Games » Seattle Mariners
Jul19A bad sign
Lee Judge
The Kansas City Star
When the manager brings the infield in — especially in the second inning of a ball game — it’s a bad sign. Bringing the infield in is a gamble. It cuts down on the infielders’ range and makes a hit more likely. It’s done with less than two outs and a runner on third. And not just any runner, it has to be an important runner representing an important run: usually a tying, winning or lead-increasing run. A run that the manager believes his team cannot afford to give up.
In the second inning with one run in, one down and runners on second and third, Ned Yost brought the infield in. After the game, Ned said it was a tribute to the Mariners’ pitcher, Felix Hernandez. Bringing the infield in so early in a 1-0 game was essentially saying that if the Mariners scored a second run, the game might be over; Hernandez is so good we might not be able to score two runs.
Ned Yost was right.
The Mariners’ hitter, Michael Saunders, drove the ball between first and second (it would’ve been a hit with the infield back, too) and the Mariners had all the runs they’d need with Hernandez on the mound.
What makes Hernandez good?
Yost said Hernandez was outstanding, had nice action on the ball, showed command down and on both sides of the plate and was throwing strikes. When asked about Will Smith, Ned said he was OK. The matchup was about what you expect when a guy with a 2.82 ERA hooks up with a guy with a 7.97.
After six innings Hernandez had only thrown 59 pitches. That meant he’d get to the backend of the Mariners pen (where the better relievers reside) and the Royals would not get a shot at the weaker middle relievers. When asked about the easy innings Hernandez was having, Chris Getz said that’s what happens when a pitcher throws strikes.
Hitters don’t want to fall behind and have to face his secondary pitches, so they go to the plate hacking early, hoping to get a hittable fastball. (There is a lesson to be learned here.)
Game notes
The prevailing theory on good pitchers is you have to get them early. Jump on them before they settle in. The Royals tried: they started the game with two hits and then last night’s hero, Billy Butler, hit into a double play. Hernandez had a bit of trouble in the second and after that, he was cruising.
In the second inning Jesus Montero, who has looked like the second coming of Lou Gehrig in this series, hit the ball over the center-field wall. Jarrod Dyson went back and hit the wall at full speed. Dyson gave, the wall didn’t. Jarrod clearly didn’t know where he was in relation to the wall, even after hitting the warning track.
With Eric Hosmer on second and Salvador Perez on first, Hosmer took off for third. After the game, Hosmer told me Hernandez takes 1.6 seconds to deliver the ball to home plate with a runner on second base. 1.6 is the magic number needed to steal third base. Unfortunately, Chris Getz put the ball in play and the Mariners turned a double play.
Speaking of Hosmer: he hit the ball on the screws in three of his four at-bats.
Chris Getz was caught stealing with two outs in the fifth inning. Some fans seem to think teams should always play for the big inning, but with Felix Herandez on the mound, there aren’t a lot of big innings available. Getz said that he wouldn’t have attempted the steal with nobody out or in the eighth inning, but with two outs in the fifth it seemed worth the risk. Steal the bag, let Alex Gordon drive you in and the score is 4-2 with four innings to go.
Jason Kendall
The Royals signed Jason Kendall to a minor league contract and he’s reporting Class AA Northwest Arkansas. Kendall is scheduled to start Friday night. I knew Jason wanted to attempt a comeback and I’d seen him playing catch and taking some early BP. I asked how his shoulder felt and he said great, but playing catch and taking BP is not the same as playing.
If Kendall makes it back it the big leagues, it will most likely be as back up, catching two or three times a week. He’d also provide some veteran leadership, both on the field and in the clubhouse. (Moustakas and Hosmer have plenty of stories about Kendall pulling them aside to offer advice — which is a polite way of saying Jason was happy to tell them when he thought they had their heads up their posteriors.)
I asked Ned Yost if Kendall could still be a clubhouse leader as a back-up and he said definitely. People tend to listen to someone who’d been in the big leagues long enough to catch 2,000 games and collect over 2,000 hits.
