The Case for Trading Billy Butler

Call up C-Rob for DH or sign someone

But getting that return would be difficult. But Moore should explore it.

Is there another bat being blocked by Butler being locked in as DH? Being a Cleveland fan, I’d love to get Butler. Being in a realist I would be HIGHLY surprised if he’s dealt anywhere.

Tampa and Texas could have interest, Seattle and Toronto to a lesser extent. I just don’t know how likely it is that the return would be worth losing his consistent production.

When do we get to a point where we say “ya know, we’ve spent 859 years developing players and then trading them….maybe we should just stick to a f*cking roster for a change”?

Butler can’t field and runs the bases like he’s never played the game of baseball before. Big f*cking deal (can I cuss on this site? I need to know. I swear a lot and am looking for a safe haven for swearers). Dude more than makes up for it and doesn’t have a big contract ($9m per year or so). Oh, and he’s 25.

Don’t trade Soria. Don’t trade Butler. This organization probably won’t win a division title in 2012, but we’re pretty darn close with what we have. The more we gut it and try to pick-up prospects, the less likely we are to ever win. Plus, I’m kinda sick of having 50% of our roster completely different than the year before. The prospects we always trade for usually end up sucking anyway. I’ll take Butler (and Soria) with not-so-high contracts, proven Major League talent, and still young ages over prospects.

It’s time to win. We’re not getting there by trading away every decent piece of the puzzle we already have.

And I’d like to see him get at least a season and a half to see if his power improves.

About getting more value than you give up. Billy is a difficult trade; AL teams will see him as a modest power DH/1B, and NL teams will see him as half of that. Until we have an equal or better replacement (and C-Rob is not an option), it is hard to justify trading him for a 2 WAR starting pitcher, and that’s what we probably could get.

The thing is, most of the reasons you list for shopping Butler are also reasons that Butler would not be able to pull his value back in a trade. Also, you claim that 1B and DH are the easiest positions to fill. I’ll give you 1B, but I am certainly not giving you DH. There are two philosophies as far as I can tell, but I don’t think any team consciously chooses which one to go with. They could either have a regular DH who consistently produces, or just give guys a half day off by using them there. I think most teams would choose to have a regular DH if they were productive, but they don’t want to pay for it. Billy is a luxury, and not in the way that he is expendable. I would argue he has positional value because DH is a spot in the American League lineup and he is one of the best to do it. Rather than have players perform an unaccustomed-to task like DHing every once in a while, the Royals have a player who has that for his regular job.

So, sure; WAR doesn’t deem Butler valuable, but it’s more complicated than that. Which is why a power spike is NOT required for him to be valuable. What he needs to be valuable is more people on base in front of him. So move him to 5th in the lineup.

Also, why would we need to rest Hosmer and Moustakas and others? They’re young. They can play every day (almost). Ride out Butler’s prime and quit worrying about how he isn’t perfect. Someday, he will begin to decline and I suspect it will be apparent. Until then, worry about the parts of the team that require improvement.

Last, you’re right that we don’t ever really talk about Butler aside from the spike in discussion last season where we had to defend Butler to the masses. But maybe there’s a reason we don’t talk about Billy.

Much as in the Frank White case, we really have a lot of unknowns here, as always. We don’t know how much Billy has talked with the front office. He does seem to be of the other-motivating-factors type, and this could mean he has iterated his want to become a lifetime Royal. I know he has made many statements about “just shutting up and playing ball” and this could be a reason the front office wants to keep him around.

It could be simply that we have shopped him many times to many shallow offers; or it could be that we have refused to trade him before, because as recently as early on in the 2011 season he was the lone guy with solid production in the lineup.

As a fan, I am indifferent. It would be nice to see a couple of the players stick around for some time (which is why I back Pioli, because Charles/Hali/Flowers are all signed for a long time), but Billy has shown me some things I love and some things I hate. I think I am in the majority here when I say that I would much rather have Gordon or Hos long-term, but Air Billy would be nice too.

But I still have a problem with simply proclaiming that he can’t get any better. You seem to think that he can only improve with a “random power spike,” but I see no reason why his power can’t improve as he enters the prime hitting years. I think both his fatness and inability to improve his power are wildly overblown. I think Butler’s best years are ahead of him. No, he’ll never be a truly elite, offensive monster, but he can still improve I think.

it is Melky Cabrera. Mission Accomplished.

Second would be Alex Gordon. Not that it makes sense to trade him, but he’s more of a sell-high player than Butler, considering it’s unlikely he’ll repeat last year’s numbers.

While it’s true that Butler may have peaked, he’s one of the few proven commodity’s we have on this team. I don’t know that I would be willing to give up on that.

But hey, if you wanna get rid of him for a top of the rotation starter, I’m all for it. However, I don’t possibly see how anybody offers anything other than a mediocre player for him. He’s more valuble to us.

Billy probably not going to improve much from here on- definitely defense, baserunning, contact rate, etc. will not improve. Power could, at least slightly. Honestly, I think what we’re seeing is what we’re gonna get.

He is a slow DH. Regardless of what his WAR is, he is a good hitter and worth having in the lineup every day. And it has been every day, BTW. Remarkably injury-free, and that counts for something.

IMO, he is very likely to have a BA around .300, with a good OBP, about 45 doubles and 16-22 HR. He could realistically hit anywhere from #2-6 in any order and help a team. And I could see him doing that until he is about 32 without much drop off. He is absolutely capable of going on a 2 month tear during a pennant race.

We should explore what we could get in return for every player on the roster. Anybody is gone for the right deal. But the chances of getting equal or better value in return are not, I would figure, very high.

So just write him in the lineup every day and go lead the league in runs scored. And have everybody talk about how good he would be if he hit 15 more HR/yr.

Mostly based on his approach of hitting line drives up the middle. Edgar never really hit his stride until his Age 32 season, and posted 42.4 WAR in the seven years between his Age 32 and Age 38 season.

Billy is only gonna be 26 next year. At that point in his career, Edgar had played in under 100 games, had under 300 PA, and 2 homeruns.

I think Billy could be something special, and I’d rather sign him to a 10 year $100MM deal than trade him for anything less that an elite prospect.

I just have a feeling that they would really like rid of AJ Burnett and that he’s the kind of veteran pitcher a guy like DM would covet. Factor in Eiland as the pitching coach and voila. Then I wonder, would this be bad? I mean, I know it probably would be bad (because he sucks quite often), but if they ate a bunch of $$, would it really be that bad?

is based on defense

My wife won’t let me watch baseball in the living room anymore.

I say no trade..no deal! Sorry, just I want to keep the regulars for this season. They have a good chance for a win this coming season. By the way, we have a scrimmage game in March with the Angels….How do you all think we will do? Any perdictions?

Can’t trade him for Yu-Bet now, so there’s that.