Your Future in Right Field

Yestterday was quite the day for Royals right fielder of the future Jorge Bonifacio. Not only did he drive in the go ahead run in the 4th, but he also hit a two-run bomb in the 8th. Fox Sports' Jeffrey Flanagan wrote about Bonifacio's efforts here. Of course, the highlight of the article came from Royals assistant general manager J.J. Picollo:

"I'd say he's our most advanced and consistent upper-level hitter that we have right now. He puts a consistent swing on everything and doesn't chase a lot of bad pitches. He doesn't get beat very much by fastballs, either. Just a very mature 20."

I haven't been shy about my love of the Nori Aoki acquisition. I think the man is poised for a breakout 2014 campaign. Unfortunately, the Royals only control him for the 2014 season and it is a safe wager that his contract demands are going to jump following the season. If he performs as expected he'll be justified for a raise from the $1.95 million he is making this season, and if he excels then he will get an enormous boost in his paycheck for 2015 and beyond.

The Royals clearly view Aoki as a nice stop gap to bridge the road to Bonifacio in 2015 and beyond. Of course, that means that Bonifacio will need to be Major League ready within a season. With just 105 upper minor plate appearances under his belt, this seems like a tall order.

Bonifacio has age on his side, but I hope the Royals don't rush him to fill the 2015 hole in right field. With that being said, his bat is legitimate and the Royals might not need to push him. Just as I do with Aoki, I am expecting big things from Bonifacio in 2014. I'm looking forward to watching him shot lasers all over Arvest Ballpark for the first half of this summer, but I'm even more excited to watch him do that at Kauffman Stadium.

Follow me on Twitter @Landon_Adams!

Breakout on the Horizon

I won't be shy about my feelings regarding the Royals off-season. I love the trade for Nori Aoki and the signing of Omar Infante. I'm really looking forward to watching these two at the top of the order in 2014. 

I've made no secret that I think Aoki is going to be a breakout performer in 2014. I look at his batted ball frequencies and I get giddy thinking about the BABIP he could post this season. When I think about how beneficial Kauffman Stadium is for batting average and gap hitters, I get even more excited.

I couldn't be more relieved that the Royals didn't bring in a lumbering "power" bat to fill the right field hole. I was dreading the announcement of a Mark Trumbo acquisition. Entering the off-season an Aoki type player was exactly the guy that I would have targeted and I'm ecstatic to see that the Royals played it out this way. 

The decision to acquire a player like Aoki gives me faith that the Royals have finally embraced Kauffman Stadium. Instead of slow corner outfielders who can "knock in" base runners, they have realized the importance of outfielders that can cover ground in the spacious Kauffman outfield. Aoki, who is an excellent corner outfielder as a defender, should post some excellent defensive numbers for the Royals this season.

When you consider the defensive value and the fact that he is constantly putting pressure on defenses, Aoki was a savvy acquisition by the Royals brass this off-season. I've said this on Twitter, but I think Aoki will hit .310+ this season with 30+ doubles. If it turns out that the Royals have added that kind of hitter to the top of the lineup, the summer of 2014 could be a special one for Kansas City.

Follow me on Twitter @Landon_Adams!

Fox Sports' Five Reasons the Royals are Making Playoffs

Last Friday, Jeffrey Flanagan of Fox Sports Kansas City provided Royals fans with a wonderfully written and masterfully crafted essay in which he listed five reasons that the Boys in Blue would find themselves playing games in October. Let's review each of his reasons:

1. Big Game James

Now before you yell out "we had James Shields last year and won 86 games!" let me stop you. You're right we had Shields last year, but we didn't have contract year Shields! And according to Flanagan the idea of being rich will be just the extra motivate that Shields needs to take his game to the next level in 2014. You think James Shields is good now, just wait until he's throwing changeups so good, dollar bills start streaming from his pockets!

2. Filling the Black Holes

Flanagan says it all in his first sentence "it's not like the Royals acquired a couple of Hall of Famers to fill the holes of second base and right field, but it sure feels like it." 

