Kevin's Royals Blog

Kevin: As of Friday night, Barry Bonds is hitting .361/.607/.799 in 2004.

Let that sink in for a minute. .361/.607/.799. If the season ended today, Barry would have done the following:

1) Shatter his own record for on-base percentage in a single season
2) Shatter his own record for OPS in a single season
3) Be the first man in baseball history to have at least a 1.400 OPS in a single season
4) Win the National League batting title

The list goes on and on; Barry would also break his own record for walks drawn in a single season. However, it seems that most members of the media and baseball fans are dead-set on giving the National League MVP trophy to one of the Three Amigos in St. Louis: Jim Edmonds, Albert Pujols, or Scott Rolen.

My question is why. I think part of it has to be an anti-Bonds sentiment: People have grown tired of him winning the trophy, and many despise the man for being surly with the media. But MVP trophies shouldn't be given out based on who the nicest guy is among the best players in the league. It should be given to who's done the most for his team, and in that category, Bonds beats the daylights out of Edmonds, Pujols, and Rolen. Just look at the 2004 numbers, with VORP (Value Over Replacement Player) listed in parentheses.

Edmonds: .304/.420/.650 (68.1)
Rolen: .321/.408/.609 (66.3)
Pujols: .322/.406/.644 (77.1)

Just for the record, Bonds' VORP is 112.2. So how could there be any doubt that Bonds should take home his fourth consecutive MVP trophy, and seventh overall? Let's just say people can come up with some funny definitions of the word "value." ESPN.com's Ray Ratto penned an interesting column (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=ratto_ray&id=1868418) about why Bonds won't win the award. Here's an excerpt I found to be particularly interesting:

This association with the best team is typically, and rightfully, very helpful to MVP candidates, because value is defined by what you do to make your team as good as it can be, and there isn't a lot of head room between where the Cardinals are and how much they can improve. That's why Todd Helton hasn't gotten any MVP trophies yet.

This is where the definition of "value" gets all messy. If a player's value is all about what he does to help his team win ballgames, should the MVP not be the player who does the most to help his team win ballgames, regardless of how many games his team has won? For example, Alex Rodriguez lost the MVP award to Miguel Tejada in 2002, even though A-Rod had the better season. The format is the same as last time, with VORP in parentheses:

Rodriguez: .300/.392/.623 (94.7)
Tejada: .308/.354/.508 (66.4)

So if A-Rod got on base more than Tejada did and hit for more power than Tejada did, how in the world could he be considered less valuable? Because Tejada's A's won 103 games, and A-Rod's won 72. The baseball writers, for some reason, factor in team success when it comes MVP votin' time, and more times than not the wrong guy gets the award because of it. A-Rod did more to help his team win 72 games than Tejada did to help his win 103, and therefore was the more valuable player.

My fear is that Bonds won't get his just due in 2004 because of the Cardinals' sparkling record. It's a shame, too, but this horrible malfunction of the system can be solved by remembering one thing: The best player in the league is always the most valuable player in the league.

Daniel: Most Valuable Player. In the NFL, NBA, and NHL, it is near impossible for an MVP-type player to put up the kinds of statistics needed to win the award without copious amounts of help from his teammates. So, in a sense, the MVP award in those sports is also a team award. In this vein, I can understand the concept of looking at the team's record and performance to help evaluate a player's value.

In baseball, this couldn't be further from the truth. The only offensive statistics that are influenced by team play are RBI and runs scored (meaning they should be ignored when assessing the value of a single player). Other than that, a hitter pretty much does his own dirt and earns his own stats. This being the case, I really don't understand how a team's record in baseball should hold as much sway as in other sports.

You've pretty much broken down how the stats show Bonds superiority over, well everyone else in the NL. But one factor hasn't really been brought up, and that is that Barry Bonds does something for his team that no other hitter in baseball does now, and perhaps no other hitter has ever done in the history of the game.