I’ve watched ball games with Jason and I can tell you the guy spots stuff that I miss completely — which isn’t that hard, I miss a lot — but he does the same with rookie players. Hosmer said Kendall could spot pitching patterns that he’d miss and tell Eric how to approach his next at-bat.
After the announced signing Yost said everyone down in Double A will benefit from being around Kendall. I just hope they’re ready to hear the truth — Jason specializes in blunt.
Lorenzo Cain
If you’re wondering about Lorenzo Cain’s hustle — and some of you have been — Ned Yost says Lorenzo is about 85 percent healthy. The Royals don’t think anything’s Cain’s doing will make things worse, but the time came for him to play through discomfort. Ned said Cain’s bat has been hot and it’s hard to keep it out of the lineup — they were sitting Francoeur in this game — so Cain was going to be in right and let Jarrod Dyson cover the larger territory of centerfield.
Royals Doug Sisson explains what goes on at Royals early workouts
Kansas City Royals coach Doug Sisson explains what goes on before any fans arrive at the stadium during early workouts for selected players. 7/19/12 (Video by John Sleezer/The Kansas City Star)
Smith
Gordon
Getz
Jim Fetterolf
11 months agoSmith did a good enough job under the circumstances and should probably stay in the rotation for a month at least. For those longing for JaKKKe, today’s performance did, once more, suggest the difference between AAA and the K. It’s a big step up.
Terry Payne
11 months agoA bad omen was when Billy in the 1st uncharacteristically tried to pull a low, outside slider and bounced into the weak, inning killing, DP.
Smith looked OK; good slider, just got a few pitches up in his only rough inning. Probably adrenaline; only his what, 4th start.
I say just let Hos hit 6th, 7th at least until his body language looks more relaxed. I think all the preseason hype just caused him to get anxious when he started slowly and it has built up over the months. (Potential is just that: potential, unproven. It’s killed more promising careers than anything else.) Let him stay in the less pressure-packed lower portion of the order and let him get his nerves, and swing, settled down.
For a guy who’s legs are only at 85%, LoCain has excellent closing speed.
Brendan Woodbury
11 months agoThis year has been about as depressing as I can imagine, but at least the team is young. If we bring up a 38-year old catcher who’s six years removed from his last respectable hitting year, I will just find something else to do until Moore is fired.
If Kendall got signed so he can take the two starts a week that Manny Pina can’t handle, I think that’s fine for the Royals (and probably admirable for Kendall). If the Royals are giving serious thought to promoting him, it ought to be the last nail in the coffin.
No amount of “veteran leadership” can offset crummy performance. There is no evidence that Francoeur and Yuni (and maybe Chen) are net positives on this team. There’s no evidence that Kendall’s “veteran presence” made the 2010 Royals any better, but one look at his stats provides plenty of reason to believe he made the team worse. Bringing him back makes as much sense as bringing back Yuni.
I have been defending Moore and arguing for more time, but I think I’m done. Every other franchise in baseball has made a run at the playoffs in the time he’s been in charge, and this season makes clear that we’re still a long way away. If I believed he could get us two free agent starting pitchers this offseason, I’d keep faith, but his track record on MLB talent (as opposed to prospects) is terrible, and it will get worse if Kendall comes up.
(I know Kendall is your friend, Lee, and I don’t mean to judge him as a person, only a ballplayer, and even then, only what he is now, not what he was in the 1990s)
Jim Fetterolf
11 months agoKendall is seriously a non-issue, he’s just drawing a check and being essentially an on-field coach now, a small change from his recent months as an ex-officio coach during rehab. Given the Royals’ minor-league weakness at C, I think having Kendall in Springdale is a good thing to try to create a better catcher over the next few years.
As for every franchise in the last six years (I read the piece), I doubt you can find one in worse shape at the beginning of the transition than the Royals were. The Royals then were weaker than an expansion team on system talent. I’ve looked at Tampa leading up to their new GM and the major league team was stronger then even than the Royals were last year and their minors were stocked. I know what others have said on the subject but comparisons are meaningless unless you can weight for total systemic talent, which I haven’t seen others attempt to do.
