Defending Trey Hillman's use of Joakim Soria

And that's a whole lot like we all expected the Royals to win games this year, no?

Zack Greinke goes dominant for eight innings, Joakim Soria does his Mexicutioner thing in the 9th*, and the Royals scrape together enough offense** to win.

Doesn't make up for the last five games, or last six weeks, but it is a nice break for a fan base that, let's all be honest, has been through enough.

* It did get shaky there for a minute when the first two batters he faced singled, but, well, I like this line from Rany: "If anything happened to the pilots on the team plane, does anyone doubt that the Mexicutioner could land it safely?"

** Including this MONSTER home run by Billy Butler. Even Brad Lidge and Albert Pujols think this ball was hit hard. Butler will probably always be more of a doubles and gap guy than classic home run hitter, but he does have some power.

Anyway, to get to my point this morning...

Royals fans will never come to a consensus on how to best use Joakim Soria. Some of you, surprisingly, still think he should be a starter, which -- to me, at least -- seems silly after these injuries.

So it's probably no surprise that manager Trey Hillman has taken a lot of heat from some for how and when he's called on his All-Star closer. Last night was just the third time Soria has entered in a tied or one-run game. His three previous appearances came with the Royals ahead four, down 10, and down seven. Blast away. Repeat as necessary.

A big part of why Soria hasn't pitched in more close games is because, well, the Royals just haven't played a lot of them. Last night was just their 15th one-run game, and just their fifth win in a close one.

But that misses a critical point. Trey is not working with the Soria of last year. The Mexicutioner does not have all his powers. He was on the disabled list, real or effective, for the better part of six weeks. When Soria finally pitched on May 2 -- only his second appearance in about three weeks -- Trey used him again the very next day. He was questioned about it by reporters, and criticized here and in other places -- and rightfully so.

Four days later, he pitched for the last time before going on the for-real, replace-him-on-the-roster disabled list. He hasn't pitched back-to-back days since.

* He did warm up at least once the day after pitching, but didn't come in after the Royals scored enough to eliminate a save situation.

So we're definitely in a be-careful-how-often-you-use-him place with Soria, but there is a difficult balancing act there.

Soria's only blown save of the season came after five days off, which fits the thought of some smart baseball people who think he needs regular work to stay sharp. Regular work, but not too much work.

This puts Trey in an awkward position of needing to keep Soria sharp, but, knowing the fragile injury situation, needing to also keep Soria from breaking down.

Trey is open to criticism in a lot of areas -- all big league managers are -- but if we're going to be fair with his use of Soria we have to recognize the circumstances.

If you want saves like last night, you're most likely going to have to live with watching Soria pitch in low-leverage situations, too.

Submitted by Sam Mellinger on June 24, 2009 - 7:33am.
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Soria/closer question

Submitted by wichitachiefsfan on June 25, 2009 - 8:19am.

Didn't Bill James or somebody crunch numbers that said the closer should be used when trailing by a run rather than when leading by a run? I think the logic was that with the lead, the odds were already in your favor, and the best pitcher had a greater statistical impact holding the other team from adding to the lead.

Starters never get injured I guess

Submitted by AxDxMx on June 24, 2009 - 4:56pm.

Is it a bad time to attempt the switch? Yes.
Does that mean it's out of the realm of possibility? No.

Soria as a starter

Submitted by dedo on June 24, 2009 - 12:43pm.

I am one that still believes that Soria as a closer is a waste. In light of the injury problems, doing anything this season would be silly. I actually believe that this type of change should only be attempted over the offseason anyway.

Dayton Moore needs to do everything in his power to improve the team incrementally. This means getting what he can out of his current guys and the payroll, whether this means a trade, position change, or role change. Of course if you have to go with a bunch of guys who are not so flashy, it is a good idea to try and get guys who have some speed, play good defense, or play multiple positions. These types of little things can bunch together a group of mediocre guys into a more competitive team.

It is ironic that many are arguing that Soria needs to be used in high leverage situations. This is my exact argument. There is no higher leverage situation than Starting. As we have seen this year, with Soria largely unavailable, the Royals have found other ways to lose making his absence as a closer a small factor in a poor season. This year, the Royals are not scoring runs. This pretty much makes 4 runs a winner for the opposing team. Almost invariably, only when the starter has been dominant, have the Royals won. An adequate start has mostly been not good enough for the Royals this year.

Soria has an easy delivery and he is not a maximum effort guy. He has been a starter in the past. Using this years injury to derail this idea is guesswork. I would believe that the training staff, Hillman, and Moore know very well what caused this injury. Between trainers logs, injury reports, etc. they probably know exactly when this began and have a pretty good idea of why. Using this injury as an excuse to leave him as closer would be like saying that when Gil Meche previously had back troubles, he should have been moved to the position of closer.