He actually does make his teammates better. Jeff Kent and Rich Aurilia can attest to this phenomenon, having had their career years batting before and after Bonds.

But those two players are not with the Giants anymore, having been replaced with Ray Durham and Neifi Perez (at least for most of this season). Despite this downgrade, and despite not having any hitters in their lineup that would be in any other team's 3-4-5 slots, the Giants are near the NL lead in runs scored. How?

Bonds' presence affects 4 other spots in the lineup besides his own. The 2 and 3 spots in the order will likely see more strikes because the pitcher doesn't want to walk them on base with Bonds coming up to bat. The 5 and 6 spots in the order will likely see more strikes since Bonds is on base so much, and they don't want to walk Bonds into scoring position (if indeed Bonds walked beforehand). The Giants hitters around Bonds simply have more opportunity to cut loose and hack at better pitches, thus leading to the Giants having the 5 players who've been batting around Barry most of the season having 52 RBI or more, and leads to J.T. Snow.

Snow, since being put in the 2nd and 3rd slots in front of Bonds, has had a July of .364/.456/.623, and an August of .443/.547/.803. Are you kidding me? J.T. Snow? Snow has an OPS of .940 on the season after having 2 months of dreadful hitting, all because he was moved in front of Bonds. If this isn't proof of Bonds' abilities to make players around him better, I'm not exactly sure what is. MVP for sure.

Kevin: I don't agree with your statement that in other leagues, "it is near impossible for an MVP-type player to put up the kinds of statistics needed to win the award without copious amounts of help from his teammates" for various reasons. I have my own theories about misleading statistics in the NFL, but perhaps that's another topic for another time. It's almost football time again, and Dante Hall begins his second reign of pigskin-returning terror on September 12.

However, you ARE right when you say that Bonds makes his teammates better. I generally don't believe in such things, but there can't be any question that the guys who hit in front of him get better pitches to hit. Of course, it's then on those players to put the good part of the bat on the ball and line it into an alleyway, but that's a secondary trouble.

What makes this even better is "making your team better" is one of those cliche prerequisites for earning votes as the MVP. If the writers don't have that to use against Bonds anymore, I guess their leverage will be cut down to his surliness. But that isn't without precedence; remember Mo Vaughn winning the 1995 AL MVP over a clearly more deserving Albert Belle?

Daniel: Sure, we'll discuss the NFL in another forum, but in the meantime, I wonder how any NFL offensive player could do anything without people to block for him. All the time.

These MVP votes are most interesting nowadays. With the ascension of sabermetrics, and baseball beginning to stand head-and-shoulders above other sports in regard to the different types of stats that can be brought to bear to evaluate player performance -- well, let's say baseball is the thinking man's sport more than ever. That being said, a lot of the people who are using sabermetrics the most are of a younger generation (and yes, I mean you, Kevin). The people with an MVP vote, however, are made up primarily up of older gentleman, many of whom who either don't like too many statistics beyond batting average, HR's and RBI's, or don't feel that stats tell enough of a story. They are the ones who tout team record and whatnot as a large factor in their voting.

This is why Bonds for MVP will never quite be a sure thing. The statistics really do tell an inarguable case, but many of these gentleman don't want their vote handed to them on a silver platter, the courtesy of a bunch of numbers and percentages. They WANT to think about their vote (possibly as a measure of their own self-importance), and they want to convince themselves of who is MVP. Bonds is too simple, too easy of a pick -- no challenge there. Rolen, Pujols, Edmonds, Beltre...now, there are picks they must think about, picks that need explanation. And for people who consider themselves intelligent, those picks are more attractive. And don't forget that most with a vote are writers and broadcasters -- these people want emotion, and they want a story. Bonds doing his thing for the umpteenth year in a row isn't exciting enough, and they would find it difficult to extol his virtues. After all, they've done it six times before, right?