Hell yeah it does! And when you feel like something is true, in virtually every circumstance it proves to be true. If Omar Infante and Nori Aoki don't play like Rogers Hornsby and Babe Ruth, I'll be damned.

3. Alex Gordon

Flanagan points to Gordon's new found security of hitting consistently in the heart of the order as a reason to expect big things for Gordon in 2014. Never mind the fact that Gordon his lead off in over 75% of his games last season. Also, let's ignore the fact that Gordon is entering his age 30 season and is coming off a year in which he posted the worst walk rate of his career and struck out in over 20% of his at bats. All the while seeing his line drive percentage drop to his lowest mark since 2009. 

4. The Vargas Addition

Flanagan opens this one with "it's kind of a tough sell to believe that left-hander Jason Vargas simply will step into the rotation and fill the void left by the Royals' decision not to sign Ervin Santana." 

That's true, but as Flanagan reminds us many didn't expect Santana to be so good last year. This is an excellent report by the Fox Sports reporter. If an Angels cast off was good last year, then it is a given that another one would be a good addition for 2014. 

Vargas could very well be a strong addition to the Royals 2014 rotation, but let's not act like just because it worked with Santana, it is going to work again with the former Angel and Mariner.

5. Closing the Gap on the Tigers

Flanny's got a hunch and he says there's a chance the Tigers slip a notch this season. 

There you have it Royals fans! Rest at ease the Royals are postseason bound! 

Follow me on Twitter @Landon_Adams!

Aoki in Center

In just 10 days since pitchers and catchers have reported, one common article topic has been the importance of Lorenzo Cain's health. On Sunday, the Kansas City Star's Andy McCullough brought us another one of these articles which you can read here. I don't deny the importance of Lorenzo Cain. If the man can stay healthy and hit just a little he would be a very valuable player for virtually every team in baseball. However, I don't want to talk about Lorenzo Cain's health twice in two weeks. Instead, I want to bring to light this nugget in the article:

"Yost has floated the idea of using right fielder Nori Aoki in center. Aoki played there 18 times during two seasons in Milwaukee."

If you are a reader of this blog, you know how much I like versatility. Determining whether or not Aoki can handle center during spring training is definitely advantageous for the Royals in 2014. But I also know that the Royals currently are planning to carry both Justin Maxwell and Danny Valencia, which would mean no middle infielder on the roster. Personally, I find it unlikely that the Royals will be able to make it long without a back up middle infielder and so I wonder if this Aoki in center talk is laying the groundwork for a Dyson versus middle infielder roster battle.

Let's face it, if Aoki logs time in center this Spring and looks good it definitely decreases the importance of Jarrod Dyson. If Yost finishes camp and is confident in Aoki's ability it wouldn't shock me at all to see both Valencia and Maxwell on the roster in addition to a utility man.

It would be a shame for the Royals to lose Dyson in such a way. His speed is game changing and as a back up there is definitely value in him pinch running late in close games. Also, where would the Royals be left when Lorenzo Cain gets injured? At that point, they'd have to bring up Carlos Peguero or Jimmy Paredes to be the back up outfielder and you have no one who can back up Aoki in center.

I hope the Royals realize that Dyson is too valuable of a commodity to simply move at the end of spring training. In fact, one could argue that given the importance of each game, his pinch running ability will be more important in 2014 than it has ever been. I've always been a Dyson fan, so I hope that I'm over analyzing here. At the same time, I do think the Royals need to find a way to fit a back up middle infielder on to the roster.

Follow me on Twitter @Landon_Adams!

Perez and His Awesome Contract

In case you missed it, on Sunday the Kansas City Star's Andy McCullough brought us this article on the importance of a healthy Salvador Perez. There is no doubt that Salvy is one of the most important pieces to this Royals team if not the most important. We are entering Year 8 of the Process and Perez represents the crown jewel of the scouting and development system that Dayton Moore has constructed.

