Spinning around the Royals Universe...

Mike Moustakas is blowing up

Literally.  And not in a good way.  The gospel according to John Sickles:

On the negative side, Royals prospect Mike Moustakas doesn't look like the same player I saw in the Midwest League last year. His lower half is thicker, as if the size proportion  between his hips and his shoulders has been altered in a negative way. He's slower and less mobile in general compared to last year. He still has a solid-looking swing, but his plate discipline is weak and problems with lefties are evident. I had given him a Grade B+ a couple of weeks ago, but am strongly reconsidering that now and could lower it down to B or maybe even B-.. He's still very young, but I'm worried about him.

Joe Sheehan at Baseball Prospectus agrees:

Mike Moustakas has gained a ton of weight, and not in any good way.

I'm not an East Coast guy.  Are the buffets in Delaware that awesome?

OK, Moustakas is a young guy and young guys often fill out in their late teens and early twenties.  Except as Sickles points out (and Sheehan implies) this is some serious filling out that has affected his mobility.  The whole plate discipline thing bothers me as well.  This is not looking good.

So the scorecard on the last couple of drafts:  Hosmer needs Lasik and Moustakas needs Jenny Craig.  Awesome.

The Royals sign Wilson Betemit to a minor league deal.

On a normal team, this doesn't rate as news.  That's because a normal team would use Betemit properly - keeping him in the minor leagues until an emergency situation necessitated his placement on the 25 man roster.

However, this is the Royals.  Or as I'm beginning to think of them... The Kansas City Braves.  That's right... Guess where Betemit broke into pro ball.

Money quote from Dayton Moore:

"His Major League statistics are solid."

Uh, OK.  Betemit has hit .258/.324/.432 in almost 1,300 plate appearances.  That's not really solid, but whatever.  I like how GMDM was praising his career OBP.  Normally, a .324 OPB is nothing to write home about.  Again, this is the Royals, so I guess expectations are a little different.  Anyway, Betemit's not really good.  Let's call him league average.  Fangraphs agrees as Betemit has a career WAR of 1.7.

Again, this seems to be a lot of bandwidth for a minor player in the cog of the Royals machine.  I guess the problem I have with this deal is it wouldn't surprise me if Betemit started the year on the big league team and then accumulated 400 plate appearances.  Remember how last year I wrote that if Willie Bloomquist got more than 300 plate appearances (he got 468) the Royals would be in trouble?  I may be able to apply the same corollary to Betemit for 2010.

Lenny DiNardo named to Triple-A All-Star Team

A nice honor I suppose.  Perhaps that news salved the pain of being removed from the 40 man roster, which happened on the same day.  Both DiNardo and Yashuhiko Yabuta were taken off the roster, refused the assignment to the minors and elected to become free agents.

Yabuta... Did we give GMDM and Trey Hillman a free pass on this guy or what?  Six million dollars for 51 major league innings and an ERA of 7.14.  Just a collosal blunder on the part of the Royals dynamic duo.  Honestly, I have no clue why the Royals grabbed this guy... It was pretty obvious he never fooled major league hitters and he was on the downside of his career in Japan.

When the history of the Moore/Hillman regime is written, Yabuta should get star billing as the first chink in the armor.

Comments

Monster

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I saw Moose play in person at the AZ Fall League Rising Stars game. I watched him a few times during spring training. He is not overweight. He is not fat. Is he filling out? Yes. No, he no longer looks like a SS. Can he handle a corner infield spot? Yes.

He was the starting 3bman for the team, hitting third. He was 1 for 3. There was nothing wrong with his plate discipline. He has been playing well. Moose is going to be a stud. The one thing that stands out is that Moose was a switch hitter but was not listed as a switch hitter in the Rising Stars game. He was listed as a lefty and hit lefty against a left-handed pitcher. Something has changed.

Friday 13 November 2009, 05:08

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BrettFan1

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Moose has never been listed as a switch hitter and has played all of his games at every level for the Royals as a purely left handed hitter. His plate discipline is questionable because he doesn't discern between pitches within the zone, not because he swings at a lot of pitches out of the zone. He needs to learn to be more selective within the hitting zone, especially early in counts.

