Gonna be a Long (ball) Year

Checking out the Twitter feed for Bob Dutton gives us this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, are the hitters that good, or the pitchers that bad?

New Name for the New Year

As always, I am boldly planning to increase my output in the new year.

To help encourage myself, I am renaming this blog and moving to a new address.

Royal Reactions by H.G. Miller can be found here:

http://royalreactions.blogspot.com

Cheers.

Sports - Royals Trade Nunez for Jacobs

clipped from www.kansascity.com “We need to get better now,” Moore said. “We can continue to develop at the major leagues, and we’re going to continue to get the same result we’ve been getting, and that’s not something we’re prepared to do anymore.”

This quote from Dayton Moore says it all. No more using the major league club as a place for figuring out if a player "gets it" or not.

I am fine with this trade. Moore has already shown a knack for putting together a fine relief corps, so Nunez is not great loss. The logjam at first base is really only in potential. What guys like Billy Butler, Kila Ka’aihue and Ryan Shealy "might" do.

Jacobs will not walk a lot, but he can hit the long ball. He's proven that. If Butler et al can prove they have the capabilities, then I am certain Moore will find a place for them.

In the meantime, I only hope a youngster like Butler is given time to prove he can do it ahead of somebody like Ross Gload, who has proven he can't.

Sports - Royals Shopping Teahen

clipped from www.kansascity.com The Royals are discussing a possible trade with the Cleveland Indians in which they would acquire an outfielder in exchange for Mark Teahen, according to sources with both teams. Talks are believed to center on three possibilities for the Royals in the deal: Franklin Gutierrez, Ben Francisco and minor-leaguer Trevor Crowe.

The first major rumblings of the off season from the Royals camp. Teahen is now two years removed from his 2006 tear and it appears the team is ready to move on.

A quick look at the numbers makes this kind of a wash regardless of who the Royals end up with. Guitierrez is a year younger than Teahen, but other than that, they all put up similar stats last season:

255/313/402
266/332/438
248/307/383

Can you tell me who you'd rather have?

Sports Guy Calls It

It's going to be a long year for the Chiefs. After a long summer for the Royals, I guess I can look forward to seeing how KU does without the hooligans who helped win the national title in March.

ESPN's Bill Simmons is not predicting good things for the Chiefs, as well. This quote from his season preview says it just about right:

clipped from sports.espn.go.com I can't think of a better Week 1 opponent for the Pats than Kansas City, the team that recently launched a rebuilding effort by trading its 26-year-old stud defensive end for draft picks. And you thought the Royals were the worst-run team in town? Watch this!

Double Dip on Double-Digit Wins

I'm not a big fan of the whole Pitcher Wins statistic, but I think it says something when it's been NINE YEARS since two pitchers on a team have gotten ten or more wins in a season.

I will be using this statistic heavily when trying to write a positive preview of the Royals chances in 2009.

clipped from www.kansascity.com Greinke allowed just one earned run in his three previous starts and still ended up with one loss and two no-decisions. His 10th victory extended his career high and matched Gil Meche for the club lead. It also marked the first time since 1999 that two Royals reached double figures in victories. José Rosado and Jeff Suppan each won 10 that year.

Who are These Guys? - 2008 Royals Season Preview

A new job and extended jury duty have kept me from doing the kind of preview my five loyal readers are used to.

So, as the 2008 season begins, I’m going to do an abbreviated “Who are these guys?” preview, focusing on the players who are most-likely to contribute to the team on a daily basis, with a little love given to those who made the opening-day roster (sans catcher Matt Tupman, who we know is getting replaced by Miguel Olivo four games into the season when his suspension is done).

Each player will be followed by three sets of numbers – Batting Average/On-Base Percentage/Slugging Average for their career, the 2007 season and the Marcel projection for the 2008 season.

More info about the Marcel projections can be found here. Stats are from Baseball-Reference.com and projections are from FanGraphs.com.

Here we go.

Catcher
John Buck
Car: 237/297/408 OPS+ 82
’07: 222/308/429 OPS+ 90
’08: 244/311/411

John’s career OPS by month:

Apr  732
May  715
Jun  794
Jul  579
Aug  635
Sep  803

If Buck can keep from stepping in that hole he seems to find every July and August, the Royals may have a legitimate big-league backstop this season.

Miguel Olivo
Car: 239/275/405 OPS+ 76
’07: 237/262/405 OPS+ 72
’08: 247/280/408

Miggy may get some time in the outfield this year, most likely against lefties, whom he hits to the tune of 291/319/524.

Infield
Billy Butler – 1B
Car: 292/347/447 OPS+ 105
’07: 292/347/447 OPS+ 105
’08: 298/361/465

Calling Butler an infielder is a bit of a stretch, but Buddy Bell (a six-time Gold Glover who should know) did say Billy had soft hands. The slugger from Florida will play a little first, but will most-likely end up as a full-time DH by the end of the season.