In just 253 professional games, Perez has accumulated 7.5 fWAR, which is easily more than any other hitter developed during the Dayton Moore regime. Perez has compiled this mark at quite the discount for Kansas City. In a time when amateur players are signing for millions of dollars, Perez signed for just $65,000.

Obviously, for Perez to develop into any sort of Major League contributor he would have proved to be an excellent investment, but Dayton Moore swooped in and signed him to a long term deal after just 39 professional games. The deal guaranteed Perez $7 million over the first five years of the deal and included three team options would could take the value all the way up to $21.75.

The deal was a masterstroke by Moore and will most likely be remembered as the best move of his tenure. The contract not only guaranteed a relatively small amount of money*, but also bought the Royals two additional years of team control. Making the deal even better has been the fact that the final three years of the contract are team options.

*Consider this, Eric Hosmer's signing bonus was $6 million. the Royals promised Perez $7 million and were able to secure 8 seasons of cost control for the catcher.

There was a stretch when Dayton Moore did a nice job of locking up several guys. Billy Butler signed a four year deal with a team option, when he was reaching arbitration for the first time. Alcides Escobar signed a four year deal with two team options when he was reaching arbitration. Alex Gordon signed a four year deal with an option when he was just a season from Free Agency.

Entering this offseason I was hopeful that the Royals could do the same for some of their current assets. I also knew that there weren't a ton of logical fits to be extension. Eric Hosmer would be a fantastic player to lock up long term, but he is a Boras client that long dreamed of playing for the Yankees. Danny Duffy, hasn't shown enough control/poise/durability to warrant a guaranteed rotation spot let along a long term contract. Mike Moustakas hit like crap last season. Lorenzo Cain is too injury prone for an extension. This only leaves a few options.

James Shields would have been awesome to extend, but given the current pitching market and the fact that he is now just a year from free agency, it seems that the Royals have missed their chance (if it ever existed). It also isn't a given that a Shields extension would even be worth it.

Greg Holland has been discussed at length on this blog over the past week. He's a guy who is probably the best best to be extended prior to 2014. Of course, in terms of players extended he's a guy that probably wouldn't create a ton of excitement. At the same time if the Royals can find value in a Greg Holland extension then they should absolutely jump at the opportunity.

The final player who I will suggest is Norichika Aoki. If you've frequented this blog over the last couple of months you know how big of an Aoki fan that I am. I think he is going to be an excellent fit for Kauffman Stadium and I expect him to be wroth 2.5 WAR or more in 2014. Aoki is only signed through this season, but I would be curious as to what he might ask for in the way of an extension.

The Royals have done a nice job in putting talent together in Kansas City. Hopefully, the Royals can keep this group together long enough to put the pieces in place around them to win big. At the very least we know that we'll have a top notch catcher putting on the mask for us day in and day out for the next six seasons.

Follow me on Twitter @Landon_Adams!

Plugging the Holes

Last week Fangraphs' Brad Johnson took a moment to analyze the Royals infield. After raving about Eric Hosmer for a paragraph, Johnson then got around to write this regarding new Royals second baseman Omar Infante. You can read the full article here.

"Infante will finally resolve the Royals second base black hole. He brings batting average to the fantasy dinner along with the odd counting stat. The quality of his season is largely determined by his BABIP."

I don't need to remind Royals fans about how dreadful the Royals' second base situation was last season, but I'm going to do it anyway. Last season Chris Getz, Miguel Tejada, Johnny Giavotella, and Elliot Johnson each received time at second and collectively that group combined for 1.2 Wins Above Replacement and hit .240/.296/.306. Yikes.

Last season for Detroit, Infante hit .318/.345/.450 and recorded 3.1 fWAR. To say that he will be an upgrade for the Royals is an understatement. There was quite a bit of criticism when the Royals guaranteed Infante $30.25 million over 4 years, but the Royals also deserve some credit for bringing in the second best option available on the free agent market to fill their gaping hole. 

