is contact percentage. While the approach seemed to help Gordon hit the ball to all fields, I figured maybe he made more contact as well in the last two seasons. Turns out that he did.

In his time in the majors during his first four years, Gordon made contact 75.5%, 76.3%, 76.3% and 78.1% of the time, progressing each year. In 2011, that trend continued when he made contact 78.8% of the time and reached 80% last season. As he’s made more contact, he’s had more success. I see that as a combination of his talent, the approach and making solid contact (he’s strong, patient enough to get his pitch and barrels up the ball, all good things).

What I didn’t anticipate, though, was that Gordon swung at pitches outside the zone more in 2011 and 2012 than he had in the earlier period. While he’s willing to take a walk, he’s also more aggressive when a pitch is close to the zone. Part of that could be the approach. Where he may have laid off a pitch outside in the past, now, he knows he can drive it as long as he doesn’t try to pull it. He’s also swinging at pitches all over the strike zone.

At left, pitches swung at from 2007-2010. At right, swings from 2011-2012.

What’s interesting on his old swing chart is the gap in the top- and bottom-right corners. I should point out that from 2007-2010, Gordon saw 6390 pitches. In 2011 and 2012 combined, he saw 5659. Gordon seems to have expanded his selection both in and out of the zone. Where he was passing up pitches on the inside corner, he’s recently been going for them. He’s also swinging at down and away pitches a bit more from the looks of it. He’s not swinging more frequently, but he’s swinging at a more varied set of locations.

Gordon has looked much more comfortable at the plate the last two seasons. Possibly that’s from his switch the outfield. Maybe it’s because Billy Butler has developed into a key producer. Maybe it’s the advancement of prospects to the big league level that don’t make him have to be the savior of the franchise all by himself. Maybe it’s all of that. Whatever it is, with an increasing contact rate every year, better luck with his health, and an approach that works, it looks like Gordon’s a good bet to continue the solid production.

Last year, his numbers were largely unchanged. He hit less homers but led the league in doubles. He only stole 10 bases, but he also won the Gold Glove again. According to Baseball-Reference.com, he accumulated 7.1 WAR in 2011 and 6.2 WAR in 2012.

Aug 30, 2012; Kansas City, MO, USA; Kansas City Royals left fielder Alex Gordon (4) hits a home run in the sixth inning against the Detroit Tigers at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: John Rieger-USA TODAY Sports

I started to think about how he might fare next season. Even though he’ll turn 29 during the 2013 season, he doesn’t have a huge body of work to go off of. Despite early struggles as a rookie in 2007, he salvaged his year and turned out to be not that bad. In 2008, he was above average. But 2009 and 2010 were lost to various injuries and the outfield conversion project. My thought has been that the combination of a healthy season that allowed him to play every day and the move to left field, which may have given him something to put his mental energy towards besides any struggles at the plate, were the biggest factors that allowed his natural talent (and his noteworthy work ethic) to turn into results.

Even if there’s a slight question, though, he’s definitely trending upward. His BABIP is high (.358 and .356) the last two seasons but he’s also had reasonable line drive rates that led to those numbers. He’s more prone to the strikeout than anyone (139 and 140 the last two years), so that’ll impact how many balls make it into play so more hits and less balls in play…you see how it can work out to a high BABIP that isn’t a big regression red flag.

Gordon’s two great seasons stand out in Royals history. There have been 49 seasons in which a player reached 5 bWAR or better. Only 23 different players have hit that point and only 13 of those have had more than one 5+ bWAR season. If Gordon can reach that level again in 2013, he’ll join George Brett, Willie Wilson, Bret Saberhagen and Kevin Appier as the only players with more than two.

Should he reach 5 or better bWAR in 2013, he’ll be the second Royal to do so in three straight seasons. The only other Royals player to do so is obvious (Brett), who had six straight 5+ bWAR seasons from 1975 to 1980, and the only reason he didn’t have eight was because the 1981 season was shortened due to a player strike. In 89 games, Brett had 3.2 bWAR. On that point, Wilson was very close to four straight 5+ bWAR seasons too, as he had 4.1 bWAR in 1981 after hitting the 5+ mark in 1979 and 1980, then attaining 6.2 bWAR in 1982.

A 5+ bWAR season in 2013 from Gordon would make his 2011-2013 stretch one of the top three-season offensive* stretches in franchise history:

Gordon’s gotten 1.3 and 1.8 bWAR from his defense the last two years, so to get another 5 bWAR season in 2013, let’s say he needs 3.5 offensive bWAR. He may not hit 51 doubles again, but he could surpass 20 homers as in 2011. If he steals more bases, that adds value, too. His 2012 gave him 3.8 bWAR from the plate and 2011 gave him 5.1. I’d say that 5 bWAR in 2013 is conservative if he’s healthy.

Wilson’s 1979-1982 stretch ended in the season during which he turned 27. Brett’s 1980-1982 stretch fits Gordon’s best as he turned 29 on May 15, 1982 and Gordon will turn 29 next February, though Brett’s age 27 season (1980) was significantly better than Gordon’s (and just about anyone’s in baseball history for that matter, and Brett’s third base position had more demands offensively as well). And I don’t want to get carried away and try to compare Gordon to Brett – that comparison was forced upon him from the minute his name was called in the 2005 draft – but another season of 5.5 bWAR or better would leave Brett and Gordon as the only two hitters to have a three-year stretch of 19 bWAR or better.

And you know what? That’s plenty good. If he does it, I say let someone go out and strive to be the next Alex Gordon down the line.

*Bret Saberhagen’s 1987-1989 accumulated 20.4 bWAR. Kevin Appier’s 1991-1993 accumulated 19.8 bWAR which he then bested in a 1992-1994 stretch with 21.0 bWAR.

There were eleven seasons the past six years that matched the above criteria. That number placed them 25th among the 34 time periods. Only the offensive ineptitude of the 1990′s kept them from being closer to the bottom. And of course, Butler and Gordon. Those two account for the top six seasons under Moore, which is interesting, since they were already in the organization when Moore was hired.

September 24, 2012; Detroit, MI, USA; Kansas City Royals left fielder Alex Gordon (4) receives congratulations from designated hitter Billy Butler (16) after hitting a home run during the fourth inning against the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-US PRESSWIRE

Criticize the lack of a Moore acquisition or draftee in the top six all you want but Butler and Gordon have been really, really good. Seven of the seasons came in the last two years thanks in large part to the 2011 offensive explosion. The five seasons put up that year tied the 1980 and 1982 teams for the most in Royals history.

The top time period was 1975-1980 with 21 seasons. Butler and Gordon’s 140 OPS+ would have placed 9th on that list which is testament to how talented those teams were offensively (Speaking of really, really good, George Brett occupies 6 of the top 15 spots).

Here’s the complete rundown.

The Tampa Bay Rays are a team that have been connected with the Royals as possible player-swap partners. There’s a wealth of pitching talent in the southeast and it’s been postulated that the Royals could afford to give up a bat which said Rays have indicated they’re in need of.

I’ve been thinking a lot regarding how I would feel about shipping Billy Butler somewhere. I love Billy. He’s a great hitter and he’s a long-standing statesmen on this team, but he’s also a designated hitter that doesn’t really have the ability to excel at any other position. This makes it easier for me to see us parting with him. But that fact also lessens his value to other teams, particularly of the N.L. persuasion.

You can sit there deciding the happy medium where the Royals can give up something valuable but gain something valuable in return, or you can completely ignore it and resign yourself to heartache.

I generally am pretty intimate with resignation, but find it increasingly hard to be so when prestigious sports magazines comment on trade possibilities for Kansas City. That happened in this week’s copy of Sports Illustrated Magazine. A cousin of mine asked me if I’d read the article about the Royals getting David Price. I assured him I hadn’t and proceeded to do so.

It was one of those “5 Deals That Should Happen” type of lists and the #1 deal was David Price for Alex Gordon, Johnny Giovatella, and Mike Montgomery.

Are you kidding me? I think you pull the trigger on that deal in a heartbeat.

Gordo is one of my favorite Royals, but considering management’s refusal to utilize Giovatella, Montgomery’s struggles, and the Royals desperate need for an ace , I think this is a no-brainer.

Now, obviously this is just some sportswriter’s analysis of what HE thinks would be a good deal for both teams. I believe the likelihood of this happening is embarrassingly low. That being said, apparently one writer finds it worthwhile enough to list it in Sports Illustrated.

I know better than to be hopeful. The off-season is a time for wild possibilities. I honestly don’t think the proposed situation would be a good deal for the Rays.

What do you think about that idea? Would you put your stamp of approval on that trade for the sake of acquiring David Price?

Greg Holland…probably striking someone out. Mandatory Credit: Steven Bisig-US PRESSWIRE

The Royals have handed out a few team awards, most notably giving their Player and Pitcher of the Year trophies to Billy Butler and Greg Holland, respectively. If you’ve been keeping up with KoK content, you know how I feel about the Player of the Year Award. Hint: it should’ve been Alex Gordon.

Don’t get me wrong. Billy was the hitter of the year, no doubt. But not the player of the year. I get it. He was an All-Star and he raked all season. I don’t hate that he won…but Alex was more deserving.

The choice at pitcher is one I can’t argue with. There were no starters worthy of the nod, and Holland had a dominant year and has a lot of upside heading into 2013 as the closer.

At the start of the 2012 season, I had high hopes for Holland, as did most fans. He thanked us for that support by starting out the year with a couple of losses, a blown save, and an ERA of 11.37 in 6.1 innings before heading to the DL. I think the general consensus at that point was pretty much “Wha’ Happen?”

Holland, however, came back from the DL fairly quickly and hit the ground running. He returned to the bullpen on May 12 and threw 6.2 innings that month. He posted a 1.35 ERA with 8 K’s in that small sample size. Although he also walked 6, he only allowed a .095 batting average. And he never looked back.

Holland finished the season with a 7-4 record and 16 saves, becoming the closer after Jonathan Broxton  was traded to the Reds along with his giant pants. In 67 innings of work, Holland had an ERA of 2.96 and struck out 91 batters – that’s a rate of 12.22 K’s per 9 innings. According to Fangraphs, his WAR of 2.2 was the highest of any pitcher in Kansas City last season.

Alcides Escobar was honored this year with the Special Achievement Award. I can’t argue with this. Escobar is a freak. He may not be the team MVP, but he is definitely special. All he did this year was rack up 177 hits (most ever by a KC shortstop), steal 35 bases, hit 30 doubles, 7 triples, and raise his AVG and OBP both by about 40 points. Oh…and he makes highlight reel plays in the field pretty much every night. Well deserved award.

I got screwed out of TWO awards? Seriously? Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-US PRESSWIRE

Another award was given to Lorenzo Cain (seriously?), naming him the Royals Defensive Player of the Year. Yes, really. The same Lorenzo Cain who, due to injury, only managed to play 61 games in 2012. Yes…I know Alex Gordon won the Gold Glove.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Cain. I think he’s got a ton of potential and, if he can stay healthy, might prove to be the best defensive outfielder on the team. But for this year? Come on!

Gordon played 161 games with a 14.1 UZR versus Cain’s 61 games and 7 UZR. Gordon won his second straight Gold Glove in left field. And to top it off, Gordon got screwed out of the Player of the Year award. Give the guy SOMETHING. This one should have been a lock. I was shocked Cain received this honor. I won’t be shocked if he wins in the future…but for 2012, it should’ve been Alex.

You see, this season was just about like the rest for writing and following the Kansas City Royals. Lots of head scratching post-game comments, lots of mysterious amounts of playing time being divided amongst (mostly not good) players, and lots of frustrations over losing games with the same formula overnight. So because of all of that, and because this is almost November which means free agency season, trade season, and a whole-host of what-will-happen-next intrigue, I’ll stick with the emails that have been sent after game 162 was played.

As always, have a question for any of us on staff, or just like to vent about your children to someone, you can write us at KoKmailbag@gmail.com.

On to the bag:

What will you do if Alex Gordon is traded? – Fearless leader, @michaelengel

Part of me thinks Engel is sincere and legitimately concerned about my potential state of mind if such a transaction did go down. Most of me, however, thinks he’s actually rooting for an Alex Gordon trade to take place just so we can make some popcorn, crack open a frosty beverage, and watch my mental meltdown happen.

I can certainly understand the type of thinking that would lead Dayton Moore to trade his (by far) best player in hopes of not only trying to improve the team for 2013, but in an effort to better setup the 2014, ’15, and ’16 clubs for contention before Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer leave via free agency. I really can.

But that type of thinking is also symptomatic of an organization that continually makes odd decisions, and spouts empty rhetoric, that would trade their best player during his peak seasons, in an effort to get better. Nothing about trading Gordon makes this team better, because doing so robs the lineup of one of only two players that have above-average on-base skills, and there’s no one in the system that is ready to replace him. (Moving Wil Myers to left field just means more Jeff Francoeur, and that’s not good for anyone.)

I gotta hope Moore sees things the same way. Gotta. Because as much as it’s increasingly clear the process (or Process) of trying to establish a 25-man roster entirely of your own draft picks (taking some liberties there) isn’t working and never was going to, trading key players from the offensive side of the major league roster for pitching now only moves deficiencies from one part of the team, to the other.

Plus, if Gordon is traded, I don’t really have a schtick any more.

There’s rumors that the Royals would be willing to talk about including either (Eric) Hosmer or (Mike) Moustakas in a trade for pitching, isn’t it too early to give up on them? – Jeremy

I’d have to say yes, absolutely. In the case of Eric Hosmer, you can’t look at one season of him after all the years of relative dominance in the minor leagues, coupled with a near Rookie of the Year campaign, and declare him a “bust” or tradable. Let’s not forget he, just like Gordon was before him, was considered as “can’t miss” as “can’t miss” can-be. The industry was unanimous that Hosmer was headed for stardom, and that even if he didn’t ever reach elite status, he’d still be a high on-base guy with power and plus defense at first base.

You can’t let one year cloud your mind of the three strong years before it.

Moustakas on the other hand, he’d be the one that I’d at least consider trading for the right piece. At third base, his defense makes up for his lack of offense (weird saying that) but because that was never the case with him, I’d be worried that he’s going to have trouble repeating that type of season with the glove. And his corner infield mate, Moustakas was never really the “can’t miss” guy that Hosmer was among all the “prospect guys” because he’s plate discipline has always been suspect. There’s nothing he’s done to dispel that notion, either.

That being said, he’s still young, cheap, and playing a position that is incredibly weak throughout baseball. Moustakas is going to have an easier time being an above-average third baseman than Hosmer is being an above-average first baseman because the pool is so shallow on his side of the diamond. Trading him is going to have to come with a steep price tag as well.

What are your thoughts about Jeff Francoeur being named a finalist for a Gold Glove? – Mark, Leawood

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

No seriously. LOLOLOLOLOLOL.

It really just goes to show you that the Gold Glove awards, just like the Coaches Poll in college football, is conducted by a bunch of people that don’t really watch games.

This just went down, but Ervin Santana? I’m not sure whether to be excited, angry, (ticked) off, or think this is another sign that GMDM can’t put together a roster at the ML level. Maybe all of the above? – Eric

This is a tough one because I’ve gone there and back again with this trade and what I feel about it.

On the one hand Santana is a velocity decreasing, ERA increasing, homerun allowing factory that is going to make $13MM ($12MM covered by the Royals) in 2013 in the last year of his contract. He’s shown upside throughout his career with some quality stuff, a sound delivery, and the type of stretches that you could normally associate with a solid No.3 to No.2 starter. Though because the Royals already have a guy like that on their roster and in their rotation, and tried to change of scenery guy last year when they acquired Jonathan Sanchez, this acquisition would seem to be a reach and an awful ton of money to be giving to a guy that might not be all the good.

On the other the Royals have money to spend and positions to fill, and it is only a one-year contract, so maybe this is exactly the type of move the Royals need to be making. Let’s not forget this is a rotation that features Bruce Chen prominently, and if you think Santana isn’t an upgrade over Chen, then God, Jed, I don’t even want to know you.

When all arguments are laid out on the table regarding this trade you’re in one of either two camps: camp No.1 that says this is just another sign that Dayton Moore can’t put together a major league roster because he spends what money he has foolishly and on bad players. And you’d be right. And camp No.2 that says the Royals needed somebody for the starting rotation, and for what they gave up, for a pitcher on a one-year contract, this isn’t all that bad. And you’d be right.

I think for the time being I’m leaning towards camp No.2, but the more I think about it, I’m getting that sinking feeling that Moore acted before the market established (like he’s done so many times before) and the price he paid for an average-at-best pitcher will prove to be entirely too much.