Kevin: If the voters want a story about their choice for MVP, they need look no further than Bonds, in my opinion. He isn't just "doing his thing"...he's making history in the process. If a guy with an on-base percentage of more than .600 isn't a story, I don't know what is.

Sadly, I don't think Bonds will ever be appreciated enough, even though he's probably going to be the all-time home run king and the best player of all-time by the time he decides to hang up the spikes. We'll never see another player dominate the game as he has since 2001, but because of the BALCO accusations and Barry's supposed ability to be a total jerk, the man probably won't get his just due. Because of everything he's done for the game, that's extremely unfortunate.

Kevin: I've been out all night and after I returned home, I learned that 300-lb. Calvin Pickering hit a three-run triple in Tuesday night's game against Anaheim. Earlier in the evening, I was told by three friends that I, while under hypnosis, believed I was Jerry Seinfeld and petted a non-existent bird. So how much stranger could things get? I found this in a Kansas City Star article (http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/9469823.htm) dated August 23, 2004, and written by David Boyce:

[Ken] Harvey is the latest member of the Royals to suffer a rib-cage injury, calling into question whether the Royals are training properly or just a victim of misfortune.

Relief pitchers Jeremy Affeldt and Nate Field have both suffered tears in their oblique muscle. Harvey has a strain, and Stairs has just recovered from a bruise in the rib-cage area.

"There have been 31 rib-cage injuries in baseball this season," Royals trainer Nick Swartz said. "The Padres had three position players go down with oblique muscle injuries in one week.

"But with four players on our team suffering rib-cage injuries, we are going to go back and look at it."

If a person is going to blame a single thing for KC's downfall, he or she can point to key players going down with injuries...for a long, long time. It's been well-noted that the Royals' training staff, led by Nick Swartz, has seen an absurd number of players go on the disabled list. 2004's count is up to 17, with Reverend Sweeney's infamous back landing on the DL once again on Tuesday night. I don't know how many players other teams have to disable during the course of a season, but I'd put even money that the number is less than 17.

That said, I don't know how much control teams have over their players' health. I'm certainly not going to stick 100% of the blame on Swartz & Co. for the pitchers in the Arm Injury Ward -- Runelvys Hernandez, Kyle Snyder, and Miguel Asencio. That has more to do with Tony Pena and his coaching staff, in my opinion. The Royals also have no control over injuries caused by hit-by-pitches or by sliding in to second base in an awkward fashion.

But the Royals probably DO have some measure of control over preventing injuries such as hamstring pulls and ribcage strains and making sure the injury does not recur. For the past couple of seasons, I've felt that the Royals have cast aside all these injuries as plain ol' bad luck with no interest in considering there might be a problem. It's nice to see Nick and his cronies seeing a pattern and re-tracing their steps to make sure they're doing everything in their power to keep the Royals happy and healthy.

It's sad it took the R's this long to admit they have a problem keeping their guys on the field, but I'm glad they're finally doing it. Better late than never, right?

Daniel: I suppose that Swartz's duties to keep players as healthy as possible can go hand-in-hand with other coaches, specifically John Cumberland in the pitching department. Of course, Cumberland encumbers the Royals no longer (you decide whether that pun was intended), but obviously his handiwork remains -- both in the quality of Royals pitchers, and in the quality of the Royals' pitchers health.

I don't pretend to know enough about pitching mechanics to assume that Cumberland was, in addition to attempting to make better pitchers, also trying to make sure Royals pitchers pitched from the right arm slot, used the right amount of effort on their pitches (no overthrowing), and put the least amount of pressure on their bodies when pitching from the wind-up and the stretch. But couldn't there be a link between the Royals pitching injuries and Cumberland? Maybe I'm looking for a bail-out for Swartz.

I just can't imagine a trainer being this horrible. Whether it's different players going down with the same injuries (like the rib cage plague), players with injuries that recur more than twice (Sweeney), or players that take longer to come back than anyone thought at first (Tony Graffanino and Juan Gonzalez), it's been a comedy of errors this year. I mean, this surely couldn't be his fault, but Aaron Guiel missed most of the year with eye troubles -- who have you heard of going down because all of a sudden they can't see?