Mark Grudzielanek – 2B
Car: 289/331/395 OPS+ 90
’07: 302/346/426 OPS+ 100
’08: 285/327/403

Grudz returns for another season league-average performance. A solid second baseman, Grudzielanek won a gold glove in ’06 with the Royals. He should anchor a solid infield defense once again (at least on the days that Butler isn’t playing first) and will keep the position warm for prospect Alberto Callaspo.

Tony Pena Jr. – SS
Car: 264/282/354 OPS+ 65
’07: 267/284/356 OPS+ 66
’08: 270/303/379

The former manager’s son was a revelation at short after what I like to call “the Berroa years.” While hardly adequate at the plate in the age of A-Rods and Jeters, TPJ manages to put the ball in play often enough to make his spectacular play in the field enough to keep him right at replacement level value.

Alex Gordon – 3B
Car: 247/314/411 OPS+ 87
’07: 247/314/411 OPS+ 87
’08: 262/331/427

Considered the future at third base since he was drafted, Gordon overcame a difficult start to his big league career to post solid numbers in the second half last year.

A lot has been written about his current skills and potential, so I’ll just add this from my experiences seeing Gordon come to the plate in Anaheim and at spring training in Surprise: the dude looks severely stoned in his press photo. I mean it. The red eyes, shaggy hair and “are you taking my pictures for real” smile. Baked to the bone, I’m telling you.

Look, I’ve been to Nebraska. There’s not a lot to do there. I don’t blame him if he’s growing a little something in his apartment on the Plaza. Man, does he have a pretty swing, though.

Alberto Callaspo
Esteban German
Ross Gload

German has been the uber-utility man for a few years now and has a career on-base percentage of 373. Callaspo had some personal issues in Arizona, but hit like mad in the minors and is looking for a fresh start in KC. Gload is steady with the bat like Grudz, and will probably spend some time at first, outfield and designated hitter. Let’s just hope he stays out of the four hole this year.

Outfield
David DeJesus
Car: 282/358/415 OPS+ 102
’07: 260/351/372 OPS+ 89
’08: 276/353/414

A lot of people (myself included) pegged DeJesus for a breakout season in ’07. Didn’t happen. He lost a little something, but did manage to play in 157 games, a career high. Let’s see if the center fielder can bring his production up and stay on the field this year.

Jose Guillen
Car: 274/325/447 OPS+ 101
’07: 290/353/460 OPS+ 116
’08: 272/333/448

The Mets go Carlos Santana. The Tigers got Miguel Cabrera. The Yankees re-signed Alex Rodriguez. Kansas City picked up Jose Guillen and quickly made Mike Sweeney only the third highest paid Royal ever.

Guillen is not a bad player, but he alone is not likely to be a savior for the team’s offensive woes any more than Emil Brown was. However, if Butler and Gordon continue to impress, Guillen should be a solid bat along with them in the line up.

Mark Teahen
Car: 274/340/429 OPS+ 100
’07: 285/353/410 OPS+ 98
’08: 282/350/439

Teahen’s numbers took a step back last season as he learned how to play a few outfield positions and a little first base. Considered one of the better base runners in baseball, Marky Mark also showed off a canon arm in right.

The canon has been moved to left, but Teahen will likely be jerked around from left to right to first to DH in order to keep his head spinning whilst he also attempts to pull the ball more at the plate.

Joey Gathright
Car: 266/333/314 OPS+ 71
’07: 307/371/342 OPS+ 88
’08: 273/342/352

Joey Gathright is fast and he can jump over cars and the occasional Japanese pitcher. His skills at getting on-base have been quite good for a while, and his goal this season is to steal 60 bases. A quick look at his minor league numbers shows that he was a much better thief there than in the majors.

Let’s see if new manager Trey Hillman gives him the green light more often that Buddy Bell did.

Starting Pitchers
Gil Meche
Zack Greinke
Brian Bannister
John Bale
Brett Tomko

Pitchers always seem to have more questions than answers going into the season.

Can Meche keep up his solid stuff? Can Grienke stay sane? Will Bannister stave off regression to the mean? Who is John Bale? Why is Brett Tomko being given $3 million to make my stomach churn every fifth day?

Relief Pitchers
Joakim Soria – Closer
Jimmy Gobble
Ron Mahay
Leo Nunez
Ramon Ramirez
Yasuhiko Yabuta

A few new faces in the bullpen this season. A few familiar culprits.

Soria looks like another Mariano Rivera in the making. Gobble should be a solid LOOGY again. Ron Mahay will be… let’s just say interesting. Nunez and Ramirez both bring the heat, and Yabuta is a Japanese import likely to fall somewhere between Dice-K and the crappy version of Hideo Nomo (who we happen to have on “the DL” right now… wink, wink-nudge, nudge).

SEASON PREDICTION

I’ve seen 76 wins thrown about most often as the realistic best-case scenario for this year’s Royals squad. A definite improvement over last year. Still not quite ready to compete with the big boys in the division.

As I am an eternal optimist, I think I’ll push my predicted finish to 86 wins. In contention for a large part of the year, but falling just short of the postseason in a very competitive American League Central.

