Watched: Kansas City Royals vs. Anaheim Angels

As I mentioned in my last post, I am trying to avoid the media-made narratives and just watch sports while creating the narratives for myself. So far it has been kind of nice watching games without the announcers mindless drivel (although I do find myself to be more easily distracted from the game when I watch without sound).

I watched most of the Royals three games against the Angels over the weekend, mainly to get a first glimpse of Mike Moustakas, who was called up prior to Friday's game. Mike started all three games at third base and had a pretty decent series, going 3-10 with three walks and hitting his first home run during Saturday's game. He did not commit any errors at third base over the weekend, although his arm seemed a little erratic and Eric Hosmer had to make a couple of nice plays at first to save an error for Moustakas.

My overall impression of him is (small sample size alert!) that he is patient at the plate - he seemed to go deep in the count almost every time (he saw 4.08 pitches per plate appearance) - and when he finds a pitch that he likes, he swings hard and when he connects, hits it with authority. He was fooled by a couple of good breaking balls, but that is expected out of a 22 year old rookie. I think he'll end up being a guy that hits for a lot of power, gets on base at an above average level, but probably strikes out quite a bit and never hits for a high average. I don't think he's quite at the Mark Reynolds level, as far as that goes, but maybe Adam Dunn. His defense should be adequate, although I can see him bulking up as he gets older and becoming less mobile, killing his range. For the immediate future, though, he looks to be a very nice complement to Eric Hosmer in the middle of the Royals lineup.

Sports Narratives

I am almost certainly the worst-disciplined blogger in the history of the internet. When will I learn that making a statement about a post that I am going to write in the future almost ensures that I will never write it? It's a good thing that no one reads this blog or else I'd owe an apology for never giving my reasons to watch the American League this year (let's see, Adrian Gonzalez finally in a hitter's park, can Bautista have another great year, the first wave of Royals prospects... that about covers it, right?).

Anyway, I've been watching a lot of basketball lately. We are in the middle of the NBA Finals and there have been some great storylines with LeBron/Wade/Bosh for the Heat and Dirk's incredible run through these playoffs. The thing that strikes me, though, is how quickly the narrative has changed over the course of this series. I read a lot of sports blogs (The Big Lead is a favorite) along with mainstream media sites (like ESPN, Yahoo and SI) and it seems like each game draws out different big picture conclusions. For example, after the Heat easily won the first game, the narrative was that they would cruise to victory, but LeBron gets no vindication because he did it as second fiddle to Wade. My first reaction to this was that people were really reaching for a way to hate LeBron. But then the Heat lost the second game and suddenly the narrative changed - the Heat suddenly weren't sure things to win it all anymore. Then they won game 3 and it changed back and so forth.

Now, it is natural for the blogs and the mainstream sites to read too much into small samples - it makes for a much better story if every game has an importance outside of the win or loss. So I don't blame them, but I have started to wonder if this insistence on creating a narrative has altered the way that I watch the games. I find myself thinking about the things that I've read as I watch the games - does LeBron defer too much in the fourth quarter? When the going gets tough does LeBron quit on his team (as some claimed after Game 4)? I found myself watching for these things, but then wondering to myself if I would have even considered those storylines if I was just watching the games and not reading other people's analysis.

I think back to the pre-internet days and I think that narratives were still created by sportswriters, but, without the immediacy of the internet, the stories were allowed to breath, to find life over time. It's hard to remember if reading the sportspage informed my thought process while watching the next night's game. Then I wonder if these narratives enhance my enjoyment of sports. Would I be better off without all the extraneous analysis? Without them, perhaps I could focus on the game and develop my own narrative based on what I am seeing, instead of looking for evidence to support or refute the narratives that I read elsewhere.

I don't know what the answer is, but I'm going to give it a shot. I'm going to stop reading blogs (sorry, TBL) and other analysis and I'm going to watch games with the sound off and let my eyes tell me the story. There will be exceptions, of course. I'll have to do some reading for news and I may have to turn the sound on for injury reports or other news-like information. But I am going to try and avoid analysis as much as possible. We'll see how long I last and if my sports-watching experience is altered for better or worse.

