2012 Kansas City Royals Repository Thread

[alnorth]

2012 Slogan: Our Time

A better, more accurate 2012 Slogan: It is Finally Next Year
(from Great Expectations)

An alternative slogan if you don't like that one: Someone has to win this crappy division
(from alnorth)

With the beginning of a new year, it is time for the 2012 version of the Royals Repository Thread. We've got Hosmer, we've got a 2011-dominating Gordon, we've got Moose, we've got hopefully a killer bullpen, we've got a stereotypical slow slugging DH, we've got easily one of the best defensive shortstops in the AL, we've got a promising catcher in Salvador Perez. Hell, we've got offense and promising prospects galore.

We do not have starting pitching.

Oh yeah, we've also got this:



Get ready for, (as of January 2012 anyway), one of the most confusing puzzles of a baseball season in recent Royals history. Will they suck? Maybe, I don't know. Will we be given a year of 0.500 baseball? Possibly, I don't know. Will they win the division and go to the playoffs for the first time in 27 years? For the first time in a long time, it could happen, I don't know. 92 losses, 92 wins, or anything in between would not surprise a lot of us.

Everything goes here except Gameday threads and really big news. If a giant story breaks, the Royals achieve some awesome milestone, or we sign/lose a highly significant player/coach/mascot/whatever, then it might also deserve its own thread. This being Chiefs Planet, please do not clutter the board with new threads about trivial Royals news or you will only annoy those who come here for just Chiefs football. If you aren't sure and its not a Gameday thread, it goes here.

What sort of stuff often goes here? SPchief explained it well, so I'll just copy that:

If you locate something of interest.. ANYTHING.. deals on apparel, best ways in/out of the stadium, giveaways, great stories from this season or from seasons gone by, rumors, trades, anything.... feel free to post it here.

[BWillie]

Luke Hochevar for next year? Yeah right. Would you want to pay a guy 7 million dollars to suck?

[Jenson71]

Originally Posted by KevB

Absolutely, I have no doubt that he'll take this performance into next season

Groundhog Day

Pretty much how I feel.

[Nightfyre]

I would rather have mendoza than hoch at this point. Seriously.

[ChiTown]

Originally Posted by Paniero

It feels quite weird to go from hopeless starting pitching to the recent great starts of the last couple of weeks.

Fools Gold

[Nightfyre]

Mendoza, guthrie and smith are like polished gold right now. They will dull a little, but they are still gold. Hoch needs something new. A new scene, new coaching, something. Trade him to the As or something.

[Great Expectations]

FA
FA
Guthrie
Odorizzy/Lamb/Smith/Trade

Maybe Duffy or Paulino in early August.

Lineup

Gordon
Escobar
Butler
Moose
Perez
Hoz
Myers
Cain
2B

[mr. tegu]

Originally Posted by ChiefsCountry

Still need two starting pitchers for next year.

Free Agent/Trade
Free Agent/Trade
Luke Hocheaver
Jeremy Guthrie/Bruce Chen (Pick which one we should keep)
Will Smith

I think we all realize Chen is done. I know his last outing was decent but come next year he will be one year older and if we can get two more guys to add to Guthrie, Smith, and Mendoza, we are actually on decent shape until Duffy and/or Paulino come back. And if one the three I first mentioned tail off, especially Mendoza, we can put him back in the bullpen for long relief and use Odo.

[ChiTown]

Originally Posted by Nightfyre

Mendoza, guthrie and smith are like polished gold right now. They will dull a little, but they are still gold. Hoch needs something new. A new scene, new coaching, something. Trade him to the As or something.

Polished Gold? Seriously?

[jbwm89]

Free Agent/Trade
Free Agent/Trade
Guthrie
Hoch
Odorizzi/Will Smith/Mendoza

It all depends on how good the Free Agent/Trade spots are, at least one needs to be much better than Guthrie/Hoch. It would be nice to have a little depth for once so that if a guy is struggling like Chen is, you could plug someone like Will Smith in for a start. Or spot start Mendoza out of the pen.

[TLO]

Originally Posted by ChiTown

Polished Gold? Seriously?

Polished turds.

[TLO]

Originally Posted by jbwm89

Free Agent/Trade
Free Agent/Trade
Guthrie
Hoch
Odorizzi/Will Smith/Mendoza

It all depends on how good the Free Agent/Trade spots are, at least one needs to be much better than Guthrie/Hoch. It would be nice to have a little depth for once so that if a guy is struggling like Chen is, you could plug someone like Will Smith in for a start. Or spot start Mendoza out of the pen.

Ehhh... I don't know how much I like relying on Guthrie as our #3 just yet.

[ChiTown]

Originally Posted by Big Smoke

Polished turds.

Only the KCR's and Fans would consider that group to be Polished Gold. We have been so tattered with crap starting pitching that we can't distinguish a turd from a tootsie roll.

[duncan_idaho]

Re: Hochevar. It's a really tough call. I'm done defending the guy. I bought in last year (I didn't predict him ignoring what worked in the second half and going completely away from that to start the season, or losing his slider, but both happened). At this point, he is what he is. But what is that, exactly?

Not someone you trade, IMO. Like Alex Gordon before his breakout, Hochevar has performed too far under his potential to trade him for anything of true value, and you run serious risk of looking really bad in the trade.

