ping: Royals fans

[dawgfan]

Still excited about Gil Meche?

I don't wish the guy ill, but I still think KC spent too much for too long for him.

[Arles]

Any contract for a pitcher that goes more than 3 years is too long - independent of the pitcher. It gets even worse when guys are in their late 20s, early 30s when they sign.

[kcchief19]

I think the general consensus here among people who follow the team is that Meche is hurt and won't say anything. He still has good movement and can have some stretches but he is consistently about 5 mph off on his fastball. He's generally topping out in the high 80s and while Meche's off-speed and breaking stuff is good, he still needs a fastball to keep people honest. Meche claims he isn't hurt but when team officials are interviewed they look skeptical. If the Royals had another starter they though they could plug in there, I think they'd put him on the DL and check out his arm.

That said, I'm still very excited about Meche. He's exactly what this team needed.

Who should we have spent the money on? We gave Meche $55m for 5. Should we have given $42m for Jeff Suppan instead? I'll take Meche in a heartbeat. We didn't have $100m+ to spend on Dice-K. And compared to $126m for Barry Zito, Meche is underpaid. Seattle gave Batista $25m for three that same offseason, but as a Royals fan I would have burned down the ballpark if they gave that much money to a guy who was at least 35 years old at the time.

That was the free agent class that offseason. Toronto was pissed because they offered Meche similar money but he didn't want to play in Toronto. The reality of baseball is that players on Meche's level -- which I think is a No. 2 or No. 3 starter -- will hit paydirt if they reach the open market. Signing Meche was key to signing Guillen, and if we didn't sign Meche last year no way does Tori Hunter even listen to our offer this past offseason.

Long story short, I like Gil Meche. He's exactly the kind of guy that Greinke, Bannister and Hochevar need to learn from. But I understand why you're bitter.

[Calis]

I'm not disappointed with the Meche deal. Sure they overpaid, but you have to..I think it was a case of KC wanting to prove they'll go after some guys, and they chose him.

Overall I'd agree with kcfhief on it, I think he's good for the team.

I don't think any Royals fans are concerned with pitching right now, we have a lot more pressing concerns.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by kcchief19

Long story short, I like Gil Meche. He's exactly the kind of guy that Greinke, Bannister and Hochevar need to learn from. But I understand why you're bitter.

Bitter? Not in the least. Spending $55M/5 years on Meche is (IMO) dumb. I would much rather see the M's spend that kind of money locking up Felix's arbitration and first few free agency years, as it would be a much better investment of that money, and I'm glad the M's didn't spend it on Meche.

Meche could well be hiding an injury, and that right there is another reason to be skeptical of the long contract he was given - the fragility of pitchers. But the evidence doesn't seem to support a dramatic difference in velocity - the pitch f/x data collected on Josh Kalk's site (http://baseball.bornbybits.com) shows only a slight dip in Meche's velocity (91.82 MPH fastball average in '08 compared to 92.91 MPH fastball average in '07).

Your point seems to be that the Royals had money to spend and needed pitching, so why not Meche? Well, because the ideal way to build a team is have a lot of talented youngsters at minimum pay, a few well-selected stars and superstars making the big money, and the rest be under rated, low-paid filler.

I would argue that Meche doesn't fit the star/superstar category. He's a #3 starter on a good staff, and he's already at best the #2 guy on the Royals staff to Greinke.

But hey, it's the Royals' money - if they really think it was necessary to sign a guy like Meche to "prove" something to other free agents and to their fans, then so be it. I just think they'll look back on that deal when it's done and say "we could've spent that money more wisely".

[dervack]

Not that he's a Cy Young candidate or anything, but Ted Lily was in the FA class too.

[MrBug708]

Well, the money for Beltre certainly was worth it, no?

[kcchief19]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

Your point seems to be that the Royals had money to spend and needed pitching, so why not Meche? Well, because the ideal way to build a team is have a lot of talented youngsters at minimum pay, a few well-selected stars and superstars making the big money, and the rest be under rated, low-paid filler.