It’s easy to forget that the Royals played very competitive baseball for a long stretch last season. Using Poznanski-like math skills, I showed at the halfway point of the season how the team had a chance to win as many as 79 games.

Of course, the team faltered late in the year and finished five games off of their Pythagorean record of 74 wins. I say that if the team’s true talent level last year was that of a 74 win team, and the core players are back and almost all are expected to show improvement, then a .500 record is no great stretch of the imagination.

Let’s play ball!

Sports - Buck the Starter

Before we get into the player previews (which will probably come before the season when the roster is more solid), let's look at some of the news as it comes along.

I like Trey Hillman already for how he is treating John Buck. The quote below says it all. If the backstop can recreate the first two months of last year, he's going to be the man behind the plate. If Johnny Boy posts another sub-.600 OPS, he'll be benched.

Let's hope Hillman treats all veterans this way. Performance matters.

clipped from www.kansascity.com "Anything is possible, sure," Hillman said. "What I told John Buck is you have to maintain a certain level of performance to maintain your status as a starter. For me, that's a no-brainer. That's for everybody."

Dayton Can't be Done

The most famous Royals optimist out there, Rany Jazayerli, has hypothesized that the Jose Guillen deal is but one domino in a long chain of moves that General Manager Dayton Moore plans over this current off season.

It had better be.

According to Dan Szymborski’s early projections for next year, the best lineup the Kansas City Royals can produce in 2008 is this:

Name     P   Age  AVG  OBP  SLG  OPS
Butler   dh  22   288  360  471  831
Gordon   3b  24   264  339  453  792
DeJesus  cf  28   287  355  431  786
Teahen   rf  26   279  351  431  782
Gload    1b  32   292  332  447  779
Guillen  lf  32   262  327  432  759
German   2b  30   284  364  383  747
Buck     c   27   232  301  394  695
Pena     ss  27   270  294  354  648

Running the numbers through the lineup analysis tool on Baseball Musings, the most this lineup could hope to produce is 4.90 runs a game.

In 2007, the Royals averaged 4.36 runs a game.

If these projections were to hold true, the Royals would end up with approximately 89 more runs in 2008 then they had in 2007. The quick and dirty rule is that 10 runs equal one win, so let’s say that through the addition of Jose Guillen and the projected improvement of other young players, the Royals will be tacking on nine extra wins next year.

That would put them at 78 wins... 83 if you want to go by Pythagorean record.

83 wins will not get it done in the American League Central.

Dayton needs to do more.

Royals "Win" Bidding for Guillen

Eager to continue the fine pharmaceutical heritage that began with Ewing Kauffman, the Kansas City Royals signed outfielder Jose Guillen to a 3-year, $36 million deal on Tuesday.

The potential steroid suspension aside, are the Royals spending David Glass's new found money wisely? How about some charts!

Below are two charts showing Guillen's On-Base Percentage (OBP) and Slugging Average (SLG) by age. The difference between the top chart and the bottom chart is that Guillen's partial years have been removed (in '99, '01, '02 and '06, Jose appeared in fewer than 100 games for the season).



By removing the partial seasons, we can see that the Dominican fellow has followed a pretty standard career path, peaking at age 27-28 in the power department while maintaining some positive growth in the ability to get on base.

Walks as a percentage of plate appearances:



Again, Guillen has shown an improved eye at the plate over the course of his career.

Extra base hits as a percentage of hits and plate appearances:



Here is where it gets sketchy for the Royals. At first glance, Guillen appears to have a somewhat erratic ability to hit the ball hard when he makes contact, but overall looks like he is trending upward.

However, when you remove the years most likely to be affected by small sample size blips, he begins to look like any typical player. In terms of full-season ability, Guillen's power potential seems to have peaked when he was 27.

The Royals have just "fixed" their middle order power problem with a guy who looks to be on the decline in terms of hurting the baseball over the next three years.

The good news is that while Guillen now becomes the highest-paid player in team history, his contract is not exorbitant in the current market. Three years is a short enough time frame that Kansas City can cut their losses if Guillen fails to find rejuvenation in the fountains at Kauffman stadium.

That said, I'd still rather see them go after Miguel Cabrera.

Sports - Royals Hire Hillman to Manage

I don't know what a Ham Fighter is, but there are several things I like about this hire.

1.) We may have actually beat out the Yankees on getting this guy. It always feels good to beat the Yanks.

2.) Beyond the track record of success, there are stories about Hillman being able to adapt his style to the players he has. He went to Japan as a walks and homers guy, and found out he had a speed team, so made it work with good pitching and defense.

3.) It's nice to have the team do something a little out of the box. Rather than hire another retread manager, they went and got a guy who is on his way up.

