Kevin's Royals Blog

I was hoping this year would be different.

The Academy Awards show is supposed to be about celebrating the best and brightest in movies. It’s supposed to be about reveling in the successes of our heroes of the silver screen and, just for one night, getting away from it all and spending one evening a year with those stars in our living rooms. Such a thing should be a thrill. After all, through their work, all of the people nominated – and those not nominated – provide all of us with a sense of happiness, a belief that we could be so much more if we’d just dream so much more. But most of all, they provide us a two-hour vacation from all of our problems when we just can’t get away on a plane or a car or a boat. It seems ironic, then, that those actors and actresses in recent years wrap up the year in movies with a bang – a bang that isn’t celebratory or fun, but a bang right back to whence we came: right back to the problems that plague us in our personal lives.

Yes, I was hoping this year would be different. I was hoping that just once, we wouldn’t hear a word – positive or negative – about George W. Bush, the ongoing war in Iraq, or race relations during an event that’s supposed to be a festive escape from reality. Chris Rock made damned sure that wouldn’t happen during the first ten minutes of the show, when he cracked on the President for sucking at his job and claiming – albeit lightheartedly – that Hollywood makes movies “for white people to enjoy.” Although he didn’t go Michael Moore on the audience and proclaim that nobody in America wanted a war in Iraq, the fact that he even opened his mouth bothered me.

It isn’t that I took his words too seriously or even that I put much stock in them at all. After all, it was very easy to just partially tune him out and proceed with my evening, and I even agreed with a lot of the potshots he took at people during his stand-up routine. However, the phrase, “Wrong place, wrong time” has never applied more than it does here. In my opinion, people don’t want to hear President bashing and people bringing out the race card, even if they are just jokes at the Oscars. Again, that show is supposed to be an escape, and the celebrities aren’t allowing us to escape the negative things we see on CNN and MSNBC every day of the week.

Here’s to 2006. Maybe next year will be different.

I saw a pretty entertaining movie, Hitch, yesterday, but there was nothing entertaining about one of the previews that came on before it. Bernie Mac (who is one of my favorite actors) and Ashton Kutcher (who isn’t one of my favorite actors) have made a comedy called Guess Who that’s due to be released on March 25. Sure, it seems innocent enough, but check out the synopsis of the film from Yahoo!’s movie page:

Comedy
A sarcastic father (Mac) has plenty to say about his daughter wanting to marry a white boy (Kutcher).

If you ask me, Columbia Pictures is treading on pretty dangerous waters with this one, although they’re waters that badly need to be treaded upon. By my observation, it’s become okay in our society for the African-American and Latino cultures to publicly mock, chastise, and generally make fun of Caucasians at any time. Heck, during one of the scenes shown during the preview, one of Mac’s character's relatives says to Kutcher’s character, “Oh, are we being audited?” Conversely, few things are more taboo in America than a white person making a joke about a person in a minority race, creating the double standard I have a pretty big problem with. Could you imagine the outcry that would probably commence if Guess Who featured a white father who had “plenty to say about his daughter wanting to marry” a black boy? Columbia would probably have to be shut down for a period of time because of all the protestors who would show up at their gates.

It’s a double standard that badly needs to be corrected, but not by making another movie to “even things out.” The reaction that I, and perhaps others, had to the preview is the real problem. I think it’s about time for America to become more of a less sensitive colorblind society. A society where Robin Williams cracking on minority groups becomes something we can all laugh at, where George Lopez constantly making jokes about the white folk is considered just normal, and where the court of public opinion doesn’t demand an apology from the goofy Shaquille O'Neal for joking around with Yao Ming. All of us just need to take a step back, breathe, and realize that movies that are funny for whatever reason are just funny, and nothing else.

Want an idea of just how crazy Springfield is for minor league baseball and the St. Louis Cardinals playing here for two nights in April?



That's a picture of the line at Hammons Field for tickets. Needless to say, this is Cardinals country. People were camped out 36 hours before tickets for the exhibition games went on sale, and those tickets -- all 3,000 of 'em -- sold out in four hours on Saturday morning.

Frankly, I don't see what the big deal is or why so many made such an effort. If Springfieldians want to see a minor league baseball team get kicked around by a legitimate team from the majors for a couple of nights this season, all they'd have to do is make the easy 2 1/2 hour drive north to Kauffman Stadium.

[ba-dump *crash*]

Thanks, I'll be here all week. Remember to tip your waitresses.

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!

Hey man, send me an IM when you sign online tonight. I’m pretty fired up about today’s events!

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”:

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.

Statistics, like scouting, never by themselves tell the whole story about a baseball player’s season, career, or start. In most cases, combining the two will tell us everything we want to know, but every once in awhile a situation pops up where a player’s performance can’t be explained by either method. The baseball term for such a performance is “fluke” or “outlier,” but I’ve learned that not every case should just be tossed into those categories.

Kansas City Royals left-handed pitcher Brian Anderson was a prime example of this last season. It almost became cliched for a Royals player to have the worst season of his life in 2004, because everything that could’ve gone wrong did go wrong in Kansas City. After a rousing come-from-behind win over the White Sox on Opening Day, things quickly turned bad. Angel Berroa stunk worse than an Easter egg on the Fourth of July. Current New York darling Carlos Beltran was traded for prospects in late June. Utilityman Desi Relaford saw regular duty in the outfield. And Anderson – the team’s Opening Day starter – surrendered five earned runs in five innings that day, beginning a bizarrely horrible season. Horrible because he turned every batter he faced into a .320/.364/.545 all-star, and bizarre because he, at 31 years of age and ten seasons of league-average pitching, suddenly lost his ability to get people out.

The Royals tried everything to decipher just what was wrong with their $6 million investment. They encouraged him, let him continue to start games, demoted him to the bullpen, fired the pitching coach, and messed with his mechanics. Aside from the law of averages eventually helping Anderson out with a solid month of September, absolutely nothing worked. No matter what the Royals did to help him, Brian kept having disastrous starts on a regular basis. It became pretty clear that either A) 2004 was a random, fluky season or B) He had Steve Blass Disease Lite.

Through it all, Anderson – unlike ex-teammate Darrell May – took full responsibility for his actions after every single start. He made sure the world knew that he stunk, sucked, let his teammates down, let himself down, and was just plain lousy with a consistency that would make Paul O’Neill jealous. Doing so deflected a lot of the criticism he would’ve received on top of what he was already getting from fans, and also probably earned the respect of many. It can’t be easy to man up and point the finger at yourself every fifth day, putting the blame on you and only you.

And then almost five months after the season ended, this article showed up on kcroyals.com, and pretty much everything was explained. This was no fluke or aberration, at least in the way we usually think of the words. The article, penned by Dick Kaegel, read in part:

Royals left-hander Brian Anderson lost his pitching effectiveness last season. Even worse, for a time, he feared he might lose his wife, Anna.

Anna Anderson became seriously ill last May, following a surgical procedure, and she was hospitalized just in time.

She might have died.

"The doctor said, 'If you didn't get in here when you did, it could have happened. It could have gone that far if you'd have messed around and tried to ride this out at
home for another day or so,'" her husband said.

Well, that certainly explains a lot. I think I’d have a hard time thinking about pitching too if my wife was in critical condition in a hospital. To make matters worse, she was pregnant with their first child, and nobody was sure if the baby would make it if Anna passed away. Thankfully, they didn’t have to face such a situation; Anna’s now fully recovered and gave birth to a baby girl on February 7. Still, it’s amazing that Brian never said a word of this to the public, because people – especially Midwesterners – wouldn’t have had any problem with him taking a leave of absence from the team to care for his wife. In fact, had Royals fans known about it, they probably would’ve pushed him out the clubhouse door if they could have. But to his credit, Anderson kept pitching, kept trying, and kept taking responsibility for knocking his team out of games early. The article continued:

It was an unsettling time but Anderson refuses to link the off-field circumstances with his on-field failures.

"Even mentioning it now is a little bit uneasy because even in telling the story, it could be misconstrued as, well, he's throwing out excuses now," he said.

