When we began our position by position comparison of the Royals versus the rest of the American League Central, some of you may have been surprised by how well the catchers matched up.    You might have been a little disappointed to see that Billy Butler was only in the middle of the pack at first and perhaps a little amazed that, despite all his defensive shortcomings, one could make a case that Alberto Callaspo was the best second baseman in the division.

Sadly, there are no pleasant suprises in store for today's review, but then you already knew that, didn't you?

At the start of 2009, there was almost uniform agreement that Mike Aviles would certainly regress from his fantastic 2008 rookie season.   Still most of us thought that, regression aside, he would still be an asset for the club at shortstop.    As we are all painfully aware, that did not happen.

After playing for the Puerto Rican team in the WBC, Aviles tried to play through an injury (one he did not disclose to the Royals) and was simply awful for the first month of the season.   After trying the standard Royals' give-it-some-rest-and-see treatment, Mike eventually landed on the disabled list with season ending Tommy John surgery.

Kansas City turned to Tony Pena Jr. and Willie Bloomquist and eventually panicked their way into trading for Yuniesky Betancourt.  As an aside, my wife and I attended two games in August at Safeco Field in Seattle.   Wearing our Royals' jerseys, we were thanked by not one, not two, but three different fans for taking Betancourt off their hands.

The injured Aviles-Pena Jr.-Bloomquist-Betancourt monster was as bad as it sounds....on both sides of the ball.

Offense - weighted Runs Created (Shortstops)

KCR: 37

CHI: 80

CLE: 91

DET: 53

MIN: 69

Defense - Ultimate Zone Rating per 150 games

Orlando Cabrera, who the Twins acquired in mid-season, was coming off a +13.1 UZR/150 in 2008, so I'm not sure what happened to him defensively.  However, he did hit .289/.313/.430 for Minnesota, while Betancourt was a pathetic .240/.269/.370 for the Royals with even worse defense. 

Prior to Cabrera's acquisition, the Twins used Nick Punto (+3.1) and Brendan Harris (-4.7) at shortstop.   Both of them were far better in the field than the Royals' stopgap, Willie Bloomquist, who posted a -12.7 rating.

When comparing to Detroit, the Royals got 26 more points of OPS out of Betancourt than the Tiger got out of Adam Everett, but that is nowhere near enough pop (if you can even call it that) to make up for the huge defensive disparity between the two.

Chicago's Alexei Ramirez, who had the unique distinction of hitting more home runs than doubles (15 to 14), gave the White Sox good production with above average defense, while Cleveland's Asdrubal Cabrera was enough of an offensive plus (.308./361/.438) to outweigh below average defense.   Given that Cabrera is four years younger than Betancourt, I don't like Kansas City's odds of making up any ground here.

Solution

We could go fantasy world here and make one up, but let's face facts:  the Royals have Betancourt under contract for two more years and this is a trade that Dayton Moore has hung his hat on.   There has been some lip service out of the organization about Betancourt and Aviles competing for the spot next spring, but we should all know better.

Yuniesky Betancourt will be the starting shortstop for the Kansas City Royals in 2010 and will likely be the weakest at his position in the division (if not all of baseball).   We can concoct all sorts of scenarios to make ourselves feel better, but the prior sentence is what will actually happen.

The solution?  Get better at other positions because the Royals are stuck with this one.

Comments

geoknows

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I am of the opinion that, of all the injuries the Royals had this year, Aviles hurt the team the most. Not only because they really missed him in the lineup as well as defensively, but his injury caused a Dayton Moore overreaction. DM has done a lot of things I have disliked, but nothing I have hated more than the trade for Betancourt. I know a lot of things have been said about "we needed to do something," but considering that it was mid-July, they would have been just as well off finishing out the year with a patchwork of Hernandez, Lisson, Bloomquist at short. Maybe the offensive production wouldn't have been great, but overall they would have been no worse off. And now they are stuck with Yuni for two more years.

And wow, even if they won't consider defensive metrics in evaluating players, just using ones eyes to observe Betancourt playing short should tell you all you need to know. Are they that blind? I'll bet Brian Bannister is rethinking his decision to turn himself into a ground ball pitcher.

