Maybe it's the Twins' Year; Definitely Not the Royals' Year

The Twins’ best player Joe Mauer hurts his heal and is “week to week” (meaning the Twins should probably just put him on the DL, get him healthy and open up a roster spot), but the Twins call up rookie Wilson Ramos who goes seven for his first nine with three doubles.

It won’t last, of course.  No one hits .778 for very long at any level of professional baseball.  In fact, I suspect that by the time Mauer is ready to come back, major league pitchers will have figured Ramos out and taught him that he still has a few things to learn before he’s ready to be an honest-to-goodness major leaguer.

This is Ramos’ first year above the AA level (he had a .795 OPS in just a little over 200 plate appearances at AA New Britain last year, which is only impressive based on the position he plays and his age).  Ramos was only hitting .179 (12 for 67) with a .543 OPS at AAA Rochester before the call up.

Most likely, major league pitchers don’t have any idea how to pitch Ramos yet, so they’re throwing him a lot of fastballs.  Ramos can obviously hit the fastball; that’s almost certainly one of the reasons why the scouts and other baseball people like him so much.

Clearly, the AAA pitchers were finding some holes in his swing, and you have to figure it’s just a matter of time before the major league pitchers find them too.  In the meantime, Wilson is giving the Twins a huge boost.  A couple of games don’t really mean much, but it has to give the Twins a shot in the arm to lose their best player for an indefinite period of time and have a young player (and a catcher no less) light up the scoreboard in his first couple of games.

Unless Ramos gets hurt too, there’s really no downside for the Twins.  Even if the major league pitchers do catch up to Ramos eventually, he’s still getting some very valuable experience that can’t possibly hurt his development.  You have to figure that Ramos now realizes he has the talent to be a major league player, if he didn’t know it already.

Meanwhile, the Royals demoted 3Bman Alex Gordon back to AAA Omaha.  Fangraphs.com, Joe Posnanski and Rob Neyer have already commented on the almost certain stupidity of this move (I’ve only linked to Neyer’s post since he quotes some the highlights of Posnanski’s piece.)  Since a lot has already been said, I’ll try to keep my own comments brief.

In theory, sending a promising young player who’s slumping down so he can get regular at-bats at the minor league level and get his stroke back makes a lot of sense.  In reality, though, it’s almost always a sign that the team has given up on the player.  If management still has confidence that the young guy is eventually going to be a good player, teams almost will find a way to keep the young guy in the majors, even if he’s playing off the bench until further notice.

Given that Gordon was the second player selected in the 2005 Draft, he’s been a disappointment at the major league level.  However, there’s really no doubt that the talent is there and the Royals still can’t find their collective asses with both hands.

The Royals apparently are set on playing Chris Getz at second and Alberto Callaspo at third for the immediate future.  The bashing of Callaspo I’ve seen, I don’t necessarily agree with.  He had a fine year last year, he’s off to a good start this year, and there’s no reason he shouldn’t be playing regularly somewhere for the Royals at least until he stops hitting.

I do not understand why exactly the Royals seem enamored with Chris Getz.  He looks for all the world like a great back-up middle infielder and nothing more.

If you believe fangraphs.com’s UZR ratings, the Royals look somewhat stronger defensively with Callaspo at third and Getz at second, compared to Gordon on third and Callaspo at second.  However, there’s just no way to reconcile the drop off in offense you’re going to get in the long term playing Getz over Gordon.

In 2010 so far, Gordon was hitting .194 with a .665 OPS and Getz is hitting .171 with a .415 OPS.  Both are pretty awful, but Gordon’s numbers are clearly better.

However, you really see the difference between the two when you compare their career minor league numbers.  Gordon has a career minor league on-base percentage of .432 and a career minor league OPS of 1.015.  Getz meanwhile has career minor league numbers of .362 and .741.  Again, Getz’s on-base percentage is good enough that you would reasonably expect him to be a useful major league player, but he’s clearly no Alex Gordon with the lumber.

In his first year in professional baseball, Gordon had a .427 OBP and 1.015 OPS at Witchita in the AA Texas.  Any player who comes straight out of college and hits like that at the AA level is the real deal.

Gordon probably should have spent the first two months of the 2007 season at AAA Omaha, but the Royals being the Royals (a bad team in need of talent), they promoted him straight to the major league team.  He had a rough season, but his final .725 OPS really wasn’t bad for a 23 year old rookie.  At age 24, he improved his OPS to .783.  His defense at third was just a little below average both seasons according to fangraphs.

In 2009, he was hurt, and after only 12 games in 2010, the Royals have decided that they don’t have a place for Gordon to play.  In another indication the Royals have no idea what they are doing, it’s been reported that the Royals plan to play Gordon in the outfield and at 1B at Omaha.  There just seems no doubt to me that Gordon has the most value as a 3Bman.

At some point, you have to figure the Royals are going to realize that Chris Getz isn’t going to hit enough to play every day at second.  At that point, they’ll probably be forced to move Callaspo back to second and find someone to play third.  That probably won’t be Gordon, if he’s been spending his time at Omaha playing the corner outfield positions and first base.

I’m sure you all saw the news article about the Pirates’ Garrett Jones missing this weekend’s games because he got an under-chewed piece of food stuck in his esophagus.  It wasn’t life-threatening or anything, so I don’t feel particularly bad about my feeling that somehow this injury is an appropriate one for Jones.

You see, Jones had a half season for the Pirates last year that was just too good to be believed based on his past minor league performances.  He was due for a stupid, freak injury if any player was.  Jones had a .939 OPS in his time with the Pirates last year, but except for a fine season at AA New Britain in 2004, he’d never come close to those numbers in any of his many seasons of professional baseball.

Jones is 29 this year, and he’s hitting .221 with .765 OPS.  These numbers reflect, I strongly suspect, Jones’ true level of ability at the major league level.

Although the Giants’ 14-10 start is still pretty good, with the team about to set off on another road trip, I find myself disappointed they aren’t 16-8.  Their starting pitching has certainly been good enough that the Giants should have a couple more wins now than they actually have.

The Giants have scored 38 more runs than they’ve allowed, second only in the NL to the Cardinals, current owners of the senior circuit’s best record.  Now the Gints go on a road trip, and they’ve played damn poorly on the road.

The Giants have shown no ability to win the close ones or manufacture that one or two runs they need to win the close ones.  They better learn to do that in a hurry if they want to make the post-season.