Hillman may eventually crash and burn, but it's better than watching Buddy Bell get burned night in and night out when you already KNEW he was going to struggle because that's how it had been the time before and the time before that.

clipped from www.kansascity.com Hillman interviewed last year with Texas, San Diego and Oakland after leading the Fighters to their first title in 44 years. He managed 11 years in the Yankees’ minor-league system before heading to Japan. That connection to the Yankees prompted the Royals to accelerate their negotiations Thursday after New York’s managerial job came open when Joe Torre rejected a one-year extension offer. “He’s won at every level of the minor leagues,” Moore said. “He’s been manager of the year at every level. He took a team over there in Japan that had never won and in year No. 4, they won the Japan series. “This year, they’re back in the Japan series with a team that’s last in basically every offensive category.” Hillman becomes the 15th full-time manager in the club’s 40-year history.

Re-signing Mike Sweeney

While traveling for business last week, I missed this little item in the Kansas City Star: “Royals could re-sign Sweeney if Butler proves capable of playing first.”

The reasoning goes something like this: The Royals have very little power in their lineup. Signing a free agent with power will be expensive. Mike Sweeney has power and is already here.

I am curious about two specific aspects of this story. 1.) Does Mike Sweeney still have power? And 2.) How much should the Royals pay him for this?

I am leaving out the question of Billy Butler’s ability to man first base, because I think that he can certainly play it as well as Ken Harvey and... er... well, Mike Sweeney did.

Does Mike Sweeney still have power?
Joe Sheehan made a comment in a chat at Baseball Prospectus the other day that I found interesting: “[Y]ou should consider extra-base hits together as a group (or in a rate like XBH/H, XBH/AB, ISO) as opposed to isolating one category of hits. Guys can see doubles turn into homers one year and back the next for no real reason.”

Let’s see how the original $11 million Royal has done at hitting for power consistently over his career.

Year  AB   XBH  XBH  ISO
           /H   /AB  
1995    4   0%   0%  000
1996  165  30%   8%  133
1997  240  26%   6%  121
1998  282  36%   9%  149
1999  575  37%  12%  198
2000  618  29%  10%  190
2001  559  44%  13%  238
2002  471  35%  12%  223
2003  392  30%   9%  174
2004  411  38%  11%  217
2005  470  43%  13%  217
2006  217  41%  11%  180
2007  204  36%   9%  162
CAREER     36%  11%  194

Not bad. Sweeney has lost a bit of isolated power the last few years, but his extra base hit percentages are still in line with his career numbers.

Before his latest trip to the disabled list, Sweeney had 7 home runs in 204 at bats. That put him on pace for 15 round trippers if he could have managed to stay healthy enough for 450 at bats. Don’t look now, but that would put him one behind John Buck for the team lead.

I’ll go out on a limb and say that the power is still there for Mike. A healthy Mike Sweeney could put 25 dingers on the board in a season, and while that won’t get him into any Barry Bonds debates, it would certainly help a team as anemic as this current Royals squad has been with the long ball.

Of course, the phrase “a healthy Mike Sweeney” is akin to “I want a pony” for most Royals fans. But, the fact is Sweeney is playing rehab ball in the minors right now. He will be able to play baseball next season and somebody will sign him.

How much should the Royals pay him for this?
Using some quick and dirty math along with the Play Index over at Baseball Reference, I cobbled together the following list of players I felt were having comparable seasons to Sweeney.

Name    PA  OPS+ Age HR BA  OBP SLG  Salary 
Erstad  274  80  33  2  272 331 354  $  750,000 
Redmond 270  86  36  1  289 344 350  $  950,000 
Zaun    285  79  36  6  228 310 378  $3,500,000 
Blum    255  83  34  2  256 327 352  $  900,000 
Graffy  260  83  35  9  238 315 390  $3,250,000 
Piazza  247  93  38  5  276 316 405  $8,500,000 
Valent  192  88  31  2  290 339 409  $3,800,000 
Cora    200  84  31  2  254 309 395  $2,000,000 
Gomez   203  94  36  1  305 338 390  $  850,000 
Conine  253  85  41  6  268 325 411  $2,000,000 
Delluc  196  83  33  4  234 301 389  $3,750,000 
Pod’nik 170  84  31  2  257 323 382  $2,900,000 
Cirillo 193  86  37  2  254 326 373  $1,500,000 
Clark   176  82  35  11 230 278 453  $1,034,000 
Barajas 141  86  31  4  214 343 376  $2,500,000 
Valentin183  79  37  3  241 302 373  $3,800,000 
Mientk  141  80  33  4  226 292 379  $1,500,000 

AVERAGE 214  84  35  4  255 319 386  $2,557,882 

Sweeney 225  82  33  7  245 307 407  $11,000,000

It’s good to know the Royals aren’t the only team overpaying for below-average production and disabled list time.

Taking a quick average of Sweeney’s last three years, how does he stack up with your average older, oft-injured player?

        PA  OPS+ Age  HR BA  OBP SLG  Salary 
AVERAGE 214  84  35   4  255 319 386  $2,557,882 
3 Years 326 102 30-33 12 268 334 454  $?,???,???

And some of this year’s numbers just for fun...

Player  Age OPS+
Sweeney 33  82
Gload   31  99
Brown   32  65
Costa   25  77*

*Costa’s OPS+ is from last season, when he spent significant time at the big league level.

Gload and Costa are relatively cheap. Emil Brown is getting paid $3,450,000 for his contributions this year. The Oakland Athletics have paid Frank Thomas and Mike Piazza $500,000 and $8,500,000 respectively over the last two years to man the designated hitter post with varying levels of return.

It’s funny to say it, but if the Royals can get Mike Sweeney’s average production from the last three years for Emil Brown money, I say they make that deal.

If We Can Only Avoid Playing the Yankees

On Tuesday, May 8th, the Kansas City Royals lost to the Oakland Athletics by a score of 6-1. Jorge de la Rosa took the loss, giving up 10 hits in just over four innings of work, and the Royals season was already over with the team sporting a 10-23 record, on pace for 100 losses yet again.

The Royals managed to eek out a 3-2 victory the next day, but dropped the series finale in style, giving up 17 runs to the A’s while Luke Hudson, the team’s best pitcher in 2006, took a beating in his only outing of the year before heading back to the disabled list.

A few more losses to the White Sox followed, but that May 8th game signaled a turning point in the season. From that point forward, the Royals have put up a win for every loss. In their last 80 games the team stands on even ground at 40-40.

A .500 record won’t win you any medals in the American League, but for this Kansas City team, it shows real progress over an extended period of time. For half a season, the Kansas City Royals have been a respectable ball club.

Is it the Offense?
The Royals have scored 4.96 runs a game during this stretch, against a league-average of 4.90.

Joey Gathright has been getting on base at a .415 clip since his first call-up on June 6th. Here are the team leaders in this category:

Gathrgt 415
German  373
DeJesus 365
Teahen  360
Grudz   345
Butler  342
LEAGUE  341

The people who are supposed to be getting on base are, and the people who are supposed to be driving them in? Here are the team leaders in slugging:

Buck   494
Gload  467
Grudz  445
Butler 439
LEAGUE 422

John Buck has come crashing down after his hot start, putting up a 218/283/400 line in July, but Ross Gload has filled in the sink hole that was Ryan Shealy by posting a 320/330/490 line since coming off the disabled list in mid-July.

Young Billy Butler has been swinging a big stick since his return from the minors, going 309/365/.478 since his second call-up.

Is it the Pitching?
The team has been giving up 4.86 runs a game, against an American League average of 4.79.

Brian Bannister leads the starters with a 3.32 ERA, followed by Million Dollar Gil at 3.96. New pick up Kyle Davies looked like a world beater in shutting down the Twins on Thursday, but the good money says he’s probably somewhere between that outing and the gas can he was for the Yankees last Saturday.

The relief corps continues to be outstanding. A quick look at the ERA leaders:

Soria  2.22
Riske  2.34
Gobble 3.13
Peralta 3.72

Odalis Perez (5.87), Jorge de la Rosa (5.46) and the rotation of random fifth starters has been the biggest culprit in keeping this team from being a winner.

The deal for Davies is one of many in which general manager Dayton Moore has brought young arms into the Kansas City system. Every player on these leader lists will be with the team next season, and most of them are under obligation for much longer than that.

A strong finish to this season will speak volumes about how stable the foundation of this team is. The push for a title begins in earnest in ’08.

Royals Trade Dotel for Davies

The Salary number is a little rough, but for approximately $2.5 million, the Kansas City Royals got this from Octavio Dotel:

23 Innings Pitched
11 Saves
29 Strike Outs
3.94 ERA
Kyle Davies from the Braves

Who is Kyle Davies? There are two ways to answer this questions. First, with the quick and dirty stats: 4-8 record, 5.76 ERA, 6 strikeouts a game (decent), 4.4 walks (not good).

The other answer is simply "a right-handed version of Jorge De la Rosa."

To illustrate, I'm going to use a favorite stat called "Game Score."

From Baseball-Reference.com:
"This is a value created by Bill James that evaluates how good a pitcher's start was. Start with 50 points. Add 1 point for each out recorded, (or 3 points per inning). Add 2 points for each inning completed after the 4th. Add 1 point for each strikeout. Subtract 2 points for each hit allowed. Subtract 4 points for each earned run allowed. Subtract 2 points for each unearned run allowed. Subtract 1 point for each walk."

The idea is that 50 is average, above 50 is a good start and below 50 is a bad start.

In descending order, here are the game scores for Davies and De la Rosa this season:

       De la
Davies Rosa
67     73
64     69
63     68
62     67
62     64
58     55
50     55
41     52
40     49
39     44
39     44
35     39
35     39
29     35
26     30
24     23
15     20
       13
       10
AVERAGE
44     45

For what it's worth, Davies is also about 3 years younger than De la Rosa and at 23, has plenty of potential left in his arm.

Like De la Rosa, it all comes down to control. If the Royals coaching staff can manage to keep the new guy around the plate, he has the potential to be a strong contributer to the team.

Royals Week in Review - 7/20/07

After sticking it to the Red Sox, the Kansas City Royals prepare for a showdown with evil next week. But, before the Yankees come to Kauffman stadium, the boys in blue must first vanquish the front-running Detroit Tigers in the Motor City.