"That's not the case. I was bad. I was bad for a lot of reasons and if my wife was in perfect health and everything was going completely smoothly, I still would have been bad."

While it’s true that he was “bad for a lot of reasons,” like poor location and movement, it’s also true that this outside circumstance didn’t help matters any whether he wants to admit it or not.

Royals fans are looking for reasons to believe that something good will come of the 2005 season, which is likely to be a long one. I've found my reason in Anderson and his never-give-up attitude, incredible accountability, and the likelihood that he'll perform like the BA of old in 2005. The starting rotation may be short on talent, but with Anderson as a part of it, they won’t be short on inspiration. And sometimes, being inspired can cause ordinary people to do great things. Great things that can’t be explained with statistics or scouting.

Matt Diaz Update

If the Royals want to add Matt Diaz to their outfield mix, now is their chance. He became free to sign with any team after refusing to play for the Orioles, who claimed him off release waivers. I still think he’d be a worthwhile pickup on a minor-league contract.

How can anybody not love Barry Bonds? It was about time somebody held the media -- the real cause of the steroid circus -- accountable for beating us over the head with the same stories over and over again. Sadly, their writing has brainwashed at least 8,312 baseball fans. Check out the results of this ESPN.com poll, and my responses to the questions directly related to his entertaining press conference:

1) In his news conference, Bonds said he isn't convinced that steroids help you as a baseball player. Do you agree?

77.7% No
22.3% Yes

Aside from assumptions made by sportswriters, I've yet to see any convincing evidence that proves taking steroids helps a baseball player. Do we know it probably helps? Yes. However, there's no way that anybody should be CONVINCED that 'roids helps baseball players.

2) While talking about his relationship with fans, Bonds singled out playing at Dodger Stadium and said, ''you gotta have some serious talent to hear 53,000 people telling you you suck.'' If you find yourself at a Giants game this season, how will you greet Bonds?

61.5% ''You suck, Barry!''
38.5% ''Way to go, Barry!''

It's a shame that people choose to hate on the greatest player of the past 20 years. Count me as being on Barry's side, because I choose to cheer on greatness.

5) Bonds came out on the offensive against the media, which he referred to as ''liars'' and compared the media to watching reruns of Sanford and Son. What is your opinion of the way the media has treated Bonds?

61.2% They're doing their job
20.6% What happened to innocent until proven guilty?
18.2% They've been a little too harsh on Bonds

If by "doing their job" you mean badgering, printing half-truths, and quoting people out of context, then yes, the American media certainly do their jobs. Once again, here's to Bonds for holding the media accountable for causing this whole freakshow.

6) Bonds also referred to steroids by saying ''a lot of more worse things are happening in the world. We should fix those first.'' How badly do you want to see the steroids problem stamped out?

77.5% Should be priority No. 1 for MLB
19.6% Not the biggest problem facing MLB
2.9% Shouldn't even be an issue. Steroids should be legal.

I voted for "Shouldn't even be an issue," but that's just me. I can see the logic in all three choices on this one.

When the time comes to evaluate a baseball player (which happens quite often in my world), the one thing I make sure I never do is making an assumption about the player in question. Call me a dork, but I always like to do my research on Baseball-Reference.com for major league numbers or The Baseball Cube if I need some real in-depth minor league stats. Too many times, I see fans assuming that a player’s good or bad based only on visuals or limited knowledge, and almost every time, that leads to fans making wrong assessments about that particular guy. Therefore, I always try to stay informed by reading scouting reports and making my own judgments after reviewing career statistics.

Unfortunately, I write to you today as a baseball fan who’s guilty of breaking his own rule. In a February 12 article, I wrote a fairly in-depth synopsis of the non-roster players the Royals have invited to spring training. After covering the non-roster pitchers I viewed as being relevant to the Royals’ situation this season, I wrote this sentence to tie together the loose ends:

Steve Stemle, Ryan Jensen, Jonah Bayliss, Byron Embry, and Roberto Giron will get some innings here and there, but they’re all just organizational-type guys.

This is what happens when you make blanket statements without doing your homework. As I found out last night while messing around on The Baseball Cube, one of those five guys – Byron Embry – has a decent chance of being much more than an “organizational-type [guy].” I’m honestly not sure how I omitted him from my research that night, but that isn’t the point.

The Atlanta Braves took Embry out of an Iowa community college in the 35th round of the 1996 amateur draft, but I found his history as a professional baseball player to be non-existent. If any of you know where to find his statistics as a minor-leaguer, I’d greatly appreciate it if you’d pass such information along to me. Anyway, it’s difficult to make an accurate analysis of a player when there’s a seven-year gap between the year he was drafted and the season any website began to track his stats, but I’ll do the best I can. Before signing with the Royals as a 28-year-old minor-league free agent this past winter, the 6-2”, 240-lb. Embry used his overpowering fastball to post this line for Lincoln of the independent Northern League:

IP	ERA	K	BB	WHIP
55	1.46	90	13	0.90

Independent league success is to be taken with a grain of salt, but goodness … NINETY strikeouts against 13 walks in 55 innings? That’s a talent, even if he was facing inferior hitters. If he has any other pitches that are even decent – which is also information I couldn’t find on Mister Anonymous here – Embry has a real opportunity to be the story of the spring in Surprise and head to Detroit with the rest of the team. I’ll be pulling for him (he’s been through at least one arm surgery), and I’m anxious to find out more about the guy. If Embry turns into anything, chalk up another one on the big board for Allard Baird and free talent.



American Idol Thoughts …

Awhile ago, I mentioned my unhealthy obsession with American Idol. With the show about to hit the point where things get interesting, I’m starting to pick out my favorite singers. I missed the show on Monday night that featured the 12 remaining male singers, but I caught last night’s show featuring the girls. Only two – Carrie Underwood and Nadia Turner – really stood out as possible stars.

Turner’s forte should be pretty obvious given her look; she came out and tore the house down with a high-energy song. She really commanded the stage and at least captivated me with her entire performance. Underwood has a real effortless tone to her voice, and is a LeAnn Rimes-type of singer. That, and she’s very cute.

Roughly three weeks after doing my informal interview to work for the Springfield Cardinals, I finally got to do my second interview yesterday. That is, of course, after I circled Hammons Field twice trying to find some way in to any parking lot. Every single street that leads to the stadium is totally blocked off and under heavy construction for some reason, and although my last ditch "Maybe THIS will work" effort led to a HF lot, it ended up being the one for the area I wasn’t supposed to be in. As a result, I had to go off-road on a dirt path in order to get to the opposite side of Hammons. (My car isn't a happy car right now.) Thankfully, my "interview" was nothing more than a guy talking at me for ten minutes about a possible day for training, what to wear while on the job, and how to prepare for the hot weather that’s sure to come in July, August, and September. Basically, what I gathered was from it was once I fill out their paperwork and make copies of a couple of documents, I’ll officially be a member of the St. Louis Cardinals family, albeit a small member. Hey, you’ve gotta start somewhere, right?

Those of you who’ve looked at my sidebar have probably seen the "Official Stuff of KRB," otherwise known as things and people I really like. My favorite thing on that list is flip-flops (seriously – I can’t stand to wear actual shoes for an extended period of time), but my favorite person on it is, surprisingly, NOT Ashlee Simpson. The mantra of "Official Person of KRB" would probably go to the "Official Surprisingly Smart Guy of KRB," or The Rock.

While I know that WWE is nothing more than rehearsed storylines played out by a bunch of really big dudes who don’t really hit each other, I still stop whatever I’m doing to see The Rock when he’s on The Late Show with David Letterman or something similar. The guy just fascinates me. For years, his act had me under the impression that he was just some low-IQ jerk who’d never expand his career past the wrestling ring. So much for first impressions, because Rock (a.k.a. Dwayne Johnson) is actually very well spoken, extremely funny, not that bad of an actor, and a person I’d love to meet someday. I don’t think I’ll ever enjoy watching wrestling, but I’ll never be quick to make a judgment on a wrestler again.