Here’s to hoping I’m not right.

C’mon, you just knew I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to write about Alex Gordon.

The Kansas City Royals best player is a finalist again this season for the honor of being named best defensive player at his position*, and if you’re basing the vote off of all objective measures, it really isn’t close.

*presumably the best defensively player at his position, except for the people that vote for the award don’t watch all the games, and base their tally on offensive numbers too. See: Palmeiro, Rafael.

A couple days ago The Fielding Bible released their award winners and featured this little nugget about the Royals leftfielder:

“(Gordon) lapped the field with his 24 runs saved defensively, his nearest competitors being Martin Prado of Atlanta with 12 and Tampa Bay’s Desmond Jennings with 9 runs saved. Gordon was a unanimous choice for the 2012 Fielding Bible Award, finishing first on every single ballot cast by the panelists.”

No surprise really, to Royals fans, that Gordon gets the love he does with the advanced fielded metrics and to the highlight reel junkies. What is a surprise though is that Gordon actually improved defensively in 2012 over a season ago, which is almost remarkable when you consider the 2011 defensive campaign for Gordon could have been chalked up to a combination of luck and a perfect storm of events.

After posting a 10.5 UZR in 2011 – which was heavily weighted with his arm and ability to throw out runners – Gordon increased his overall numbers to a 14.1 UZR in 2012 thanks to a vast improvement in the one area that received the most criticism, his range (-2.1 RngR in 2011; 4.4 RngR in 2012).

And he would only figure to get better.  Gordon is entering his age 29 season and, after showing the type of durability that is more expected from a player of his level of athleticism and conditioning, we should only figure that he’ll continue to perform at the high level he’s been at the last two seasons. Plus, having yet another year under his belt at a new position could (hopefully) only lead to more good things to come.

Gordon should receive his second Gold Glove award when the announcements are made tomorrow. Now if we could only figure out how Alcides Escobar was left off the list of finalist for shortstops.

Another season of Royals baseball has ended short of the playoffs. All the talk will now be

Gordon or Butler for Royals MVP? Mandatory Credit: John Rieger-US PRESSWIRE

about the postseason or arguing over who should win the awards this year – specifically the AL MVP race, pitting Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels against Detroit Tigers Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera. That’s an interesting topic, though being a Royals site, I will bring the argument to Kansas City and we’ll look more at the argument of Billy Butler vs. Alex Gordon.

The Royals version of the argument is a similar one – though on a smaller scale. Trout is the all around player, the stat geek darling who, according to Fangraphs, has a 10.4 WAR, versus Cabrera’s obvious dominance in the three “big” or, some would argue “old school” categories this season, leading to his winning the first Triple Crown in 45 years – since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967.

Bringing it back to the local level, we have a similar argument in Kansas City. Billy Butler was the guy swining the big stick all season, and won the KC Triple Crown with his .313 AVG, 29 homers, and 107 RBI. Gordon, on the other hand had the highest WAR on the team with a 5.8 (tied for 5^th highest in the American League this year), which of course takes into account his increased value as a defensive player and base runner.

When you flip over a Billy Butler baseball card and see those stats on the back, you probably assume he was far and away the best Royals player this year. Gordon’s stat line, by the way, is .294 with 14 homers and 72 RBI. Not even close really. However, grading on WAR, you can see Gordon is far higher than Butler in the AL rankings this year.

Looking at the numbers above, it’s not as easy to just chalk up a victory for Butler (or Cabrera). We are trying to figure out the most valuable PLAYER…not the most valuable HITTER. That being the case, winning the Triple Crown – while a huge accomplishment, and obviously vey rare – does not necessarily make someone the MVP (of the American League or the Royals). While Cabrera accomplished the feat in the traditional sense, you could argue that Trout won his own Triple Crown, leading the league in runs, steals, and WAR. Not as conventional, but still a “Triple Crown”.

In this case, the value of guys like Trout and Gordon are obviously bumped due to their defensive skills and ability to run the bases. The base running thing comes much more into play for Trout than Gordon, obviously – but still, the point here is that both of these players are more quick on their feet than either Cabrera or Butler.

Looking at Butler vs. Gordon, we have Butler leading Gordon in OBP, SLG, OPS, AVG, HR, RBI. He also struck out at a lower rate than Gordon (a 3.1% difference) meaning he at least put the ball into play more often. Gordon of course stole more bases (but only 10 to Billy’s 2) and walked more often (2.1% higher rate than Butler). In addition, Gordon played Gold Glove caliber defense in left field again and has a higher base running score with a 1.9 while Billy put up a -5.7.

WAR says Gordon is a more valuable player but in looking at the raw numbers, Billy is the more valuable hitter by quite a bit, in my opinion. Both guys have their obvious value. Considering Billy was in a lineup spot that enabled him to collect RBI, where Gordon was leading off most of the year, the RBI comparison isn’t really a fair one. On the flip side, Gordon scored quite a bit more runs than Billy for the same reason. Looking at those numbers, we can easily come up with runs produced for each player (runs + RBI – home runs), which comes out to 151 for Gordon and 150 for Butler.

It’s a simple way of looking at things, but balances out the difference a bit for guys when they play different roles due to their lineup positions. You don’t expect Gordon to drive in 110 runs while batting leadoff, just as you don’t expect Butler to score runs like a leadoff hitter. Looking at the 151-150 runs produced, the two are very even with run production.

Given that he (barely) wins with number of runs produced, and has the clear advantage in the field and as a base runner, I’d give the nod to Gordon. WAR was apparently correct in valuing Gordon higher in this case. He’s been the best all around PLAYER this year, and I’d say that makes him a bit more valuable.

October 03, 2012; Kansas City, MO, USA; Detroit Tigers fans show their support for Detroit Tigers third basemen Miguel Cabrera

On the national level, it’s a similarly close case. Cabrera did win the Triple Crown of course, which is hard to ignore. Looking at runs produced for the two players, as we did for Gordon and Butler, Cabrera wins that battle as well by a score of 204 to 182. Trout does lead the way in WAR, as Gordon did over Butler with a 10.4 to Cabrera’s 7.2 and his defensive numbers are quite a bit more impressive with a UZR of 13.3, while Cabrera had a horrible -9.2 at third base for the Tigers. Trout also wins in base running (duh) with a value of 6.8 to -2.3 for Cabrera as well as 49 steals (leading the league) to just 4 for Cabrera.

I’m not sure how the MVP ballot will shake out this year…or, for that matter, who will win the Royals Player of the Year.

The baseball writers certainly have a tough job if they want to dig into things a bit. Or they could just take the easy way out and give it to the first Triple Crown winner in 45 years. My guess? Cabrera takes home the MVP hardware and Trout gets the nod for Rookie of the Year (in a landslide).

For the record, Trout and Gordon get the slight nods on my ballots, but I’m not sure there are any wrong answers here.

“It’s been four weeks since the last Monday Rant and the reason for the absence is really quite obvious: what is there, really, to write about?

The #OurMissionTime2012 season is barreling towards yet another uneventful close to yet another worse-than-mediocre record, and the same missteps and pratfalls that have plagued a losing franchise continue to do so because they just can’t seem to get out of their own way. Reasons are given for moving players in the lineup that make little logical sense, excuses are made for historically bad pitchers for reasons why their future is bright, and a “fiscally responsible” move is glossed over and painted with a “smart” brush when a compelling argument could be made that it really amounts to the organization being cheap.”

I wrote that lede a week ago as I tried to sit down and bang out yet another award-winning post. (unroll your eyes, that was sarcasm) After further reflection on where I am with my fandom and where the Royals are in their evolution to semi-relevance, I have to stop myself a little. Yes those same head-scratching moves are made, and the same illogical reasons are given by the Royals for decisions that seem to never pan out (“Jason Bourgeois and Humberto Quintero for a left-handed reliever with over a strikeout per inning, yes!”), but it is the final two months of the season and they are once again playing good baseball. Well, overall, I guess, before a pretty dreadful September

And so the reflection comes at a time when columns and articles and tweets are written after a 17-11 month of August about what could have been. And even after a 12-17 September, there are still some making the argument that if, just if, the Royals had played this “well” (.447 winning percentage) during the devastating 12-game losing streak in April, they would be 76-83 on the year. A perfectly justifiable way of thinking if you’re willing to tilt your head and squint your eyes just right. But those 12 games still count, and the glaring holes in a team whose success is built solely on contact, both offensively and defensively, doesn’t scale well over a full season.

Plus, doesn’t this happen every September? Even if a quality stretch run after the Royals have long since been eliminated from playoff contention isn’t a true annual occurrence, it sure as heck seems like it is. Whether it’s the “Kyle Davies is finally good” months or the will he/won’t he wishy-wash of whether Luke Hochevar has finally figured out why he’s so historically bad at throwing a baseball, September is always a time for optimism around Royals-land, at least that’s what the narrative wants fans to believe.

There are always a lot a lot of words written across the Internet about whether September performances are relevant or not, but in the Royals case it mostly is the latter of those two answers. With everyone losing their minds that maybe, just maybe, this time it’s the former.

This, fortunately, it’s not one of those posts.

Because, the Royals final two months this year is largely irrelevant due to three main storylines that show the symptoms of bad baseball with the decisions being made. Decisions that have put the Dayton Moore-led Royals at 87 loses or more in each of his six seasons as General Manager.

Alex Gordon is moved out of leadoff to the number three spot in the order

For the most part, lineup order has been proven to be a near meaningless aspect of run scoring from game-to-game. However, one of the main tenants of lineup order is that the guys that make the least amount of outs per plate appearances need to bat more often. Thus, they need to bat higher in the order.

Now there’s a certain dance managers must do in order to balance their on-base guys with their power guys in order to maximize those times runners are actually on base. That being said, the Royals have only two guys in their lineup that fit either description (well, that’s being generous, as neither is really a “power guy”), and both are currently hitting No.3 and No.4 (Alex Gordon and Billy Butler) and both for the better part of the last two months have been batting behind some combination of on-base-averse Jarrod Dyson, Lorenzo Cain, Jason Bourgeois, and to a lesser extent, Alcides Escobar.

What we were told at the time is that Alex Gordon is a “run producer” (whatever that means) and that he profiles more as a No.3 hitter than a leadoff hitter (he doesn’t), so moving him to the middle of the order now gets him more acclimated to a spot that figures to be his long-term home. Except, there’s no evidence to support either the argument that Gordon is better suited outside of leadoff or that he’s a “run producer” (whatever that means).

Since moving down two spots in the order to a more “run producing” role, the Royals also moved at least one player ahead of Gordon who rarely gets on base and doesn’t profile as a leadoff hitter, unless we’re talking 1970s baseball.  Also, Gordon’s numbers have shown him to be less patient and thus, a less productive player:

Previous 70 games before the move: .334/.398/.500

The 43 games since the move: .287/.344/.461

What’s most telling about these numbers isn’t that there’s a near 50-point difference in on-base percentage, and a near 40-point difference in slugging, it’s that they’re entirely predictable.

Obviously there’s a difference in sample sizes but the root cause of drop in production is because Gordon has been officially #Royaled into the hack-away approach to run producing. It’s how they do things. They don’t want guys up there taking walks; they want guys looking to “drive in runs”. Which brings up two very important questions:

How is the so-called “run producer” supposed to produce runs when you’re batting guys in front of them that never get on base?

If walks are bad, does that mean outs are good?

This lessening of production isn’t affecting just the player being moved either. Over that same time frame, here are the overall numbers for team production:

Previous 70 games before the move: .271/.319/.412

The 43 games since the move: .261/.310/.381

Not a drastic shift, but a shift nonetheless, especially when you consider that for much of the 70 games with Gordon batting leadoff the Royals were without Salvador Perez or Lorenzo Cain, and playing Jeff Francoeur’s black-hole bat every day instead of the occasional day off he has been getting.

Maybe this is all much ado about nothing. Maybe. But the fact that this is 2012 and nearly every other franchise is Major League Baseball has at least acknowledge the importance of on-base percentage, the Royals continue preach and practice things that only make winning more difficult.

And for those that don’t think moving Gordon down three spots in the order amounts to much: in his 70 games batting leadoff he average 4.62 plate appearances per game; in his 43 games batting third, 4.25. Spread out over the course of 162 games, that’s 60 plate appearances.

Now, would you rather Alex Gordon be seeing those plate appearances, or some combination of Dyson, Cain, and Bourgeois?

Luke Hochevar still has what it takes to be a quality pitcher on a championship rotation

#LOL

We need to figure out what we have in Johnny Giavotella Irving Falu and Tony Abreu

Filed from the “let’s give playing time to the 30-year-old, career minor leaguer” department, there’s this gift that keeps on giving.

The argument against Johnny Giavotella to begin the year was a fairly simple one: Chris Getz was performing at a half-way decent level and Giavotella wasn’t.

See, everyone can get behind that.

At this point though not playing Giavotella is, well, that’s so Royals.

Nevermind what you may think of a player’s defensive abilities, when the team is fighting off another 90-loss season, is the argument over what a player “can’t” do even valid anymore? This is exactly the time to figure out if that player can get any better, and if he can be a member of the team next season.

But no, the Royals must find out what they have in either Falu or Abreu, because 30-year-old second basemen that can play just a little defense are never readily available. Except, well yeah, they kind of are.

Giavotella has never really performed to his expectations of what his minor league numbers suggested at the big league level, but his opportunities have never really been there either. There’s always been inconsistent playing team, a sure emphasis on being more aggressive at the plate (judging solely on evidence provided everyone else on the roster), and what must be a world of pressure on Giavotella to order produce just to work his way into the lineup the next day.

Maybe eventually it will be proven that Giavotella just isn’t as good as either Falu or Abreu. The only problem with that is that the Royals may well never find out for sure, and even if he isn’t, what purpose is there to sitting him on the bench, now, when the team isn’t winning anything anyway?

It’s a constant two steps forward and one step back for the organization. A song that could be put on repeat until the tape wears out, and a problem the Royals wouldn’t have if they’d just move on to MP3s already like the rest of baseball, instead of continuing to sing along with cassettes. Each of these moves may be defensible when taken individually, but each of them fits the face-palming cloud that’s hovered over the franchise for nearly three decades now.

Until the philosophy that makes these decisions possible changes, I’m not sure anyone should be able excuse this year because of injuries or “one bad stretch”. Benefit of the doubt doesn’t extend that far yet.

Kansas City Royals left fielder Alex Gordon. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-US PRESSWIRE

we know for certain – Alex Gordon is a heck of a hitter, whether leading off or batting third. But where SHOULD he hit?

Many fans are happy to see such a productive bat now hitting third, feeling Gordon is a run producer who was being wasted in the leadoff spot. Others will say he was great batting first, so why move him?

A case could be made either way. I’ll argue, with our current batch of position players, if Gordon’s not the leadoff hitter, who is?

It looks like the current lineup is likely to be intact in 2013, with the exception of Wil Myers being swapped in for Jeff Francoeur (Myers BETTER be our opening day right fielder). We have a pretty good idea of where most of these guys should fit into the lineup. That being the case…who is the leadoff man in 2013?

Candidate number one would be, in my opinion, Alcides Escobar. Escobar’s had a breakout 2012 at the plate, spending a great deal of time batting second. He’s got great contact skills, and while he doesn’t walk much, he puts the ball in play a lot. He’s got great speed, which most baseball people will tell you is key for the leadoff role, although it’s certainly not a requirement. Out of legitimate candidates for this spot, Escobar’s got a solid OBP, but still…it’s only .333 vs. a number like .360 for Gordon.

Kansas City Royals center fielder Lorenzo Cain (left) and Kansas City Royals short stop Alcides Escobar (right). Mandatory Credit: Kelvin Kuo-US PRESSWIRE

Next I’d like to nominate Lorenzo Cain. Yes, he’s had a rough season with injuries to his legs, but in his career as a professional, he’s not shown a tendency to be injury prone. I’m a believer that he’ll play a lot next year, after taking this winter to get healthy.

Like Escobar, Cain has fantastic speed. He put up some good numbers for Milwaukee in 2010, including a .348 OBP, which is higher than Escobar’s put up this year (although Escobar has done it over a much longer stretch). Cain’s shown quite a bit more pop than Escobar. Some would say his power would be wasted in the leadoff spot, although nobody said a good leadoff man can’t drive the ball (Gordon being a prime example). Until Cain shows he can get on base at a rate comparable to Gordon, though, I don’t think he’s the man. If he can stay healthy and prove he can get on like he did in 2010, he could be the guy.