Friday 13 November 2009, 05:52

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BrettFan1

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I live in Northern Virginia and have had the chance to watch Moose play the local A ball team, the potomac nationals, several times in the past year. The first game I watched, he popped up in his first at-bat, didn't bother to run to first and was yanked out of the game by the manager. The second game he did much better and showed off his plus bat speed and solid power. His biggest problems offensively are that he can't hit lefties and he takes the "It's in the strike zone, I can hit it" approach early in counts rather than waiting for his pitch early in the count and then expanding when gets two strikes. This leads to him hitting a lot strikes early in counts that he can't do much with. If he makes that adjustment he will be great (think Sweeney with a lower avg, low walks, good contact and power), if he doesn't he will be exploited by major league pitchers pretty quickly (think Mark Quinn). Defensively, the Royals completely missed the boat on Moose by not moving him to catcher. His lower half is extremely thick and he looks to lose mobility quickly as he ages (think a Molina brother). As such, the Royals should probably not have drafted him in the first place as there were better options without the body type/position issues in that draft. Best case scenario is that he can hang on at 3B for a couple of years and then move to 1B/DH, but his bat will have to develop to the highest of its potential for that to work. All in all, I'm not overly optimistic.

Friday 13 November 2009, 05:50

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BrettFan1

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I will say this about Moose, he is a very nice guy. I took my kids to the games against Potomac and he was very gracious about signing autographs. He didn't even bat an eye at signing a collector ball, on the sweet spot, for my son. However, Hosmer was with Wilmington for the last game we went to and he had a bit of an attitude. He seemed to begrudge coming over to sign, even for my little kids, and he made a point of not signing my son's ball on the sweet spot.

Friday 13 November 2009, 06:01

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gbewing

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regarding Betemit - like you said it isn't much to concern - he's a utility guy but when the Royals sign anyone it makes you wonder. Why did we need him? Isn't Bloomquist and Aviles and 6 other guys the same player, (not litterally Bloomy is a speed defense guy and Betemit has more pop and less range) but what is the role?

Cynical me says it's chink in the Callaspo traded for a lottery ticket soon, Betemit is penciled in as the utility guy- yuck or yaaaaawn

Friday 13 November 2009, 16:58

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Mike Molto

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wow, first chink in the armor? racist much?

Saturday 14 November 2009, 05:01

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gbewing

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what?

Saturday 14 November 2009, 12:08

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Ted

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Yeah, it seemed harmless to me. I think Mike might be joking. Also, and I don't really know, but do people refer to the Japanese as "chinks"?

Saturday 14 November 2009, 13:43

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gbewing

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is Callaspo asian? no I think not
chink in armor is a well know term that has no racial overtones so where are we going with this

Sunday 15 November 2009, 14:30

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Ted

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Agreed that this is silly, but we should be accurate in our discussion. Callaspo is not the Royal mentioned as being the first chink in the armor, it was Yabuta: "When the history of the Moore/Hillman regime is written, Yabuta should get star billing as the first chink in the armor." Yabuta is asian. Japanese in fact, from Japan and everything.

Monday 16 November 2009, 02:57

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Craig Brown

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Yes. I have an obvious bias against King Arthur and his ilk. Get a grip.

Saturday 14 November 2009, 16:01

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Toby V

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The one thing that GMDM has been saying since his time here is the importance and resources that will be put into minor league developement. Stating that the only chance for the Royals to turn the franchise around, will be through the farm system. That being said, if any high prospect...and your first round pick - is developing habits or changing his body different than what the Royals as a franchise want for a player, then this would be another bad sign for the future of the Royals. I still question if the ability to be a selective hitter can be taught. I have watched the Royals struggle with this for many years now.

Sunday 15 November 2009, 04:29

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kcghost

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Could we get some good news somewhere on our high draft picks?? Gordon is a bust. Hochevar is in the same category. Moose isn't hitting and he's getting heavy. Hosmer absolutely bombed his first season. And Crow is getting lit up like an Xmas tree in the AFL.

Monday 16 November 2009, 04:06

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KCAstroFan

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Crow closes AFL stint with a gem
Royals' first-rounder allows one hit in four shutout innings

http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20091114&content_id=7667382&vkey=news_kc&fext=.jsp&c_id=kc" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20091114&content_id=7667382&vkey=news_kc&fext=.jsp&c_id=kc

Monday 16 November 2009, 07:01

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gbewing

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nice save KCAstrofan- we needed it

Monday 16 November 2009, 17:49

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