BP on the Royals (was re: Phillips)

[Steve Buffum]

The front office. The Royals decided to keep Costa over Chip Ambres, a minimum-wage, major-league ready outfielder, forcing Ambres to go through waivers. They did claim Rule 5 pick Steven Andrade off waivers from the Padres. In his minor league career, Andrade has a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 326 to 134, or nearly 2.5 to 1…no, wait a minute, I’m sorry, that’s his strikeout-to-hit ratio. Last year in Double-A, he had 71 strikeouts in 50 innings, with just 23 hits allowed. Naturally, the Royals then designated Andrade for assignment a few days later to keep non-entity Steve Stemle on the roster. In short, nothing has changed.

While making fun of the KC front office is all good sport, someone get Lastoria to tell me why we shouldn't trade for Steve Andrade.

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[consigliere]

Just saw this here.....as I replied in e-mail, what’s not to like about Andrade when looking at his hard numbers? He led AA Texas relievers in 2003 with a .147 BAA and 13.1 Ks per 9 innings.

But, those numbers are deceiving as he does not possess a power fastball (it tops out around 92 MPH). The guy is an octopus on the mound though, as he has stuff flying everywhere…..from his funky delivery and arm action, to his wicked head jerk…..it helps in deceiving batters. His arm swings back deep and he catapults himself to the plate ala Rob Nen.

But, don’t be fooled with the high K rates (13.20 per 9 innings) and low hit numbers (5.42 per 9 innings) in his career…I don’t think he funky delivery would have much affect on major league hitters.

Plus, the FUCKING Royals gave up on him. Says enough to me. And yes, the Royals aren't exactly the poster child when it comes to decision making, but two other organizations gave up on him in the Angels and Blue Jays.

And, the kicker to me is that to obtain Andrade you need to add him to the 40-man since he was DFAed. One of the reasons we are letting Phillips go is to make room on the 40-man, so this sort of nixes that idea. If we traded for Andrade, then we'd have to cut someone from the 40-man. I know you'd like to just cut Joe Dirt Graves, and I agree, but I don't think Shapiro's stiffy for Graves is letting up anytime soon.