The Royals receive a lot of attention on these pages and it’s probably an understatement to suggest that not all of that attention is positive. Under Dayton Moore, the club has made some moves that stand out in a head-scratching sort of way. There was The Contest, the Jeff Francoeur era, and the James Shields mega-package to name a few. Now the Royals have made another curious move; they designated Emilio Bonifacio for assignment in favor of Bruce Chen.

Granted, today’s topic is dissimilar from the other moves listed above. The unusual element here is that the Royals designated Bonifacio for assignment just 16 days after the two parties avoided arbitration with a $3.5 million agreement. Arbitration contracts are non-guaranteed, so the Royals are (probably) off the hook for most of that contract. Here is the relevant text from the Collective Bargaining Agreement:

ARTICLE IX – Termination Pay

A. Off-Season

A Player who is tendered a Uniform Player’s Contract which is subsequently terminated by a Club during the period between the end of the championship season and the beginning of the next succeeding spring training under paragraph 7(b)(2) of the Uniform Player’s Contract for failure to exhibit sufficient skill or competitive ability shall be entitled to receive termination pay from the Club in an amount equal to thirty (30) days’ payment at the rate stipulated in paragraph 2 of (1) his Contract for the next succeeding championship season…

It is unclear what will come of Bonifacio. Hypothetically, the Royals could try to outright him to the minors. However, it seems like he was designated for financial reasons, which means that the club will either trade or release him. If they do release him, they’ll be on the hook for roughly $580,000.

The other bit of uncertainty comes from the line about “failure to exhibit sufficient skill or competitive ability.” Prior to the 2007 season, the Padres released Todd Walker and his $3.95 million salary. Walker and the MLBPA sought legal recourse. Unfortunately for Walker, a .225/.262/.300 performance over 42 spring plate appearances qualified as a failure to exhibit skill.

In the case of Bonifacio, his 2013 slash line wasn’t much better than Walker’s bad spring – .243/.295/.331. However, Bonifacio also stole 28 bases while playing multiple positions, so he did provide value. Per WAR, he was somewhere between a replacement level player and one win. The actual reported figure is 0.6 WAR, but WAR isn’t really accurate to decimal places. The Royals agreed to terms with Bonifacio despite knowing his 2013 production, so they ostensibly believed that he was worth $3.5 million. I’m not sure if that latter point is legally relevant when it comes to filing a grievance. Even if it is not, Bonifacio may have a legitimate case that he did not qualify for the lack of skill clause.

The Royals add a familiar face in Chen, who has been with the organization since 2009. They reached agreement on a one-year, $3 million contract with a $5.5 million option for 2015 and a $1.25 million buyout. The guarantee is for $4.25 million and he could earn an additional $1.25 million if he makes 25 starts in 2014. On the face of it, this seems like a very savvy signing. As Rany Jazayerli laments, the only thing not to like about this deal is that the Royals signed Jason Vargas to four-years and $32 million to be nearly the same pitcher as Chen.

Despite very pedestrian numbers before joining the Royals, Chen has been decent in recent seasons. Since 2010, he’s posted 6.4 WAR and 7.6 RA9-WAR ( a measure of WAR based on runs allowed). That’s closer to league average than replacement level over that four year span. Oliver and Steamer are far from enamored with Chen, since he outperformed league average in peripherals like BABIP and HR/FB last season. However, Chen is an extreme fly ball pitcher, which probably explains the lower than average BABIP. As for the HR/FB rate, Kauffman stadium suppresses home runs by about six percent. In other words, there is some cause for optimism.

He rejoins a rotation that is fronted by Shields, Jeremy Guthrie, and Vargas. Chen will compete with some combination of Danny Duffy, Yordano Ventura, and Wade Davis for a spot in the rotation. According to manager Ned Yost, the job is his to lose.

From a roster and payroll perspective, the pair of moves will cost the club a net total of about $1.33 million in guaranteed money – at least if the most likely scenario comes to pass. The team loses super utility man Bonifacio but picks up a good depth pitcher for an otherwise shallow rotation. Given Davis’ terrible 2013 and the uncertainty around Duffy and Ventura, Chen is probably worth about a win to the Royals. Meanwhile, it’s hard to judge the downgrade from Bonifacio to Pedro Ciriaco. In the best case scenario, neither player would have been needed for more than 150 plate appearances. Ciriaco’s value is entirely in his utility, whereas Bonifacio can also provide value as a pinch runner. Let’s be conservative and call the difference between Bonifacio and Ciriaco half a win.

With these rough estimates, it looks like the Royals improved by about half a win for a net cost of just $1.33 million. If you’re a glass half full-type, that’s a tidy little move. If you’re of the half-empty persuasion, then you’ll probably want to point out that we’re just talking about error margins and fractions of wins – and wins are indivisible in the real world. Either way, what happened on Saturday is curious and may yet become more curious.