And you know the funniest thing? All of the newest Royals, whether called up or acquired, seem to avoid getting banged up . David DeJesus, Ruben Mateo, Andres Blanco, Abraham Nunez, Mike Wood, John Buck, Ruben Gotay, and other callups have avoided injury, and the most glaring thing they have in common is that they haven't spent the entire year under Nick Swartz's "watchful" eye. Coincidence?

Kevin: I'd like to think John Cumberland had everything to do with most of KC's pitchers falling to the arm injury bug, if only because he's no longer with the organization. If that were true, the Royals should have way fewer pitching injuries, right?

Sadly, I don't think the issue stops, does not pass go, and does not collect 100 dollars with good ol' John when it comes to the pitchers. Like you pointed out, it's hard to believe that Nick Swartz could exact a single-man reign of terror on the entire roster, so we can't fairly place the R's history of pitching injuries firmly on the shoulders of Brent Strom, Al Nipper, or Cumberland. Wouldn't it have to be a "team effort" within the organization? As you also pointed out, several of the new players who haven't been directly under the Royals' watch all season have stayed healthier than their superiors, for the most part.

Getting back to the arm injuries, is it possible the Royals didn't allow their young injured guns to pitch enough? In other words, could Tony Pena be the antithesis of Dusty Baker and not allow his young pitchers to build up their endurance? Rob Neyer and Rany Jazayerli documented earlier in the season that the Royals may have been overly cautious with Donald Zackary's right arm by having him on a three-start skip-a-start program at Triple-A to limit his innings. They didn't pull the same stuff with Runelvys Hernandez, but he got hurt anyway. His 2003 pitch counts:

77, 85, 89, 92, 109, 95, 107, 96, 88, 66, 88, 94, 73, 101, 93, 81

In some of those starts, Hernandez was pulled early because of a disastrous outing. But he was pitching well in a few of those 85-92 pitch outings, namely the April 5 victory over Cleveland in which he used just 85 pitches in seven innings of two-hit ball. Of course, his lack of motivation and subsequent weight gain didn't help the strain on his arm, but that doesn't explain Asencio and the others.

Bob Boone ruined Jose Rosado by having him throw too much, and Tony Muser ruined Chad Durbin by doing the same. Do you think Tony Pena could've ruined the current crop of young Royals pitchers by having them throw too little?

Daniel: If we want the answer to that question -- whether or not low pitch counts have hurt rather than helped Royals pitchers -- I think we have the ultimate lab rat in Zack Greinke, because his health will be watched closely. But he's only 20, so can we really compare him to Hernandez, Asencio, and Snyder, who are all five years older or more?

I don’t think we can. So is this issue self-defeating? Jason Schmidt and Livan Hernandez are examples of pitchers with constant high pitch counts yet no significant injury history. These two often throw 120 pitches or more during their outings, yet stay relatively healthy. Are there many other pitchers who are even allowed as many as 120 pitches, even on occasion? I'm thinking there are very few, because managers nowadays handle pitchers and pitch counts with kid gloves, not wanting to "risk" injury.

Okay, I've avoided your question for long enough. Do I really think the Royals pitchers have been hurt by low pitch counts? Yes, I do. While this is a simplistic explanation, and I'll admit with no hesitancy that I'm the furthest from a medical specialist one can possibly be, I'm thinking that pitching must be like running. To build endurance, a person must run more often. If he runs too much, the risk of getting shin splints and other ailments increases. But don’t run enough, and the risk of not having as much endurance as you might wish is very real.

It's really just a theory with no legitimate way of proving its validity. So why not go by the results? There have been too many injuries, too many mystery injuries, too much time lost to injury for what were key players in the Royals 2004 hopes. The results speak for themselves.

