2009 Right Field Position Review

Here is the list of players who played right field for the Royals and how they fared when they played that position.

Name	G	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS	H	R	HR	RBI	BB	SO
Jose Guillen	65	.259	.335	.382	.716	59	26	7	32	20	33
Mitch Maier	61	.295	.351	.386	.737	64	28	3	18	15	36
Willie Bloomquist	36	.265	.343	.396	.740	22	16	2	8	9	15
Ryan Freel	32	.229	.286	.281	.567	27	12	1	9	12	26
Josh Anderson	12	.219	.270	.250	.520	7	7	0	3	3	7
Mark Teahen	11	.250	.300	.305	.605	9	5	0	2	1	3
David Dejesus	2	.250	.250	.500	.750	1	0	0	0	0	1
Tug Hulett	2	.000	.000	.000	.000	0	0	0	0	0	2

The Royals went out before the 2008 season and got Jose Guillen to be the everyday Right Fielder for the team. No player on the team gets more flack from fans than he does and most of it deserved. But looking at the numbers he had an OK year in 2008, not great, not worth $11m but OK. 2009 though, was a different story. Guillen not only fell off the cliff but fell down the bottomless pit. He was one of the worst everyday players in the MLB once Tony Pena JR was demoted.

Whats worse is that his replacements were not much better. The Royals started using Mair and Bloomquist and then Freel in RF, and Bloomquist was the biggest offensive threat of them all. That is not a good sign. So how did this bunch perform against the rest of the league?

Column1	Split	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	sOPS+
Red Sox	as RF	.282	.378	.524	.903	127
Indians	as RF	.298	.386	.468	.855	117
Mariners	as RF	.345	.384	.463	.847	115
Yankees	as RF	.250	.359	.480	.839	112
Twins	as RF	.275	.345	.487	.831	109
White Sox	as RF	.263	.339	.472	.811	104
Rangers	as RF	.264	.333	.470	.803	102
Athletics	as RF	.284	.357	.434	.791	101
Orioles	as RF	.292	.347	.448	.795	101
Angels	as RF	.279	.364	.426	.790	101
Rays	as RF	.259	.341	.428	.769	95
Tigers	as RF	.279	.348	.417	.765	94
Blue Jays	as RF	.253	.323	.442	.765	93
Royals	as RF	.257	.326	.353	.678	74

Surpise! They were the worst and by a very large margin. The Royals right field SLG% was 89 points behind the 2nd worst right field in the AL. 89 points! I've been very critical of Dayton Moore recently, but he was absolutely right in deciding to upgrade two OF spots.

Recently Moore said that the 2010 outfield will be

Dejesus - RF
Ankiel - CF
Podsednik - LF

Its not a dream team by any stretch of the imagination, and it is NOT the best defensive OF in the divison as Dayton claims, but it IS an improvement and depending on how things shake out it could be a very big improvement.

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