Obviously, I’ve been on the FREE CALVIN PICKERING! campaign trail in my past couple of entries, and yet another aspect of the Ken Harvey/Pickering battle has popped into my head. The Royals have promoted their spring training games as being open competitions for jobs, mainly in the bullpen, starting rotation, and bench. They definitely won’t be the only team using such an incentive for players, which has me wondering just how smart it is for a team to give away a roster spot based on spring training performance.

Seasons are comprised of streaks, both good and bad. For example, if Vladimir Guerrero hits .400 over a two-week stretch (most likely 48-50 at-bats), that doesn’t make him a .400 hitter. Similarly, if he falls into a slump after his hot streak ends and hits only .200 for a week, that doesn’t make him a .200 hitter. Understanding that is key to understanding why I think that allowing guys to "earn" jobs by their play in camp is a stupid, stupid strategy that could have harmful effects. Unless they’re young guys who haven’t reached their potential yet, baseball players are who they are, and 75 at-bats in some spring training games shouldn’t change the way their organization thinks of them.

Take Tony Graffanino for example. He’s pretty much got a deadlock on the everyday job at second base, but if Ruben Gotay lights up the scoreboard with a barrage of hits, walks, and doubles in camp, the Royals will undoubtedly start thinking about giving him the job. My opinion is if that happens, the Royals need to stick to their guns and ship Ruben right back to Triple-A because he still needs some fine-tuning before he’s ready. A hot streak shouldn’t change that. An even better example is Pickering and Harvey. If Harvey out-hits Pickering in pre-season, the Royals will send Calvin to Omaha not because they view Harvey as the better player, but because he had the better spring. That’s wrong, because Pickering’s still the more valuable commodity and is more likely to get on base and hit for power. Again, a month’s worth of at-bats doesn’t weigh evenly with a career’s worth of statistics. Teams need to have their minds made up about their rosters before the games start, and eliminate this silly notion of performance over a one-month period winning somebody a job.

With that said, I’m opening this up to you for discussion. Should teams set their rosters before spring training starts and not let a 75 at-bat performance get in the way of their decision, or should they use it as a motivating factor to get their guys ready for the season? Comment away.

Although my visitor log would say otherwise, maybe Allard Baird read my Friday entry that made a case for Calvin Pickering being the Royals’ primary designated hitter in 2005. Check out what he said about Calvin in yesterday’s edition of The Kansas City Star:

“Pick would probably be a DH only. There's only one year of (age) difference between [Pickering and Harvey]. One guy has gotten a lot of opportunities to play in the big leagues, the other guy hasn't.

“He looks good. He's not another David Ortiz, but I do think he'd be a productive hitter if you gave him 500 at-bats. I think he'd have a very good on-base percentage. He'd strike out a lot, walk a lot and hit a lot of home runs.

“I'll live with the strikeouts if I have power and walks.”

I still can’t believe the man who traded Jermaine Dye for Neifi Perez is the same man who made those remarks about opportunites, on-base percentage, and power. Regardless, it looks like Allard and I see eye-to-eye on this, although I find it bizarre that Harvey’s even getting a chance if Baird likes Pickering’s skills so much. While I don’t think he’s going to post the .940 OPS PECOTA has him pegged for, there’s no doubt in my mind that he could easily have a .400 OBP and a .500 slugging percentage, which is still infinitely better production than what Harvey would provide.

However, the same article included a quote from Tony Pena that could foreshadow the biggest competition in spring training 2005. But that competition wouldn’t between players, it’d be between Pena and Baird:

“We pushed Harvey to the max. There was a time when he was very tired, but he was the only one who was swinging the bat well. If we had taken him out, given him a couple of days' rest, he would have been different. We didn't have that luxury.

“I think Harvey is going to have a big year. He has hit everywhere he has played. I'm going to play him, and I expect big numbers from him. But … nothing is settled. There is nothing settled.”

If Harvey’s “hit everywhere he has played,” so has Pickering, as I proved in Friday’s entry. In fact, Pickering’s out-hit Harvey at the Double-A, Triple-A, and major league levels, which is something Allard’s very aware of. My hope is that AB will eliminate any temptation Pena has of playing Harvey every day by trading him to some sucker of an organization that still value batting average above all else. Otherwise, Baird (pro-Pick) v. Pena (pro-Harv) will be the most interesting fight card during camp.

Photoblogging ...



The night I finally brought my digital camera to Hammons Student Center, the Bears decided to play their worst game of the year. Long story short, they stunk from the get-go, and Oral Roberts whooped up on 'em in their Bracket Buster game. Let the tailspin begin.



Tony Pena: You either love him for the enthusiasm he brings to camp, or hate him for the distraction from baseball he brings to camp. No word on how Andy Sisco (pictured) feels.

There are a ton of great things to like about pitchers and catchers reporting to their respective spring training camps, but I really like the cool baseball pictures such as this one of Mark Mulder:

vs.

Pitchers and catchers for the Kansas City Royals report to Surprise, Ari. tomorrow to begin workouts, and the competition for jobs will steadily heat up as the rest of the team filters in to prepare for the new season. I’ve already covered a few of them, namely who’ll flank David DeJesus in the outfield barring an unforeseen trade and which rotation spots are up for grabs. In fact, Allard Baird’s “no job is safe” mandate even stretches down to the spots of least importance like the backup catcher and the utility infielder.

The exercise is directed less at guys who’re the focal points of The Next Good Royals Team (John Buck’s, Zack Greinke’s, and DeJesus’ everyday spots are very secure), and more at players whose performance over the past few seasons has either been shoddy or very inconsistent. Call it “Camp Competition” for Chris George, Mike MacDougal, Jeremy Affeldt, and the topic of this article, Ken Harvey. The Royals know only a few things for sure about Harvey: he has a penchant for getting trapped behind tarps, crumpling to the ground after being drilled in the back by throws from the outfield, and randomly falling down more than Tara Reid at a New Years’ Eve party. Hey, Daniel Smith from Orange and Black Baseball didn’t dub him “The Big Contact” for nothing.

With Harvey, Matt Stairs, Mike Sweeney, and Calvin Pickering on the 40-man roster, the Royals have a logjam of slow, fat, corner infield-types with productive bats. Stairs’ ability to play a decent right field helps ease that glut; he and Sweeney are obviously locks to make the team. That leaves Harvey and Pickering battling for one spot – presumably first base if the team forces Sweeney to DH – with the loser either being traded or sent to Triple-A Omaha. Here’s the bizarre thing about this: for an organization that’s finally become one of the smarter ones in baseball by placing an emphasis on production analysis, the Royals’ pre-season stance on this is incredibly unusual and reminiscent of Kansas City player personnel decisions of yore.

I’m okay with there being a competition for the job, but the vibe I’m getting is that Harvey is being viewed as the favorite to win, meaning Pickering would head back to Omaha to terrorize Pacific Coast League pitchers for the second year in a row. The scary thing here isn’t that the Royals think lowly of Pickering, but rather that they think so highly of Harvey. For some reason, he’s being lumped in with guys like Buck, DeJesus, Greinke, Denny Bautista, and Justin Huber, or the high-upside players who are the reason for KC fans to believe there’s a better tomorrow. It seems obvious to me that Harvey clearly isn’t a good option for a team at first base and/or DH, especially when a masher like Pickering is on the team, just begging for a job. To get a better idea of what I’m talking about, let’s quantify this with the career statistics of both players:

Ken Harvey I Age 27

LEVEL	AB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Majors	953	.276	.324	.413	.737
AAA	488	.277	.342	.465	.807
AA	314	.338	.372	.506	.878
A	505	.372	.450	.554	1.004

That isn’t a good trend. As Harvey progressed through the minor leagues and into the majors, his OPS went down at every single level change. Even more discouraging is his total lack of plate discipline as he moved up the chain, which isolates what is probably Harvey’s biggest flaw as a hitter: an unwillingness to adjust. When asked to discuss the first base position in a radio interview a few weeks ago, Baird made it very clear that after Harvey’s stellar first half of 2004 (.305/.353/.452) that got him named to the all-star team, the league’s pitchers made an adjustment to him by not throwing Ken as many strikes as they did the first go-around. An intelligent hitter would’ve recognized what was going on by the end of the first week of the second half at the very latest, and taken the walks that were presented to him. Unfortunately, Ken didn’t do that, and continued hacking away like nothing had changed. The result wasn’t pretty; he hit a paltry .256/.311/.366 the rest of the way, drawing just nine walks in 164 at-bats.

