Royals Links: You Drink Yourself Insensitive and Hate Yourself in the Morning

by Freneau on Aug 16, 2009 2:16 AM EDT

Poz continues to beat the drum on the horribleness of Betancourt. In the pages of the Star no less! God Bless him.

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Is YPJ

seriously almost -5 runs on defense while with us…that is amazing

Holy Shit!!!...Peterson resigned...Am I dead?...Is This Heaven?

by RoyalsFanStuckInCardsLand on Aug 16, 2009 2:42 AM EDT reply actions

its like he's trying to break the computer

by Freneau on Aug 16, 2009 2:52 AM EDT up reply actions

If you watched games everyday you would understand

Desperately hoping for Desperate Measures

by averagegatsby on Aug 16, 2009 9:57 AM EDT up reply actions

In the game I saw at the K recently

my eyes backed up what Posnanski saw. Moderate speed ground balls that you’d expect a decent shortstop to reach — and YBJ missing them by a step or two.

In a way, he reminds me of Teahen at 3B. They both excel at the slow rollers right at them, but “lateral movement” seems to be a problem.

Unless I'm wrong...
My Twitter feed

by Top Ramen on Aug 16, 2009 11:24 AM EDT up reply actions

Nice to see JoPo keeping the heat on Dayton.

Perhaps if he also starts slagging him in SI then David Glass will start paying more attention to the sad sack way his team has been run. National embarrassment might sting more than being poked by the Star.

by hunter s. royal on Aug 16, 2009 12:33 PM EDT reply actions

You can believe your eyes...

I saw the play Poz talks about and I was so pissed I yelled at the TV. It was hit right at him. Probably about 8-10 feet to the left of 2nd base and 3 steps to his right. He wasn’t even close. I can’t believe Hillman and Moore couldn’t have seen that and seen what any common baseball fan could see. They’ll probably be to stubborn to admit it though.

by sfeldkamp on Aug 16, 2009 1:08 PM EDT reply actions

I'm wondering how the defensive metrics are measured

Specifically, I’m wondering if how the fielder is positioned relative to the ball is considered. As a SS positioned behind 2nd base on a shift gets the ball hit straight up the middle, but no other SS would. I’m sure it probably is, so I guess I’m just looking for confirmation.

by AxDxMx on Aug 16, 2009 1:43 PM EDT reply actions

MGL goes after Poz

here

Cf. Comment #2

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.

by Matt Klaassen on Aug 16, 2009 1:50 PM EDT reply actions

I like JoPo's exaggerations better than this rational stuff.

If Dayton doesn’t believe in or understand stats, maybe Joe figures he can jigger the numbers and nobody will call him on it. (At least nobody in the Royals front office will be able too)

by hunter s. royal on Aug 16, 2009 4:53 PM EDT up reply actions

I'd rather Joe be wrong and keep calling Dayton Moore out

I think what he is leaving unsaid is that he’s starting to think GMDM is worse than JP Ricciardi, who Poz just trashed.

by AxDxMx on Aug 16, 2009 9:49 PM EDT up reply actions

I'll say it again, as I've been saying for a while

J.P. isn’t a great GM, but I’ll take him in a second over Dayton Moore, no questions asked.

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.

by Matt Klaassen on Aug 16, 2009 10:53 PM EDT up reply actions

Really?

I’m not saying that he is demonstrably better or worse than DM, but come on, JP has handed out some ridiculous contracts. DM has had some bad ones as well, but on a much smaller scale. for a SABR-friendly GM like JP, not being able to see that there’s a huge risk in handing out such a large contract well into a player’s decline years is baffling.

DM may not be up to the job here when it’s all said and done, but it’s going to take an excellent GM to succeed here. Being average to below-average doesn’t mean he’s the worst of all time.

Kansas City Royals - rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic since 1994.

by Home Run Tony Cogan on Aug 16, 2009 11:20 PM EDT up reply actions

If only Dayton Moore were average

moreover, if you search around, many informed observers would argue that Rios deal wasn’t bad. The Wells deal was a poor idea, but wasn’t as <a href="http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.drivelinemechanics.com%2F2009%2F7%2F2%2F922866%2Fcontract-retrospective-vernon&ei=EtuISvWwLceBtget5tXnDA&rct=j&q=vernon+wells+contract+retrospective&usg=AFQjCNHkl7x26NoCrsYj40H91fACkl2hJw" >horrible at the time as people think. In general, Poz cherry picks the bad contracts, and one needs to look at things from the perspective of the time the contract was signed, not afterwards, since (formally or not) such procedures require some sort of forecast, and even given a good forecast, some are going to miss and some are going to hit.

Now, if you (understandable) want to say “screw process, let’s see results!” Well, the Jays have been over .500 the last couple years, and close to 90s wins in easily the toughest division in baseball, and I think only failed to be .500 once in J.P.‘s tenure. If you look at BtBS’s latest power rankings (done just on stats, no subjective adjustments for “momentum” and silly crap like that), the Jays are the fifth best team in baseball. The fourth best is the Dodgers. The Yankees, Rays, and Boston are 1, 2, and 3… and that’s with the Wells albatross.

Look, I feel weird defending JP. He would be far from my first choice as my GM. I also think his saber-orientation has somewhat blown out of proportion because of Moneyball (there are later interviews where he talks about not liking defensive stats, although that was a while ago, and given the level of fielding his recent teams have displayed, I’m guessing he was either throwing up a smoke screen or has changed his mind).

But again, while he’s putting up teams with the run differential of a 92-win team in the AL East, Dayton Moore is struggling to repeat his somewhat lucky 75-win season of 2008… and as RR has pointed out many times, this is now Moore’s team. IMagine where we’d be if he hadn’t drafted Greinke and Butler…

Again, the point I was originally trying to make wasn’t that JP is great, but that if you think he’s bad, then Dayton Moore has to be historically bad.

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.

by Matt Klaassen on Aug 17, 2009 12:33 AM EDT up reply actions

i hate moore....

and i find that to be questionable….he’s been there longer….their minor league system still sucks….their major league team isnt terrible, but isnt great. And he’s handed out some godawful contracts

Fire Everyone

by billybeingbilly on Aug 17, 2009 5:24 PM EDT up reply actions

If Moose and Hosmer turn out to be as good as Lind and Snider

the Royals will be lucky

I guess look at the wins. Once again, I’m not saying he’s a great GM. But he’s clearly better than Moore. It’s sort of like: LMarco Scutaro isn’t the greatest shortstop on the planet or even as good as he’s playing this season, but he’s definitely better than Yuniesky Betancourt.

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.

by Matt Klaassen on Aug 17, 2009 5:46 PM EDT up reply actions

That was my point.

JoPo’s the only guy with enough influence to really threaten Dayton Moore. If he keeps after DMGM, the fans will rally around him, and Emperor Glass will have to take notice from the dark world he’s been hiding in. I still don’t understand how someone who’s built Walmart into such a ruthless empire can be so clueless about the people he’s allowing to run the Royals, a major part of Glass’s fortune.

by hunter s. royal on Aug 16, 2009 11:27 PM EDT up reply actions