Archive for Kansas City Royals

For Marten Gasparini, choosing Royal blue over Savoy Blue was a matter of heart. The 16-year-old loves his native land, but when it comes to sport, baseball in America beats the Azzurri.

Gasparini made history when he inked a contract with the Kansas City Royals last week. An native of northern Italy, he received a $1.3 million signing bonus — a record for a European amateur. A switch-hitting shortstop with elite athleticism, he is rated the 12th-best international prospect by Baseball America. According to reports, scouts feel he might be the best European prospect ever.

Gasparini talked about his love of America’s pastime — and why he chose it over Italy’s sporting passion — this past weekend.

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Gasparini on his immediate future: “Right now I’m in Kansas City meeting with people from the Royals. From here I’m going to Arizona, to the complex, then back to Italy to play in the European [Junior] Championships, in Prague. After that, I’ll be back in Arizona, working out.

“I’ll be at [instructional league] in the fall. I’m going to be talking to the coaches I’ll be working with, but right now I don’t know exactly what they’ll want me to work on. All I know is that I’ll be playing baseball. But I‘m sure I‘ll be working on running, fielding, my swing — I’ll need to work on everything.

“My best tool is speed. That’s whether I’m in the field, on the bases, or in the box. I like playing shortstop the most, but if they feel it is better to move me to the outfield, it’s OK. But shortstop is the position I love to play.”

On hitting and the level of competition he‘s faced: “In Europe, usually you can find 85 [mph], maybe high 80s. But for most pitchers, you don’t see 90s. I’m pretty comfortable hitting against mid 80s. I’ve faced some pretty good [breaking pitches].

“There are some good pitchers in the Netherlands. I was also in the Under-18s last year [in Seoul, South Korea] and faced some Japanese and Canadian pitchers who were really good. They had some great curveballs and sliders.

“I try to stay patient at the plate. I try always to wait for my pitch, and when I get to two strikes, I shorten my swing up and use the whole field.”

On choosing baseball over soccer: “Soccer just doesn’t make me feel as good. I think it’s kind of boring, because everybody does it. I have a much better feel for baseball. They’ve told me I could go to [soccer] practices and maybe perform well, but it is more than just [athleticism]. It is technique that makes you go far.

“I played stickball when I was about eight years old. I first started to play baseball when I was 10.”

“I’ve been following [Major League Baseball] every day on the internet. I go to MLB.com and follow games on live streaming. The players I like the most are Derek Jeter, Matt Kemp, and Yasiel Puig.”

Bruce Chen isn’t getting younger. The journeyman left-hander — currently with the Kansas City Royals — celebrated his 36th birthday yesterday. Since signing out of Panama, in 1993, he has made 365 big-league appearances. He has played for 10 teams.

Chen has gotten smarter as he’s gotten older. He has long survived on guile, and in recent years, he’s developed an appreciation for advanced stats. Not surprisingly, it came via a former teammate known for his analytic ways.

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Dave Eiland isn’t a big fan of teaching the cutter, nor does he feel a true curveball can be easily taught. That doesn’t mean the Kansas City Royals pitching coach isn’t a master of his craft. Highly respected among his peers, he played 10 big-league seasons and spent eight years as a pitching coach in the Yankees system — three with the parent club — before joining the Royals. Eiland shared his thoughts on tutoring young pitchers during a late-summer visit to Fenway Park.

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David Laurila: What is your primary responsibility as a big-league pitching coach?

Dave Eiland: To get the absolute most I can out of the pitchers’ abilities. To do that, I focus on their strengths and on improving their weaknesses. I also concentrate on how their strengths match up to the hitters’ weaknesses. I do that with film work, studying hitters’ strengths and weaknesses, and how each individual pitcher can use their strengths to attack those weaknesses.

DL: What role do scouting reports play?

DE: They play a big role, and I do my own scouting reports. By studying film, I know where certain holes are and what pitches hitters can and can’t handle in certain areas and counts. I know their tendencies in certain counts.

A lot goes into it, but I try to keep the information that I give to pitchers simple. I don’t want to overload them with so much stuff that everything starts running together. Then you have paralysis by analysis.

DL; Is the amount of information you share with pitchers handled on a case-by-case basis?

DE: They all read the same scouting reports, Read the rest of this entry »

Pete LaCock is a good storyteller. The former first baseman is prone to embellishment — Retrosheet doesn’t see eye-to-eye to with some of his recollections — but his tales are certainly entertaining. The son of long-time Hollywood Squares host Peter Marshall, LaCock played for the Chicago Cubs (1972-1976), for the Kansas City Royals (1977-1980) and for the Yokohama Taiyo Whales, in Japan (1981).

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LaCock on battling Bob Gibson:

“Billy Williams had broken his ankle, so the team was looking for a left-handed hitter. I had been hitting the ball pretty well, so they brought me up from Double-A. I was 19 years old. The game was in Chicago, and Bob Gibson was pitching for the Cardinals.

“It was 3-2, bottom of the ninth, and we had runners on second and third with two outs. Our pitcher was due up and Don Kessinger was the next hitter. He wasn’t a very good left-handed hitter — he was a better right-handed hitter — and Gibson had already struck him out a few times.

