Juan Cruz and a Plan

Now the Royals are getting somewhere.

Juan Cruz was signed today to a two year $6 million contract with a club option for 2011, the significance and importance of this signing is multifaceted.

• The fact that they signed a Type-A free agent signifies that the Royals are officially trying to compete, not only in the future but this year. Because of the signing the Arizona Diamondbacks will receive a compensation/sandwich pick and the Royals’ second round pick in the 2009 First Year Player Draft.
• They effectively signed him to a three year contract. This is significant because he is locked up in the same timeframe as Greinke, Meche, Soria, Farnsworth, and DeJesus. In that timeframe they also control the rights to younger players like Gordon, Aviles, and Butler. It is also reasonable to assume that Mike Moustakas and maybe even Eric Hosmer will be with or ready to join the Royals major league roster heading into the 2011 season. Call me an optimist, but it seems they actually have a plan in place and are building around more than one or two players.
• They have him under contract at less than his market value. This one is self explanatory, but if the Royals plan goes awry his contract will work in their favor if they choose to move him at the trade deadline during the summer of the 2010 season.
• He chose to sign with the Royals instead of other clubs. Cruz signing today is similar to the Meche signing. Like Meche, Cruz had other options with other teams but chose to come to Kansas City as a high profile free agent. When the Royals signed Guillen and Farnsworth, they were basically bidding against themselves. This signifies that the perception of Kansas City as an organization is starting to shift to a destination instead of a last-ditch effort to continue or revive a career.
• This shows that David and Dan Glass were willing to allow Dayton Moore to go over their projected budget to capitalize on the depressed market. The fact that Dayton Moore actually had a budget to work with was good news in itself. Now it appears that ownership is willing to go above and beyond that budget if an opportunity presents itself. You couple this with the fact that the Royals handed out a MLB record $11.1 million in bonuses for their 2008 draft picks, their increased presence in Latin America, and the increasingly positive PR they are getting from the national media and it is evident that we have a real baseball team on our hands.

The signing of Juan Cruz continues the evolution of the Royals as an organization that was kicked off with the Gil Meche signing in December of 2006, and was continued by the pursuit of major free agents Torii Hunter and Andruw Jones in December of 2007.  That was the same infamous offseason that they landed their third option in the form of Jose Guillen.  This winter we witnessed the Royals start to move talented young relievers in Leo Nunez and Ramon Ramirez for legitimate major league players Coco Crisp and Mike Jacobs.  They also made the acquisition of Kyle Farnsworth at a then ridiculous sum of $9.25 million over two years with a club option for 2011.

Below are the career numbers for Cruz and Farnsworth compared to the two players they are essentially replacing on the roster.  I used the same statistical categories as I used in my last post about the starting pitching.  For the 2008 season stats, I added one additional statistical category, VORP (Value Over Replacement Player).

Career

Juan Cruz

Kyle Farnsworth

Leo Nunez

Ramon Ramirez

Age

30

33

25

27

IP

515.0

735.0

159.0

156.67

SO/BB

2.011

2.250

2.125

2.281

WHIP

1.383

1.404

1.415

1.277

ERA+ Career

110

98

91

127

2008

Juan Cruz

Kyle Farnsworth

Leo Nunez

Ramon Ramirez

Age

30

33

25

27

IP

51.67

60.33

48.33

71.67

SO/BB

2.290

2.772

1.733

2.258

WHIP

1.258

1.525

1.241

1.228

ERA+

176

99

143

162

VORP

15.9

10.6 w/ NYY

-3.6 w/ DET

12.1

23.1

As the below numbers above show, the combo of Cruz/Farnsworth in 2008 did not fare as well as the combo of Nunez/Ramirez did.  In a 1:1 tradeoff the Royals technically downgraded their bullpen.  Of course we aren’t dealing with a 1:1 tradeoff, the Royals effectively replaced Nunez/Ramirez and two 2009 draft picks with Cruz/Farnsworth and added Jacobs/Crisp in the process.  They potentially got a little worse and several years older in the bullpen, but at the same time added two legit major league players.  Both Jacobs and Crisp upgrade the offense, and Crisp significantly upgrades the defense at two positions because DeJesus can move from being an average/below average defensive CF to an above average defensive corner outfielder.

While Nunez and Ramirez are younger than Cruz and Farnsworth, they have never been exposed to pitching with any real pressure on them.  Cruz and Farnsworth are battle tested, more experienced, and in the case of Farnsworth have experience closing.  Cruz at age 30 has improved his WHIP, ERA, and SO/9 the last three seasons so while he may be older he is still trending upward and may not have had his best season yet.  Farnsworth has always had dominant stuff but in his career has been all over the map in terms of success posting an ERA+ of 55 in 2002 with the Cubs, and an ERA+ of 195 in 2005 while pitching for the Tigers and Braves.  Thus far Bob McClure has shown himself to be an above average pitching coach so it seems reasonable to believe that he can continue to get excellent work out of Cruz, and also get Farnsworth completely back on track.

On Thursday, I wrote about the probable struggles the Royals starting rotation is going to have and their lack of depth beyond Greinke and Meche.  With Juan Cruz in the fold, their bullpen becomes a strength of the team, with talent, depth, and options.  It is not out of the realm of possibility that the Royals could have one of the best bullpens in all of baseball by the end of the season.  It will take a return to 2007 form for Jimmy Gobble (2007 VORP 13.1, 2008 VORP -10.6) and a return to 2007 form for Joel Peralta (2007 VORP 20.1, 2008 VORP -2.8) but for the first time in a long time Royals fans can actually have positive expectations for the bullpen heading into the season.