The Royals

[ksupamplemousse]

i think the best chance he has to get better at hitting mlb pitching is to face mlb pitching.  coupled with the fact that they don't have better options, i'd let him face right-handers for at least the rest of the season (or until the trade deadline, if they somehow find a better option they don't have to overpay for)

Basically every baseball player with a pulse is a better option than a guy hitting below .150 after six weeks. Danny Valencia who isn't exactly proficient against right handers is still hitting much better against righties than Moose is right now (small sample size, I know). I don't see any way that Valencia starting every day right now is not a better option than Moose (especially since Valencia has played serviceable defense so far this year).

[jtksu]

Probably Luked, but Shields reached 1500 Ks today.   Pretty cool.

[bones129]

i think the best chance he has to get better at hitting mlb pitching is to face mlb pitching.  coupled with the fact that they don't have better options, i'd let him face right-handers for at least the rest of the season (or until the trade deadline, if they somehow find a better option they don't have to overpay for)

Basically every baseball player with a pulse is a better option than a guy hitting below .150 after six weeks. Danny Valencia who isn't exactly proficient against right handers is still hitting much better against righties than Moose is right now (small sample size, I know). I don't see any way that Valencia starting every day right now is not a better option than Moose (especially since Valencia has played serviceable defense so far this year).

I pretty much agree. Moose not hitting is nothing new. He should be on a pretty short string. Danny may not be the answer for the long term, but he's doing OK right now.

[bones129]

Probably Luked, but Shields reached 1500 Ks today.   Pretty cool.

  I'd like to post 1500 "thumbs up." Bandwidth, tho.   

[ksupamplemousse]

i think the best chance he has to get better at hitting mlb pitching is to face mlb pitching.  coupled with the fact that they don't have better options, i'd let him face right-handers for at least the rest of the season (or until the trade deadline, if they somehow find a better option they don't have to overpay for)

Basically every baseball player with a pulse is a better option than a guy hitting below .150 after six weeks. Danny Valencia who isn't exactly proficient against right handers is still hitting much better against righties than Moose is right now (small sample size, I know). I don't see any way that Valencia starting every day right now is not a better option than Moose (especially since Valencia has played serviceable defense so far this year).

I pretty much agree. Moose not hitting is nothing new. He should be on a pretty short string. Danny may not be the answer for the long term, but he's doing OK right now.

Yeah, I don't think Valencia is the long term answer either. With him getting the majority of the starts and Gio getting some PT vs righties, I don't see any way that we wouldn't have better production than what we have right now.

[sys]

moose not being good is nothing new, but him hitting .150 is new.  he should be evaluated on being a .670 ops hitter over 4 seasons, not on the last 6 weeks.

he's about .600 against lefties, about .700 against righties.  valencia kills lefties, goes about .625 against righties.  i don't know why they weren't platooning from day 1, but i'm glad they are now.

if you want to get valencia more at bats, the fact that they haven't had another infielder on the roster for most of the season should get him to the plate regularly.  i dunno how they plan to rest esky, but playing him 162 games doesn't seem realistic.

[ksupamplemousse]

moose not being good is nothing new, but him hitting .150 is new.  he should be evaluated on being a .670 ops hitter over 4 seasons, not on the last 6 weeks.

he's about .600 against lefties, about .700 against righties.  valencia kills lefties, goes about .625 against righties.  i don't know why they weren't platooning from day 1, but i'm glad they are now.

if you want to get valencia more at bats, the fact that they haven't had another infielder on the roster for most of the season should get him to the plate regularly.  i dunno how they plan to rest esky, but playing him 162 games doesn't seem realistic.

This is the biggest problem in trying to figure out the best situation at third base. Every time I think about Bonifacio I just want to rough ridin' break stuff.

[Cire]

moose not being good is nothing new, but him hitting .150 is new.  he should be evaluated on being a .670 ops hitter over 4 seasons, not on the last 6 weeks.

he's about .600 against lefties, about .700 against righties.  valencia kills lefties, goes about .625 against righties.  i don't know why they weren't platooning from day 1, but i'm glad they are now.

if you want to get valencia more at bats, the fact that they haven't had another infielder on the roster for most of the season should get him to the plate regularly.  i dunno how they plan to rest esky, but playing him 162 games doesn't seem realistic.

[TownieCat]

moose not being good is nothing new, but him hitting .150 is new.  he should be evaluated on being a .670 ops hitter over 4 seasons, not on the last 6 weeks.

he's about .600 against lefties, about .700 against righties.  valencia kills lefties, goes about .625 against righties.  i don't know why they weren't platooning from day 1, but i'm glad they are now.

if you want to get valencia more at bats, the fact that they haven't had another infielder on the roster for most of the season should get him to the plate regularly.  i dunno how they plan to rest esky, but playing him 162 games doesn't seem realistic.

Changing the subject here a bit... But why is it so unrealistic to expect Esky to play all 162 games? He's been one of the most durable guys on the team since he came to KC.

[mocat]

i think the thinking is that shortstop is an injury-prone position with a lot of potential for ankle, etc injuries. the fact that Alcides has been very healthy is sort of like playing with house money. not that making him play 148 games or whatever out of 162 is going to make him less likely to get injured. idk. i'm more concerned with salvy's wear and tear

[PIPE]

I'd like to talk some more about how bad this team is at hitting HR's.  Watched a little last night later innings, Gordo has only 1 HR, Butler has only 1 HR?  Salvy they showed having 4 HR when he came up to bat.  Does Salvy lead the team?  OMG this team sucks so hard at the long ball.......

