Gubicza & RHOF

Mark Gubicza is one of my all-time favorite Royals. So, I was thrilled to hear that he was chosen to go into the Royals Hall of Fame this summer. I have so many great memories of his playing days in Kansas City. I remember his 20 win season in 1988. I still remember 1990—the season he injured his shoulder and how, unfortunately, he was never the same afterward. I remember his one-hitter in Oakland in June of 1995.

And I remember one day in 1994, when he was scheduled to start, I got close to the field and snapped these photos:


Wow, does that bring back memories? Bruce Kison, Chico Lind, Astroturf…oh, and remember when the outfield walls had no advertising?

These days, another player, Zack Greinke, wears number 23. While Zack certainly has a lot of potential, he has a long way to go to do honor to the guy who wore the number before he did.

Randa Returns to Pittsburgh

According to the Post-Gazette website, Joe Randa signed a one-year deal with the Pirates today—pending a physical. The Pirates are thought to have offered him $4 million.

I still think he ought to be our starting third baseman. Mark Teahen was nowhere near ready to start last year after Chris Truby went down. Although, in fairness, toward the end of the season, Teahen finally looked like he belonged in the big leagues. But don't be surprised if Joe doesn't end up in a Royal blue uniform again someday—as a coach.

Sanders and Mays

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.

My only concern about Sanders is that he strikes out too frequently. The Royals already have too many free swingers in the line up, but to be fair, I'm not nearly as bothered by a clean up hitter taking his hacks. Now, Ruben Gotay and Angel Berroa—that's a different matter.

The signing of Joe Mays was a bit of a surprise since we already signed Redman and Elarton, but Mays is a proven starter and will fit nicely in a rotation that has hardly resembled a major league rotation in recent seasons. Mays is injury prone and has never recaptured the success he had in 2001 when he was 17-13 with a 3.46 ERA and went to the All-Star game. His career numbers aren't all that impressive: 48-65 with a 4.85 ERA, but let's be honest, they look good enough to be in our rotation.

Assuming that Redman, Elarton, Mays, and Hernandez are guaranteed four of the five spots, it looks like Greinke and Affeldt may be in competition for the fifth spot. It would be a blow to his ego (and that would probably be a good thing), but I wouldn't mind seeing Greinke pitch most of the year in Omaha. We clearly rushed him to the major leagues. In his first two seasons, he's a combined 13-28 with a 4.99 ERA and he's already given up 49 HR in 328 innings of work.

Well, the majority of the roster changes are complete. Now comes the anticipation of Spring Training. I'm already looking forward to it. How about you?

Royals Sign Four

I like the addition of Scott Elarton to our starting rotation. Unfortunately, in this market, it really does cost $4 million per year for a career .500 pitcher with an ERA slightly over 5.00. He'll be in Kansas City for the next two seasons and maybe we'll finally have a couple of guys in the rotation who can pitch 200+ innings (Redman being the other). We still don't have a number one or two guy, but we finally have a couple of number threes. Runelvys Hernandez, Jeremy Affeldt, and Zach Greinke appear to be the other three starters. This is the best rotation we've had in many years. Still not good—but at least it won't be embarrassingly bad.

I'm not as high on the signing of Mark Grudzielanek. He's a 35 year-old, good fielding second baseman with an average bat (.294, 8 HR, 59 RBI last season) and a hefty price tag ($4 million). He's not a bad signing, but I think Tony Graffanino could produce at least the same offensive numbers (.309, 7 HR, 38 RBI last season) if not better if he started at second base all season. It's hard to argue with Grudzielanek's gold glove, but is a gold glove worth $4 million? I don't think so.

I really don't understand the Doug Mientkiewicz signing. We just agreed to pay $1.85 million to a light hitting (.240, 11 HR, 29 RBI last season) first baseman with a very good glove when we already have Mike Sweeney, Matt Stairs, Justin Huber, Ken Harvey, and maybe even Alex Gordon lined up to play first base. Harvey is hurt and Sweeney is injury prone, but Stairs is durable (and cheaper), Huber is an up-and-comer, and if Gordon is really worth all the money we paid him, then we ought to be set at first base without adding Mientkiewicz.

And why sign Paul Bako? Experience is the answer I guess, but his career numbers are poor. He has a .239 career batting average with 14 HR and 133 RBI. Why not bring back Paul Phillips? He hit .269 with 1 HR and 9 RBI in 23 games with KC last season. He's only 27 years old and wouldn't cost as much. I know that Bako caught Maddux in Atlanta, but I'm not sure that it matters in Kansas City.

