Episode #028 – Nick discusses all of the deadline trades, Ned Yost through 2012, Meche’s decision to not have surgery, whats going on in the minors and should the Royals focus on a window of winning.
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The bad moves that are still snowballing are Kendall, Yuni, and Guillen — three of the worst position players in baseball over the last few years who continue to play everyday while others who could contribute sit.
I’m with you that my overall feeling about the organization is positive, but I’m still concerned about Moore’s ability to build a 25 man roster that makes sense. The real evaluation is beginning as his draft picks inch closer to the majors. I just hoped they’re not blocked by aging, high-priced veterans when they are ready.
Greg, sorry but I disagree with your opinion on this. In 2009 with Aviles hurt and TPJ underperforming, Royals had no SS. Everyone was saying that the Mariners and their GM was the ideal situation. They traded away Yuni and acquired Jack Wilson. Well, Seattle is W/L is worse than the Royals and the SS combo of Josh and Jack Wilson, they aren’t performing any better than Yuni and much more expensive. Good SS’s are just so hard to find and good SS’s that are paid reasonably are even more difficult.
Jose Guillen, I believe was a necessary evil. Without Guillen in the lineup, we have no power RH bat. Granted he has underperformed, but who was going to be in the position with the Royals organization? No one. And it his role was to provide protection in the lineup for Butler and Gordon. We all know Gordon has underperformed. And once again, if we sign Andruw Jones, we would be complaining even louder. And let me know if there are any good, cheap power RH bats available? Royals have none even today in the minor league system.
With Kendall, I still believe is an upgrade over Olivio and Buck tandem. To me, I still think catcher is not based on offensive stat’s, but instead it’s managing the pitchers. If you look back to the Royals in ’85, one of the moves that helped them win was trading Don Slaught for Jim Sundberg. From offensive stat’s alone, Slaught was a significantly better catcher than Sundberg. But Sundberg was a much better C from managing the pitchers, calling better games, and being a better defensive catcher. We all know what happened to the Royals in ’85. I am not saying Kendall is a superstar, but I still think he is an upgrade to what we had last year.
Regarding Moore and the 25 man roster, I am sure part of it has been inexperience and making some questionable decisions like trading Leo Nunez for Mike Jacobs. However, I can understand a lot of his moves. When the Royals had such a crummy minor league and development system, we can expect that the major league roster would be less than ideal. And Royals still have one of the lower payrolls around the league. They just can’t acquire and sign whoever like the higher revenue teams.
i think the primary bad decision regarding guillen is to continue to play him instead of somebody younger. I am fine with the signing and still am. Although, it was probably for too much money and better options were out there. I’d rather have seen the royals sign Adam Dunn.
The Yuni trade was deplorable in my mind. He is terrible at the plate and in the field. i am quite sure we could have found a SS just as bad for less money and no prospects.
I don’t hate on kendall that much, but if he is so good at handling the pitchers why is pretty much every single one worse this year than last? I don’t think that signign kendall is that bad that it will hamper the royals to much.
The thing is that really bad decisions hamper you for a long time, merely poor decisions only hurt a little bit and for a short period of time. guillen is blocking talented players, so he needs to go. Kendall isn’t really blocking anyone I guess, and neither is yuni. Although it is time for aviles to go back to ss, imo.
SL-”And let me know if there are any good cheap power RH bats available? Royals have none even today in the minor league system.”
How about Jordan Parraz?
The kid has certainly got some pop & can work the plate too!
Ed Lucas is showing some good potential from the right side.
I hope Jordan Parraz can be the Royals RH power bat. But a 770 OPS in AAA is not really screaming breakout right now. A slugging % of 417 is not special. Not convinced Parraz is the answer as a power RH bat for the Royals. Ed Lucas is interesting, don’t know much about him except he is performing amazing offensively this year in AAA. But he has 39 RBI’s this year and OPS at 970. Somehow he does not seem like a prospect but more like an interesting utility player.
I apologize for being so negative on these 2. Just don’t see the potential in either one of these guys in the majors.
Regarding the trade for Yuni, we didn’t really give up any prospects. Dan Cortes is still down in AA for the 3rd year in a row. Has really good SO total’s but his walk rate is atrocious. 52 BB in 77IP. That’s about 6BB/9IP. Plus he has been converted into an reliever. How can he be considered a ML prospect with that type of performance?
Derick Saito hasn’t pitched in 2010 at all yet.