Kevin: It's interesting that you brought up Livan Hernandez and Jason Schmidt, because the successes of those two pitchers proves my point about the Royals being entirely too cautious when it comes to their young pitching.

We all know what happens when an under-developed pitcher is pushed too far too many times; they go the way of Chad Durbin, who's just now getting his feet back under him at the major league level. However, we also know that pitch count isn't everything when it comes to minimizing injury risk. Other variables that must be considered:

1) Is the pitcher's delivery violent, putting more stress on the arm, or fluid, putting less stress on the arm?
2) Does the pitcher use 100% effort on every pitch?
3) In an individual start, what percentage of pitches were fastballs, which cause less stress on the arm?
4) In an individual start, what percentage of pitches were thrown from the stretch position, which place more stress on the arm?

I'm sure I left a variable or two out, but I think you still get the idea. Jason Schmidt has survived several 120+ pitch outings while with the Giants because of his mechanics and tendency to throw what is probably an above-average number of fastballs. Livan Hernandez has survived because, like Zack Greinke, he doesn't use 100% effort on every pitch. Some fastballs come in at 83 mph, and some at 93 mph.

How is this relevant for the Royals and their new methods of handling young pitching? My opinion is that too much emphasis has been placed on the 100-pitch mark at Kauffman Stadium. I think Allard Baird has seen so many promising arms have their careers ruined by high pitch counts, that he's done a 180 and is making sure that no pitcher under the age of 27 goes well past the century mark in pitches in any start. There's no concrete way to prove it, so as you wrote, we have to go on results. The results say something's amiss.

There is no happy medium, which is why this debate is so interesting. Basically, I think the R's have overcorrected themselves in this instance. But it should come as no surprise that even when the Royals' front office believes they're doing something right, it inevitably ends up being wrong.

Daniel: While I love Aaron Guiel, I must admit he was a trap player. With the Royals contending in 2003 and Guiel being a large part of that with surprisingly productive numbers, he loomed large in 2004, as the Royals’ postseason hopes were high over the winter. But with the Royals crashing and burning this year, I'm glad Aaron wasn't part of it. The reason? Guiel's 2003 season reminded me of a player who came out of nowhere and had a monster season for the San Francisco Giants in 1999: Marvin Bernard. They're similar players -- decent speed, decent arm, hustles, won't hit for high average, some power, and a similar love for high fastballs that they can't hit. They also had their breakout years when they were around 30. Brian Sabean took the bait and signed Bernard to a long-term contract.

Guiel could have been in a similar situation this year. Had he not had his eye problems in 2004, I could see Guiel putting up similar numbers to last year, only with 150 more at-bats. That would’ve likely put him over 20 home runs, and Allard Baird may have been fooled into thinking he didn't have to pursue new, young outfield talent as he did.

Would Baird have followed the same path in acquiring players like Ruben Mateo and Abraham Nunez had Guiel and Juan Gonzalez not been hurt as much as they have this year? We'll never know, of course, but I'd like to think that Baird would have tried to acquire some younger outfielders to roll the dice on for the next year or two anyway. Of course, if the Royals had Guiel and Gonzalez healthy and a .500 record, I think it would have meant this year's disaster would have happened in 2005.

Kevin: You know, I didn’t think things could get any worse after the Royals started the season 8-20. And the thought of that scared the daylights out of me. The talent on the field was far too good to continue to play .300 baseball, and I thought they'd improve drastically. Improve to a 75-80 win pace, where the Royals brass could never be sure if the team was in it or out of it, given the current state of the AL Central.

But as we know now, the Royals' downward spiral never reversed, and the franchise is the better for it. The tank job led by Juan Gonzalez and Co. allowed the Royals to do the right things, make moves they wouldn't have made if the team had hung in there. Things like trading Carlos Beltran for three B prospects, flipping Rudy Seanez for Abe Nunez, and giving Aaron Guiel's at-bats to younger players with more of an upside.

