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Ryan Shealy has seven home runs. In sixteen games. The Royals spent four months giving something like 7,000 PAs to Ross Gload/Mark Teahen/Joey Gathright/Ross Gload/Mitch Maier and on and on, seemingly trying to avoid any semblence of power.

Hurray!

• Thanks to seven strong innings, Zack Greinke likely finishes his 2008 campaign with a 3.47 ERA and career highs in IP, Ks, K/9 & WHIP.
• At 72 wins the Royals have already reached their highest win total since... you guessed it, 2003. For good measure, they've only been in the 70s one other time this decade, when the '00 team won 77. So who do you think was better, the '08 or the '00 Royals?

Ryan Shealy is evoking ancient memories of Mike Aviles. Or possibly Emil Brown, circa Spring Training 2006.

Home Runs By Dudes Who Are Royals & Were Also Standing Near First-Base When the Other Team is Hitting During The Game When They Hit

1. Ryan Shealy- 5 (36 PAs as a 1B)
2. Ross Gload- 3 (374 PAs as a 1B)
3. Mark Teahen- 2 (54 PAs as a 1B)
4. Billy Butler- 2 (120 PAs as a 1B)

I'm happy for Ryan Shealy, even if, on the whole, his September tear doesn't mean much. Us blogger types are prone to cry out for AAAA types to get their shot, and even though a half-hearted September callup doesn't exactly qualify as one, Ryan is making the most of his opportunity. Although, we might add another memory to our list: Calvin Pickering, who hit seven homers in 35 games to close the '04 campaign.

But beyond Shealy, what does stand out is how completely awful the Royals have been at first base all season, which is terrifying considering that it is basically the easiest position to field. Think of a type of person you do not consider to be especially baseball savvy, say, a Greenlandic fisherman. Now imagine that our Greenlandic fisherman has been named the General Manager of a Major League team. Given a crash course in the rules of the game and maybe a week on the job, more than anywhere else on the diamond, they would likely be able to find an OK firstbaseman. Maybe not Albert Pujols or even Dougie Minkiewicz in his prime (if you wanna go in that direction) but a generic dude who can hit a little nonetheless.

Well, Dayton Moore, a baseball lifer and purportedly one of the brightest minds in the game couldn't do that this season. 2007 wasn't exactly a smashing success either.

Maybe it was bad luck, maybe it was simply because he didn't care, maybe it was because he's playing for 2009, or 2010, or 2011. Who knows? The point is, before Ryan Shealy's callup, which was somewhere between a formality and a last-gasp, we're not even totally serious audtion, Royals firstbasemen hit seven home runs in 578 PAs.

That's a good hitter being on fire for a week, or an average hitter after April, or a guy who isn't even good through fifty games. That's a half-way decent 2B at the All-Star Break. But that isn't what your firstbasemen should be giving you.

Meanwhile, our prized off-season acquisition and supposed impact bat (to use a TLR-ism) has a .297 OBP, while Dayton's initial idea of a lead-off man and havoc-wreaker, Joey Gathright, sits at .302. The Royals have by my count, three core guys who get on-base enough to be useful players (DeJesus, Gordon and a soon to decline Aviles). Going forward, we can probably sub-out Aviles and add Butler. So yea! Three guys who aren't out-machines and a few players with shiny home run power, if it was 1968.

Oh, the Royals actually won again tonight. Make that five straight, baby. And boy, Ryan Shealy is hitting the ball. Good things, yet somehow, a bitter post.

This is what the last decade has done to me.

With the annual September privilege of expanded rosters, the Royals promoted forgotten savior Ryan Shealy and internet hero Kila Ka'aihue. With supposed prospect Billy Butler and Everyday Ross Gload (who started something like 400 consecutive games for Hillman) the most impotent team of the decade suddenly found itself with four options at 1B/DH.

Lets take a look at how Hillman has divided the playing time thus far.

Sigh.

Although Hillman has somewhat surprisingly relegated Gload to the bench -- though he did start in left on 9/5 -- he's seemingly undermined that partial solution by introducing Guillen into the DH mix. Given the viccisitudes of the Hillman-Guillen relationship, it's impossible for this uinformed outsider to say exactly why this is happening, however the simplest explanation is that Hillman is loath to remove Citizen Hoagy from the lineup for fear of clubhouse eruption #117 of 2008.

