With the trade deadline looming and the continued pursuit of the roster/organization on everyone's mind  it's worthwhile to take a look at the moves Dayton Moore has already made. Part I takes a look at how the position players with the big club. Stay tuned for Part II (big league pitchers) and Part III (minor leaguers).

It was 2006, Lebanon and Israel were doing their thing, FEMA did a "heckuva job" in New Orleans and the Royals were supposedly beginning an era of competence (as per Posnanski after Opening Day) thanks to a bizarre December spending spree that brought in Mark Grudzielanek, Doug Mientkiewicz, Joe Mays, Paul Bako and Reggie Sanders. (Vintage RR posts here and here.) Meanwhile, the franchise was a full season behind the Beltran trade and preparing for the Jackson County Stadium Tax Subsidy Vote. In a stunning coincidence, Bud Selig "promised" Kansas City an All-Star game pending a proper allocation of JC's limitless public monies.

To a surprising extent, the 2006 lineup, as Moore more or less inherited it, remains the 2008 edition. You can find good teams that have had more turnover than this:

	2006	2008
C	Buck	Buck
1B	Mientkiewicz	Gload
2B	Grudzielanek	Grudzielanek
3B	Teahen	Gordon
SS	Berroa	Pena
RF	Sanders	Teahen
CF	DeJesus	DeJesus
LF	Brown	Guillen
DH	Sweeney	Butler
B-C	Bako	Olivo
Bench	Graffanino	Gathright
Bench	German	German
Bench	Stairs	Aviles
Bench	Costa	Callaspo

The 2006 Royals went 62-100.

You can quibble with some of these slots as they are crudely defined here -- for example, I'm considering Gathright a bench player in the table above, although he's actually played more innings in CF than anyone else -- but for quick and dirty purposes these are the positions according to the organizational masterplan for the two seasons. As in Gathright's case, for some of the players "bench" may not be quite the right label, but more or less it works, and I've included only the additional players who logged significant playing time.

What stands out is how much holdover there has been. Three of the positions are exactly the same, although perhaps not without some controversy. Buck is still the primary catcher, Grudzielanek is still at second base and DeJesus is still in center. Moreover, Mark Teahen remains an everyday fixture in the lineup, although he's shifted from third base to the outfield, and Esteban German is still a utility player. When you factor in that Alex Gordon and Billy Butler, lineup cornerstones if everything goes well, are also Baird-era draftees, the 2008 lineup remains a very Allard creation.

Subjectively and intuitively, the 2008 edition should be better than their 2006 progenitor: the holdovers (Buck, Teahen, DeJesus) should be hitting their peaks, Emil Brown has been upgraded to Jose Guillen and a decline-phase Mike Sweeney has been converted to supposed prospect and pure hitter Billy Butler. Miguel Olivo is a huge upgrade over Paul Bako. Unfortunately, the sum of their parts just hasn't quite added up to being much more better than the Minky era. The 2006 team ended up averaging 4.67 runs per game, better than the current squad's 4.06 average.

Huh?

To start, the holdovers, DeJesus somewhat excepted, have failed to truly break out. Grudz and German are still around and are, as the man sang, still the same. We wait still on Gordon and Butler to truly arrive. Seemingly really easy upgrades at SS and 1B have turned into, umm... Tony Pena Jr. and Ross Gload. This bears repeating. Just find someone better than the worst overall player in the game (Berroa) and one of the weakest first basemen (Minky). He couldn't do it. Where have you gone Doug Mientkiewicz? Jose Guillen has had one insanely awesome month and two bad ones. Finally, although Miguel Olivo has out-hit Paul Bako, Dayton Moore's first big league pickup, Joey Gathright, has eaten up a ton of playing time over the last three seasons and consistently failed to hit. In 237 plate appearances this year, Gator has three extra-base hits. Three. In 248 last year, he had eight. Gains like the Bako/Olivo and the Brown/Guillen exchanges have been mitigated by players like Gathright.

Over the last few months there's been a persistent meme that Moore is focused on rebuilding -- really, "building" should be used throughout this post, since it was so long ago that anything around here was actually built -- the organization's pitching coffers, and that the lineup will be more of a patchwork project. And while it isn't yet clear that the team's lineup core is actually enough of one to bother building around, it was certainly more than there was among the hurlers. Sure, in 2008, Butler and Gordon are disappointments, but they are near locks to improve, at least a little bit. There are problems however, and Moore is not immune criticism for his utter failure to upgrade the roster at two slots, SS and 1B, that looked to be no-brainer/any AAA lifer would have been better. He hasn't found better bench options than what Allard managed in Stairs/Costa/Graffy and it's possible he's done worse.

Lastly, there's the large but mysterious issue of defense. The quality of the team's defense is harder to definitively pin-down, but according to BP's defensive efficiency data, the 2008 squad is, relative to competition, an improvement. Then again, the 2006 team was terrible, posted a D-Eff of .682, good for 28th best in baseball and 13th in the AL. The current team stands at 19th overall and 9th in baseball. (Although the pure number, .698, is not much different.) So regarding defense, Moore has taken a terrible team and produced a below-average one.

The Royals hired Moore on May 31, 2006 and after over two years of his stewardship, the offense is worse than the bad one he inherited.  Considering that he also had nothing to do with Butler or Gordon, and with no notable position prospects in the system, we must conclude that Dayton's handling of the position players in blue and white has been akin to Argentina's performance in the Falklands War: at best, a disappointment, and at worst an abject failure.

 

On August 24th Reggie Sanders played his last game of the 2006 season, going 0-3 with a walk in an 8-4 loss to the Indians. Reggie's time with the team has been truly special and before we close the file on him for this year, in the interest of justice we should reflect back on all he's done in blue and white, including his growing legacy in Royal history.

Reggie finished the year with an incredible .246/.304/.425 line in 358 plate appearances, which, along with some tremendous baserunning (7 steals, 7 caught stealings) computed to a -2.8 VORP. Some guy who I think played here once named Jermaine Dye leads AL RFs with a 58.3 VORP. By that measure, only 54 right fielders have been better in 2006. Frankly, I don't find it believable that many teams supposedly have two RFs who are better than Reggie Sanders. No way. That would mean that guys like Aaron Guiel, Gabe Kapler, the desiccated remains of Shawn Green and Adam Hyzdu have had better seasons. Not buying it. Sure, the average American Leaguer is hitting .275/.340/.437, but can they play the demanding position that is right field? Can they steal bases at a 50% clip? Can they regale the clubhouse with stories about alternating good seasons and bad? Can they discuss real estate markets nationwide? I don't fricken think so.

To further investigate this, lets see how Reggie stacks up against other American League RFs with a minimum of 100 plate appearances (24 guys, at the moment):

Batting Average- .246 (22nd): Reggie's .246 leaves him well behind his nearest competition in the batting average category, as #21 Eric Hinske has managed a .264 average and #20 Shane Costa stands at .267. For good measure, the Royals have given Sanders 7.2% of the team's PAs, while Costa has only been granted 3.8%. Nice how those numbers work out.

On-Base Percentage- .304 (20th): This is where Reggie's veteran leadership comes in handy. Why get on-base only to watch John Buck and Angel Berroa strand you again? It'd be really bad for team morale. The grudge match with Costa continues here, as Reggie juuuuuust edges him out thanks to Costa's sub .300 OBP of .299. Reggie can reflect this winter that he was better than 4 other semi-regular AL rightfielders. He doesn't have grandchildren, but he will tell them this someday.

Slugging Percentage- .425 (20th): Being outslugged by Bernie Williams is nothing to be ashamed of. Oh wait, it isn't 1999. Still Sanders towers over Ichiro (.401), about whom everyone still insists "he could hit homers if he wanted to". Well, Sanders wants to. And thanks to a free-swinging ethic at the plate, he just barely made it to double digits, a feat he's accomplished 15 straight seasons. Truly an impressive and wholly worthwhile stat in everyway. I'm sure Elias dug it up. I wonder what his Tuesday/Night/Road split is?

Doubles- 23 (5th): A surprisingly strong category from Sanders, who has as many doubles as does fringe-MVP candidate Jermaine Dye, and trails Magglio by only 3, despite Mags' rough 100 PA advantage. Did half his homers turn into doubles in 2006? Is doubles hitting a skill or a reflection of a shortcoming? Depends on where you start I guess. Sanders out-doubled Ichiro (16) big time despite, again, the reputation of the latter. Michael Cuddyer of all people leads AL RFs in doubles with 33. For the curious, Sanders managed only 1 triple in 2006.