According to Jeff Passan's article in the Star this morning, the Royals are still in the market for a power hitting corner outfielder, including guys like Jacque Jones, Juan Encarnacion, and Preston Wilson. I'm not a big Jacque Jones fan, and both Encarnacion and Wilson are free swingers—which seems to me the last thing we need on this roster, but if I had to pick between the two, I'd take Preston Wilson.

With the payroll already approaching $50 million, Baird knows that this team better win considerably more games in 2006 than we did in 2005 or he won't be around KC for 2007. We've certainly improved our team, while not taking away positions from our younger guys, but that doesn't always equate to more wins. Let's hope in this case though that it does.

Royals Trade for Redman

The Royals traded for Mark Redman this afternoon. He was 5-15 with a 4.90 ERA in 30 starts in Pittsburgh last season. His career record is 53-66 with a 4.47 ERA. The Royals sent Jonah Bayliss and a player to be named later to Pittsburgh in the deal.

Redman is another in a long list of starting pitchers with mediocre career numbers, but mediocre looks pretty nice in our rotation—even though he was 1-11 in his final 12 decision last season. He's scheduled to take D.J. Carrasco's spot in the rotation after D.J. signed with a team in Japan.

Redman's is a big guy (6-foot-5, 245 pounds) and he eats up a lot of innings every year. We desperately need a guy who we can count on to pitch 200 innings and Redman is probably the guy.

Up the Middle

Apparently, Baird is finally willing to admit that we have a problem up the middle. He attempted to sign Rafael Furcal (what must Angel Berroa be thinking right about now?) recently, but the Dodgers paid him $39 million for three years and we can't even touch a contract like that.

And in another attempt to strengthen our middle infield, we're reportedly considering resigning Tony Graffanino, but a couple of weeks ago, we told him that he'd be coming in as a back up player. He can start for the Red Sox, and the Twins almost signed him as a starter, but he can't start for the Royals? Gotay isn't the answer at second base. Neither is Donnie Simpson. And Baird and Bell seem to know that. Baird is reportedly considering a trade with Toronto for Orlando Hudson. I'm guessing that Graffanino could match Hudson's numbers if the Royals actually started him and left him in the line up all season.

Another trade that the Royals are reportedly considering includes Affeldt/MacDougal with Berroa going to Atlanta for either Kelly Johnson or Ryan Langerhans. I'd love to see Berroa shipped off and if he were to go with MacDougal, I wouldn't complain.

Starting Pitchers are a Premium

The situation in Dallas has become so dire that we are now looking to take on salary via trades rather than attempting to overpay for the remaining free agent starters. According to an article in the KC Star this morning, Kris Benson is one such player we are trying to obtain from the Mets. He has two years remaining on his contract and we would be on the hook for $15 million.

We seem to be in a hurry to deal Mike MacDougal and Jeremy Affeldt—not necessarily in a package deal—to improve our rotation. Benson would certainly help. He's 57-61 with a 4.25 ERA in his six season career. But does anybody else scratch their head and wonder how a pitcher with a below .500 record can be paid more than $7 million per season? Has major league pitching become so bad that even guys with mediocre numbers are consider a great addition to a rotation? The obvious answer is—yes.

Baird has all but ruled out Kevin Millwood, Jarrod Washburn, Jeff Weaver, and Matt Morris because they want four-year contracts and he doesn't want to sign pitchers for that long. It's hard to argue with him. We do have some extra money to spend finally, but tying a large chunk of it up with a one player over the long term doesn't make sense right now.

Can you believe that Kenny Rogers (41 years old) is looking for a three-year contract? The guy knows how to win (and get into trouble), but he's old and the idea that he's going to keep putting up such good number into his mid-40's just isn't realistic enough to take a chance.

Most of the rest of the free agent starters don't thrill me all that much. They include: Scott Elarton, Joe Mays, Brett Tomko, Shawn Estes, Ramon Ortiz, Jason Johnson, Brian Moehler, Byung-Hyun Kim, and Tony Armas Jr. Why not just put Affeldt back into the rotation and see what he can do? He appeared to turn things around during the final weeks of the season. His blister problem hasn't reoccurred since having his fingernail partially removed. And he's always seemed more comfortable as a starter.

I'm not opposed to taking on salary via trades, and at this point, it looks like our best opportunity is with Benson. Let's just hope that he's the only we commit that amount of money to.

Byrd Shuns Royals

I like Paul Byrd. I think we offered him too much money (reportedly $22 million for three years), but that's the way the market is going right now. I was a little surprised to see him sign with Cleveland for two years for $14.25 million. But his reasoning was quite clear, "I want to win," Byrd reportedly said. "And that was more important than the larger contract in Kansas City."