I think we can safely rule out most of the other hitters on this team. Eric Hosmer, Billy Butler, Mike Moustakas, Salvador Perez…not really leadoff material. We know those guys ideally make up the middle of the order.

That leaves us with a couple more options. We’ve got Chris Getz, should he get the bulk of playing time at second base, and we’ve got Jarrod Dyson, who could play CF if Cain doesn’t prove to be durable. Maybe Dyson and Cain split time in CF, in an attempt to keep them both healthy and play the lefty/righty splits.

Looking at Getz, I’m not a believer. The Royals want Johnny Giavotella to win this job. He’s their guy. And it’s not like Getz has set the world on fire. Sure, he hit .275 this year in 64 games, but only got on base at a .314 clip. Dyson performed better, with a .333 OBP through 92 games, and has blazing speed.

So, are you sold on anyone yet? Or, like me…are you thinking to yourself, “Why NOT Alex Gordon?”

Look at this way, the lineup is an infinite loop. The guys who start it off will hit again before anyone else, meaning they hit more often. You want Gordon hitting more often than Getz, right? This means you want your best guys at the top, stacked up one after the other, driving each other in again and again.

To me, as the roster currently stands, the only real choice is Alex Gordon. Sure, he can drive the ball and collect RBI when in position to do so. But he can also be the guy who sets the table. Yes, Gordon with the third best SLG on the team, and the third best OPS on the team…but also the second best OBP.

“But all those doubles are meant to drive in base runners,” is what you’ll argue. Well allow me to retort.

Those same doubles put him in scoring position for guys like Escobar, Butler, Perez, Hosmer, Moose, etc. Is it wasting his ability to drive the ball into the gaps, when those doubles put him in scoring position? I don’t think so. Let Gordon hit 48 doubles and 5 triples from that spot. Let Escobar slap a single and drive him home, or just put the ball in play and move him to third. Then let the big boys knock him in. And hey, if Gordon hits a leadoff home run, what’s wrong with that? Nobody complained when Rickey Henderson did it. Isn’t Gordon just as valuable with an .800 OPS and 100 runs scored as he would be with an .800 OPS collecting RBI?

I think he is. And until someone else makes it obvious they can do the job…if not Gordon, then who?

What’s most puzzling about the move isn’t so much that Lough is seeing playing time in the Major Leagues – he’s probably better than Jeff Francouer at this point anyway – it’s that he’s seeing playing time ahead of Wil Myers, the Baseball America Minor League Player Of The Year. And, he’s batting leadoff instead of Alex Gordon.

Normally the latter fact shouldn’t concern a soul, but that is until Ned Yost unleashed a gem of a comment courtesy of this story on Royals.com:

“It’s not perfect. If I had a leadoff hitter, he wouldn’t be hitting leadoff. It’s just a spot where he kind of fits right now,” Yost said.

Read that back one more time and try not to cough up some Kool-Aid. The “he” Yost was referring to was Lough who had a .317 on-base percentage this season in Triple-A. The neon-colored elephant in the room wearing bells around its neck singing “Hello My Baby” like Michigan J. Frog Yost was referring to when he said “if I had a leadoff hitter…” is Alex Gordon.

The argument for Gordon staying as the leadoff hitter of an offense that struggles to score runs is compelling. The argument against Gordon staying as the leadoff hitter is flimsy. The argument that the Royals don’t currently have a leadoff hitter on their roster is insanity.

It’s one thing to send mixed signals to your franchise’s best prospect who is tearing apart the minor leagues the same way the two chosen ones did, and you pass him up for a promotion for some contrived Rule V, 40-man roster reason. It’s another to stick your head completely in the sand to having Gordon’s .360+ on-base percentage getting as many at-bats as possible in a lineup that shows no regard for the value of outs.

But, I guess that’s exactly why Gordon isn’t batting leadoff.

Ignore for a second the needs of the starting rotation. However apparent the holes are with the current 5-man setup, and they are apparent, there are equal amounts of questions that are yet to be answered surrounding an organization that continues to employ a swing first, second, third, and ask questions later, offensive approach.  And because of that offensive strategy added to a base running philosophy akin to the little league team whose runner keeps circling the bases because he represents the last run allowed to score in the inning, no matter how good the starting pitching becomes it might still be overshadowed by an offense that works itself into outs in any way possible.

Despite being 6^th in all of baseball in batting average at .268, the Royals are just 22^nd in runs scored. Surely a lot of that run-scoring disparity is due to so many outs being recorded on the base paths, but it’s also in large part due to the team’s inability to reach base without putting a ball in play.

The Royals currently are 29^th in baseball in walks drawn with 302. Major League average at this point in the season is 367. The Royals are so bad at drawing walks that the same amount that separates them from the Los Angeles Angels at 24^th, is just four less than what separates the Angels from the Los Angeles Dodgers in 12^th.

The distance between the Royals and a slightly above average team in walks drawn is really inexplicable when you consider the easiest way for a small market team to compete is to avoid outs any way possible, with drawing walks being a central component of that, and they are once again one of the very worst at it in the game.

But because the Royals do hit for a high average as a team the offense is looked at as a strength. And positions of strength are usually where teams look towards to trade from when attempting to improve other areas. Well, the most attractive trade pieces currently on the Major League roster are most likely the only two that are most helping the team’s cause of non-out making: Alex Gordon and Billy Butler.

In one you have a great athlete that plays Gold Glove (however meaningful a Gold Glove is) level defense while accumulating 6.9 fWAR last year, and will knock on the door of 5 fWAR this year. In the other you have a 26-year-old that’s turning into one of the better hitters in baseball. Both are under contract and are inexpensive, and both would figure to bring back the most in return if flipped for talent elsewhere.

But would it be worth it?

There doesn’t figure to be much of a difference in the offensive lineup that’s currently being fielded from the one that will be written on the scorecard in 2013. And with rumors circulating more and more that it won’t be until May of next year before Wil Myers takes the place of Out King Jeff Francoeur, there really isn’t much of a reason to expect much of a difference in run scoring and walks drawn.

This is simply an organization that doesn’t value walks, and because of that, it will always be difficult for them to score runs.

However much of an impact it would make on the pitching staff to trade either Gordon or Butler, the net gain might not be worth it when coupled with the crippling loss it would be to the offense.

I advocated last week on the Royalman Report that the best strategy at this point would be to stand pat and hope some of the young pitchers take a step forward, while also seeing if some combination of Aaron Crow, Kelvin Herrera, or even Joakim Soria can make an adjustment to the starting rotation. Would it be a gamble? Sure. But it’s one at this time the team can afford to make because the chance of any pitcher signing with Kansas City that’s distinguishably better than what is already in the rotation is slim.

The Royals are in need of a higher caliber starter than would be available for them in free agency, and possibly than would be better than available via trade. At this point, taking away from an offense that is already 40 runs below the American League average to make an insignificant upgrade over what is currently in the rotation, just wouldn’t be right.

There’s little chance any of the difference-making pitchers would sign with Kansas City. That’s just how it is. But unless there’s a real opportunity to sign one the next tier pitchers in free agency, there’s no sense in trading either Gordon or Butler for that guy.

The Good

Looking good, Billy Ray.

He’s been called overrated. He’s been called merely average. Some rather foggy-glassed fans have called him called a liability. What Billy Butler really is to the Kansas City Royals, is a remarkable rock of consistent and now, near elite level of production. (15^th in all of baseball in RC+) This season he’s no worse than the team’s second best hitter, and looking forward given the way things have gone this season, he would look to repeat that for at least the next few years.

As Butler’s power increases (homerun numbers anyway), his walk numbers would figure to do the same, even though they haven’t this season. And in a lineup and an organization that shows a complete disregard for outs of any manner on offense, having a batter that provides both categories in a lineup that’s rather void of either is invaluable.

The Bad

There’s an argument to be made for why Wil Myers has not, or is not playing baseball games in Kansas City. There is. I think. Maybe.

Whether it would be the 40-man crunch due to the Rule V draft in November, or the gaming of service time so Myers doesn’t hit free agency the year after Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas are scheduled to, the reasons for keeping Myers in Omaha are flimsy at best.

The organization already showed its hand in calling up players “when they were ready”. Hosmer was brought up a month into a season of clear non-contention to burn service time because he was deemed ready. Moustakas was the same, as was Danny Duffy. The Royals have already proven that they’re willing to shirk the normal rules of service time and money to get players to the big leagues once they’ve proven they’re ready.

So why is it that Myers continues to hit, and hit well, in Triple-A while Jeff Francoeur continues to be one of the worst players in baseball?

There’s probably a very, very good reason why Myers is still not in Kansas City. The worry would be, however, that the precedent has already been set by the organization that is now changing their rules to accommodate a player they’re well known to love, that just isn’t that good.

The Royals just had a decent road trip but still came away with a loss on Sunday, so the Royalman Report tried to hearken back to better days, then tried to come up with how to bring those good days back.

We talked with our own Kevin Scobee of Kings of Kauffman about the Royals hints about converting some relievers into starters. The conversation led to talking about Luke Hochevar and what’s gone wrong, Kyle Zimmer and what’s going right and what attributes of some relievers work best if they were asked to become starters.

We also talked about Billy Butler‘s power surge in 2012 and marveled at his consistency even in the middle of a breakout. Then we set our sights on Steve Balboni‘s record – and wallowed in the fact that we’re still Royals fans, left behind while other small market teams challenge for playoff spots. Year Six…

Don’t forget the Royalman Report is on every Sunday at 7 and catch our new show, The Kansas City Baseball Vault on ESPN 1510 AM Thursday’s at 6.

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The Royalman Report is hosted by Troy “Royalman” Olsen with co-host Michael Engel and features Chris “Fake Ned Yost” Kamler and 610 Sports blogger Jeff Herr and airs  live Sundays at 7 p.m. central time at RoyalmanReport.com as well as on Livestream.com/RoyalmanReport.

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His replacement will be organizational stalwart Rusty Kuntz, himself an outfield defensive coach in the organization and the man who worked primarily with Alex Gordon when he converted to left field in Omaha. Gordon won a Gold Glove in left last year, of course.

So that’s the news update.

Pardon me if this seems just too snarky, even for a Royals fan, but this is the kind of “deck chairs on the Titanic” kind of move that teams love to do. It’s not just the Royals, it’s sports. Sure, some of these little things do matter, but really, how consequential is a first base coach? Yes, the Royals stunk it up on the bases in 2012, especially early, but does one coaching change make that big of a difference? Are the Royals suddenly or even gradually going to make better decisions in the heat of the moment on the basepaths?

The Royals said that a change was warranted, and sure, maybe it was. I’m not really upset that Sisson is gone. I couldn’t grade the abilities of one baserunning coach over another. There’s not really a coaching WAR stat out there to try to quantify things. The Royals overall are better than average in total stolen bases, but they’ve seen their share of mistakes. I don’t know how much that goes onto Sisson versus placing the blame on the players. The coach prepares, the players execute.

I don’t want to misrepresent the Royals position on the move. I’m not suggesting that they think firing Doug Sisson makes this team a playoff contender right now and that all the problems are solved.

But my hunch, after watching this team for so long, is that they see this sort of move as doing something when it really looks more like a move for the move’s sake. They can say they did something to turn the bad play around, when really it doesn’t do anything.

Maybe there’s more to it and Sisson just wasn’t meshing with the rest of the staff. I don’t know. Hitting coaches and pitching coaches get a lot of credit for turning players around or getting the best out of them, but their influence is overstated at the big league levels. I’d guess that a very good player like Robinson Cano would be a very good hitter if his hitting coach were Kevin Seitzer or Groucho Marx. Placing blame, giving credit, these are difficult things to do fairly. Greg Schaum pointed out a contradiction: if Kuntz gets credit for turning around Gordon, does he take the blame for Wil Myers (apparently) not being ready as an outfielder? That’s who’s been working with him in the minors this whole time.

In the big picture, I don’t think it matters who’s coaching first, but it would then follow that such a move wouldn’t be necessary either. As I said before, this is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. But if the Royals win their next 50 games, prepare for Rusty Kuntz night at the K.

And as the Royals fade into oblivion yet again, there are rumors (aren’t there always?) that Dayton Moore is in talks with just about every team, about every player, as the trade deadline approaches. Of course, with those rumors always comes the caveat that the Royals need to be compelled to trade any of their players.

Yeah, because as this roster is currently constructed, contention is imminent, and trading players would negatively affect the future.

Aside from the obvious reasons to not hang on to a mostly untalented roster, there’s a stiff breeze blowing from the south from a franchise that’s wide-open for trading business, and looks intent on sending everything packing that’s not bolted firmly to the floor.

Jeff Luhnow took over the Houston Astros’ GM position in December – leaving the Cardinals organization and being a major player in their rising success over the past few years – and immediately became the (new) jewel of the saber-community eye. He interviewed Keith Law. He hired Mike Fast.* He immediately started unloading his over-valued, over-priced players nearing the end of their contracts.

*An admitted Royals fan. Poor guy.

And as this season’s trade deadline is nearing, the Astros have traded their closer (ahem), their first baseman, their third baseman, and their best starting pitcher. What each deal brought in return doesn’t matter as much as the reasons for doing so.

The Astros are a bad team, and holding on to players who a) can easily be replaced by a minor leaguer (Chris Johnson) b) serve little purpose on a losing ball club (Brett Myers) or c) just aren’t that good anymore past their recognizable name, would be a huge mistake (Carlos Lee). Huge.

Granted, where the Astros are in their process of rebuilding is (presumably, at least in narrative) different than where the Royals currently are in theirs. But the correlation between each of those causes for trades with Houston and Luhnow serves as a stark reminder of the missteps so far with Dayton Moore during his regime, and ones that hopefully he’s not repeating as the clock ends the deadline tomorrow.

A)   Jeff Francoeur, Yuniesky Betancourt: two players currently on the roster that can, and most assuredly would, be more than adequately replaced by younger, cheaper players currently in Triple-A. Of course, at this point, another team would have to want either of these players, and there’s little reason to think any objective mind would care to have Francoeur wounded-giraffing his way around their outfield and swinging at everything that moves at the plate, or Betancourt Betancourting everywhere.

B)   Jonathan Broxton, or, Joakim Soria redux: the “closer” is a largely overrated role on a pitching staff anyway, but especially one on a regime that has yet to finish a season less than 10 games under .500. There’s no place for Broxton on this team anymore, given how bad that been over the past month-plus, and now would be the ideal time to find out if Aaron Crow, Greg Holland, Tim Collins, or Kelvin Herrera can step in to fill the role in order to prepare for next season.

C)   Jeff Francoeur, again: this one is just too easy.  Francoeur at this point in his career is quite possibly the worst everyday player in baseball. His negative 1.7 fWAR is the lowest in the major leagues, and there’s no amount of contrived leadership or naked batting practice that can make up for that. The contract offered to Francoeur was a mistake then, and remains a beacon for the reason teams should never pay for a player coming off a career year, before his positional market establishes. Dayton Moore beat the market to the punch when he signed Francoeur to his 2 year, $13MM deal, and the market punched back with a right-hook from hell.

If the Royals really wanted to be daring they would take this opportunity of over-valued relievers, and float the idea of a Broxton-plus package that consisted of both he and one of the other very cheap, and very young, bullpen arms.

Losing Holland, Collins, Herrera, or Crow could be a tough pill to swallow simply from a salary stand point, but there’s few other players currently on the roster that the Royals could flip in exchange for actual talent, and not have it be a major setback to the overall goal.

No matter the case, whether the Royals choose to be daring or practical as the final hours of the deadline approach, they cannot afford to stand-pat. Patience in The Process has been preached each year at this time, and because of that, moves that could have made a dramatic impact on the roster haven’t been done.

For this season, one in which more questions were raised than answers given, it would be nice if the Royals took a page out of the Houston playbook and made a concerted effort to trade everyone that doesn’t look to figure into the 2013 roster plans.

The Good

Well, um, there’s…well there’s…and there’s…

Billy Butler was named AL Player of the Week? Yeah, I guess that works. In his last 21 games Butler has been – well he’s been Billy Butler.

If it weren’t for Butler (.378/.440/.561 in his last 21 games) and Alex Gordon (.352/.406/.473 in his last 21 games) there would be little reason to watch the Royals on a nightly basis. Heck, probably even a weekly basis.

The Bad

Where’s a good place to start? The Royals have lost 21 of their last 27 games and the optimizing that was brewing at the start of June, has quickly faded back to the normal KC-fan despondence. The Twins, whom all Royals fans got pleasure in (finally) being able to mock to start the season, have climbed ahead of the Royals in the standings by slugging their way to victories despite missing Justin Morneau and Trevor Plouffe for a handful of games.