Exactly. I think Meche is a well-selected star. He was our ace last year and for a champion team, I agree he's a No. 2 or No. 3 star. In fact, I said it first.

But to develop a young pitching staff you must have is at least one stopper, a guy you can rely on for 200-plus innings who can save the bullpen when needed, stop losing streaks and show the young guys how to win. We've had plenty of talented young arms come up in KC in the last 5-10 years that flamed out because they never had any protection. When Hudson, Mulder and Zito were coming up in Oakland, they had Kevin Appier and Kenny Rogers. Minnesota had Brad Radke and Rick Reed. Atlanta went and got Greg Maddux to help develop Smoltz and Glavine. You have to have a horse, and if you don't have one you have to go buy one.

Given the options, I think the Royals did the right thing and I think the market bears that out because if Meche didn't sign with us for that much, he would have signed elsewhere for that much.

Originally Posted by dawgfan

But hey, it's the Royals' money - if they really think it was necessary to sign a guy like Meche to "prove" something to other free agents and to their fans, then so be it. I just think they'll look back on that deal when it's done and say "we could've spent that money more wisely".

If Gil Meche never throws another pitch for Kansas City, it was still the right thing to do. Putting $55 million in a starting pitcher isn't a bad way to spend money. If Gil Meche were a Yankee or Red Sox, he wouldn't have hit free agency because they would have locked him up at $15 million per. Putting $55 million into Mike Sweeney was what this team regretted. You can't put $11 million a year into an injury-prone DH. But pitching is the currency of baseball. I'd rather put $11 million into a guy like Meche that put $11 million combined into Chris Redman, Scott Elarton and Joe Mays -- which we've done before.

If we put Greinke, Bannister and Hochevar out there with no established veteran starting pitcher around, these guys would all go the way of Chris George, Kyle Snyder, Jeremy Affeldt, Runelvys Hernandez, Jimmy Gobble,
Mike MacDougal, Blake Stein, Chad Durbin, Dan Reichert, etc. etc. Letting young arms get their brains beaten in does not develop pitching.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by kcchief19

But to develop a young pitching staff you must have is at least one stopper, a guy you can rely on for 200-plus innings who can save the bullpen when needed, stop losing streaks and show the young guys how to win. We've had plenty of talented young arms come up in KC in the last 5-10 years that flamed out because they never had any protection. When Hudson, Mulder and Zito were coming up in Oakland, they had Kevin Appier and Kenny Rogers. Minnesota had Brad Radke and Rick Reed. Atlanta went and got Greg Maddux to help develop Smoltz and Glavine. You have to have a horse, and if you don't have one you have to go buy one.

Sorry, not buying this argument. Atlanta and Smoltz and Glavine? Go back and check the records - both of those guys had multiple strong seasons before Maddux was acquired. If Maddux had never pitched for Atlanta, Smoltz and Glavine would still have been outstanding pitchers. Oakland and Appier and Rogers? When Hudson came up, he did quite a bit better than either Appier or Rogers in every way.

I'm not saying that a vet pitcher can't impart some wisdom on younger pitchers, but I think you're putting waaaaay too much stock in this idea.

Given the options, I think the Royals did the right thing and I think the market bears that out because if Meche didn't sign with us for that much, he would have signed elsewhere for that much.

You sure about that? Was there another team offering that kind of money?

If Gil Meche never throws another pitch for Kansas City, it was still the right thing to do. Putting $55 million in a starting pitcher isn't a bad way to spend money. If Gil Meche were a Yankee or Red Sox, he wouldn't have hit free agency because they would have locked him up at $15 million per.

No, they wouldn't have. If they thought he was worth that, they would have offered it to him when he was a free agent - whether or not he'd come up with those teams wouldn't have changed their offers in a significant way.

Putting $55 million into Mike Sweeney was what this team regretted. You can't put $11 million a year into an injury-prone DH. But pitching is the currency of baseball. I'd rather put $11 million into a guy like Meche that put $11 million combined into Chris Redman, Scott Elarton and Joe Mays -- which we've done before.