“I figured they were going to walk me. My run didn’t mean anything and putting me on meant they could get an out an any base. They had a meeting on the mound and somebody said, ‘Does anybody know this guy?’ Gibson said, ‘If they’re bringing in a rookie, I’m pitching to him.’ Ted Simmons was the catcher, and he told me this. When he comes back behind the plate, he goes, ‘They’re going to pitch to you, kid.’ I said, ‘Great.’ Read the rest of this entry »

When Ned Yost fills out his lineup card, he sees a future that is more promising than the present. His Kansas City Royals are near the bottom of the American League in runs scored, but five of the nine starters are 25 or younger, and none is older than 28. Several have all-star potential.

The former Milwaukee Brewers manager — now in his third year at the helm in KC — has more than the future in mind when he puts together his batting order. He’s also looking to optimize his team’s chances to score runs. Yost discussed his approach to lineup construction during a recent series at Fenway Park.

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Ned Yost: “I try to stay consistent in my lineup construction. I try to set a lineup and keep it there as long as I can — as long as we’re getting production out of each individual spot. I don’t believe that it is productive to have a floating lineup. I don’t want guys coming into the locker room thinking that because they went 0-for-4 the day before, they’re going to be hitting eighth. Or that because they went 4-for-4, they’re going to be hitting third. I think it takes pressure off of them to know that they’re going to consistently stay in a spot.

“When I construct my lineup, I want a high-on-base-percentage guy leading off. I’m looking for a guy that gets on base. Alex Gordon fit that bill for us tremendously well over the course of the year. I think that Alex, though, changes his approach in the one-spot and focuses more on on-base percentage. Alex is a run producer. He’s a guy who has the capacity to hit 30 home runs a year. Ideally, I would like him in the middle of our lineup somewhere.

“We don’t have a prototypical leadoff hitter. Read the rest of this entry »

When Baseball America named Wil Myers their Minor League Player of the Year yesterday, it came as little surprise. The 21-year-old Kansas City Royals outfield prospect hit .313/.387/.600, with 37 home runs, between Double-A Northwest Arkansas and Triple-A Omaha. He came into the season rated as one of the top players in the KC system, and ended it as one of the most promising hitters in the game.

Myers, who was drafted by the Royals in 2009, talked about his development — including the emergence of his light-tower power — on the final day of the minor-league regular season.

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David Laurila: Is hitting simple or is it complicated?

Wil Myers: It can be both. Hitting is very simple, but it’s complicated at the same time. If I have a good approach and stay up the middle, it’s pretty simple. I can get a hit, or at least hit something hard. But a lot of times, hitters will get out of their approach and that makes it very complicated and harder to have success.

DL: Do you consider yourself a power hitter?

WM: Yeah, I think so. There are a lot of times, especially early in the count and when I’m ahead, that I’ll look in, to pull something. If I’m in a good hitter’s count, I’m looking to hit to left-center and trying to drive it over the wall. Other than that, staying to the middle is what really keeps me inside the ball and not wrapping around it.

Last year I had a lot of trouble with the outside pitch. They really beat me with that, but I’m learning to hit it. I’m learning to hit the ball the other way with some power. Once you do that, you get more balls on the inner half. They want you to prove that you can get that ball away before you start getting balls in.

DL: Are you generally looking middle-away and reacting to balls inside?

WM: No, I’m looking in, basically all the time. Read the rest of this entry »

Eric Hosmer finished third in this year’s American League Rookie-of-the-Year balloting, but you might not want to bet against his going on to have a better career than the players who finished one-two. The left-handed-hitting Royals first baseman hit .293/.334/.465, with 19 home runs, and he did it as a 21-year-old. By comparison, Jeremy Hellickson is 24, and Mark Trumbo 25.

Hosmer, who came into the season rated as Kansas City’s top prospect, made his Royals debut on May 6. A few months later he sat down to talk about his hitting approach and his early impressions of the big leagues.

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David Laurila: What is your approach at the plate?

Eric Hosmer: You can’t really think too much. It’s more about just having a plan against the guy you’re facing. You’re basically knowing his strengths, knowing your own strengths, and sticking with your plan. I try to see ball and hit ball, and keep it as simple as possible.

DL: What do you know about hitting now that you didn’t when you signed your first professional contract, three years ago?
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Bob McClure won’t be returning as Kansas City’s pitching coach next year, but that’s not for a lack of experience. The 59-year-old former southpaw reliever has plenty of that, having taken the mound in 707 games before joining the coaching ranks. He also doesn’t lack for good stories — nor is he shy about sharing his opinions on the strike zone or why pitchers do, and don’t, succeed. As for his appreciation of parables, that’s to be expected when you count Ted Simmons among your mentors and when you spend quality time with Brian Bannister.

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David Laurila: You pitched in the big leagues for 19 seasons. What type of pitcher were you?

Bob McClure: When I was brought up to the big leagues [by the Royals] they needed a left-hander out of the bullpen, so I did that for three or four years. After about 200 games as a reliever, I became a starter. That was in the early 1980s, with Milwaukee, and I did that for three years before going back to the bullpen. Around that time, my velocity dropped, which meant my location had to be better and I had to start pitching a little differently.

