Comments on: A Royal Dump

By: philosofool

philosofool — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 19:26:30 +0000

Welll…

He did have a career year at the plate, boosting his BB% about 7% from 5.5 to 13.2. It’s a pretty small sample size.

Unfortunately, that BB% jump was accompanied by seeing his slugging percentage fall from .329 to .285. That’s not a typo. His slugging percentage last year was the same as Melvin Mora’s batting average.

Perhaps by “on base guy” he just meant that you wouldn’t call him a power hitter?

By: acerimusdux

acerimusdux — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 05:18:46 +0000

I blame Tom Tango. He’s the one responsible for all of the hype around this Bloomquist fellow.

;)

By: NYRoyal

NYRoyal — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 08:13:55 +0000

As a Royals fan, I was so hoping that after two years and two offseasons, Moore would add some more positive data points in evaluating him as a GM this offseason. Instead, about 95% of the data points have been negative and they’ve ranged from mildly negative to horrendously negative. So far he drafts fairly well and can usually evaluate pitching talent pretty well (with some obvious exceptions). He’s good at finding diamonds in the rough pitching-wise, but won’t let himself rely on it, which leads to expensive mistakes. His entire front office is poor at evaluating position player talent. And he doesn’t understand appropriate dollar values and contract terms for players. He gives away too much money unnecessarily. Even if you really like Guillen last offseason and Farnsworth this offseason, you have to understand that they can be had for less than 3/36 and 2/9.25. And you also need to know that if they won’t come for a penny less than that, then just let them go.

Cameron is exactly right that it really looks like the Royals will only be able to contend with Moore as the GM when a great deal of home grown talent has made it to the majors. The Royals have a lot of good prospects, but they are mostly pitchers and mostly in the low minors. So maybe the Royals will be able to contend in 2012 or 2013 when Moustakas, Hosmer, Cortes, Duffy, Rosa and Wood are all in the majors. Maybe.

By: devil_fingers

devil_fingers — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 06:18:27 +0000

suicide now

By: JJD

JJD — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 04:46:14 +0000

Wait until Rob Neyer hears about this…

By: msb

msb — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 04:45:55 +0000

well, when he DOES get on base, he’s sort of an on-base guy. In that he’s on the base, and sometimes runs to the next one.

By: John P.

John P. — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 04:21:54 +0000

To stick it to him? Yes.

By: Taylor H

Taylor H — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 03:47:19 +0000

For real? That’s……ridiculous.

By: Benne

Benne — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 02:22:16 +0000

I will never quite figure out Dayton Moore’s fetish for ex-Mariners.

By: Terminator X

Terminator X — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 02:18:08 +0000

They’re not FREE, they’re FREELY AVAILABLE. Which in turn implies that they should be very cheap. <1MM cheap. Types of guys that you can pick up in the Rule 5 (which as I see it is pretty much the definition/golden standard of freely available talent), trade throw-ins (“You say if we throw in Horacio Ramirez it’ll seal the deal? Done”), 6-year minor league free agents, declining guys on spring training invites, non-tendered bench players and mopup guys trying to prolong their careers, etc.

Of course, even if you can justify one or two of those contracts (while 2 years is strange, 1.5/year is still a pretty small piece of change), you’re still looking at the opportunity cost of spending likely 4 roster spots on players who will contribute pretty much nothing to the team. That’s a tremendous waste of roster space even if they’re all on league minimum.