30 Teams in 30 Days: Kansas City Royals

2012 Record – 72-90 (3^rd in the AL Central)

Key Off-season Moves

·         Acquired Ervin Santana in trade from the Angels for Brandon Sisk

·         Re-Signed Jeremy Guthrie for 3/25M

·         Acquired SP James Shields & Wade Davis in a trade with the Rays for Wil Myers, Jake Odorizzi, Mike Montgomery, & Patrick Leonard.

·         Signed Miguel Tejada to a minor league contract

Dayton Moore & Moral Hazard

In economics there is a theory known as Moral Hazard, where a party will have a tendency to take undue risks, because the effects of those risks wont be felt by the person taking those chances.  This premise is easily transferred over to the sports world and the Royals offseason is a prime example of that.

            This off-season GM Dayton Moore knew that this was likely his last chance to save his job by making the playoffs.  In order to achieve that goal, he decided to ship out the 2012 minor league player of the year in Wil Myers (in addition to pitching prospects Jake Odorizzi & Mike Montgomery, as well as 3B prospect Patrick Leonard) to the Rays in exchange for their #2 starter James Shields, as well as swingman Wade Davis.  This is a clear case of Moral Hazard, because if Wil Myers develops into the superstar many in the business think he will be, Dayton Moore would likely have been collecting unemployment cheques because the Royals would’ve missed the playoffs without improving the team this year.

            What Moore has done is take a player that could’ve carried the Royals for the next 7 years, and traded him for a shot at winning in this short 2 year window.  In a way, this is very similar to what Alex Anthopolous has done with the Blue Jays this offseason, however the biggest problem with Moore’s strategy is that he didn’t go far enough.  The Royals won a measly 72 games last year, and as good a pitcher as Shields is, he’s not the type to boost the team’s win total the 15 that they will need in order to reach the playoffs. Sadly neither are the likes of Davis, Santana, or anyone else that he’s acquired this offseason.

Spring Training Battles

Second Base -

            Coming into spring training, 2^nd base looked to be an open competition between the incumbent starter Chris Getz, and talented, and constantly overlooked youngster Johnny Giavotella.  For a couple years now, I’ve thought the Royals would’ve given a chance for Giavotella’s bat to make an impact at the major league level.  He’s clearly mastered the AAA level, having over 900 PAs at that level, and posting an astounding .331/.397/.477 line. 

However none of that seems to matter to the Royals.  Questions about his defense have lead the Royals to hold him down, and its happening yet again.  Giavotella was demoted yet again today, they are going with Chris Getz and his wet rag of a bat.  In almost 900 PAs with the Royals, Getz has yet to hit a single home run.  The Royals claim that Giavotella’s defense is the reason he won’t get a chance, but this is the same team that allowed Yuniesky Betancourt to butcher his way at the keystone.  If they aren’t going to give the job to Giavotella its time to let him go, and ply his trade with another team.

Back End of the Rotation -

            Coming into spring training it looked as if there were 4 positions locked up in the rotation (Wade Davis, James Shields, Jeremy Guthrie, & Ervin Santana).  The final spot seemed to be an open competition between Luis Mendoza, Bruce Chen, Will Smith and Luke Hochevar.  At this point that competition seems over.  Will Smith has been demoted, and Mendoza & Hochevar are ticketed to the bullpen, leaving Bruce Chen as the 5^th starter. 

            This does leave the open question as to why the Royals tendered a contract.  They now have him under contract and are paying him close to 5 million $, and his ability to be an effective reliever is an open question.  The biggest flaw that Hochevar has had in his career is his inability to pitch with runners on base.  That’s not something that you can avoid when pitching out of he bullpen.  I think that the Royals should cut him loose and only be on the hook for the 50% they have committed to his contract (which is available under the rules of tendered arbitration avoidances). 

Backup Catcher –

            This seems to be the remaining open question the Royals have with one week remaining in spring training, with both Brett Hayes, and George Kottaras still in camp.  Anyone who’s read this blog for a while knows George Kottaras is my single favourite player in all of baseball.  I’ve essentially written two love letters to him in the past, and in my mind, he’s the ideal mold for a backup catcher.  He’s left handed, he has some of the best plate discipline in all of baseball, and also has a good deal of pop in his bat.  Brett Hayes on the other hand has plus defensive skills.  Basically this decision comes down to which type of player the Royals want to back up Salvador Perez.  Perez has some of the most elite defensive skills in baseball, and so its only logical for them to take the offensive catcher.  However that being said, the Royals are probably the only club in baseball dumb enough to make the wrong decision.  If Kottaras is let go, I’ll be able to write another column urging the Jays to pick him up, which is plus I suppose. 

Projected Lineup

LF - Alex Gordon

SS - Alcides Escobar

DH - Billy Butler

3B - Mike Moustakas

C - Salvador Perez

1B - Eric Hosmer

RF - Jeff Francouer

CF - Lorenzo Cain

2B - Chris Getz

Depth & Other Options

C - Brett Hayes

IF – Miguel Tejada

IF - Irving Falu

OF - Jarrod Dyson

Projected Rotation

RP - James Shields

RP - Jeremy Guthrie

RP - Ervin Santana

RP - Wade Davis

LP - Bruce Chen

Bullpen

RP - Greg Holland

RP - Kelvim Herrera

LP - Tim Collins

RP - Aaron Crow

RP - Luke Hochevar

RP - Everett Teaford

RP - Luis Mendoza

Projected 2013 Record – 79-83 (4th in the AL Central)

Season Outlook:

            Unlike the last couple of previews that I’ve done, where my thoughts have differed with those of my colleagues here at Blue Jays Plus, I’m entire in agreement with where the consensus record has the Royals finishing this season.  I just don’t see enough improvement from them this off-season to project any higher than a .500 record, and them still finishing well out of the playoff race.  They still project to have the worst starter in baseball patrolling right fight in Jeff Francouer, and the rotation is relying on reclamation projects like Davis & Santana.  Its going to be another long season, which might become a long decade, if Wil Myers develops into the stud that many in baseball (myself included) think he’s likely to.