Dayton Moore deserves these two, since he brought them together.

With Guillen sliding into semi-regular DH mode, a wider playing time philosophy may be exposing itself:

Now, I know what you're expecting: an impassioned cry of Kila Now! and 2-4 Huber anecdotes. To do so would be to do a disservice to Huber's legacy however. This is still Kila's first callup, not his third or fourth, and we are still dealing with a player who has only seen something like 140 PAs above AA. A large part of Kila's callup is to acclimate him to the off-the-field side of professional baseball and to reward him, emotionally and financially, for his tremendous performance this season. We're stil two years from Kila reaching true Huber status, and unlike, say, Huber v. Minky years ago, there's still some definite upside potential ($1 dollar to Simmons) in Ryan Shealy. It's in the best interests of the franchise to get Shealy more at bats than Kila this month.

The problem is that Shealy isn't playing enough, and may never, given Hillman's desire to keep Guillen and Butler in the lineup every... single... day. Guillen, granted, is possibly a seperate issue, and only a partial member of the 1B/DH club. Yes, he shouldn't be playing, but maybe it's just easier for everyone if he does, even with the cascade effects this creates.

Butler however, as weird as it seems to say this, should not be playing everyday anymore. The Royals have been remarkably patient with Billy this season, on the heels of handig him an everyday role from late June of his rookie year. Yes, Butler remains light years ahead of the other candidates, and indeed of everyone else on the roster, in terms of his potential ceiling. (Light years, ceiling? Yay mixed metaphors.) Nevertheless, the blogosphere is nothing if not the exploration of minor issues in major detail, and Butler's development -- which has been towards Ken Harvey this season -- is not going to be curtailed if he loses 20 September PAs to Ryan Shealy. He's still 22, and to date, he's the owner of 796 Big League PAs. Hillman can take the pedal off the Butler accelerator over the next three weeks. I'm no Shealy fan at this point, but you could make a case that there still might be something there, especially given his injury issues last season. He's certainly not in the Gload zone yet.

The Royals have twenty games left and roughly 180 1B/DH PAs to play with. Trey's been something of a dullard thus far in terms of sneaking guys PAs late in games (Kila in as a PR, wow, that was Buddy-esque) and I'd love to see that change. Overall, here's how I'd like to see those final 180 PAs distributed:

Shealy Now!

A brainchild of Royals Review reader "daveyork", the Mark Quinn Award is given annually to the most disappointing Royal hitter. Last season, Ryan Shealy, the preseason favorite, took home the hardware, thanks to a .221/.286/.308 campaign highlighted by a .113/.186/.208 that served notice that he wasn't messing around.

But to truly be a Quinn candidate, you can't just be bad, you have to truly disappoint when many held high hopes for you. While the Royals have had more than their share of disappointments over the years, it takes a special combination of circumstances to truly be a Quinn candidate. Essentially, you need to quickly rise to glory, then almost immediately fall off the face of the planet. Remember, here's the Mark Quinn career path:

Mark Quinn Through the Years:

1999: .333/.385/.733, 6 HRs (64 PAs)
2000: .294/.342/.488, 20 HRs (535 PAs)
2001: .269/.298/.459, 17 HRs (465 PAs)
2002: .237/.301/.368, 2 HRs (81 PAs)

Quinn peaked at age 26 and played his last Major League game at age 28.

Unfortunately, the composition of the current roster -- a blend of exciting young players and fairly generic veterans -- isn't conducive to the true spirit of the Quinn Award. Mark Grudzielanek, for example, might have a bad year, but he's 500 years old, and we all knew it had to end sometime. No, we were excited by Quinn, who peaked at a time when it seemed like the Royals could just generate hitters indefinitely (this was the Damon/Beltran/Sweeney Era), then completely fell apart.

Nevertheless, the show must go on, so without further ado, Royals Review is proud to announce the 2008 pre-season early-season nominees!

Continue reading this post »

During the previous off-season RR reader "daveyork" came up with the concept of the Mark Quinn/Andy Sisco award, which was defined as such:

One player who fans have hope for in the upcoming season will horribly regress and live on only potential for the next season - The Mark Quinn/Andy Sisco award. Zack Greinke would also be a good candidate for 2006 award. Early odds on 2007 include Ryan Shealy and Esteban German.

