From a story by Dylan Hernandez in the LA Times last week:

After the hailstorm of criticism he received for his high-priced free-agent signings that didn't work out, Colletti was asked whether he felt vindicated when the midseason trades he made pushed the Dodgers to the top of the NL West.

"I have great confidence in what I do," he said. "I know what my relationship with the McCourts is. I don't need to be vindicated."

Colletti could point to how he plugged several holes this season that were created by injuries to the likes of Rafael Furcal, Brad Penny, Nomar Garciaparra, Jeff Kent and Takashi Saito.

Though Ramirez and Blake might have thrust the Dodgers into the postseason, moves involving lesser-known players such as Angel Berroa, Pablo Ozuna and Blake DeWitt helped keep them in the race.

On the advice of bench coach Bob Schaefer, Colletti acquired Berroa, a former AL rookie of the year who spent the previous year and a half with the Kansas City Royals' triple-A affiliate. A player who cost the Dodgers almost nothing -- the Royals paid what remained of the $5.25 million owed Berroa and received only Class-A infielder Juan Rivera in return -- was their starting shortstop over the last two months of the season.

A month ago, Hernandez profiled Berroa's comeback with the Dodgers. Yes, that's what he called it:

Angel Berroa said the way he has felt over the last week reminds him of when was the American League's rookie of the year in 2003.

"I've got my confidence back," said Berroa, who spent most of the last two years with the Kansas City Royals' triple-A affiliate in Omaha traveling on commercial planes and sleeping in cramped motel rooms.

Oh, Berroa ended up hitting .230/.304/.310 with the Dodgers during the regular season, eating up 246 PAs. Nevertheless, he's like a double next week away from becoming one of Joe Torre's guys, insuring him a place on the roster for the next five years.

Then there's this bizarre Berroa note, also from the LA Times:

The Dodgers are so confident, Angel Berroa bought a Ferrari

Technically, at least. 

The actual car in question isn't, say, one of these bad boys, which run about 200K, but rather a battery powered, 1/10 scale model.  Cherry red with a racing stripe, the kind of car that would get a man pulled over by battery powered, 1/10 scale members of the Highway Patrol.  Berroa, who also has two remote controlled helicopters and a "Robotic Construction System" in his locker, arrived for the Dodgers' team workout today at the Ravine to find his newest toy at the bottom of a stack of boxes on his chair.  The ones on top were filled with useless athlete paraphernalia.  Shoes, gear, etc. "I don't want that stuff," Berroa said, quickly putting it aside and pulling out the big prize, which he unveiled with a kid-at-Christmas smile before the assembled media.

Jonathan Broxton, who didn't realize earlier in the season his locker would soon be Toys'R'Us adjacent, could only shake his head.  "I don't know how he's gonna get this _________ home," he said with a grin. 

By the end, weren't we seeing more than a few "Berroa is very childlike" stories emerging from the KC clubhouse? Seriously, you read stuff like this, mix in your favorite Emil Brown story maybe, and remember, say, a third of the things you've ever read on Deadspin about these guys, and it honestly makes you feel ashamed you even follow sports. Really, to consider the men of Jockdom longtime inhabitants of High School is too generous. Many are still emotionally and intellectually in Middle School.

Via a Royals Press Release:

Kansas City, MO (October 2, 2008) – The Kansas City Royals today announced that the following coaches have been offered contracts to return for the 2009 season.  The list includes:  pitching coach Bob McClure, bench coach Dave Owen, first base coach Rusty Kuntz and bullpen coach John Mizerock.

Mike Barnett (hitting) and Luis Silverio (third base) were not offered Major League coaching contracts for 2009.  Silverio has been offered another coaching position within the organization.  An announcement regarding the full 2009 coaching staff will come at a later date.

• McClure has served as pitching coach since 2006.
• Barnett was hired as the Royals hitting coach on May 1, 2006. Last season the Royals finished 6th in the American League in batting average (.269), but just 12th in OBP (.320) and slugging (12th), en route to finishing 12th in runs. As mentioned earlier this week, the Royals did not reach 700 runs scored (691) for the first time since 1995. Looking at this low-patience, low-power roster however, it's hard to blame Barnett for these numbers too much.
  

