KC Royals - August

[SubGod22]

So I missed a few things at the end of July... Weekends happen. So we'll start it all off right here. Treanor on seven-day DL after collision. I didn't even realize that MLB had a 7 day DL. I thought 15 was as short as it went. I knew the minors used 7... If I read the article right, they use it for concussions. We'll see how he comes back from that. Manny Pina got called up to fill the spot for now.

In trade news, none of the talked about names (Melky, Frenchy, Francis, Chen) were moved, but the Royals did send Aviles to Boston for Navarro, Volz. Appears that Navarro is a young utility player who KC will control for 6 years. Volz is in A ball and appears to be a relief pitcher.

And in heart breaking news, Davies scratched with shoulder inflammation. It would be a shame if this kept him from starting the rest of the season...

[SubGod22]

From yesterday... Aviles Gone… More Deals Coming?

Based on the comments from Dayton Moore in the week leading up to the trade deadline, it figured to be a quiet time for the Royals. I’m just back from a vacation, but I can still hear the crickets.

I mean, if a Mike Aviles trade can’t move the seismograph, what will?

Let’s break down this deal… The Royals receive infielder Yamaico Navarro as part of this trade. Navarro hit .258/.362/.469 in 34 games in Triple-A Pawtuckett and .216/.275/.351 in 16 games for the big league club. Navarro is a toolsy infielder who has some power potential. Scouting reports say he has quick wrists and a line drive stroke that can – at times – generate some loft that can carry the ball over the wall.

The knock on Navarro is he has a tendency to lose focus. That seems to be a nice way of saying he falls into lazy habits. Only 23 years old, many have taken to describing him as a younger version of Aviles. That’s possible, although Aviles didn’t reach the majors until he was 27, and never really distinguished himself as a defender. That’s not to say Navarro is the second coming of Alcides Escobar, but is probably the third best infield glove behind the Shortstop Jesus and Eric Hosmer.

Obviously, nothing else happened.

Todays piece... A Whole Lot of Nothing

Sunday’s non-waiver trade deadline came and went without Dayton Moore and the Royals making any additional moves as the organization instead played spectator to a rather frenzied trade market. I don’t know if Moore deserves criticism, praise or neither for this.

Moore did ship the forgotten Wilson Betemit to Detroit earlier in the month for two young non-prospects (but also two guys who you can kind of envision making it to the majors as well) and also spun the unwanted and unhappy Mike Aviles to Boston for a younger, happier version of himself (Yamaico Navarro) who can also play the outfield as well. Given the status of both Betemit and Aviles at the time each trade was made, I applaud Moore’s return on both.

As Craig wrote after the Aviles trade one would have thought more activity was sure to follow. After all, if Moore could spin a 30 year old player who had spent much of the year in Omaha to a division leader for a player who was actually on their major league roster, then surely there would be a market for veterans Melky Cabrera, Jeff Francouer, Jeff Francis and Bruce Chen.

As it turned out, apparently not.

It may well be that Moore’s initial asking price of a number three type starter for either Cabrera or Francouer was so outrageous that rival GM’s simply didn’t bother wasting anymore of their time thinking about it. The sheer number of better players that were traded, however, may simply have overwhelmed the market and left the Royals’ in the starting gate.

After all, when Hunter Pence, Carlos Beltran and Colby Rasmus (Michael Bourn as well) all are out in the market, it is easy to lose interest in the likes of Cabrera and Francouer. With Ubaldo Jimenez, Erik Bedard and Doug Fister on the move, teams that might have resorted to a Francis or a Chen simply had better, sexier options.

Given that Ryan Ludwick was traded to Pittsburgh for a player to be named later or cash (pretty much the ultimate ‘here, just take him’ trade) might give some indication of what the offers might have been for Jeff Francouer – a better player than Ludwick right now, but not that much better.