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Speaking of watching a game - I am currently watching the Royals play the Angels. I've watched more Royals games this year than I have in several years, partly because I didn't buy the Extra Innings package this year, so some nights the Royals are my only baseball option, but also because they are becoming a fun team to watch with all the young players making their debuts this season. Tonight is the major league debut of Mike Moustakas (Moose Tacos), a power hitting third baseman. So far he has flown out to the opposite field (left) and walked. In the field he has only had one opportunity that I can recall (I've been writing the paragraphs above throughout the first five innings) where he handled a popup behind third base in foul territory without incident. And (not to turn this into a live-blog) he just fielded a groundball and threw a bit wide to first, but Eric Hosmer was able to adjust and save Moose from making his first error.

Daily Links - 9/8/08

I live in Kansas City and in 2004 I bought a partial season ticket package for the Royals. I didn't do this because I am a huge Royals fan (my allegiance was and always will be with the Cardinals), but because I love baseball and the 2004 Royals seemed like an interesting team. They were coming off of a 2003 in which they were over .500 for the first time in 75 years (or it seemed that way, at least) and the team went out and spent some money on big name free agents (Juan Gonzalez and Benito Santiago are the two I remember off the top of my head). They had Carlos Beltran, Mike Sweeney and the reigning ROY: Angel Berroa. They also had some interesting pitching: Zach Greinke was a rookie that year and Mike McDougal and Jeremy Affeldt were nasty in the bullpen.

But things went horribly wrong for that Royals team. Gonzalez was hurt early in the season and played a total of 33 games for the Royals. Santiago was old and really bad. Greinke was magical at times, but the other pitchers were pretty disappointing. Tony Pena had managed in 2003 by the seat of his pants and all of his crazy manuevering somehow worked in his favor, against all odds. In 2004 every crazy move worked out the way it statistically should have: horribly.* And (here is the part where I actually get to the point and give you a link) Angel Berroa turned out to be a really poor baseball player. Joe Posnanski, TBSWIA, provides his account of Berroa's Royals career here. The next season I did not renew my season tickets but instead took the money and bought the Extra Inning package and several sets of Royals tickets to games that I actually cared about - a tradition that carries on to this day.

*Ok, so I am stealing the Posterisk thing from Joe, which I figure is fair since I am linking to his blog. The highlight of the 2004 season had to be opening day, which I attended with a friend. The Royals were behind big going into the ninth inning and somehow got the tying run to the plate in the form of Matt Stairs, one of the few true power threats that the Royals possessed. To counter Stairs, a lefty, the White Sox brought in Damaso Marte at which time Tony Pena made one of his absolutely insane moves and burned Matt Stairs for... wait for it... Mendy Lopez. I mean, sure, he was playing the lefty/righty matchup, but I think that 99 out of 100 times you would rather have Stairs face a lefty in that situation than have Mendy Lopez in the game at all. Luckily for Pena this was the 1 out of 100 time that it worked out: Mendy Lopez hit a game tying homer, which sent the crowd into a frenzy. Carlos Beltran followed with a walk-off home run, making the game perfect. By the way, Mendy Lopez batted .105/.209/.184 on the season with exactly one home run.

I agree with this post that finds the recent Dustin Pedroia-for-MVP movement a little bit over the top.

And actually, the links are going to be light today because my computer is running extremely slow and I need to get going. I will try and update this post later in the day.

Building the 2009 Royals

With most of the focus turned to the playoff race, I thought now might be an intersting time to look at some teams that are far out of the race in an effort to see what they can do to be in the race next year (or, in the near future). First up is the Kansas City Royals.

The Royals began the season with as much hope as they have had since 2004, when they were coming off a 2003 season in which they were over .500 for the first time in a long time. The reasons for hope this year were different: they had a GM in Dayton Moore who seemed like he knew what he was doing, the team had spent big bucks on a free agent acquisition for the second off season in a row and fans were expecting some of the promise of the minor league system to finally turn into production.

As it turns out, the team has not quite lived up to the preseason hope of the fans. They are on pace to win 70 games, one more than they won last season. There are signs of long term hope, however. Zach Greinke has matured into a solid major league starting pitcher, Gil Meche continues to be worth the big free agent deal that he was signed to in 2007 and Joakim Soria has turned into one of the best young closers in all of baseball.

On offense all of the positives carry caveats: David DeJesus will never be a superstar, but he is a solid major league ballplayer; Alex Gordon has not yet lived up to the hype (and has paled in comparison to Ryan Braun, who was selected after him in the draft), but he has become solid and shows signs of the talent that made him the first overall draft pick; and Billy Butler has shown a lot more power since he was recalled at mid-season.