I won't argue with criticizing the Sweeney contract. As for the other part of the argument, there were more cost-effective options out there than Meche, and it's more the length of the deal than the salary per year that is the potential problem.

If we put Greinke, Bannister and Hochevar out there with no established veteran starting pitcher around, these guys would all go the way of Chris George, Kyle Snyder, Jeremy Affeldt, Runelvys Hernandez, Jimmy Gobble, Mike MacDougal, Blake Stein, Chad Durbin, Dan Reichert, etc. etc. Letting young arms get their brains beaten in does not develop pitching.

Not buying it. Whether or not Meche is on the staff or not has little bearing on whether a younger pitcher is going to get his brains beaten in. If you're talking bullpen guys, maybe they get taxed more if the starters aren't able to absorb as many innings. But starters like Greinke and Bannister? They're going to do what they can based on their talent and their work ethic. Maybe Meche can help impart some wisdom or lead by example. But that's also something they can get from their catchers, their pitching coach and the pitching instructors they've worked with in the Royals system, and any other pitching gurus they may have picked up along their careers.

Maybe Meche really was the best the Royals could get with that money. Maybe they have enough payroll to have spent that $55M on Meche and not have it affect whether they can afford to lock up younger guys like Greinke and Gordon and maybe Butler. If they can, then good for them - the Meche signing won't hurt as much from a financial standpoint. Maybe that contract won't prevent them from being able to bid for better free agents in the next few years.

Color me skeptical.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

Well, the money for Beltre certainly was worth it, no?

Actually, yes. Not that I defend much of what Bill Bavasi has done as GM of the M's, but the Beltre deal wasn't one of his bad ones.

[RainMaker]

Steve Stone summed up long term contracts the best. He basically said you get 80% of what you pay for. If you sign a guy for 5 years, you'll get 4.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Arles

Any contract for a pitcher that goes more than 3 years is too long - independent of the pitcher. It gets even worse when guys are in their late 20s, early 30s when they sign.

Going to have a hard time keeping any team together like that. The good, much less great ones, don't sign for 3 these days. However, if you think you can keep magically developing arms, go for it.

SI

[sterlingice]

I'd just like to say I echo most of what kcchief19 said in the thread. Happy to have Meche and I really wish Trey stopped running him out there for 110+ every outing (129, 110, 98, 109, 119 in his last 5). Any wonder his arm is fatigued...

SI

[dawgfan]

So Meche is going to enter the final year of his deal next season. It's not clear if he's 100% healthy either - whenever you hear about shoulder bursitis in a guy that's already had a torn labrum in his career, you have to skittish about what's going on inside his shoulder.

While he was well ahead of pace in terms of his value vs. his salary in his first couple of years with the Royals, it now looks questionable whether he'll reach $55M in total value.

As I had noted previously, it wasn't so much the annual salary I thought was foolish, it was the length of the deal. A 5-year contract to a pitcher who had a mediocre track record and a major shoulder injury in his past was a big risk.

I'll give him this - he was a lot better in his first couple of seasons with KC than I would have predicted, cutting his walk rate quite a bit and boosting his K rate. Still, it looks like the Royals will have ended up over-paying for him by the time the deal is done unless he manages to put together a good year next year.

[sterlingice]

His arm is done- still not sure why he doesn't want to have surgery. Might as well do it this offseason while he can rather than waiting.

Again, if Trey wasn't the manager, I think this would have been a lot different. Unfortunately, that was the case.

SI

[dawgfan]

Yep, pushing the pitch counts on a guy who'd previously had a torn labrum was not a smart move...

[kcchief19]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

His arm is done- still not sure why he doesn't want to have surgery. Might as well do it this offseason while he can rather than waiting.

Again, if Trey wasn't the manager, I think this would have been a lot different. Unfortunately, that was the case.

SI

Trey Hillman will never get another chance at touching a pitching staff and Gil Meche is the reason. He bounced back from the injury he had in '08 and was pitching better in '09 until Hillman left him for a few 130+ outings in a row. Completely ruined him. You have to go back to Billy Martin in 1980 to find a manager who personally ruined a pitcher like Hillman did to Meche.

