With the Royals' recent acquisition of Yuniesky Betancourt and the resulting firestorm and comparisons to Angel Berroa and Neifi Perez, we thought this would be an appropriate time to rank our top 5 most hated Royals of the last 20 years. Each of these players has their own dubious spot in Royals' lore. The Royals recently opened their Hall of Fame; now here are the leading candidates for the inaugural class of the Royals' Hall of Shame.
5. David Howard. Howard was the progenitor of the utility men that the Royals' front office has become known for acquiring, loving, and playing way too much. Drafted by the Royals in 1986, he played with the club from 1991 through 1997. With a career OPS of .595 in 695 games, his high-water OPS mark came in 1993 with a .787...in only 29 plate appearances. Much like Esteban German, Alberto Callaspo, and Willie Bloomquist after him, the Royals decided to inappropriately use Howard as an everyday solution after Greg Gagne vacated the SS position before the 1996 season. In 143 games that year, Howard delivered an AVG of .219, an OBP of .291, and an OPS of .595. The next year, the Royals brought in Jay Bell.
Like his eventual successor Tony Pena, Jr., Howard was once called upon to pitch. He threw 2 innings in 1994, giving up 2 hits, a run, but walking 5 with no strikeouts.
4. Tony Pena, Jr. TPJ's exploits have been cussed and discussed sufficiently over the past few years that no lengthy explanation should be needed for this one. His career OPS comes in below Howard at .548. However, unlike Howard, TPJ showed some promise in his 1-inning pitching stint--enough that he's now going to have the chance to work his way back to the Royals as a pitcher. Should TPJ be able to make it back as a reasonably successful pitcher, he has a chance to actually become a sort of cult hero in KC.
3. Darrell May. After being rediscovered by Allard Baird in Japan, May pitched three seasons for the Royals. He began with a 4-10 campaign in 2002 with a 5.35 ERA, then improved to a decent 10-8 with a 3.77 ERA during the Royals' run in 2003. However, May became one of the wheels that broke off the Royals bandwagon in 2004, leading the majors with 19 losses and posting a 5.61 ERA. He lost 10 of his last 12 decisions that year, including a 2 inning, 9 earned run stinker against Seattle at home on August 17.
May's stats don't necessarily look "all-time horrid" on the sheet, but in 2004 he represented the dashed hopes and disappointment of Royals fans who were hoping to build on the surprising 2003 season.
2. Angel Berroa. Some people will be surprised Berroa's not in the top spot here. Like May, Berroa was part of the engine for the 2003 season, even winning Rookie of the Year for the AL, then steadily declined for the next 4 years in the midst of fighting injuries and low-and-away sliders. Worse yet, his defense steadily declined at the same time. Berroa didn't seem to care much after Allard Baird signed him to his contract extension following his stellar 2003 season, and the Royals were stuck with another long-term lemon on their hands.
Ironically, the 2003 season resulted not only in the sunk-cost of Berroa's extension, but also triggered Mike Sweeney's extension because of the Royals' above-.500 record, and these two contracts became albatross around the Royals' financial necks for the next few years, helping to keep the Royals from getting back into contention.
1. Neifi Perez. You know the rumors: Allard Baird was ordered to trade Royals' fan-favorite and All-Star Jermaine Dye by the Glass family. Operating under this time-pressure, the best Baird could do was to acquire Neifi Perez. Perez lasted as the Royals' shortstop for a season and a half, delivering a .564 OPS in 2002. Late in the year, Perez refused to enter a game when manager Tony Pena told him to play. All this for $4.1 million.
Perez's one positive contribution to Royals' lore is that he may have replaced Ed Hearn for the dubious distinction of least-popular trade acquisition in Royals' history.
Conclusion: It's not a coincidence that 4 of the 5 players on this list were shortstops. This is likely a large part of the reason that the Betancourt trade caused so much consternation: the Royals have been absolutely horrid in identifying and acquiring legitimate shortstop options over the past two decades. But hey, it's not like shortstop's a critical position or anything. Let's hope Daytone Moore's right and the stat guys are wrong on this one, or else we'll have another player for this list before long.
7.17.2009
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING RANDOM AND REWARDING
To completely leave the topic of sports for a minute, it's been a big few weeks for music around here. With Wilco, Son Volt, and The Jayhawks all releasing albums, there've been a lot of new CDs getting a spin.