[SdK]

Totally getting some pepsi and cheetos and firstrowsportingsing the game today!   

[mocat]

sundance, strikeout.co works perfectly if firstrowsports doesn't have a stream

[joda]

I'd like to talk some more about how bad this team is at hitting HR's.  Watched a little last night later innings, Gordo has only 1 HR, Butler has only 1 HR?  Salvy they showed having 4 HR when he came up to bat.  Does Salvy lead the team?  OMG this team sucks so hard at the long ball.......

Salvy is tied for the team lead with Moose of all people. Next up is Esky and Infante with 2 each. That's right our top 4 home run hitters right now are Salvy, a guy hitting about .150 and our middle infielders.

[SdK]

sundance, strikeout.co works perfectly if firstrowsports doesn't have a stream

Will check it out. Thank you.

[mocat]

I'd like to talk some more about how bad this team is at hitting HR's.  Watched a little last night later innings, Gordo has only 1 HR, Butler has only 1 HR?  Salvy they showed having 4 HR when he came up to bat.  Does Salvy lead the team?  OMG this team sucks so hard at the long ball.......

Salvy is tied for the team lead with Moose of all people. Next up is Esky and Infante with 2 each. That's right our top 4 home run hitters right now are Salvy, a guy hitting about .150 and our middle infielders.

where did you guys find this information? are you serious?

[SdK]

I'd like to talk some more about how bad this team is at hitting HR's.  Watched a little last night later innings, Gordo has only 1 HR, Butler has only 1 HR?  Salvy they showed having 4 HR when he came up to bat.  Does Salvy lead the team?  OMG this team sucks so hard at the long ball.......

Salvy is tied for the team lead with Moose of all people. Next up is Esky and Infante with 2 each. That's right our top 4 home run hitters right now are Salvy, a guy hitting about .150 and our middle infielders.

where did you guys find this information? are you serious?

http://espn.go.com/mlb/team/stats/batting/_/name/kc/cat/homeRuns/kansas-city-royals

[The Tonya Harding of Twitter Users Creep]

ok guys ive been thinking about this moose thing. yeah, hes hitting .150 and he strikes out a lot, but hes also our best power hitter. what if, instead of just getting a hit one out of every seven ABs, what if he just hit the ball over the fence every like, eighth AB? surely he could do it. then we could keep him up in the big leagues cuz he would be yoking the ball, ya know?

something to talk to george brett or whoever the striking out coach is these days.

[mocat]

i mean i knew about all this stuff:

honest to goodness Moose talk, Tuesday, the afternoon of May the 13th:

The raw data right now:

109 at-bats, 16 hits, 4 HR, 14 RBI, 10 walks, 22 strikeouts

.147/.215/.321, OPS = .536, OWAR = -0.4

Those are horrendous numbers as we all know. What I want to do is look at where we would all be comfortable with his numbers.

Among all qualified 3rd basement in MLB (23 players), Moustakas is #23 in BA, #23 in OBP, #20 in SLG, #23 in OPS, and #21 in WAR.

What if Moustakas had, let's say, 10 more hits at this point in the season. His numbers would look nearly identical to Detroit's Nick Castellanos (26 for 110, .236/.263/.400, 4 HRs, 19 RBI, -0.1 WAR).  Those are pretty sad numbers also. How upset is Detroit with Castellanos? I don't know. They're in first place so nobody probably GAF. Would KC fans accept those numbers? Would we have a better record? (-0.4 WAR to -0.1 WAR is not much of a difference)

I guess my point is that Moose has obviously been unbelievably bad so far this season. And the Royals are still 18-19, right in the middle of a bunch of other .500 teams.

Do we have any reason to believe Moose will get better? Let's look at 2013, month by month:

Apr: .195/.276/.299, 1 HR, 5 RBI
May: .171/.229/.316, 3 HR, 7 RBI
June: .274/.307/.357, 1 HR, 3 RBI
July: .267/.337/.493, 4 HR, 9 RBI
Aug: .301/.338/.397, 1 HR, 10 RBI
Sept: .195/.239/.333, 2 HR, 8 RBI

So far his April and May are pretty comparable with last year. His best slugging month was July, coinciding with the Royals coming out of the All Star break on fire.

Questions:
1. how much does Moose sucking hurt the Royals right now?
2. if given the chance, would Moose improve in the middle of the season like he did last year?
3. if he had identical numbers for the rest of the season that he did last year, would that be acceptable?
4. does platooning Valencia and Giavotella get us to at least 12 HRs and 42 RBI (Moose's production last year)?
5. does Moose's defense factor into keeping him up here or not?
6. Moose's ceiling has obviously dropped considerably. what are the minimum numbers you would accept from him for a full season?

but i had no idea you could just look up HR information on espn! 

[k-state87]

Well Moose responded in his 1st at-bat with a bases clearing double to give the Royals a 3 run lead.

[bones129]

Nice

[mocat]

Moose! and for those of you who give a crap, the hit was off a fastball which is pretty amazing. i heard on the radio Moose was 3 for 51 in at-bats that ended on a fastball. meaning he had 3 fastball hits all season. 

[The Tonya Harding of Twitter Users Creep]

dont be an uppity stat bitch, mocat.

[k-state87]

Moose looked good going with the pitch & slapping the ball up the 3rd base line for a double. Moose is 2 for 2 today after all of the talk of sending him down to AAA. I hope he responds & starts to get hot.

[sys]