The Royals had a few pretty big holes in the lineup heading into the offseason. At third base and short they are hoping for rebouds from Mike Moustakas and Alcides Escobar. They addressed right field when they acquired Norichika Aoki. With the addition of Infante, the Royals plugged the final hole in the offense. Now it is time to keep our fingers crossed that Kansas City receives what they paid for.

Follow me on Twitter @Landon_Adams

Top Defense in Baseball

In last Wednesday's post for MLB.com ranking the top defenses in baseball, Anthony Castrovince anointed the Royals as being better than any other. (If you want to see the rest of the rankings click here. Castrovince points to the Royals not having any defensive liability on the diamond and premium defenders at Catcher, Short Stop, and Left Field. Incredibly, Castrovince didn't even make mention of 2013 Gold Glove winner Eric Hosmer, or stud Lorenzo Cain.

Castrovince is right, the Royals are absolute studs on the defensive side of the game. They figure to be even stronger in 2014 with the additions of Omar Infante at second and Norichika Aoki at right field. It is this defensive prowess that gives me comfort at the loss of Ervin Santana. While the Royals rotation isn't as sexy on paper entering without Santana, I believe that an enormous amount of the 2013 run prevention success should be credited to the defense.

While many projections are calling for the Royals to regress in the win column in 2014, due to regression to the mean of their defensive metrics. I would argue that while the metrics of the Royals defense could regress, the actual performance of defense is something less likely to regress than offensive performance. Whether or not the numbers reflect regression, the 2014 Royals aren't going to go from being a dynamite defensive team to a mediocre defensive team.

The Royals ranked very high in WAR numbers in 2013, perhaps this is because defensive metrics somewhat overvalued the Royals defense. A regression in defensive metrics would mean a regression in WAR totals for players, but the point needs to be made that a regression in a metric statistic does not necessarily equal regression in actual performance. The Royals defensive metrics could be a little worse in 2014 than they were in 2013, but in actuality the defense could be playing just as good or better.

Personally, I don't envision the defense regressing in actuality and so I'm not worried about projections that are calling for a regression in defensive numbers. All statistics have variability, but unlike hitting, there is much less randomness involved in fielding a baseball. For this reason, I would expect projection systems to underrate the Royals this offseason.

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Covering Ground

"The Royals outfield defense did experience an improvement during the 2013 season. Their sharp fly balls (balls in the air between 2.5 and 4 seconds) Out% in 2012 was 46%. Over the first two months of the 2013 season it was similar with a 47.4% value. Then strong-armed, but slow-footed Jeff Francoeur was released in the middle of June. From July on, the Royals sharp fly ball value jumped to 52.7%." - Royal Review (Article can be read here.)

I don't think it was any coincidence that while Francoeur was on the roster, the Royals were 37-41 and following his release, the Royals went 49-35 the rest of the way. Last offseason, the Royals brought in fly ball pitchers. A strategy that makes sense given the spaciousness of the outfield at Kauffman Stadium. However, this is only half the equation. Without a sterling defense to chase down those balls, the combination of a spacious outfield and a subpar outfield defense is a death sentence.

This is a huge reason for why I am so excited about the addition of Norichika Aoki, who like Alex Gordon, Lorenzo Cain, and Jarrod Dyson, can cover some ground in the outfield. Entering the offseason, I was afraid that in the Royals perpetual quest for power, they would discount this particular advantage and bring in another slow-footed bopper to play right field.

One of the beauties of baseball is that every team plays their home games in a unique park. Obviously, some parks are more haphazard than others, but teams that can take advantage of their home parks can also reap the benefits. By taking this route,  I hope that the Royals have finally come to the realization of the type of team it takes to win at Kauffman Stadium. I also hope that not only can the Royals continue to take advantage of this factor, but that they can expand upon it in 2014.

Follow me on Twitter @Landon_Adams

A Closer Look at Norichika Aoki

The more I think about the Norichika Aoki addition the more I am intrigued by it. One of the things that the Royals did an excellent job of last off-season was better molding their team to Kauffman Stadium than they have done in the past. The Royals front office acquired fly ball oriented pitchers and allowed those arms  to take advantage of a fantastic outfield defense.

