One Season Post Greinke

Yesterday morning I received the following text from a friend and fellow Royals' diehard:

"Now that the Brewers are in the NLCS and Zack Greinke and Yuniesky Betancourt are doing well, would you reassess the trade? Jeremy Jeffress and Lorenzo Cain hardly saw time and Alcides Escobar is really all we had to show for it."

I told my friend that instead of attempting to answer this question in a text, I would reply to him in the form of a blog post, so here we go.

Before saying anything else, at the time of the trade I commented that there is no way Yuniesky Betancourt should be the starting shortstop for a team expecting to win rings. Now though, the Brewers are doing everything they can to prove me wrong. Betanourt, despite posting a .252/.271/.381 line, has retained the starting shortstop job throughout the season.

In the playoffs Betancourt has upped that line to .278/.316/.444 and has came up with a couple of timely hits. With that being said I don't believe that Betancourt's line in any way could make this trade look worse from a Royals perspective. The fact that the Brewers are in the NLCS seems to have come in spite of Yuniesky Betancourt not as a result of his performance.

Zack Greinke on the other has been huge in the Brewers' magical run this season. His era is 3.83 and he has a 16-6 record. But looking even closer he has posted the highest K rate of his career at 10.54, with a walk rate of just 2.36. His xFIP is 2.56 and it wouldn't be hard to make the argument that this is the best season of his career outside of 2009.

Really though Greinke is doing exactly what we expected him to do this season, dominate. Well until the postseason, where he has had trouble staying low in the zone and has become a bit home run prone.

So what about for the Royals? As my friend stated Jeffress and Cain hardly saw time. This is true. Jeffress's stock definitely took a hit as he proved ineffective in the Major League pen and after transitioning to the rotation in Northwest Arkansas saw his control totally fall apart.

Jeffress's stuff is still there and I expect him to refine his command enough to be a useful piece in a Big League pen. However, his season was definitely a big disappointment.

Cain on the other hand did nothing to cause his stock to drop. He didn't receive hardly any big league time, because of the unexpectedly outstanding play of Melky Cabrera, not because he under performed.

In fact, with another season in the books I'm much more excited about Lorenzo Cain then I was at the time of the trade. Reports are his defense was absolutely spectacular in Omaha, all while hitting .312/.380/.497 with 16 home runs and 16 steals.

The outfield's performance in 2011 was obviously a huge plus for the Royals. They now have four viable solutions entering 2012. Should they trade Cabrera, Cain can step in and if they don't they can have depth while also controlling inventory and pushing Cain's arbitration and free agency back another season.

My friend is correct in stating that Alcides Escobar was all we had to show for the trade in 2011. Escobar was excellent defensively and thanks to an incredibly hot streak in the middle of the season, was passable on the offensive side of things. Moving forward Escobar has provided the Royals with at least a temporary solution at short stop and if the offense can continue to progress he could be a cornerstone.

Of course there is one more piece to this trade that has been totally forgotten here. This isn't the first time that I have discussed this trade with a friend and they have forgotten about the Royals' fourth piece: Jake Odorizzi.

Out of all the players involved in the trade, Odorizzi raised his stock more than anyone in 2011. If he can fix his problem with elevating his pitches in the zone he will be a front of the rotation guy in short order. Odorizzi is on the short list of prospects that can be argued for the top spot in the system.

At the time of the trade I believed that it could truly work out great for both parties. It was obvious the Royals HAD to move Greinke. Shelving a pitch in mid-August, threatening to no show for Spring Training, and who knows what else behind close doors. He had to be moved.

The trade was made by the Brewers to better contend in 2011 and 2012. The Trade was made by the Royals to better contend in 2013 and on. Obviously the Brewers should look like they have won the deal after 2011. But nothing that happened in 2011 would suggest that the deal is any worse for the Royals moving forward.

Major League Baseball trades are designed to be wins for both parties. It isn't fantasy football when one guy/girl is most likely getting ripped off when the deal occurs. Just because the trade has worked out awesomely for the Brewers, doesn't mean that it can't wind up being a win for Kansas City as well. It is simply way to early to tell. For now though, the trade looks just as good from Kansas City's perspective as it did when it was completed.

Royals Release 13 Minor Leaguers

News broke today that the Royals had cut ties with 13 players in their minor league system. Here are the names:

Lance Zawadzki: I liked the Zawadzki pick up a year ago. I guess he did his job and held down the fort in Omaha. Not a real shock here.

