Aug/100
GWBH% and the Royals
Posted by: Bertkc01 on August 11, 2010.
Ever heard of VORP? Have we really gotten our heads around what OPS means? I think WHIP and ERA determine the Cy Young now not wins or strikeouts. Let’s face it we just keep thinking of new numbers to make the game more interesting. Hell they won’t let us have instant replay so why not?
In pure sport I submit to you another dumb equation to possibly explain our lack of clutch hitting. Please read the following in jest.
Oh great reader I stand before you befuddled. For 2 reasons my befuddlement has reached the highest level since the “steroid era”.
1.)The Royals are in fact putting the prospects in play that we all have been gawking over for some time. Alex, Kila, Bullington and Betemit were all at AAA for a substantial time before arriving and we know they’re potential. We all saw they’re stats and were screaming for Dayton Moore to start bringing up this hot, young talent. (Not another way of saying hot chick. These are highly regarded, highly performing young guys that we want to see play.) Yet at this moment after a west coast roadtrip we have gone 2 – 7. Befuddling.
2.)If it were not for the 7-1 loss to Seattle we can say that about 6 of the 7 games were lost by 2 runs or less. I think 6. Could be 5 but I’m not entirely sure. On top of that every game we lost we had one last at bat and, save for 3 of the 7 losses, we were easily one big hit away winning the game. Serious befuddlement.
It is for this reason I propose yet one more meaningless stat to help us understand what the heck is going on with the Royals. Can it truly be meaningless? Yes. Baseball has a way of putting importance on things that shouldn’t matter (or does it?).
Here’s the stats I shall use to calculate a teams ability to get the Game Winning Base Hit (GWBH%):
Wins, Slugging %, games played, RBI’s and what the hell let’s try and put the teams ERA into it (what good is all runs if your pitching can’t keep it right?).
Royals have a .392 Slugging %, won 47 games, 445 RBI’s so far in a 114 games played. They also have 5.01 ERA (2nd worst in AL).
Okay let’s call the GWBH% a means of calculating the odds a team has of hitting the last RBI in the game. Sooo….
1.) First step of equation: RBI’s/game
445 RBI’s /114 games = 3.905 RBI’s/game
Sooo… with a .392 Slug we have 3.905 RPG which equates to 47 wins. Since there is a team ERA of 5.01 we can easily see why a team might be in last place. Since we can’t score a fraction of a run I’ve decided to round up to 4 RPG. Divide this by Slug %.
2.) Step 2. A weird answer.
.392 slug/4 rpg = .098 slug/rpg… what does the .098 mean? It’s small and since baseball is a game of inches day in and day out we have to extrapolate this number on a season basis. Soooo…
.098 slug/rpg * 114 games = 11.72 slug/rpg/game
Just too add another layer of voodoo let’s make it a percentage. At 11.72%. Thus an 11.72% chance the Royals will get the GWBH.
That means that 88.28% chance the Royals will give UP the GWBH. In the end it makes no sense but damnit doesn’t just feel like I’m onto something?
Jul/100
First 1/2 evaluation and random thoughts
Posted by: Bertkc01 on July 14, 2010.
Passing thoughts on the Royals since the midway point (which isn’t the midway point but it’s like the Christmas break of baseball)
Hey our AAA, AA and High A minor league teams look awesome!
From a fan’s glance I’m gonna break down the first half of the season into 2 halves. Le’ts call them Yuni and Betancourt.
The Trey days (Betancourt):
Royals were error prone fools. THE BULLPEN. Should I even start? They couldn’t close a case on Usama Bin Laden. They worked walks like they were outs and they were the worst in baseball. If not statistcally then they were the best at deflating morality in baseball.
Offense: OBP and AVG. are among the best in baseball but (and it’s a big but) none of that matters when the defense is error prone and the walks (heard the saying “beware the 2 out walk” multiple times) are escalating to the point of embarrasement.
No play illustrates this better than when, on opening day, Robinson Tejeda came in and gave up a lead by way of Johny Damon. I listen to the radio. I heard the frothing. We started off 0-1.
Since Hillman’s firing (Yuni):
The Royals are at .500.
