Reviewing The 2010 Goals of the Kansas City Royals: Evaluating Chris Getz

It wasn't initially clear, at least to me, what the real aim of the Teahen-Getz-Fields trade was for the Royals. It looked like something of a Teahen salary dump, but when it came out that the Royals tossed in money, that was less of an explanation. A part of me thought that the team may have been interested in Josh Fields, but that wasn't an obvious assumption, and Fields's long injury struggles made it tough to know. In the end, the only idea really left standing was that the Royals were interested in Chris Getz, a white scrappy old-school beloved semi-young infielder who was cheap. Getz wasn't exactly handed a starting job in 2010, but he more or less was handed a full-time spot on the roster. The Royals made it plain that they wanted to see what Getz could do on a regular basis.

So how did he do? How did the Royals do?

• Playing time: Getz played his 70th game today, so this hasn't been a complete success. Getz had some minor injuries back in April, and he also did a few days in Omaha. Since the Royals play the wonderful Yuni every day, Getz and Aviles split time for much of the season, which I really don't have any problem with. It's a bit odd that he hasn't played more, but then again he hasn't really earned it. Typical half-way Royals I suppose.
• Offense: Offensively Getz has been even worse than expected. Prior to a 1-3 game on Monday, Getz posted a .234/.299/.271 line. This is his age 26 triple slash line. In every way, he's hit worse than he did in 2009, when he was already bad. Getz does what he can to get on-base, but he has absolutely no ability to drive the ball at all. Getz's LD rate of 17% isn't screamingly bad, but when you look at his spray chart you get a notion of what we're dealing with. When Getz hit .260 whatever last year, we could sorta look at his numbers and say, "well, maybe he can hit .280 and walk a little, maybe more." That might still happen, but it might not. It didn't in 2010. He simply doesn't appear to be a Major League level hitter. As a side note, it's a bit odd that Getz is running less this year.
  
• Defense: Getz's UZR numbers aren't good, but they aren't awful. I can't recall too many complaints about him in the game threads. I don't think he's a wiz out there, and I don't think he's a defensive asset. But I don't think he's a problem afield either. That's all fine and good... except that he probably needs to be a wiz to be worth a roster spot. He's certainly not pushing the Royals forward to contention if he's merely average defensively.
  

So in sum, the "lets see what Chris Getz can do" project really hasn't paid off in the short or, apparently, long term. The Royals haven't really spent anything on Getz, insomuchas they were ready to part ways with Getz anyway. Nevertheless, even in the OMG scoring is down 2% its the new deadball/real baseball post-steroids era you simply can't play a guy with a .299 OBP and pretend its a good thing.