Yes, Buddy Bell was right.

Is there anything to look forward to? Heck, who knows? The quick answer would be “yes” because with each passing day the Royals are that much closer to calling up Wil Myers, but because that roster move has been inexplicably put-off for over a month now, it’s more likely that it won’t happen until September.

The Royals keep using the argument that a spot needs to be created for Myers before he can make his trek to Kansas City, but when the player he’s replacing is Jeff Francoeur, that would be like a TV network saying they just can’t find a place for the new Louis C.K. pilot because they already have ‘Whitney’ in that time slot. A change is a necessity, not a burden.

The Upcoming

The Royals next six games are against a Cleveland team that’s looking to unload some of its veteran, high-cost players, and a Texas team that’s likely to come into Kauffman Stadium and hit 27 homeruns in their three-game set.

So, a mid-summer home stand watching an (again) basement dwelling team on a massive losing stretch? That sounds super fun.

Alex Gordon will look to continue his recent hot streak as the Royals visit Seattle for the only time this season. Photo Credit: John Rieger-US PRESSWIRE

When Last We Saw …

As mentioned the M’s were at the K just last week when they took three of four against Kansas City. Seattle traded Ichiro Suzuki earlier this week to the New York Yankees, who went 7-for-20 with five runs scored, one double and triple.

Season Series …

Ichiro wasn’t the only Mariner to hurt the Royals last week left fielder Casper Wells drove in seven runs over the four game series. Jesus Montero was 8-for-17 scoring five runs plus drove in eight runs against KC. Pitching wise the M’s got solid efforts from three of their four starters which was capped by Felix Hernandez eight inning performance.

In the opener Seattle put the final nail in the Jonathan Sanchez coffin scoring five first inning runs and knocking him out after an inning and a third. Jason Vargas went six innings allowing three runs but was picked up by his ‘pen allowing one run over the final three innings. Alex Gordon had three hits with Mike Moustakas providing two in the 9-4 defeat.

Game two was similar to game one with the Royals not getting a long outing from its starter when Ryan Verdugo made his MLB debut and only went 1 2/3 innings. Verdugo allowed six runs on eight hits in his rough debut. KC fought back from a six-run deficit twice in the game but ultimately lost 9-6, Lorenzo Cain had a two-run pinch hit home run.

Kansas City fell behind 1-0 in game three but tagged Kevin Millwood for three runs in the second inning. Gordon and Cain each drove in two runs and six of the seven Royals starters drove in a run in the 8-7 win, Bruce Chen took a no-decision. Billy Butler was the hero in the game with a walkoff HR to left centerfield.

Will Smith gave KC a 6 1/3 inning start which he struck out five walking just two in what was largely a good start. Facing King Felix proved difficult even with Kansas City getting eight hits, they were 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position and grounded into two double plays. Montero drove in four runs in the Mariners 6-1 victory.

7/16 – Mariners 9 @ Royals 4
7/17 – Mariners 9 @ Royals 6
7/18 – Mariners 7 @ Royals 8
7/19 – Mariners 6 @ Royals 1

Probable Pitching Match-Ups (All Times Central):     

Thursday, 9:10 pm – Luis Mendoza (4-6, 4.31) v. Jason Vargas (10-7, 3.91)
- Mendoza picked up his first victory at home on Saturday night against the Twins going 6 1/3 well pitched innings in a 7-3 win.
- In his career he’s 0-1 with a 9.00 ERA against Seattle in four games which includes one start.
- Vargas has won his last three starts and has been given run support of 7 (at Oak), 9 (at KC) and 2 (at TB) runs in these starts. He hasn’t won at home since May 9, 2-1 against Detroit at Safeco Field.
Friday, 9:10 pm – Jeremy Guthrie (3-10, 6.49)  v. Blake Beavan (5-6, 5.54)
- Guthrie made his Royals debut on Sunday at home against the Twins allowing five runs in five innings, striking out four and walking three.
- He’s faced the Mariners ten times with each appearance being a start, his record is 2-6 both wins were complete games.
- Beavan threw last week at the K picking up the win going six innings, he allowed five runs and struck out three.
Saturday, 3:10 pm – Bruce Chen (7-8, 5.54) v. Kevin Millwood (3-8, 4.13)
- Chen’s last start came in the third game of the series last week in which he got the ND throwing 5 1/3 innings. He allowed four runs on seven hits striking out six without issuing a walk.
- Last week was the first time in his career that Bruce faced the M’s.
- Millwood got rocked in during his five innings at Kansas City last week which he allowed seven runs on 10 hits. On June 8^th he was part of a combined no-hitter for the team against the Dodgers in Seattle.
Sunday, 3:10 pm – Will Smith (2-3, 6.26) v. Felix Hernandez (9-5, 2.80)
- Smith started Tuesday night in Anaheim going seven innings in the Royals 4-1 victory allowing just two-hits.
- He’ll get another shot at King Felix who he faced in the series finale last week where he worked into the seventh inning before being pulled.
- Hernandez like Smith pitched and won on Tuesday night the only game of the previous series for his team. Against the Yankees he went 7 1/3 innings allowed four hits and two runs.

Tonight we continue an exciting new venture for Kings of Kauffman and its podcast, the Royalman Report.

Jeff Logan of the Kansas City Baseball Historical Society joins forces with us to form the Kansas City Baseball Vault on Kansas City’s ESPN 1510 AM from 6-7 p.m. every Thursday night. Listeners can tune into traditional radio or streaming live on 1510.com.

Tonight’s guest is Bill Fischer, a former Kansas City Athletic (1961-1963) as a pitcher. He currently serves as the Royals special pitching assistant.

We’ll also go over what we’re watching for the rest of the season as the Royals spiral towards another 90-loss year.

It all starts at 6 p.m. CST on ESPN 1510 AM in Kansas City or 1510.com if you’re out of the area.

Follow the Kansas City Baseball Vault on Twitter and Facebook for future programming updates. Also follow Kings of Kauffman for article updates, discussion and other information.

They say “never say it can’t get any worse”. We’ve already tried to get through the tough 12 game losing streak but a good stretch of play just got everyone’s hopes up. The Royals aren’t very good right now, and in this episode we tried to figure out why and what can be done.

With that in mind, we talked about pitching development (and you can see KoK Alumni Jeff Herr’s in depth article about it here), the next wave coming and what kind of things might go down as the trade deadline approaches.

(Also, technology was a bit down in the dumps too during recording, as we almost lost the first half of the show. We blame Frenchy.)

Don’t forget the Royalman Report is on every Sunday at 7 and catch our new show, The Kansas City Baseball Vault on ESPN 1510 AM Thursday’s at 6.

You can listen below or download the mp3 directly.

The Royalman Report is hosted by Troy “Royalman” Olsen with co-host Michael Engel and features Chris “Fake Ned Yost” Kamler and 610 Sports blogger Jeff Herr and airs  live Sundays at 7 p.m. central time at RoyalmanReport.com as well as on Livestream.com/RoyalmanReport.

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We’ve discussed the likelihood of the Royals trading closer Jonathan Broxton or right fielder Jeff Francoeur.

Broxton’s stock is higher of the two, as Francoeur has been ineffective most of the year and has a bad contract anchoring him in Kansas City. The Giants had reportedly sent scouts to Triple A to check out Storm Chasers and they’ve been linked recently to Broxton (but have also expressed interest in Chris Perez of the Indians). The Royals are asking for a lot and most teams may not be seeking him to fill their closer’s role, but rather for additional depth and setup roles. The Mets were rumored to be interested as well as the Angels and as long as Broxton’s save percentage is high, he’ll draw some interest, whether the peripherals match up or not.

The Royals want to move Francoeur to free up a spot for Wil Myers. Jim Bowden suggested they’re trying to convince teams to take him, but a .661 OPS is tough to unload, especially when there’s a 2013 salary of $7.5 million to consider.

Some other rumors involve bigger names, but less substantial chance of putting something together.

Alex Gordon was rumored to be a player of interest for the Yankees as recently as yesterday though the Ichiro trade probably puts that possibility to rest. Other teams could pop up if they’re looking for outfield help, though, and Gordon might be a player who’d fetch a big return.

If there’s heat on Gordon now, it may not cool off until after the deadline. There just hasn’t been as much reported on other teams being interested – but there could be negotiations nobody is letting leak. I’d guess there’s a very low likelihood he’ll be traded, though. The Royals seem content to stick to their asking price on their players.

In particular, Dick Kaegel reported yesterday that the Pirates had inquired about Billy Butler. Their offer was Justin Wilson of Pittsburgh’s Triple A team, but Jayson Stark said that they’re in “buy-low” mode so that’s a low-ball offer for the Royals lone All-Star.

Other Royals that are known to be available are Yuniesky Betancourt and Jose Mijares. I’m sure the Royals would listen on Chris Getz if a team were to come calling.

The Royals have somewhat been involved in looking for pitching to trade for. There are reports that they’ve inquired on Matt Garza and Paul Maholm, while they also were said to be looking at Mariner Justin Vargas and were said to be scouting Wandy Rodriguez for at least one start. The goal is to get a starter who has some years of team control available. Their acquisition of Jeremy Guthrie might hold them for now.

Rany Jazayerli pointed out a distinction the Royals would do well to recognize. The Cubs are pricing pitchers like Garza as potentially helping two pennant races, this year’s and next year’s. The Royals are out of it now basically and would be foolish to pay the asking price for him to get just one year of significance out of him. I agree with that, though there are enough examples that some trade deadline deals are better in terms of the prospect value given up than offseason deals.

Dayton Moore isn’t afraid to deal this time of year – in 2010, he put three trades together to move Alberto Callaspo, Scott Podsednik, Kyle Farnsworth and Rick Ankiel. He has just over a week before the non-waiver trade deadline to put something together.

The Royals lost on Sunday in a fashion that bad teams make a habit of losing: with the same formula they always do. A team came into Kauffman Stadium over the weekend losers of five of their last seven and last in the division standings, only to outplay, out hit, and out execute the home Royals.

Sam Deduno, who might be the only player in baseball whose Baseball Reference page does not come up on the first page of a Google search, anonymously took the mound Sunday with just 21 career innings to his name, and no career victories. He is also 29 years old.

A career journeyman minor leaguer if there ever was one, Deduno is the quintessential “all arm, no feel” pitcher as evident by 15 walks in his 21 career innings in the major leagues, and a 5.1 BB/9 in 780 minor league innings.

He is everything that a Royals offense can’t defeat.

Even though Deduno did walk 3 in his 6 1/3 innings of work, 8 of the 27 batters he faced saw three pitches or less, and 17 of his total pitch count was thrown to Alcides Escobar alone. The Royals offensive approach of “swing first and ask questions later” struck again, and to no shock to anyone, they could only muster a single run against a pitcher who, in eight seasons of professional baseball, had only pitched 15 major league innings.

Every player is entitled to have a bad game. Every team is entitled to have a bad game. It’s when those bad games pile up, when the bad at-bats string together, when the bad seasons stack on top of each without any discernment of where one ended and the next began, that questions need to be asked.

This is year six of the Dayton Moore regime and while all Royals fans can disagree about the how long it takes to get a major league team up and running and playing at least .500 baseball, there should be no argument to the contrary that it shouldn’t take this long. Bad personnel decisions aside – each probably defensible when looked at on their own, but not collectively – after seven drafts, six off seasons, and six trading deadlines, an organization should have at least lucked into a few difference-making players at this point to help push the team’s record to respectability.

But where are they? Joakim Soria was taken in the Rule V draft, and for as much credit as the Royals deserve for drafting him, they deserve just as much credit for not cashing in and selling-high on a borderline useless player for a losing team at the peak of his value. Melky Cabrera performed well but was then traded to San Francisco (a trade I wholeheartedly agreed with), only to perform even better.

There are other solid personnel moves, sure. Mark Teahen for Chris Getz at this point looks like a “win” simply because Getz is still playing baseball (and playing well) and Teahen is not. Alex Gordon, Billy Butler, and Zack Greinke all signed extensions at one point because they wanted to stay with the organization, but those signings felt a little more like effects of circumstance because they were already in uniform.

The Royals are 40-54 and mere percentage points are all that keep them out of last place in one of the worst divisions in baseball. For all negative comments directed at blog posts such as this one, and those on other Royals blog sites, for the piling on the Royals organization for all their wrong turns and missteps, shouldn’t there at some point be an equal amount of negativity directed at the organization that gives us the mountains of material? Shouldn’t there be some responsibility and accountability taken from the organization that, in year six, has yet to play within at least ten games of average?

No. The fans that are upset and desire success for a change are called condescending names like “critical spirit”.

The line of success has been drawn, erased, and drawn again for what must be the third time now. Continually reestablishing the goal line is either the best job security ploy in the history of success, or the greatest sign of futility in the history of business. Either way, it isn’t working.

It shouldn’t be about blame. The time for blame has passed. At this point it is about getting it right. Unfortunately for those currently running the Royals they’ve been saddled with the disappointment and disgust of a franchise that spent two decades in irrelevance before they took their positions. They’re both blessed and burdened for having one of the most engaged fan bases in baseball, so the amount of scrutiny they’re under can border on the ridiculous. But that’s not an excuse.

This, is year six, and while other perennially losing organizations have built and lost, and built again in the same time frame that it’s taken the Royals to not quite build, fans are being told that it’s still going to take just a few more years until the results will actually be tangible. Oof.

This is year six. It is time for results.

The Good

Well, I guess we need to start looking towards the future again, huh?

I don’t often get caught up in the hoopla over draft picks. Perhaps I’m a cynic (don’t roll your eyes) but I’d like to see a young player have at least a year of success before I start to concern myself with whether or not he’s going to be an impact big leaguer.

But when Kyle Zimmer was drafted I was incredibly happy (which for me is saying something) and downright giddy to see how he would translate into pro ball.

Attempts to actually sit down and write something substantial about what it is I like about him have proved fruitless, but Kyle Boddy of Driveline Baseball summed up all kinds of good stuff at The Hardball Times. In short: oh my.

Arm speed isn’t simply the natural gift that baseball people want you to believe (you can improve and change arm action, significantly), but Zimmer has it in abundance. And the ease with which he creates torque with his trunk by getting down the mound into his kick is beyond impressive.

Zimmer fits the profile: hard thrower and a good athlete with projectable movement skills and body sequencing. He’s everything that could make my pitching heart swoon.

The Bad

For the month of July the Royals are 5-13. Yeah, that’s bad.

Echoing the sentiments from above: teams are allowed to have bad stretches and even bad months. I’m sure there’s a stat out there that gives the number of losing months playoff teams have had in any given year over the past decade, and surely there’s going to be a few on that list. But it’s when the losing months continue to happen without a change in the roster that’s the most concerning. Specifically: right field.

Jeff Francoeur is last in all of baseball among outfielders in wOBA, OBP, RC+, and fWAR.

Read that sentence again.

By almost every objective measure Jeff Francoeur is playing like the worst outfielder in baseball this year. The worst. Meanwhile, Wil Myers slugs his way from ballpark to ballpark in the minor leagues, and the big-league Royals sit 14 games under .500.

This isn’t about leadership anymore with Francoeur, it’s about production. It was a bad mistake to lock up a historically average-at-best player before the market established. It’s an even worse mistake to continue play a player every day that is having such a negative effect on the rest of the team, while a clear replacement is available at no cost.

The idea that there is nowhere to play Myers in Kansas City right now is preposterous. There is a place for him to play, and it’s a pretty obvious one.

The Upcoming

Each of the next four series the Royals play will be against teams that are better than them. Of course, that isn’t saying much when you’re talking about one of the worst records in baseball, but a West Coast road trip scorching hot Anaheim and Seattle, followed by a home stand against Cleveland and Texas, would only seem to make things worse in the win-loss column for Kansas City.

And things can always get worse.

Alex Gordon was the second overall pick in 2005 and his resume is highlighted by an NCAA Player of the Year Award and a Minor League Player of the Year Award. He looked as can’t-miss as a prospect could get. Then he missed.

After some injuries slowed him down, the Royals were hoping that he’d maybe be fine as an everyday player and the move to the outfield in 2010 seemed to revitalize him. Then he broke out in 2011, earning down-ballot MVP votes, a Gold Glove and being a complete hitter. The emergence has multiple factors – he’s been healthy, the shift to the outfield may allow him to see the game differently and relax more, and the Royals have taken advantage of his patience by putting him in the leadoff spot.

For some reason, the leadoff spot suits Gordon better than any other. He looks like a ballplayer, and seeing him hit the ball hard last year, you’d think he’d be a good fit for the third spot in the order, perhaps cleanup, maybe fifth. After leading off regularly last year, the Royals kept him there to start this year and he shuffled a bit before getting in gear. Once he started showing signs of hitting well, the Royals tried to put him in those third, fourth, sixth spots and he struggled again. Maybe it was just a usual slump, or maybe it was being moved around in the lineup, but he showed a drop in production.

On May 11, he’d been hitting first or second in the order most of the time and had a .267/.362/.433 line . On May 12, he was moved to third, then fourth, then sixth. By May 26th, he had only eight hits in 52 at bats and a .484 OPS since being shifted (though he did lead off on May 23rd randomly in the middle of that stretch and went 0-3).

On May 27th, he was put back in the leadoff spot. He hasn’t been moved since. Since that time, he’s gone on a tear, hitting .346/.422/.497 with 20 doubles in 218 plate appearances. In all but six of those 47 games, he’s reached base at least once.

Throughout his career, hitting at the top of the order has shown better production. In 696 plate appearances batting first, he has an .887 OPS. Batting second (only 81 plate appearances) he has an OPS of .969. In every other spot in the lineup (1975 plate appearances), he’s put up a .739 OPS.

Yes, there’s a bit of a “chicken or the egg?” going on here. Did Gordon start producing because he was finally healthy during a stretch where he was batting leadoff or is the leadoff spot a particular comfort zone for Gordon and, combined with opportunity and health, allows him to thrive? As I said before, sports are weird.

There’s no definitive answer, but I imagine there’s a difference in his mental approach when Gordon’s batting leadoff and knows he has Billy Butler, Mike Moustakas or Eric Hosmer behind him. He may just be more comfortable as a player setting the table, getting his first appearance out of the way at the top of the order and jumping right into the game.

Whatever is spurring Gordon’s production, the Royals will take it. He’s not the prototypical leadoff hitter in the sense that he’s a speedy basestealer, but he does what the job asks – he gets on base. Only Prince Fielder and Miguel Cabrera have reached base more than Gordon, and David Ortiz was tied with him entering Saturday. Gordon also leads the AL in doubles and has developed into one of the better overall players in the league.

If it’s the leadoff spot, great, if it’s just health, great. If it’s the special combination of both, again, great. After so many years of frustration and missed expectations, Gordon has found his role and spot on this team and he’s thriving.

This was an interesting opportunity to talk to two men who’ve spent a lot of time inside the front offices of Major League Baseball clubs.

After catching up on the news of the week, we had Tyrone Brooks, director of player personnel for the Pirates, on to talk about contending as a small market team, the strategies for building a team to get to that point and what you do as an organization to maintain that success. Pittsburgh is in contention now, and the Royals are made up in a similar way. Brooks’s insight gives us a direction to look at for what this team needs to be doing.

We also talked with Sal Bando. Bando was the GM in Milwaukee in the 90′s after a solid playing career for the Kansas City and Oakland A’s. He talked about using statistics in player evaluations, clashing with ownership as a player, leadership and his time as a player.

We’ll be back next week with more discussion of Kansas City baseball, past, present and future on ESPN 1510 Thursday at 6 p.m. CST.

You can catch up on old episodes of the Kansas City Baseball Vault here on Kings of Kauffman. Episodes of the Royalman Report are available on the site as well.

Follow the Kansas City Baseball Vault on Twitter and Facebook for future programming updates. Also follow Kings of Kauffman for article updates, discussion and other information.

If you don’t know anything about the automobile market in 1985, there’s a good reason for that.  There was nothing to know.  Nobody collects cars built in the 80’s because they were stodgy, slow, and ugly.  The market was starved for something exciting, a vehicle that could rejuvenate the industry.  We all sat on the edge of our seats waiting for the reveal of the new S-Series, a vehicle that you don’t remember and probably have never heard of – for good reason.  Have you ever seen an S-Series model Saturn?  Yuck.  It turned out to be an uninspiring piece of plastic junk.

The huge un-recouped investment in the Saturn Corporation by General Motors and subsequent lack of creative and groundbreaking design dulled all the luster on this once eagerly awaited car company.  And as you know, Saturn is now long gone, relegated to the dust bin of history.

Eric Hosmer may not be as good as we hoped he would be (Credit: Peter G. Aiken-US PRESSWIRE)

It hurts me to even say this, but what if Eric Hosmer is the Royals’ Saturn Corporation?  The Royals of the past 20 years make a good comparison to the automotive industry of the 1980’s – underperforming, uninspiring, and underwhelming, with little hope of a turnaround.  The fan base has been desperate for any sign of hope and are willing to fall over themselves (me included) when even one prospect appears to have the slightest chance of becoming the next big thing.

We’ve set ourselves up for a potentially huge disappointment with Eric Hosmer.  When was the last time a prospect was so highly anticipated with an expectation that he could potentially turn the club around?  Zack Greinke might be the closest player, but I don’t think anyone expected Zack to elevate the entire team the way we believed Hosmer would impact the organization.

Hosmer was a #1 draft pick, the 3rd player selected in the 2008 draft.  He tore through minor league pitching like Bo Jackson through an Seattle Seahawk defensive backfield.  He carried himself like a veteran with one of the most magnificent and picturesque follow-through swings Royals fans have ever seen.  He had all the makings of a potential Superstar.  Many of us pinned our greatest hopes on him simply because we have been looking for light at the end of the tunnel for so long, even a spark would send us into a frenzy.

Our good looking young first baseman was ranked as the #8 overall prospect by Baseball America in 2011, batted .439 during his 26 game stint in AAA (that is not a misprint), and he impressed nearly everyone with his talent as he made his way toward the majors.  He debuted last year to oohs and ahhs, just the same as the Saturn S-Class did years ago.  But now that we bought our Hosmer sedan, drove him to work and parked him in our driveway every night for a few months, the bloom is beginning to come off the rose and we’re not quite as excited about him as we were a year ago.  I’m beginning to have just a tiny little bit of buyer’s remorse.

Royals fans have been making excuses for Hos for months now.  “He’s just in a sophomore slump, he’ll come out of it”, “as soon as he starts hitting to the opposite field, things will come together for him”, “he makes good contact, his hits are just finding a lot of gloves”, etc., etc.  We’re making excuses because we don’t want to admit that he may not be as good as we’ve hoped, because giving up on Hosmer is tantamount to giving up on the Royals.  Because we’re loyal true-blue fans, we keep waiting, and watching, and hoping for any sign that Hosmer’s bat will find its way again and reignite our passions the way our expectations of his future performance did a few months ago.  Because we love the Royals, this creates a situation where we CAN’T give up on Hosmer.

Let’s be realistic for a moment and say that other players have pulled out of worse sophomore slumps, although I can’t think of any right now.  Even on our own team, Alex Gordon took a few years to find his way and now he’s a strong contributor, although not a Superstar.  And this is really where the problem lies – Eric Hosmer can eventually be a good player, he might even be an All Star (someday, maybe), but because of our high expectations, he’ll end up as a stunning disappointment if he isn’t a Superstar.  Face it, if Hosmer were a newly premiering Fall Television Series, his ratings would have already forced the networks to pull him from the schedule.

So here’s what I think – the race for the 2012 pennant is over.  The winner hasn’t been decided yet, but there can be little doubt that one of the losers will be the Kansas City Royals.  We’re threatening the Twins for last place; Danny Duffy, Felipe Paulino, and Joakim Soria will be on the shelf until at least 2013 or later; and the season is more than half over.  Let’s start preparing for next year.  Let’s stop worrying about bruising Hosmer’s psyche and let’s send him to Omaha and let him earn his way back to the majors.  It’s worked for other players, including Alex Gordon, it certainly couldn’t hurt Hosmer.

Let Hosmer spend some quality time with the club’s hitting instructors and see if he can recapture some of the magic he experienced in 2011.  And while they’re at it, maybe they can coach him to stop that stupid swipe-grab he tries to make at first base every time there’s an errant throw.  I’m not sure if he is just putting on a show with this move, or if he honestly thinks it’s a proper way to play a short hop.  It looks very amateurish to me and he’s going to clown-suit himself eventually when one of these throws skips past him and down the right field line.  This technique has burned him at least once this season that I’ve personally witnessed, and will probably come back to bite him and the Royals some day when the game is on the line if he doesn’t stop it.

Eric Hosmer sends a ball over the outfield wall in Spring Training (Credit: Alan Barrington)

I remember sitting in the stands last Spring in Surprise Arizona, eager with anticipation for Eric Hosmer’s at bat.  I even snapped a picture of his flawless swing that resulted in a Cleveland Indian pitch being deposited over the Center Field wall – it was a thing of beauty.  But something happened to Hosmer between that day and the start of the regular season, and the result is that he’s lost his way and he can’t seem to find it again.  Let’s face the facts, and let’s treat him the way we would treat anyone we love – tell him the truth and send him to get help.  It’s either that, or we all need to admit that he may not be as good as we hoped he would be.

That's a big baseball. Photo: Chris Kamler

Major League Baseball opened the doors to its annual FanFest to Kansas City media on Thursday. FanFest is an annual event in the host city and with the 2012 MLB All-Star Game in Kansas City, Bartle Hall was chosen as the site of the event. The general public can attend starting Friday, July 6 and it runs through July 10.

What’s in store this year are many attractions and activities for just about anyone. There’s a special spot for kids to do arts and crafts or some simple hitting off of a batting tee. There are pitching machines for big kids and adults and even fielding practice. Also featured are speed pitch booths to tell you how fast you can throw and an attraction sponsored by Taco Bell where you can “steal a base, steal a taco”. Participants can select a baserunner (I chose Alex Gordon) and re-enact a stolen base attempt. You react when the pitcher starts to deliver the ball, run down a baseline and slide into a base (with a mat in front) and if you’re safe, you win a taco.

I gave it a try:

There are numerous photo booths where you can pose as if you’re making a game winning catch, showing up on a baseball card, or even by the world’s largest baseball.

If you’re not really after a lot of the carnival-type games, there are various vendors selling memorabilia and an All-Star merchandise store to browse through, plus various booths set up with information about baseball.

What really jumps out are the exhibits.

Cooperstown in your backyard. Photo: Chris Kamler

The National Baseball Hall of Fame has various artifacts, including a World Series trophy and the infamous Pine Tar Bat swung by George Brett in 1983. Other jerseys and items are on display after making the voyage from Cooperstown. The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum has a large exhibit as well, featuring replica jerseys of Negro League players inducted into the Hall of Fame and other such things. There’s an authentic game-worn uniform of Jackie Robinson‘s famous #42 that you can see, but it wasn’t in the case on the tour.

Another interesting exhibit is shared every year at All-Star FanFest. To tribute the host city, MLB highlights their team’s history. There’s a timeline, photos, and even a facsimile team photo with life-size cutouts where you can stand in and look like part of the team.

Jerseys in waiting. Photo: Chris Kamler.

MLB has set up an area called the Clubhouse, designed for Q&A sessions with All-Stars of this year and the past, as well as other players. Alex Gordon is planned to participate in one such session, but won’t be the only one. 2012 All-Star jerseys hang as if ready to be worn inside the Clubhouse. Right outside of that is a dugout where there will be kids games (like at the Little K) and a mascot Home Run Derby.

MLB.com and the MLB Network have booths set up and will be reporting and broadcasting from FanFest throughout the weekend.

I imagine you’ll have to wait a bit for the autograph lines, but if you’re the type to collect them, it should be worth it. Current and former All-Stars will sign autographs and Bo Jackson might end up being the biggest draw, as he’s announced he’ll be there on Saturday.

Best of all, once you’ve purchased a ticket (or received it with your All-Star Game strip), all of the exhibits and attractions are included in the price of the ticket. Concessions and merchandise are available for purchase.

More information about FanFest is located on the MLB.com All-Star Game site.

Sure, you could make the argument that losing games – in any sport, at any level – has to do mostly with the deficiencies of the roster and/or the flaws of management strategies, but with the Royals over the past six years (or 25 years) the same story gets written far too often during a loss. It’s just how it is.

What’s started to happen though is while there are fans that are upset with watching the same base running mistakes, the same awful plate discipline, and the same pitch-to-contact bad starting pitching, there are also those that point endlessly to the positives (of which there are many) as a reason for hope.

It’s understandable, and in some ways admirable, but when the rays of hope are continually clouded out by the storms of unoriginal bad baseball, there shouldn’t be much of a reason to fault the many that are still skeptical of progress.

This isn’t about the Royals, it’s about a fan base that has grown tired and weary from all the losing.

While trying to think of a proper opening to this week’s Rant I kept finding myself coming back to that phrase as a way of justifying, – no, explaining – the feelings and tensions among most Royals fans after a loss. No fan base likes losing and when the losing turns to being just as laughable as it is predictable, there’s often nowhere else to turn with the disgust than to continually point to all the other (losing) instances that look the same, and categorizing it as such. It would be like watching a Farrelly Brothers movie: the jokes are the same, the writing is the same, and inevitably, the ending is the same.

Is there progress? Yes. Billy Butler has turned on the power this year and is finally being recognized for the truly special hitter he is, and is an All-Star. Despite Alex Gordon’s first three weeks of the season, he’s been great and continues to get on-base at a ridiculous rate (non-Joey Votto Division) and play terrific defense. Mike Moustakas has exceeded expectations and the bullpen has been spectacular. Alcides Escobar deserved an All-Star nod as well.

All of these things are points of progress and reasons that the future looks bright. Presumably. But there are still questions.

Questions about the roster construction,* questions about the rotation now and looking ahead, questions about this teams ability and lack of concern for walks on offense. To completely ignore these questions because either a) the Royals won a few games last week or b) because there are still positives out there, is irresponsible to the overall cause of the process.

*Why is Jason Bourgeois on this team?

One of my many complaints of sports media and the state of journalism in general in today’s landscape is the unwillingness of the writer or broadcaster to ever ask “why”, or challenge the status quo with the pertinent questions. Questions that, if posed correctly, are needed to hold those accountable that need to be so. Questions that if asked to the Royals would hold them accountable for a brand of baseball that still far too often looks like it did six years ago.

Teams lose games all the time. Good teams don’t lose games the same way all the time. And good franchises don’t lose games the same way all the time, for years and years in a row.

As a whole, the Royals fan base does tend to be a negative one, I think we can all admit that. I’m guilty, other writers on this site are guilty, and certainly writers on other sites are guilty. But that’s about a fan base that has grown tired and weary of all the losing.

The Royals will win a few games this week. The Royals will probably win a few games next week too. But when another three-to-four game stretch like the one that was just played in Minnesota happens (and it will happen), the “negativity” will not be the fault of an overzealous, ignorant, jump-to-conclusion fan base; the fault will be of an organization that continues to lose games the same way it has for six years.

The Good

As much fun as it is to continually drive the Alex Gordon bandwagon, I can understand that it does tend to wear on the reader from time-to-time. I can.

But I also don’t think it gets talked about enough just how good a player Gordon is, or that this year’s version of the Royals would look far different, and far worse, if he were not on the team.

Gordon is currently sixth among all American Leaguers in fWAR, and according to advanced metrics (take those for what they’re worth on a two-plus-month sample) he has been the best defensive player out of any position. Holy schnikes.

Since finally breaking the .200 batting average mark on April 26, Gordon has hit .296/.388/.438 in 59 games.

Even though the power isn’t where it was a year ago, Gordon’s plate discipline and walks have far exceeded his career norm, making him almost the perfect type of leadoff batter. Plus, with the improved discipline, there’s more hope that the power will come too, putting him back into the “star” category that he was in a year ago.

The Bad

Even though one of the strengths coming into this year was supposed to be the offense (though, not by me) and it has thus far been an extreme disappointment, there’s really only one position that can be looked at as the biggest problem of them all: right field.

The struggles of Hosmer at first and the never-ending Getz/Betancourt experience at second and the noodle-bat of Jarrod Dyson in center are bad in their own way. But, all of those positions don’t have a clear answer, and at least in one of those cases the season-beginning starter at least performed well – to some degree of “well” – before being lost to injury.

The right field problem continues to be a mystery though as Wil Myers continues to be a terror in Triple-A, and the only reason (or at least presumably only reason) that he’s not currently in a major league uniform is because he doesn’t have a natural position that isn’t already being occupied by either an a) equally talented player or b) by a player that is better suited to perform defensively.