That's not to say Guiel isn't a good player. He's one of the few players on the 25-man roster who're willing to take a walk, but Allard knew that a team helplessly mired in last place in baseball's worst division had no business allowing a 32-year-old journeyman to play over younger guys who may have a future with the club. I'm not sure AB could've seen that if the Royals were hanging on by a thread all year.

Daniel: The winning of 70+ games could only delay the eventual collapse. The Royals’ minor league system is only now getting back up to speed, and the signing of veteran free agents in the hopes to get just 5 to 10 games better only stunted the growth of the franchise. Organizations like Oakland and Minnesota understand the need to have a revolving door of prospects. Organizations like the Royals, who seemed to move from one crop of young players to the next with several years in between, don’t. I think there was a collective sigh of resignation after the last batch. Mark Quinn, Carlos Febles, Jose Rosado and Dan Reichert was the end of the interesting players the Royals had to offer in the late 90's, and there really hasn't been anything to look at since. In a perfect world, we wouldn't be looking at Zack Greinke, Jimmy Gobble, Ruben Gotay, David DeJesus, and Andres Blanco until at least 2005, if not 2006 for a couple of them.

That's about 5 years between notable prospects in the organization, and that's too long unless your team happens to be the New York Yankees. The Royals can't afford to gamble in the FA market to fill the holes in their ballclub. The majority of talent on the team must be homegrown.

I believe, however, that Baird has turned a corner with this season, and that the future of the ballclub is even brighter than it was after 1999. This past year shows the flaw in the Royals approach: You don't sign a bunch of veteran free agents to make a run at the postseason; you only do those types of things for a run at the World Series.

Kevin: Your point that the Royals, as a small-market team, have to field the majority of their talent through the farm system is noted, but that corner Allard Baird turned didn't come in 2004. I think it came in 2003 when the club went 83-79.

Granted, the Royals weren't actually an 83-win ballclub in 03. As you're probably aware, they were a 77-win ballclub according to their runs scored/runs allowed figures. However, Joe Fan doesn't know or care about Pythagorean won/loss records. No matter which way you slice it, the 2003 team won 83 games and spent more days in first place than Minnesota did. So what was Allard supposed to do? He had two choices:

1) Sign veteran players to short-term contracts in hopes of winning the division
2) Continue with the youth movement, and tell Royals fans that the 2003 club was nothing more than an aberration

Unfortunately, the Royals have to deal with public relations too, and not making an obvious effort to improve the team's talent would've been PR suicide if you ask me. In hindsight, #2 was the correct choice; Allard went with #1, and the team is going to lose more games anyway. But when Opening Day 2004 came, there was no disputing that the Royals were a more talented club than they were in 2003. A run at the postseason is a run at the World Series. Had the Royals gotten in, their chances of winning the whole thing would've been slightly less than those of the Yankees. Besides, which young player was Juan Gonzalez blocking? Scott Sullivan? Matt Stairs? Tony Graffanino?

Daniel: I don't feel that Baird failed to make Grimsley/Bautista type moves over the winter because of PR pressure, and I feel the same for his moves to acquire Mateo and Nunez. These kinds of moves could have been made before the collapse of 2004 happened. Who would have missed Grimsley after his post 2003-All-Star Break debacle? Who would have missed Dee Brown, Brandon Berger, or Adrian Brown? These are the players that Mateo and Nunez-type acquisitions could have replaced last year easily in the minors. Baird should have been able to tell those would have been upgrades last season, because everyone else in the free world knew that Brown, Berger, and Brown (sounds like a law firm) were going nowhere.

I feel that Baird did his learning this year after two factors: 1) Injuries to Guiel, Gonzalez, and the trade of Beltran left the big club bereft of any OF who resembled major leaguers, and 2) the players brought up because of injuries (like Berger, Gettis, and Brown) showed, once again, that they're nowhere close to even being bench players at the major-league level.

