Lukewarm Stove Report

The off-season has essentially passed for Royals fans and I’m sure that 99% of fans took exactly zero notice of any moves (or lack thereof) made by Dayton Moore. Part of the 1% reads this blog. It truly was an uneventful off-season and now we’re getting closer to February 17th. Yes, in 35 days, the Royals Pitchers & Catchers report to Spring Training in Surprise, AZ. Speaking of catchers…


Jason Kendall:
One of the catchers who will be reporting on Feb. 17 is 35 year old Jason Kendall. Yes, the same Jason Kendall that was good in the 90’s! Jason’s average season line from 1996-2004 was .305/.386/.417. That is a very good line for a MLB hitter, even better for a catcher who had speed and was a good defender. In 2004, Jason turned 30. Would you like to see his line after the 2004 season? No you wouldn’t, trust me. But I’ll show it anyway - .260/.335/.321. That is a really bad line for a MLB hitter, even worse for an old catcher with no speed and average defender. I don’t like this signing – I think it was dumb. But what really makes it dumb – I mean what really makes it a indefensible stupid, idiotic signing - what would make Allard Baird cringe – what even ol’ CABG can’t defend – is that it was FOR TWO FREAKING YEARS. Yep, $2.25M in 2010 and $3.75M in 2011. That is so bad, Dayton. It’s insane. I was glad you cut ties with an overpaid Buck and an overpaid Olivo, but then you just went and overpaid the next guy. Some fans say “at least Kendall/Pena is cheaper than Buck/Olivo”. Yeah, that’s true, but why do we have to pay Kendall almost $4M next year when he will be 36 and even worse. Last year (in his contract year) Kendall was .241/.331/.305. Yep, that right there Clark is the Real McCoy. The lowest slugging percentage in all of baseball, tell him what he’s won Rod… A NEW $6M DEAL!!! You may be saying, “What a minute DP, aren’t you constantly begging for OBP?? Isn’t Kendall’s .369 career OBP much better than Olivo’s .292 last year (career high mind you).” Yes it is better, but two things. 1. He hasn’t had an OBP over .331 in 3 years, so I’m expecting .330 max next year 2. You don’t replace a shitty player with a marginally less shittier player and be excited about it. If Kendall has a league average OBP of .330 that will be good for our lineup, but his .305 slugging is even worse in comparison to Olivo’s .292 OBP (at least that came with an above league average slug of .490). Kendall will block balls better than Olivo and apparently calls a really good game. However, all of his positives are trumped by the $3.75M guaranteed to him next year. So next year we get rid of the awful Guillen, Farnsworth, and Bloomquist contract and how does Dayton celebrate? By rolling into the 2nd year of his awful Kendall contract. You’d think he’d learn from his mistakes – why does he insist on giving old veterans two year deals??? People will argue that we had to give Kendall a 2nd year to get him to come to KC. Well if Kendall is playing hardball about not coming here on a one year deal – then you remind him that he is 35 and slugged .305 last year. Kendall on a 1 year deal for $2M wouldn’t be great, but at least he could teach Pena a thing or two and maybe call a decent game here and there – put the ball in play from time to time and have an OBP of .330; but a two year deal is indefensible. It really is.


Brian Anderson:
Pretty exciting offseason when signing Brian Anderson deserves some keystrokes. Sad. This guy is pretty similar to Mitch Maier. Not as good with the stick, but better with the glove. Scouts rave about his defense in CF and the metrics back it up too. Lots of range and good routes – which is something that Dayton has been forcing the issue on (See: Gathright – well sans routes). Career MLB line of .227/.290/.370 leaves quite a bit to be desired. Even his minor league line of .287/.359/.469 doesn’t jump out at you because of the certain regression against ML pitching. You may remember the White Sox trying to make Brian Anderson “happen” for the 2006 and 2008 season. At $700K, it’s not an awful move, but I’m not excited about it by any means. Here is what my buddy Rocko (die hard Sox fan from South side) has to say on Anderson: “Brian Anderson plays great D but can’t hit for shit. Although without the pressures of Chicago media (he was the anointed one and took over for fan favorite Rowand so he never really had a chance to begin with) I think he might be able to come into his own. I think it’s a good gamble for you guys.