As I said before, $5000 rims on a $500 car.

As I said before...

Submitted by plivvy on June 24, 2009 - 2:31pm.

...I will have to respectfully disagree on a couple of grounds.

A)Starting is not as a high leverage as you suggest. Having been both a starter and a closer, there is definitely more pressure as a closer than a starter, especially with runners on base (and especially when you are NOT the home team). Having a closer with ice water in his veins is a big key. Last night, if that were Kyle Farnsworth instead of Soria, the Royals probably lose. However, Soria gets two runners on with no outs, he buckles down and gets two K's and a weak groundout. Farnsworth in that situation against Cleveland promptly gave up the game winning hit. A starter in the first inning with two runners on and no one out can really be satisfied with just limiting the damage in that situation and if he gets out of great. He just knows his team has plenty of time to come back. That is not a luxury in the ninth inning.

B)If you paid attention to the cause for Soria's injury, you would know that part of the cause was that he didn't get work on a consistent basis. Sure, as a starter you know you get work every fifth day (for the most part), but he seems to get rusty when he has a long lay off. And the Royals don't have the luxury that the Yankees did with Joba Chamberlain. They can't afford to let him build up his arm strength (which would defeat the purpose of "taking advantage of the current guys"). Trey Hillman can make an effort to get Soria extra work in as a reliever; that's a very easy thing if he is dedicated to it.

It's not even that I don't think Soria would be an effective starter, I just think you can't fix something that isn't broke.
Paul L.

...

Submitted by jtuck123 on June 24, 2009 - 8:54am.

"Trey is open to criticism in a lot of areas -- all big league managers are -- but if we're going to be fair with his use of Soria we have to recognize the circumstances." - Now why would we want to be fair with our criticism? That would just be the craziest thing we could do...For Pete's sake, we are the fans, don't we know pretty much everything there is to know about our favorite teams? It's practically like we sit in the dugout every day and talk to the players every day and talk to the trainers every day and watch batting practice every day and keep an eye on bullpen sessions every day...We obviously have the upper hand over the manager in every situation. We'll make sure to take every move that he makes and after it fails, we'll make him look like an idiot while somehow sweeping all of the good moves that he's made underneath the carpet. We will constantly tease him about how his facial hair needs a re-do. We will continue to belittle the very team that we all love so very, very much for some reason that we can't explain. But man, when the team get's hot, suddenly all of our fellow "fans" will burst out of the woodwork and all 35,000 of us will show up to a game that doesn't matter while the games that do matter have a showing of 12,000. But all of that doesn't matter, right? It only matters when we're winning, right?
JT

Not to mention ...

Submitted by edsterb on June 24, 2009 - 10:28am.

Not to mention, we'll criticize the moves that didn't work without offering any alternative. Or worse, we'll offer an alternative and ASSUME it would have worked, with no real reason to make such an assumption ... i.e. "Trey should have put in Pitcher B there instead of Pitcher A, he would have gotten out of the inning!"

Soria

Submitted by Muley05 on June 24, 2009 - 8:42am.

I think Soria's injuries were solely to do with the WBC, and him basically not having a Spring Training because of it. So his six week hiatus was Soria's chance to tune himself up, like the other pitchers did during Spring Training.

Soria seems to be back now. His velocity is back in the low 90s where is always has been. His breaking pitches aren't as sharp, but I think that is due to lack of work lately.

He needs to be pitching more. Time to take the kid gloves off. This season is lost. I don't want him to get hurt, but if he does, then you can re-evaluate how you use him in the future.

The fact of the matter is that Soria needs to pitch in the high leverage situations, no matter when they happen in the game. If it's 4-2 Royals in the 7th inning, and the opponent has two guys on and now outs, it's time to bring in Soria to shut that inning down. Then use the rest of the bullpen to close out the game. Instead, Hillman puts Cruz or Wright in, they give up 3 runs, and the Royals lose with Soria never getting into the game.

The Royals needs to do things differently than what the "book" says, and until they do, they won't compete. The "book" is great for teams like the Yankees and Red Sox, but the Royals need outside the box thinking.

Amen to that!

Submitted by John Dockter on June 24, 2009 - 9:19am.

At this point in this season, the use of Soria does not have to be a 1-2-3 9th inning save.
If a similar game situation as last night's happens tonight, use him again; he threw 16 pitches last night...is that too many to use him back-to-back nights?

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