go the wrong way. like the time where Trey left Yimmy Yobble out to dry and he allowed like 10 runs in one inning. while the merits of that are for another discussion, i don’t think it’s fair to give -1 wins just because of that in a game we were gonna lose either way.

but those were Bill James projections, although I converted them to runs. They need more that one grain of salt. We’ll see what happens when CHONE, ZiPS, and PECOTA are completely out.

My own back-of-the-envelope guess right now is 79-81 wins, but that was before the trades… If Crisp replaces Guillen, that’s a definite gain, although Ramirez definitely cuts into that. If Guillen stays and Teahen goes, without a decent replacement for Ramirez, it will be hard to do better than even. Jacobs will add one win at most. No more bonus on the Pythag for good bullpen — after Soria, at the moment, it’s quetions marks (Mahay, Tejeda) and crap (Yabuta, etc.). So we’ll see.

Ah, no. Why wait and make predictions in April? It’s December damn it!

Wait a minute, I should have replied on a later date….

LF= Dejesus
RF = Guillen
DH = Butler/Jacobs

Where does Burrell fit into that… someone would definately have to be traded in order to get him

No Gload and TPJ is good, but Butler is so young and his major and minor performance so different it’s hard to tell what he’s going to do. Callaspo is another mystery. And after Meche, the pitching is, too. Zack is young enough to improve, but good enough to regress. The other guys in the rotation could also all improve, or all get worse (well, Banny probably couldnt be worse, but could be as bad)… knowwhatimean?

And I think that is a reasonably attainable goal.

But I like watching them on TV

I enjoyed reading your argument. The breakdown seems reasonable.
You have made an evaluation for the Twins to win the Central.
Can you please respond and offer a case on what the Royals lack to compete against the Twinkies?

Hochever takes over for Tomko.

Hochevar isn’t replacing Tomko. Hochevar was in the rotation for the vast majority of the 2008 season and Tomko was there for only about 1/3 of the season.

Davies SHOULD be better.

I don’t know about that. He could easily be worse and I would guess that most projection systems will say he’ll be worse.

These changes alone should lift the Royals to around 82-84 wins.

Jacobs, Crisp, Hochevar, Bannister and Davies improvements over 2008 should add up to a 7-9 win net improvement? No way. That is a massive overestimate. They will not add up to a 70-90 run improvement. Maybe 3. Maybe less.

With even a small improvement from Butler/Gordon/Hoch/Guillen(who I think will play better). This team could push 88-90 wins.

The expected improvement from other players may add up to another 3 wins. Maybe. Maybe less. So that’s a reasonable 81 wins, without major breakouts or major injuries (and significant injuries to Meche or Greinke are a real possibility).

But…I don’t think Moore needs to shake things up too much. There are certainly more players he could/should trade (Teahen, Buck/Olivo, German, Gathright). But I don’t think major shakeups (like trading Meche, Greinke, DeJesus: the Royals only big trading chips other than Soria) is necessary or even a good idea. Sure, if Greinke won’t re-sign to a reasonable contract, then trade him. But I’d keep the others and work hard on re-signing Greinke. And I’d only add a SP if the Royals could find a good deal on a good value who makes sense to sign for a multi-year deal. I don’t see anyone like that on the FA market. And it only makes sense to get one in trade if you can trade someone like Teahen, Buck/Olivo, German, Mahay and/or Gathright to get it. While that is possible, it would be difficult. Otherwise, 2009 should be used to as an audition and decision year for Davies and Bannister.

Like the moves or not (and I’m lukewarm on one, and hate the other) I’d say moving DDJ to left and trading a badass middle reliever for Crisp, then trading for Mike Jacobs when the team already has several 1B/DH candidates are shakeups.

I understand why Gordon is frustrating, but he made real strides on offense this year (Indeed, the irony is that he actually played much better defense last year while he had a tough year in the field, although I think there is good reason to think he can bounce back to at least average). As an overall player, he was above average. He still Ks a lot, but that did drop slightly. But his walk rate increased from 7% to 11%, and his K/BB ratio also was a lot better. He hit less groundballs, but both his line drive % and flyball % increased — good sign for a guy who projects as a power hitter. He OPSed (I can’t wait to get wOBAfied splits) .860 against RHP.

 The main problem, actually, is his hitting against lefties — his OPS was even worse against them in 2008 than 2007. But the main problem there was his isolated power (which went up overall, still). His walk rate and BA both went up against LHP. And he did ISO .2 against them in 2007. So really, one way of looking at it is that everything improved this year except his power against lefties, which fell into a well so far it seems pretty anomalous.

The numbers say his strike-zone judgment is better all around this year. So, nothing guaranteed, but I think the signs point to continued improvement offensively for Gordon this year. I also think people need to realize that they should be quite pleased with .270/.360/.470 from an AL 3B, even though they won’t be.