Brendan Woodbury
11 months agoOh please. Worse than an expansion team?
In 2006 the Royals had Zack Greinke, David DeJesus, Billy Butler, and Alex Gordon in the organization. All four of those are well-above average MLB ballplayers with years of team control remaining. No expansion team has ever had a collection of assets like that.
However, even if the comparison to expansion teams were valid, it’s worth noting that of the last four expansion teams, three made the playoffs in their first six years (including two who won World Series in that stretch).
I think Moore probably gets one more year, but he’s going to need a miracle in this offseason.
Brendan Woodbury
11 months agoAlso, what piece does “I read the piece” refer to? I was just venting after seeing the Orioles, Pirates and Nats in the playoff chase. I hadn’t actually gone through all of the teams.
Terry Payne
11 months agoBrendan, relax: Kendall’s signing s/b read as nothing more than a guy with an itch to still play going down to help out some young pitchers.
Now if they sign Jeff Montgomery, THEN you can worry.
Matthew Tiemeyer
11 months agoWith the results lately, I’d think that Jose Rosado would be a better choice than what we have.
Bob Wheeler
11 months agoYou know what I learned this year? KC does not have a monopoly on baseball frustration. I moved to Maryland last year and hearing the local media jump all over the O’s it sounds exactly the same as what we’re going through.
Lousy pitching. Getting hammered by a last place team the last four days. Wilson Betimit can’t field the ball. And here I thought it was just us.
Joel Kallem
11 months agoBob, thanks for sharing your perspective. We Royal fans need to keep this in mind. My son in law lives in Pittsburgh, and they have their share of carpers too. Having grown up a Brooklyn Dodger fan, there were many years of frustration where you learned patience although I also got to enjoy the “glory” years from the early 50’s until they moved. It is okay to “moan and groan” (and I do when things go bad and I think they shouldn’t), but let’s not get carried away by it because in the end only one team will be happy (and even their fans will have “bad” things to say).
Toten Kopf
11 months agoBrendan, I have to disagree with you. The Gordon and Butler of 2006 were nothing like they are now. Gordon was in the minors at the time, but when he debuted in 2007 he posted a .247/.314/.411 line with 137 strikeouts.
As you know, it took him until last year to figure it out. Despite the fact that he was in the organization, at the time he wasn’t that good.
Through 2006, Greinke was 14 - 28 with an ERA around 4.0 and was dealing with his psychological issues, pitching just 1 game in 2006.
Butler has been pretty consistent, but lacks the power, foot speed, and defensive skills to be a guy to build a team around.
Remember, you shouldn’t look at how these guys are playing now. You have to consider them in the context of the time you’re mentioning. Things were pretty bleak.
The team has come a long, long way under DM and there is now a pipeline of talent. Not all of it is going to pan out, but the poster above is correct. The minor league system, scouting, and international piece was an absolute joke.
Jay Hall
11 months agoJim,
The Kendall signing is an issue only because this front office seems to sometimes go out of its way to do mind blowingly inane things. With Kendall back in the system I seriously fear that the Royals may play him next year as a backup in 50 games to show Salvador Perez how to “play the right way.” Before you say that won’t happen, I remind you that they said Yuni wouldn’t play much. They said that they had plenty of pitching. They said that Paulino would have to beat out others for a spot in the rotation.
When it comes to personnel, especially guys that the front office seems to really like, its tough to believe they won’t overplay them if given the chance.
Brendan Woodbury
11 months agoNobody thinks that the Royals were any good in 2006. They weren’t. That’s why the GM got fired.
However, to say that the cupboard was so bare in 2006 that it’s still keeping us below .500 (and way out of contention) six years later is a far stronger claim. I think that’s the point Jim is trying to make with his “worse than an expansion team” comment.
