An Incentive Away From Contention?

Well, it's Saturday, which means that the first intrasquad game of spring training is tomorrow!  According to The Star,  the Royals have announced who will be pitching in the opener.  Jamey Wright, Julio Pimental, Devon Lowery and Heath Phillips will pitch two innings each and Henry Barrera will pitch one inning.  I am most excited to hear about how Julio, Devon and Henry do.  Barrera has the potential to be this year's Ram-Ram, in my opinion.  Now if only we could get a lineup for tomorrow's game!

Speaking of tomorrow's lineup, the one thing we do know is that Jose Guillen won't be in it.  Originally slated as the DH, Jose won't be playing due to a sore shoulder along with his sore toe.  I understand that Spring Training has only just begun and it takes players a while to get into the swing of things, but if he has a sore shoulder from overthrowing in the first few days of camp, that leads me to believe that he hadn't kept a very strict throwing regiment over the winter.  In fact, now that I think about it, I don't recall hearing about JoGui playing winterball at all.  I may be mistaken though.  More controversial news to come from Guillen is that he used to work out with the now infamous Angel Presinal, the same trainer that is banned from all MLB clubhouses and was allegedly working out with Alex Rodriguez. Although Jose claims that it hasn't been within the last three years and that it never involved PED's.  I think it's very discomforting that this steroid issue continues to grow despite the big congressional hearing which everyone thought was the pinnacle of the situation. 

Buster Olney recently wrote a new post, much of it centering on Greinke, and also the Royals improvement this offseason.  No new information really, except for this interesting little tidbit:  

"The Royals actually had a higher offer in a base salary for Orlando Hudson than theDodgers' winning offer -- $4.6 million, more than a million more than L.A.'s winning offer of $3.38 million. But Hudson can make more with the Dodgers if he realizes all of the incentive clauses, and there was a feeling all along within the Royals organization that Hudson's preference was to sign with L.A. and remain in the NL West as he tries to position himself for another run at free agency."

Well, this is somewhat depressing.  All the Royals had to do was add incentives, and we could have had an almost-all-star caliber second baseman and leadoff hitter.  We could have easily tweaked those incentives so that the Cabrera wouldn't have gotten paid unless we were within so many games of the division lead.  While this is the Royals I have come to expect, I wish that we could have pulled this one out.  I genuinely believe it could have turned us into a legitimate contender for the central pennant.

In the Star today was an excellent write-up about my second favorite Royal.  Coco Crisp is the type of "gritty" player that I enjoy being a fan of.  (As opposed to the "sucky" "gritty" player, like Ross Gload.)  While Coco still needs to try and improve his walk rate, if he can get back to his the stat lines he had in his years with Cleveland (or even head in that direction) it will make the loss of Ramon Ramirez hurt even less.  The best part about players like Coco Crisp and Mark Teahen is that you always know you are getting 100% effort from them.  This is clearly not the case with players like Angel Berroa, Neifi Perez and even some current Royals.  Coco has a lot of work to do to get back to the production that he has had in the past, but on a team like Kansas City where the pressure is much more similar to Cleveland than to Boston, maybe he has a chance.

On Royals.com there is a small write-up about Derrick Robinson's first few days of his first trip to major league Spring Training.  While it's clear this is just a "see what you're in for if you work hard" maneuver, I think it is a good idea.  Derrick will be closely working with both Coco Crisp and David DeJesus.  Derrick was the "Willie Wilson Award" winner for last year, which I was previously unaware of until reading this article.  The "Willie Wilson Award" is given out to the best baserunner in the minor league system.  I think this is an excellent idea.  Awarding good baserunning and creating incentives for players to work on it is a somewhat new concept.  The Royals should be doing more things like this, trying to create improvement of their minor leaguers' game in anyway possible.  Creating 5 tool players should be their goal.  

Last thing for the day, for those of you that aren't familiar, I'm a big Paul DePodesta fan.  Paul first came to my attention when he was a predominant figure in "Moneyball" as an assistant to Billy Beane.  He has since moved on to be the Dodgers GM from '04 to '05 and is now a special assistant to GM Kevin Towers of the Padres.  I was on the Paul DePodesta bandwagon (I think I was driving it actually) when the Royals were searching for a GM.  In fact, if DM ever gets fired I really hope Paul gets the job, I think he is an excellent talent and understands statistical correlation in baseball better than almost anyone.  (At least better than anyone who actually has a resume that could land them a GM job.)  Anyway, Paul has a blog that I enjoy reading very much and I thought I might pass that link on to everyone.  That link is Http://itmightbedangerous.blogspot.com so if you get the chance, take a look.  I wish there were more front end personell blogs similar to this with wonderful insight and sometimes even breaking news.  As always, thanks for reading, and please leave a comment if you have a question or want me to cover a specific topic.  Thanks.