Runs Created Per 27 Outs- 3.96 (23rd): How much would a lineup of all Reggies score? Something like 3.96 runs per game, a mark bested by only 22 other right fielders with more than 100 PAs. Bobby Abreu's work as a Yankee tops the field, with an incredible 10.87, followed by Dye (8.68) and Vlad Guerrero (7.45). Even Kevin Mench is over a run and a half better than Reggie, at 5.73. Hell, Matt Stairs as a Royal was better. Still, we'll be talking for generations about the battle between Sanders and Damon Hollins (3.75) for 23rd place. Only Hollins and Franklin Gutierrez have been worse than Reggisimo.

BB/K- 0.33 (21st): The Sanders/Hollins/Gutierrez battle really heats up here, with Gutierrez lapping the field with an incredible 3 walks to 17 Ks. Of course, it's a small sample, whereas Sanders whifftastic 28/86 line represents a long term relationship between Reggie and strike three. But again, the strikeouts don't matter because getting on-base isn't important. Buddy Bell once guffawed, "there's so much more to this game than just stats and OPS, PMS, whatever it's called". Right on Buddy! And right on Reggie!

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But beyond Sanders pursuit of Top 30 RF status there's also his historical legacy to consider. Specifically, his growing legacy as one of the historically great Royals. Lets take a look at how he ranks all-time.

Home Runs- 11 (tied 84th): There's a battle between Reggie Sanders, Joe Foy, Tony Graffanino, Phil Hiatt and Gail Hopkins (who? Early `70s 1B apparently) here. Graffanino is still active, as is Hiatt I guess in some sense of the word, although he hasn't appeared in a big league game since 2001. Graffy looks dangerous, since the Royals have a historical affinity for retreading guys, as, in fact, they've already done it with Graffy before. Next season, when Reggie hits homer #12 as a Royal, he'll move into 83rd place, inching closer to luminaries such as Greg Zaun, Keith Lockhart and A.J. Hinch at 13.

RBIs- 49 (tied 108th): My my my Reggie's tied with none other than long time fan favorite Neifi Perez here at 49. He finishes 2006 one rbi short of Bill Buckner and 6 ahead of still-current-and-playing Mark Grudzielanek. He's 4 rbis short of the immortal T-Long, who clocks in at tied for 101st at 53. By the way, Mike Sweeney currently ranks 5th (784), Emil Brown 44th (154) and David DeJesus 50th (138).

Strikeouts- 86 (98th): More of a power category for Reggie, as he made good use of half a season of playing time here. Tragically, he finished the year one K short of the exiled Ruben Gotay. The 50-100 all-time K leaders for the Royals is a cornucopia of random, generally bad baseball. Bip Roberts is there (91 Ks, 93rd) as is Luis Alicea (90, 94th), Pat Tabler (104, 84th), Rey Sanchez (126, 76th), Desi Relaford (126, 76th) etc. Angel Berroa already ranks 16th at 384 whiffs, and by the time you read this, will have likely passed Brian McRae (388, 15th). Berroa should pass John Mayberry by mid-May 2007 and Joe Randa by the All-Star break.

Doubles- 23 (tied for 101st): We mentioned above that Reggie actually had an OK year doubles-wise, whatever the larger implications of the stat. Well, little did we realize that Dougie and Reggie were waging a battle for our historical hearts all season long!! Minky currently sits at 100th all-time with 24 doubles, one above Reggie's 23. I think we can say 2007 just got a lot more interesting.

Now that Christmas is fully behind us, lets scan around for the blogosphere's reaction to the monumental Reggie Sanders -- who JoePo calls "one of my favorite people" -- and Joe Mays signings...

First of all, lets consider this nice summary in The Star, written by Jeff Passan, before Mays was added,

Indeed, the Royals have spent generously in an effort to restock a team that lost 106 games last season. Emboldened by owner David Glass earmarking at least $22 million to upgrade the team, the Royals have added Sanders, Grudzielanek at second base, starting pitchers Scott Elarton and Mark Redman, first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz, reliever Elmer Dessens and catcher Paul Bako for $21.75 million.

So thats what $22 million gets you.

