Sigh.

I'm guessing this won't be that hard for some people to figure out.

(All data from FanGraphs players pages -- current as of this posting).

Current RAR Totals:

Mike Jacobs: 2.5
Russell Branyan: 20.5
Eric Hinske: 3.0

If you followed the offseason at Royals Review at all, or perhaps my postings elsewhere, you might know that I was not overly enamoured with the Royals trade for Mike Jacobs (they sent the Marlins relief pitcher Leo Nunez). It wasn't because Nunez was all that great (he's been below replacement level so far this year, though I doubt that will last). It was a combination of things that I won't get into now in details -- mostly having to do with Jacobs being one of the worst defenders in baseball, not hitting left-handed pitching, and heading into his arbitration years. And, although he was and looked like an above-aveage hitter, he was just barely above average. As a DH-level defender, that means he's barely above replacement level.

Whether or not the Royals even needed a player like that is another debate. If they did, I (and others) reasoned at the time, why not just sign Russell Branyan or Eric Hinske? Sure, they were a bit older, and might not hit as well (although they were projected to hit around the same by most projection systems), but they actually had some defensive value and, more importantly, as we saw, they wouldn't cost the Royals any (cheap) talent and, indeed, they went for less than half of what Jacobs got in arbitration.

Needless to say, despite having been a predictable fan of Branyan's Three True Outcomes heritage for a while, I didn't see this coming, and he isn't this good. But at $1.5M for one-year (about the same salary as Willie Bloomquist is getting from the Royals), his contract was virtually risk-free, and wow has it paid off.

But what really got me going today is that Eric Hinske is actually at about the same WAR (actually slightly ahead) of Jacobs in less than 100 PA. He's getting around $1M this season. Sure, he isn't that good, but like Branyan, he can at least play credible first base. True, Jacobs is actually above average so far -- but it's an extremely small sample size -- all you need to know about what the Royals think of his defense can be expressed by the fact that after watching him play first for the first few games, KC decided they were better off making Billy Butler their full-time first baseman. Moreover, Hinske can play in the corner outfield and even fill-in at third if needed, and with the Alex Gordon injuries and Jose Guillen's "range," it's needed.

Would this make the Royals contenders this season? No,but it would save them money, which, as we all know by now, is the real currency of baseball.

Sometimes being right isn't much fun. Here's to me being wrong about this over the rest of the season.

And please, Dayton Moore, don't take this as a request to sign Russell the Muscle to a 3/$36M contract in the offseason.