[Ksyrup]

It wasn't so much the pitch counts, it was the fact that he complained of a dead arm (and had a bad back) and had been terrible in several starts before being left out there for one last start. Joe Poz has written numerous times about it - and in this July 27th blog post (when it looked like meche was going to have surgery), he re-runs what he originally wrote:

It’s unbecoming to just re-run an old blog post … but really I cannot add much to this. You may have heard (but probably not) that Kansas City Royals starter Gil Meche will have shoulder surgery and is out for the season.

Meche had been rumored to be involved in potentially the most tragic baseball trade in the history of the world, a trade that might have involved Ollie Perez, Jeff Francoeur, Jose Guillen and Kyle Farnsworth. You should have to get a special dispensation from the Pope before making a trade involving all those guys.

Now, obviously, that won’t happen. Meche is gone for the year and while approaching 32 with another year at $12 million left on his $55 million contract … well, there’s no telling where this will go. He has not been himself since the middle of last year. You usually cannot pinpoint disasters to one specific moment in time, but in this case you can pretty much pinpoint Meche’s moment to the time he threw 132 pitches in a shutout against Arizona. Right after that game, Meche’s arm began to feel dead. He insisted — INSISTED — that the 132 pitches had nothing to do with the deadness of his arm. But, he had two dreadful starts, then took a couple of extra days off to deal with it. Tendinitis? Muscle fatigue? He then returned to pitch against Minnesota in a game where everyone said he would be watched closely and kept on a conservative pitch count.

What followed was epic. Well, here’s the material stuff from the blog post I wrote on July 2nd, one day after that start. The post was called “Stupid Is …”

* * *

All of which takes us back to Wednesday. Gil Meche was pitching, and you may or may not know that Meche has been battling with a balky back and a dead arm this year. Even so, he has made 17 starts — he leads the American League in starts — because he has become what baseball people like to call a warrior.

Unfortunately, the warrior had been terrible his previous two outings — terrible, in fact, ever since (then Royals manager) Trey Hillman left him in to throw 132 pitches in a shutout against Arizona. I want to make clear here that this is NOT about pitch counts. Bill James and I wrote some about pitch counts already, and we both said that we are skeptical about the way teams use pitch counts now and we’re open to Nolan Ryan’s plan to extend pitchers. You could argue — pretty persuasively, I imagine — that having a pitcher who has been dealing with a stiff back throw 132 pitch might not be the wisest move ever. But hey, Meche is a grown-up, he insisted on staying in there, he finished the job, I would not second guess it.

BUT then that familiar pattern emerged one more time. Meche struggled badly his next start. And he struggled badly again his next time out. His velocity was down. He felt lousy on the mound. The Royals said he had a bit of “dead arm,” which I’m pretty sure is not a modern medical term. To be blunt, that sounds like something John McGraw would have said. You had to wonder if the Royals planned to treat the “dead arm” with leeches and by drowning a witch.

But OK, hey, dead arm, and Meche (who also downplayed things — guy’s a WARRIOR) said that maybe there was a little “built up tendinitis” and some “fatigue.” He decided to take a couple of days off — not even pick up a baseball. Sounded like a wise thing to do. At first, there was some doubt if he would even make his Wednesday start, and frankly I have NO IDEA why the Royals would even let him make his Wednesday start. Skip a start, make sure he’s OK, I mean it’s not like the Royals are in the heat of a pennant race here.

But OK, Meche said he felt good after his two days off. And as Hillman said: “He’ll know with his experience.” Meche said he wanted to go Wednesday … OK, let him go. “No reservations,” Trey Hillman said. Pitching coach Bob McClure, a sensible soul, was a bit more cautious.

“I would say we’ll probably monitor how many pitches we’re going to let him throw,” McClure said.

Well, sure. Of course. I mean, you wouldn’t let a guy with a dead arm and bad back throw a lot of pitches. That’s OBVIOUS, no? Meche went out and, good to see, his stuff looked pretty good. He was throwing in the low-to-mid 90s again. His curveball looked pretty sharp. He did walk five guys in five innings, and he did labor, and he did throw 99 pitches in those five innings which I think is probably a few more than you would want him to throw. But hey, he only allowed one earned run and the Royals were in the game and Meche seemed to be back on track … Mission accomplished.

Only then … Gil Meche walked out the mound to start the sixth inning.

I wanted to rub my eyes, you know, the way they do in the movies when they see a ghost or really beautiful woman. I looked back at my computer — yep, he’d thrown 99 pitches. I retraced my steps: Yes, Meche did say he had a dead arm, yes there was some stiff back issues, yes everyone said the Royals were going to be cautious, yes, check … and then I looked back on the screen and there was Meche, or at least some guy with Meche’s name on his jersey, on the mound. What? Gil Meche has two-and-a-half years left on his $55 million contract. Gil Meche was the Royals opening day starter. Gil Meche is absolutely one of the critical players if the Royals are EVER going to dig out of this hole …

It couldn’t be. Nobody would send Gil Meche out there. Nobody would do that. Nobody would do that. Nobody would do …

On the second pitch of the inning (101st pitch overall) Carlos Gomez cracked a vicious double down the left-field line. Well, in a way, that was good. Carlos Gomez does not hit many vicious doubles … surely now Hillman would come and take Meche out and end this preposterous …

No. Meche stayed out there. He struck out Nick Punto. He got Denard Span to fly out on the first pitch of an at-bat (yay Denard!). So Meche had 105 pitches and might get out of this without it being a total disaster.

No sir. Matt Tolbert then worked Meche for an eight-pitch at-bat which led to a walk. Meche was now up to 113 pitches with two of the best lefty hitters in the American League — Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau — coming up. Well, yes, that was a disaster, but at least now Meche would get taken out of the game and …

No. Meche stayed in to face Joe Mauer. It leads to one of the great questions of philosophy: At what point does idiotic become criminal? Jamie Quirk, who was color commentator on television, talked about how Meche wanted to stay out there. Well OF COURSE Meche wanted to stay out there, but that’s why you have a MANAGER, someone who MANAGES to walk out to the mound and say, “Great effort Gil, but you know, I had to be insane to let you pitch the sixth inning in the first place, I have to get you out of here now.”

But Meche stayed out there. He got ahead of Mauer 0-2, then threw a ball, then Mauer singled, scoring a run. Meche was up to 117 pitches now. Hillman finally went to the mound. We had driven past the lunacy exit about four miles back … we were now in lawsuit territory. Could there be any explanation — ANY explanation — for pitching your wounded Opening Day starter 117 pitches?

Wait for it.

No, wait for it.

Hillman walked back to the dugout and left Meche in the game to face Morneau.

I don’t know. Maybe at some point, when you’re SO FAR down the wrong road, you just go: “What the hell, might as well keep going and hope we run into something good.” Maybe it would have been more damaging to have Meche throw 117 pitches and then pull him before the inning was done. I don’t know. I really don’t know. We are in such la-la land here, there can be no logical questions … these are like “How would you wash a unicorn?” questions. I do know that Meche threw four more pitches and did get Morneau to fly out to right.

And the final tally: Gil Meche, who four days earlier was not sure he was going to start, who three days earlier was going to be watched closely, who one day earlier was talking about how he hoped he had his velocity back … threw 121 pitches. The explanation afterward seemed to be that Meche wanted to … and his stuff was good.

Or something.

* * *

Postscript: Since that day, Gil Meche is 2-6, 7.18 ERA, 51 walks, 49 strikeouts, 17 home runs and one season-ending shoulder surgery. Trey Hillman has been fired. And the Royals … well, there’s just not a whole lot to add, is there?

Joe Posnanski » Blog Archive » Meche-ing with Sasquatch

[sterlingice]

I love Poz. It makes watching the Royals much more bearable.

SI