Still, Lee Warren, at Royal Reflections, offers one of the more positive appraisals of the Sanders' signing:

The signing of Reggie Sanders was a big one for the Royals. At the age of 38, he can still hit for power (he's hit at least 21 home runs in 6 of the last 7 seasons), he still drives in runs, and he still steals bases. He's not the long term answer in right field, but it'll be nice seeing him there for the next two seasons. I'm already envisioning Sweeney's numbers going up since we now have a legitimate clean up hitter behind him.

Bradford Doolittle, the Star's "Stat Guy", has sounded the alarm on the Sanders deal, calling into question Sanders age, production and cost:

The last two seasons for St. Louis, Sanders has posted road OPSs of 738 and 789. His overall OPS those seasons was .797 and .886, so you have to believe he was taking advantage of the confines of Busch Stadium. In Kansas City, he'll be moving into a park in which runs were scored a little below the league-average rate and away from a park that gave a slight boost to the hitters.

Worst of all, here are the games played for Sanders over the last EIGHT SEASONS: 135, 133, 103, 126, 140, 130, 135, 93. That's 301 games missed, or nearly a quarter of the games in which he could have played. That won't get better as he moves towards 40 years of age.

Defensively, Sanders suffered a huge drop in zone rating from 2004, from .888 to .785. Will that improve with another year under his belt?

I'm not sure the KC is as solidly a pitcher's park as its been the last few seasons, as these things tend to randomly fluctuate, but the overall points stand. Reggie Sanders simply hasn't been that good, or availible and recent years. Doolittle concludes:

Sanders' acquistion means that either Chip Ambres or Aaron Guiel will likely be pushed off the Royals' roster. Either one would have provided similar or, possibly, superior production and would have done it at a fraction of the price. Either one could be easy moved aside when it was decided that Alex Gordon and/or Billy Butler were ready for the big leagues. Moving Sanders aside won't be nearly so easy.

This is the worst move the Royals have made in an off-season of questionable activity. The Royals employ a statistical analyst but this person either looks at the wrong statistics or holds no sway with the team's decision makers. The team has fallen into the common trap in the free-agency game of paying a player based on past performance rather than future performance.

This one is going to come back to bite them.

Doolittle is slightly more optimistic about the Elarton-Mays-Redman triad, as he calls it, though not by much:

As I've written before, Royals fans should hope that the veteran pitching acquistions by the Royals post ERAs close to league average. That's the upside of the Redman-Elarton-Mays triad. The downside is ugly. The likely outcome of a collective mid-5.00 ERA is an improvement from last season but is hardly what the Royals have in mind with these acquisitions.

I still like Redman the best of the three but I like Mays' chances to post a better ERA than Elarton. At the very least, he gives the team another option, additional depth. Hopes for real improvement still are carried by the arms of Greinke, Hernandez, Affeldt, Bautista and Howell. But if those guys aren't ready to produce this season, at least there are semi-competent placeholders who can keep them in the minors for a while longer.

The point made here is a salient one, these are iceberg signings, with the downside to each being much larger than the upside. The best case scenario is mediocrity, the worst, utter failure. This sentiment is echoed at The Daily Lancer, although slightly reversed:

I do not like Joe Mays. $1 to 2 million for a replacement level 5th starter is a foolish investment, and I don't buy the "depth" argument (warm bodies are not depth). Mike Wood, Jimmy Gobble and Jeremy Affeldt are better in-house candidates than Mays, all with upside and lower cost.

The organization's hatred of Mike Wood continues to be baffling, especially since he was arguably better than Golden Boys Runelvys Hernandez or Zack Greinke last season. And as noted before on this site, sadly, Greinke is indistiguishable from Gobble for months at a time.

Lastly, the estimable Bill Heeter sounds a note mixing resignation and optimism, stressing a different angle to the Winter Signings,

And unlike recent years, Allard Baird has actually gone out of his way to build a defense that can get people out for a change.

Unless Baird finds another outfielder on clearance, I'm guessing he's pretty much done with his shopping for the winter. Now we just have to wait and see if things work out in reality like we hope they will. If they do, we can expect a much improved Royals team over last seasons' edition.

Maybe theres something to this, this possibility that Allard's going for a White Sox-Lite model. This might work is we had a starter as good as Mark Buerhle, instead of just a bunch of guys worse than Jon Garland. And moreover, I'm not sure how much good Minky can do at first base, nor if Grudz, Bako and Sanders are actually positive defensive players at all.