Monday, February 20, 2006

The 12-Man Mistake

Buddy Bell has made it clear that the Royals will carry a twelve-man pitching staff to start the year. As with most things about the Royals these days, I find this decision to be, well, stupid. I'd love to mince words here and give the management some credit for something, but I think we just need to start being blunt with these guys. They sure haven't paid attention to good old Midwestern manners in our complaints.

So, being blunt, a 12-man staff is a stupid idea. The club simply doesn't have enough arms with promise in the minor leagues to let all of the few they do have rot in the bullpen in Kansas City, getting all of 40 innings for the year. The only redeeming features of the guys they brought in to "stabilize" the rotation is that each is a passable major league veteran who can eat some innings. I mean, the team already has an essentially set rotation:

Scott Elarton
Mark Redman
Zack Greinke
Runelvys Hernandez
Joe Mays

These guys averaged just about 172 innings apiece last year, which means we can expect them to account for almost 60% of the available innings this season. It leaves just about 580-590 innings for the bullpen to pick up.Well, most of those innings are already accounted for as well. We already know that Mike MacDougal, Andy Sisco, Ambiorix Burgos, Elmer Dessens and Jeremy Affeldt will be in the bullpen this year, and we pretty much know what their roles will be. Last season, these guys threw nearly 325 innings between them, and that's with Dessens being hurt for a large part of the year. He could easily pick up another 30 innings all by himself as a long man and spot starter. Mike Wood fills a similar role, and threw 115 innings last season.

Add all of that up and it leaves only about 110 to 120 innings for the entire season to split between every other pitcher on the staff. That's not enough to justify a twelfth man, particularly when that roster spot can be used to keep an extra infielder or outfielder on the big league roster. I mean, what good is it going to do Aaron Gueil or Chip Ambres to play in Omaha this season? We already know what each of those guys can do in Triple A, they have nothing left to prove there. Keeping Gueil, in fact, would allow for some added defense and a lefty-righty platoon situation in left field with Emil Brown.

Meanwhile, a large group of pitchers can benefit from regular innings in Omaha. J.P. Howell, Denny Bautista, and Leo Nunez all skipped that level for the most part, and really need to develop their games in the minors. Waiver pickup Joel Peralta can use the regular work to keep sharp for the inevitable call-up due to injury or ineffectiveness to someone on the big league staff. Or, thinking outside the box, the Royals could put Peralta in Andy Sisco's bullpen spot to start the year, and put Sisco in Omaha to convert to a starter.

Unfortunately, it looks like that's not meant to be. Instead, someone from that group is going to be the seventh man in the bullpen, getting two innings per week in blowouts and losing valuable development time.

This looks like our first sign that it will be business as (un)usual out at Kauffman Stadium this year.

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