Re-signing Mike Sweeney

While traveling for business last week, I missed this little item in the Kansas City Star: “Royals could re-sign Sweeney if Butler proves capable of playing first.”

The reasoning goes something like this: The Royals have very little power in their lineup. Signing a free agent with power will be expensive. Mike Sweeney has power and is already here.

I am curious about two specific aspects of this story. 1.) Does Mike Sweeney still have power? And 2.) How much should the Royals pay him for this?

I am leaving out the question of Billy Butler’s ability to man first base, because I think that he can certainly play it as well as Ken Harvey and... er... well, Mike Sweeney did.

Does Mike Sweeney still have power?
Joe Sheehan made a comment in a chat at Baseball Prospectus the other day that I found interesting: “[Y]ou should consider extra-base hits together as a group (or in a rate like XBH/H, XBH/AB, ISO) as opposed to isolating one category of hits. Guys can see doubles turn into homers one year and back the next for no real reason.”

Let’s see how the original $11 million Royal has done at hitting for power consistently over his career.

Year  AB   XBH  XBH  ISO
           /H   /AB  
1995    4   0%   0%  000
1996  165  30%   8%  133
1997  240  26%   6%  121
1998  282  36%   9%  149
1999  575  37%  12%  198
2000  618  29%  10%  190
2001  559  44%  13%  238
2002  471  35%  12%  223
2003  392  30%   9%  174
2004  411  38%  11%  217
2005  470  43%  13%  217
2006  217  41%  11%  180
2007  204  36%   9%  162
CAREER     36%  11%  194

Not bad. Sweeney has lost a bit of isolated power the last few years, but his extra base hit percentages are still in line with his career numbers.

Before his latest trip to the disabled list, Sweeney had 7 home runs in 204 at bats. That put him on pace for 15 round trippers if he could have managed to stay healthy enough for 450 at bats. Don’t look now, but that would put him one behind John Buck for the team lead.

I’ll go out on a limb and say that the power is still there for Mike. A healthy Mike Sweeney could put 25 dingers on the board in a season, and while that won’t get him into any Barry Bonds debates, it would certainly help a team as anemic as this current Royals squad has been with the long ball.

Of course, the phrase “a healthy Mike Sweeney” is akin to “I want a pony” for most Royals fans. But, the fact is Sweeney is playing rehab ball in the minors right now. He will be able to play baseball next season and somebody will sign him.

How much should the Royals pay him for this?
Using some quick and dirty math along with the Play Index over at Baseball Reference, I cobbled together the following list of players I felt were having comparable seasons to Sweeney.

Name    PA  OPS+ Age HR BA  OBP SLG  Salary 
Erstad  274  80  33  2  272 331 354  $  750,000 
Redmond 270  86  36  1  289 344 350  $  950,000 
Zaun    285  79  36  6  228 310 378  $3,500,000 
Blum    255  83  34  2  256 327 352  $  900,000 
Graffy  260  83  35  9  238 315 390  $3,250,000 
Piazza  247  93  38  5  276 316 405  $8,500,000 
Valent  192  88  31  2  290 339 409  $3,800,000 
Cora    200  84  31  2  254 309 395  $2,000,000 
Gomez   203  94  36  1  305 338 390  $  850,000 
Conine  253  85  41  6  268 325 411  $2,000,000 
Delluc  196  83  33  4  234 301 389  $3,750,000 
Pod’nik 170  84  31  2  257 323 382  $2,900,000 
Cirillo 193  86  37  2  254 326 373  $1,500,000 
Clark   176  82  35  11 230 278 453  $1,034,000 
Barajas 141  86  31  4  214 343 376  $2,500,000 
Valentin183  79  37  3  241 302 373  $3,800,000 
Mientk  141  80  33  4  226 292 379  $1,500,000 

AVERAGE 214  84  35  4  255 319 386  $2,557,882 

Sweeney 225  82  33  7  245 307 407  $11,000,000

It’s good to know the Royals aren’t the only team overpaying for below-average production and disabled list time.

Taking a quick average of Sweeney’s last three years, how does he stack up with your average older, oft-injured player?

        PA  OPS+ Age  HR BA  OBP SLG  Salary 
AVERAGE 214  84  35   4  255 319 386  $2,557,882 
3 Years 326 102 30-33 12 268 334 454  $?,???,???

And some of this year’s numbers just for fun...

Player  Age OPS+
Sweeney 33  82
Gload   31  99
Brown   32  65
Costa   25  77*

*Costa’s OPS+ is from last season, when he spent significant time at the big league level.

Gload and Costa are relatively cheap. Emil Brown is getting paid $3,450,000 for his contributions this year. The Oakland Athletics have paid Frank Thomas and Mike Piazza $500,000 and $8,500,000 respectively over the last two years to man the designated hitter post with varying levels of return.

It’s funny to say it, but if the Royals can get Mike Sweeney’s average production from the last three years for Emil Brown money, I say they make that deal.

If We Can Only Avoid Playing the Yankees

On Tuesday, May 8th, the Kansas City Royals lost to the Oakland Athletics by a score of 6-1. Jorge de la Rosa took the loss, giving up 10 hits in just over four innings of work, and the Royals season was already over with the team sporting a 10-23 record, on pace for 100 losses yet again.

The Royals managed to eek out a 3-2 victory the next day, but dropped the series finale in style, giving up 17 runs to the A’s while Luke Hudson, the team’s best pitcher in 2006, took a beating in his only outing of the year before heading back to the disabled list.

A few more losses to the White Sox followed, but that May 8th game signaled a turning point in the season. From that point forward, the Royals have put up a win for every loss. In their last 80 games the team stands on even ground at 40-40.

A .500 record won’t win you any medals in the American League, but for this Kansas City team, it shows real progress over an extended period of time. For half a season, the Kansas City Royals have been a respectable ball club.

Is it the Offense?
The Royals have scored 4.96 runs a game during this stretch, against a league-average of 4.90.

Joey Gathright has been getting on base at a .415 clip since his first call-up on June 6th. Here are the team leaders in this category:

Gathrgt 415
German  373
DeJesus 365
Teahen  360
Grudz   345
Butler  342
LEAGUE  341

The people who are supposed to be getting on base are, and the people who are supposed to be driving them in? Here are the team leaders in slugging:

Buck   494
Gload  467
Grudz  445
Butler 439
LEAGUE 422

John Buck has come crashing down after his hot start, putting up a 218/283/400 line in July, but Ross Gload has filled in the sink hole that was Ryan Shealy by posting a 320/330/490 line since coming off the disabled list in mid-July.

Young Billy Butler has been swinging a big stick since his return from the minors, going 309/365/.478 since his second call-up.

Is it the Pitching?
The team has been giving up 4.86 runs a game, against an American League average of 4.79.

Brian Bannister leads the starters with a 3.32 ERA, followed by Million Dollar Gil at 3.96. New pick up Kyle Davies looked like a world beater in shutting down the Twins on Thursday, but the good money says he’s probably somewhere between that outing and the gas can he was for the Yankees last Saturday.

The relief corps continues to be outstanding. A quick look at the ERA leaders:

Soria  2.22
Riske  2.34
Gobble 3.13
Peralta 3.72

Odalis Perez (5.87), Jorge de la Rosa (5.46) and the rotation of random fifth starters has been the biggest culprit in keeping this team from being a winner.

The deal for Davies is one of many in which general manager Dayton Moore has brought young arms into the Kansas City system. Every player on these leader lists will be with the team next season, and most of them are under obligation for much longer than that.

A strong finish to this season will speak volumes about how stable the foundation of this team is. The push for a title begins in earnest in ’08.