Angel Berroa just wins ballgames.

Back on March 30th, in a season opening piece, I wrote:

So where are we? I'm hard pressed to come up with a team that's legitimately harder to project in the short term, although from the other end of the competition arch the White Sox may rival our Royals. In 2008 the Royals will score 770 runs and allow 790, which comes out to about 79-83, a number consistent with what I've been telling people all off-season. That runs allowed number is factoring in a breakout from Greinke and some roster trash being erased from 2007, but small steps backward for a number of other players and increasingly difficult competition.

The win-loss prediction ended up not being that far off, although it took an abberant September (18-8) to even sniff 79 runs. Still, 75-87 isn't far afield from where many of us thought the team would end up.  Actually, my prediction of 79-83 ended up being exactly the community average.

Nevertheless, the Royals came up four wins short in what turned out to be a much weaker AL Central than anyone expected. There was no 95-win behemoth in the Central this year, much less two, which looked possible at the beginning of the season. Instead, the Twins & White Sox ended up tied at 88 wins, while the Indians and Tigers combined to be fourteen games below .500. The Royals ended up 31-41 against their division, but only 20-34 against non-Tigers. Overall, you'd have to say that those were a soft 75 wins for the Royals. If the 79-win team we thought we we're getting had shown up in this year's Central, the Royals may have ended up with 81 or so wins.

The runs scored & runs allowed data further reveals how far the 2008 Royals slid off of our imagined tracks. For the first time since 1995, the Royals failed to score over 700 runs, topping out at 691, the third lowest total in the American League. Instead of improving upon 2007's total of 706 runs scored, the Royals lost ground. On the whole, more players disappointed at the plate in 2008 than surprised. This team still doesn't get on-base and it still doesn't hit for power.

What saved the 2008 Royals however was the pitching staff. Unlike some Royals fans, I was worried about the staff being unable to improve on their 2007 performance, and predicted 790 runs allowed, twelve more than the 2007 total. This is what happened. The Royals allowed 781 runs, three more than in 2007. Getting an extra 80 quality innings out of Zack Greinke erased a lot of minor problems, and the Royals held on to their 2007 level of performance despite seeing their purported #3 starter blow up. Had the Royals really regressed and allowed something like 820 runs, it would have been a much longer year.

So grading myself, I'd give my overall Royals prediction a B-, thank you. Next week, we'll take a look at the 2008 season in greater detail.

Of AL pitchers with at least 180 innings pitches in 2008, guess who faced the weakest competition according to BP's Quality of Hitters Faced Report?

Cliff Lee.

26th out of 26th. Lee's average challeger was a .262/.330/.405 hitter.

At play here is the unbalaced schedule and an additional dose of good fortune. Lee faced the Royals five times, his most common opponent. His second most common foe was Minnesota, who he battled with on four occasions. Lee also snuck in two starts against both Oakland and Seattle each, as well as matchups against Oakland and San Diego. Really, all that was missing was a game against the Nats.

Halladay on the other hand, faced the second toughest set of hitters out of the 26 ALers who had over 180 IP. Slogging through another season of hell in the AL East (even Baltimore had a weirdly good offense this year). Halladay's average hitter was a .266/.342/.425 guy. Sure, that's not hugely different, but remember, we're talking about hundreds and hundreds of individual pitcher-hitter confrontations over five months.

Just something to think about when you cast your nonexistent Cy Young ballot.

Well, we're all still in a bad mood after today's season-ending loss. Remember the Kila Ka'aihue PA Prediction Contest however? We'll have plenty of time to digest the day's/month's/summer's events of course, so we might as well discuss our little contest before we all forget it.

You'd have to be a real genius to guess exactly how many plate appearances Kila would end up with, wouldn't you?

So, let me extend my heartiest congratulations to...

(reading the entries)

Some user named "Royals Review", who predicted that Kila would end up at 24 trips to the plate. Wow, and first guess too. This dude must have known people on the inside to claim one of the most likely numbers so quickly after the story was posted.

Thanks to everyone who played.