The Royals seem to finally have figured it out. Good D and good pitching will go along way to overcoming a lack of a slugger. A Kila Kai’ahue and Jose Guillen and Ankiel filled line up (with an Alex Gordon twist) would resolve this issue I think but maybe Gordon needs to work on his approach a bit. Or maybe we should trade him? Seriously though we got Parraz, Dyson and Robinson lined up to accept the succesor’s job so why not? That means we got Podsednik and Gordon to trade. Wow, what would you give for that? Pods as CF and Gordon as LF. Not so much what but who would trade for that? It feels like a National league team would want that. What team in the NL needs a better outfield? How about the Cubs or the Astros? Anyone got any ideas?
The high point of the year? Beating Strasburg and kick starting a 10-3 pace for 13 games before being swept by the White Sox. God I hate the White Sox.
2nd
Since Guillen got gimpy on us who will they have play his spot? It appears Betemit is the answer. On top of that Moustakas was just moved to AAA and Hosmer is projected to go to AA (See last article for my secret “I told ya so” idea). Where it not for Betemit we would see KK in the majors and my idea would be in full fruition sigh. Alas it was not yet ment to be. KK I will see you in 2011. sniff, sniff
Here’s hoping we stay even now and make our late year run we made like we did last 2 years with both KK, Moustakas and Gordon stepping onto the podium’s we have waiting for them.
So I want to open it up for next article: Should I write about the Royals playing culture where I point out the Royals players brought up in the system are playing better than free agents? Or should I write about the job Dayton Moore has done? Just a thought.
Apr/100
Early Season Thoughts
Posted by: Casey on April 16, 2010.
To start things out, I’d like to go ahead and say I haven’t been as dedicated as I was last year when it came to Royals baseball. I still read the stories and check the sites, but as far as watching the team goes, I’ve probably only watched about half the innings played thus far.
I completely expected this season to be depressing in that I thought a 70-92 season would be a huge plus. Everyone in baseball knew this bullpen was going to be absolutely terrible, excluding those manager’s in the central who get to benefit from the atrocity that is Farnsworth/Mendoza.
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the Kansas City bullpen,” Leyland said. “I think the Kansas City bullpen has a lot of fine arms down there, and for whatever reason, we’ve been fortunate to get a couple timely hits.”
The surprise for me has been the impact made thus far from some new guys. Ankiel has hit the ball better than I thought he would, Kendall has hit well for average, Pods has done his share of OBP (.525), and I’ve even been happy with Getz’s performance. I was critical of all of these acquisitions (like why are we putting a 12 million dollar outfielder at DH?) and signing two outfielders in Ankiel/Pods. Granted, Guillen isn’t a good fielder, and apparently he almost died this off-season, so I can see where DM was going with this. He even probably figured Callaspo as the DH in case Guillen did lose the battle to blood clots in the legs.
Yet he did nothing about the god-awful bullpen, except bringing in a career 7.73 era pitcher in Mendoza and some non-roster invitee’s who have actually ended up being the lone not-so-dark spots in the bullpen. Like I said a few days ago on twitter.. The fact that Dayton Moore chilled all winter being comfortable with what our 2010 bullpen was going to be like, without really doing anything about it, makes me think his days as our GM should be numbered.
However, they’ve exceeded our expectations with the bat, base-running has been terrible aside from some good stolen bases, starting pitching has been decent except apparently Zack has some new (or not) mental issues (plus he doesn’t have the world’s best catcher in Miguel Olivo anymore). Meche is still a pussy and Bannie/Hoch/Davies have performed well. I thought Zack might struggle a bit early-season this year with hitters taking different approaches against him now that he’s not just a baby-faced righty.
My outlook: don’t drink the powder blue kool-aid. This team was a 100 loss team a year ago had Zack not gone un-hittable, and the bullpen will continue to be a liability to the rest of our team’s health. The bats won’t keep this ridiculous pace, and our starters will probably slide a little. Consider this: the Royals lead the league in hitting (.307 average), and with the decent starting pitching we’ve got, we are still only 4-6.