The negatives are numerous. First is that they still owe $24M over two years to Jose Guillen, who, aside from one scorching hot month, has been one of the worst outfielders in baseball. I didn't like the signing at the time and it looks worse now. Additionally, Brian Bannister has regressed, as many thought he would (to his credit, he foresaw this also and tried to adjust his game this season to compensate - he just hasn't found the right adjustment). So, while Bannister was thought to be a credible #4 starter at the beginning of the season, he has turned out to be a disaster more often than not. Finally, Mark Teahen has never regained his form from the last half of 2006, when it looked like he would become a quality power bat as a right fielder. Now, with Guillen on board he has shifted to left field and has batted like an "all glove" middle infielder.

From the looks of things, the Royals might have about $20M to spend this offseason. So what can they do to contend in the future? They are set at 3B, DH, CF, closer and 40% of their pitching staff. Anywhere else on the field that they can get better, they need to.

Between Bannister, Kyle Davies and Luke Hochever, they should be able to cobble together a decent back end of the rotation, but none of those guys should be counted on as a top 3 starting pitcher. One place they should be looking to improve is the starting rotation. Of course, without upgrade in other positions, spending a lot of money on a high dollar free agent pitcher would be pointless, so guys like CC Sabathia, Ben Sheets and even Jon Garland are out of the question (if they would even consider Kansas City in the first place). The Royals should be looking at guys like Anthony Reyes, who was acquired on the cheap by Cleveland because he'd worn out his welcome in St. Louis. Young scrap heap pitchers with upside is they way to go for the Royals until they can solidify the rest of the team (then spend big on pitchers).

As for the offense, the Royals have holes at 1B, 2B, and Shortstop. For first base, they have a 24 year old minor leaguer named Kila Kaaihue who should be given every opportunity to win the starting job next year. He tore up AA this year and has continued his success at AAA since his promotion. He hits for power and has good plate discipline, but he doesn't exactly have a long track record of success in the minors, so this season could be a mirage, but the Royals need to find out. At shortstop, the Royals have been playing Mike Aviles, a 27-year-old rookie that is having his best season of his career. Even if he can't duplicate his .332/.357/.500 line (and I wouldn't expect him to), playing him for a full season would be a huge upgrade over giving 201 shortstop at bats to the worst everyday player in baseball (Tony Pena, Jr.).

That leaves scond base, which is where I think the Royals should spend their money this offseason. I would target Orlando Hudson as priority #1 for the Royals in their free agent quest. Hudson is a very underrated hitter, .305/.367/.450 before getting injured this season, and is one of the best (if not the best) defensive second basemen in all of baseball. Having him on the team would not only give them a bat in the top 3 of the lineup, but he would make all of their pitchers better with his fielding.

The Royals have the makings of a decent team. Greinke and Meche give them the beginnings of a respectable rotation; Soria and Ron Mahay provide the foundation for a solid bullpen; and DeJesus, Gordon and Butler have the ability to be part of a good offense. Adding Orlando Hudson will not allow them to contend, but I think his acquisition would be the best way for the Royals to spend their money this offseason (getting lucky with a couple of low cost upgrades to the rotation and having some of their young players take full strides forward would be helpful, too).

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8/25/08 Daily Links

I didn't post at all last week because an illness that kept me isolated in an oxygen bubble all week (not really, but close). I did read a little about baseball during that time, though, including this article by Tom Verducci that I found fascinating. I am really interested in pitchers' health and proper mechanics, so I will be curious to see how Lincecum's career continues.

Also from last week is this post by TBSWIA, Joe Posnanski - his final from Beijing - as he ponders the meaning of a Tony Pena, Jr. bobblehead.

This article discusses poor starts to outstanding seasons.

Here is yet another example of a team getting bitten by trading prospects for a 'proven veteran'.

Watched: Twins @ Royals

Using "Watched" might be a little strong in this case. "Shivered through" is probably more appropriate. I attended the Twins @ Royals game this evening, but the temperature hovered around forty degrees and there were snowflakes in the air throughout the day. The Royals wore their throwback, powder-blue jerseys, which were pretty cool (although they wore them with white pants that looked ridiculous):

I really can't break down much of what happened during the game because 1) it was too cold to take notes, mental or otherwise; and 2) everyone's performance is a bit skewed because of the conditions (for example, both starting pitchers, Brett Tomko and Boof Bonser, pitched very well - which in and of itself should prove that the results are unreliable).

So, in lieu of any analysis, here is a picture of Royals legend Frank White throwing out the first pitch: