6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

Five kinds of players populate the Royals. The first is swirling-the-drain veterans, who themselves fall into two subcategories: failed players who want to start and can't justify their presence in that role on any other team, or abysmal bench players hanging on by their toenails. In the latter subcategory, I list outfielder Emil Brown; in the former, I note Matt Stairs, overvalued-at-$4.70M Terrence Long, Tony Graffanino, Eli Marerro, and the spectacularly bad Jose Lima. Lima, the ex-Dodger whose non-renewal late last year caused some handwringing, recently pitched his way out of the rotation; after eleven starts, he has yet to record a win. This is perhaps not a surprise, considering how dependent he is on his defense, yet his failures can't entirely be pinned on the men behind him. Kansas City's D is horrible, 12th in the league with a 0.6921 DER, but Lima's walk rate doubled over last year. As a result, he sports a major-league-unacceptable K/BB rate of 0.96 despite his K/9 rate "only" declining to 4.09, nearly a whole point down from his 2004.

The second sort of player, sui generis, is the useful player. Since there's really only one on the current roster, we shall dispense with Mike "Tradebait" Sweeney and move on.

The third sort of player is the failed experiment. This is a list of draft and/or minor league futility, some of whom are lifetime Royals proving how systematically decrepit Kansas City's organization is, and who have reached or exceeded their sell-by dates. I include here guys like Angel Berroa, Runelvys Hernandez (not due to his major league service time but due to his 1998 professional start and his failure to find success thus far), and last night's starter, former Giants prospect Ryan Jensen.

The fourth player type is the undoomed youngster. Too young to be condemned, with a decent if not great minor league record, this includes guys like Rule 5 draftee Andy Sisco, catcher John Buck, RHP Zack Greinke, and 3B Mark Teahen. (I could start a sixth type for guys like Teahen who had an undistinguished minor league career, but after a while it all gets blurry.)

The fifth and last sort of player the Royals have is the rushed rookie. Examples of this category include Ambiorix Burgos, who hasn't had an ERA under 3.00 in the minors and still got promoted to the big club straight from single-A ball, and Ruben Gotay, culled directly from the Royals' Wichita AA affiliate in 2004, now starting at second. Also in this category is Leo Nunez, another player called up straight from A ball who gave up five runs in yesterday's game. These players testify to the Royals' rather flexible usage of the word "ready".

No matter how you slice it, the Royals are one sick organization. The only quality Royals blog I know of, Kauffman Confidential, tries to unravel the manifold and manifest illnesses and mysteries to which the team has succumbed since the playing days of George Brett. Take, for instance, this piece about the Royals' immense problem developing quality hitting talent. It exposes what author Bill Heeter believes is an extrapolation-from-a-single-player that's caused the team to fail over the years:

Our organization has been preaching the concept of patience all through the system, when what they really need to be working on is discipline. A patient hitter is one who will take pitches that he may be able to hit because they may be balls instead of strikes. This is a very passive approach to hitting, and one that the Pena era of Royals baseball exemplified with it’s [sic] anemic offensive attack that had trouble instilling fear in the most average team. A disciplined hitter, on the other hand is one who can accurately identify balls from strikes quickly enough to have time to react when the opportunity presents itself. Barry Bonds is the perfect example of a disciplined hitter. He doesn’t swing at bad pitches, always puts good wood on the ball, and draws an insane number of walks because of his ability to distinguish balls from strikes so well and so quickly. The antithesis of Mr. Bonds would be former Royal Mark Quinn, who’s [sic] propensity to swing at anything and everything in the ballpark was a major factor in the development of the Royals “Patience” mantra. He was a gifted hitter, but could not lay off bad pitches to save his life. ...

I believe that by using such passive terms in their system’s hitting instruction, the Royals organization has crippled a crop of what could have been much better hitters by trying to control their natural aggresiveness [sic] with words like “patience”.

It's an interesting insight, and one that's surprisingly applicable to the A's lately; no doubt but that this will encourage Stephen Smith's contempt for Earl Weaver-style offenses. The Royals weren't born bad; they were built that way, and it will probably take a half decade or more to fix. So far, Allard Baird doesn't seem to be the guy to get that job done.

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Back to the game. It was hardly a wine-and-roses outing for Kelvim "Hand Grenade" Escobar, whose 84 strikes to 58 balls would have sunk him against any other team, but, see above. I discount at least half his strikeouts, too, though they're certainly welcome. With those bone chips still in his elbow, and surgery far away beyond the end of the season (so far), this may well presage the kinds of outings we'll get from him over the rest of the year. The other hand grenade in the Angels' bandolier will turn out to be Ervin Santana: will he be healthy? Will he be good? Will he even be on the team? With two outings, one a wretched performance in front of the mediocre Tigers, and the other, a stellar complete game shutout to the Chisox, we just don't know which guy is likely to show up. But the question is moot: making room for Escobar, young master Santana got sent down to AAA Salt Lake, if we are to believe the Times.

Speaking of the west coast's Gray Lady, one presumes Mike Penner penned his barb about the Angels' lack of hitting prior to last night's game. The merry-go-round of the fourth inning (and its near-repeat in the fifth), combined with a total of sixteen hits made for the kind of tonic the Angels have needed lo these many. But I say that with some trepidation; how many times have the Angels gotten a few hits this year only to find them lost at the plate in the very next game?

So with the 2005 Angels, I will take my joys where I can find them. One such must surely be watching Dallas McPherson get a pair of hits and -- are you sitting down? -- a pair of walks. One of the hits was a home run off Ambiorix "Debbie" Burgos, making three straight games he's homered, but for me, I'm much more interested in him getting on base. He presently leads the team in K/AB (.317) for players with more than 20 at bats; this has to stop or he'll find himself becoming Rob Deer.

Finally, an encouraging word here about the Angels bullpen, an entity I thought was possibly in dire straits at the start of the season. With Donnelly moved down a notch, K-Rod closing, Percy moved on, Gregg inconsistent, and Yan never having two consecutive good years in his career (unless you count his last two years with Tampa Bay, 3.90 and 4.30 ERAs respectively, as "good"), the bullpen looked set to have a serious falling apart. That could still happen of course, but the recent callups of Chris Bootcheck, Jake Woods, and Joel Peralta have, so far, ameliorated my concerns. That isn't to say they won't return; recall early last year when there was such a thing as the Kevin Gregg Marching and Chowder Society, and even insane, misdirected calls for him to start. But for one day -- things look pretty good around the Los Angeles of Anaheim. Wherever the hell that is.

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