Mark Quinn Through the Years:

1999: .333/.385/.733, 6 HRs (64 PAs)
2000: .294/.342/.488, 20 HRs (535 PAs)
2001: .269/.298/.459, 17 HRs (465 PAs)
2002: .237/.301/.368, 2 HRs (81 PAs)

Quinn peaked at age 26 and played his last Major League game (to date) at age 28.

Quinn was certainly haunting the Royals again this season, as Tony Pena Jr. destroyed Mark's team record for consecutive plate appearances without a walk. But that wasn't all, every preseason nominee - DeJesus, German, Shealy - for the award played poorly enough to win the coveted honor. Of course, even in Quinn's downturn season of 2001, he would have been one of the better hitters on the 2007 Royals. Back in a cold January, I broke down the odds as such:

I don't mean to gloat, but that seems to be just about what happened. German was certainly a disappointment, hitting .264/.351/.376, down from .326/.422/.459 the previous season. German is a utility player who went from being a true asset and someone who could have played a key role on a championship level team in 2006, to just an OK utility guy who showed he could play many defensive positions poorly. A downer, yes, but not a pure Quinn candidate, somewhat like how some voters feel about international players winning the Rookie of the Year.

This brings us to David DeJesus. DeJesus - at age 27 mind you - simply had his worst season as a major leaguer, bottoming out with a .260/.351/.372 season. Despite playing nearly every day (or was it because of it?) DeJesus hit an incredibly bad .223/.331/.307 in the second half. Nine seasons out of ten, that's a dominant Quinn winning season and a major lineup millstone to boot. For whatever reason, fans didn't turn on DeJesus this season, even here in the sometimes dark seas of RR. While you can already glean that DeJesus isn't the winner of the Quinn Award, I think we do need to pause and reflect on how bad he was in 2007 and how right PECOTA was to predict that he'd stagnate as a player, at least for now. Actually, he fell short of that projection. Needless to say, DeJesus is potentially a key cog in the next winning KC outfit, an inexpensive, reliable player with an impressively broad skill-set. At least that was an idea. Going forward? Who knows. Still, compared to you-know-who, DeJesus was Grady Sizemore in 2007. Which brings us to the moment we've all been waiting for.

***The Winner of the 2007 Mark Quinn Award is Ryan Shealy!! ***

It all looked so promising. Shealy was the centerpiece of Moore's first trading deadline as the Royals GM, acquired from Colorado for Jeremy Affeldt and Scott Dohmann. Shealy was long rumored to be the next Jack Cust - well, Cust hadn't broken out yet - and had seemingly been buried behind Todd Helton for a decade in the mountains. In retrospect Shealy's .280/.338/.451 line with the Royals in the second-half shouldn't have generated the level of excitement it did, but this was essentially Shealy's first extended run of big league playing time and, as we know, the Royals have been starved for a generic 1B/DH slugger since, well, John Mayberry, more or less. In this era of good feeling, a certain Royals blogger even told USA Today that the Shealy trade was Moore's best move and that Shealy was "a guaranteed 25 homer guy".

Instead, Shealy hit .221/.286/.308 and laid claim to being the slowest man in organized baseball at any level. Like DeJesus, Shealy was 27, but played like he was 37, and many whispered that his bat had always been slow, which was exactly what many suggested was the case in April, when Ryan hit .113/.186/.208 in 59 plate appearances. Along with Gordo's frozen start, this absolutely destroyed the Royals' lineup, contributing to a dismal start. On April 30th, Shealy went to the DL for a sabbatical.

To his credit, Shealy rebounded with a refreshed .362/.412/.468 line in May, including multi-hit efforts in three of his first four games back. While this was certainly productive, it was obvious that Shealy still wasn't showing much other than an ability to hit singles in bunches, as he had only one homer and two doubles that month. Bell continued to play Shealy nearly everyday until June 25th, although he gradually moved him from sixth to eighth in the batting order. In June Shealy cratered again, although not to the level of terribleness he'd seen in April, hitting .208/.278/.278. On the 30th, Shealy went to the DL, and Ross Gload - Gload will explode! - reclaimed his rightful spot as the 1B/DH of preference. Somewhat healthy again, Shealy was sent to Omaha, hitting a solid .262/.345/.492 in 137 plate appearances in Nebraska, before being shut down for the year due to injury again.

