J.R. House Signs with Royals

by Charlie on Nov 30, 2008 3:24 PM EST Comment 3 comments

This wouldn't get its own post on a bigger news day, but I still thought this was interesting. The Royals have signed former Pirate prospect J.R. House to a minor league deal. The Royals are both open-minded enough and bad enough at catcher that House, who has 60 career big-league at bats spread over five seasons, could finally get a real look in the majors.

"We signed him to catch," said Royals assistant general manager J.J. Picollo. "We thought J.R. was a good fit. He can also play first, he's a right-handed hitter and with Kila [Ka'aihue] in Triple-A, we could have a right-left combination at first base as well."

Picollo said House has had shoulder problems in the past.

"I know the knock on him has been his defense isn't real strong, but it's a serviceable job that he does and, hopefully, his shoulder will hold up and it'll be fine," Picollo said. "He's an offensive-type guy and that's an attraction with him."

Platooning House with Ka'aihue in the minors would be a really dumb idea (Ka'aihue is a pretty interesting hitter), but letting House share time behind the plate with Brayan Pena wouldn't. The Royals will likely enter 2009 with the same catchers (John Buck and Miguel Olivo) who hit .236/.295/.383 for them last year. Both have their charms--they both hit for above-average power for catchers and play decent defense--but neither can get on base. Buck, in particular, has to be disappointing to Royals fans: since his debut in 2004, he hasn't gotten better, and his career high in batting average is still just .245. In the past two years, he's batted .222 and .224. If he hits any worse than that, he's a liability, and everyone notices when a guy's batting average is the problem. It's easy to imagine a situation in which Buck and Olivo, who are both old enough that a decline isn't out of the question, perform a bit worse and the Royals get sick of both of them. If that happens, House is a good bet to be an offensive upgrade.

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Glad to see J.R. get another shot.

He’s never going to be a great baseball player, and he was never (I don’t think) going to be a great college quarterback, but he IS a terrific athlete, to even think about being able to play at both levels. I’ll never forget the show he put on in the West Virginia AAA football championship game, he was like a man against boys and threw 10 TD passes — yes, that’s in one game — against the second-best team in the state.

FWIW, the current WVU quarterback, Pat White, has been drafted at least twice by the Angels, even though he’s played no college baseball. He has an interesting decision to make next year if he gets drafted in both sports, because I don’t imagine he throws well enough to be a pro QB, or that he’s big enough to be a running back. But he’d be starting late on a baseball career.

by bucdaddy on Nov 30, 2008 11:19 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

White’s comments about WVU’s baseball team are pretty interesting.

Making it all the way to the big leagues is really hard. If White has any shot at a football career—and I’m way out of my depth talking about football, but my understanding is that he does, in a Randle El sort of way—he’d be wise to take it.

by Charlie on Nov 30, 2008 11:41 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah

that caused a bit of a fuss here for a day or two, before young Mr. White had a visit with the A.D., after which everybody said all the appropriate things.

White was right about the WVU baseball team, but unfortunately the same thing is true about most college baseball programs, as I understand it. For whatever reasons, black American athletes gravitate toward football and basketball, and baseball brings up the rear (obviously this is not true about Dominican blacks and Venezuelan blacks etc.).

White, of course, didn’t do anything to help the situation, saying what he said. I don’t imagine he made it any easier for coach Van Zant to recruit black players now, whereas if White played baseball he COULD have helped attract another black player or two …

Whatever, it’s over and done. He’s certainly a remarkable football player, and it’s been fun watching him. Maybe he has a Randle-El future in the NFL. The only thing that would make me hesitate about that is the most similar player WVU has had in the 20 years I’ve lived here, Major Harris, was a bust as a pro. He came out after his junior year, was taken in a late round by the Raiders and opted to go to the CFL, never amounted to anything there. Think he played a little Arena ball, ditto.

The thing White has going for him is by all accounts he’s a pretty smart kid, unlike Harris, who I’ve heard looked like he was free lancing on the field so often because he basically couldn’t learn the playbook. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, if you get my drift.

by bucdaddy on Dec 1, 2008 10:45 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs