Farewell, Kila

as the media/organization seem unable to piece together a slightly more complex narrative than “look at how Frenchy is leading these kids by example because he’s been to the playoffs twice (or maybe three times, didn’t want to look it up)!”

…because he was likable. They had a regular between-innings segment call the “Mark Teahan Show” (or some such) on the scoreboard at every game, in which he interviewed other players. And, as far as between-inning crap goes, it was actually pretty good. Since he left, that has basically be replaced by “Bruce Chen’s Joke of the Day,” which is no better than the rest of the crap they put up there.

Anyway, I suspect this is some of the “attention” that billybeingbilly is talking about.

which, in turn, was probably spilling over from Gordon rotting in the minors as the team unsuccessfully sought a trade partner for Jose Guillen.

It took on a life of its own, but of course, circumstances were different pre-Hosmer.

….was that his “shot” to see what he could do was almost missed with ill-advised moves to get guys like Jacobs.

But, if GMDM hadn’t traded for Jacobs (and kept the pitcher formerly known as Nunez), and given Kila his chance, it would have made more sense.

And, on the off-chance Kila had a good 2010, and you knew Hosmer was the better player long-term (which is the one thing EVERYONE has agreed on), maybe Kila has more trade value.

It’s not that I was a big believer in Kila, it’s just that the Nunez-Jacobs trade/Kila block was so pointless and misguided. Whether Kila was actually going to be good at the MLB level is really the secondary issue.

I wasn’t paying attention to the Royals in 2008… but I can’t kill the Royals FO or Dayton in particular too much for it because these are kind of the same things that all teams do. Just this past year, Oakland signed Matsui and blocked Chris Carter, and the Yankees re-signed (am I brain-farting here?) Posada and blocked Jesus Montero. Both of those teams fairly obviously are using higher metrics to value major league players, and still made those moves anyway.

I’m almost certain that there is some sentiment (I can’t find the post/comment to back it up) that Francoeur succeeding this year was the worst possible outcome of all this.

Kind of, yeah. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Francoeur’s true talent level is 1.5 WAR. Bringing him back, even for an affordable deal doesn’t really help the team that much. In fact, it blocks Cain who has some upside potential and 6 cost controlled years of team control.

, the guy has in fact come off a couple of seasons where he’s been replacement, but it seems reasonably safe that he’ll post enough WAR to be worth

but anyway, rather than get into a big long thing on side topics (“I can’t educate” sounds like something right out of Johann Georg Schlosser), I’ll simply note that the comment of mine Will is referencing was in response to the accusation that sabermetrics is a form of “elitism.” In comparison of how the authority of “what scouts say” is invoked by non-scouts in the mainstream media and on message boards, that is not the case.

And I mean real, sabermetric, analytical stats, should be used to confirm what you see. If the eyes and stats disagree, then you start digging for the reasons. My eyes say Francoeur is an amazing batter, because with his plate approach and strike zone judgement, most players would never get past A ball. The stats confirm this.

You wrote about the need for scouts. You did not speak to the issue Will raised about them like a “religion of the initiated” whose subjective judgments are treated as definitive statements on talent and tools. And if we disagree then apparently we just don’t understand, because they can see it.

And for the record, again, the answer to your comment’s question is a resounding “No.”

No, it is not a straw man. It is the problem with many in the scouting community (both professional and amateur). They believe that the real evaluation comes from looking at the player’s tools, without regard to stats. The sabermetrician/analyst recognizes how important it is to evaluate using both scouting and statistical analysis (especially for minor leaguers and amateur players).

I would think that for scouting types, samples, stats and data you can count (other than the 20-80 scale) is irrelevant. They didn’t need to see anything of him in the majors. They saw his swing. They assessed his batspeed. And they found him wanting. End of analysis. Any poor performance over any amount PA’s simply confirms the conclusions they’ve already drawn. But no additional data is necessary or desired by them.

That results in us DFAing Brayan Pena?