Additionally, the team’s hope that Ken will grow into his power is a blind one, as he’s hit 2.43 ground balls for every fly ball in his career. When a worm dies two out of every three times a hitter puts a ball in play, that hitter's never going to hit for any power. Period.

Calvin Pickering I Age 28

LEVEL	AB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Majors	237	.232	.341	.447	.788
AAA	1414	.281	.397	.508	.905
AA	488	.309	.434	.566	1.000
A	444	.311	.394	.554	.948

Among the fans I’ve spoken with, the majority perception is that Harvey has the ability to hit for average while Pickering doesn’t. That’s a forgivable misconception because Calvin’s known for his propensity to strike out. However, while Pickering’s career minor league average doesn’t hold a candle to Harvey’s .328, it stands at a more-than-respectable .303. Most impressive about Pickering is his plate discipline, as his isolated discipline (OBP minus AVG) in both the minors and majors has consistently been well over .100, which is the mark of a very intelligent hitter. And don’t forget the Bondsian .314/.451/.712 he put on PCL pitchers last year. Including his time spent with the Royals last year, Pickering blasted 42 home runs in 421 at-bats. Think of that what you will.

What’s most important in this comparison isn’t what the players have done, but rather what they probably will do. Baseball Prospectus’ amazingly-accurate player forecast system PECOTA has projected the following totals for Harvey and Pickering in 2005:

PLAYER	AB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS	VORP
Ken Harvey	424	.268	.323	.428	.751	9.0
Calvin Pickering	337	.272	.400	.543	.943	36.6

No matter which way you slice it, Calvin Pickering is Ken Harvey’s superior in just about every significant offensive category, and would be worth about 27 additional runs to a team that’s going to struggle to score them in 2005. There isn’t a need for Harvey on this roster, so I’d really like to see him traded while his value’s somewhat high. Chuck LaMar’s cell phone should be ringing right … about … now.

I'm starting to get really burned out with the blog here, so today's another no-article day. Please hang with me, I'll try to get back up and running again shortly.

Color me jealous – but also thankful – that a superstar player is finally willing to stay at home. This isn’t just any superstar player, either. I’m talking about the crème de la crème of starting pitchers, the reigning Cy Young award winner in the American League, a man who had more leverage than Donald Trump negotiating a business deal with, well, anyone not named Donald Trump.

But Johan Santana chose not to exercise that leverage, and by doing so, he inadvertently scored a major victory for all markets both small and smaller. After all, Santana’s below-market-value four-year, $40 million contract isn’t how the story’s supposed to end. If everything had gone according to script, the 2006 Minnesota Twins were going to feel the Kansas City Royals’ pain, going through an inoperable illness like Carlos Beltran, Johnny Damon, and Jermaine Dye. Remember them? Slender, fast, and very talented guys who once made up the Royals’ outfield of the future? They sure followed the script, because they each left small-town Kansas City and went for the dollars. Damon even got a World Series championship thrown in with his greed.

For the first few weeks of Santana’s negotiations with the Twins, it looked for certain that GM Terry Ryan was heading down the same hopeless path Royals GM Allard Baird did two years ago with Beltran. Back then, Baird gauged just how willing Beltran’s agent, Scott Boras, was willing to go to keep his client in Kansas City. The three-year offer Baird proposed would’ve delayed his star center fielder’s free agency by one year. Boras quickly rejected the offer and countered with something like seven years and $119 million, which is entirely too much for the Royals to take on in both years and dollars. In the case of Santana, Ryan initially offered three years and $19.5 million, which wasn’t even close. It was at that point I became pretty certain that Santana wasn’t long for Minneapolis, and that he’d bolt at the very first opportunity. The similarities between him and Beltran were far too, well, similar. However, the Twins increased their offer to three years and $25 million before caving to his agent’s demands for a fourth year.

And in caving, the Twins gave the Royals at least a glimmer of hope that in five years they’ll be able to re-sign the best of their current young core of players beyond their initial free agency years. Sure, Johan will probably be kicking their rears for the next four seasons, but KC fans shouldn’t forget the precedence that he set by taking less to play with the organization that developed him.

I’m taking a short hiatus from breaking down the Royals today, mostly because they seem dead-set on boring their fans to death before the season starts. Heck, such a ploy might work. After going through this offseason in which the club’s "big" pickups were Jose Lima and a new pitching coach, another 100-loss season might not seem so bad. But I digress. Moving on …

Several bloggers have already encouraged their readers to do this, but in case you aren’t a reader of those blogs, please check out John Sickels’ new site. I wouldn’t exactly call myself the biggest Sickels fan in the world (I think Baseball America produces a much better handbook to prospects), but the guy got an old fashioned raw deal when his Down On The Farm column was booted from ESPN.com. John’s a heck of a nice guy by all accounts, so I’d encourage all of you to head on over to Minor League Ball and support his hard work.

Surprises were few and far between at the Grammy awards. Maroon 5 won as the best new artist, Green Day’s American Idiot won for best rock album, and Kanye West won for best rap album. For me, the only real surprise of the night was Ray Charles’ compilation CD Genius Loves Company sweeping all eight categories it was nominated for. I’ve bought the album and saw Jamie Foxx’s incredible performance in the biopic film about Ray’s life; both gave me a great appreciation for the impact Ray Charles had in the music industry. However, part of me has to wonder if Charles’ death gave him a few "sympathy votes" that he wouldn’t have received otherwise. GLC is great music and the eight Grammy awards are a fine tribute to a wonderfully talented man, but I don’t think the album was so good that it should’ve won in every single category.

During the weekend, I came across an ESPN.com poll that I found to be incredibly disturbing. This poll asked, "Who do you consider the single-season home run champion?" and listed four names: Roger Maris, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Barry Bonds. Not surprisingly, Sosa (4.2 percent) and McGwire (17.5 percent) have received the two lowest vote totals so far, but somehow, Maris is leading Bonds, garnering 47 percent of the vote while Bonds has only received 31.2 percent.

I know these polls ESPN puts on their web site are in no way scientific, but it’s pretty clear that fans just aren’t going to appreciate what Bonds has done because of alleged steroid use. Here’s the bottom line: anybody who voted Roger Maris as being the single-season home run king is just being stupid and bitter on the subject. Unless there is some way to conclusively prove that Bonds would’ve hit fewer than 61 home runs had he not used "The Cream" or any other type of performance enhancer, he HAS to be recognized as the record holder. It isn’t a subjective record. 73 is more than 61, even if if 73 was on ‘roids, drugs, caffeine, or otherwise. You may not like Bonds, but you have to give him credit where credit’s due.

The SMS Bears took care of business in both of their must-win games this week, beating Bradley 80-66 and Drake 85-78. The Bradley game was relatively uneventful, but the win over Drake got a little bit heated on the floor; coaches screaming at referees always makes for good theater. Additionally, Deven Mitchell came darned close to throwing down a thunderous one-handed tomahawk slam, but a Drake player fouled him exceptionally hard and made him earn the points at the free throw line. Let’s put it this way: if Deven had a free lane to the basket on that particular play, I don’t think the basket would’ve stood much of a chance of remaining in one piece.

It’s extremely unfortunate that one week before pitchers and catchers report to their respective spring training camps, the big headlines in baseball involve Jose Canseco’s tell-all steroids book and Jason Giambi’s not-so-tell-all press conference. I still don’t see why fans care so much about players using steroids, especially when they weren’t banned in baseball prior to this winter. The way I see it, it’s kind of hard to be cheating when you aren’t breaking any rules. Whether fans of the game want to admit it or not, they’re all on a witch-hunt, and I’m tired of it. Thankfully, the Royals got rid of their only suspected user (Benito Santiago) a couple of months ago, so they won’t have to put up with the carnival of inquisitive media members that’s sure to follow the Yankees and Giants camps in a few weeks.