Expansion teams, which get the castoffs from other teams, don’t have multiple high first-round draft picks in the pipeline. That’s what Gordon, Greinke and Butler were. A substantial amount of the production the Royals are getting today comes from those players. If we were really worse than an expansion team, we wouldn’t have Gordon, Butler or the fruits of the Greinke trade, and then I think nobody would be defending Moore.
Moore has done a great job building up the minor leagues, but his eye for major league talent has been more miss than hit. As long as we’re stuck with an owner who insists on taking substantial profits out of the smallest revenue stream in the majors, we need a GM who’s above average in all facets of the game, not just drafting and development, if we’re going to have any hope of contending, and I’m running out of hope that Moore can be that guy.
Jim Fetterolf
11 months agoCorrect on my point on “worse than an expansion team”.
Royals were very weak on talent from rookie ball all the way up to the majors as the draft had been driven by ability to sign cheap, which was why Butler was drafted.
Expansion teams get an expansion draft and extra draft picks, which is why they tend to compete sooner than the Royals have been able to. You mention Butler and a couple of others but seem to forget the rest of the drafts in the years leading up to Hochevar, the old regime’s final effort. Once we recognize that, it’s possible to compare what Dayton Moore had to start with with what other GMs had. That is always the missing element in rants about “six years” that I see. Moore started out with close to nothing, a result of the succession plan plus the first six years of Glass ownership. Even after David Glass changed his corporate philosophy, comparing the Royals to the Yankees, for example, kind of misses a major point.
As for Moore’s judgement of major league talent, at least he didn’t sign Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett for a zillion dollars per year. Instead he got Frenchy, Melky, Chen, Broxton, and Mijares for next to nothing. As I remember, the cool kids hated the first three signings for all of last year.
For our loyal readers, this is the B-R sheet on the ‘69 Royals. Scroll down to “player values”, click on WAR, and notice that the first Royals’ team had three position players over 2 and three pitchers over 2.9. Look at the right side of values and it shows where the players came from. The top 8 pitchers, all with positive WAR numbers, came from the expansion draft. 10 of the top 14 position players, all with positive WAR numbers, were expansion draft.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/KCR/1969.shtml
For comparison, this is the ‘06 Royals, had some productive FA position players that didn’t last, pitching wasn’t much:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/KCR/2006.shtml
Didn’t mean to write so much:)
Jay, I would remind you that Getz got hurt and Gio is a bust. That may explain why Yuni has gotten more PAs than anyone expected, compounded by the fact that for awhile he and Quintero were the two most dependable RBI bats on the team. I don’t remember anyone predicting those things. If Pena gets hurt and Perez is a bust, yeah, we might see Kendall back at the K.
As is, “Kendall” is just the latest fad. I like the signing, Royals need to develop some minor league catching and Kendall will be good for Pina and Gallagher and Rodriguez, just as he was for Treanor, Pena, and Perez. Maybe Kendall is healed and gets another chance at the majors, more likely this is a transition to coaching that pays a little better and keeps Kendall doing what he loves, playing the game.
Jay Hall
11 months agoJim, to say Gio is a “bust” after 250 major league at bats is way too early in my opinion, but you and I have respectfully disagreed about that in the past, so you know where I stand on that. I just hope we can trade him for a reasonable value at this point.
Also, my point with Kendall is that if the Royals need to sign a 38 year old catcher who hasn’t played in nearly 2 seasons in order to provide depth in the minor leagues then GMDM should be fired on the spot for not having anything better in the system. There’s just no reason to not have at least passable depth at catcher such that you don’t have to bring someone like Kendall coming off an injury that basically ended his career back to play.
As an instructor, coach or advisor, sure, I can see that because Kendall has a lot of knowledge that will be helpful to young developing catchers. But as a player, I just don’t see any upside to this move and the risk that the Royals use him in the wrong way is too great to ignore.
Brendan Woodbury
11 months agoJim -
I honestly have no idea what your point is, except to argue.
Who is the best player the Royals got in any of the expansion, rule V, or amateur drafts in 1968/9 and where would that player have ranked among the assets the Royals had when Moore took over in 2006?
