Royals Face Options On Crisp, Olivo

If the Royals retain Olivo and Jacobs, someone should beat Dayton Moore in the face.

The Royals really need to move Butler to DH, give Ka'aihue the first base job, and add a catcher that can actually get on base.

Not to mention that they should release Guillen and Betancourt, and stop wasting playing time on bad baseball players.

For all of the nice things going on in Kansas City (Greinke, Soria, Butler, Callaspo, consecutive high-quality draft classes), Moore seems content to waste that all on veterans with mediocre track records and zero ability to get on base.

*they*

"Wow... didn't the give up Daniel Cortes to get Jacobs?"

No, he gave up Nunez to get Jacobs. He gave up Cortes to get Betancourt.

"Between Jacobs, Buck, and Olivo, the Royals had 1,096 plate appearances of sub-.300 OBP."

Yep.

The Royals gave 200+ plate appearances to Jacobs, Buck, Olivo, Bloomquist, Guillen and Betancourt, each of whom posted a sub-.315 OBP, and four of them were below the .300 mark.

And we're talking about a team that just extended the man who built this roster. Mindblowing.

"No, he gave up Nunez to get Jacobs. He gave up Cortes to get Betancourt."

Pretty mindblowing, right?

He gives up two talented power arms in order to land Jacobs and Betancourt, who will cost the team about $13.5M in salary before all is said and done, assuming that Jacobs is non-tendered and Betancourt's 2012 option is declined.

Question scribble: where are these catchers who get on base? The best fa catchers will be B. Molina, R. Hernandez, J. Kendall. None of those players are great and they will all cost more. And let's face reality who would choose KC in FA over another team unless vastly overpaid, sad but reality.

The Royals should pick up their half of Olivo's option and see if he declines his.

"where are these catchers who get on base?"

Well, you don't just shrug your shoulders and give the everyday job to a guy with a sub-.300 OBP.

How about Gregg Zaun (.345 OBP in 2009), Yorvit Torrealba (.351 OBP, although his BA is unsustainable) and Ramon Hernandez (.336 OBP)?

Maybe you could try to trade for Shoppach, Snyder or Towles?

You try to get creative, you don't just sit on your hands when your roster has a problem.

"Clearly, Dayton Moore has blown my mind on multiple occasions.."

Yeah, too bad. I like the Royals and I had high hopes for Moore when he came to KC, but I'm disappointed with what he's done.

"I've always liked Shoppach, but I want to see what Brayan Pena can do over a full season, even though his OBP was only .318."

Yeah, I was going to put Pena's name on the list, but I decided not to because he's already on the Royals.

Then again, he could very well end up as their best option at catcher.

He's mashed in AAA for two straight years, and he posted a pretty good line with KC in 2009 despite posting a good line drive rate and a relatively low BABIP.

I doubt that he can repeat a .170 ISO, but I'd take Pena over retaining Olivo or bringing in Barajas/Molina/Kendall. And obviously, I'd take any of the guys that I listed in the previous comment over the guys I just listed in this paragraph.

20 homers aren't worth nearly as much when they're coupled with a .290 OBP, even from a catcher.

Let me add one last thing, you have no gurantee that KC can trade for anyone let alone the C's you named. Even if they did, what talent they give up in the trade would more than offset any advantage they get in OBP from their then new starting C'er.

You really don't understand how bad most catchers are in the OBP department, do you? Only 14 catchers w/ 350 plate appearances had an OBP over .330, only 8 over .350.

Even over .300 WOULD BE BETTER! It shouldn't matter if he is a catcher, if you are posting a .290 OBP you don't deserve a starting job. Simple as that.

Not every team can have a C like Mauer, Vmart, Martin, or Posada. That's a simple fact, catching in the majors is very watered down...a select few good ones and a bunch of mediocre ones. KC has much more pressing needs than their C. Like someone else stated they don't even think Olivo would accept his portion of the option (I agree).

it's ok to have an offensive liability behind the plate. Joe mauer is the exception, not the standard

Posted by: bigmark14 | October 28, 2009 at 03:37 PM

Thankyou, someone I can actually agree with. Good conversation scribble, I'm out of here.

"Olivo is one of the worst players in baseball at getting on-base, and I just don't see how you can tolerate that unless you have little understanding of how valuable getting on base is."

Olivo to the Reds? We know how much Dusty Baker loves OBP.

it's ok to have an offensive liability behind the plate. Joe mauer is the exception, not the standard

Posted by: bigmark14 | October 28, 2009 at 03:37 PM

Agreed, however Olivo sucks behind the plate defensively as well. Have you seen how many balls get by him? I'm not sure there is a better option, but I'd rather run out Pena and that young guy we just got from Texas. I think his name is Pina. While not an offensive player, he catches a good game.

"For people who love to spout saber numbers you do realize fangraphs valued Olivo at 10 mill this season even with "an ungodly" OBP."

First off, FanGraphs assumes that Olivo is league-average at catcher, when most reports I've heard have him slightly-below average.

Secondly, I said that the only way that Olivo could get away with that kind of OBP is if he's hitting for monster power at an up-the-middle position.

In 2009, Olivo showed that kind of massive power, posted a .241 ISO, so while his OBP was seriously lacking, he still posted a .334 wOBA.

The problem is that Olivo's highly unlikely to maintain that power, his HR/FB ratio of 21.7% is out of line with his track record, and his 7.5% IFFB is absolutely unsustainable, that's a complete fluke.

If Olivo repeated his 2009 performance, then yeah, he's a decent enough catcher. But he's never hit that well before and he's far past his Age-27 season (generally the physical prime of hitters), so realistically you can't expect him to continue to be what he was in 2009.

I think that Olivo will try to get more on the open market anyways, because of his 23 home runs.

And yeah, he might be worth $3.3M, but why wouldn't they just pay Brayan Pena $400K to perform at a higher level?

And while the FanGraphs valuation system has numerous flaws on its own, it's especially flawed when judging catchers, because it assumes that all catchers play the same quality of defense, and it essentially just gives Olivo value for making it onto the playing field.

In 2007, when Olivo was a joke at the plate, posting a .262 OBP and a .284 wOBA, he was still valued at $3.2M by FanGraphs, merely because he was a league-average defender at catcher that played in 122 games.

I can't imagine after this entire argument that you believe that I don't yet understand that the offensive expectations for catchers is substantially lower than that of other positions. Obviously, catchers will hit less than first basemen, because defense is more important there.

But when it comes down to it, just because a player is a catcher doesn't mean that he can be a massive liability at the plate and still deserve hundreds of at bats, simply because he's a catcher, especially when you haven't onced discussed whether or not Olivo is a plus behind the plate, which nobody regards him as.

If you'd prefer to talk to a wall, be my guest, at least the wall would never argue back..