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.

[CaliforniaChief]

Either Marcum/McCarthy would fit nicely, IMO. But they aren't the ace guy that Sanchez, Dickey, or Price/Moore would be in a Myers deal.

[Jenson71]

If we just get one more pitcher, I will go down for spring training. (some of it).

[Prison Bitch]

Why would the Royals trade anyone? They have too many holes. Plugging one hole by opening another is senseless.


Myers should start day 1 in RF and play the whole way thru. Frenchy can get some spare AB here and there vs LH. No pt getting a few extra WAR by sacrificing a possible Dale Murphy. And trading Butler only adds a DH hole

[CaliforniaChief]

Originally Posted by Prison Bitch

Why would the Royals trade anyone? They have too many holes. Plugging one hole by opening another is senseless.


Myers should start day 1 in RF and play the whole way thru. Frenchy can get some spare AB here and there vs LH. No pt getting a few extra WAR by sacrificing a possible Dale Murphy. And trading Butler only adds a DH hole

You can buy a serviceable DH for a pretty low price, comparative to the cost of pitching. If you can leverage a DH/hitter for premium pitching, you do it.

Hell, the Giants won the World Series with Gregor Blanco, Brandon Belt, and Marco Scutaro.

[DeezNutz]

Originally Posted by sedated

I don’t disagree that DM has made some stupid decisions in his time here, but I put 90% of the blame on Glass. Don’t you think that if DM wanted to raise payroll to $85 million and sign a pitcher that he would? The shackles that Glass has put on the team would be too much for many GMs to overcome.

KC, under Glass ownership, could well be an untenable situation for all but the most brilliant GMs. No doubt. There is no real arguing your point.

That said, DM also foolishly spends the resources that he has been allotted. Look no further than Luke Hochevar and a completely wasted 4-5 million dollars. If this were an isolated incident with Moore, no one would care, but this is a pattern.

DM is habitually incompetent, and I'm astounding that some are willing to give him up to nine years without any viable on-field results.

But I guess if we can continue to win Baseball Prospectus Championships, we should be satisfied.

[SAUTO]

Originally Posted by Literature

If we just get one more pitcher, I will go down for spring training. (some of it).

on who? and where does the line start?

[Fansy the Famous Bard]

Originally Posted by sedated

I don’t disagree that DM has made some stupid decisions in his time here, but I put 90% of the blame on Glass. Don’t you think that if DM wanted to raise payroll to $85 million and sign a pitcher that he would? The shackles that Glass has put on the team would be too much for many GMs to overcome.

I can't agree with this. DM has done some incredibly stupid things with our ML Squad.

Spending good chunks of that limited payroll on guys like Getz, Hochevar, Bruce Chen, Jeff Francouer that can EASILY be replaced by AAA players at a fraction of the cost. That's $16 mil tied up in absolute garbage. 2 of those could have been cut this offseason without losing a penny, freeing up money, but was not done.

2012 it was $19 mil on Francoeur, Chen, Hoch, Betancourt, Quintero and Getz. Garbage. That was 33% of the payroll in guys that everyone knows suck and are wastes of money and roster spots. This doesn't include the $12 mil wastes that were Soria and Sanchez (not GMDM's fault).

The year before that it was Kendall, Davies, Francoeur, Chen, Hoch, and Francis. Those guys comprised of 40% of the payroll.

Its sunk cost after sunk cost.

Haven't even started on his trade history... that is another argument, which he's even a worse overall track record.

He is a very poor GM. Very poor.

[CoMoChief]

Dealing Myers would be ****ing stupid on all levels.

The Royals aren't on the brink from winning a WS. We currently have Jeff Franceour in the god damn outfield.

[duncan_idaho]

My leash on Moore is near its end. I don't know that it's quite all the way there, but it's damn close.

I've been saying for a while... this offseason is the barometer. The moves Moore makes in this position ultimately decide his fate, in my mind. KC had better be +.500 and in the thick of for him to make it to next year, IMO. And it had better make the playoffs the following year.

I think Moore's trade history takes an unwarranted beating, and he has done well when trading an actual, valuable piece. When the worst you can point to is a reliever for Mike Jacobs or David DeJesus for Mazzero and Marks, meh.

And hindsight makes a lot of contracts look foolish.

Bringing back Hochevar last year, for example. His second half of 2011 was encouraging and carried a lot of nice indicators that he had made REAL changes to his approach as a pitcher. In hindsight, it was fool's gold. But at the time, offering him arb was the best move.

Dayton's love of Jeff Francoeur is frustrating, but the two year deal he was signed to did not look AWFUL at the time. The Royals had a big hole in RF, and Myers was coming off of a season that made him look like a potential bust. The original one-year deal was a brilliant flyer. The second deal was below market value, and even if Francoeur regressed to usual level, he still would be a decent value at that price (.260/20/70/10 on the open market for $6.5 million). Of course, he was worse than he'd ever been before.