Ivan Rodriguez’s ninth inning homer must be avenged!

Month by Month
Thanks to the hard work of people like Sean Forman, hacks like me can find stats like this almost instantly:

       W   L   RS   RA   WP
April  8   18  99   132  .308
May    11  17  112  159  .393
June   15  12  145  117  .556
July   7   6   74   56   .538
Courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com

God, I love the internet.

As you can see, the Royals have turned into a winning ball club over the last two months. The results for July are difficult to judge, as the team hit a lucky stretch playing in Boston against two of the Beantowner’s lesser pitchers.

Playing on the road against the division leaders and then against a New York team that smells blood in the water should be a truer test of the progress the team has made.

Trading Deadline
Thanks to the internet age, pretty much every major leaguer can count on his name coming up in a trade rumor about this time of year. Both of my dead grandmothers have been linked to talks with the Cubs about a mid-level prospect.

The fact is, only Octavio Dotel is likely to get any serious scratch back for the Royals this season.

Dotel has a 3.15 ERA in 20 innings with the team this year, and it looks like bringing him back is not an option. If Dayton Moore can flip the Dominican for some top-level farm help, then his one-year contract will have been worth the gamble.

Future Stars
A quick refresher on some common stats I use.

AVG – Batting Average. Most people are familiar with this metric.
OBP – On Base Percentage. This takes into account walks and hit-by-pitches to give a better look at ability to get on base.
SLG – Slugging Average. This accounts for a player’s power by giving credit for each base reached with a hit. 1 for a single, 2 for a double, etc.

Currently, the American League is batting 269/340/419 (AVG/OBP/SLG).

Here is how some of the young players on the Royals stack up:

Billy Butler – 348/400/580 since being called up June 20th
Alex Gordon – 303/358/434 since the first of June
Mark Teahen – 366/487/548 with runners in scoring position
Joey Gathright – 315/390/370 before being sent down when Reggie Sanders came of the disabled list

Reggie Sanders is 377/450/623 on the season. AVAILABLE NOW!!! DIRT CHEAP!!!

Of course, Reginald is a career 267/343/489 hitter, which is nothing to sneeze at, but lends one to believe his current numbers may not hold up.

On the pitching side, there are several players to be excited about.

Brian Bannister – 3.87 ERA Ambriorix Burgos, whom the Royals traded straight-up for Bannister before the season, has put up decent numbers with the Mets as a reliever, but is currently on the disabled list.

Joakim Soria – 1.98 ERA Don’t forget, this guy through a perfect game in winter ball. Here’s hoping he won’t be relegated to the bullpen forever.

Jimmy Gobble – 2.67 ERA It’s easy to forget that Gobble is only 25 years old. His splits are heavily favored against left handed batters, but there’s something to be said for finding a role for a player who failed to meet expectations with regularity over the last four years.

Royals Week in Review - 7/14/07

Kansas City Royals come out of the All Star Break with a ton of momentum and a killer schedule. A few minor moves this week show that General Manager Dayton Moore may be warming up to be a player as the trade market heats up this month.

All Star Game
The Royals sent their $55 Million Man to San Francisco to represent this week. Mr. Meche's line:

DNP

Good work, Gil.

For a rundown of recent Royals in the mid-summer classic, check out Royals Review.

Perception vs. Reality
Now at the halfway point of the season, let's take a look at how the main players have compared to their pre-season projections.

OPS     Curr  Proj  Diff
Gthrght 796   665   19.70%
Buck    872   739   18.00%
Pena    668   573   16.58%
Grudz   749   709    5.64%
German  768   745    3.09%
DeJesus 783   786   -0.38%
Butler  767   786   -2.42%
Teahen  765   810   -5.56%
Gload   681   817  -16.65%
Gordon  679   834  -18.59%
Brown   608   781  -22.15%

ERA     Curr  Proj  Diff
Soria   2.21  6.21  64.41%
Riske   2.21  4.36  49.31%
Gobble  2.70  5.17  47.78%
Banny   3.71  5.84  36.47%
Meche   3.54  4.90  27.76%
Peralta 3.64  4.50  19.11%
Dotel   3.50  4.17  16.07%
dlaRosa 5.16  5.55   7.03%
Greinke 4.63  4.76   2.73%
Perez   5.68  4.75 -19.58%

As you can see, the pitching staff has blown away the projections so far this year. There will most certainly be a regression to the mean for most of these pitchers, but the staff has already proven to be a bigger strength than most people expected.

The offense is a more of a mixed bag. John Buck has been in breakout mode for most of the year, still hitting for power even though his average has gone down. Tony Pena Jr. will most certainly come crashing back to earth, but the rest of the batters should be able to improve their stats as the second half rolls along.

Thug Royals
The GM started the trading season with a couple of minor moves, but both will affect the big league roster soon.

Aside from his pending charge for felonious assault, Roman Colon has put up decent stats in the minors and with Atlanta and Detroit. Out of options, he will need to be put on the 25 man roster next week.

