2009 Center Field Position Review

In 2009, here were the players who played CF for the Royals and how they fared when they played at CF.

Name	G	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS	H	R	HR	RBI	BB	SO
Mitch Maier	85	.259	.385	.273	.657	66	26	1	23	24	54
Coco Crisp	49	.228	.271	.309	.579	41	30	3	14	29	23
Josh Anderson	31	.235	.330	.337	.667	19	14	1	6	4	17
Willie Bloomquist	22	.211	.237	.289	.525	19	12	1	3	3	17
Ryan Freel	4	.273	.336	.378	.714	3	1	0	0	2	3
David Dejesus	3	.300	.500	.600	1.100	3	3	1	2	3	1

In the offseason, the Royals acquired Coco Crisp for Ramon Ramirez in what I think is one of hte worst moves and easily the worst trade of Dayton Moore's career. The Royals destroyed the strength of our bullpen for a rent-a-player in Coco who was old and injured. He played 49 games and was terrible offensively.

When Coco was out, the Royals turned to Mitch Mair. Personally I was happy to see the Royals give a young guy a chance to get some playing time. Where the Royals currently are, they need to evaluate some talent even if it costs you some wins.

Even though Maier got 85 games to play, he only really was the lone starter for about a month. After about a mont, Hillman got an itchy trigger finger and started plugging in Willie Bloomquist into the CF slot and relegating Maier to the bench. After that it was a rotating door of Maier, Freel, Bloomquist and Anderson.

Clearly the Royals felt they gave Maier enough time to prove himself, but a month as the starter and then jerking him around for a couple months is not a fair shake. I was suprised that Dejesus only played 3 games at CF. I know he played a lot in left, but I thought he saw a little more time in CF.

So, how did the Royals CF fare against the League?

Column1	Split	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	sOPS+
Tigers	as CF	.255	.335	.462	.797	112
Angels	as CF	.279	.354	.440	.794	112
Indians	as CF	.262	.343	.434	.778	108
Orioles	as CF	.275	.331	.444	.775	106
Rangers	as CF	.271	.323	.448	.771	105
Mariners	as CF	.279	.338	.418	.757	102
Red Sox	as CF	.295	.347	.405	.752	102
Yankees	as CF	.273	.338	.400	.739	98
Athletics	as CF	.280	.330	.380	.710	91
Twins	as CF	.270	.341	.364	.705	90
Blue Jays	as CF	.258	.312	.396	.709	89
Rays	as CF	.238	.310	.377	.687	84
Royals	as CF	.242	.319	.343	.662	78
White Sox	as CF	.231	.285	.321	.606	63

Bad. Very bad. Only better than the White Sox CF which consisted primarily of Podsednik and Anderson, both of whom the Royals signed in the offseason. This is clearly a position the Royals needed to address this offseason. As we are all aware, the Royals signed Rick Ankiel to be the CF for 2010. Forgetting that he makes more sense in RF than CF, I think it is pretty safe to assume that he can put up better numbers than the 2009 centerfielders did.

So a quick review. Dayton traded one of our best young bullpen arms to upgrade the CF position. In return their CF was 2nd to last in the league. In an attempt to remedy the situation, Dayton acquires the TWO players that were the primary players in the only worse CF in the American League. Then promises CF to a Right Fielder. Really.