In fact, there's one too many CDs. The Jayhawks' new album, which is more of a "greatest hits" album, was acquired at Target before a deluxe edition was spotted at Best Buy. So now that we've got two copies laying around, we're going to give away the original copy. First reader to leave a comment below this post claiming the CD gets it.
In fact, there's one too many CDs. The Jayhawks' new album, which is more of a "greatest hits" album, was acquired at Target before a deluxe edition was spotted at Best Buy. So now that we've got two copies laying around, we're going to give away the original copy. First reader to leave a comment below this post claiming the CD gets it.
7.13.2009
MEET THE NEW BOSS, SAME AS THE OLD BOSS
(Wonder how many times that line's been used in reference to the Royals.)
Dayton Moore was on the Border Patrol on WHB this morning, basically defending the Yuniesky Betancourt trade against all the naysayers. (See here for a more complete listing.)
We're no great fan of the trade, either. But beyond the trade, something else we heard from Moore this morning was much more depressing. And we're not even talking about the two SABRmetricians he claims are on his staff (who are either routinely ignored by Moore or else are the worst SABRmetricians in the world).
No, the really saddening thing was when Moore said that if the Royals did not make this trade, then they would have to go into the offseason attempting to sign either Jack Wilson or Marco Scutaro, the two primary free agents at shortstop next year. And, Moore said, either one of those options would cost the Royals so much that they would only be able to keep ONE of the following players: Mike Jacobs, John Buck, Miguel Olivo, David DeJesus, or Mark Teahen.
Yes. ONE of those FIVE players. Not an All-Star among them. Not anything APPROACHING an All-Star among them (except perhaps Olivo, barely). Taking away Jacobs, whose loss would be a mark in favor of trying to sign Wilson or Scutaro, you're left with four guys who would be decent pieces of a competitive team, but not one that you would ever dream of as an anchor player for your team.
And you're talking being able to sign only ONE of those guys as a consequence of signing a SS who isn't All Star quality, either? Ay carumba.
I mean, you could lose Jacobs and one of the catchers and be in a fine position. And there are rumors of trading DeJesus and Teahen yet this year, so realistically you could have been looking at really only wanting to keep two of those guys at the most, anyway.
But to hear Moore state that part of the rationale for getting Betancourt was because going after a good-but-not-great SS would cause salary problems necessitating dumping a bunch of decent players is just plain depressing. We had thought over the last couple of years that David Glass was committed to putting in the necessary money to get this franchise above the embarrassment it's been for so long. But now it appears he may not be so committed. If this stinker of a season can't convince him that more money's still needed, then the Royals may just be doomed.
Because if the Royals really couldn't afford to make this type of move, then that means that they *must* begin hitting on moves like signing Jacobs and Farnsworth this past offseason. And their draft picks *must* fall into the Longoria and Porcello categories. And neither of these has yet occurred under Dayton Moore. If the Royals cannot even afford to obtain *decent* free agents, but only one- or no-tool players on the off-chance they'll explode in a good way, then there is no realistic hope for this franchise.
As a fan, ineptness as the root cause of your team's poor performance is tough to deal with, but it still provides room for hope. You can hope that those responsible for the ineptness will be fired and replaced with more talented individuals. But if the root cause is that front office personnel are simply constrained budgetarily from making the necessary moves, then there's not much hope to be had. David Glass hasn't shown much concern with fielding a winning team while he's been the Royals' owner. This past offseason suggested things might be changing, but now it appears the additional money spent by the Royals may have been nothing more than doing the bare minimum required to get other owners and MLB off the Royals' back for spending so little on their pathetic on-field product while receiving so much from the greatly-improved--and expanding--revenue sharing model.
No, as Royals fans we should hope that the current state of our team is due to some failing on Dayton Moore's part. If it's not, then the fault lies higher up, and Moore's apparent failing may be no more than another symptom, like Baird's failing, of a disease that's much more difficult to cure.
(And if that's indeed the case, then our apologies to Moore and his two SABRmetricians. It's not that they can't see what they need to do...it's that their hands are tied.)
Dayton Moore was on the Border Patrol on WHB this morning, basically defending the Yuniesky Betancourt trade against all the naysayers. (See here for a more complete listing.)
We're no great fan of the trade, either. But beyond the trade, something else we heard from Moore this morning was much more depressing. And we're not even talking about the two SABRmetricians he claims are on his staff (who are either routinely ignored by Moore or else are the worst SABRmetricians in the world).
