Really, Dick Kaegel?

Oh boy.

Dick Kaegel, beat writer for the Royals, posted his regular mailbag on MLB.com yesterday. The following question, which I will break down firejoemorgan style, was posed by Steven A. of Toms River, New Jersey:

Why is there so much negative talk about Kansas City acquiring Mike Jacobs?

Probably because the R's already have other options at first base who can play the position much better than Jacobs can. Were this a fantasy league, Leo Nunez for Mike Jacobs looks like a great deal. Real life, however, has this funny thing called "context."

The move makes sense. Fine, Jacobs' on-base percentage is low, but against right-handers (where KC's record was below-average) his numbers are not terrible (.315 OBP with 25 homers).

Contrary to what Mr. A. might have you think, a .315 OBP is not "not terrible." .315 is not terrible in the "Tony Pena Jr." sense, but it is well below the ~.336 league average for the AL. However, one point goes to him for indirectly pointing out that Jacobs's SLG was over .110 higher against righties.

Where are you going to find that type of production for $3 million?

Possibly here?? Maybe? I'm not saying that a Swisher trade was a possibility, but rather that we shouldn't act as if Jacobs was our only option on the market.

So Mr. A. -- I'm going out on a limb here -- is probably not a Royals fan (Maybe he's a fan of the world-famous Toms River little league teams?). It seems as if he's upset that those unappreciative Royals fans aren't accepting that they should be happy just to have a guy who can hit 30+ homeruns, OBP notwithstanding.

And maybe Mr. A is right. After all, the Royals' single-season HR record is only 36, held by Mr. Steve Balboni, whose stats in that 1985 season (.243/.307/.477) are not that far off from Jacobs's stats from last season (.247/.299/.514). But the issue here is not that Royals fans are delusional and had visions of landing a Mark Teixeira at 1B; it is rather the perplexing decision to go after a 1B in the first place when they already have some rising stars who can play the position better than Jacobs can.

What's funniest about this Mailbag post, though is Dick Kaegel's response. He makes a couple good points about how the Jacobs trade helps the Royals with their woeful splits vs. RHPs, but concludes his response to Mr. A.'s question with the following gem:

By the way, despite Jose Guillen's, umm, rambunctious season, his 20 home runs and 97 RBIs were nice numbers. You didn't hear too many folks whining about his .300 OBP.

Yes, Dick, you did. Or if you didn't, you must have had your head buried under a rock somewhere.

Seriously, how did you come up with this little fact? Have you been listening only to the Jose Guillen Fan Club? The Royals path to success has to be through development of the players they have signed with recent high draft picks, coupled with some intelligent free agency moves and trades. They cannot afford to pay players like Jose Guillen $12MM a year when they get on base exactly 30% of the time and rack up their RBI numbers largely because of their placement in the lineup.

It seems that if there is a market inefficiency in baseball, it is the undervaluation of on-base percentage and the corresponding overvaluation of home runs. We certainly need a player who has long-ball potential, but it would likely be more cost-effective to go after more affordable players with less SLG and more OBP.

Just as an illustration of this point, we can look at the 2008 Twins, who were 9 innings from reaching the playoffs. The Royals' AL ranks for OBP and SLG were 12th and 12th, respectively, out of 14 teams. The Twins, who are of comparable market size, were 4th and 10th. While OBP is certainly not the be-all, end-all of statistics, it is undoubtedly a valuable one for small market teams.

Plus, Mr. A., it is quite frustrating when your GM pays public homage to the value of OBP, only to have him make moves that defy his own logic.