I've theorized with fellow Royal Revival blogger Twitterless Joe that some teams are doing a better job of playing to their park than others. We both strongly believe this to play a major role in the Athletics resurgence over the last couple of seasons. The optimistic side of me hoped that the Royals were intentionally following a similar path an off-season ago.

The pessimistic side of me wondered if the convergence of a stellar outfield defense and fly ball staff was merely a coincidence. When the Royals opened the 2013-14 off-season with talks about acquiring a middle of the order bat, I was certain that they would undo their progress by putting a lawn chair in right field (albeit one that would theoretically hit 30 home runs and drive in runners, with a .300 OBP). I was dreading the day when the Royals would announce a trade for Mark Trumbo or the signing of Nelson Cruz.

Instead the Royals announced the trade for Aoki. Of course things could change, but I am hopeful that they have acquired him with the intent to play him in right field alongside Lorenzo Cain in center. When you add Alex Gordon to the occasion in left field, you have arguably the best defensive outfield in baseball. (This is a similar strategy to the one deployed by Cleveland last season.)  I'd like to think this isn't pure happenstance.

Once upon a time I was given the advice to play to my strengths instead of focusing on improving my weaknesses. The idea being that if you focus too much on a weakness, you end up sacrificing the true potential of your strengths.My hope is that the Royals have adopted this mindset.

Based off the type of player that Aoki is, I theorize that the often muted Royals analytics department might have had a major say in this acquisition. Let's be realistic, does anyone envision Dayton Moore wanting to acquire a high obp, good defender to play a corner? I don't. In fact, this conflicts quite a bit with his past quotes regarding defense up the middle and "run producers" on the corners. This alone tells me that there is someone else in our General Manager's ear in regards to this acquisition.

These thoughts led me to another question: why Aoki?

There are loads of quality defenders that cost little and offer little to no power (the Royals have a few on their roster). There are even some that offer decent on base abilities. So how did the front office land on Aoki? Before I answer this question, let me take a step back and tell you how I spent my three day weekend.

This past weekend I decided to play with some numbers and create a projection engine. I will henceforth refer to it as The Spitter. The general premise behind The Spitter is that it takes a weighted average of a player's batted ball percentages from the last three seasons (55% for last season, 35% for the season before, and 10% for two seasons ago). The Spitter then utilizes Fangraphs' expected BABIP calculator as well as the player's weighted strikeout and walk rates to "spit out" a projection for 2014.

One thing that The Spitter does not consider is aging curves. I did not feel comfortable enough in applying values to aging curves that vary so much on position and player size. This is something I will look into adding to the projections in the future.

Another factor that The Spitter fails to fully recognize are park factors. Since we are dealing with contact rates, a majority of the issues surrounding park factors are mitigated, however, HR/FB is not adjusted and this is a contact rate that would be heavily affected by home park.

Finally, once The Spitter produces a line, it also takes into consideration a player's weighted defensive value over the past three seasons and adjusts a WAR output based on the player's position. The system seems to slant a little on the optimistic side, but I've ran about 45 players through The Spitter so far and there are only a couple of players whose 2014 projection outputs seem to be out of line from their careers.

One of these players is Raul Ibanez, who The Spitter projects to hit 31 home runs and slash .279/.340/.517. This number isn't too out of line to what Ibanez did in 2013, but for a 41 year-old it seems a little ridiculous for his line to continue to improve at this stage of his career. Obviously, this line is the result of 2013 being weighted more heavily than previous years, and the fact that The Spitter isn't considering age curves.

The only other player so far that comes out with a triple slash quite a bit different than what you would expect is Norihicka Aoki. Given the fact that the Royals acquired him just a couple of days before I began work on The Spitter, you can understand why this would intrigue me so much.

I'll just cut to the chase, here is what The Spitter produced for Aoki and 600 plate appearances in 2014:

• .331/.393/.448 with a .371 wOBA and 4.52 WAR. 