As you probably know, I am as big a prospect guy as there is and trading a veteran for a couple of lottery tickets so that Lorenzo Cain (.318/.391/.525 in Omaha, .306/.348/.415 in 158 major league plate appearances in 2010) could play in Kansas City has always been my hope. However, if the compensation for a Francouer was a used lottery ticket and some spare change, then even I agree with Moore’s lack of action.

Several years back, I was genuinely livid when Moore, using the ‘we’re not going to trade for anything less than value’ mantra, refused to move Ron Mahay at the trade deadline, but this year I have no great angst over waking up in August with Melky, the Panamanian named Bruce, Francis and the Frenchman still on the roster.

So, what now?

There was a little bit of a Twitter snippet that if Kyle Davies was placed on the disabled list, that Johnny Giavotella would be called up to Kansas City. That would certainly get everyone’s attention and I am all for it. Let’s see what Johnny’s AAA line of .341/.394/.485 translates into at the big league level and let’s find out if the kid can actually field or not. Chris Getz, who went a rather remarkable seven weeks without an extra base hit before doubling on Saturday, really should not be an impediment to seeing what a red hot young player can do in a season that is not going to end in a playoff berth.

[SubGod22]

Stats as of today: New system is being a pain so I'm linking the site and not the individuals this time. Maybe it's my work computer...
Melky - .304, 68 R, 28 2B, 3 3B, 13 HR, 61 RBI, 14 SB
Gordon- .302, 63 R, 31 2B, 4 3B, 14 HR, 58 RBI, 9 SB
#CountryBreakfast - .295, 47 R, 26 2B, 12 HR, 63 RBI, 1 SB
Hos - .282, 33 R, 17 2B, 2 3B, 10 HR, 46 RBI, 5 SB
Frenchy - .272, 53 R, 29 2B, 3 3B, 14 HR, 62 RBI, 18 SB
Pena - .264, 15 R, 10 2B, 3 HR, 22 RBI
Getz - .254, 46 R, 6 2B, 2 3B, 22 RBI (Where's Johnny?!)
Forgotten Man - .254, 14 R, 4 2B, 1 3B, 3 RBI, 1 SB
Shortstop Jesus - .247, 47 R, 16 2B, 4 3B, 2 HR, 33 RBI, 15 SB
Treanor - .226, 24 R, 6 2B, 3 HR, 21 RBI, 2 SB
Aviles - .222, 14 R, 11 2B, 3 3B, 5 HR, 31 RBI, 10 SB
Moose - .199, 11 R, 6 2B, 1 HR, 10 RBI

Hoch - 7-8, 5.15 ERA, 22G/22GS, 138.0 IP, 72K/45BB
Francis - 4-11, 4.38, 22/22, 135.2, 70/26
Chen - 5-4, 4.29, 13/13, 77.2, 47/27
Duffy - 3-4, 5.05, 13/13, 67.2, 60/33
Paulino - 1-4, 3.51, 11/10, 66.2, 63/17
Davies - 1-9, 6.75, 13/13, 61.1, 50/26
SOS - 2-5, 6.92, 11/9, 53.1, 18/26
Little Tim - 4-4, 3.53, 48/0, 51.0, 42/38
Crow - 3-2, 1.76, 42/0, 51.0, 48/22
Jack - 5-4, 4.14, 45/0, 20 SV, 45.2, 41/14
Wood - 4-0, 3.68, 35/0, 44.0, 40/18
Adcock - 1-1, 5.36, 17/2, 42.0, 26/19
Coleman - 1-2, 1.85, 33/0, 1 SV, 39.0, 44/18
Holland - 3-1, 1.57, 24/0, 34.1, 44/10
Teaford - 0-0, 2.25, 17/0, 1 SV, 16.0, 7/6
Maier - 0-0, 0.00, 1/0, 1.0, 0/0

[SubGod22]

Davies heads to DL

KANSAS CITY -- Right-handed starter Kyle Davies was placed on the 15-day disabled list by the Royals on Monday because of right shoulder impingement. The move is retroactive to last Tuesday.