After watching those two things happen, I believe Baird realized that he needed some young hopefuls -- players that could contribute some now and hopefully "turn the corner" and be a part of a run a year or two from now. I don't know if you felt it, but I felt a semi-desperation in all of Baird's moves this year -- it seemed to me that the shock of how barren the farm system is hit him, so he reacted quickly and brought in some live, younger bodies. He did just about as good of a job as he could have given his circumstances. In roughly one month of dealing, he brought in a crop of interesting younger players who stand a decent chance of contributing in some fashion in the next two years. However, all moves except the Beltran trade could have been done last season, if Baird had chosen to.

Kevin: As the old saying goes, it takes two to tango...and two to make a trade. It's easy for us to sit here and discuss why Allard should've picked up Ruben Mateo, Abe Nunez, and Denny Bautista last winter, but if the other team wasn't willing to give those players up, then there's nothing Baird could've done.

But I think we're in agreement on at least one thing: 2004 was the Summer of Allard Baird. He added the following players:

Denny Bautista
Justin Huber
Abraham Nunez
Ruben Mateo
Mark Teahen
John Buck
Mike Wood
Matt Kinney

And gave up these players:

Carlos Beltran
Jose Bautista (who was acquired off waivers just a month before)
Rudy Seanez
Jason Grimsley

I rest my case.

Daniel: Endy Chavez -- mistake or not by Allard Baird? The Royals had him, brought him up for a little while, watched him fail, then let him go. Now? Chavez is a productive player for the Montreal Expos, hitting .290 with 5 HR, 5 3B, and 19 SB, while playing a well-nigh spectacular CF for Montreal (or for San Juan, if you prefer). So, he's hitting for average, has great outfield range, is very good on the basepaths, and he's tough to strikeout -- only 26 SO in about 370 AB's. So, although no one really seems to talk about this much (preferring to lament over Carlos Beltran, Raul Ibanez, Jose Lima, and others), it would seem that Baird miscalculated with Chavez. He's currently 26 years old.

But, if we look a bit deeper, we see that Chavez is one of those rare breeds of ballplayer -- he hardly strikes out, but then, he hardly walks, either. He obviously has the physical tools and makeup to be a top-notch leadoff guy, but his OBP (.326) is hardly higher than his batting average. He hits for little power, with a SLG of just a skoche over .400, and is known to be impatient at the plate, not often seeing more than 4 pitches before his AB's come to a conclusion. His throwing arm is rated as fairly average.

So, I ask you, Kevin -- Endy Chavez, mistake by Allard Baird, or not?

Kevin: With the current state of the Royals' outfield, I suppose losing Endy Chavez to Detroit on waivers could be considered a mistake by Allard, but I think that's hindsight more than anything else. Yes, he's hitting .290, has shown flashes of good basestealing ability, and plays a pretty good centerfield, but that's where his usefulness ends. He really doesn't have any secondary skills; in 2,016 career minor-league at-bats, Endy's isolated power (SLG minus AVG) is .094, which is pretty horrible for a guy who's playing everyday for Montreal. I'd take Ruben Mateo or Abe Nunez over him any day of the week. Besides, the Royals got Chavez for nothing, selecting him in the Rule 5 draft in 2000, and then trading a career minor-leaguer to the Mets (fellow speedster Mike Curry) to obtain his full rights.

But I think the possible reason why Allard chose to let him go is very interesting. You made a very astute point that Chavez (did you know his middle name is DeJesus?) has all the physical abilities baseball people typically associate with a prototypical leadoff man. He's a high average hitter, extremely fast, and doesn't hit for much power at all. But as we've all come to realize over the last couple of seasons, Allard's mind tends to sway towards performance scouting, rather than how-much-he-looks-like-a-baseball-player scouting. Endy certainly falls more into the latter category, so I'm not at all surprised the R's were willing to cut him loose. Baird knows that players with Chavez's skillset are easily found.