Yes, money could have been saved at 2B, UTIL, backup C, last year. But you have to pay the reserves SOMETHING (And you're talking about $4 million vs. $3 million, most likely).

What I wouldn't argue with at all, though, is that Moore is entirely too loyal and trusting of "the scout's view." That's why they stuck with Davies so long, why Hochevar is still around, etc. All GMs make mistakes. Dayton Moore certainly has. It's how they respond and recover from mistakes that makes the difference and separates the wheat from the chaff.

[cabletech94]

Billy Butler named edgar martinez (best DH) award winner per 610 sports.

My bad if Q

[Fansy the Famous Bard]

Originally Posted by duncan_idaho

Dayton's love of Jeff Francoeur is frustrating, but the two year deal he was signed to did not look AWFUL at the time.
.

Like hell it didn't! I don't know of any sane Royals fan that wasn't absoutely shocked with that deal... We all knew at the time Frenchy just had the year of his career, and it was still simply "above average" at the plate (but very good in the outfield). You don't throw that much money at an obvious aberration. The contract was appalling at the time.

As far as trades:

JP Howell for Gathright. "wtf?"

MacDougal for Lumsden and Cortes... still never understood why that was done.

Ordalis Perez trade.

Jeremy Affeldt and Denny Bautista for Shealy and Dohman... JESUS CHRIST

Keppinger for Haltiwanger

Nunez for Jacobs - that was another where everyone but Dayton saw Jacobs for what he was.

Octavio Dotel for Kyle Davies

Betancourt - Nuff said

Alberto Callaspo for nothing

DeJesus for Mazarro\Marks

Teahen who everyone loved for Getz, who everyone hates. Good one.

Betemit for 2 nothings

Aviles for 2 nothings

Cabrera for Verdugo (just designated for assignment) and Sanchez... I liked the trade at the time. But it still ended Horrrrrible for the R's.


Let's list the trades that have worked out for the R's.

Billy Buckner for Alberto Callaspo. That worked out okay, we got a cup of coffee use out of Callaspo as a utility player, but gave up a good prospect at the time for him... we didn't get fleeced so... I guess? But he ruined it by turning around and shipping Callaspo off for nothing.

Jorge de la rosa for Ramon Ramirez.. then flipped Ramirez a year later for Coco. Not bad for either team.

Farnsworth and Ankiel for Tim Collins. We gave up a productive Reliever and a half-way decent bench player for a Reliever prospect. We had no idea he was going to be this good, but it has definitely worked out well. Unfortunately, we simply got a reliever out of this.

$$$ for Felipe Paulino. Great find... the guy has shown promise off the scrp heap if he can be healthy. unfortunately, he's only done it for small portions within two seasons. I love Felipe and hope he works out.

Zack Greinke and Yuni for Escobar, Jeffress, Cain and Odorizzi. Jeffress is gone, jury is out on Cain, Escobar is our every day SS and We have a pitching prospect that the jury is out on. At this point we basically gave up the Cy Young award winner for our SS.. I "like" the deal, but I'm not enamoured with it like a lot of people were. But it blows away all of Dayton's other moves, without a doubt. He got a good young major league player that is producing for us RIGHT NOW. It just took him 50 trades and a Cy Young piece to get it right.

Yes I'm embelishing some, but only some...

[KevB]

Originally Posted by DeezNutz

To make a sincere and valid point: What has DM accomplished at the ML level? To this point, the answer is precious little.

Yet we're lengthening the leash? Royals fans are all too willing to limit the amount of accountability for the team and its leaders.

Not that I want to take a position of support for GMDM, as I'm where duncan is in terms of my level of support for the guy......but we do have long term answers at SS and C. We haven't had that in years. He was part of the group that made the decision to move Gordon to the OF, where he's become a borderline All-Star. He's almost always put together a good to very good bullpen. He was part of the decision making that moved Butler to full-time DH; a huge benefit to the defense and probably a benefit to BB's career.

Point being, he's done some good things at the ML level. However, his flaws are well known and more than accounted for in this thread.

[KevB]

Zeke, some of those trades are irrelevant based on the talent that exchanged hands, and some of the trades you criticize were thought to be decent at the time. Also, missed the Sanchez for Guthrie trade, which is a significant "win".

[Fansy the Famous Bard]

Originally Posted by KevB

Point being, he's done some good things at the ML level. However, his flaws are well known and more than accounted for in this thread.

Having 5 things fall in your lap does not overshadow the other 75 things he's done wrong.

Most organization complain about the 5 things done wrong possibly outweighing the 75 things done right. Not the Royals! We argue that those 5 good things is grounds for an extension!

[Fansy the Famous Bard]

Originally Posted by KevB

Zeke, some of those trades are irrelevant based on the talent that exchanged hands, and some of the trades you criticize were thought to be decent at the time. Also, missed the Sanchez for Guthrie trade, which is a significant "win".

Hmmm I did mention the sanchez for Guthrie page in the win. I think I overwrote it.

That is the ONLY trade that GMDM has made where he has gotten significantly the "better" of the other team. out of 50+.