Colon was used as a starter often early in his minor league career. One has to wonder if a few more bad outings by some of the team's lesser starters will put him in the prime scoring card location soon.

Jason Smith has already taken over the role of utility infielder on the team since being picked up from the Diamondbacks organization earlier this week.

Aside from a good season at AAA Colorado Springs last year, Smith has been exactly what you'd expect from a journeyman utility player.

Projecting the Second Half

As Independence Day nears, the Kansas City Royals have passed the midpoint of the season looking remarkably like a good baseball club the past month.

There will probably be many moves in the next month -- injured players returning, veterans getting traded, Buddy Bell giving Tony Pena Jr. a ten game shot at batting cleanup -- but for the moment, I want to focus on four numbers:

68, 72, 77 & 79

Sixty-Eight Wins
If you simply take the current winning percentage of the team and put it against 162 games, the final record will be 68-94.

Avoiding 100 losses is an accomplishment unto itself given the recent history of the franchise, but doesn't this team feel like it should win more than 68 games? After winning 62 games last year, a six game swing would be quite disappointing.

Seventy-Two Wins
I use the following formula to calculate "Pythagorean" wins:

(RS*2)/(RS*2)+(RA*2)

Statheads generally look at Runs Scored (RS) and Runs Allowed (RA) as a "truer" picture of how well a team has played.

People much smarter than me have suggested that a factor of 1.78 is more accurate, or even a factor that changes depending on the scoring environment of a particular season. Me? I'm happy to just square everything up and go with that.

What that gives us is a team that is actually good for about 72 wins on the season. Still not remarkable, but markedly better than the 62 of Ought-Six.

Seventy-Seven & Seventy-Nine Wins
The team has been playing much better lately, and I wanted to give them credit for that. Luckily, I have way too much free time today because the whole world is already on vacation for the 4th of July, so I decided to look at the pythag record for the last ten games and the last twenty five.

This chart shows the season so far in terms of real wins and the various calculations.

As discussed in an earlier post, the "10 Day Py" line shows those stretches when the team really plays well (and when they don't). In contrast, the "25 Day Py" line is perhaps a better predictor of future performance as it takes into account a larger sampling of games.

Now, 10 and 25 are purely arbitrary numbers. I still think this provides a good snapshot as to how the season has really gone for the team. Two really good stretches, culminating in one of the better months the team has had since 2003.

If the team finishes out the year winning 53-55% of their games (as they have for the last 10 and 25, respectively), they will finish the season with 77-79 wins.

Those totals won't bring home any hardware, but they'll come from a young team that will remain intact and improving for the next several years.

That's something to cheer about.

Royals Week in Review - 06/29/07

Having swept the California Angels of Southern Antiqua, the Kansas City Royals look to the Chicago White Sox, a team that is one bad weekend away from taking over the cellar position the Royals have held for so long.

As this weekend will mark the halfway point of the season, let's take a look at some of the notable stats from the first 79 games.

Offense & Defense

Mo   RS   RA   OPS  ERA
Apr  3.8  5.1  700  4.32
May  4.0  5.7  699  5.27
Jun  5.4  4.5  730  4.30

The offense has shown dramatic improvement in the last month, while the pitching has come back strong after an off month in May. Even the defense has stepped it up from the first month of the season, with only 5% of runs allowed being unearned in June, compared to 17% in April.

Leaders

Reggie Sanders will probably end the season as the team leader in OPS (On-Base Percentage + Slugging Average) as long as his sore hammy keeps him on the disabled list. These are the top three players looking to take over his 1.059 showing.

Buck      907
Gathright 851
Teahen    795

Even better for the Royals, the hot hands in June all look to play a significant role in the team's future.

OPS June
DeJesus   885
Gordon    885
Buck      880
Gathright 851

Joey Gathright has been getting on base at a .446 clip since his call up on June 6. While he does only have three extra base hits, the speedster has also stolen five bags while only getting caught once.

From a pitching standpoint, the relief staff has an overall ERA of 4.06 compared to the starters at 4.95.

A look at June ERA shows that while the bullpen has really been heating up, the rotation still needs some serious work.

ERA June
Soria   0.00
Riske   1.42
Peralta 2.08
Dotel   2.53

Banny   3.00
Meche   3.98
DL Rosa 6.41
Perez   6.66
Elartn 11.15

Gil Meche has slipped a little, but still looks like a win for Dayton Moore, while Brian Bannister has held his own.

De La Rosa is a fantastic pitcher to have if the game were still being played without stadium lights (a 3-0 record in day games); Odalis Perez is looking a lot like the devil, and Scott Elarton can stay in Omaha forever as far as I'm concerned.

Winners & Losers
Thanks to the wonderful stats over at Fangraphs (track a game live and see how your emotions look in a line chart), we can see who has contributed the most to the Royals wins and losses this year.

The stat Winning Percentage Added (WPA) gives credit for every play made that increases or decreases a teams chance at winning a game. As such, it puts greater importance on plays made late in a game, where the outcome of the game becomes more certain.