Because of Santiago’s absence, the Royals will be able to focus on things that actually matter, like choosing the best possible combination of 25 guys to head to Detroit with on Opening Day 2005. Part of what makes choosing that 25-man so difficult is deciding which non-roster invitees have the best chance of helping the team. So with many thanks to Aaron Gleeman for inspiring the idea, I’d like to run down the list of players the Royals have invited to camp this year.

As I mentioned in Tuesday’s entry, the Royals in the Allard Baird era have made good use of minor-league contracts and spring training invites, and the players they brought to camp last year were no exception. Of those players, no fewer than seven of them – Zack Greinke, Rudy Seanez, Shawn Camp, Dennys Reyes, Jimmy Serrano, Calvin Pickering, and Alberto Castillo – made at least somewhat-significant contributions to the team last year. Greinke was by far the best rookie pitcher in the American League. Camp replaced Jason Grimsley as the team’s resident worm-killer out of the bullpen (2.16 G/F ratio) while posting a 51-to-16 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 66 2/3 innings. Reyes pitched his usual league-average ball complete with a lot of walks and a lot of strikeouts, Serrano pitched 32 2/3 innings of 4.68 ERA ball, and Seanez posted a 3.91 ERA in 23 innings before being shipped to Florida for Abraham Nunez. Pickering, the only hitter who did anything worthwhile, was KC’s best hitter the last two months of the season while Castillo played like a backup catcher. Greinke, Camp, Pickering, and Castillo will be back in 2005, while Reyes signed a guaranteed contract with the Padres and Serrano signed a minor-league deal with the A’s.

This year’s list of pitchers has Kevin Appier’s name on it, which seems oddly out of place considering all the great seasons he had during his first go-around with the Royals. Sadly, Ape doesn’t have much of a chance to contribute anything positive, and he’s probably finished as a big-league pitcher. I admire his determination to keep going, but his tendency to break down faster than Firestone tires on a freeway is going to hurt the Royals far more than any innings he provides will help them. Three draft choices from a year ago – Matt Campbell, J.P. Howell, and Billy Buckner – have all been invited, but only Howell even stands the slightest chance of making the team right away. He was only in rookie ball last year, but really wowed the organization during mini camp. I can’t fathom any scenario in which the Royals would push a guy from Idaho Falls directly to Kansas City, but he’s going to move very fast through the minor leagues regardless. A promotion to Triple-A by the end of the year is not out of the question. Steve Stemle, Ryan Jensen, Jonah Bayliss, Byron Embry, and Roberto Giron will get some innings here and there, but they’re all just organizational-type guys.

The wild cards are Santiago Ramirez and Justin Huisman; both have darned good chances of earning bullpen roles with solid performances in Surprise. Huisman was stolen away from the Rockies in 2003. Relief pitchers generally aren’t prospects, but he has a solid track record of throwing a lot of strikes in 282 minor-league innings (2.62 BB/9) and using his above-average sinker effectively (one home run allowed every 28.2 innings). Additionally, Huisman saw some time with the Royals last year, getting beat around to the tune of a 6.84 ERA in 25 innings. However, he only walked eight guys against 13 strikeouts, so there’s reason to believe the 25-year-old will have some league-average seasons out of the ‘pen in the future. Ramirez has an even higher ceiling than Huisman does, but also a higher probability of totally collapsing. In short, the Royals love this guy, especially after he blew away his Winter League competition. At 26, he was a little older than most of the hitters he faced at Double-A last year, but 32 saves, a 2.63 ERA, and 9.5 strikeouts per nine innings pitched is impressive no matter which way you slice it. Ramirez has lost a little velocity on his fastball following some shoulder problems, but his changeup works as an out pitch and he still throws a workable 89-93 mph with movement. The Royals won’t hesitate to break camp with Ramirez over a guy like Nate Field. He’s one to watch, and could be the next Grimsley.

Castillo’s back as a non-roster player again this year and is the early favorite to be the backup to John Buck. The other near-lock to make the club is Chris Clapinski, who’s expected to carry Desi Relaford’s duties this year. He’s 33 years old so his OPS figures of .902 and .878 the last two seasons have to be taken with a grain of salt, but there’s no question that Clapinski’s a better player than most of the no-hit, all-field utility players teams overpay. Relaford was one of those guys last year, and the Royals correctly identified Clapinski as his equal, only at a third of the price. PECOTA likes his chances this year, projecting him out to a .259/.332/.407 line in 109 at-bats. That’s more-than-acceptable production from a utility guy. Luis Ugueto will be Clapinski’s main competition for the spot, and the Royals might decide to take his youth and potential (which is minimal, in my opinion) over his opponent’s age and experience. Denny Hocking was signed as insurance and to play for Triple-A Omaha, and Darren Fenster’s another organizational soldier who offers some plate discipline but little else.

The only outfielder with a realistic chance of making the club is Aaron Guiel, who, if his eye problems are all cleared up, remains a viable option as a fourth outfielder. He’s extremely stretched as an everyday player, but his knowledge of the strike zone and defensive capabilities make him acceptable as a short-term fix while the team looks for a legitimate everyday guy. Browns Adrian and Emil will likely be outrighted to Omaha at some point, as will Brian Hunter. The final outfielder, Alan Moye, came over as part of a trade for first-round bust Jeff Austin and Brian Shackelford in 2002. Scouts say that Moye has legitimate physical tools, but a dislocated shoulder in early 2003 knocked him out for the entire season, and he only got 87 at-bats last season after completing his rehab. He’ll definitely be one of the first players sent back, but there’s a glimmer of hope that Moye will turn into a productive player. He obviously bit into the organizational philosophy and drew 18 walks last season as a 22-year-old. If he can stay healthy, he’s a guy to keep an eye on starting in 2006.

KRB Nation (or more likely Region),

Sorry for the lack of a post today, but please check back early tomorrow morning for a Saturday article about the Royals' non-roster invitees. Until then, you can check out David Spears' latest article over at The Daily Lancer.

Okay, so he wasn’t the outfield acquisition everyone was hoping for. But at least Brian Hunter’s AN outfielder, right?

In a move that sent shock waves throughout the midwest, the Royals signed former Astro, Tiger, Mariner, Rockie, Red, and Phillie Brian Hunter to a minor-league deal with an invitation to spring training on Wednesday. After recovering from my surprise that Hunter is still playing baseball, I took the time (all of one minute) to think about what his presence will mean to the Kansas City organization. The result of my pondering was, of course, coming up with absolutely nothing. Brian L. Hunter (not to be confused with Brian R. Hunter, who I always thought resembled a chipmunk) seems to be just a guy the Royals will stash at Omaha to play some outfield and, if emergency strikes, play a few games in Kansas City this year.

But then I thought about what the fleet-of-foot Hunter could mean to the 2005 Royals some more, and came up with a list of tasks and purposes that only he could complete:

Instead of taking the team bus, running from city to city on road trips. Calvin Pickering’s going to need two seats on the charter, after all.

Representing the Royals well as the only player not named in Jose Canseco’s tell-all ‘roids book.

Somebody’s gotta tell the youngsters about the legend of Bob Hamelin.

If you can think of any other reasons why the Royals felt the need to sign Hunter, post 'em in the comments section!

By now you know that I like to write about every Southwest Missouri State men’s basketball game I can, a trend that isn’t likely to stop anytime soon. After all, the Bears are facing two critical must-win games at home this week, starting tonight against Bradley and wrapping up Saturday against Drake.

But I know you good folks don’t come here to read my thoughts about a mid-major basketball program with a .500 record. However, the baseball Bears’ season is right around the corner, so in the spirit of that, I want to spend a few words on a former SMS pitcher who may be the best pitching prospect nobody’s ever heard of.

2003 Toronto Blue Jays draftee Shaun Marcum may not be the next Zack Greinke, but he comes closer to that distinction than anyone currently in the minor leagues. After making 21 relief appearances in ’03, he really exploded onto the scene last year as a starting pitcher, sporting a 3.16 ERA in 148 innings with an amazing 7.75-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Additionally, he only allowed 13 home runs, 138 hits, and a Greinke-esque 1.21 walks per nine innings. Questions still remain about him of course, as is the case with every other 23-year-old pitcher making the jump from Single-A to Double-A, which is where Marcum will likely end up sometime this season. He’s still just a two-pitch guy, working with a fastball in the high-80s and a well above-average slider. He’ll have to develop a reliable third pitch if he wants to continue starting games, but he has plenty of time to work on that.