Darian Sandford: Sandford has great speed, but that's about all he has to offer. I'm mildly suprised by this one. But the fact is that despite being older than his competition and in a hitter environment he still couldn't hit this summer.

Dale Cornstubble: I thought he was interesting enough to mention him in my catcher stock watch a year ago. With that being said, I felt no emotion when I read that he had been let go.

Nick Francis: This one is a bit of a shock. I really liked Francis's power potential. However, he had been suspended from drugs twice and the Royals already have several tweener outfield prospects in their upper levels.

Gerald Hall: Speedy infielder, that never really showed enough to think that he could be anything more than a low level roster filler.

Joey Lewis: Lewis was a a good player to have in the organization, with his ability to play both catcher and first. But no loss by cutting ties.

Steven Brooks, Casey Edelbrock, Justin Fredejas, Derek Hamblen, Nathan Johnson, Paul Krebs, and Robbie Penny: Umm.. I never knew we had any of these guys anyway.

Domin-Chen in One Game Playoff

Ken Rosenthal greeted us this morning with what I find to be an incredibly intriguing bit of rumor. The Red Sox are interested in acquiring a starter for a potential one game playoff against the Rays. At the top of their list? Bruce Chen.

The Rays of course have struggled at times this season against Left Handed pitching and by bringing a starter the Red Sox could avoid using Wakefield or Lackey on just three days rest.

To be blunt the Red Sox are desperate. They are in the midst of one of, if not the, worst September collapse in baseball history. With that being said I don't feel like a trade for Bruce Chen would be as desperate as it would seem on the surface.

Bruce Chen is going to be a type B free agent at the end of the season. As we have seen in the past couple of seasons teams are really starting to understand the true value of compensation picks. Last winter the Blue Jays traded for Miguel Olivo just so they could net a comp pick for him.

For this reason the Royals should absolutely demand at least the equivalent of a 2012 draft Sandwich selection. Quite frankly they should demand just a little more considering, Bruce Chen would be getting the opportunity to salvage the Red Sox season in a one game playoff.

If the Red Sox are willing to pay this price the Royals should absolutely do the deal. Then they could bring back Bruce Chen next season AND receive value for him. As opposed to if they elect to hang on to him, only being able to receive value OR bring him back. You can't get the compensation pick if you resign the player.

Personally I can't see the Red Sox offering the value necessary to make this deal worth it from a Royals perspective. I think they are hoping the Royals don't value the potential pick highly enough and trade Chen for a lottery ticket.

Obviously Chen is slated to be on the hill for the Royals tonight, so the Red Sox better get to work if they truly want to Red Sox nation to be screaming C'mon Chen against the Rays in a couple of days.

Looking back on Moneyball

With Moneyball being released this week many are offering their takes on the subject and hot button topic that was once Michael Lewis's book Moneyball. Scouts vs Stats. On base percentage vs batting average. Billy Beane vs the World. But what strikes me is that here we are eight years later and the whole Moneyball concept still seems widely misunderstood.

Moneyball isn't about loading a lineup with on base percentage. It isn't about abandoning defense. It isn't about figurehead managers, and it isn't about finding misplaced toys. More than anything else Moneyball is about one thing: exploiting market inefficiencies.

At the time of the book on base percentage was a huge market inefficiency and the fact that the A's found it first enabled them to field a team that was able to compete with the big boys. That is how big of a market inefficiency on base percentage was.

The truth is that since Moneyball, other teams have become much more open to trying new things. To expect the A's to strike Moneyball gold again would be naive. The true legacy of Moneyball will be carried on by small market teams as a whole, with the torch being passed from one or two successful teams to the next one or two teams. But as the baseball as a whole grows wiser this torch becomes fainter.

Baseball America's Casey Tefertiller published his take on Moneyball and the A's p.m. (post Moneyball) which you can read here. While I agree with most of the article, especially Tefertiller's take on how Moneyball has benefitted other teams more than the A's I still feel like he is failing to grasp Moneyball in all aspects of the organization. I'm speaking specifically on the draft.

Throughout a majority of the article Tefertiller is clearly someone who gets the Moneyball concept. He realizes that Moneyball is about exploiting inefficiencies and not necessarily about the specific strategies the A's implemented, that is until he touched on the A's draft strategy.

Tefertiller talks about how the A's draft strategy was a failure and how even the A's themselves abandoned the rules of 2003 and went in the face of their former philosophy when they drafted high school pitcher Trevor Cahill in the first round of the 2006 draft.