There is the Super Two argument, to be sure, but what seemed before as something that was more monetary and cost controlled in reason, seems to border more on the absurd now that Jeff Francoeur continues to see every (freaking) day playing time with little justification to do so. Especially now, that Myers seems all but perfectly ready for the next challenge, and most likely Super Two is out of the picture.

Francoeur’s re-signing with the Royals at the time was incredibly perplexing not solely for the reason that a player with a history of being average-at-best was locked up to two-years guaranteed before the outfield market established itself, but that Dayton Moore and the Royals were paying on a player’s career BABIP-induced year and not his historic norm. Hey, it happens, and at the time when Melky Cabrera turned down the same contract to stay in Kansas City, it may have seemed prudent to keep Francoeur around on a similar deal if for no other reason than to have a legitimate, everyday big-leaguer in the lineup.

But that would also call into question Francoeur’s relevance to be an every day major league player.

This season he’s been down right dreadful, and there’s no arguing that. The fact that he’s batted fifth every day without change is comedy fodder alone, but also that he’s accumulated a negative fWAR to this point shows just how unproductive he has been at what is supposed to be one of the more offensive positions on the field.

What’s even more discouraging is that even though there are numerous stories out there now about Francoeur’s impending departure via trade, the Royals seem to not really know if giving up Francoeur at this time and replacing him with Myers would be beneficial to the club.

Aside from Francoeur’s two, two-week hot streaks each year that make his numbers seem better than they really are, there doesn’t seem to be much at this point that he offers in terms of real value over a younger, cheaper, more athletic, and better hitter in Myers. But, in the #OurMissionTime2012 season, the supposed leadership (and already committed marketing campaigns) Francoeur brings to the table was thought to be a difference maker. Well, it is, just not in the way the Royals, and probably Royals fans, had hoped.

This thought isn’t meant to be reactionary, though in some ways, it probably is. Even though the Royals peaked last week at just 4.5 games out of first place in the AL Central, the roster overall most likely isn’t good enough to compete or finish for the division crown. So dealing with Francoeur’s deficiencies with range, plate discipline, contact abilities, base running abilities, and consistency, may be buying an extra year of non-arbitration for Myers. May be.

But at some point it has to be about winning and winning now. Free passes are given far too often to players that are underperforming for the Royals organization, and this would appear to be another one of those occasions. Though, you could make the argument that the decision to continue to play Francoeur (though the decision to continue to bat him fifth is indefensible) is about winning – just winning three years from now while Myers has still yet to hit arbitration.

No matter the reason, a right fielder batting .256/.293/.387 (not all the far off from his career numbers, mind you) is killing the lineup.

The Upcoming

The Royals sure do know how to ruin a good thing. Just when it appeared the organization was back on track, there’s a hurdle thrown out in front of them and the players collectively fell over themselves. And it doesn’t get any easier.

After a favorable June schedule that resulted in another winning month for the club (14-12), July starts out with a punch to the stomach with four on the road in Toronto, and three on the road in Detroit before the All-Star break.

Let me give you an example.  I was recently looking at the Royals team history page and discovered something interesting.  If you review the column of “Top Players” you’ll see a number of recognizable names of athletes that contributed mightily to the success (or relative success) of each specific season.  You’ll find Alex Gordon, Amos Otis, Bret Saberhagen, Carlos Beltran, David Cone, Johnny Damon, Kevin Appier, Zack Greinke, John Mayberry, Dan Quisenberry, Willie Wilson, Joakim Soria, etc. and of course George Brett – a veritable who’s who of Royal’s history.  You’ll also see Jose Offerman, Mark Teahen and a couple other mild surprises.

This made me think…  What is, or what should be, the definition of the Top or Best player?  Baseball Reference defines the Top Player as the individual with the highest WAR (Wins Against Replacement) rating of any player on the team.  WAR is a tangible analysis that takes both offense and defense into account, but it doesn’t make any attempt to measure leadership or intangibles, and it seems to favor pitchers slightly in my opinion.

5 time All Star Mike Sweeney was never the best player on the Royals according to Baseball Reference (Credit: Kim Klement-US PRESSWIRE)

Let me give you an example of the lack of leadership skills and intangibles in the WAR calculation.  Remember Mike Sweeney?  There is a lot of mixed opinion about Mike, and deservedly so, yet he put up some dynamite offensive numbers for a few years combined with the ability to hold his own at first base, and he was the undeniable leader of the Royals during his time as Captain.  Yet this 5 time All Star who hit .333 with 144 RBIs, 71 walks, and a league leading 15 HBPs in 2000, and a 2002 season that saw him hit .340, .563 slugging, and 148 OPS+ was never the “Top Player” for the Royals according to Baseball Reference and his WAR rating.  In 2002, that honor went to Paul Byrd.

What do you think of that?  Was Paul Byrd a more important piece of the puzzle for the Royals in 2002 than Mike Sweeney and his .340 batting average? (.340 is 2^nd only to George Brett’s .390 in 1980, and how would you like to have a .340 hitter on the Royals right now?)  In 2002, Paul Byrd was 17-11 with a 3.90 ERA and he led the league with 7 complete games – he was definitely a very valuable pitcher, but I don’t think his performance could be defined as “dominating.”  Paul Byrd appeared in 33 games.  Mike Sweeney played in 126 (less than a full season due to the beginning signs of his many recurring back issues), had the first straight steal of home by a Royal in over 20 years, was named to his 3^rd consecutive All-Star game, led the league in defensive assists by a 1^st baseman – and he was the Captain of the team.  But this wasn’t good enough to be the Royals “Top Player.”

Obviously, my definition of the best player on the team is going to differ from other fans, and from other experts as well.  My subjective definition simply asks, “Who was the player the Royals could least afford to do without?”  In 2002, I believe the answer has to be Mike Sweeney.

Before the 2012 season began, who did you think the Royals’ best player would be this season?  If you’re like most of the rest of us, you may have thought, or at least hoped, it would be Eric Hosmer.  If so, those hopes were dashed weeks ago as we’ve witnessed one of the most dramatic sophomore slumps in recent memory.  A few of you may have predicted Alex Gordon, or maybe Joakim Soria prior to his injury.  Predictions are based on hopes, and as a Royals fan you certainly know that hopes are often dashed.

If you said Billy Butler, you were pretty much on target.  (Although according to WAR rating, Alex Gordon is on top for the second year in a row – I don’t agree in 2012.)  However, I am hesitant to name a DH as the best player citing the same reservations many have for naming a pitcher as MVP.  And unless a Royals pitcher is completely and utterly dominating (see Steve Busby, Dennis Leonard, David Cone, Zach Greinke, or Bret Saberhagen) I have similar misgivings.

For 2013 we have several potential candidates for best player.  I’ll list my nominations below and include the odds that I think I’m right.  And, I’ll also acknowledge that there’s no possible way any reader will agree with me 100%.

Could Mike Moustakas become the best player on the Royals? (Credit: Peter G. Aiken-US PRESSWIRE)

Mike Moustakas:  The improvement Mike has shown from 2011 to 2012 has been nothing short of breathtaking.  He is much more comfortable at the plate this year, and in the field he doesn’t even look like the same player.  I believe Mike’s personality has many leadership qualities and he’s maturing into a presence that will almost certainly make him the best player on the team at some point in his career.  For 2013, I’d say the odds of Mike being the Royals best player, the guy they can least afford to do without, are about 3 to 1.

Eric Hosmer:  Although he hasn’t come close to fulfilling our expectations this year, Hosmer’s potential is so tantalizing that I have to put him near the top of the list.  I believe Eric is just a tweak or two away from “righting the ship” and getting back on track to becoming the offensive powerhouse we all know he can be.  His defense is still solid, but it may take a while for his personality to mature into a true clubhouse big dog.  I’ll put Hosmer’s odds of being the best player in 2013 at 5 to 1.

Alcides Escobar:  If you told me I could only watch one play from each Royals game, I would pick the inevitable web gem that Esky turns in virtually every night.  It is truly a thrill to watch Alcides display his otherworldly defensive skills while protecting the left side of the diamond.  I’ll go out on a limb and say that after watching him for less than two seasons he may not be the absolute best defensive shortstop I’ve ever seen, but I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anyone better than him.  Escober is hitting around .290 at a premium position and I believe the only thing that could potentially limit his ability to be a great club house leader are his English language skills.  Alcides is my dark horse candidate for best player in 2013 and he’s my favorite to watch play in 2012.  I’ll put his odds at 10-1.

Jeff Francoeur:  I believe Jeff is the closest thing the 2012 Royals have to a clubhouse leader and his rocket arm and intangibles are great.  Who’s the guy you see chest bumping his team mates every night and cheering them on with one of the most upbeat personalities in the majors?  It’s Frenchy.  Who else tosses baseballs wrapped in $100 bills and gets into hilarious mock disputes with opposing mascots?  Frenchy’s power numbers are way down this year and his average has dipped, so his on-field performance is not trending in the right direction which makes him a risky wager.  I also wouldn’t bet on Jeff being “da man” in 2013 due to the fact that he may not even play in a Royals uniform.   If he is still wearing Royals blue in 2013, I would put Francoeur’s odds at 15-1.

Wil Myers:  At some point in 2012, no matter how hard the Royals brass try to hold him back, he’ll force his way to Kansas City.  And he may light it up offensively when he arrives, but his defense still needs work and there’s almost no way anyone can be a true clubhouse leader in his first or second year.  Odds 30-1.

Billy Butler:  Great DH, one of the best in baseball.  But as I explained earlier, I just don’t think a DH can be the best player.  If a DH is your best player, then your team is in trouble.  Odds 30-1.

Jake Odorizzi:  See “Wil Myers.”  Odds 50-1.

Alex Gordon:  Gold Glove defensive left fielder who has been a disappointment at the plate this year.  He’s a solid contributor and I want him on my team, but he’s not a vocal clubhouse leader and has little chance to be the best player on the team in my rating system.  In 2013, I’d rate him at 50-1.

There are a few other players who have a shot at being the best player, but all of them have significant question marks either because they may not recover from injuries (Joakim Soria and Danny Duffy), they haven’t played in the majors long enough for us to get a good sense of their performance (Salvador Perez), or because Dayton Moore hasn’t traded for them yet or signed them as a free agent (Zach Greinke – hint, hint…)

And don’t get me started about relief pitchers.  Unless you are Mariano Rivera, Dan Quisenberry, or Joakim Soria in his prime, you can’t even be considered the Top Player on the team.  It would be the same as voting the field goal kicker as the top player on an NFL team – it’s not going to happen.

Could Yuniesky Betancourt be the best player? Haha, just kidding! Almost got you, didn't we? (Credit: John Rieger-US PRESSWIRE)

Yuniesky Betancourt:  I’ll just skip straight to the odds.  10,000,000,000 to 1.  I had to throw him in just for kicks.

The biggest reason we have difficulty selecting the potential top player is because the Royals are so young.  Most of the time I believe that’s a good thing and not a bad thing, but it causes them to be inconsistent as they go through the struggles of figuring out how to succeed in the big leagues, and most of them simply have not matured into the true leaders that they will hopefully one day become.

I still believe that we are two solid starting pitchers away from being a contending team and I’m holding on to hope that we find these hurlers somewhere, either in the farm system, through trades or free agency, before the start of the 2013 season.  When this happens, we’ll find our team playing in October, and this is the time when true clubhouse leadership emerges and performance on the field has a historical impact on your team and your legacy.   When we play in October, that’s when we’ll definitely learn who is the best player on this team.

“It takes a different kind of skillset to play baseball. You don’t have to be a good athlete to be good at baseball.”

Originally this was supposed to be a post about Kyle Zimmer and why I love the pick, and the potential of the athlete, so much. I was going to break down his delivery and his stuff (with some help from some Internet friends) and project his future from my rather limited perception of him. However after overhearing what I was sure was just a father repeating some Neanderthal narrative about how the kind of physical shape baseball players are in, I couldn’t think of anything else.

In that instant amidst, Tweeting something obnoxious and having our grocery list recited to me, my brain called an audible and I couldn’t get the phrase “you don’t have to be a good athlete to be good at baseball” out of my head. I was stuck.

Everything that I had ever fought, every traditional mindset, every head-in-the-sand nonsensical outlook on the training of pitchers and baseball players was summed up in that father’s seemingly insignificant sentence.

Too often people confuse athleticism with strength or the ability to jump high, or run fast. Those traits do play a role in being an athlete for sure, but to mischaracterize baseball players as “non athletes” or “not very athletic” because you don’t see them at an NFL-style combine in their underwear running and jumping does not mean they’re not athletes. They’re some of the best athletes.

Baseball is a stagnant sport. There’s lots of standing around, lots of explosive movements required from a standing start, and lots of hip flexibility and reactionary skills that a “non athlete” couldn’t do. Do not confuse physical shape, or how a player looks with how athletic he is.

As I mentioned on the podcast I was on recently, in my opinion the true definition of athleticism is how well someone controls his or her body.

In order to generate the necessary torque to throw a baseball or swing a bat, the level of body control to fire reflexes and the body sequencing required to turn on a 99 mph fastball to hit it 400 feet is super athletic. The ability to repeat pitching mechanics to generate high velocities with control is super athletic.

Stop it with the idea that baseball players aren’t athletes. And if you’re having this opinion, please don’t repeat it out loud, there might be someone the next table over who just wants to enjoy a quiet night with his wife.

The Good

Well, winning is a lot more fun than losing. After the horrific start culminating in a 12 game losing streak, the Royals have been one of the better teams in baseball (at least record wise) and have pulled themselves to within 5 games of the division lead. How’s about that?

In the Rant a couple weeks ago I said that June (admittedly an idea stolen from someone else) would be a huge month for the Royals because the schedule turned in their favor, and the offense couldn’t be that bad for very long. Well, the offense still isn’t great, but with Alex Gordon going all on-base machine since returning to the leadoff spot, the offense has turned things around to help the bullpen win some games.

Yes, the bullpen.

Because, this is going to be the theme of the entire season, the bullpen continues to be amazing. Simply. Amazing.

Led by Tim Collins (imagine that visual) the revolving door of the final three-to-four spots in the bullpen haven’t been as big a detriment as one would normally associate with the taxi squad. Stability in Collins, Aaron Crow, Jonathan Broxton, Jose Mijares, and now Greg Holland, has allowed the Royals to not only stay in games to come back to win late, but have logged multiple innings to protect leads.

For all the negative things I’ve said about Dayton Moore’s roster construction over the last year-and-a-half on this site, one big positive has been his ability to put together a bullpen. And this year, he’s done one helluva job.

The Bad

For all the talk about Billy Butler not being “clutch”, and for all the talk about how Billy Butler doesn’t drive in runs, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot being said about how Jeff Francoeur only has 18 RBI, and we’re more than two months into the season.

Sure there are some things to like about Francoeur’s game like his arm or his occasional hot streaks, but his negative points get overshadowed by the media perception of him being such a great guy/baseball player, for what really only amounts to him having a recognizable name.

While I don’t pay much attention to stats with runners in scoring position they’re still fun to look at, especially when they can be manipulated to prove the point I’m trying to make.

During his career Francoeur has hit .270/.325/.419 with runners in scoring position. For Butler, during his career, he has hit .309/.392/.471 with runners in scoring position.

You know what’s great about those numbers? With runners in scoring position Butler’s stats are actually better than his career numbers (.297/.360/.462), contrary to what the narrative would have you to believe because of some arbitrary RBI total.

I only bring this up because the highly esteemed, and incredibly readable Jeff Parker brought up yesterday how during the broadcast, the Royals announcers went completely out of their way to talk about how Butler went a stretch of eight games without registering an RBI. Meanwhile, as Jeff pointed out, nothing is ever said of Francoeur for what he doesn’t do well.

This isn’t yet another way to sneak a Butler post into a post about something else (or maybe it is), and this is probably much to do about nothing. The reason Butler gets so much scrutiny from fans and the Royals might be because he has the potential to be one of the very best hitters in baseball (he already is), and the reason Francoeur skates by with nary a word of his deficiencies is because he has the potential to be merely one of the very average players in baseball (he already is).

Francoeur shouldn’t be given the pass that he seemingly is, and he shouldn’t have his spot in the lineup granted to him without competition, also like he seemingly is.

Jeff Francoeur is what he’s always been: a player that should probably be platoon-only as a lefty-masher that plays some decent defense. And if he’s the reason for either a) keeping Wil Myers in Triple-A or b) forcing Wil Myers to a position he mostly can’t handle everyday at the major league level, then the Royals need to find a different reason.

The Upcoming

It would be foolish not to mention the weekend home series against the Cardinals, but I’m sure we’ll have enough of that here over the course of the week to more than fill the readers’ appetite.

