Royals Acquire Decent Platoon Outfielder, Pay Real Price
Not only are the Royals not sellers, they’ve actually made a prospect-for-veteran swap on deadline day. To help shore up their right field situation, they sent RHP Kyle Smith to the Astros in exchange for outfielder Justin Maxwell.
Maxwell is a solid role player, athletic enough to play all three outfield spots and with enough ability to provide some offensive value. In 763 big league plate appearances, he’s posted a .319 wOBA/97 wRC+, and UZR/DRS have liked his defensive contributions as well. Add it all up, and he’s racked up +3.8 WAR in just over a full season’s worth of playing time.
However, that’s a very defense-heavy number, and we’re dealing with 1,500 innings of outfield play from a 29-year-old. You have to regress his expected defensive contributions a good deal, which is why both ZIPS and Steamer forecast him to be roughly an average defender over the rest of the season. It doesn’t kill Maxwell’s value entirely, but he’s very unlikely to continue to produce at a +3 WAR per season pace.
Still, Maxwell definitely has his uses. He’s mashed left-handers to this point in his career, he’s a good baserunner, and as part of a platoon with David Lough, the Royals could actually get some real production in right field over the rest of the season. He’s probably not an everyday guy, but there’s skills here, and if used correctly, he can help the Royals.
Unfortunately, these are the kinds of pieces you like to add for little cost. Casper Wells, for instance, is a very similar player, and he was passed around on waivers for the first few months of the season. The Nationals acquired Scott Hairston for low-level pitching prospect Ivan Pineyro. The Indians signed Ryan Raburn to a minor league contract over the winter. Lefty mashing OFs aren’t that hard to find, nor are they usually all that expensive.
However, to get Maxwell, the Royals gave up Kyle Smith, who Marc Hulet rated as their #10 prospect heading into the season. Smith has been excellent in high-A Wilmington this year, and is probably not far away from being ready for Double-A. He’s undersized, but the stuff and the results are there, and the Astros are clearly not shy about taking chances on short dudes who can play.
Smith isn’t any kind of elite prospect and might turn out to be nothing in the long run, but this seems like another example of the Royals paying an above market cost for a useful player that won’t actually help them enough for his presence to matter much. With or without Maxwell, the Royals aren’t going to the postseason this year, so at best, he pushes them a little closer to .500. Meanwhile, similar players are going to be outrighted off 40-man rosters this winter, and so while Maxwell is under team control for several more years, the future value he will provide could have been replicated without actually giving up a prospect at the deadline.
It’s not a backbreaker, and perhaps Maxwell will turn into more of a regular contributor than the short half of a job share, but this still seems like a bit of an odd maneuver for the Royals. This is the kind of trade that a contender makes to get their roster ready for postseason play. The Royals would like to be the team making those kinds of moves, but making those kinds of moves doesn’t make you a contender.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Honestly, the Royals, Phillies, and Mariners needed to fire their general managers about a month ago in preparation for the trade deadline.
Trading Ervin Santana at this point would have been a wonderful bit of arbitrage. He has been legitimately very good this year.
Couldn’t agree more, Professor. These GMs did their franchises a huge disservice today.
As an Astros fan living in Seattle, I feel for fans of the local Mariners, who I support when not playing Houston.
With such low supply on the market, not moving Ibanez, Morales and Iwakuma stinks of JackZ trying to keep his job. They could have gotten some serious talent back to help them down the road, but they are in a futile drive to finish 81-81.
Morales and Ibanez are good bats. Moving Ibanez would have been a great piece of arbitrage.
The Mariners are going to re-sign Morales, who is considerably better than whatever mid-level prospect they would get for Morales. Ibanez is 41 and I’m just not sure anyone really wanted to pay anything worthwhile for a 41 year old so why bother? If you can’t replace the production in say 3 years you’re getting out of that player now why bother trading them? They can give Morales a qualifying offer, which he probably takes, and if he doesn’t they get a 1st round pick out of it, which is probably as good or better than what they’d get for a solid hitter who can’t play defense. I think you can make a case for Ibanez, but nobody’s going to give you anyone that they think is going to be a solid major leaguer for him, so why tell the fan base the season is over again over that?
The idea that “the Mariners done bad” doing naught is predicated on the idea that the org could have gotten anything back in making a deal, let alone anything of real use.
