Kansas City Royals must quit the Moose excuse

Photo Credit: Keith Allison

The numbers are atrocious. The numbers are abysmal. The numbers are alarming. Most of all, the numbers are empirical. They do not lie. They are not mistakes. The numbers I’m speaking of are those that belong to Mike Moustakas. Though these numbers are far from complete, they represent the starting point on a chart which is projecting to only go down…way, way down.

Here are the numbers through the first eleven games of 2014 (Moustakas did not play on 04/06/2014):

40 at bats, 4 hits, 8 strike outs, 1 RBI and a batting average of .100. He has also committed 2 errors and ended a game by getting called out for interference.

Career (385 Games): .266 Batting Average, .293 On-Base %, .378 Slugging (All aided by a good first half of 2012)

Add all of these stats up and the Royals may have the most under-performing, over-hyped third baseman in Major League Baseball.

A player that is making $524,500 bucks to look completely and utterly lost. Should this trend continue the Royals will have to address several difficult questions. The major one being – how long can the Royals wait? Mike Moustakas is typically a slow starter, but how many games can they keep running him out there hoping he’s going to figure it out? Is Moose just pressing at this point? The Royals have Danny Valencia who is an excellent third baseman, but lacks the power at the plate Moustakas has. Was Valencia picked up by the Royals to keep Moustakas in check or because he has range as an infielder? Maybe a few games off would do Moose good because no one knows how this is affecting Moose, except Moose.

These players all claim they don’t look at numbers, but they do. Moose is very aware of his stats and knows his job is on the line, or at least, it should be. Another question that the Royals need to address is where to place blame? Should Ned Yost be held accountable for this dismal start (a lot of people think so)? What about Pedro Grifol, he’s the hitting coach after all? Is it the organizations itself that is failing Moose? And what role does Moustakas play in all of this? Maybe, just maybe, the blame should be placed on Moustakas himself? Any fan of any sport knows the worst possible answer to all of these questions is this – maybe Moustakas, 2007 second overall draft pick, just isn’t as good as everybody thought he would be. As awful as that last sentence was to type, it certainly would explain a lot.

Listen, I’m not trying to bang on Moose. No one wants to see a player struggle so badly, especially this early. He’s a nice guy with above average potential, but baseball is in the business of getting results. While he is certainly not the only player doing poorly this early, batting .100 after eleven games isn’t the end of the world, but it isn’t effective and it is something that needs to be addressed, sooner rather than later. As Royals fans, we can only hope that Moose figures this all out before the Royals set him loose.