Now before you click the X in the top right hand corner of the screen, let me remind you that while I believe The Spitter leans on the optimistic side, this is the only output out of 45 that seems at first glance to be an outlier. So the question has to be, what does The Spitter see in Aoki that we have not seen from him in 2 big league seasons?

So first, we have to remember that this line is being driven by weighted batted ball data from Aoki's first two MLB seasons (60% weight for 2013 and 40% for 2012). Using this data, Fangraphs expected BABIP calculator would predict Aoki to post a BABIP of approximately .350, a mark which is 50 points higher than what he has posted for his career. 

The reason for the high expected BABIP? Believe it or not it isn't his line drive percentage (which rates slightly below league average), it is actually his propensity to hit ground balls. In fact, since Aoki joined the Major Leagues in 2012, no player has hit a higher percentage of ground balls than his 58.1% mark. Ground balls don't land as hits as often as line drives, but they turn into hits a lot more often than fly balls.

At first glance, one would view Aoki's career BABIP of .300 to be average. However, what we are beginning to find is that BABIP like many other items is driven by batted ball frequencies. So just because Aoki's BABIP is league average, doesn't mean that his BABIP is reflective of where it should be. 

Now given the fact that Aoki has struck out just 7.5% of the time in his Major League career (his 5.9% mark in 2013 led baseball), a high BABIP benefits him even more than the average Major League player. What The Spitter highlighted was that based off Aoki's contact rates and extremely low K%  he actually presents the Royals with quite a bit more upside than the casual observer would realize. 

My guess is that the Kansas City front office is fully aware of all of this. They don't view Aoki as a solid, but unspectacular option. They view Aoki as a guy with a high floor, but with considerable upside thanks to his ability to limit strikeouts and the BABIP issues that we have discussed thanks to his ability to hit the ball on the ground at such a high rate. 

The final point goes back to my hope that Kansas City has improved upon its ability to play to Kauffman Stadium. Miller Park allows 98 percent of the singles that a neutral Major League park allows. Kauffman Stadium allows 103 percent of the singles that a neutral park allows. I'm not sure how I could quantify this, but is it possible that the Royals not only see Aoki's high BABIP potential, but that they also see Kauffman as a key ingredient to unlocking that potential?

Unlike The Spitter, I don't expect Norichika Aoki to hit .331 in 2014. However, after looking carefully at the data I do expect progression. The Spitter thinks that based off Aoki's batted ball data, he should be challenging for a batting title. Fortunately, all he needs to do is continue to post his career line of .287/.355/.399 to be valuable. But what if Aoki's line falls somewhere in the middle? How great of a trade would that be for Kansas City?

I don't think all of this is a coincidence. I think that Aoki was identified by someone in the Royals front office and on December 5, Kansas City got their man. Hopefully, for the Royals and their fans The Spitter's projection will prove to be more than numbers on a spreadsheet.

Follow me on Twitter @Landon_Adams.

Confirmed: Will Smith for Norichika Aoki

Wow! Have the last 12 hours been exciting for us at Royal Revival. First off, what an excellent job by our blog team to get the Will Smith for Norichika Aoki information out there. As we have said before: at this blog we have a very humble amount of connections throughout the baseball industry. Our goal has never been to be an entity that "breaks" stories.

On numerous occasions in the past we have received information and often we are forced to drop subtle hints into our posts as opposed to blasting the information out on Twitter. We have also had an internal debate about we should even take the chance of sending out information when we don't have the means to confirm it with secondary sources. Ultimately, last night our source was confident enough to give us the courage to go ahead and share the information blatantly with the Royals Twitterverse.

Even when we dispersed the information we were careful in our wording. The last thing we wanted was to come off to the Royals Twitterverse as another Scott Swaim. We were then relieved this morning to see that the source was correct in regards to the trade. Following the moment of relief we were then elated to realize that we had just broken a legitimate Major Leaguer for Major Leaguer trade. We have been even more overwhelmed by the congratulatory response that we have received by the fantastic Royals blogosphere.