Left-handed reliever Everett Teaford is being recalled from Triple-A Omaha to take Davies' spot on the 25-man roster for Tuesday night's game against Baltimore

Stable of young relievers earn Royals' trust

The Kansas City bullpen currently has seven pitchers. All but one -- closer Joakim Soria -- has fewer than 94 career innings pitched. Four of them made their Major League debut this season. Two of them made their debuts in 2010.

The average age of the Royals' relievers is 24 years, 326 days. Among the other four teams in the American League Central, there are only two relief pitchers whose actual age is younger. The Kansas City bullpen's average age is three years, 216 days younger than any other AL Central bullpen's.

While the age -- or lack thereof -- of the Royals' relief pitchers is interesting, it's only significant because the Kansas City bullpen has been quite good this season. Despite the youth and inexperience, the group is seventh in the AL and 15th in the Majors with a 3.57 ERA.

The Royals have turned to their bullpen in 105 games this season, most in the AL. Due to early-season struggles by the starting pitchers, the bullpen has logged 353 innings, second in the Majors to Baltimore. They work a lot.

In Sunday's 5-3 win over the Indians, Kansas City's bullpen pitched four innings, allowing just one run on two hits while striking out six. In a 14-inning win over the AL East-leading Red Sox last week, the bullpen pitched eight scoreless innings, giving up just eight hits and two walks while striking out seven. They do good work.

[1972Shocker]

I was watching the game when Treanor and LaPorta collided. I don't think it was a particularly dirty play but LaPorta's shoulder caught Matt pretty square on the jaw or the side of his head.

How in the world Matt hung on to that ball I will never know. Looked like he was out cold for about 10 seconds.

[lostshocker]

Re: KC Royals - August

So I missed a few things at the end of July... Weekends happen. So we'll start it all off right here. Treanor on seven-day DL after collision. I didn't even realize that MLB had a 7 day DL. I thought 15 was as short as it went. I knew the minors used 7... If I read the article right, they use it for concussions. We'll see how he comes back from that. Manny Pina got called up to fill the spot for now.

7 day concussion stint is new this year. iirc it is a mandatory stint too if the player is diagnosed with a concussion.

and watching that hit on treanor i wasnt sure if the ump was gonna rule the runner out after the other guy snatched the ball out of his glove. first view looked like he picked the ball up from next to treanor.

[SubGod22]

Trading in August: How waiver deals work

I was a little shocked when the Royals made so few moves prior to the trade deadline. With so many possible trading chips and a history of past deadline activity, it seemed likely that they would make a plethora of moves. Only two relatively minor moves actually happened, but although the traditional trade deadline has passed, trades can still be made through the waiver system. It’s not the simplest system in the world, so I figured I’d dig in and try to shed some light on how these trades work. It’s pretty likely that the Royals will make a waiver move, so this might come in handy.

The machinations of baseball rosters have a number of quirks and complicated processes. From Super-two to arbitration there are seems no end to the contractual and legal issues that surface in the national pastime. The one that we’ll focus on today is waivers. There are roughly four different kinds of waivers, but for this exercise we’ll be focusing on the trade waivers.

The trade waiver system comes into play after the traditional trading deadline at the end of July has passed. To initiate the process a team will place a player or a number of players “on waivers”. They notify the league office and then every team is notified. Placing a player on waivers is essentially saying “hey, here’s player X and he’s on waivers, who wants him?” Most teams will place a large number if not all of their players on waivers to guage interest and possibly as subterfuge.

[RoyalShock]

I'm skeptical that Moore will actually pull off any waiver trades. We don't have anyone like Guillen last year, who although still had some production, was making a huge salary that no team wanted to take on through a waiver claim. He made it through so KC could then offer up some salary subsidy to another team, if they wanted. (I don't recall if they did or not.)

The players we have to offer this year (Cabrera, Frenchy, Chen and Francis) all have fairly attractive contracts relative to their performance. I see them all having claims put in. I guess I could see all but Cabrera falling far enough through waivers that a contending team is the first to make a claim. But that team may not have what DM wants in a trade.