There’s plenty to like here, though, because pitchers with his kind of command are so rare. Show me a pitcher who throws strikes and keeps the ball in the park, and I’ll show you an effective major league hurler. Marcum could move quickly, and perhaps be in the majors by early 2006. File his name away on your fantasy baseball "sleeper" list for future reference. Besides, he just looks like he was born to play baseball, right?

Baseball season can never be too far away when teams start announcing their promotion schedules for the upcoming year. The number of KC games I attend is always based on how well the Royals are doing (last year, I didn’t attend one from May 28 to October 3 for obvious reasons), but like every other obsessed baseball fan, I usually pick-and-choose a few games at which something really cool is being given away for free. This year, I have my eyes on a couple of promotions:

April 16 vs. Detroit: John Buck Mesh Batting Practice Jersey Day

May 14 vs. Tampa Bay: Powder Blue Trucker Cap Day

To my disappointment, the Royals have yet to bring back Halter Top Day as a somewhat-regular event at Kauffman Stadium.

Music To Write By: 3 Doors Down, Seventeen Days

The first two years of Allard Baird’s reign as General Manager of the Kansas City Royals were filled with significantly more gaffes than good times and laughs. Royals fans remember those not-so-fun days well, when the Kansas City Star was filled with horror stories like Dye-for-Neifi, Royals Sign Knoblauch, and daily game recaps about which KC starting pitcher took the beating of his life the previous evening. All were things that could be directly traced back to a Baird decision, and the clamoring for his firing was only slightly less noisy than the clamoring for Tony Muser’s.

However, unlike fellow fire-starting GMs Chuck LaMar and Cam Bonifay, Baird also showed traits of a good baseball executive during the 2001 and 2002 seasons; statistical guru and former Royals fan Bill James even said Baird “seems like [ . . . ] a very sharp knife that for some reason won’t cut butter.” One of the traits that made him sharp was his eye for identifying freely-available talent on the six-year free agent market (also known as minor league free agents), on waivers, or through the Rule 5 draft. Being able to find quality players in that resource is vital for small-market teams. Those clubs with lower payrolls can’t afford to pay top-dollar for the secondary talent on their 25-man rosters, so the importance to find undervalued players who just need a chance is much more important for the Royals and Pirates than it is for, say, the Red Sox and Braves.

The success of minor league free agents is sketchy, of course, because they all have been cast aside by their previous employers for a myriad of reasons. Baird has a pretty good track record with these pickups. Two have turned to relative gold (Raul Ibanez and Jason Grimsley), four were at least moderately useful at some point (Makato Suzuki, Aaron Guiel, D.J. Carrasco, and Cory Bailey), and others like Jerry Spradlin, Rontrez Johnson, and Miguel Asencio either flamed out or didn’t have much playing time to begin with. And that isn’t even including Calvin Pickering, who has the opportunity to be the most valuable of the whole lot. If he gets a chance, that is, and apparently his on-base skills and ability to hit the ball onto the freeway still don’t interest one Royals beat writer.

Anyway, utilizing free talent is a darned efficient way of filling holes on a ballclub, which brings me to my point. As I’ve written 3,894,202 times on this blog, the Royals still have a gaping long-term hole at the corner outfield positions. Since attempts to acquire Jason Michaels, Kevin Mench, or Austin Kearns have repeatedly stalled, it might be time for the Royals to scour the waiver wire again, this time for a youngish guy who can hold down the fort until the price for a really good offensive player comes down. Conveniently, such a player’s out there for the taking, as the Devil Rays recently designated outfielder Matt Diaz for assignment. For those of you who aren’t a baseball nerd like me, designating a player for assignment essentially puts him in baseball purgatory. It’s the ultimate, “we-don’t-want-you-anymore” signal; in this case, the Rays have ten days to trade, send down, or request unconditional-release waivers on Diaz.

Basically, he’d come cheap (most likely for a small amount of cash), which would be the whole reason to acquire him. But would he be worth the trouble and a spot on the 40-man roster? Although he hit a very impressive .332 in 503 at-bats for Triple-A Durham last year and has a career average of .309 and a slugging percentage of .475 in the minors, my initial reaction was ‘no’. However, upon further review, I’ve grown fonder on the prospects of the Royals giving him an opportunity to compete with Abraham Nunez for a spot on the roster.

A few Royals fans I’ve talked to brought up his batting averages as a reason (usually the sole reason) to pick him up. To their credit, they’ve done their homework, because Diaz has a clear ability to put the ball in play safely. Additionally, he’s hit for moderate power. As I wrote before, however, there’s always a reason players are given away for nothing. Diaz’s reason is that he has absolutely no idea of what he’s doing at home plate, striking out nearly three times for every walk (406 strikeouts, 136 walks) in 2,556 minor league at-bats. He’s also 26 years old, which makes his production that much less impressive. Basically, he’s a poor man’s Mark Quinn, which gives every Royals fan an idea of just how little Diaz knows about hitting. When The Mighty Quinn draws more walks than you do, you know you’ve got some work to do to improve as a hitter.

Developing a willingness to draw walks at the major league level was something Quinn never did, and as a result, his statistical production never quite reached his physical capabilities as a hitter. It’d be a shame for such a fate to befall Diaz, but I think it’s also a less-likely fate for him should he join the Royals. Back when Quinn was still an integral part of Baird’s long-term plan, he had a hitting instructor in Lamar Johnson who never was on board with the whole plate discipline thing. After the 2002 season, Johnson was cut loose and replaced by former Cubs hitting coach Jeff Pentland, the very man who got turned Sammy Sosa into the home run-hitting monster he was in 1998-2002. Not coincidentally, Sosa’s home run totals skyrocketed because he worked himself into better hitter’s counts at a greater frequency, which is exactly the offensive philosophy the Royals preach throughout the organization. I’m optimistic that if Diaz worked with Pentland and bought into what the Royals believe in, that he could become another success story in the mold of Ibanez. Don’t forget that Raul became what he is today because of an increased willingness to run deep counts.

Because he’s going to turn 27 this season and hasn’t yet learned how not to swing at sliders in the dirt, I’m not extremely excited about Diaz’s chances of becoming a productive major league hitter. However, if he DID start drawing a walk every ten at-bats, he’d have a chance of becoming Baird’s latest steal. Then – and only then – would Diaz turn into a capable outfielder in the short-term for Kansas City.

Rodney Harrison's second interception of a Donovan McNabb pass came late in the fourth quarter in yesterday's Super Bowl, giving the Patriots their third championship in four seasons. More importantly, the pick ended the football season, which means baseball can only be right around the corner. To celebrate, I have a couple of (hopefully interesting) baseball-related thoughts:

It’s almost become cliched to say Zack Greinke’s a different cat who marches to the beat of his own drummer. Of course, he probably acts like a 21-year-old is supposed to act, but there’s just something very different about the way the guy pitches (he’s working on a knuckleball to go along with his grab bag of four other pitches, all thrown at varying speeds), thinks (like people decide what to wear in the morning, Zack decides how he’s going to pitch a few minutes before the game starts), and speaks (he ended his pitcher-of-the-year acceptance speech with an, "Uh, see ya."). Needless to say, whatever he’s doing is working, because he came up to the majors at 20 and held his own against the best hitters in the world, many being ten years or more his senior.

Most of Greinke’s success can certainly be attributed to his talent, but some of it also must be credited to his clearly advanced mind that allows him to remember how he pitched every hitter during a game, and not throw the same pitch in the same spot to the same guy in later plate appearances. The interesting thing is that while the Royals have taken considerably more interest in statistical analysis and performance scouting when it comes to the First-Year Player Draft, I think they’ve also started a fad by selecting players who are head-and-shoulders above the rest in understanding how to hit or how to pitch. For example, their selection of Billy Butler last June was widely criticized as another "signability" pick, but the Royals insisted that he was also worthy of being taken 14th overall because of his combination of power and on-base skills as an 18-year-old. He proved the Royals right, hitting a destructive .373/.488/.596 at Idaho Falls, KC’s rookie ball affiliate. In that same draft, the Royals took left-handed pitchers J.P. Howell (Texas) and Matt Campbell (South Carolina), two guys who are a tick below average on their stuff, but several ticks above average on their knowledge of how to change speeds and set up a hitter.

