By Seth Herrold
The Kansas City Royals have a history of bad moves. Let’s not forget they traded Jermaine Dye, the last Royal to start in an All-Star Game, for Neifi Perez, virtually straight up. They have made so many bad trades over the years and signed so many free agent busts that even when they make a move that is actually not a bad trade, like the deal that brought James Shields and Wade Davis in from Tampa Bay, fans ridicule it.
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The thing about the trade that sent Wil Meyers to Tampa Bay for those strong pitchers is that it was what the Royals needed, it was aggressive and it embraced a win-now mentality. The problem is, this is still Kansas City and, on the heels of a big move like that, the Royals had to follow it up with something stupid. And they did, last week.
The Royals, who have focused on the pitching rotation this off-season (something that drastically needed addressed), re-signed Luke Hochevar to a one-year deal and agreed to pay him $4.56 million this season. They then touted this as a win using terms like “avoided arbitration” and “continued to work on the rotation” to describe it. Here is what I saw. The Royals paid nearly $5 million to bring the worst pitcher in all of baseball back for another year.
Luke Hochevar is not a major league-quality pitcher. He simply isn’t. Last year he led the American League in earned runs, yielding 118. He was also second in the American League with 16 losses. Those numbers are terrible. On the season he finished 8-16 with a 5.73 ERA. Numbers like those don’t command nearly $5 million a season. Here is another stat for you – WAR. It stands for wins above replacement and is basically a number that tells you how many wins a player adds to a team above what a replacement player would add ( think AAA). This year Hochevar had a WAR of -1.7. According to Baseballreference.com, a WAR of 8+ is MVP quality, 5+ is all-star level, 2+ is a starter, 0-2 is a reserve and less than zero is “replacement level.” That means at -1.7 Hochevar cost the Royals games by having him in the big leagues over the next best minor leaguer. He needs to be replaced.
It would be different if last season was just a bad year for Hochevar. But his ERA since the beginning of 2008 is 5.38 and that is the worst mark from 2008 to present of any pitcher in all of baseball who threw at least 700 innings over that span, according to FanGraphs. His career WAR, meanwhile is in the negatives (-0.3) and this is after five seasons in the big leagues. His career ERA is 5.39. A guy with numbers like those is drawing almost $5 million for the 2013 season? Only in KC, folks.
The Royals took Hochevar first overall in the 2006 draft over Tim Lincecum, Evan Longoria, Clayton Kershaw, Ian Kennedy, Drew Stubbs, Brandon Marrow and Max Scherzer. In seven years, five in the majors, the Royals have yet to give up on Hochevar despite atrocious numbers. It was time to give up on him, send him down the road. But the Royals voted, instead, to give him a pay raise. Hochevar doesn’t belong in Kansas City with all the new arms in town. Right now you are looking at a $5 million minor leaguer.