Morales is good, but he’s got two months left and buyers would be bidding a DH price for him (and then playing him in the field). That isn’t even as good as a high sandwich pick, which is the minimum the Ms will have by keeping him. But moreover, Morales bat matters more to Seattle’s offense next year than anyone they could have acquired; seriously, does anyone think they could have dealt him for anyone even as good as he will be next year on a one-year if not more? No way. _Keeping_ Morales was the smart move.
Ibanez would have brought back a Grade C prospect, as a terrible fielder who had a highly unusual two months at the plate for a guy his age, with two months on his contract. Raul is, however, very popular with the fanbase, and the team is winning a bit now, and attendance is up. Having a semi-winning team on the field with a semi-goodtime vibe for the rest of 2012 goes some much needed way to repairing the org’s relationship with said fanbase. And that is far more valuable at this point than a Grade C prospect. Sure, if somebody offered something of real value for him he should go. Obviously, and appropriately, that didn’t happen.
Mike Morse could be . . .—*hahaha* I just realized I was talking about _Mike Morse_ like this is a) a baseball player who b) will be on the field much or at all during the rest of this year (pick your reason). Mike Morse has so little value it’s hard to see more than 2-3 teams who would take him for free.
Oliver Perez does have real value. I’m sure there were inquiries, and likely for Charlie Furbush also. The Ms bullpen has been more than shaky, and pulling either guy out might very well blow the thing up, tanking the rest of the season and that goodtime vibe and attendant considerations just mentioned. One would want something nice and shiny for that kind of potential cost. Of course all the acquierers wanted to send a Grade D prospect and pool money I’m guessing.
How is it again that Seattle “done bad” by not doing other orgs and big time favors for nuthin’ much? What is really said as far as I can tell is “Jack Zd didn’t work any major mojo for a huge package that he coulda/shoulda been able to make magically appear, and therefore . . . .” Show me he had a deal on the table he declined, and there’s a case. If not, not.
Leave the arbitrage to the experts, taint breath.
I’m most familiar with the Indians. They acquired Corey Kluber for Jake Westbrook, who was pitching to a WAR of 0.5 in over 120 innings.
They acquired Zach McCallister for Austin Kearns, who went to New York to play 4th OF.
They acquired Asdrubal Cabrera for 1/2 of a freakin’ 1B platoon (and acquired Choo from the other 1/2).
These were all relatively minor moves at the time (though Cabrera and Choo were considered better players). If you want to argue that the Mariners will be happy to pay Morales $14MM next year, then that’s fine. I bet nobody else is going to pay him that, so they likely could have signed him to that contract without penalty, anyways.
Kearns was -.8 WAR for the Indians, the Mariners have 5 players worse than -.5 WAR. If the Mariners could have gotten a decent prospect for Montero, Triunfel, Ryan, Ackley, or Chavez then that would be a comparable trade. Morales is worth 1.5 WAR and the Mariners plan to re-sign him, considerably greater cost there. All you’ve illustrated is that the Indians pulled off a couple of brilliant trades in which they gave up pretty much nothing and got something, yes, if the Mariners could flip shit for a good player down the road obviously they would want to do that. But a) nobody really knows who will be good down the road and b) that requires some considerable incompetence from the other GM. The Mariners gave away Cabrera and Choo for no apparent logical reason, those were coups for the Indians, be happy you made those trades certainly, but they have nothing to do with the Mariners present situation. I’m sure if Zduriencek could have traded garbage for something he would, Morales isn’t garbage, in spite of being 41 and incapable of playing defense Ibanez isn’t really either. You would have them send a bad message to their fan base and make themselves worse next year on a gamble that they might acquire a piece that will be useful in 3 years, IF they’re lucky. That’s really not a very good move.
Furthermore, if the Mariners want to re-sign Morales and the team they trade him to DOES offer him a qualifying offer, a) he’s going to be less likely to come back to Seattle because they traded him and b) signing him now comes at the cost of a draft pick that they would have retained by not trading him, while not signing him now comes at no gain rather than the gain of a sandwich pick. That would be an awful move, a good college player picked in the first round can be expected to contribute in the same timeframe it took Corey Kluber to contribute, they’d have to be crazy to do that.
