Comments on: Hillman Casts A Shadow

By: 25 years and counting

25 years and counting — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 03:49:20 +0000

Don’t really want to be a Davies defender, but according to FanGraphs he was a better pitcher in 2010 than Matt Garza.

By: sw

sw — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 23:30:07 +0000

As mentioned above, arbitration awards are based on playing time, and Davies made all his starts while Hochevar spent half the year on the DL, hence the difference in salary. Obviously something was going wrong with pitching management in 2009 when Meche, Bannister, and Davies all ended up on the shelf in September. I’m still puzzled over Hillman’s justification that Soria could be used for five outs, not six because of his previous Tommy John surgery, while sitting on his hands and letting Meche throw a million pitches despite his previous labrum surgery. At least he’s gone, but Bob McClure is still around doing who knows what.

By: fb0252

fb0252 — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 19:12:17 +0000

nice post, though several years too late. Hillman’s abuse of Meche began from the get go if you chart the inappropriate pitch counts for Meche right out of spring training of his first year. and, it was more than Meche. chart the abuse Juan Cruz took from Hillman in a short stretch late May-June 2009 and was never the same gain. Alarmingly, the pitching coach that assented to all this is still here. I go with Buddy Bell as the best Royal’s manager since 1995, and that is possibly the common thread to many of the Royals problems. Did they wipe out an entire young talented pitching staff, by my memory in 1999 and early 2000s?

By: steve

steve — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 18:46:53 +0000

Craig – I think Hillman was just the bagman, if you go back and check, Datyon first said that he thought major league pitchers were not being used enough, that there would be nothing wrong with having them pitch more. Hillman was an idiot and deserved to be fired, but he was just carrying out Dayton’s orders, as per an earlier article quoting Dayton before the fateful year. I agree with you, hope no lasting damage was done to other’s pitchers arms from that year when I think we had 3 or 4 of them on the DL. I am not slamming Dayton, was just an immature, stupid idea, with a stupid manager to carry it out, and stupid trainers in place (who were later replaced). I think Dayton learned his lesson. Go Royals!

By: Aaron Stilley

Aaron Stilley — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 18:41:40 +0000

Hillman’s use of Meche was absolutely irresponsible, but it is NOT a “fact” that it ended Meche’s career. Things just aren’t that simple.

By: Craig Brown

Craig Brown — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:25:25 +0000

Eric – It is for $3.2 million.

Chaim – I think something got lost in the translation (pardon the pun.) What works in one culture, isn’t necessarily going to work in another. Remember that meeting at home plate in spring training a few years ago? Maybe that works in Japan. It’s not going to fly here. You would think he would learn, but last spring he was the one who kiboshed head first slides after the Gordon injury. The players were ticked he would mandate such a thing.

Hillman just seemed tone deaf to me… No clue how to read or handle major league players. Yost doesn’t have that issue.

Dan – No way Butler signs a flat contract. No way the players association lets that happen. The raises for the three arbitration years are considerable.

By: Eric P

Eric P — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:02:33 +0000

I originally saw 2.3 million for Davies. Was that a misprint?

By: Grant

Grant — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:01:45 +0000

They need to lock Billy up and hope for a logjam at 1B/DH. Nothing bad can come from having too much talent at that position. If all three find success, you deal one for a young, ML-ready guy at a position of weakness, or more pitching.

If DM signs another SP, like Millwood, it will prove once and for all he doesn’t know what he’s doing. If they hadn’t just given Davies a raise, I’d be in favor of dropping him and signing Millwood, but having too many average starters is beyond foolish, especially as they continue to claim that the younger guys will ‘get a look’ in spring training.

Spending half of that money to pay large bonuses to second and third round guys with signability concerns is great. Might as well keep the farm train rolling.

By: Dan S.

Dan S. — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 16:45:02 +0000

I’d love to see them ink Butler to a long term contract that isn’t escalating. I highly doubt they would do one that declined in salary but I wonder if there’s a precedence for a contract with a flat salary. Maybe something like $7 million a year for the next 5 years. Having more money sooner seems like it would be more attractive to the player. And since his salary would be so team friendly in his prime years we would potentially get more for Butler if we were to trade him later in his contract.

By: Abh

Abh — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 16:28:55 +0000

The draft pick compensation needs to totally re-thought (unless you are a rays or blue jays fan, and your team DOES get 7 top 50 picks, etc)… Plus it can harm the earning potential of type A free agents by limiting the teams interested in signing them. Maybe a sandwich pick only, instead of forfeiting first round picks? That would give our Royals more incentive to sign GOOD instead of Mediocre free agents. I’d think the owners and players could easily agree on something here next time around.

As for Meche, I agree, I would hope the Royals use the flexibility to really go for it in the draft, look at signing Butler, or go gangbusters on one good (not three bad) FA’s for 2012, 2013, etc.