What has to be mentioned though is how the Royals are this close to playing really meaningful games again, and despite the depletion of the bullpen and the lack of production from the rotation, six more against NL opponents and three of those being against a team that on paper they’re better than (Houston), leaves even me optimistic.

And for me, that’s saying something. This is starting to get really fun.

In a season that’s seen a complete 0-fer during the first homestand as part of a 12 game losing streak and countless injuries to key players,  the Royals are a mere five games back in the AL Central.

It’s a tough place to be as a fan because on one hand, the Royals are on a four game winning streak – but it’s only a four game winning streak. They’re not far removed from a dreadful series against Pittsburgh where they’d gotten swept.

On the other hand, a lot of things are going right at the moment. The Royals had a laughable looking matchup to open the Brewers series, but Alex Gordon seemed to pick that series to wake up and Luis Mendoza somehow outdueled Zack Greinke. The next night, the Royals literally walked off with a win, as Mike Moustakas earned* a free pass to force the winning run home.

*The key pitch in that at bat to me was the second ball, a 1-0 curve in the dirt. I recall Lee Warren and others suggesting that Moose in Triple A loved to go after that pitch. It was definitely thrown as a chase pitch and Moose ignored it.

Then things started getting really weird.

June 14, 2012; Kansas City, MO, USA; Kansas City Royals center fielder

Thursday night, the Royals were struggling at the plate as has been usual when a 2-1 lead turned into a 2-2 tie then a 3-2 deficit. Going into the bottom of the ninth, Mitch Maier was set to lead off in the five hole (after a Jeff Francoeur ejection) and struck out. Fortunately for him, the ball went all the way back to the backstop and he made it to first easily, then moved over on a groundout. After an Alcides Escobar strikeout, Jarrod Dyson worked a walk to bring up pinch-hitting Brayan Pena. You’ve probably seen the play already, as Pena slapped a single down the left field line to score Maier easily as Dyson settled on third. Apparently, the first baseman wasn’t covering and Pena alertly made a turn towards second base, drawing a throw from the shortstop. Dyson, ever the opportunist, was drifting off third already and broke home. Rickie Weeks fumbled the catch, then rushed his throw and Dyson slid in safe for a crazy score-from-first-on-a-single win.

It got weirder.

Vin Mazzaro shut out the Cardinals for six innings. Vin Mazzaro. “Worst relief outing ever” Vin Mazzaro. Roman Colon, a weird selection to promote to Kansas City, almost blew the game but the bullpen stopped the bleeding. Then, with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Tyler Greene stole second, advanced to third on throw that hit him and rolled into shallow left-center and turned home after Chris Getz made a wide throw to third. A perfect throw by Moustakas and a great block by Humberto Quintero got the out on a 2-6-4-5-2 putout at home.

This latest run of wackiness has inspired some hope.

The Royals are six games under .500 with Bruce Chen going tonight. Luke Hochevar has looked a lot better. Luis Mendoza isn’t the gasoline can I expected him to be. The bullpen is among the best in baseball. Alex Gordon has reached base in every game since being put back in the leadoff spot (and the last game he started there in the lineup and didn’t reach was in the third game of the year). Eric Hosmer is hitting .289/.365/.511 and has struck out just four times in June.

Not to mention that Salvador Perez should be back by the end of the month. Lorenzo Cain should return at some point as he tries out another rehab assignment. Wil Myers is still raking  and, according to MLB Trade Rumors, the specter of the Super Two deadline may be gone, so if the Royals feel he’s ready, he could make it up to the big leagues soon, as could Jake Odorizzi. Felipe Paulino, who’s looked great, will return as well.

I wouldn’t say there’s a lot going right, because so much already went wrong, but the Royals didn’t let the big losing streak bury them to start the year, they’ve scrapped their way out of slumps, they’ve gotten some tough starting pitching lately and they’re looking like a team on the rise. They’ve won in such strange ways the last few days that it has Rany scratching his head.

Then again, the last time they won four in a row, they turned around and lost seven of their next nine games, so let’s not start printing up playoff tickets just yet.

What interests me is the swings of being a fan during a season like this. Immense hope and optimism coming in – Our Time – gets dashed right away after a losing streak. Key players slump. Injuries continue to pile up. It starts to feel like any other Royals season but perhaps worse because for the first time in a while, there were bigger expectations.

Then a four game winning streak and everyone’s excited again.

It makes me wonder what will happen if the Royals get to .500 or within a game of first place. The decisions we complained about when the Royals were staving off the Twins for last would be that much more important, or they’d feel that way at least. A bad at bat feels more devastating. A pitcher left in too long inspires more rage than before. The swings could be crazy.

Back when the Royals hosted the Yankees this season, I talked with Ricky Keeler over on our Yankees site Yanks Go Yard, asking him just what it’s like being a fan when you know your team is going to be in the hunt all year. At the time, he warned me to take every game one at a time, that the wins feel like something’s still lurking and every loss feels like the end of the world.

Maybe it’s heightened in a New York atmosphere, but it feels like that’s how it is already in Kansas City. We win four in a row and many still say “yeah, but they’re still the Royals”. There’s always a big, scary losing streak waiting around the corner, ready to jump out.

Until then, it’s been a fun week and I hope to see the fun continue.

July 10, 2011; Phoenix, AZ, USA; USA outfielder Wil Myers drives in a run with a ground out during the 2011 Futures Game at Chase Field. Mandatory Credit: Jerry Lai-US PRESSWIRE

This is going to sound crazy. It kind of sounds crazy to me. But I’m going to make the case for why Wil Myers should not be brought up.

Let me start by stating that I believe it’s time to bring Wil Myers up. I think the Royals are still close enough in the race, only six back, to compete, and I think Myers is probably as ready as he’s going to be and a better option than Jarrod Dyson in center. His development can only continue at the major league level … more on that later.

But there are concerns I have that I wonder if others are noticing, and the best way for me to express those concerns is to imagine a reasonable argument for leaving him in AAA for the time being. This argument is based on the assertion that he will struggle when he gets to the major league level for the reasons I’m about to present. So, here it goes.

I’ve watched a number of Myers’ games this year via MiLB.tv. During these games, there were at bats where Myers’ looked incredible—I’m talking perennial All-Star good. But there were also at-bats where the trademark patience wasn’t there. He was chasing pitches from both AA and AAA pitchers. I saw him strike out on three pitches, I think, in a game with the Storm Chasers, and it looked like he was hell bent on swinging and hitting the ball out of the park.

To put it bluntly, Myers’ has become less patient. Some probably see this as a good thing. There were rumblings that maybe he was too patient and letting hitter’s pitches go by. In the last three seasons, his strikeout percentage went from roughly 17.4 percent in 2010, to 20.9 percent in 2011, to 24.1 percent in 2012 (2010 and 2012 split between two levels). So, Myers is striking out quite a bit more than when he built his reputation as a patient hitter.

Anything I can do to get a picture of Alex Gordon in my articles I'll do. Mandatory Credit: John Rieger-US PRESSWIRE

Perhaps even more telling is the drop in walk numbers. Frankly, I can live with strikeouts if a guy gets on base a lot. Alex Gordon strikes out a lot, but I don’t really care because he walks a lot. Adam Dunn is the same way, as are many hitters in today’s game. Myers was thought to be the same type of patient walk-taker without the high strikeout numbers when he was walking at 15.9 percent clip in 2010. But that number dropped to 12.5 percent in 2011 and 10.2 percent so far in 2012. Surprisingly, his walk rate is lowest at AAA, 9.7 percent in 113 at bats, despite the monster year he’s having. One might think that he’d be pitched around more, though admittedly, Omaha’s lineup is very good protection for him.

These numbers clearly indicate a change in approach. He’s being more aggressive. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s not good either. This year, that aggression has paid off. He hit .351/.421/.739 at AA, and he’s currently hitting .327/.398/.693 at AAA. But this year everything he puts in play is falling for a hit. His BABIP at Northwest Arkansas was .425. At Omaha, it’s .343. Last season, when he struggled mightily at Northwest Arkansas, his BABIP was a more reasonable .312, his walk rate was 12.5 percent and his strikeout rate was 20.9 percent. Striking out more and walking less was a problem last season, and many analysts noted it. This season, he’s striking out even more and walking even less, but apparently it’s not a problem anymore? It doesn’t seem like one because the average and countables (homeruns, RBIs) are there, because seemingly every pitch he touches with a bat leaves the ballpark—just like every doughnut I touch with a finger leaves this world.

Of course, I’m a champion of the belief that BABIP isn’t based on “luck” (Miguel Cabrera has a career .346 BABIP. Is that 10 seasons worth of “good luck”?). Myers’ BABIP is high, partially, because he’s hitting the ball insanely hard and when hitters do that their BABIP goes up. But well struck balls won’t come so easily in the majors. Using my eyes, I’ve seen him take some tough pitches, location-wise, and drive them out of the park this season. That won’t happen so much at the big league level when those pitches are moving more with more velocity. Frankly, he’s not going to be able to hit any pitch thrown once he’s called up. He’ll need to drive the three good pitches he gets to hit in an entire game. In order to pick those pitches out, he needs his discriminatory eye back.

So, I’ve made the argument to show you what concerns me about calling him up. Now, let me tell you why he should be called up (It’s a world of gray people don’t expect hardline certainty). I think Myers has hit the point where even AAA baseball can’t help him develop. I think he could continue striking out too much, walking too little, and crushing the ball at AAA for as long as he wants. Sometimes in order to develop, players need to be shown through failure that what they’re doing can’t keep working. Players find failure and make adjustments (see the transformation of Alex Gordon). He needs to move up, fail a little at some point and adjust. Or maybe he already knows that he can dominate AAA pitching and will adjust when called up. I doubt that, but who knows. Either way, it’s about time to call him up

Allow me to end by stating that I hope my concerns mean absolutely nothing. I hope Myers comes up, destroys major league pitching, and continues the new era of hope and prosperity for Royals baseball. I hope minstrels write songs of him and Wilt Chamberlin blushes at the thought of his virility. But lets not make it a given just yet. Let’s not ignore his issues the way we ignored Eric Hosmer’s, crowned him a deity, and were shocked to learn he still had adjustments to make.

Who should be the scapegoat for another year of disappointing Royals baseball?  Whose head needs to roll as a result of the team’s poor showing?  Dayton Moore? Kevin Seitzer?  How about Rex Hudler?

Should Ned Yost be the scapegoat for what has been a disappointing season so far? (Credit: Rick Osentoski-US PRESSWIRE)

One of the interesting aspects of social media is that it provides a real time peek into the thoughts of hard core sports fans.  Every evening you can sit down at your computer and watch the commentary during the game.  One of the most frequent themes on Twitter has been that Ned Yost is to blame for this disappointing season and that he should be taken to the nearest bus terminal with a ticket to Anywherebuthere Town, USA.  But I say – not so fast.

Before I explain my thoughts, let’s take a peek into the world of social media and look at just a few of the many thousands of comments concerning Ned Yost:

• Aaron Stilley @Royal_Heritage – You may say Yost is a by-the-book manager, but today I saw him pioneer the use of a late inning defensive downgrade while leading!
• Scott Thomas @hosmermania – Ned Yost=Hank Hill. Old fashioned grumpy guy who hunts. Never does anything new. Very predictable.
• Mike Engel ‏@michaelengel – How many people in uniform were surprised by the bunt? One? The left field ball boy? #Yosted
• Josh Green ‏@Jashg84 - As long as Yost is in there, it will continue like this unfortunately
• 1Yankh8r ‏@1Yankh8r – Can’t wait to see how the Spin Doctors in the Yost camp sell last night’s debacle. #FireYost

#FireYost has become a popular hashtag.  So is #Yosted.  And fans are right to be upset.   Some of Yost’s decisions this season on the surface appear to be nearly inexplicable.  But let’s take a closer look.

I think the best way to judge a manager is to evaluate what he is doing with the talent he has been given.  For instance (I realize this is a very unrealistic example, but I’m trying to make a point), what if one participant in the Indy 500 was forced to ride a bicycle – how well do you think this person would do and where do you think he or she would finish?  You would expect him to finish last because the race wasn’t fair, he wasn’t given the same sleek expensive race car to drive as all the other competitors.  You know what I’m getting at, don’t you?

The Royals payroll is about $61 million.  That’s about $2.5 million per victory so far this year.  Wins are going for about $5 million each in Detroit and Los Angeles (Angels) this year, and almost $6 million in Boston.  By comparison, if higher payroll means greater talent, then Ned Yost isn’t playing all that badly with the hand he’s been dealt.  The Rays do an awesome job at less than $2 million per victory.

Are the Royals going to bunt again?!? (Credit: Scott Rovak-US PRESSWIRE)

Still, how do you explain all the crazy managerial decisions Yost has made?  There have been times I’ve wanted to tear out what little hair I have left every time I watch Yuniesky Betancourt trot out to 2^nd base or yet another failed and ill-advised bunt attempt go awry.

The Royals have been caught stealing more than any other team in the American League except one.  This is pretty remarkable considering 10 teams (in the American League alone) have stolen more bases than the Royals.  Just imagine how bad this statistic would be if Jarrod Dyson hadn’t been playing recently.  Aren’t the Royals young and athletic?  Don’t most of them have average speed or better, with the possible exceptions of Billy Butler and Humberto (why did we trade for him again?) Quintero?  Are the coaches sending the green light at the wrong time?  Are the players using poor technique?

How many times this year have you seen a Royal caught napping and picked off the bases?  Many more times than I care to recall.  Is poor coaching to blame?

There are a couple schools of thought regarding a stable lineup.  Some people say it’s beneficial to a player to always know his role and where he’ll bat when he comes to the stadium.  Yost obviously didn’t attend this school.  Yost believes in juggling the lineup as if it were a bowling ball, a power saw, a flaming torch, and a butcher knife.  Unfortunately, when you play with fire, somebody is going to get burned.

I wish I knew why many of the Royals are slumping at the plate this year.  Is this Ned Yost’s fault?  Last year, Kevin Seitzer was considered to be a hitting guru on the level of Charlie Lau.  This year, Hosmer was unable to hit his way out of a paper bag for six weeks, Alex Gordon is on track for 12 home runs compared to 23 last year, and the team is trending toward scoring about 100 fewer runs than last season.  Is this Kevin Seitzer’s fault?  Is he not providing the same quality guidance and instruction as last year?

So how good are these Royals and how much talent does Ned Yost have to work with?  There’s really no way to know.  With acknowledgement that some may disagree with me, the 2012 Royals may have one of the major’s best defensive shortstops in Alcides Escobar, one of the best defensive catchers (when Salvador Perez returns – please hurry), the best defensive left fielder in Alex Gordon, the strongest outfield arm in Jeff Francoeur, possibly the major’s most improved player in 3^rd baseman Mike Moustakas, the player with the greatest potential in Eric Hosmer, the speediest bench player in Jarrod Dyson, one of the top hitters in a position loaded with talent, DH Billy Butler, the hardest throwing relief pitcher Kelvin Herrera, and a very capable bullpen. But without decent starting pitchers, there is simply no possible way to know how good this team is.

The pitching anchor of the 2012 Royals is Bruce Chen.  Just let that soak in for a moment.  On opening day this season, we sent Bruce Chen to the mound in Anaheim to face Jered Weaver.  Weaver was an All-Star and 2^nd in the Cy Young balloting last year.  Chen’s heater is about 84 mph.   The Royals brought a knife to a gunfight that day and they were shutout 5-0 in a swift 2 hours and 22 minutes, the 2^nd shortest game of the season – it was merciful and quick.  This isn’t the way you want to start a season and it set the tone for what was to come.

Bruce Chen is the Royals #1 pitcher. No really, I'm not kidding. (Credit: Peter G. Aiken-US PRESSWIRE)

I don’t blame Bruce Chen.  Bruce is a very likeable guy who gives it everything he has every time he walks to the mound.  But he shouldn’t be in a position where a team looks to him as the stopper.  Chen earns $4.5 million per year.  Weaver earns $14 million.  It’s like sending your funny cousin Joey into the ring to face Mohammed Ali in his prime every five days.  Who would do that?   Why are the Royals doing it?  It’s insane!  How can we blame Ned Yost for this injustice?

I believe it all boils down to pitching.  Pitching is the lifeblood of a baseball team.  Wins and losses begin with the guy who takes the mound in the 1^st inning.  Pitching holds the other team down, keeps your side in the game, and provides your teammates with a chance to win.  A baseball team simply cannot be successful without strong starting pitching.