While Shealy is the strongest 2007 candidate for the Quinn, he's far from a perfect one. His "good" performance in 2006 wasn't as sustained as what Quinn did in 2000 and his flop year was somewhat mitigated by injuries, which wasn't fully part of the Quinn story. Back at the beginning of the 2002 season few would have suspected that Quinn's days as a Major League player were coming to an end, but in fact they were. While I don't want to suggest the same fate will befall Shealy, it certainly seems more likely than it did a year ago, when he looked like a modest Rising Star.

While I am not a scout, Shealy's limited athleticism tinted his slow start with a certain tinge of gloom. Its one thing to watch a guy struggle, but when one looks so, sluggish, we tend to be perhaps overly negative. The fundamental question is this: does Shealy deserve a spot at 1B/DH over Ross Gload? Gload doesn't really fit the narrative of the young and up-and-coming Royals and, at 31, he isn't likely to get better. Still, he hit .288/.318/.441 last season and is a career .294/.333/.439 hitter. Not great - inadequate actually, to be quite honest - but not the end of the world. Can Shealy do better than that? He's managed just a .267/.332/.402 line in 500+ PAs, with probably worse defense and certainly worse baserunning. Nevertheless, there remains some chance that he might get better, which we can pretty much eliminate with Ross the Boss. It comes down to Gload v. Shealy, because I'm assuming that Butler is here to stay at 1B/DH, although I may be discounting the possibility Billy stays in the outfield. We should also note that Craig Brazell hit .307.337/.605 in Omaha, and blasted 39 homers between AA and AAA. Lastly, not that I think he'll get a shot, but Huber slugged .517 in Omaha last season, and has hit .289/.369/.495 in seven Minor League seasons.

In all honesty, there is no reason to believe Shealy has anymore upside than Huber or Lubanski, though I sincerely doubt the Royals feel the same way. We'll see, they are the professionals, and I'm the blogger.

Earlier this winter "daveyork" posted a hilarious diary entitled "A Royals Fan Top Ten List for the Offseason". In his post he coined/created a new honor, the Mark Quinn/Andy Sisco Award. Here was his definition:

One player who fans have hope for in the upcoming season will horribly regress and live on only potential for the next season - The Mark Quinn/Andy Sisco award. Zack Greinke would also be a good candidate for 2006 award. Early odds on 2007 include Ryan Shealy and Esteban German.

Thus, a player like John Buck or Angel Berroa doesn't really apply. Nor does, at this point, Sweeney or Grudzielanek. Those players might fail, but their failures aren't quite what the brilliant career of Mark Quinn was supposed to represent. With that in mind, lets take a look at the early candidates for the Mark Quinn Award, which honors the position player who will "horribly regress" after building up our hopes, starting with dave's own predictions, Esteban German and Ryan Shealy.

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Esteban German: In 2006 German did everything for the Royals, playing six positions (as well as DHing) and, incredibly, batting in all nine lineup slots. Not just a LaRussian utility player in the extreme, German also hit, posting a .326/.422/.459 line complete with 5 triples and 3 home runs. Most impressively, he maintained a high level of performance despite being jerked around by Buddy Bell during the season's first half. Once he became a semi-regular player during the dog days, he maintained his superficially high batting average, but also kept taking his walks and increased his power, slugging .494 in the second half of the year.

Why Is He a Candidate for a Quinn?

Of course, it was his age-28 season, and he'd never done anything remotely like that before at the major league level. (Although you could also make the case that he'd never been given the chance.) The Royals have seen this before, once relishing of the delights of the flexible Desi Relaford, who hit .288/.341/.435 in the first half of 2003. The other immediate comparison might be to Junior Spivey, a polished minor-leaguer who gained a sterters job at 27, had his career year, and now seems like a bust. Still, theres a positive-side to that story, namely German's aforementioned polish. His minor league stats reveal a guy who's always taken his pitches, taken his walks, which bodes well as a value-sustainer. However the high batting average and triples power may fall off as the league adjusts to him. This is essentially what PECOTA sees, projecting a .285/.357/.383 line. Thats a useful player if handled right, but not the fringe All-Star the Royals enjoyed last season.