Bruce Chen has had a pretty weird career. He was a top prospect with the Braves, got to the Majors at 21, and had his first excellent season at age-23. And then he fell apart and became the definition of a replacement level pitcher. From 2000 to 2003, he played for the Braves, Phillies, Mets, Expos, Reds, Astros, and Red Sox. He changed teams at least once in each of those four years, and was officially a journeyman by the time he was 26.

A decade later, he just re-signed with the Royals for another $4.25 million in guaranteed money, with an option that could actually keep him around through the end of his age-37 season. This wasn’t a particularly easy outcome to see coming, given how mediocre he was for most of his career, but his late career revival is almost something of a reminder about just how much of a pitcher’s performance is driven by home run rates.

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To me, it isn’t fair to evaluate trades in retrospect. While there can be significance there, it’ll be out-shouted by all the random noise, and you can only ever make a decision based upon the information that you have at the time. But we can still look at trades in retrospect, just to see how they worked out, and of course there’s some insight in exploring the deal that swapped James Shields and another for Wil Myers and others. Plenty was written here about the trade at the time. Shields was worth 4.5 WAR last year, and he projects for 4 WAR this year. Myers was worth 2.4 WAR last year in a partial season, and he projects for 3 WAR this year. Shields is expensive and in his contract season. Myers is cheap and under control forever. This was basically the problem all along, even ignoring all the other parts, which can’t be ignored.

I don’t think opinions of the trade have changed. Those who supported the Royals going for it still applaud the boldness. Those who criticized the Royals going for it still believe it was a poorly-timed mistake. The move was controversial enough that people have dug in to their positions, and those minds are all made up. I’m definitely still on the critical side, myself. I thought it was too short-term of a move for a team that wasn’t ready. But a lot of people have taken this one step further. There’s a common belief that, by making the trade, the Royals gave themselves a two-year window, before losing Shields to free agency. The first year is gone. So there’s one year left of the window, but really, there’s not. The truth is a lot less black and a lot less white.

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Earlier today, polite and Canadian and polite Marc Hulet published his 2014 organizational prospect list for the Kansas City Royals.

It goes without saying that, in composing such a list, Hulet has considered the overall future value those prospects might be expected to provide either to the Royals or whatever other organizations to which they might someday belong.

What this brief post concerns isn’t overall future value, at all, but rather such value as the prospects from Hulet’s list might provide were they to play, more or less, a full major-league season in 2014.

Other prospect projections: Arizona / Baltimore / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Houston / Los Angeles AL / Miami / Milwaukee / Minnesota / New York NL / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Tampa Bay / Toronto.

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Like many minor league/prospect columnists, I try to see as much live baseball and as many minor league players as I can. Typically, I catch four or five games a week during the minor league season. It can be a bit of a grind at times, but I keep at it for two reasons: First, I want to be able to have the best and most far-reaching coverage I can, and second, because I’m usually having an awesome time doing it.

Of course, some games are more fun to attend from a scouting perspective than others. It’s a lot more exciting to take in the raw power of Joey Gallo, the blinding speed of Terrance Gore, the sweet swing of Francisco Lindor, or the arm strength of Eddie Butler than it is to watch 23-year-old Appalachian League middle relievers throw 84-mph fastballs to 23-year-old Appalachian League utility players. As such, I try to optimize my time and attend games that have the best likelihood of featuring interesting prospects, especially the starting pitchers. Typically, this decision is informed by some combination of the statistics, draft/prospect status, and reported tools/stuff of the players in question–in a way, I’m using a crude version of the same ideas behind our own Carson Cistulli’s NERD scores.

It’s a tremendous feeling to see a prospect in person and have them live up to what their statistics and reputation suggest they should look like. I heard all year about Atlanta’s Mauricio Cabrera and his triple-digit heat, so it was great to see him in person and watch a radar gun read “100” when I finally managed to catch one of his starts in August. Likewise, it’s disappointing to see a player underperform expectations. However, the most amazing experiences I have at games come when a player who’s way off the radar–uninteresting numbers and no scouting buzz–suddenly commands the most rapt attention. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen, and today I want to share one of my experiences with the phenomenon and tie it in with some of our beliefs about the way players–in particular, relief pitchers–ascend to MLB relevance.

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After having typically appeared in the entirely venerable pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections were released at FanGraphs last year. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Kansas City Royals. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Colorado / Detroit / Los Angeles NL / Miami / Milwaukee / Minnesota / New York AL / New York NL / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / San Diego / Seattle / St. Louis / Tampa Bay.

Batters
To the extent that any team lacking the nine best field players in the major leagues can be upgraded, so can the Royals be upgraded. What the projections below suggest, however, is that the club likely won’t be entering the season with any positional black holes. The numbers indicate that perhaps neither Norichika Aoki nor Alcides Escobar are ideal starting options for a club with playoff ambitions. That they’re probably something better than replacement level is also apparent.