Scott Podsednik:
Some people are freaking out about this signing. It was a popular joke in the blogosphere. I’m not wild about the signing, but it’s only a one year deal. Before the signing we were looking to start either Mitch Maier or Brian Anderson at CF (I’d vote Maier because he plays good D, has a decent approach at the plate, and is cheap and controllable). Now Podsednik gives us another option. Scotty Pods (too much Ken “Hawk” Harrelson last year) plays average defense in LF according to the metrics and slightly below average in CF. He is faster than Gayvid, but that’s not saying much. He played 78 games in LF last year and 49 in CF. Dayton hasn’t indicated whether he will start in LF or CF – I would guess a little of both and it also depends on Maier/Anderson as CF options. This also opens up the possibility of trading DeJesus now that we have a guy who can play LF (I’d love to trade him for a nice return). Bottom line on Scotty - his best days are behind him (sound familiar). Career line of .277/.340/.381 with his best years coming early in Milwaukee. Coming into last year his best OPS season ever was .822 when he was 2nd in ROY voting in 2003. For the next 5 seasons he couldn’t crack an OPS of .700. Gulp. However, last year he had an OPS of .764 - .304/.353/.411 (basically league average OPS thanks to above average OBP). If he re-creates that line next year, he will be worth $1.75M. He stole 30 bases last year at a 70% clip (the minimum % to be worthwhile). My worry is that last year was a fluke. Pods turns 34 before opening day and his OBP in the 3 years before last year was .322, .299, and .330 (albeit in limited duty for you optimists). Not lead-off hitter material. If he has an OBP over .350 then it’s a good deal. I guess we’ll find out. The one gripe I do agree with is that we are not going to compete this year – I’ll slap a Men’s Warehouse on that. So if you’re not competing and you’re crying about payroll, and you talk about getting players in that 0-3 range pre-arbitration, and you have that exact player in Mitch Maier – why not just roll with him at the league minimum? Mitch had a nice OBP in 2nd half last year. Maybe he builds on that and is a .340-.350 OBP guy who plays solid CF and is cheap, and is young. I don’t see what Pods gives us this year that is worth $1.35M more than Maier and also worth banishing Maier to pure back up status. Oh well, the Scotty Pods era begins… Oh, also and most important. His wife is smoking hot. Like hotter than donut grease. Do I admire him for this? Ok, maybe I hate Scott Podsednik? Yeah, I hate him. Also, Rocko’s thoughts on Pods: I like Pods…he played really well last year and single handedly saved our season. To be honest with you I don’t see him playing that well again, but you never know. He’s average on defense. Where would he play for you guys? I think that it’s a good signing for the Royals because you got him for 1 year I believe less than $2M so you really can’t go wrong. Who else would you get? His base stealing days are over though.


By the way, here are the following new Royals who were on the 25 man roster for the White Sox at some point last year: Chris Getz, Josh Fields, Wilson Betemit, Brian Anderson, Scott Podsednik.

So where do we go? Ugh, who knows. If we bring back DeJesus, we have an outfield of DeJesus, Podsednik, Guillen. Wow. Then Anderson and Maier to back them up. Maybe DM is thinking of putting Pods in RF as soon as Guillen goes down in week 2. The reality is that it is all moot because the team this year will not be that good. We are just waiting for our young pitching next year and in 2012 – but I promise you it is worth getting excited about.

Another young pitcher to throw in the mix is Cuban defector Noel Arguelles – a 6’3” lefty with plus stuff. He is only 19 years old and some scouts said if he was eligible for the last year’s draft that he could’ve gone top 10. Dayton just outbid the other clubs interested and signed him to a FA deal. The deal is for $7M, so we basically got another 1st round talent from last year. This is a great move and these are the moves that keep me from turning on DM. Here are a list of arms that are considered legitimate talent in our system: Montgomery (L), Crow, Arguelles (L), Melville, Duffy (L), Lamb (L), Dwyer (L). Those are 7 guys who are projected to be major league starters – not like Christ George or Dan Reichert, I mean serious prospects. Here is the thing – if only 3 of them make it then we have a core rotation (and a guy named Greinke). Crow & Montgomery could be ready for 2011 (Crow definitely). I’m telling you our only chance to win anything is to hoard young pitching and Dayton is actually doing that. Now, it would be nice if Moose and Hosmer could be a part of this, but after last year’s disappointing seasons, they aren’t looking like the slam dunks everyone promised – they are huge prospects to watch this year. I’ll do a more in depth prospect breakdown before spring training starts up so you can know more about the names above.

Sorry for the delay in posts, I’ve been caught up over at Big Matt’s Chiefs Chat (Great Chiefs blog by Eggs that you should check out). I know things have been slow with the Royals the past two months, but I should have posted more. Sometimes I get a thought I want to write about and then I’ll think “wait for some more big news and roll that in”. That is dumb. I am going to try to do posts more frequently – it wouldn’t hurt if they were a little shorter anyway – I know I tend to ramble.

Exit Question: What are your thoughts on the moves made above?