A player has to be with a team for an entire season for a qualifying offer to garner compensation, so that is not a concern if Morales is traded.
To quote Billy Beane, you either have something special or you are building something special. The Mariners are holding on to the bitter end for no good reason.
Hmmm. How can you support the Mariners when they are division rivals of Houston? Every time they win they hurt Houston. Kinda kooky.
The whole Astros to the AL West is still kind of surreal. I don’t really have any feelings toward these teams yet. Still dislike the NL Central teams very much.
Nah, teams in the same division are only neccessarily rivals if both teams are in the running in the same year.
I root RedSox, but have no problems with the Bluejays or the Orioles, and won’t till they are a serious threat for the division on a year when the RedSox have a shot. And then the next year I won’t care about them again, they play the Yankees as often as they do the Redsox after all, so I’m rooting FOR them 18 times a year and AGAINST them 18 times a year. Heck, I couldn’t even bring myself to root against the Rays in their recent series with the Yankees even though the Rays are clearly the bigger threat this year.
My wife is a fanatic Cardinals fan, but she actually also likes the Cubs, I assume this would change if she saw them as a serious long term threat. But the teams she actively roots against (Braves and Mets) are both in the NL East.
Ya know, we blame these GMs for making moves (or not making them) in order to keep their jobs. Shouldn’t we be blaming stupid ownership that is dumb enough to fall for this and would fire said GMs if they actually were doing intelligent things to help the team win in the future?
“Lefty mashing OFs aren’t that hard to find, nor are they usually all that expensive.”
the yankees have needed one all year
The Yankees are not very shrewd.
Vernon Wells, Travis Hafner, Ichiro. You have to have been a stud at some point for the Yankees to be interested. That point in time does not have to be right now, mind you, but it has to have happened.
To be fair, at least, Vernon Wells would have turned out fine if Granderson didn’t re-injure himself, something they couldn’t really predict.
But later you say that 70% of pitches are throw by righties. So the Yankees aren’t daft loading up on guys who can hit RHP?
Also, Ichiro has a neat reverse platoon this year, fwiw.
No, I am saying they aren’t very shrewd in general. I used Wells, Ichiro, and Hafner as guys that are names. Nothing to do with ability to hit LHP.
There is no doubt that having a guy on the roster who is nothing more than a lefty masher is a good move.
You can’t possibly believe that reverse platoon is going to hold up.
Well he has had a small reverse split for the last 12 years.
Gaius?
This.
Didn’t they just get the best RHed OF bat on the market?
Wasn’t Maxwell on the NYY at one point??
“With or without Maxwell, the Royals aren’t going to the postseason this year, so at best, he pushes them a little closer to .500”
Seeing as how they are already OVER .500, that statement seems naive at best and condescending at worst. And Lough is not the one who needs the platoon — that would be one Lorenzo Cain. Cain’s OPS vs. LH pitching is below .600. Maxwell’s is over .800.
The Royals are indeed over .500 and only 5 games behind the wildcard.
Five games is a lot when there are three teams between you and that spot. At least one of those teams (Rangers) is theoretically pretty good.
The D-Backs are about the same spots away from the Dodgers/WC (3.5/4.0) while looking at teams like Cincinatti, St. Louis and the Nationals for the WC (And ofc the Dodgers for the division), but Sullivan thinks buying is fine there.
With the Royals having a schedule that includes 3 games vs. the Marlins (40 – 65), 11 games vs. the Twins (45 – 58), 3 games vs. the Mets (48 – 56), 4 games vs. the White Sox (40 – 64) and arguably even the 6 games vs. the Mariners (50 – 56), giving them 27 games against some bad teams while having matchups against the Tigers, Red Sox and Indians to make up ground against them AND the fact they just streaked into decent competition, I fail to see why the Diamondbacks are “close enough to justify buying”, but the Royals are not.
The D-Backs aren’t running down nearly as many teams. They are only 4 games out from the Reds (who lost Cueto) and have nobody in between. And have a legitimate shot at catching the Dodgers.
ESPN (I believe they use coolstandings numbers) puts the D-Backs at 28.5% for the postseason and the Royals at 9.3%.