Team WPA
Offense  -5.43
Starters -2.15
Relief   +1.08

Most observers believed that Kansas City getting a reliable bullpen would be a sign of the apocalypse. No four horsemen yet, but keep your eyes peeled.

Individual WPA
Soria   1.40
Grienke 1.27

Meche   0.95

DeJesus 0.54
Teahen  0.52

Elartn -1.18
Pena   -2.04

After some poor outings as a starter, Zack Grienke has ratcheted up his WPA by getting some big strikeouts as a reliever. Soria has been an absolute steal for the team, and one wonders if they shouldn't begin stretching him out to be a starter like Minnesota did with Johan Santana.

The two guys who have hurt the team most have one distinct difference: fielding. While TPJ may flail away at the plate like a tee baller facing the high school kids, he has flashed some pretty good leather this season, something that isn't accounted for much in these numbers.

Scott Elarton just stinks. One good outing in AAA will not convince me otherwise.

A young offense is coming around, and the bullpen has been a revelation. Dayton Moore must continue adding to the starting rotation. That is the key to this team becoming a threat in the American League in the very near future.

MLB Piques My Interest in Women's Apparel

First of all, let me say that I love my wife.

Let me also say that it is easily apparent this is a photoshop job, as I found the same picture for all MLB teams with the logo switched out.

Lastly, for the record: I don't care. As somebody who grew up on "Who's the Boss," watched "Charmed" in spite of the ridicule from my roommate, and recorded the episode of "Spin City" when Alyssa Milano played the mayor's daughter (watch, and you'll know why), this photo is a dream come true.

Now, if I can only win the contest without my wife leaving me.

Royals Week in Review - 6/22/07

Something happened to the Kansas City Royals bats around June first. I don't know what it is, but after losing seven in a row, the boys in blue have pretty much taken Pythag out behind the woodshed the last few weeks.

The following chart has two lines:

The RED line represents the Royals running pythagorean record based on runs scored and runs allowed as the season progresses.

The BLUE line is a rolling ten game snapshot of their pythagorean record.



Basically, the blue line spikes whenever the team has a particularly good stretch of games (e.g. putting 17 runs on the board in the space of five days), and drops when they struggle (the aforementioned seven game losing streak).

The Royals are currently riding their second wave of sustained success. It's good to see the team bounce back after that disheartening stretch in May, but the real key to sustained improvement lies in the moves General Manager Dayton Moore makes between now and the trading deadline.

Addition by Subtraction
Whoever kicked Scott Elarton in the ankle is this month's MVP if you ask me. 2-3 with a 9.17 ERA in eight starts? I watched him pitch against the Cardinals the other night and I'm pretty sure I could have taken him yard, his stuff was so bad.

Despite Joe Posnanski's push for a four-man rotation, the Royals have signed John Thompson to take Elarton's place in the rotation.

The Royals opted for Thomson after choosing to keep Zack Greinke and Joakim Soria in the bullpen. They also resisted any inclination to promote any of their three top pitching prospects: Billy Buckner, Luke Hochevar and Tyler Lumsden.

While I'd like to see Grienke get another shot at the rotation, I'm okay with this move right now, as Zack seems to have found a groove coming out of the bullpen.

Thompson is your standard issue fourth starter, with a career ERA of 4.69 with four different teams. As seems to be the case with many of Moore's moves, he had some success in Atlanta, going 14-8 with a 3.72 ERA in 2004.

Sweeney Out
I'm done with jokes about Mike Sweeney's ailing back and annual trips to the disabled list. He will leave as one of the most productive hitters in Royals history and one of the most frustrating. I think big Mike's heart really was dedicated to making the Royals a better team, but his body could not shoulder the strain.

Thus, young Billy Ray will be getting another chance to taste the bright lights and lavish buffets of big league baseball. The Royals have officially taken the glove away from their top prospect, but plan to give him an opportunity to impress with the stick.

Butler will pinch-hit the next five games and then DH every day until Sweeney returns. KC considered other players but Butler was the only option who was on the 40-man roster that could be called up and then sent back to Minors without passing through waivers.

Now that Alex Gordon is hitting like the hype (333/361/507 since June 1st), the Royals young offense may be exciting to watch the next few months.

All Star Voting
Personally, I'd like to see John Buck named as the Royals representative at the upcoming All-Star game. He has been the team's most productive hitter, looks like a bad-ass with his new hair do, and maybe it would force the team to stop making their All Star split time with Jason LaRue.

As it is, the Royals will probably have to settle for one of their pitchers milling around the bullpen in San Francisco, waiting for the chance to serve up a Barry Bonds homer in front of the home crowd.

If that's the case, then Jim Leyland would have to give Gil Meche his top consideration. Despite last night's wobbly start, Meche has been everything the Royals could have hoped for so far this year, and thanks to his contract, he is a name some people might have heard of.

I could see Leyland giving the nod to David Riske. He's go an ERA under three and was nice enough to serve up that game winning homer to Ivan Rodriguez on April 8th.