“Royal” Middle Infield Continued

When we took a look at the Royal shortstop situation on Thursday, it became obvious that the picture would not be complete without looking at the rest of the middle infield. And, as is our wont when it comes to position battles, we’ll have to consider defense – even if it doesn’t show up in our fantasy box scores.

There’s a lot of love for the incumbent at this position, and for good reason. Alberto Callaspo was, by wOBA, the second-best hitter on the Royals last year. His approach at he plate features gobs of contact (94.5% zone-contact last year, and 87.8% was the league average) and an average walk rate (8.2% last year, 8.9% ML average). Before last year, though, he didn’t show much power. Then he more than doubled his career ISO (.156 last year, previous career high was .071) and shot into fantasy relevance. The projections show some concern about that spike and all of them have him regressing in the power department in 2010. His minor league ISO (.119) would be an item in favor of that approach.

But if Callaspo can make all that contact with average power (.155 ISO is the league average), and play good defense at second base, he should win the battle with Chris Getz, right? Well, defense is an interesting question here. UZR does not love Callaspo, giving him a -2.9 UZR/150 in 209 games while Total Zone had him as pretty much a scratch defender at the position in the minor leagues. The fans? The fans, they don’t love him. The Fans Scouting Report has Callaspo as the fourth-worst fielder on the Royals, just below Jose Guillen. Ouch.

There’s a lack of consensus on the appraisal of the defense in the case of Getz as well. The Fans Scouting Report has him as significantly better in terms of range, speed and first step, giving him an average ranking of 3.3 to Callaspo’s 2.3. UZR doesn’t like him as much, but his -6 UZR/150 has only come in 101 games, so it should be taken with a grain of salt. Total Zone rates him as solid but not spectacular. In any case, the overall picture is one of player that has the chance to be better than Callaspo on defense.

If the Royals agree with assessment and need D, they will get Getz’ glove in there. What will his bat provide? So far it looks like below-average patience (7.1% walk rate), below-average power (.084 ISO), and good speed (7.3 speed score, 5.0 is average). There’s hope for a little more, though. Getz walked more in the minors (10.2%) and players usually improve in that category as they age. He had a sub-.100 minor league ISO, though, so it will only be patience and speed from Getz if he wins the job.

This is a tougher battle to handicap than the shortstop situation. The defensive numbers are not as clear, and the bats in question are somewhat similar. Because Callaspo’s power last year hasn’t been duplicated on the major league level, and because the team decided to acquire another second baseman in a trade, you have to consider that he is on thin ice. Getz does have an option left, and it may behoove the organization to demote him to AAA while they pump up Callaspo’s value and perhaps trade him mid-season. If Callaspo’s already shaky defense gets worse as he ages, he will only become less valuable in the coming years. His bat gives him the current leg up, and Callaspo should get regular at-bats somewhere on the field no matter how this battle shakes down, but neither one of these guys gets an unequivocal thumbs up because of the risk, and they only make late-round fliers in deep leagues at best.