No, the really saddening thing was when Moore said that if the Royals did not make this trade, then they would have to go into the offseason attempting to sign either Jack Wilson or Marco Scutaro, the two primary free agents at shortstop next year. And, Moore said, either one of those options would cost the Royals so much that they would only be able to keep ONE of the following players: Mike Jacobs, John Buck, Miguel Olivo, David DeJesus, or Mark Teahen.
Yes. ONE of those FIVE players. Not an All-Star among them. Not anything APPROACHING an All-Star among them (except perhaps Olivo, barely). Taking away Jacobs, whose loss would be a mark in favor of trying to sign Wilson or Scutaro, you're left with four guys who would be decent pieces of a competitive team, but not one that you would ever dream of as an anchor player for your team.
And you're talking being able to sign only ONE of those guys as a consequence of signing a SS who isn't All Star quality, either? Ay carumba.
I mean, you could lose Jacobs and one of the catchers and be in a fine position. And there are rumors of trading DeJesus and Teahen yet this year, so realistically you could have been looking at really only wanting to keep two of those guys at the most, anyway.
But to hear Moore state that part of the rationale for getting Betancourt was because going after a good-but-not-great SS would cause salary problems necessitating dumping a bunch of decent players is just plain depressing. We had thought over the last couple of years that David Glass was committed to putting in the necessary money to get this franchise above the embarrassment it's been for so long. But now it appears he may not be so committed. If this stinker of a season can't convince him that more money's still needed, then the Royals may just be doomed.
Because if the Royals really couldn't afford to make this type of move, then that means that they *must* begin hitting on moves like signing Jacobs and Farnsworth this past offseason. And their draft picks *must* fall into the Longoria and Porcello categories. And neither of these has yet occurred under Dayton Moore. If the Royals cannot even afford to obtain *decent* free agents, but only one- or no-tool players on the off-chance they'll explode in a good way, then there is no realistic hope for this franchise.
As a fan, ineptness as the root cause of your team's poor performance is tough to deal with, but it still provides room for hope. You can hope that those responsible for the ineptness will be fired and replaced with more talented individuals. But if the root cause is that front office personnel are simply constrained budgetarily from making the necessary moves, then there's not much hope to be had. David Glass hasn't shown much concern with fielding a winning team while he's been the Royals' owner. This past offseason suggested things might be changing, but now it appears the additional money spent by the Royals may have been nothing more than doing the bare minimum required to get other owners and MLB off the Royals' back for spending so little on their pathetic on-field product while receiving so much from the greatly-improved--and expanding--revenue sharing model.
No, as Royals fans we should hope that the current state of our team is due to some failing on Dayton Moore's part. If it's not, then the fault lies higher up, and Moore's apparent failing may be no more than another symptom, like Baird's failing, of a disease that's much more difficult to cure.
(And if that's indeed the case, then our apologies to Moore and his two SABRmetricians. It's not that they can't see what they need to do...it's that their hands are tied.)
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7.04.2009
EMPTY TOOLBOX
When the Royals trot out lineups like last night's, it's not too tough to understand why they have trouble scoring runs. The Royals' defense has been notoriously bad this year. Combine the problems with offense and defense, and it's easy to see why the Royals have made a strong claim for title of worst team in baseball since their relatively solid start.
Baseball fans like to talk about "five tool players." The five tools are: hitting for average, hitting for power, speed, glovework, and throwing arm.
There's no question the Royals have no five tool players on their team. The last Royals player who could make a legitimate claim to being a five tool player would probably be Carlos Beltran.
We began wondering how many tools, total, the Royals currently have in their lineup. (No jokes, please.) We decided it might be interesting to take a look, awarding a tool everytime a player is above league average in a category. The stats we've used are average, slugging percentage, and speed score. We aren't going to use errors for glovework or throwing arm, because errors are becoming a totally random statistic in this day and age. Instead, we'll eyeball those two.
So let's go through the typical lineup:
David DeJesus, LF: We'll give him a tool for glovework, even though his switch to left field has been kind of rocky. Below average elsewhere, even though he is usually an above-average hitter. 1 tool.
Alberto Callaspo, 2B: Above-average batting average and SLG. Horrible in every aspect of defense, and super-slow. Displays a lack of comprehension of basic fielding situations. 2 tools.