The advantage to taking these mentally advanced players is that it’ll likely take them a shorter period of time to reach the majors and allow them a better chance of succeeding right away. Baseball’s a game of adjustments, and guys like Greinke and Butler are way ahead of the game because they adjust to their competition all the time anyway.

Still wondering why Allard Baird hasn’t picked up an everyday left fielder yet? Detroit’s five-year, $75 million signing of a declining Magglio Ordonez should serve as a good reason. Just like last year’s contract with Ivan Rodriguez, the deal provides the Tigers with an out clause if the player spends a certain number of days on the disabled list because of a certain injury. In Ordonez’s case, if a recurrence of his left knee problems cause him to spend 25 or more days on the DL in 2005, the Tigers will have the option of voiding the remainder of his contract. It’s a good idea for a team to protect itself from dedicating a ton of money to a player with injury problems, but the Tigers would’ve been better-served by not entering into this contract in the first place. Check out his park-adjusted OPS figures:

SEASON	OPS+
1998	93
1999	119
2000	125
2001	135
2002	152
2003	142
2004	110

That’s a fairly simple way of looking at it, but it appears that Magglio peaked in 2002 and that his production has started sliding down the other side of the hill. It’s fair to say that the injury caused such a severe drop in his 2004 numbers across the board, of course. I think he'll be significantly more valuable to the 2005 Tigers than he was for the 2004 White Sox, but it’s the years after this coming season that have me concerned about the intelligence of this deal for Detroit. Ordonez is due $34 million over the final two guaranteed years of the contract, a lot of money for a player who will likely be nothing more than a shell of his former self.

Here’s an useless bit of trivia: In the ten years the American League Central division has been together, Ordonez is tied for fourth place on the all-time division home run leaderboard with 187 bombs. The player he’s tied with – Bobby Higginson – is, ironically, also the player likely to be released to make room for him.

I think I had some bad Waffle House food last night, so because I’m feeling pretty nauseous and tired, I’m taking a break from breaking down the Royals. In place of the usual, here are some fairly quick and lovely notes:

I know a lot of you find my fascination with the talentless Ashlee Simpson to be a little bit strange, so I want to clear a few things up. Yes, I have given some thought to turning over the designation of Official Fantasy Girl to Katie Holmes. Additionally, I do not in any way think Ashlee has any singing or dancing talent, nor do I get the impression that she’s an extremely nice or generous person. But on a Cuteness Scale of one to ten, my opinion is that she rates a twelve, so she gets to stay … for now. However, even I have limits, and one more horrible performance like her screechtastic Orange Bowl halftime show will probably cause me to bring in Holmes from the bullpen.

Earlier this SMS Bears basketball season, I briefly mentioned an ugly 64-51 win over Arkansas-Little Rock and at the time didn’t think the Bears could play worse basketball and still win. Last night, however, they proved me wrong, beating Indiana State 58-34. No matter if the SMS defense was really that stifling, if Larry Bird U just had one of those nights, or if it was a combination of the two, the Sycamores were downright terrible, especially after halftime. In a second half in which they scored all of 14 points, ISU committed 20 turnovers, shot 14.3 percent from the field (4-28), and made only two of their nine three-point attempts. The Fighting Hinsons weren’t much better, making just 37 percent of their shots and hitting one out of ten three-point tries for the game.

The only thing that saved this game from being a complete snoozefest were slam dunks from small guards like Blake Ahearn and Deke Thompson, yelling at the referees just for the heck of it, and watching Tyler Chaney repeatedly fall down and not be able to handle the basketball cleanly. Chanes, you’re a heck of a good basketball player and a nice guy, but let’s try to be more like Jason Kidd than Ken Harvey, okay?

Very few things get me riled up to the point where I start spewing brash opinions left and right, so when I see something that really makes me angry, I tend to use a lot of pent-up energy on it. Two of those things – censorship and irresponsible parenting – are directly related, in my opinion. When I read a headline on Yahoo! saying Study: MTV Delivers a Diet of ‘Sleaze’ I had a pretty good feeling both of the aforementioned categories would apply. Reading the first three paragraphs of the article would confirm my hunch:

NEW YORK - Approaching the first anniversary of Janet Jackson's famed wardrobe malfunction, a study released Tuesday criticized MTV for the "incessant sleaze" of steamy programming aimed at young people.

During one week last March, the watchdog Parents Television Council said it counted 3,056 flashes of nudity or sexual situations and 2,881 verbal references to sex.

"MTV has clearly chosen to cater to the lowest common denominator, to offer the cheapest form of programming to entice young boys ... dangling forbidden fruit before their eyes," said Brent Bozell, PTC president and conservative activist.

This bothers me for a couple of reasons. First, I think it’s extremely disturbing that a topic like sex is considered so taboo by parents that a "watchdog Parents Television Council" took the time to count each flash of nudity and verbal references during a one-week period on MTV. Second, it seems to me that the sexually charged programming there isn’t intended to be watched by people under 14, hence the TV-14 rating many of MTV’s shows probably have. (This is an assumption, I was unable to find TV ratings early this morning.) Moving on down the article …

Thompson said the report offers valuable consciousness-raising, particularly when many children have televisions in their bedrooms that aren't monitored by parents. He said, though, that it's dangerous to leap to a conclusion that MTV's programs influence young people's behavior.

Here’s where the irresponsible parenting comes into play. Does anyone else think it’s at least a small bit hypocritical for parents to allow their children to have a television in his or room and then criticize the network for the child watching its programming? The way I see it, if a parent doesn’t want his or her son or daughter to see shows like One Bad Trip, Room Raiders, or any of the spring break-related stuff, the solution is to be a parent and take the TV away. If you don’t want your child to watch college-aged people taking body shots off each other, then do what you think is right, and eliminate the possibility directly. It terrifies me that today’s parents believe that TV shows are going to corrupt their child. I don’t think this would even be an issue if moms and dads were actually teaching their kids right from wrong, if only because a child who understands how to lead a good life showing respect for others isn’t going to put much stock in reality television.

Poor parenting is a serious, serious problem we haven’t even begun to address as a nation. We’re too busy blaming Comedy Central for South Park and MTV for Laguna Beach. It’s really pretty simple: If a large percentage of this generation of 14- to 18-year-olds turn into hooligans because of things they saw on TV, the consequences of that should fall directly on the shoulders of their guardians. It’s time to attack the real problem.

In-Case-You-Missed-It Reading:

My Updated Starting Rotation (Thursday)
The Fantastic Four (Wednesday)
A Bad Start To February (Tuesday)
Battle Of The Backstops (Monday)

While everyone else was Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving, I was writing about what I expected the Royals rotation to look like in 2005. Things like projected starting rotations tend to change in two months’ worth of offseason signings and acquisitions, and the Royals definitely aren’t any exception this year. At the time, I assumed that they’d give Jeremy Affeldt another opportunity as a starter, but he’s definitely going to start the season as the closer. Jose Lima’s pushed Mike Wood to be one of the seven or eight guys fighting for two spots, and if you believe Dick Kaegel’s latest article on kcroyals.com, the only three guys who’re practically guaranteed jobs are Lima, Zack Greinke, and Runelvys Hernandez.

Believing things that Kaegel writes, however, is a very difficult thing for me to do. I thought it was extremely strange that it was Hernandez and not Brian Anderson expected to be the no. 3 starter, especially considering the uncertainty surrounding Elvys following his elbow surgery. By all accounts, his velocity and quality of stuff have been nothing but impressive in side sessions and at mini-camp, but the fact remains he’s a 26-year-old with a surgically repaired elbow. That makes him a question mark, and PECOTA definitely doesn’t expect him to pitch well; it has him pegged for a 5.01 ERA in 95 1/3 innings. Regardless of how poorly Anderson pitched last year, I think he has to be considered a favorite to make the rotation. The Royals aren’t going to let him suck up $3.25 million of salary while pitching long relief, so the only solutions are trading him (which the article indicates could happen) or hoping he reverts back to his pre-2004 performance.