DL: Why did your velocity drop?
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Mitch Maier is no belly itcher, but when someone hasn’t been on a mound since Little League, it’s hard to call him a pitcher just because he toed the rubber in a big-league game. But that’s what the 29-year-old outfielder did earlier this week, throwing a garbage-time inning — a scoreless one in Fenway Park, no less — one night after a 14-inning marathon left the Royals’ bullpen shorthanded. Regardless of how you label him, Maier — with his 81-mph fastball — did himself proud. He gave up a double to David Ortiz but retired Dustin Pedroia, Carl Crawford and Jason Varitek. The next day he recounted the experience.

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Maier, on the last time he pitched: “I think it was when I was about 10 or 12 years old. It was in Little League, in Novi, Michigan. I played a little shortstop and a little pitcher then, but most of my life I’ve been a catcher. That’s what I enjoyed the most — catching — so I never really ventured out to the mound.”

Read the rest of this entry »

As has been written before, Royals outfielder David DeJesus is the sort of player who tends to fly under the radar because he does no one thing exceptionally well, but he does a number of things at an average or above-average level. He’s been about a 3 WAR player most of his career, and has accumulated almost that much value already in 2010. DeJesus probably isn’t an average center fielder any more, but runs saved in left or right field count, too. Despite having only average-ish power and being a terrible basestealer, DeJesus has a .344 career wOBA (.290/.361/.429). At 30, DeJesus is having a career year in 2010 offensively, with a .379 wOBA (.329/.397/.466). That probably is not his true talent level, but ZiPS’ rest-of-season projection is bullish nonetheless: .299/.369/.444 (.358 wOBA). One good test to see if a sports journalist has a clue is whether he or she says “David DeJesus is a fourth outfielder on a good team.” By my calculations, those people think that a fourth outfielder is someone whose true talent level over a full season is (conservatively, based on current projections) about 3 WAR. Draw your own conclusions.

Given DeJesus’ subtle combination of skills, it is ironic that the poorly-constructed-but-“official” Elias Rankings might somehow catch on to his value. According to the latest “reverse engineered” Elias Rankings at MLB Trade Rumors, if free agency started today, DeJesus would be Type A, meaning that if the Royals were to offer him arbitration and he turned it down then signed with another team, the Royals would get the signing team’s first round pick in the 2011 draft as well as supplemental pick.

This is particularly interesting because DeJesus is one of the Royals’ best trading chips due both to his value on the field and his team-friendly contract: $4.6 million for all of 2010 with a $6 milllion club option for 2011 (with a $500,000 buyout). Assuming DeJesus is only owed about two million dollars over the rest of the season and (using the conservative 3 WAR full season estimate) is projected to be worth about 1.5 wins at four million dollars per win, that’s four million dollars of surplus value this season. Assuming the team is smart and picks up the option, a half-win decline to 2.5 WAR for 2011 and inflation to about $4.5 million per win, that’s another five million dollars of surplus. Nine million dollars surplus could fetch something like good (if non-elite) prospect and perhaps some filler, and again, that’s based on a conservative estimate of DeJesus’ value.

But if DeJesus ends up a Type A free agent, that potentially adds an interesting wrinkle. In a Kansas City Star article from last month discussing DeJesus, several possible courses of action are mentioned, including trading DeJesus, picking up the 2011 option and keeping him, picking up the 2011 option and trading him in the offseason, and declining the option and then offering him arbitration in hopes he would turn it down and sign with another team, thus netting the Royals draft compensation. This last possibility is what interests me here.

It is an intriging suggestion, but ultimately, it is something the Royals should not do for two reasons. First of all, Victor Wang’s research on Type A compensation (summarized here) values average Type A compensation at about six million dollars. Assuming the Royals could make a fair trade (there is little point in analyzing possible screw-jobs) now at the conservatively-projected above surplus of nine million, the draft pick compensation wouldn’t hold up. Indeed, it is not clear that the draft pick compensation would even be more valuable than picking up DeJesus’ option and trading him in the offseason.

The second reason the arbitration-offer route is a bad idea is that DeJesus would be very likely to accept it. DeJesus is a good player that could help a lot of teams, but he isn’t a top-level talent like Matt Holliday was or Carl Crawford will be. He’s more like Orlando Hudson — a good player, but not good enough that teams are willing to overlook the draft pick they would have to give up to sign him. In each of the last two offseasons, Hudson ended up signing deals below his market value because teams were conscious of giving up the draft pick. DeJesus and his agent have no doubt noticed this, and realize they are likely to get a larger award in arbitration than free agency. If the Royals offer arbitration and DeJesus accepts, they not only don’t get the draft picks, but they would end up paying more in the arbitration award than they would have if they had picked up the option. Moreover, this would further reduce the surplus value (and thus potential return) DeJesus would have on the 2011 trade market.

DeJesus’ Type A status may bring send images of draft picks floating through the heads of Royals fans and officials. But given the likely outcome of that decision combined with the team’s current state, Kansas City should be looking to trade DeJesus now, as his value will never be higher.