Of course, just a year later, Allard traded Jermaine Dye for Neifi Perez. So maybe the end of the Endy Chavez Era didn't foreshadow Allard's strong free talent pickups.

Daniel: Well, I can't say that your response was a complete surprise, but at the same time, I find it a bit ironic that the player the Royals have to "replace" Carlos Beltran, is, in some aspects, the same kind of player that Chavez is, and was when he was with the ballclub. While I don't believe Chavez should have been retained, I'm wondering if Baird projected even this much success for him. While not a starting outfielder on a good team, he would find AB's on just about any club in one way or another, and I don't think there's much question that he is now a tradable commodity, if the Expos chose to do so. So, not a mistake by Baird in not keeping Chavez, but perhaps a small mistake in letting him go for nothing.

One of the reason why I bring this up is because another Royals prospect, Andres Blanco, is much the same ballplayer Chavez was while he was here, and the Royals may face a similar decision on whether to keep Blanco around. Like Chavez, Blanco is useful in some aspects: speedy, slap-hitter, with good defensive skills, but in a similar situation to Chavez, Blanco is being blocked by a ROY-type player who's had a sophomore slump. In 2000,Carlos Beltran had a slump in his 2nd year, as Angel Berroa has had a slump in his 2nd year.

Now obviously there are a couple of large differences: Berroa is older than Beltran was in their respective 1st and 2nd years, and Blanco is younger than Chavez was when the time came to make a decision on him. But, I think, the similarity in their situations is enough to warrant the comparison: where do you see Andres Blanco in 5 years? And, were the Royals not so terrible, would we even be having these kinds of discussions on marginal players?

Kevin: If the mystery player you speak of who's replacing Carlos Beltran is David DeJesus, I have to strongly disagree with you. DDJ has actually shown some sock in his bus leagues career, and his power took a pretty significant spike this year for Omaha:

.315/.400/.518

Sure, DeJesus may look like Endy Chavez right now, and to be fair, his major league rate stats look like Endy's as well. But unlike Chavez, David's a legitimate prospect, albeit one who'll probably never slug .500 in the major leagues. But his on-base skills are quite good, and he's hitting over .300 since he took over for Beltran on a full-time basis following the trade. Think another Johnny Damon with much less hair.

Moving right along, keeping Andres Blanco around is a no-brainer for the Royals, unless some other team becomes infatuated with his stellar defensive abilities and offers Allard a deal he can't refuse this winter. Offensively, Blanco is still very much a work in progress. His plate discipline, which was encouraging in his first three seasons, has disappeared in 2004, but perhaps that can be chalked up to a 20-year-old being overwhelmed by more experienced pitchers. Either way, there's still lots of time for him to become a useful offensive player, which is reason enough to keep him.

In addition, I don't know if you've seen the kid play shortstop, but he sure as hell can pick it over there. In fact, Blanco made a couple of eye-popping plays in last night's game against Seattle...plays I'm not sure Rey Sanchez, one of the finest shortstops of this era, could've made. I've never been put to the task, but I'd guess that finding good defensive shortstops is more difficult than finding good defensive outfielders like Endy Chavez.

Where do I see Andres Blanco in five years? If his plate discipline improves and he can find a way to get on base at least 35% of the time while hitting for league-average power, he should be the starting shortstop for the Kansas City Royals. Keep in mind that a position change for Berroa probably hasn't been ruled out by the organization. He certainly has the arm for third base, and with Joe Randa popping off at the mouth lately, anything's possible.

However, those are all "ifs." I'm guessing Blanco will add more power as he gets bigger and stronger, but whether the plate discipline comes back is a different story altogether. But even if his on-base ability doesn't reappear (and likely won't, given that the Royals' minor league instructors have a problem with their players not swinging at planes flying overhead), having one miniature Rey Sanchez hitting at the bottom of the order couldn't hold back the Greinke/Butler/Teahen Royals too much, right?