The Assassination of Johnny Giavotella by the Coward Dayton Moore

The Assassination of Johnny Giavotella by the Coward Dayton Moore

(Or another buy low candidate for Alex Anthopolous)

            Heading into the off-season, there are 3 obvious holes that the Blue Jays will need to address before the season starts next April.  One is in the rotation, another is in Left Field, assuming Anthony Gose doesn’t prove he can stick, and the last is at the keystone, where Kelly Johnson’s horrendous 2^nd half slump means he certainly won’t be back next season.  If you look at the free agent crop this off-season its especially poor, where the top two names available will likely be Freddy Sanchez of the Giants, and Johnson himself.  Neither of those excite me in the least, so in order to address that position Anthopolous will need to get creative.

            Throughout his tenure as the Jays general manager Alex Anthopolous has routinely targeted players who have talent, but for one reason or another have fallen out of favour with their current club.  He did this with Yunel Escobar from the Braves, again with Brett Lawrie in the Shaun Marcum trade, and most recently with Colby Rasmus after he’d fallen out with Tony LaRussa. 

Another player who fits that bill perfectly is Royals 2^nd base prospect Johnny Giavotella.  After being a 2^nd round pick in 2008, Giavotella exploded in 2010 in AA Northwest Arkansas, finishing 6^th in batting average with a .322 average, to go with a terrific OBP (.395), and Slugging % (.460).  He followed that breakout season, by posting even better numbers the next year at AAA in Omaha (.338/.390/.481), even earning a promotion to the majors in August.  However, like many young players getting his first taste of the big time, he disappointed despite getting regular at bats over the last two months of the season hitting just .247/.273/.376.  This was evidently enough for the Royals to completely sour on him as a player, despite the fact they’d invested a high draft pick in him.

Even though they had Giavotella seemingly ready to step into the lineup, and a perfectly acceptable fallback option in Chris Getz, in one of the strangest moves of the off-season the Royals decided to block Gio’s progress by bringing back Yuniesky Betancourt.  Betancourt had spent the better part of two seasons as the Royals starting shortstop, and had been massively disappointing, managing to combine atrocious defense, with one of the worst OBP’s in the league both years. 

After getting to the Brewers to take his poor contract in the Zack Greinke trade, the Royals brought him back seemingly as the utility infielder, and gave the starting 2^nd base job to the decidedly average Getz out of spring training.  The reason they gave was that Giavotella’s defense needed more seasoning at AAA before they were ready to commit to him.  With the Royals seemingly making a push to win this season, these decisions make some sense, as going with the 28 year old Getz was presumably safer than risking the unproven Giavotella. 

They did give Giavotella a brief shot in May when Yuni hit the DL, but despite hitting the ball very well (31% Line Drive rate), hit into a lot of bad luck, and when Betancourt returned he was sent back down.  At this point in the season, the Royals had already gone through a 12 game losing streak, and had already lost starters Danny Duffy & Felipe Paulino to Tommy John surgery.  All pretences of winning this season had gone out the window, but they continued to let Giavotella rake down in the minors, where he’d already proven he could defeat.  Keep in mind, that the reason they had given Getz the job out of spring training was reportedly because of his defensive acumen, but now not 2 months later, they were turning to Yuni and his atrocious glove.

It really dawned on me how much the Royals had soured on Giavotella until this week, when they finally cut ties with Yuniesky Betancourt.  It should be noted that this team is so poor at evaluating talent, that it wasn’t Betancourt’s poor defense that led to him being cut, nor was it his .256 OBP that got him cut.   Rather it was his poor attitude, lack of willingness to accept a reduced role.  Anyway, with Yuni’s spot on the roster coming open, that seemed to give them another great opportunity to give Giovatella an extended look to close out the year.  Again they are turning to Getz, and because they need a backup shortstop (despite Alcides Escobar playing all but 2 games at short this year), they called up 27 year old Tony Abreu.

            At this point, the Royals have screamed from the rooftops, that we don’t want Giavotella, and have effectively killed any real trade value he has.  Despite hitting .335/.401/.488 in almost 900 AAA plate appearances, this year alone they’ve chosen to give playing time to Yuniesky Betancourt, Chris Getz, Irving Falu, and now Tony Abreu instead a promising 24 year old former 2^nd round pick.  This has all the makings of someone that Anthopolous could swoop in and get on the cheap. 

            This isn’t to say that Giavotella is a perfect player.  He does have defensive deficiencies, and has disappointed in his very brief major league stints.  Despite all that, Giavotella still has the type of bat that inspires alot of faith, especially given how weak the alternatives at 2^nd base are this off-season.  I’m not sure if the Royals and Blue Jays could work out a deal, especially given that both teams most pressing need is in the starting staff, but if something could be worked out, and I think it could, then he could be just the low cost alternative that could plug the 2^nd base hole next year, and for years to come.