Arizona is one great series against Los Angeles or Cincinnati from taking over a playoff shot. Kansas City is one great series vs. Baltimore that is coupled with the Rangers, Indians, and Yankees losing a bunch of games.
D-Backs are running down Dodgers, St. Louis, Cincinatti, with Nationals on their tail.
Royals are running down the Rangers, Indians, Orioles and Red Sox and Yankees.
I guess 1 team is a bigger deal than I expected.
Arizona is twice as close to the division lead as KC is (3.5 to 7.5). Huge, huge difference.
Tho’ I agree, having given Moore one last year, it’s reasonable for him to trade his 10th-best prospect to take a shot at it.
The Diamondbacks have a chance to win their division. They could catch the Dodgers and not catch the Reds or Cardinals and still end up in the playoffs. They have to chase down the Dodgers OR the Reds OR the Cardinals.
The Royals have to chase down all of those teams. Well, all but one.
Hm. I don’t think it is too unreasonable for the Royals to do that catching, but I will certainly concede that the D-Backs have better odds, because I did not properly consider how being able to win division or WC affected it.
The Royals and D-Backs being in similar races is not at all accurate. The D-backs are chasing down one team in each position (they aren’t catching Cards/Pirates)- either LA for the division, or Cincinnati for the 2nd wild card. The Royals either would have to somehow leapfrog two teams for the division, or 4 teams for the second wild card.
If we can say the Nationals are right on the D-Backs tail, I guess when can say Seattle is right on KC’s, too.
You don’t see it as a big deal for the Royals to chase down three teams that are better than them and have a better record already?
7 games back.
Dave also called Jose Veras younger than K-Rod, evidence you really can’t expect him to get small details right at a time as busy as the trade deadline.
Yeah there is a double standard with Cameron and the Royals — has been for awhile.
Apparently Royals’ fans have replaced Phillies’ fans as the whiniest lurkers on fangraphs.
No one’s apparently allowed to say anything even the slightest bit negative about the Royals such as that they’re longshots to make the playoffs and that Justin Maxwell’s unlikely to be a difference maker.
Some of you need thicker skin when reading legitimate criticism of your favorite organization. It’s not meant to denigrate you personally. If you want a website that’s only going to tell you how great everything is, perhaps fangraphs isn’t for you.
It’s not that there is a double standard, it’s that Fangraphs supports good and smart teams (per the Sullivan article yesterday), and the Royals ain’t that.
I am not a Royals fan, and the Royals get hammered for every little thing they do. Maybe they deserve it, but does this deal matter? They gave up an A ball guy that is blocked for a guy that will be playing a reserve/platoon role. Why increase their suffering and bash them? Let them keep dreaming and believing that their pain will be gone soon.
How can an A ball guy ever be “blocked”?
I see plenty of regular reader criticism from people who appear to be Royals fans or at least interested in them, including myself. There was quite a loud call for Dayton Moore to be fired in the comments to one of Sullivan’s articles just a couple weeks ago.
You should know better than to characterize a few fanboys migrating over here from Twitter as the entire fanbase.
He’s “blocked” by the fact that he’s not good enough yet for double A.
Duh.
Give them a break. The team is over .500 after Memorial Day for the first time in a decade.
I guess the bright spot for Royal fans is that they will have a Lough/Maxwell platoon in right to start the 2014 season. That looks like rolling out an all-star each day in comparison to the Frenchy nightmare the past couple years. Besides the Royals minor league pitching instructors just ruin pitching prospects anyway.
Imagine what a Wil Myers/Wil Myers platoon would have looked like.
I don’t have to imagine said this Rays fan.
Francouer really wasn’t too bad against LHP, but I guess the Royals wanted a guy who could play CF.
Well, Francouer was decent against LHP in the past at least. Last year and this year, not so much.
Ladies and gentleman, now starting for your World Champion San Francisco Giants, a guy the Royals got rid of for very good reasons!
Yikes.
I guess the defense here is that the organization’s ability to develop SP isn’t great, especially advancing up the MiLB ladder, so they saw a chance to sell high on Smith. But even then, Smith is a nice shiny prospect…maybe not Hunter Pence shiny, but…Justin Maxwell?
What am I missing?
Dayton Moore is still running the show. That is what you are missing.
What you’re missing is that Dayton Moore is not very good at his job.