He's also not going to get bumped to $7 milllion in arbitration. He's at a shade over $3 million this year, and he's performing worse than last season. He'll end up at $4.5 million or so, which is pretty fair market value for a pitcher of his (limited) caliber.

What I've been saying off-line lately is that I expect Hochevar to be awesome 1/3 of the time, terrible 1/3 of the time, and OK 1/3 of the time. Just based off the eye and not looking at stats.

I stopped being lazy, today though. And did the research.

Hochevar has made 26 starts this year.

• 14 of those starts have been "above-average" starts from an ERA standpoint. 7 of these have been "awesome" (1 ER or fewer).
• 7 of them have been terrible (more than 4 ER surrendered)
• The rest have either been right at league average, maybe a little better, maybe a little worse, but evening out

So what does that mean for Hochevar? It means he's a guy who is a back of the rotation starter. Unless he develops an ability to eliminate the crappy starts (not holding my breah), that's all he'll ever be.

I have been a big Chen defender, but his numbers don't match up that well. One of the two of them is going to be in the KC rotation next year (possibly both). If I had to pick one, I'd go with Hochevar at this point.

By dream/goal still remains:

1 FA - legitimate starter, at least a No. 2
2 Trade - deal some of that excess youth
3 Jeremy Guthrie - assuming he can be brought back on a 1-2 year, option and incentive-laden deal
4 Mendoza - he has been very solid since June and deserves a crack here until he falters. Key for him is keeping his walks down, as he's still not missing a ton of bats.
5 Hochevar/Chen/Smith/Odorizzi - Lot of questions here. Chen slides to long-relief and Smith/Odorizzi to AAA pretty easily in this situation. If/when Hochevar falters, you can go to Chen or Smith or Odorizzi.

But what I think will happen:

1 FA/Trade - again, a legitimate starter, at least an OK No. 2/excellent No. 3 type
2 Guthrie - I don't expect all of next year to look like the past 3-4 starts for him, but even if he returns to what he has been everywhere but Coors Field, this isn't awful.
3 Mendoza
4 Chen
5 Hochevar

With Smith/Odo still waiting in the wings. At Omaha.
4 Hochevar

[Nightfyre]

Originally Posted by ChiTown

Polished Gold? Seriously?

Allow me to explain. I hate analogies. Sure, Mendoza/Guthrie/Smith are outperforming expectations right now. But they have all shown sufficient stuff to make me think that they will be able to be consistently above-average in their roles as 3/4/5 pitchers.

[Chiefspants]

Originally Posted by duncan_idaho

Re: Hochevar. It's a really tough call. I'm done defending the guy. I bought in last year (I didn't predict him ignoring what worked in the second half and going completely away from that to start the season, or losing his slider, but both happened). At this point, he is what he is. But what is that, exactly?

Not someone you trade, IMO. Like Alex Gordon before his breakout, Hochevar has performed too far under his potential to trade him for anything of true value, and you run serious risk of looking really bad in the trade.

He's also not going to get bumped to $7 milllion in arbitration. He's at a shade over $3 million this year, and he's performing worse than last season. He'll end up at $4.5 million or so, which is pretty fair market value for a pitcher of his (limited) caliber.

What I've been saying off-line lately is that I expect Hochevar to be awesome 1/3 of the time, terrible 1/3 of the time, and OK 1/3 of the time. Just based off the eye and not looking at stats.

I stopped being lazy, today though. And did the research.

Hochevar has made 26 starts this year.

• 14 of those starts have been "above-average" starts from an ERA standpoint. 7 of these have been "awesome" (1 ER or fewer).
• 7 of them have been terrible (more than 4 ER surrendered)
• The rest have either been right at league average, maybe a little better, maybe a little worse, but evening out

So what does that mean for Hochevar? It means he's a guy who is a back of the rotation starter. Unless he develops an ability to eliminate the crappy starts (not holding my breah), that's all he'll ever be.

I have been a big Chen defender, but his numbers don't match up that well. One of the two of them is going to be in the KC rotation next year (possibly both). If I had to pick one, I'd go with Hochevar at this point.

By dream/goal still remains:

1 FA - legitimate starter, at least a No. 2
2 Trade - deal some of that excess youth
3 Jeremy Guthrie - assuming he can be brought back on a 1-2 year, option and incentive-laden deal
4 Mendoza - he has been very solid since June and deserves a crack here until he falters. Key for him is keeping his walks down, as he's still not missing a ton of bats.
5 Hochevar/Chen/Smith/Odorizzi - Lot of questions here. Chen slides to long-relief and Smith/Odorizzi to AAA pretty easily in this situation. If/when Hochevar falters, you can go to Chen or Smith or Odorizzi.

But what I think will happen:

1 FA/Trade - again, a legitimate starter, at least an OK No. 2/excellent No. 3 type
2 Guthrie - I don't expect all of next year to look like the past 3-4 starts for him, but even if he returns to what he has been everywhere but Coors Field, this isn't awful.
3 Mendoza
4 Chen
5 Hochevar

With Smith/Odo still waiting in the wings. At Omaha.
4 Hochevar

This post overlooks the returns of Duffy and Paulino.