Thursday, December 11, 2008

2009 KC Royals



Thoughts on the KC Star's projected Royals lineup?

9 comments:

Louie III said...

Dayton Moore is aggressively moving to make a deal with Furcal and in doing so is shopping Jose Guillen. Many sources have suggested that Dayton has gone as far to agree to eat some of the 24 million left on Guillen's contract.
If the royals do acquire Furcal that changes the line up dramatically even in a world where the Royals keep Guillen. It moves Avilles to 2b which bumps the Albert (the drunk) Castillo out of the line up. That is a good move. It also means that Furcal will bat lead off, Avilles bats 2 and (De)Jesus can bat three, Guillen at 4, Lamb at 5, which mirrors the stars projected order thru the 5 spot.
I would then bat gordon at 6, butler 7, Olivo 8, and crisp 9. I like Gordon batting before Butler because it give Grdon more protection which means he will have less opportunities to swing at bad balls. Now some will argue that Gordon does not provide as much protection to Lamb as Butler, but understand Lamb is going to bat .260 and belt 20-25 home runs no matter who bats behind him. He is going to strike out and pop out regardless of protection. I also like crisp as a number 9 hitter and not as a lead off guy. Take some pressure off of him and he will perform. Last season demonstrated that when he is not forced to lead off he becomes more patient at the plate.

Kurt Outrageous said...

Assuming that Aviles (last year, 325 .354 .480) is not a fluke, the top of the line-up is probably pretty decent. Aviles and DeJesus (.307 .366 .452) were our two best players last year.

Unfortunately, the middle of our lineup is still terrible. Gullien (.264 .300 .438) and Jacobs (.247 .299 .514) will most likely combine for 40 home runs and numerous RBI. These stats will mask otherwise terrible numbers. When your "best" hitters have OPSs of .738 and .813, your team is in trouble.

And, I'm still confused on why Ryan Shealy's September did not win him the starting job in 2008. Apparently, Gload refused to share with him the blackmail photos he has of Moore and Hillman.

Thus, just like last year, the productivity of our lineup depends on the growth of Gordon (.253 .332 .421) and Butler (.282 .334 .420). Both seemed to improve at the end of last year and, hopefully, that can carry over to last year.

I have no idea why Olivo (.255 .278 .444) is on the team. We already have someone just like him. He's called John Buck. The fact that we are paying Olivo more money when we have our own Mini-Olivo in Buck is ridiculous.

I would move Callaspo (.305 .361 .371) up in the lineup. His .361 OBP is actually really good and easily led our team last year. We might as well see if he can do it all year.

Ultimately, the lineup still lacks people who can consistently get on base.

On the Furcal rumors, I actually like Furcal and think he is good. But, I don't see why we would sign him. It would just move Aviles to second and Callaspo to the bench. People constantly say that Aviles cannot play SS, but I have yet to see any evidence of his inability to field the position. We would be better off seeing if Aviles and Callaspo can be our 2nd-SS combo for the next six years.

Kurt Outrageous said...

Oops, I was incorrect when I stated that Callaspo's OBP led our team last year. In fact, he was second behind DeJesus who had an OBP of .366.

Louie III said...

Olivo > Buck.. Infinitely greater. He had similar number to Buck with 60+ less at bats. Neither one of these guys is going to be great but Olivo is the better of the two.

Kurt Outrageous said...

Olivo's career line is .241 .275 .411. Olivo averages 18 home runs and 67 RBIs over a 162 game span. He is right handed.

Buck's career line is .234 .298 .398. He averages 19 home runs and 69 RBIs over a 162 game span. He is right handed. Buck is two years younger than Olivo.

In other words, both these two guys are right handed hitters who have decent power, but cannot get on base. I don't see why we need two of these guys. I certainly do not see why we resigned Olivo. We should have stuck with Buck and picked someone off waivers to be his backup.

My main problem with Olivo is that it appears we bought him back just because we could afford to bring him back. Instead of spending this money, and the money we are wasting on Jacobs (when we could play Shealy or someone else), Crisp (when we could play DeJesus in center and Teahan in right) and Fransworth (who we had to sign because we traded Ramirez and Nunez), we would have been better off spending that money on one good free agent like Furcal or Adam Dunn.

KayCee Moe said...

Kurt, I forwarded your post to Dayton. He wants to know whether you are free to talk this weekend.

Louie III said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Louie III said...

Point of clarification-- not sure why I referred to Jacobs as Lamb in my original post.