Billy Butler, 1B: Above-average batting average. Although he's been better defensively than anticipated, he's still below average in those areas. 1 tool.
Jose Guillen, RF: Above-average throwing arm. Below-average in all other areas. Batting categories are especially harmful, as he was brought in to punch up the lineup. 1 tool.
Mike Jacobs, DH: Below-average in every category. One of Dayton Moore's four big free agent busts over the past two years. No tools.
Mark Teahen, 3B: Actually above league-average for 3B in AVG and SLG. Although he's had rocky periods defensively, we'll go ahead and give him glovework and throwing arm. 4 tools.
Willie Bloomquist, SS: Decent defensively, but not above league-average at SS. One of the few Royals with above-average speed. Is just below league-average in the batting categories. 1 tool.
Miguel Olivo, C: Either Olivo or Teahen will be the Royals POY. Olivo is barely above league average for catchers in AVG, and is well above in SLG. His glovework has cost the Royals a few games this year, but he seems to have an above-average arm. Speed is good for a catcher, but not enough to be a weapon. 3 tools.
Mitch Maier, CF: Batting is not good, but has shown some nice glovework and speed in CF. Tough to evaluate the arm on his body of work so far. 2 tools.
So there you go. The Royals' typical lineup has 15 total tools, or 1.67 per position. Out of 5 categories, the Royals' players average being good at just 1, sometimes 2, categories per spot.
When you trot out a lineup that averages going 1.67 things well per position, you're not going to win a lot of games. It's also important to note that even for the tools the players do have, most of them are not very high above league average. In other words, no Royals player really excels in any area. Not a surprise to anyone who follows the Royals, but certainly one of the foundational problems for this team.
Baseball fans like to talk about "five tool players." The five tools are: hitting for average, hitting for power, speed, glovework, and throwing arm.
There's no question the Royals have no five tool players on their team. The last Royals player who could make a legitimate claim to being a five tool player would probably be Carlos Beltran.
We began wondering how many tools, total, the Royals currently have in their lineup. (No jokes, please.) We decided it might be interesting to take a look, awarding a tool everytime a player is above league average in a category. The stats we've used are average, slugging percentage, and speed score. We aren't going to use errors for glovework or throwing arm, because errors are becoming a totally random statistic in this day and age. Instead, we'll eyeball those two.
So let's go through the typical lineup:
David DeJesus, LF: We'll give him a tool for glovework, even though his switch to left field has been kind of rocky. Below average elsewhere, even though he is usually an above-average hitter. 1 tool.
Alberto Callaspo, 2B: Above-average batting average and SLG. Horrible in every aspect of defense, and super-slow. Displays a lack of comprehension of basic fielding situations. 2 tools.
Billy Butler, 1B: Above-average batting average. Although he's been better defensively than anticipated, he's still below average in those areas. 1 tool.
Jose Guillen, RF: Above-average throwing arm. Below-average in all other areas. Batting categories are especially harmful, as he was brought in to punch up the lineup. 1 tool.
Mike Jacobs, DH: Below-average in every category. One of Dayton Moore's four big free agent busts over the past two years. No tools.
Mark Teahen, 3B: Actually above league-average for 3B in AVG and SLG. Although he's had rocky periods defensively, we'll go ahead and give him glovework and throwing arm. 4 tools.
Willie Bloomquist, SS: Decent defensively, but not above league-average at SS. One of the few Royals with above-average speed. Is just below league-average in the batting categories. 1 tool.
Miguel Olivo, C: Either Olivo or Teahen will be the Royals POY. Olivo is barely above league average for catchers in AVG, and is well above in SLG. His glovework has cost the Royals a few games this year, but he seems to have an above-average arm. Speed is good for a catcher, but not enough to be a weapon. 3 tools.
Mitch Maier, CF: Batting is not good, but has shown some nice glovework and speed in CF. Tough to evaluate the arm on his body of work so far. 2 tools.
So there you go. The Royals' typical lineup has 15 total tools, or 1.67 per position. Out of 5 categories, the Royals' players average being good at just 1, sometimes 2, categories per spot.
When you trot out a lineup that averages going 1.67 things well per position, you're not going to win a lot of games. It's also important to note that even for the tools the players do have, most of them are not very high above league average. In other words, no Royals player really excels in any area. Not a surprise to anyone who follows the Royals, but certainly one of the foundational problems for this team.
7.03.2009
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