Now that I have access to Baseball Prospectus’ awesome 2005 VORP projections, here’s an updated version of my ideal Royals rotation. I’ve gone ahead and put Hernandez in as the no. 5 starter. I think he has a decent chance to out-perform his PECOTA this year, and I just don’t like the other options such Jimmy Gobble (who needs far more swings-and-misses to pitch in the majors) and Denny Bautista (who needs time to develop further in Omaha):

Pitcher	VORP
Zack Greinke	33.2
Jose Lima	10.2
Brian Anderson	5.7
Mike Wood	16.9
Runelvys Hernandez	12.2
TOTAL	78.2

Man, does PECOTA ever like Mike Wood's chances of improving. Even with Greinke's expected three-point falloff in VORP, that rotation looks infinitely better than the one I came up with in November, and agrees with Allard Baird's assessment that the strength of the 2005 club may very well be its starting pitching.

First and foremost, I’d like to thank you, my readers, for understanding about my non-post yesterday. For some reason, I was drawing far more frustration than inspiration when I was trying to write on Monday evening, and I hope that doesn’t happen again for a long time. I was starting to think yesterday afternoon that I'd have to take another day away from the blog due to a rough day, but eating dinner at our brand spankin’ new Ruby Tuesday’s and shooting the breeze with two friends has really put me into a much better mood. Meagan and Joseph, you guys rock. Thanks. Moving on…

With Ken Harvey or Calvin Pickering at first base, Tony Graffanino at second, Chris Truby at third, and Angel Berroa trying to reclaim his 2003 magic at shortstop, the Royals starting infield is one of the few settled areas of concern heading into spring training. As reader David Sanford pointed out, the irony here is that Triple-A Omaha probably has a better infield, at least on a raw talent basis. It wasn’t something I’d really thought about before, but he’s very right, especially if the Royals (stupidly) use Pickering’s last option and send him back to the minor leagues as a designated hitter. About a hundred Pacific Coast League pitchers are hoping Calvin opens 2005 as a Royal, but that’s beside the point.

It’s improbable that Justin Huber, Ruben Gotay, Mark Teahen, and Andres Blanco won’t be broken up at some point due to the goals of the big league club. However, if those four guys who’ll man the infield for the O-Royals the first few months of the season got the opportunity to spend the entire year together, they could be minor league baseball’s version of The Fantastic Four. Going around the horn, with Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA and VORP projections:

JUSTIN HUBER, 1B (Ben Grimm):

	AVG	OBP	SLG	VORP
PECOTA	.261	.363	.449	26.3

Among his three teammates, Huber’s probably stands out the most among prospect mavens, so his best comparison is The Thing. In Jim Duquette’s desperation to acquire Kris Benson from Pittsburgh last July, Allard Baird threw himself into the middle of that deal and pilfered Huber from the Mets for Jose Bautista, a waiver claim just a month earlier. An Australian, Huber blew up his knee a day before the trade was made, so his catching days are over, and the Royals are having him make a position change. Given the glut of first base and designated hitter candidates within the organization, it’s sort of strange that he isn’t being given an immediate opportunity to become something the major league team could really use like a left fielder, but his bat should carry him anyway. Huber’s always brought a very impressive package of plate discipline and power to the table, but his walk rate was particularly impressive last season. As a 22-year-old playing mostly at Double-A, Huber drew 54 walks in only 300 at-bats. Critics will point out his lower-than-desired batting average (.270) and slugging percentage (.473), but there’s still a very high probability that he’s going to be a star. For young disciplined hitters, it isn’t unusual for power to be the very last of the BA/OBP/SLG triumvirate to show up. George Brett’s pushing for him to make the club out of camp, but the Royals can’t afford to carry a guy learning a new position on the 25-man roster. Such a thing could have disastrous effects for both the player and the team. Still, if anyone’s going to make Mike Sweeney expendable down the road, it’s this guy.

RUBEN GOTAY, 2B (Sue Storm):

	AVG	OBP	SLG	VORP
PECOTA	.266	.337	.414	16.7

You’re going to work with me on this one, because obviously, Ruben Gotay is not a woman. However, Storm’s superpower is invisibility, much like Gotay’s career to even the keenest of Royals fans. Like his teammate a few feet to the left, Ruben already has a very impressive knowledge of the strike zone for a hitter his age, and had a breakthrough season at the Double-A level last year. He’s a real "performance scouting" kind of a prospect in that he isn’t very big (a generous 6-0), and doesn’t do anything exceptionally well. After following up an encouraging full-season debut in 2002 by hitting a disappointing .261/.343/.387 in 502 at-bats for Single-A Wilmington in 2003, Gotay proved that part of his falloff was due to the Blue Rocks’ spacious park. He went to hitter-friendly Wichita last year and rebounded nicely, hitting .290/.373/.441 with 51 walks in 106 games. I’m still skeptical about his potential of being an everyday guy for the Royals because of the presence of better players like Donny Murphy. However, he’s going to have a career as a backup infielder if things don’t break his way or one as a starting second baseman somewhere if he can improve his defensive skills.

MARK TEAHEN, 3B (Reed Richards):

	AVG	OBP	SLG	VORP
PECOTA	.251	.322	.375	-1.1

Mister Fantastic is known as the leader of the Fantastic Four, and Teahen, because of his prior experience at the Triple-A level and being closest to the majors, will probably be looked on as a leader in Omaha. Everyone knows his story by now. Teahen was a member of the Moneyball draft, had no room for a promotion to Oakland because of Eric Chavez’s presence, and was part of the ransom Baird got for half a season of Carlos Beltran. The general consensus is that he’ll start the year in the minor leagues and be called up sometime in June as the everyday third baseman, but I think there’s a small chance the Royals will give him the job right away if he hits like crazy in Arizona. They probably shouldn’t do that even if he does hit seven or eight homers, but the possibility’s there. He’ll be another Royals mainstay for years to come, and has the ability and size to have a few 30-homer years.

ANDRES BLANCO, SS (Johnny Storm):

	AVG	OBP	SLG	VORP
PECOTA	.229	.283	.291	-9.1

This comparison is sort of a by-default kind of thing, but Blanco’s definitely the speediest member of the group and although he doesn’t actually throw fire, he has an incredible arm at the shortstop position. His apparent incredible defensive ability is where his value is always going to lie, because if he ever does hit, he isn’t going to do it in Kansas City. That isn’t a knock on Blanco or the Royals, it’s just that if he ever hits enough to hold down an everyday job, it’s going to happen years from now as it did with Omar Vizquel. In Blanco’s 19-game tryout with the Royals last year, he was very impressive, making multiple acrobatic plays in the field, and hitting a more-than-respectable .317/.379/.417. Unfortunately, I’m 99.9 percent certain his hitting was just a fluke. He’s displayed a good-enough knowledge of the strike zone in the past. However, he frequently got the bat knocked out of his hands by Double-A pitching last season, and wire-thin middle infielders who can’t hit in the minors don’t suddenly start hitting in the majors. Still, he’s very for-real defensively, and might one day hold the distinction Rey Sanchez did during his few years in KC as a guy who deserves to start based on his ability to catch the ball.

PECOTA expects a collective VORP of 32.8 from the minor leaguers, which is very similar to the 38.8 it expects from Harvey (9.0), Graffanino (10.3), Berroa (15.2), and Truby (4.3). Both totals are very sad, since a VORP of around 35 is the equivalent to one really good player. However, the good news is that PECOTA tends to unfairly punish players with limited time in professional ball, hence the bad projection on Teahen. Additionally, Harvey’s, Graffanino’s, and Truby’s PECOTA levels represent what’s likely the pinnacle of their careers. So while they may not be superheroes, it’s pretty clear that the kids can compete with the guys who’re already collecting service time.