Alternatively, compare the Royals in 1975 to the Royals today. How much value did the 75 Royals get from the expansion team compared to how much the 2012 Royals get from the Baird era?
Re: Beckett and Crawford? Are you saying that Moore doesn’t make albatross signings? The Jose Guillen signing worked out far worse than either of those two (and I would kill for a pitcher like Beckett in the Royals rotation).
Re: Francoeur, Chen, and Melky. Nobody is saying that Moore has had no success identifying MLB talent. Unfortunately, his failures outnumber (and outweigh) his successes. In the case of Francoeur and Chen, he’s combined success and failure in the same player. All the positive value created by finding two inexpensive, quality free agents in 2011 was cancelled out by signing those two players to higher-priced extensions for 2012/3. We can’t afford a GM who misses more than he hits.
Re: Yuni. Yuni is a bad baseball player. He’s not one of our most dependable RBI bats (.238 with runners in scoring position this year). You’re ready to declare Gia a bust after 250 PAs (was Moose a bust last year? is Hos this year?), but Yuni’s just as bad over a much longer track record with no hope of improvement. Bringing in Yuni (twice!) has done considerable damage to my belief in Moore.
Finally, if Kendall is just trying to coach, I have no problem with it. Lee described it above as a comeback attempt, and I potentially have a serious problem with that. If Kendall is on the MLB roster at any point, Moore will deserve the firing that will inevitably follow.
P.S. Re: language. I don’t understand why you keeping using certain rhetorical devices in your writing here. What purpose does writing “the cool kids” or “the latest fad” serve? It’s condescending and seems solely designed to inflame.
Jim Fetterolf
11 months agoFor Yuni and Quintero, try RBI/PA. Martin Manley even used that awhile back. For the rest, I’ve given my opinions.
The best ‘75 player the Royals got in the expansion draft was Al Fitzmorris, 3.8 bWAR in ‘75. By ‘75 the rest of the positive pitchers were mainly from the draft with Pattin, Mingori, and Briles through trades. Fitzmorris was a couple of WAR better in ‘75 than any ‘06 pitcher. The expansion draft wasn’t just a matter of cast-offs and also provided the bodies that the Royals used in trade for a few names you might have heard of. I’ll stick with my opinion on this.
Brendan Woodbury
11 months agoThe Royals were much better in 1975 (91-71) than they are today not because they were better off six years earlier (Fitzmorris and Splitorff were all that remained of the drafts by the expansion club) but because they’d done better in the intervening six years. From 1969 to 1975, they drafted Busby, Leonard, Cownend and Brett. They traded junk for John Mayberry and Amos Otis. Today’s Royals are worse because 2007-2012 hasn’t been nearly as productive as 1969-1975.
RBI is too dependent on what others do — how often are runners on base when you come to the plate and how fast are those runners. Look at what the hitting statistics to isolate what Yuni has done. With runners in scoring position: .238AVG/.286OBP/.357SLG with 3 sac flies. That’s a putrid line.
Thayne Griffin
11 months agoUmmm. So someone took Sanchez? And I thought we were dumb for continually starting him….
Even though Guthrie hasn’t been that good this year (although slightly better than Sanchez), I’m hoping that maybe leaving Coors as his home stadium and a change of scenery could possibly get him back on track.
I’m still in shock that DM pulled off a trade for Sanchez - mainly because I didn’t think any team would take him. SHOCKED.
Larry Tindle
11 months agoGuthrie has decent numbers away from Coors. At least he is known as a strike thrower. I’m with you, I figured no one would trade for him.
Brendan Woodbury
11 months agoHere’s something I’d like to understand better.
Nick Blackburn gets hammered by left-handed batters. He gives up a .456 wOBA to lefties, which is means the typical lefty against Blackburn would be the best hitter in the game (Andrew McCutchen leads MLB with a .450 wOBA).
So why did we go with Betancourt over Getz and Francoeur over Dyson tonight? Lee, can you ask Yost about this?