Of some interest is how manager Ned Yost might contend with the third-base position in 2014. The offseason trade to acquire Danny Valencia suggests that Yost and/or the club are concerned about Mike Moustakas’s capacity to hit left-handers. It’s true: Valencia probably hits them better. Whether that slight upgrade was worth all of David Lough is less probable.

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In a sense, the Yankees are back to being the Yankees. They offered a ton of money to sign Brian McCann. They offered a ton of money to sign Jacoby Ellsbury. There’s still talk they might offer a ton of money to try to sign Masahiro Tanaka. Yet the Yankees are still a team in need of an actual regular second baseman. They’ve reached this point because they were outbid on their own Robinson Cano by the Mariners, and now they’ve been outbid on Omar Infante by the Royals, who have a shiny new second baseman at a four-year commitment worth a little over $30 million.

You could say that there’s a revenge angle, since earlier in the offseason the Yankees signed Carlos Beltran with the Royals hot in pursuit. But this is less about vengeance and more about plugging an immediate hole, with a perfectly adequate player. Used to be I thought it was all but a given that the Royals would trade Billy Butler for Nick Franklin. Now they need their own DH, and they have their own second baseman. It’s a step forward for a team that would really really like to experience this year’s playoffs.

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One of baseball’s most compelling storylines during the 2013 season was the monster breakthrough campaign of Chris Davis. One of baseball’s most quietly hilarious storylines during the 2013 season was the very similar campaign of Khris Davis down the stretch. Last year, the Brewers didn’t have a whole lot going for them, but Davis shined rather unexpectedly, and the team liked what it saw. As an organization closer to rebuilding than contending, the Brewers want to see what Davis can do going forward, and with Carlos Gomez and Ryan Braun also around, it wasn’t hard to see coming that Norichika Aoki could end up on the outside looking in.

Aoki’s too old for a team like the Brewers, and he’s under contract only one more season. It made sense for them to try to ship him to a contender, and that’s precisely what they’ve done, as Aoki has joined the Royals. In Kansas City, Aoki should play more than he would’ve in Milwaukee, and he has a chance at seeing the playoffs. In exchange, the Royals gave the Brewers Will Smith. It’s a low-profile transaction, considerably lower-profile even than the earlier Dexter Fowler trade, but what makes the trade worth taking about are the signs of Smith’s progress as a young lefty.

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In November of 1941, the British forces in North Africa launched Operation Crusader with the intention of engaging the Axis forces led by Erwin Rommel. The British were hoping for a tank battle in which the superior numbers of British tanks would have the advantage and crush the German armor while also relieving the besieged fortress at Tobruk.

It did not turn out that way. The short version begins with British constantly giving up the initiative, dispersing their tanks and then suffering huge losses as the concentrated German forces smashed through them one by one. Despite numerous initial setbacks, Operation Crusader ended with what is generally considered a victory for the British. Rommel overreached, and during his “dash to the wire” (the border between Libya and Egypt), the British, rather than retreating as Rommel had thought, held fast and Rommel was ultimately forced to withdraw west of Tobruk. It was not an overwhelming victory for the British by any means, and in many ways the fighting highlighted the British Army’s glaring tactical shortcomings. Yet it was a victory, generally considered to be the first by the British against German-led forces during the Second World War.

The Royals might be said to have had their own version of Operation Crusader in 2013. They made some questionable decisions along the way, they did end up winning 86 games, their first winning season since 2003 (with the previous one coming in 1993 — every 10 years!). So on Black Friday, the Royals rather unsurprisingly announced an extension for general manager Dayton Moore, whose contract was scheduled to end after the 2014 season. The new contract extends him through 2016.

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Back in March, I wrote about the alleged spring training positional battle story for the Royals’ backup catcher spot between George Kottaras. For all of Kottaras’ defensive liabilities, it was pretty clear he was going to be the choice to be Salvador Perez‘ caddy in 2013 since he had a clearly superior bat to Hayes that overcame his defensive issues. As a left-handed hitter, Kottaras also provided a useful platoon player so that Perez’ off days could be scheduled versus a right-handed starter. Kottaras was a useful bench bat in general. Finally, since the Royals went out of their way to claim Kottaras off of waivers from Oakland, they clearly wanted him around.

Kottaras was indeed the Royals’ primary backup catcher in 2013, but Hayes (or perhaps Francisco Pena) seems to have gotten the last laugh. Kottaras was designated for assignment a few days ago by the Royals, and yesterday was traded to the Cubs for cash. It is essentially a minor transaction, and in itself does not make a huge difference. It might, however, help us raise questions about the Royals’ off-season strategy.

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