The Royals have signed Yuniesky Betancourt to a one year deal as a reserve infielder. It’s pretty confusing on the face of it, I had rather assumed we made the Brewers take him as part of our compensation for Greinke. I’ve never seen any convincing evidence that when he goes out to play shortstop he actually knows what the big leather thing on his left hand is or what to do with it. Theoretically his strength is his batting, but he only hit .253 in a year and a half with us. In comparison Alcides Escobar hit .254 last year and saved countless baserunners with his glovework. I know Alcides can’t, or at least shouldn’t, play every game, but I can’t imagine that there aren’t better reserves than Betancourt. Betancourt is an ordinary hitter and a very much sub-ordinary fieldsman. Hopefully he won’t get more than a handful of games in 2012.

Whilst I was distracted by Liverpool cruising past Chelsea and into the semi-final of the League Cup, the Royals signed free agent reliever Jonathan Broxton. It’s a positive move, whilst the bullpen was decent overall last year it wasn’t spectacular and it was also very young. Most of them were rookies, and Broxton will provide a good senior presence. Whether Broxton will be effective remains to be seen, of course. He represented the National League in the 2009 and 2010 All Star Games, but he missed most of last year with an elbow injury and was ineffective before that.

The Royals were very careful in the press release to specify that Soria would remain in the closer’s role. There have been suggestions before that Soria ought to move to the rotation, but they are ill-advised and rightfully ignored. Soria has been an exceptionally effective closer, but the fast that he has a range of pitches does not mean that he would do well in the rotation. A lot of the success of his pitches stems from the fact that he only goes an inning or two at most. Batsmen do not have time to adjust to him and he does not have to hold anything back for the later innings. Whilst it is true that the Royals need more starting pitching, Soria is still not the answer and I am very glad that the administrators recognise that. Hopefully we will hear no more on the matter. (I’m not optimistic.)

Broxton has postseason experience as a Dodger, but perhaps not the best. He has three saves, but the Dodgers were eliminated by the Phillies twice and Broxton had failures on both series. Our history of signing free agents means that I am bracing myself for Broxton to have a dreadful season, but I think that the move itself is a good one.

The Royals unveiled some minor changes to their kits for the 2012 season today. It’s nothing particularly radical. If one didn’t know that they had taken place one might not even notice. They’re good changes though, subtle but clearly an improvement.

The biggest change probably that the powder blue cap has been abandoned. I am quite glad of this, as I never liked them. The only other change that is readily noticeable with the naked eye is that the colour of the lettering on the powder blue jerseys has been changed to white. Otherwise there are very subtle changes of colour, font and some piping. I quite like them, they’ll look good on national TV next October.

Joe Maddon of the Rays and Kirk Gibson of the Diamondbacks won their respective Manager of the Year awards today. A while ago Neil DeGrasse Tyson suggested on Twitter that the awards should go to the managers with the most wins per dollar of payroll. Interestingly, this seems to be exactly what happened (though I’m not sure if the BBWAA knew this).

The Rays this year had the second lowest payroll in the American League, $41.9million. Their 91 wins mean thus gave them 2.17 wins/million dollars. The Royals were next best in the AL with 71 wins to show for our Major League lowest $36.1 million payroll. (A ratio of 1.97 wins/million.) The Rays and Royals were not only the best in the AL, but they were the best in the Majors. The next best, and best in the National League, were the Diamondbacks. Arizona had 94 wins with a $53.6 million payroll.

On the other side of the coin, the Yankees won 97 games in 2011, the most in the American league. They had far and away the highest payroll, however, $201.7 million. This makes for a Major League worst 0.48 wins/million. (One-fourth that of the Royals.) The next worst were the Red Sox, with only 0.56 wins/million. In the NL, the Cubs fared the worst with 71 wins for their $125.5 million, but the Phillies were next; their 102 wins cost $173 million.

