Royals Week in Review - 3/9/07

A look back at the week that was for the Kansas City Royals.

Grudzie Goes Gimp

The Esteban German experiment at Short took a break this week when Mark Grudzielanek went down with torn cartilage in his left knee. German will take over the starting job at second base until the gold glover is ready to return, which according to reports is anytime between next Thursday and 2009.

Leaving defense aside, German projects as a much better choice at second than Grudzielanek. Last season, he was worth three more runs a game, according the classic formula developed by Bill James.

Of course, German was worth 5.5 more runs than Angel Berroa, who is thus far having a decent spring.

Other Injuries

Joe Nelson has injured his labrum again. Similar injuries kept Nelson from becoming a major league regular in the past. As noted here, Nelson faded badly in the second half for Kansas City last year after pitching brilliantly at the start of the season. The competition for bullpen roles is a lot tighter this year, though, so Joe may find himself hanging out in Omaha for a long time if he makes it back from this latest surgery.

Position Battles

Spring statistics are about as useful to us as J. Howard Marshall’s money is to Anna Nicole Smith, but like Smith, they are fun to look at sometimes.

Player AVG OBP SLG
Buck   600 750 1400
LaRue  400 400 1300

Jason LaRue has shown some nice power in his first healthy Spring Training since knee surgery last year. John Buck has been taking a few walks.

Both players look like locks to make the opening day roster and we may see Buddy Bell use his catchers in tandem like NFL teams are starting to use running backs.

Player AVG OBP SLG
Butler 667 714 1083
Gordon 353 450  588

Billy Butler is treating baseballs like Ron Artest treats his women. Unfortunately, he’s doing so at the plate and in the field.

Alex Gordon looks more like the real deal every day.

Player AVG OBP SLG
Berroa 333 375 533
Blanco 467 467 667

Neither shortstop has taken a walk this spring, though Berroa has been plunked already.

Craig Biggio has made a pretty good career for himself getting on base via the ol’ HBP. Of course, he also hits for power, fields at an adequate level and has that cool tar stain on his helmet.

Other News

Garth Sears rounds up a who’s who of Royals baseball writers for a discussion at Baseball Think Factory.

Bob Dutton discusses options, and reminds us all that crappy players will always make the team so that they don’t go stink it up for some other franchise.

"Who are These Guys?" 2007 - Catchers

Geeks like me who routinely check in with the home team's website can tell you that we are only 3 days, 19 hours and 4 minutes away from the opening of spring training.

There are twenty new faces on the Kansas City Royals forty man roster since the last time pitchers and catchers were asked to report, so I will now continue with one of the grandest traditions of this blog: "Who are These Guys?" 2007!

It's my way of introducing you to the men who will be vying for playing time under the Arizona sun.

Each player name will link to his stats from baseball-reference.com, followed by his 2006 numbers (batting average/on-base percentage/slugging average and OPS+).

Let's start with the men behind the dish.

John Buck
245/306/396
OPS+ 76

Not long ago (2004), Buck finished tied for 8th place in rookie of the year voting, behind fellow teammates David DeJesus (6th) and Zack Greinke (4th). No doubt, his single vote was probably cast by Jeffrey Flannigan.

Buck’s OPS by Year:

2004  704
2005  676
2006  702

Buck’s OPS by Month:

Apr/Mar  553 
May      683 
June     780 
July     552 
August   680 
Sept/Oct 864

That June number is helped by his .993 OPS in June last year.

Buck’s MO is to start off slow and then figure things out. Unfortunately, aside from the aforementioned June and August of 2004, he has only posted an OPS over .800 in the month of September.

If I were Buddy Bell, I’d hire several “players” to stand around Buck at all times, wearing thermals, complaining about how cold it’s getting and talking about their fantasy football drafts non-stop.

Jason LaRue
194/317/346
OPS+ 65

LaRue was making steady progress as an offensive threat over the course of his career...

OPS+ by year:

1999  77
2000  74
2001  82
2002  85
2003  92
2004 103
2005 105
2006  65

... until last year, when pre-season knee surgery kept him out of the opening day lineup and rendered him relatively ineffective.

That’s one scary hole his productivity fell into, but there is hope for a rebound this year.

Here are some of LaRue’s numbers from the last three seasons, courtesy of The Hardball Times:

AVG  OBP  SLG  LD%   GB%   BA/BIP
251  334  431  19.7  42.3  .313
260  355  452  22.5  41.6  .325
194  317  346  20.0  43.6  .220

For reference, that's line drive (LD%) and ground ball percentages (GB%), as well as batting average on balls in play (BA/BIP).

A quick glance at those numbers shows that one of these things is not like the others.

Despite the knee surgery zapping his power, LaRue still hit line drives with the same consistency as previous years. Even a terrible player will have their BA/BIP regress to the mean (the NL average BA/BIP was .301 in ’06), and LaRue was not a terrible player before his knee injury, which could mean a nice bounce back for the man slated to back up Buck.

Paul Phillips
277/284/369
OPS+ 63

In seven minor league seasons, Phillips has put up a marginal 280/326/392 line in 532 games. Seeing action at the major league level almost exclusively during the September call-up period, he has hit 270/279/380 in 50 games.

After missing two entire seasons to injury, Phillips has done well to find himself a home in Omaha and will probably continue to work with the pitchers who aren’t quite ready for prime time yet.

I'll be back with a look at the tall, slow guys standing by first base tomorrow.