Tuesday 20 October 2009, 05:47

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Crembo

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I have followed Yuni's career because of a connection with the Mariners. Their entire broadcast crew couldn't have been giddier when we not only took that slug off their hands but actually gave them a potentially decent pitcher. It makes me think that DM the GM is in way over his head. What a disaster at shortstop for the boys in blue. To me, this, along with trading two strong bullpen arms for two questiona ble position playaers makes me hope that he never makes another trade. He is the reverse Cedric Tallis.

Tuesday 20 October 2009, 06:03

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GreinkeFan1

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The truly demoralizing thing is that it would actually improve our team on the field to let Greinke play SS and bat in the games he doesn't pitch in. Obviously he is to valuable for that, but when you have a guy who hasn't played the field or hit regularly since high school and he is a better option than your starting SS you are doomed to failure.

Tuesday 20 October 2009, 07:04

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kcghost

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This just reeks. GMDM has no capability to admit a mistake and correct. We will be stuck with Yuni until the end of GMDM's tenure in KC. There is no chance he will give Bianchi a fair chance to win the jjob. He will move him to 2B/3B before doing that.

Tuesday 20 October 2009, 08:00

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Toby V

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I have heard Dayton say many times that his scouting dept and himself know SS talent. He likes to reference the good SS that have gone though the Alanta org. So, one would think...if anything Dayton should be able to provide the Royals with a good if not great SS. He should also know how important to the team it is to have a top player at that position. So, what has he brought in at that position: Pena JR and Yuni - Then they didn't even want to play Aviles at SS until Pena Jr was so bad that he forced their hand. On top of that he has failed to draft a SS high in the draft or aquire a FA (see Cabrera) that was in the Royals price range.
I really don't want to believe Dayton is that bad, because it means at least 5 more years of terrible Royals. But, he sure is making it hard to defend him. He only has a few more years to play the "Let's see how the talent he has drafted in the lower minors developes" card.

Tuesday 20 October 2009, 15:22

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gbewing

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Clark I know defensive metrics are improving but I still am leery of them. UZR is one im particular that I hear a lot of criticism and doubt about. Player flucuation year to year is what doesn't fit right. You mentioned OCab in this article, defense is fairly predicatable unless there is an injury yet OCab goes from great fielder to terrible fielder, The other Cabrera -Asdrubal also has a history of being a very good defensive 2b and SS and yet he's on the minus side this year and was healthy all year. The majority of the ratings pass the eye test but can you help explain the flucuations we see and the strengths and weaknesses of different defensive metrics?

Tuesday 20 October 2009, 17:53

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AvilesFan1

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I am continually amazed at how Aviles gets thrown under the bus for not disclosing his injury to management sooner. This is the same management that refused to give him any chance to play even when he was massively outperforming all other options. The same management that didn't bother to keep track of the massive workload placed on him (between triple A, the majors, winter leagues and the WBC he played is somewhere between 180 - 200 games and took over 800 ABs the year before his injury). I don't think it is much of a stretch to assume that Aviles believed that if he admitted not being 100% they would shuffle him off to Triple A again and never look back. To me, the biggest condemnation of GMDM so far is that he refuses to revise his thinking when a move blows up in his face. If he had taken the evidence at hand and determined that Aviles was a legitimate SS and that there were no capable replacements for him in the organization, there is no way he, or anyone with a brain, would have agreed to Aviles playing in winter ball or the WBC. Coincidentally, if you followed Aviles in winter ball you could see that his numbers plummetted about half way through the season, which is likely when the injury occurred. If our managment had any sense at all, he would never have been there.

Wednesday 21 October 2009, 03:45

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Toby V

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How many Starting Offensive Players of the year for a team get sent to Winter ball anyway? I know they did it to improve his defense skills. But really, how many players can you point to that were sent to winter ball to work on something - ever truely come into the next season vastly improved. Always sounds like a good idea, but never seems to show much results.

Wednesday 21 October 2009, 16:11

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