At last check though do the A's still not steal bases? Do they still put players like Jeremy Giambi in the outfield? Are they still on base dependent? No they are none of these things, because the strategy of Moneyball is inefficiencies and trying to find a better way to conduct business. They have evolved in other aspects of operations. Their draft strategy was a failure, but that doesn't make the Moneyball concept a failure.

In fact if you believe like I do that Moneyball is about exploiting inefficiencies then there is another team that has found the way to do so in the draft. That team is the Kansas City Royals. Of course the Royals weren't the first team to take advantage of the inefficiency and it seems at this point that the inefficiency has reached on base percentage levels and becoming less of a potential advantage for the teams looking to exploit it.

Obviously the inefficiency I am talking about is the slotting system. I know that by suggesting that using scouts and putting the Dollar sign on the Muscle is an example of a Moneyball concept I am risking the flipping of the Earth's axis, but here me out.

Moneyball and Sabermetrics are not the same thing. Now most of the time the two go hand in hand. But as I have stated numerous times, Moneyball is about exploitation of inefficiencies. While Sabermetrics is purely the creation of advanced statistics to learn more about the game. It is clear that Sabermetrics are often the best and easiest ways to find a market inefficiency and thus they go hand in hand with Moneyball, but Moneyball as a concept should not be limited to statistical analysis.

Without exploiting the slotting system, there is no way the Royals would have the top farm system. Without taking advantage of this opportunity to nab superior talent in later rounds of the draft, the Royals' and their fans wouldn't be counting the days until April 6, 2012 and they wouldn't spend their afternoons daydreaming about October 2013.

So while it may sound ludicrous, the Royals may be the holders of the Moneyball torch. Whether they know it or not, or whether their administration would be happy about it or not, the Kansas City Royals by exploiting a market inefficiency are now in position to be the next small market team to take swings with the big boys. Wasn't that Michael Lewis's whole point?

Pieces in Place

There are three spots in the batting order that traditionally have been viewed as having more importance than any of the others. Dayton Moore and company have on multiple occassions expressed their belief that if you can field a quality leadoff, three hole, and clean up hitter the team can consistentely provide quality offense.

For the first time in the Dayton Moore era we can safely say that the Royals have found answers for each of these three spots. But instead of a persuasive essay to convince you, let's just look at how the bottom of the 9th unfolded last night.

Leading off the bottom of the ninth for the Kansas City Royals number 4. Alex Gordon.

After falling down in the count 0-2 against hard throwing lefty Matt Thornton, Alex did what any good leadoff hitter would do in that situation, he battled back.

95 mph fastball. Foul (0-2)
81 mph slider. Ball (1-2)
96 mph fastball. Foul (1-2)
96 mph fastball. Foul (1-2)
83 mph slider. Ball (2-2)
97 mph fastball. Ball (3-2)

Finally on the ninth pitch of the at bat, Gordon found a pitch that he could do something with and ripped it in between the first and second basemen into right field.

There are two thngs that didn't happen in this at bat that should be noted. First, Gordon laid off the slider in. Up until this season the slider from left handed pitchers was Alex Gordon's biggest and most glaring weakness. The pitch seemed to consistently find the hole in his swing, when time and time again he would show the inability to lay off the pitch and would instead find nothing but air with his swing.

Second, Gordon's stayed agressive throughout the entire at bat. In the past Gordon would often get deep into at bats by taking a passive approach and then eventually this passiveness would do in him, in the form of a called strike three. Now, Gordon is always looking for the right pitch to hit and with his natural pitch recognition abilities is able to work counts, while also not being vulnerable for the called strike three.

Stepping to the Melky Cabrera.

One pitch, one perfect sacrifice. Gordon to second with one out.

Now batting the designated hitter, number 16 Billy Butler.

The White Sox made the smart tactical move and intentionally walked Butler. First and second, one out. Of course unlike in the past the White Sox were forced to pick their poison as opposed to walking the three hitter in order to get to an obviously weaker cleanup man. Finally that leads us to...

Up for the Royals, the first baseman, number 35, Eric Hosmer.

On the second pitch of the at bat, Eric Hosmer did what he does best when he laced a Matt Thornton fastball over left fielder Juan Pierre's head for a game winning double.

The Royals have the pieces in place in the three most critical spots of the lineup for at least the next two seasons. If we can extend Gordon, maybe even we can have those pieces in place for the next four seasons. Either way the Royals could finally have an offense that for the next several years will be a force in the American League Central.