Smith is less likely to provide value than Maxwell and at a time when wins will likely be less important for the Royals.
Dayton Moore is still pretty bad at his job though, because he went buying, but did not buy a second basemen.
Indeed, how is Altuve still an Astro?
You Getz what you pay for?
I hope Dayton Moore Getz what he deserves.
Consider that a blessing, since I know for a fact that he was discussing the acquisition of one Rickie Weeks.
Rickie Weeks has been worth about as much as Getz WAR-wise but has any possible upside at all.
Altuve is an astro because he’s young and cost controlled. You don’t just trade all your major leaguers, you trade guys you probably won’t have when you plan on being competitive. Altuve will likely be an Astro when they are competitive.
Under that theory, isn’t Smith also less likely to provide value then Frenchy?
…so you would have approved a Smith deal to reacquire Frenchy, correct?
2012 vs. Lefties:
Trout: 137 wRC+
Cabrera: 144 wRC+
Maxwell: 144 wRC+
Good thing lefties pitch a whole 30% of plate appearances in baseball.
Eh, let’s not denigrate that skill set to prove a point about Dayton Moore. The fact is, guys who kill lefties have value.
The problem is not getting more for Smith.
I don’t mean to denigrate a skillset. It’s an important one, but comparing his abaility against LHP to Trout and Cabrera is completely disengenious.
I think you’re misrepresenting his or her position. I’m pretty sure no one is reading those conditional stats and thinking the claim is Maxwell= Trout = Cabrera on overall talent. He’s saying that Maxwell is quite elite at doing that one specific thing, more than people would have guessed.
Part of the recent A’s success comes from guys with really good platoon splits. The problem, again, is that the As get those stats way cheaper than what the Royals just paid for those same stats.
Is Smith that big of a price? He’s a 20 YO who is still going through the minors and should have a high attrition rate, so it isn’t unreasonable to say he has low-ish value, is it? Hulet called his upside 3-4 with him a fair deal away from the show and having yet to crack even AA.
That was 124 PA. He struck out in 30 of them. He got a hit in 28. How sure are you that he’s even going to keep killing lefties?
^Nope, not at all. But the idea that Maxwell’s platoon advantage isn’t valuable because there are fewer opportunities for him to demonstrate it is provably silly.
The fact that you think anybody has stated his platoon advantage is not valuable is also provably silly.
Dave’s point was that it is a skill that a lot of players have. Somebody trotted out Trout and Cabrera as if it were some kind of hammer. No further comment.
What happens to his platoon advantage going forward based on the underlying peripherals?
Francoeur has killed lefties his entire career. I’ll bet Myers is pretty good vdls lefties also.
The last season Francoeur had an OPS above .700 vs LHP was 2011. He’s not a lefty-killer. He just stinks.
@Wonluh – He isn’t elite against LHP. For the 2012 season cited above, there were several players with wWR+ over 200 against LHP. That 144 is very good, but far from the league leaders.
Those names were simply picked because they are recognized as very good players, the implication that Maxwell is also a very good player. The reality is that Trout and Cabrera were significantly weaker against LHP – and it is their strength against RHP that makes them elite hitters.
My post about the Royals minor league instructors messing up pitchers was sarcasm. That’s what you missed. Of course it’s a bad trade but would you expect anything less.
I know this isn’t the focus of the article, but could this result in a promotion for Springer? I’m not that familiar with the HOU outfield situation.
Probably not. They got Hoes to help fill in holes until next year.
Who got some Hoes?
No.
Barnes, Hoes, Krauss, Grossman, Carter (w/ JD Martinez on the DL)
Springer isn’t on the 40 man. I assume there is room. But they may need the spot to protect from the Rule 5 draft.
Dayton Moore and Ned Yost are why I believe in Karma.
This is a terrible, awful trade. However, the worst part of this deal is if Maxwell is actually used in a platoon with Lough as Dave states (which I have to guess was just repeated from MLBTR and not the Royals as they are unlikely to have spoken on it yet).
As noted above, David Lough is the only one of their lefthanded hitters who truly deserves NOT to be platooned. And it’s not just some SSS rookie luck thing. He’s hit just barely worse against lefthanders for two full seasons in the PCL, with identical power. You can see why in his approach, which is identical with both lefthanded and righthanded pitchers. There is no just trying to hang in there against lefties with him, he is a legit everyday player.
Jarod Dyson needs to be platooned. Lorenzo Cain has a reverse platoon split for his career, and it is a really severe split this season. In a rational world, they would employ the rare R/R platoon with Cain/Maxwell in CF, using Dyson as more of a PR and bench guy.
So in that sense Maxwell is a good addition, even though it was a total overpay and they should only be adding guys if they can truly get them for something like a decent middle reliever who is out of options. The Braves did this the other day in trading Rasmus. The Royals have several of those guys. Shipping out Smith instead is hard to fathom.
Making matters worse is that the initial reporting about how he will be used will probably turn out to be right. Otherwise you would have to believe that Ned Yost actually pays attention to trivialities like platoon splits, or that the Royals FO is willing to change their minds about a player (they have not exactly been huge Lough promoters). And if you believe that, you’ll believe that the Royals will play in the WS in the tenth season of “The Process.”
Wasn’t it Yost who used a weird home/road platoon of starting pitchers for a stretch in Milwaukee?
I’m not saying he’ll use Maxwell optimally, but he just might be the guy to employ an unconventional platoon.
That doesn’t sound surprising that he did something inexplicable and that nobody else would do. Hard to argue that that makes him innovative considering how that gig ended. He often employs matchups that could be best described as “gut feel,” hotness of a player (typically based on a 8 or 9 AB sample size), or some other rationale that nobody can understand. But then we’re not supposed to understand, because we haven’t been in baseball for 30 years like he has.
“He’s undersized, but the stuff and the results are there”
Is this true? Scouting reports put his fastball at 88-91, occasionally hitting 93, and that’s not very good for an undersized right-hander. Sure, he’s got good pitchability, but short right-handers with that kind of stuff rarely succeed in the majors unless they have a plus-plus pitch. I haven’t seen anything that suggests that, but I could be wrong. If he tops out as a swingman/#5 guy, then the Astros probably win this trade, but I don’t see it as a terrible trade for the Royals.
Radar gun =/= results.
Your comment has been shown to be wrong: http://www.bbtia.com/home/2009/7/1/fastball-velocity-pitching-performance-and-rangers-starting.html
There is other research out there on the topic, but this should give you the basic idea that fastball velocity does correlate with ERA, home run rate, strikeout rate, BAA, etc. There are obviously exceptions that can succeed (Shawn Marcum is also a 6 foot tall right-hander who actually throws even slower than Smith, but he has a plus-plus changeup so was able to succeed for a few seasons before getting injured). That is why I made the qualifier about plus-plus pitches. If a right-handed pitcher like Smith is throwing around 90 mph with good pitchability in high-A and getting results, that’s fine, but most pitchers like that are unable to succeed in the majors because major league hitters will be able to hit those kind of pitches.
Correlation does not mean unbreakable law of nature.
Adam Wainwright, for example, is one of the best pitchers in baseball. His fastball sits right around 91 MPH. According to you, that is “not very good”, and yet it is consistently rated above average (+8.8 runs above average this season). Justin Verlander, for another example, is also one of the best pitchers in baseball. his fastball sits right around 94 MPH, and yet is 5.3 runs below average this season.
More important than overall velocity are things like control, command, quality of off-speed offerings, pitch sequencing, and understanding of the hitters you will face.
Obviously correlation does not mean unbreakable law of nature. With prospects, we’re always talking about probabilities, and based on the relatively small amount of information we have about Kyle Smith, the probability, based on historically comparable players, says that it is doubtful he will have success in the majors.
I qualified my statements, in each of my comments, that there are other factors involved in the potential success of pitching prospects, but you clearly ignored all of that in your haste to post two examples of pitchers in the majors who are not comparable at all to Kyle Smith, as if that would prove your point. I talked about plus-plus secondary pitches, and Wainwright obviously has one when you talk about his curveball. He also has impeccable control and is 6’7, so he’s not comparable at all to Kyle Smith. Verlander’s fastball is over 50 runs above average for his career, but good job cherry-picking the outlier to support your flimsy argument!