We go look for a SS that is cheap, but who? It would be like back in the Baird days when we get guys who just who horrible in their positions. SS is a hard position to fill. Boston is an ideal organization. They make a lot of right moves, but they are also the team to sign Julio Lugo to a 4 yr. 36M contract as a SS. They gave up on him. Yuni is not perfect, but he is not horribly bad with his salary and with the fact until 2010 we had no real SS prospects. If the answer was Jeff Bianchi, he’s always injured and would be too much of a risk only relying on him.
I think the Betancourt trade came about because a) Moore was thinking he could compete in 2009 (the Crisp/Jacobs deals were part of this as well) and b) he was torqued off at Aviles for hiding his spring arm injury and worried that Mike would never come back. Heck, I still think Moore is mad at Aviles for that matter.
My guess is that had Moore not made pre-season deals to try to get into contention, he might not have panicked into trading for Betancourt (prospects traded is not so much the issue as the money the Royals have to pay Yuni). On the other hand, Moore has reportedly been after Betancourt for years, so it might have happened anyway.
And yes, Betancourt is that horribly bad. He is closing in on 3000 career plate appearances with a line of .272/.295/.389 and declining. As a Royal he is hitting just .248/.273/.383 and playing inconsistent defense (at best).
I am pretty sure we could find a better shortstop than Yuni. He is one of the worst everyday players in baseball, both offensively and defensively. He is also pretty darn expensive. Among Qualified shortstops, only alcides escobar and cesar izturis have a worse wOBA, and only hanley ramirez has a lower UZR. So in essence we have the worst SS in baseball, gave up young pitchers for him and are paying him 4m this year and 6m next year.
I would imagine that for $13m and two pitching prospects we could do better than the worst SS in the majors. Maybe I’m wrong.
Nick- “I am pretty sure we can find a better shortstop than Yuni”
I remember at the time of the trade Rany was actualy pinned down by a caller to his phone-in when asked “who would you get in at SS at the present time”?
The best two he could come up with was a asian player from Alburquerque in the Dodgers system called Hu & Julio Hugo (?) who the Red Sox were desperate to shift!
Admittedly these two were both named as cheap stop gap measures but i dont think they would have worked out better than Yuni.
Rany has now gone on record as saying the Betancourt trade was/is a success for the Royals as i have mentioned before,so i am sure he would admit to being wrong about the above two players as well & SL is right,good shortstops are hard to find!
Sorry Nick, don’t get the “love” from you (or others) on Chris Getz. Good glove? Yes. But this whole “we haven’t seen enough of him yet” argument doesn’t fly with me. And…he’s a White Sox castoff…need I say more…
“good shortstops are hard to find!”
Yes, but improving upon the worst one in the majors with 13M and 2 prospects shouldn’t be that difficult. I bet even the much maligned willie bloomquist would be able to provide the same production as yuniesky betancourt everyday.
“Sorry Nick, don’t get the “love” from you (or others) on Chris Getz.”
Oh, it’s completely irrational. I admit it. I am not selling anyone on Chris Getz. You know how sometimes as a fan you just like a guy? Well I just like Chris Getz.
I figured there would be defenders of Guillen and Yuni but it still surprises me every single time. Kendall used to be a good major league catcher but that ship has sailed.
If Guillen is going to play he should be in right so Kila can DH/1B w/ Butler. Would it kill Kendall to have more than one day off a month? I know I’m stuck with Yuni, but why wouldn’t we see Aviles at SS?
Simply put — these three players are arguably among the worst at their position in the entire major league and they lead the Royals in games played (along w Butler).
I’ve heard alot of talk about how we’re sacrificing the end of this year by playing the young guys and jettisoning veterans. On the contrary, I say. I think we’ll be better down the stretch since we have replaced these vets with equally or more talented options with something to prove.
It may not show up in the W/L because the pitching staff is still an atrocity. Everyday that Yuni, Guillen, and Kendall play pushes back our ability to work towards contention.
“I think we’ll be better down the stretch”
Ignoring the loss of dejesus, I agree with you. Gordon is better than podsednik. I think maier is a wash with ankiel. Betamite has been better than callaspo this year. Farnsworth is the only loss. I don’t buy that this team gets appreciably worse with the moves. Now losing dejesus will hurt, that is for sure.
“Ignoring the loss of dejesus”
this is obviously true, didn’t mean to gloss over it.
yeah, but I got your point. the trades don’t really have a negative impact on this team, this year. Mellenger in his article acted like this team was going down in flames this year because of the shift to younger players. I dont agree. Losing dejesus is the only real loss, other than maybe farnsworth.
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