Kansas City, we have a problem. If we can't overpay for Paul Byrd—a good pitcher who is injury prone—then who can we overpay for? (Forget paying market value.) After losing in excess of 200 games the past two seasons, we've obviously become known as an organization that has no interest in winning. As much as we've been trying to portray an imagine of an organization that's in the midst of rebuilding via a youth movement, players like Paul Byrd don't seem to believe it.

Matthews: Frick Award Finalist

Congrats to Denny Matthews for being a finalist in the Ford C. Frick Award that is presented annually to a broadcaster for "major contributions" to the game. He's been with the Royals since our inception and he's called more than 6,000 Royals games. Denny Matthews is Royals baseball. I listen to him even during blowouts because he's full of great insight about the game, great stories from the past, and just hearing his voice makes me feel connected to the team.

We won't know if he has won the award until the 2006 Hall of Fame Weekend in Cooperstown in July, but as a person who voted to nominate him for the finals, I'm pulling for him.

All is Quiet

So far, this off-season has been remarkably quiet on the Royals front. It sounds like the front office panicked as they saw the market for pitchers skyrocketing, so they signed two guys to minor league contracts:

Seth Etherton (age 29) who was 7-7 with a 2.72 ERA with Sacramento last season. And Adam Bernero (age 29) who was 4-3 with a 6.51 ERA while pitching out of Atlanta's bullpen last season. He also started in Richmond and was 5-5 with a 3.40 ERA.

Baird said that both will be invited to camp and both will come in as starters. Our rotation could certainly use a boost, but I'm hoping we do better than this. Paul Byrd would be a nice addition, but he's going to come with a hefty price.

In other news, it sounds like the Royals are considering a position change for Alex Gordon—possibly to first base or to the outfield. I'm still a little irritated over Gordon's contract demands, so he's going to have to produce at a pretty high level before I get too excited about him. And he's going to need to lose the attitude he brought with him to the negotiation process.

Today is the last day to nominate Denny Matthews for the Ford C. Frick Award that is presented annually to a broadcaster for "major contributions" to the game. If Denny doesn't deserve to be nominated, then nobody does. Click here to do so.

Phase II Begins

So the nightmare season concludes with a 56-106 record and just like with our last visit to Toronto, we come back with fewer coaches. Bell axed Bob Schaefer and Guy Hansen also got the boot. Both guys are going to be reassigned within the organization while Baird and Bell look for replacements. Bell wants to bring in his own guy as his bench coach, and who can blame him? And Hansen, while not even getting a full season to turn around a rotation that was awful, was probably the wrong guy for the job. So, we'll have a couple of new coaches going into spring training—one in which Bell and Baird are sure to feel a lot of pressure to produce results on the field.

After resigning Matt Stairs a couple of weeks ago, the Royals made another move yesterday with next year in mind. Terrence Long was informed by Baird that he will be released. It's understandable. He made $4.875 million this season—hardly worth the .279, 6 HR, and 53 RBI he produced while playing solidly in the outfield. Sounds like the Royals might be willing to negotiate with him for a much lesser salary after Long becomes a free agent. I wouldn't mind seeing him back next season.

Now where headed for "Phase II" of Baird's plan and I'm looking forward to actually signing a few guys to fill in our obvious gaps—starting with the rotation. I'd love to see Jeff Suppan back in Royal blue. Paul Byrd would be a nice addition as well, but he's so injury prone that I don't know if he's worth the risk.

Stay tuned to Royal Reflections as the off season progresses. I'll cover the new signings and take some time to reflect about the performances this season of the guys we plan to keep for next season.

Gordon Finally Signs

After four months of negotiations, Alex Gordon is finally a Royal. He signed a contract this morning and is expected to be on a flight for Arizona this afternoon to play on the Royals' Instructional League team in Surprise.

The Instructional League finishes their season on October 15, so Gordon isn't going to get many cuts there. Ideally, he'll play in the Arizona Fall League which begins play next week, but it sounds like MLB can't guarantee him a spot because he waited so long to sign.

I hope Gordon got what he wanted and I hope it turns out to be worth the wait for him. Given his original petty, and ridiculous demand to be placed on the 40-man roster, he's already irritated me. So, he's got a little work to do before he converts me. Not necessarily on the field—although someone who waits this long to sign better perform at a level worthy of the wait—but instead in his work ethic, in his demeanor, in and his desire to fit in with the team.

My tolerance for prima donna, Juan Gonzales-type of players is at an all time low. Let's hope that Gordon isn't one of them.

Number 104

Well, it finally happened. But let's be honest, during the 19 game losing streak, who among us didn't believe that the 104 game franchise loss record was going to fall? And who thought it would fall much sooner than September 29? I sure did. Well, actually it hasn't fallen yet. The 6-3 loss last night in Minnesota tied the record. We have four games left. Think we can win all four? Yeah, me neither, but I'm still hoping.