And yes, once again, velocity is not the most important thing about pitching. All of those other parts, like control, command, etc., are obviously important. But we’re talking about the major leagues, where only the best pitchers with the best control, command, secondary pitchers, sequencing, etc. can succeed. When all of the pitchers are pretty good at all of that, then a difference in a couple of MPH on the fastball can make a significant difference. Clearly we’re not going to agree on this, but the whole point of my comment was that trading Kyle Smith away for a 4th outfielder is not a terrible trade, because it’s probable, based on the evidence, that he will not succeed as an MLB pitcher. It’s also possible that he does succeed, and that’s why evaluating prospects is so difficult. I would guess that he does not, though, based on the evidence.
I don’t really see this as a bad move by the Royals. They got a guy who is projected to be roughly a league average player or better with years left of cheap team control. Since he can cover all 3 outfield spots that’s some added flexibility that is nice to have.
Maybe they could have gotten him cheaper, but Smith is still in the low minors and if it’s true that his ceiling is a 3-4 starter, that doesn’t seem like much to give up. The flameout rate with pitchers in the low minors is just too high, especially ones that don’t already project to be top of the rotation type guys.
seems like an overreaction just because it’s the royals. whatever happened to TINSTAAPP? kyle smith probably ends up as a middle reliever at best, and maxwell is an actual, real life servicable OF.
This may be true, but when your peers are getting Maxwell equivalents for much less, you’re doing a shitty job.
I disagree. Maxwell is a much better player than all the comps mentioned. Hairston is an awful defender, he doesn’t walk, strikes out a ton, doesn’t steal base nor is he even a good base runner. All he does is mash lefties. Wells is the same as Hairston with less power but he’s a great defender. Raburn was one of the worst players in baseball last year which is why he had to take a minor league deal from a team where he’d be blocked at his primary position by Kipnis and play the OF. Maxwell meanwhile has decent pop, runs the bases well, can steal a few bags, takes walks, can play all three OF spots competently, has got several years of team control left. Besides the fact that he strikes out a lot, his only major flaw is the platoon split. I’m definitely in the “we’re blowing this way out of proportion because it’s KC” camp.
Yep.
yep, sounds like a good move by KC. If it were any other GM besides Dayton or Sabean this move is prob praised by the sabre community.
people just haven’t acknowledged yet that the Royals are actually in the WC race.
exactly kamikaze.
Dave’s point is that this is a trade a contender makes and the Royals aren’t contenders, so not that good a move. But if the Royals believe they are contenders, then this trade for them is not a bad one. Where they would be amiss is in their belief they are a contender.
It is possible for the Royals to make the playoffs, if not likely. Longshots win sometimes. Sometimes teams make all the right moves and lose. Sometimes a team like the Royals makes moves that don’t seem to make a lot of sense and win.
That’s a great thing about baseball.
the Royals are just 4.5 back of the WC with 54 games to play!
At least accept there only 4.5 out of wildcard right now, you can say “they got no chance” but looking at the standings teams can make up that deficit in two months.. its not totally insane to think otherwise
I don’t remember the stat name, but you basically count the cumulative games back everyone ahead of you is. So KC is 4.5 behind Cleveland (who has a ridiculously soft schedule the rest of the way. After that they are chasing the Yankees, Orioles, and Rangers, who are a cumulative 4 games back. So that’s 8.5 games back according to whatever the stat name is.
That’s a lot of teams pretty obviously more talented than the royals that they have to leap. I’d love to see the Royals make at least the wild card as a Royals fan (though maybe not because then DM will be around longer).
This trade is “whatever” but it’s not inspiring confidence in the franchise. Certainly not taking the hurt away from the Myers trade.
Moore’s contract is up at the end of 2014 season. I’m not even a Royals fan but I can’t wait for that day to pass without an extension.
Hey Dave,
Thanks for supporting me and all, but wow it’s time to move on. When are you going to give up and admit that I am not the player you thought I was? Do you honestly still believe that Maxwell and I have the same value even though no team has lifted a finger to acquire me on the cheap? How arrogant and stubborn can you possibly be to think that I am good when these organizations have scouting reports, stat heads and proprietary data that you don’t have access to and none of them want me. I have a wRC+ of 11. I SUCK A LOT, DEAL WITH IT.
I think your problem Casper might revolve around a lack of confidence, I suggest you see a sports psychologist, also fix your swing, it’s problematic.