[SubGod22]

Butler named AL Co-Player of Week

A torrid week at the plate earned Royals designated hitter Billy Butler American League Co-Player of the Week honors for the period ending Sunday.

Butler, who hit .406 (13-for-32) with two doubles, five home runs and 12 RBIs in seven games, is sharing the award with the Angels' Ervin Santana, who threw a no-hitter on Wednesday against the Indians.

The home runs for Butler came on four consecutive days, a career best for the 25-year-old. Butler finished a triple shy of the cycle on Tuesday, going 3-for-4 with three RBIs in a high-powered offensive game that Kansas City dropped, 13-9, to Boston. Butler's hitting was the difference two days later, as his three-run homer played a big role in the Royals' 4-3 win over the Red Sox

[SubGod22]

Transformers 2: The Rise of Escobar

I feel like a development that hasn’t been talked about nearly enough over the last two months is Alcides Escobar suddenly becoming not only a competent hitter, but a good one. I can’t remember ever in my life seeing a hitter go from completely worthless at the plate (which Escobar basically was) to good as quickly as he did. It was essentially an overnight phenomenon. Now, I get the fact that there was work that went into it, so it wasn’t overnight to him or to the Royals, but to the fans, it was really cool to see the light go on. The only other hitter who I can remember making a turnaround like this is Mark Teahen, but even he went down to Omaha for a few weeks and hit something like .380 down there, so it was clear that something he had done during his demotion helped to spur his turnaround. Escobar did it all at the big league level.

On June 6, Escobar was hitting .203/.237/.236 and it was his low point in a season of lows offensively. Up to that point, Escobar’s batting average had never been above .250, his on base percentage had never been above .270 and his slugging percentage had never been above .286. He was at the point where his defense could not do enough to turn him into a productive player. One thing in his favor is that the Royals didn’t really have anyone behind him to take over. The other thing in his favor was Ned Yost, though I’m not convinced Yost would have been quite so willing to back him if there was another shortstop anywhere in the system who could hit enough to make up for the drop in defense. Mike Aviles certainly wasn’t hitting enough to make up for it at the time and the only other options were guys like Irving Falu and Jeff Bianchi unless the Royals wanted to bring up a struggling Christian Colon. Yost stuck by him, though, for whatever reasons he had.

You could tell that Escobar had a nice swing, but that he just needed to shorten it a little bit. With two strikes, he did that and made good contact quite often. Then on June 4, a hit fell in. And then another one on June 5. Escobar went hitless on June 6 and in spite of how good he had looked at the plate (especially in comparison to previously) he was now 2 for his last 11 which dropped his numbers to their season lows. Then on June 7, the hits really started to fall in. He started an eight game hitting streak that day in which he would get 16 hits in 29 at bats. Those 16 hits included five doubles and gave him a line of .552/.567/.724. Now that’s a shortstop I can live with. He went hitless the next day and then responded with three consecutive multiple hit games to follow. His season line was now up to .255/.289/.322. That’s still not good, but he was no longer toiling in the Tony Pena, Jr. zone and his spectacular defense combined with his now competent offensive numbers made him playable again.

Since that point on June 6 when his average dipped to almost .200, he has hit .305/.347/.445. Now, those are certainly nothing close to world beating numbers, but they are definitely good enough to make him a valuable member of the offense, especially hitting in the bottom of the order. I think when the Royals traded for Escobar this offseason that they believed he could be a top of the order hitter. I never believed that, and I think the Royals might be finished believing that, too, but those numbers can certainly make a good bottom of the order hitter. I really like him in the number seven or eight spot in the lineup. The most encouraging thing about those numbers is the slugging percentage and the ISO (isolated slugging percentage=SLG-AVG) of .140. For a point of reference, Alex Gordon’s ISO is .193 and Jeff Francoeur’s is .172. If he can provide a little punch in the bottom of the order and continue to play that excellent defense then the Royals already got a haul back for their ace in the offseason.

