Matthew Diaz, Kansas City Royal
Maybe I should make player recommendations more often ...
When I returned home from a night of talkin’ baseball and eating at IHOP with a buddy of mine, this e-mail from friend of KRB Dave Sanford was waiting for me:
Subject: Baird had a very good day!He neglected to mention what exactly happened, so I was a tiny bit confused. Between the subject line and the body of the e-mail, however, I was able to decipher that the Royals had done something Dave viewed as significant. Hoping to see that Allard Baird had finally nabbed his Great White Whale in Austin Kearns, I hopped on over to kcroyals.com faster than I ever have before, only to find the same old stories from earlier in the day on the front page. The only things different were two small text headlines that could be easily missed: Royals Notes: MacDougal popping the mitt and Febles rejoins Royals. To my chagrin, Royals acquire Kearns was nowhere to be found, so I sent Dave an instant message, inquiring about Baird’s “very good day”:
Hey man, send me an IM when you sign online tonight. I’m pretty fired up about today’s events!
Me: what the hell happened?
Dave: what?
Dave: WE GOT [MATT] DIAZ!
Dave: We actually signed him!
Me: Get the f--- outta here
Needless to say, I was shocked. He went on to explain that news of the signing was buried in the Royals Notes story between a segment about Chris Clapinski’s travels and a few sentences Matt Stairs’ haircut. Normally, a team signing a released player to a minor-league contract isn’t news, but because I made the case for the Royals to pick him up, this might as well be “Royals get Eric Gagne for minor leaguer” or something similar.
As stunned as I am that Allard actually signed a player I’ve been stumping for, I’m equally as excited that he made it happen. Chalk another one up for Allard under TALENT ACQUIRED FOR NOTHING on the big board. Assuming that Diaz will have the opportunity to compete with Abraham Nunez for the job in right field (a competition he’d likely win), he would represent a serious upgrade offensively for the Royals. Check out what PECOTA expects for the two players in 2005:
| AVG | OBP | SLG | VORP | |
| Matt Diaz | .281 | .331 | .458 | 14.2 |
| Abe Nunez | .231 | .312 | .388 | 1.0 |
There’s a pretty significant difference between the two (PECOTA also likes Diaz’s defensive abilities), and it’ll be up to Tony Pena to understand that Diaz is a much better option to play right field regardless of what happens in spring training.