Don't expect this to become a regular occurrence for us. In our 4+ years as a blog, on one hand you can count the number of moves we have actually broken (a couple of draft picks, a trade and an international signing). Most of what we hear is just internal opinions of players and rumors. Again we normally are careful about the way we sprinkle this information into our posts when we have it.

Now let's get to the deal.

Personally, I think this move makes sense for Kansas City. Between this move and the Dexter Fowler rumors it seems obviously clear that one of the Royals offseason strategies was to deal from their relief corps in an attempt to bring in a right fielder. They have now succeeded in this endeavor.

Before I analyze the implications of this specific trade, I first would like to trace its lineage.

1. Norichika Aoki acquired for Will Smith. 
2. Will Smith acquired with Sean O'Sullivan for Alberto Callaspo
3. Alberto Callaspo acquired for Billy Buckner
4. Billy Buckner drafted in the 2nd Round of the 2004 Amateur Draft

Not too shabby. Thanks to some quality trades, the Royals are still managing to return value for a second round pick that was made nearly a decade ago. So far that pick has netted the Royals 4.2 fWAR with the opportunity to keep on giving. 

As for Aoki, he's an excellent fit for the Royals moving forward. One of my fears entering the offseason was that the Royals would allow history to repeat itself. In an attempt to find a power bat, they would sacrifice defense and on base percentage for home runs and rbi's (Mike Jacobs, cough). Dreams of Mark Trumbo in a Royals uniform danced through my head.

I even wondered if the Royals best course of action might be to go into 2014 with David Lough manning right. After all, in just 96 games he managed to post 2.4 fWAR. Unfortunately, I don't think the Royals trust Lough to post a similar mark in 2014. I would agree.

Lough is extremely BABIP dependent as an offensive player. In 2013, he walked 3% of the time and struck out 15.5% of the time. Both of these marks compare very unfavorably to Aoki who walked at an 8.2% clip and struck out at 5.9%, Based off these numbers I think there is a pretty safe bet that Aoki's offense will be better moving forward despite the difference in age. 

Lough's true value in 2013 stemmed from his stellar defense in right field. The issue is that we aren't dealing with an enormous sample size. Yes, Lough is a strong defender, but is he one of the best in baseball? I don't know that he is. Meanwhile, according to the Fielding Bible Aoki was the fifth most valuable defensive right fielder in baseball a season ago.

I don't know that Aoki provides the Royals with a huge upgrade from Lough's 2013 version. The problem simply was that it would have been very risky for the Royals to count on getting Lough's 2013 version again in 2014. Next season, Aoki will bring the consistency of a strong glove and strong on base percentage to the Royals. For a team with multiple wild cards, it is nice to have a position that they can count on for 2-3 WAR.

As for Smith, he will be missed but his loss won't hurt the Royals. Given his skill set, his value is higher for a team like the Brewers than it is for Kansas City. The Royals seemed to have already sentenced him to life as a reliever. For the Brewers he should get the opportunity to pitch in the back of their rotation. 

Smith is a good relief arm, but I applaud the Royals for dealing from a position of strength. I don't think this move immediately changes the fortunes for the Royals in 2014, but it does fill one of the voids that needed to be addressed this offseason.

One additional note, I've been asked several times how I believe this affects the Beltran talks. In my opinion it doesn't. I've heard that Glass is viewing Beltran as an opportunity to really squash his non-caring image. I think if the Royals do sign Beltran, it means that Butler is on the move. 

If anything this trade this protected the Royals from themselves and their own urge to regularly play Beltran in RF. The Butler vs Beltran debate is better suited for another post. In my opinion, this move does not remove Kansas City from the Beltran equation.

Thank you again to all those who have congratulated us on breaking this trade. We appreciate the support, but most of all we appreciate to talk Royals baseball with you every single day. 

Be sure to follow each of our writers @tipof_arrowhead @PadenBennett22 @Daniel_L_Ware and myself @Landon_Adams.