Stop talking about Shealy. THe dude has been hurt more than he has been healthy since becoming a Royal. Yes I think Shealy can be a fine ball player, but an everyday guy cannot go to the DL 3-5 times a season. Shealy went down last year after getting a call up in september and playing 3 weeks of good baseball. He demonstrated better pitch selection and power numbers, but got hurt. I am not sure how you pencil a guy in for the 1b spot when you know he is hurt and will once healthy get hurt again. Shealy is 28 about to turn 29, he will only become more likely to suffer from nagging injuries. I liked the shealy trade when me made it with Colorado and I still like the deal, but realize shealy is always injured.

Jacobs is almost a full two years younger than shealy and is not bothered by a reoccurring hip injury or a desire to nurse ever injury like it was a gun shot wound. Their lines are similar but Jacobs has better power numbers. I am not sure why you can be upset with the Nunez/Jacobs trade? Nunez is about to turn 25 and has a good arm, but he is not exactly shut down or consistent. He has had his highs and lows coming out of the bullpen and looked best at the closer role, but the Royals would not need him as a closer. A guy named Dayton Moore took a dude named Soria in a Rule 5 draft. It would have been nice to have Nunez as a set up man, but Farnsworth is a much better shut down pitcher. The money spent on Farnsworth provides an upgrade from what Leo would have provided.

Now trading Ramirez the 27 year old who had a flash in the pan season when he was at is highest value for a lead off hitter with great defensive skills is a bad move? (De)Jesus is older not and does not cover the ground he use to be able too and Mark (i love the guy) Teahen is just not that good. A corner outfielder with at best numbers of 20he, 80rbi, and .450slg is not the lightening in the bottle that makes the Royals competitive late in the season. An outfield that involves (De)Jesus, Crisp, and Guillen is an improvement over last years. I am not saying that Crisp makes play offs in 2009 a reality, but it does improve the defense and gives us a lead off hitter. I understand you want Teahen to be good so we can get some kind of justification for losing Beltran, but it is time to move on.

David (wal-mart) Glass bumped payroll to $70 million which is an increase of $11 million and there is some talk that it could up to $75-76 if needed. Payroll increases mean you get options you did not have in the past and signing Olivo was a option the Royals now have. We are now paying him $2,050,000 which is not going to break the bank. Buck is about ready for arbitration and is already getting paid $2,200,000 and will most likely go up. I think the Royals should trade or non-tender Buck because in the end if you are right that Buck and Olivo are the same keep the cheaper version.

The thing is even with trades we have made we still have the money to pursue Furcal and we are doing that right now. Bringing in Crisp means Teahen's $2,337,500 is expendable and the Jacobs deal means we can dump the $1,300,000 we were paying Gload to hit grounders. I am not sure I ever heard Moore say he was going to pursue a corner outfielder, but I have heard that Moore has been shopping Guillen because he cannot get along with the coaching staff. I will admit now that losing Guillen and not replacing his numbers will mean these other trades do not make sense to me. If the Royals land Furcal and keep Guillen I think you can give Dayton Moore a "job well done" sticker because the Royals will be much improved.

Kurt Outrageous said...

Well, here is my problem with the Jacobs' trade: he's just not that good. His 2008 line was .247 .299 .514. An OPS of .813 for a 1st baseman is terrible. Unfortunately, these numbers are similar to his 2007 numbers (.265 .317 .458) and his 2006 numbers (.262 .325 .473). Thus, there is nothing in his past to suggest that he will get better with age.

So we traded a good reliever who had a low salary for a 1st baseman who cannot hit and who is due for an increase salary in arbitration. And, not only are we on the hook for his salary (3-4 million), but we have to replace our cheap reliever.

Further, Jacobs blocks our cheaper alternatives at first. Now, i have no idea what Shealy would do this year if given 500 plate appearances. His September 2008 would suggest that he could have a pretty good year. His 2007 numbers suggest otherwise. But there is no risk to playing him. If he fails, we can just put Butler or Kila Ka'aihue. We had numerous options at first. So, we traded a valuable, cheap middle reliever to solve a non-existent problem: no first baseman.

Moore then compounded this problem by fixing our other non-existent problem, lack of a center fielder, by trading for Crisp. Now, by trading Crisp, we will once again have to, at a higher price, replace that reliever.

Thus, Moore has traded two cheap, decent middle relievers to fix two non-existent problems: no first baseman and no center fielder. At best, Moore has spent 14 million to barely improve at 1st and one outfield position.

Now, I understand that we have more money, but that doesn't mean we should just piss it away. If you are going to spend money then you should spend it wisely.

And, if we wanted upgrade our 1st base position then we should have explored signing Adam Dunn. Or, if we wanted to upgrade the outfield then we should have explored signing Pat Burrell. Both these guys will probably sign contracts for 14 million a year, which is the amount of money we just wasted.