When you watch a team play that has poor starting pitching (aka The Royals), anything else you see on the field is an attempt to make up for this shortcoming.  Everyone else must extend themselves and try to do things they aren’t capable of doing.  They must try to steal when the timing isn’t right.  They constantly bunt in a desperate attempt to move runners into scoring position.  They try to hit 6-run homers when nobody is on base.  The manager flip flops the lineup trying to find a winning combination that will overcome the lack of talent on the mound.  He’ll move the potential All-Star 1^st baseman into right field trying to squeeze one more drop of offense out of a team that must overcome a mishmash hodge podge rotation cobbled together from castoffs, 2^nd level trades, and Independent Leagues while waiting for the top prospect hurlers in the minors to one day, some day, fulfill their potential.

So, who’s fault is it that the Royals don’t have a major league caliber starting pitching rotation?  In my opinion, it isn’t Ned Yost’s fault.  He can only manage with the team he’s been given.  He doesn’t draft, he doesn’t make trades, it’s not his main responsibility to evaluate talent and bring prospects up from the minors.  It’s his job to coach the team on the field.  No doubt he overcompensates and ends up doing things that look stupid in retrospect, but many of these decision are made in desperation while attempting to surmount the overwhelming pitching handicap the Royals have been saddled with.  All things considered, it simply isn’t possible or fair to call Ned Yost the worst manager in the major leagues, and we won’t be able to make this assessment accurately until and unless the Royals Front Office provide him with a competitive rotation.

You may say the Royals can’t afford to compete in the free agent wars and their small market revenue stream places them in an unwinnable position.  Well, no doubt it makes things more difficult, but I don’t see anyone in Tampa making excuses for their low payroll, and they are winning.  And by the way, they’re winning with an abundance of talented young pitching.  Just sayin’.

How will Kansas City greet Zack Greinke Tuesday when he returns to Kauffman Stadium for the first time since being traded. Photo Credit: Benny Sieu-US PRESSWIRE

At this point many probably feel the Brewers got the better of the deal since they made the postseason with Zack and were two wins from the World Series last fall. Another reason Royals fans feel like the trade didn’t work out is because Betancourt was brought back this past offseason. It also doesn’t help that since the trade Greinke’s 23-8 during the last two seasons. During those two seasons Kansas City could’ve used a number one starter.

Saying his time in the city of fountains was up and down is an understatement because he only had two seasons with a winning record, one .500 season, lost 17-games in 2005 and dealt with a social anxiety disorder during his time in KC. As for the bright spots he did strikeout 15 Indians on August 25, 2009 which broke the team’s strikeout in a game record, previously held by Mark Gubicza.

His crowning achievement was winning the 2009 Cy Young award with a 16-8 record and 2.16 ERA for a team way removed from the postseason. That season he represented the Royals in the All-Star Game in St. Louis striking out two of the three hitters faced.

How will the crowd react Tuesday night? I expect it to be a mixture of cheers and boos when he takes the mound likely in a navy blue Brewers jersey. Royals fans never got to say goodbye and with Zack being a free agent this winter I think some people are holding out hope he returns since he and his wife still own a home in Kansas City.

When I heard that he was scheduled to pitch during this brief homestand there was no doubt that I’d drive down from Omaha to see the “return” of the former hero. I was there for the wins and losses in addition to the night where he toyed with Cleveland, I won’t boo but it will be bittersweet seeing him in another uniform.

Maybe if he’d stayed KC they’d be further in the “process” than they are now but there would also be no Alcides at short or No Odorizzi, no Cain (who could still contribute if he can stay healthy), no Jeffress (who might get back to KC at some point). In addition who knows if Greinke becomes the guy he is right now, the one who is nearly unbeatable at Miller Park and 7-2 this season. It’s possible that if he remains might of continued had he not got the change of scenery due to the struggles of 2010.

So if you’re at the K on Tuesday, it’s understandable if you root for the Royals while remembering the good times we had with number 23 throwing for Kansas City. However once Zack throws his first pitch to Alex Gordon your emotions might change a bit.

Last week on Twitter I was challenged to write 7,500 words on Yuniesky Betancourt and why he isn’t the best option for the Royals to be playing second base. I’m sure I could come up with a few descriptive things to say about Betancourt, and I’m sure if pressed into action, I could come up with 7,500 on why he shouldn’t be on the Royals roster. I’m sure of it. But there’s little reason to go there now, that horse has been beaten dead for a while.

The first acquisition of Betancourt via trade was at least justifiable from the standpoint of there not being any other shortstop in the system capable of playing the position, and there was at least some buy low characteristics of the deal. In the end, it wouldn’t prove to be a complete disaster because at the very least Betancourt’s ability to stay healthy allowed the Royals to buy time to find his replacement.

The second acquisition last offseason made little-to-no-sense given his history as a below-average defensive shortstop, his history with the Royals as a negative-2.1fWAR(!) in 2009* and 0.9 fWAR in 2010, and the Royals really already had someone on the roster capable of doing what he does in Johnny Giavotella. Oh, that, and he creates a whole lot of outs offensively.

*Admittedly part of that season was with Seattle

Sure the fans were told that Betancourt was only being acquired to be a backup (which was a laughable argument) and that good backups cost money, especially ones that were coming off a year they were starters. The Betancourt signing was simply a move to create depth on the major league roster.

Flash forward to today and because of the injury to Chris Getz, Betancourt has supplanted Johnny Giavotella as the normal second baseman. The problem with Betancourt receiving most of the playing time isn’t so much that he’s actually playing, it’s that he’s getting the majority of his plate appearances by batting second in the order. No seriously.

We know enough now through lineup studies that the batting order holds less significance than we originally thought in terms of where guys bat, but the one caveat to that is that at the very least, batters at the top of the order have to make less outs than players at the bottom, because they will bat the most often. It’s pretty simple.

Betancourt will enter tomorrow night’s game with a .309 OBP on the season, and a career on-base percentage of .292.

Two. Ninety. Two.

No matter what you think a No.2 hitter looks like, or having one that can do all the “little things”, there is no hitter in baseball that can make up for having a .292 on-base percentage and be valuable batting second. It just doesn’t happen.

The subject of Betancourt’s playing time, or even his roster spot, has probably been hashed around enough at this point that there’s probably little need to go further than that. Any argument to Betancourt’s viability can immediately be countered with “.292”, and the argument would be over.

That wasn’t quite 7,500 words, but I think the point still remains: Betancourt’s playing time should still be strictly as a backup, if at all, if he can’t avoid making so many outs.

The Good

Well, the bullpen. And the bullpen. Have I mentioned the bullpen?

The Royals bullpen has thrown the most innings in all of baseball this year and has the sixth best ERA. That’s doin’ somethin’.

Led by Tim Collins, one of the strengths heading into the year has really been just that. The worry of course is how long they can keep it up.

At 225 innings through the team’s first 58 games, it’s hard to imagine the group either a) staying effective for a full season or b) not having multiple guys breakdown with injuries. The starting rotation was known to be the weak link of the roster to start the season, but I don’t think there’s anyone that could have foreseen this bad a performance, and it’s putting a lot of pressure on the bullpen to log so many innings.

If the group could keep up this production for a full season, given the workload, it would be nothing short of remarkable. Though, as good as the bullpen has been, I think everyone wishes they’d been called upon a little (a lot) less.

The Bad

While it would be nice to write about a 12 for 18, 3 homeruns, 3 doubles week for Alex Gordon, hereby officially busting him out of his year long no-power funk, I am not and the offense continues to struggle. What was thought to be one of the major strengths of this team coming into the season has proven, yet again, to be a major annoyance as there’s been no consistency, and the same hack-away style at the plate and give-away style on the bases approach is still being implemented.

The numbers have been beaten to death at this point but they always bear repeating: the Royals are 7^th in the American League in batting average (.258), 11^th in on-base percentage (.314), 12^th in wOBA (.309), and 13^th in runs (224). That 13^th place ranking in runs, mind you, is only ahead of the Oakland A’s, who consistently get made fun of for how bad they are offensively.

So what’s to blame? At this point in the season it’s too late to continue to fall back on the lack of production from Gordon or Eric Hosmer, or the injuries to Salvador Perez and Lorenzo Cain. Remember, there were doubts a year ago of Cain’s ability to hit at the major league level, and there have always been doubts of his being able to stay healthy. That isn’t to say giving him the starting centerfield position was a bad idea – in many ways it was the right call – there just should have been a better option to replace him than Jarrod Dyson if the need arose. Which is was almost assuredly going to happen.

Even though the struggles of the two more potent bats in the lineup hurt, that isn’t necessarily the reason to the overall production of the lineup being so bad. The fundamental flaw of the Ned Yost era – or, in fairness, baseball in general – is the complete disregard for offensive outs and the willingness to give them away without contention.

This isn’t merely from a bunting perspective, which has been taken apart on this site as well as many others, but from a base running point of view where “aggressive base running” leads to far more harm than good. The Royals, metrically speaking, rank as the third-worst base running team in the American League, and there doesn’t seem to be much of a sign of that turning around, because the same mistakes keep happening.

Suffice it to say, if there’s a sarcastic hashtag named for you on Twitter (heh), there’s something you’re not doing right.

The Upcoming

It doesn’t get any easier this week. Last week I wrote that the Royals really had a chance to make some noise in the AL Central with their upcoming June schedule. That noise turned to a faint whimper as a 1-win, 5-loss stretch against Minnesota and Pittsburgh has ruined any good vibes there was entering the month. A very #Royaling feat indeed.

This week, it’s three at home against Milwaukee and three on the road against St. Louis. Oof.

Making things more interesting is a Zack Greinke v Luis Mendoza matchup tomorrow night that, on paper, looks more like playing MLB The Show 12 on the beginner level against a Triple-A call-up.

What will be fun to see is the over-reaction of fans to the “traitor” Greinke, and then the subsequent hyperbole if he does well – “Hey, he could have been doing that here, quitter!” – or if he does poorly – “See, he can’t handle the pressure, he’s too weak!” or “See, he’s not a true ace!” Either way, it should be interesting, and entirely predictable.

Before this week you could have made the argument that a six game stretch against the National League would be a huge benefit to the Royals, given how well the American League teams usually do during Interleague play. Now, given the pretty thorough dismantling at the hands of the Pirates, there are some doubts.

One thing Royals fans will see this week is stars (much like they did with Andrew McCutchen) and the impact those stars have on teams. It’s long been my contention that stars win championships, not “well rounded” players, because those great players can make up for the deficiencies of a couple average players. The Brewers have Greinke, and Ryan Braun; the Cardinals have Carlos Beltran (ugh), and whatever category you’d like to put Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright in. The Royals are still trying to find theirs.

Even though stars don’t make the complete difference in baseball, they make a huge difference. And as long as the Royals are still searching for one, it’s going to make things a lot harder, and 1-5 stretches harder to avoid.

Bruce Chen was solid all night. Photo: John Rieger-US PRESSWIRE

Chen was great, throwing 62 of his 88 pitches for strikes and hitting his spots while walking none. The Twins didn’t hit the ball hard all night and he passed the game off to Greg Holland.

Facing three right-handed hitters, he struck out Brian Dozier and Drew Butera, then induced a grounder from Jamey Carroll. Alcides Escobar rushed the throw and Eric Hosmer couldn’t scoop it, but Holland struck Denard Span out looking on a slider to end the inning. Jonathan Broxton worked another stressful inning to get the save, stranding Josh Willingham and Justin Morneau on base in the process.

After a miserable loss last night, this was a solid way to bounce back. The overworked Royals bullpen needed a rest, and seven solid innings from Chen helps that. He could have work an eighth, but Ned Yost said after the game that he didn’t want to do that with just a one run lead and righties coming up.

Francisco Liriano‘s slider could have been registered as a weapon in the middle innings. During the fourth inning, Liriano struck out four batters, with Jeff Francoeur reaching on a slider in the dirt. All four strikeouts were swinging, including two bad at bats by Mike Moustakas and Hosmer.

The lone run of the game came after Eric Hosmer reached on a fielder’s choice, stole second, and scored on a Brayan Pena single that found a hole on the left side. The Royals could have added an insurance run in the eighth when Alex Gordon doubled with one out, but he was caught between second and third on a comebacker by Johnny Giavotella. Billy Butler singled on a looping line drive to center that surely could have scored Gordon with two outs (assuming Giavotella would have been thrown out at first rather than Gordon being caught trying to advance). It didn’t factor into the game, but it could have been a costly mistake. Gordon was picked off of first earlier in the game when he went on the first move by Liriano.

Felipe Paulino takes on Nick Blackburn tomorrow. Paulino has been solid in 2012 and we’ll hope he keeps it up in the last game of the series.

May 22, 2012; Bronx, NY, USA; Kansas City Royals manager Ned Yost (3) in the dugout against the New York Yankees during the seventh inning at Yankee Stadium. Yankees won 3-2. Mandatory Credit: Debby Wong-US PRESSWIRE

I remember thinking about how the Royals might go about winning games with such a terrible starting rotation before the season began. It’s hard to win when you can’t pitch, and it looked like for a majority of their innings they’d be getting bad pitching. I thought then that with such a good offensive lineup they would need to win a significant number of high scoring games—6-5, 8-6 and so on.

Right now, the Royals are 23-30, not good, but not out of the realm of where most people thought they should be—especially considering the 12-game losing streak. But when I reflect on how they’ve won those games, the high-scoring battles aren’t ringing any bells. Why? Because they haven’t won any.

That’s really not fair; they have won one. Yes, one. The Royals record when their opponent scores 5 runs or more is 1-20. That’s not very good for a team whose lineup was suppose to carry them.

Now, obviously, the offense hasn’t produced as expected. They’ve scored 214 runs all season, that’s 4.03 runs per game. Eric Hosmer has been a shell of himself, though he’s shown some signs of life lately. Alex Gordon struggled early and is starting to turn it around. Jeff Francoeur also struggled early. The Royals also had an abysmal time hitting with runners in scoring position (though their overall team batting average is good enough for ninth in MLB, another piece of evidence to support the notion that BA isn’t everything).

The offense has been weaker than expected, but that alone doesn’t tell the story either. In Saturday’s loss to Oakland, the Royals got down early thanks to another Luke Hochevar-like effort by Luke Hochevar. They were down 6-1 after the fourth inning. I’ve heard players on this team say they have the fire power to come back from deficits like this, which is good because they’re going to have plenty of them.

It all fell apart though after the Royals scored two runs to make it a game at 6-3. At that point, it looked like they might actually mount a comeback, but they couldn’t make those 1-run innings 3-run innings. Then, Louis Coleman, Aaron Crow, and some really terrible defense gave us a glimpse of Royals teams past, and it was over 9-3.

As those of you who watch baseball know, the game is played in context. Different elements of each game impact other elements of that game. Think about the rally-killing sac-bunt Ned Yost called for in the fourth inning tonight. That had huge ramifications throughout the game. That took a potential 5 or 6-run inning and made it a 3-run inning. If Yost had been thinking about how his team would probably need many more runs to win that game, he probably wouldn’t have called for a sac-bunt.

So, the issue isn’t that the Royals aren’t scoring a lot of runs—they’re not—but that they aren’t scoring a lot of runs when they need to. This isn’t necessarily a solvable problem, but it’s not necessarily something to be written off as unsolvable either. People would be very wrong in tossing this issue aside by saying Well they can’t control when the runs come. They come when they come. Not true.

Managers have a pretty good idea of when they’re going to have to play for 7 or 8 runs (anytime Will Smith is pitching for example). Maybe that means fewer sacrifice bunts or playing more offensive players on a given day. Maybe it means running less to wait for extra base hits, knowing that a stolen run won’t do much for you. Maybe it means keeping spirits high when the team is down by the third inning.

For players, this issue seems more psychological. Last season, when the team was 8-20 through 53 games when opponents scored 5 or more runs, it felt like they were in every game—even when they were down 5 runs. The same sort of “overcoming all odds” mentality is lacking this season. Maybe it’s because some players have struggled at the plate, and they feel less confident about their ability to recapture a lead. I’m not sure. But it just doesn’t feel the same.

Obviously, a team is going to lose more games than not when it gives up at least 5 runs. But for this very unique team, they have to win more high scoring games than they are currently. They have to feel comfortable playing from behind. With a bad rotation, that’s going to happen a lot. Yost needs to make decisions with this in mind. His mentality with virtually every starter, except maybe Bruce Chen and Felipe Paulino, needs to be one that focuses on getting into the other teams bullpen early and playing for big innings. Otherwise, this team will not flirt with .500 this season like they should.