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Ryan Shealy: You know the story: Shealy was blocked by Todd Helton in Colorado and Dayton Moore freed him. Once in Kansas City, Shealy showed up and immediately started raking.

Why Is He a Candidate for a Quinn?

Only he didn't. Shealy hit .280/.338/.451, an OK but still substandard line for a firstbaseman in the American League. The much-maligned Mike Sweeney hit .300/.347/.517 in 2005 and most Royals fans reacted like he was Angel Berroa. Like German, Shealy's a fresh face, but he isn't young; last season was his age-26 season. On the bright side, scouts love him, he's cheap and he was adjusting to a new league, level and city last season, so maybe he's about to blossom into an offensive machine. Still, whats the upside here? According to PECOTA his 90% projection (better than 90% of all other simulations) is a good but not great .297/.365/.549 with 26 home runs. This tepid projection is mirrored by John Sickels, who sees a similar player, a guy who's putting up 1980s firstbasemen numbers in a more offensive age. Credit Moore for getting Shealy for a reasonable price, but there's a good chance Shealy won't put up near as many runs as Royals fans seem to expect in 2007.

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David DeJesus: DeJesus is a nice player with a broad range of skills: he's a good average guy, he can work a walk, he's got some pop and he's good in the field at an important position. He's also a good baserunner, as long as he doesn't try to steal bases. He's already played 349 games with the Royals, and owns a respectable career line of .292/.362/.434, a line that includes a nice chunk of "playing hurt" time.

Why Is He a Candidate For A Quinn?

As we touched on PECOTA Day a lingering fear is brewing that DeJesus has already peaked as a player, that he's settled into a nice performance level, but isn't getting better. Like Shealy and German, he's not as young as you might think, turning 27 last month. Nevertheless, heading into his Age 27 season, PECOTA sees a .290/.357/.424 season, which is to say a worse hitting performance than he managed in 2005 or 2006. Like Shealy, DeJesus might be suffering from an upside-deficiency, although in a more acute sense: his 90% projection is a batting average-driven .323/.392/.483 season, basically Johnny Damon's peak year of 2000. Thats damn useful, however unlikely. Worse still, the Royals don't seem to be sure where to play DeJesus, leaving the door open to a huge value-decrease should they play him in left.

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Breaking down the odds:

No one else seems to fit as a potential Quinn winner. The Royals have other young players, but guys like Gathright, Costa and Maier are too unproven to truly qualify. Remember, here's the Mark Quinn career path:

Mark Quinn Through the Years:

1999: .333/.385/.733, 6 HRs (64 PAs)
2000: .294/.342/.488, 20 HRs (535 PAs)
2001: .269/.298/.459, 17 HRs (465 PAs)
2002: .237/.301/.368, 2 HRs (81 PAs)

Quinn peaked at age 26 and played his last Major League game (to date) at age 28.

The Quinn Award is fairly subjective, because you have to take into account what the preseason buzz/hype/hope for the player is. This perception should be based in reality: remember, Quinn showed up and started hitting right away. He was young, he was cheap, and life was good. With that in mind, German has clearly had his peak year, but everyone seems to understand that. I'm not so sure that understanding exists for Shealy and DeJesus, from whom the world expects greater things (and David is one of my favorite players personally). To this end, German could win the award, but he's have to really hit poorly to do so, whereas DeJesus might have an OPS 120 points higher than German, but run away with the award.

Still, they aren't the favorites. At the moment, Shealy is really a centerpiece of the Dayton Moore regime, right there along with the Meche-for-55 million moment and the Gathright "I'm old school, you win with defense" trade. In the post-Minky, post-Sweeney era, Shealy seems a refreshing return to a good, old-fashioned gigantic first baseman who can HIT... except I'm still not sure he's actually that good. Unlike German and DeJesus, Shealy doesn't contribute much defensively, hurts roster flexibility and is slow as hell.

But, he ain't Jeremy Affeldt.

2007 Mark Quinn Award Preseason Odds

Shealy: 40%
German: 25%
DeJesus: 20%
No One, Everyone Plays Well: 15%