The full lists (wins/million):
AL: Tampa Bay Rays (2.17), Kansas City Royals (1.97), Cleveland Indians (1.63), Toronto Blue Jays (1.30), Oakland A’s (1.11), Texas Rangers (1.04), Detroit Tigers (0.90), Baltimore Orioles (0.81), Seattle Mariners (0.78), Los Angeles Angels (0.62), Chicago White Sox (0.61), Minnesota Twins (0.56), Boston Red Sox (0.56), New York Yankees (0.48).

NL: Arizona Diamondbacks (1.75), Pittsburgh Pirates (1.57), San Diego Padres (1.55), Florida Marlins (1.27), Washington Nationals (1.26), Milwaukee Brewers (1.12), Cincinnati Reds (1.04), Atlanta Braves (1.02), St Louis Cardinals (0.85), Colorado Rockies (0.83), Houston Astros (0.79), Los Angeles Dodgers (0.79), San Francisco Giants (0.73), New York Mets (0.64), Philadelphia Phillies (0.59), Chicago Cubs (0.57).

Eric Hosmer came third in the AL Rookie of the Year voting. Jeremy Hellickson, of the Rays, won and Victor Trumbo came in second. Hellickson had a 2.95 ERA and 13 wins for the Rays, and it’s very difficult compare pitching and batting stats so it’s a fair choice. It’s amazing that Trumbo got more votes than Hoz though. Trumbo hit .254 for the Angels, 39 points behind Hoz and had only eleven more RBIs in over a month’s more games. Hoz also had more hits and runs scored than any other AL rookie.

On the bright side, Hoz got more votes than Ivan Nova, so the voters aren’t hopeless.

Some notes I made that weren’t worth full posts on their own:

– There is a poll on mlb.com for the best play of the year. I’m biased, of course, but I fail to see how any play of the nominees could be better than Jeff Francoeur reaching his whole arm over the wall. I’m confident that you’ll all vote the right way.

– The Phillies are continuing their quest from last offseason to buy every pitcher in the Major Leagues, having signed Jonathan Papelbon. They do appear to recognise, however, that some of the blame for last year’s failure must go to their hitting and have convinced Jim Thome to return.

– I was going to put something about the now Miami Marlins here, but none of it was actually very interesting.

– The next ten days will see all of the major awards announced. There has been a bit of controversy this year, with discussions of whether pitchers ought to be eligible to win the MVP and whether relievers ought to be eligible to win the Cy Young. (To which the answers are ‘yes’ and ‘yes’ respectively.) The big question, however, is whether Eric Hosmer will get the Rookie of the Year award that he deserves. He probably won’t, but we’ll find out on Monday.

As sick as I am of constantly reshuffling the outfield, it looks like it’s probably a good deal. The Royals got left handed pitchers Jonathan Sanchez and Ryan Verdugo from San Francisco in return and it’s little secret that we badly need pitching. Sanchez’s career numbers aren’t spectacular, an ERA of 4.26 in the National League, but he had a strong 2010 and averages better than a strikeout per inning pitched over his career. He struggled a bit more in 2011, and was hampered by an injury, but he looks like a good addition to the rotation. He also ensures that the Royals will have at least one left handed starter, even if Bruce Chen and Jeff Francis do not return to KC. I don’t know a lot about Verdugo, but he is seen as a relief prospect despite starting at the Giants AA affiliate this year. He will be in Omaha with the Royals.

Cabrera’s departure leaves a hole in centre field, presumably to be filled by Lorenzo Cain on an every day basis. Cain is the main result of the Greinke deal (I view Escobar as having come over for Betancourt in a like-for-like swap) and it will be very nice to see him get a regular chance to start in the major leagues next season. He had a good year with Omaha last year and his .273 as a September call up. It may also give Jarrod Dyson and Mitch Maier more time in the outfield as Cain will probably get more days off than Cabrera did. It’s obviously far too early to say what the team might look like in April, but I think this is a step in the right direction.