I was rooting for Jose Lima last night. He looks like he doesn't have anything left in the tank, but he always believes he can go an extra mile on the fumes. He started his 32nd and final game of the season last night and before he left the game, he'd lowered his ERA to 6.99. According to Bob Dutton, it's still the highest ERA "in major-league history for any pitcher who made at least 30 starts."

I don't know how anybody could justify resigning Lima and then giving him the ball 30+ times again next season given his numbers this season, but he brings something to the club that this team needs in the worst way. He's fully engaged in every pitch of every inning of every game—even when he isn't pitching. He's constantly got his arm around a young pitcher or fellow teammate to offer encouragement, or advice, or whatever it is that Lima offers. He's animated—both in the clubhouse and on the field. He cares. And sadly, that's almost a lost art in professional athletics today.

Emil Brown picked up two more hits and an RBI last night, bringing his numbers to .290, 16 HR, 85 RBI. The KC Star is running a story today that makes a pretty strong case for resigning Brown next season in place of the other free agent outfielders who are available. It does appear however that Baird is going to go a different direction and if we have a chance to acquire someone who can put up bigger numbers, I'd be happy, but looking at the list of available free agents, I just don't see it.

The Royals play their final game this season in Minnesota tonight before opening their final series in Toronto tomorrow night. Mike Wood (5-8, 4.14) goes against Joe Mays (6-10, 5.54).

Indians Continue Winning Ways

For the second time in two nights, Mark Teahen hit a game-tying home run and for the second time in two nights, it wasn't enough. Granted, we are playing the hottest team in baseball right now, while we are the worst. But you still hate to see them commit two defensive mistakes in the last inning like they did last night to lose the game.

Unfortunately, the old adage is true: Good teams find a way to win. Bad teams make up ways to lose. And even more unfortunately, we still have two games against the Indians this weekend. I'll be surprised if they don't pull off the four game sweep.

A couple of things to note:

1. Jose Lima now has a 7.11 ERA after 31 starts. Did you ever think you'd see such a thing? Of course, he fits right in with a rotation that has posted some of the worst, if not the worst, numbers in major league history.

• Greinke is 5-16 with a 5.81 ERA
• Hernandez is 8-12 with a 5.40 ERA
• Carrasco is 5-8 with a 4.84 ERA
• Howell is 2-5 with a 7.34 ERA
• Gobble is 1-1 with a 5.82 ERA
• Wood is 5-7 with a 3.94 ERA

2. Mark Teahen is actually turning on the ball in recent weeks and he's doing so with authority. He hit a monster shot to right field on Thursday night and he's starting to find the gap in right center. It's nice to see one of our young players actually improving rather than crashing and burning and heading back to Wichita.

We have one week left of the regular season and the Royals are bearing down quickly on their worst season in franchise history. Hopefully an attempt to avoid such a thing will provide a little motivation.

How Sweep it is

A four game sweep of the Tigers. The first four game sweep for the Royals since 1999. I'll take it. Even if it is at the tail end of the worst season in our history.

I was in Kansas City yesterday, so I caught the game. Mediocre pitching performances by both Gobble and Johnson kept the game close, but the Royals were down one run going into the bottom of the ninth. After recently breaking the 100+ game losing streak when trailing after eight innings, the Royals pulled off another come from behind victory when Denny Hocking sent a ground ball up the middle, scoring two runs making the final score: Royals 4, Detroit 3.

One particular thing to note about this game is the continued need for veterans on this club. When the Royals were down by one run in the bottom of the ninth inning with bases loaded, John Buck came to the plate and took some of the biggest rips I've ever seen against Fernando Rodney. One such rip came on a pitch that was 100 mph—literally. We didn't need a home run. We really didn't even need a hit. Just a simple medium depth fly ball would have sufficed. The game would have been tied and we still could have won the game with a two out hit. A veteran would have known to cut down on his swing. Although you'd think a second year guy would know that as well. But Buck struck out and up came Denny Hocking for the light hitting Andres Blanco.

Hocking was down in the count early, 0-2. He didn't panic though and worked it back to 2-2. No huge rips from Hocking. Not even an off balance swing against a guy who can throw the ball by anybody in the league and then follow it up with a biting slider. Instead, Hocking hit a ball up the middle and it found its way into centerfield, scoring two runners and winning the game. I snapped a photo of Hocking being interviewed after the game:


I'm guessing that one of the last things a manager wants to experience late in a close game list this is to look down his bench to see who is available for pinch-hitting duties and realize that his best option is a career .255 hitter without any power. But at least Hocking isn't a career .255 hitter without much experience in similar situations—like most of the rest of the guys on the roster.

Hopefully, Baird will remember situations like this when building the roster for next season.