Jose Guillen M.D.

Happy Thursday.  Today was a bit slow news-wise as ST goes, but there was definitely some pertinent things that happened.  First off, the Royals added a middle infielder.  Dayton Moore claimed Tug Hulett off of waivers from the Mariners, and subsequently DFA'd RP Neal Musser.  I see this overall as an improvement of the team.  Hulett is younger than Musser and besides Musser will probably accept a re-assignment to AAA Omaha anyway.

You may remember Hulett's name from last offseason, when he was sent from Texas to the Mariners for 1B Ben Broussard.  Broussard went on to be released by the Rangers before June, and so I'm sure the Mariner's didn't have much problem letting go of Tug.  Hulett isn't much of a power hitter, although he did hit 14 homers last year for PCL Tacoma on his way to a .518 slugging percentage.  He's prone to strike outs (204 in 253 games in his last two years between AAA and the majors) but he also is willing to walk (118 in that same time period).  Hulett will turn 26 before the season starts, but has never really had a shot in the big leagues.  Overall, I definitely rate this as a positive move, Hulett could very well end up being a serviceable big league 2nd baseman with a .280/.350/.450 line in his prime with maybe 10 home runs.  He could also flounder in AAA and we could never hear from him again.  Either way, moves like this make me excited that DM isn't just passing over the details, he is actively searching to improve his team in any way possible.  As a sidenote, "Tug's" actually name is "Timothy"... interesting.

Musser was going to turn 29 before the season was over and while he has posted a career 4.18 ERA in the majors that goes along with a 1.83 WHIP, strong proof that his ERA was not sustainable.  Musser is a lefty, so even if he doesn't accept an assignment to AAA I imagine he will stick on someone's 40 man.  His stuff is passable, his strikeout rate of 7.7 batters per 9 in the minors is very good and is HR/9 of 0.7 is excellent.  I don't have information for his splits in the minors but he has done much better vs. righties in his big league career (granted in 25 innings).  He has a .262/.368/.431 vs righties and a .385/.442/.692 vs lefties.  Neither is very good, and definitely does not show that he has LOOGY potential.  However, he really hasn't had much of a chance in the ML yet and may very well end up sticking somewhere.

On to the Orlando Hudson front.  As each day passes, it looks more and more like the Dodgers are going to wind up with a 50% off deal on O-Dawg.  While this may stunt the growth of Blake DeWitt for a season, it would allow the Dodgers to plug in another big league hitter into their lineup.  Also as each day passes I get more and more frustrated that we haven't seen O-Dawg's press conference announcing him as a Royal.  Hudson would fit in so well as a leadoff or #2 hitter for the Royals and fills a position of need.  Even in his sub 100 OPS+ days in Toronto he could still talk a walk and hit for some decent power.  And as always, he is easily one of the three best defensive 2nd baseman in the majors.  

Another piece of news from today: Jose Guillen is performing minor surgery on himself.  How this happens, I don't know.  This is nearly as bad as Tracy McGrady announcing through his website that he would have season-ending surgery on his knee before even discussing the matter with his coaching staff.  That being said, at least TMac didn't break out a steak knife and do the dirty himself.  I will always have beef with Guillen, as I feel like he doesn't care about the team at all.  That being said, he is a Royal and I do root for him.  I would imagine that Nick Swartz SHOULD take some flak for this.  After all, the players' health is his job.  However, Nick Swartz has been around for a long time, and I doubt anything comes of this.  Shouldn't someone be responsible for explaining to the players the implications of something like this?  What if his toe gets infected and he misses half the season?  aye aye, anyway enough of JoGui for now.

Andy Marte was DFA'd today. While I realize there is very little room on the Royals 40 man for another corner infielder-type, I think it is important to improve your roster with every chance you get, even if that improvement is small.  Who would you rather have as a backup infielder? Ross Gload, who is capable of playing 1B and the corner OF spots or Marte who can play 3B or 1B and is 7 years younger.  Gload is a proven commodity.  And it is also proven that Hillman (and Buddy Bell for that matter) way overuse him.  Why not bring in Marte and allow him to work with Kevin Seitzer to work on getting his swing back.  After all Marte was rated the number 11 prospect in baseball by Baseball America as recently as 2006.  Another important factor to consider is that if Mark Teahen is traded or released, this team has no 3B to back up Gordon.  Sure, German can handle the position, but at this point there's no guarantee he makes the roster out of spring training.  Besides, watching him throw from 3B is like watching David Eckstein throw.. from anywhere.  Anyway, I feel like ditching Gload for Marte would be a net positive for the Royals roster.

Well that's about all of the information I found useful for today.  As always, thanks for reading.