Also of note

Dayton Moore made a point to mention that he’d like to get Giavotella 100-150 at bats in the big leagues this season. And now I’m salivating at the thought of watching the infield of the future. With Escobar actually hitting, things look awfully bright

[wufan]

I'm ready to see KCs infield of the future. Hosmer, Moose, Gia, and Escobar could be REALLY good! Throw in Perez (C?) and we have one of the best young infields in the majors. We might have some prospects behind these guys that don't sniff the majors for years, at which point they will be more than Major League ready.

[SubGod22]

Royals, MLB unveil 2012 All-Star logo

"On behalf of the 29 Major League Clubs, on behalf of commissioner [Bud] Selig, I have to tell you we could not be prouder to bring the All-Star Game to Kansas City," Brosnan said. "And on a special note, to bring the All-Star Game to the Glass family, which has worked selflessly on behalf of Major League Baseball and on behalf of the Royals to keep the Kansas City baseball tradition alive and thriving here in Kansas City."

The logo suggests the recognizable shield shape of the famous Kauffman video board, and is topped with a gold crown bearing the year "2012."

Next year's game, which will be played on July 10, 2012, will mark the third time Kansas City is hosting the All-Star Game -- and the second time for the Royals. The old Kansas City Athletics hosted the first of two All-Star games played in the summer of 1960, back when two were played each year.

The Royals were host to the 1973 game, the team's first year of play at Royals Stadium, which is now Kauffman Stadium. That game featured 21 current members of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Royals opt to add extra bullpen help

KANSAS CITY -- Manager Ned Yost said the Royals debated bringing up second baseman Johnny Giavotella but, in the end, decided on adding an arm to the bullpen in left-hander Everett Teaford.

Giavotella is leading Triple-A Omaha with a .339 average, 32 doubles and 72 RBIs and is expected to get a Major League shot sometime this season.

"Gio's going to be here, he's coming," Yost said. "He's doing everything he's needed to do to be here. The time's just not right, we needed to protect our pitching. We thought long and hard about it yesterday. But I don't imagine it'll be too much longer, and he'll find his way up here."

I like Teaford, and he's pitched pretty well, but I really want to see Johnny G up and soon. Moore wants him to get plenty of ABs this year, I don't know why they're waiting.
Butler gives kudos to Seitzer

KANSAS CITY -- Billy Butler gave credit for his honor as American League co-Player of the Week to Royals hitting coach Kevin Seitzer.

"At the start of the Boston series, we went to the cage and did some things we wanted to work on," Butler said. "Getting my hands higher, working down to the ball and it creates more backspin. I just give him a ton of the credit for this week and, hopefully, for the rest of the season, because it was a minor adjustment. But it's paid huge dividends and the results are huge, so far."

On the Royals' seven-game trip to Boston and Cleveland, Butler hit .406 with 13 hits that included five home runs and two doubles. He had 12 RBIs and scored six runs.

I do like Seitzer.

[SubGod22]

Putting The "Dead" In The Deadline.

Well, that was kind of a dud.

In the week leading up to the trade deadline, no fewer than 26 trades were made, ranging from the irrelevant (Juan Rivera for a PTBNL) to the blockbuster (Ubaldo Jimenez for four Indians prospects) to the baffling (the three-way Edwin Jackson/Colby Rasmus trade). Somehow, the Royals were involved in only one of them, and the player involved was Mike Aviles. What happened?

The knee-jerk response is to blame Dayton Moore, to say that he erred by not trading any of his veterans, whether it was hitters Melky Cabrera and Jeff Francoeur or starting pitchers Jeff Francis and Bruce Chen. Even if the offers were insulting, better to get something for a guy like Francis than let him walk as a free agent. And in the case of Cabrera and Francoeur, trading one of them would open up an everyday job for Lorenzo Cain, which by itself would justify trading them, even for a less-than-ideal offer.

The knee-jerk response may be the right one. But let’s try to dig through what happened here, and what the Royals’ options might have been, before we dispense blame.

To review, here are the four Royals who were (presumably) on the market:

[RoyalShock]

[SubGod22]

Nice find Royal!