Jan/101
The signing of Rick Ankiel and others
Posted by: photogwingsfan on January 27, 2010.
After giving the recent signings by Dayton Moore and the Royals some time to fester, I can finally give my opinion from a fans perspective.
Rick Ankiel- I am not jumping up and down with this signing but don’t hate it as much as others. After they decided to go another direction with trading Mark Teahen (I like who they got in return but hate to see one of my favorite and others go), not resigning Miguel Olivo and Mike Jacobs they had to go after someone with some kind of power. Ankiel had only 11 home runs last season which was marred by injuries but the Royals and their fans hope he can return to the 2008 season form where he hit 25. Everyone knows that the boys in blue won’t hit many dingers so they will need as much help possible from the former Cardinal (blah.) I don’t want to forget his arm in the outfield . It will be a major plus for the Royals outfield. [url]http://stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?mid=200805072655396[/url]
Scott Podsednik- Everyone is hoping the former White Sox can repeat a season where he hit .304 (BA) and steal 30 bases. He is part of a crowded outfield that includes David DeJesus, Mitch Maier, Jose Guillen, Brian Anderson and Rick Ankiel. Something will have to give and as of right now I see a starting outfield as DeJesus (LF), Ankiel (CF) and Podsednik (RF.)
Jason Kendall- This is the one signing that others and I just don’t understand. They let go Olivo and Buck and signed a guy who has no pop whatsoever and for around the same price. My guess is that they think he will work better with the pitchers.
Noel Arguelles- I believe Noel Arguelles is the biggest acquisition during the Royals off-season. It’s true that he might not pitch for a few seasons but this showed that Dayton Moore and the Royals are committed to putting money into the international market, a place that they have been absent as of late.
Pretty much what all this means is that the Royals are just trying to wait until their young guys come up from minors, something we have heard way to much. They have to start hitting on some guys in the draft or we will be right back to wear former General Manager Allard Baird left us.
Jan/102
Podsednik Helps Royals In Two Ways
Posted by: Casey on January 8, 2010.
Elite Celebration Level
The Royals have officially signed Scott Podsednik to a 1 or 2 year deal. Since he’s 33, I have no problems with us signing him to a short deal. He’s a marginal upgrade in CF over Bloomquist, in my opinion. He did hit over .300 last year as the full time starter for the chi sox, leading off too.
Might you ask why Dayton Moore didn’t go for other CF’s in the market, well there’s two main reasons.
First of all, the Royals have really been exposed in one major area over the last few years: celebrations. It’s almost painful to watch these guys try to celebrate after a walk-off victory. Lot’s of awkward hugs and smiles. Thankfully, DM did get rid of “the best catcher in the world” in Miguel Olivo (of which Greinke had very fond feelings). So that did help the overall flamboyance of the 2010 team. As seen in the above picture, the White Sox have always been on the upper side of the league when it comes to passion and ability to celebrate. Perhaps this will put an end to the Royal Dance.
The second reason is his wife just happens to be a playboy model. The Royal’s wife events have been subpar, and this is an obvious upgrade.
Great work, Dayton Moore.
Jul/090
With the trade deadline looming the Royals need to continue getting better
Posted by: photogwingsfan on July 30, 2009.
The non-waiver trade deadline, Friday, 3 p.m. (CST), will soon be upon us and the Royals are again in a position (as always) to make their team better. If the Royals have the chance to make a trade then field they should not hesitate.
The only positions/players I think they are fine with are David DeJesus and Mark Teahen in the outfield/infield and Billy Butler and Alex Gordon in the infield. They have all shown they can get the job done except for Gordon who I am still willing to give a pass to. (But if it gets to the end of next year and he is still struggling then I will start to really worry.) But if a team comes to the Royals wanting DeJesus or Teahan then I think they have to really listen.
So far the Royals have made some acquisitions. They traded for Ryan Freel, Yuniesky Betancourt and now recently Josh Anderson from the Detroit Tigers. None of them really excite me. Freel is just another role player, Betancourt is an upgrade from what he had before at shortstop; but practically anyone would be, and now Anderson. Anderson is the best of the three so far but still doesn’t give the team a step in the right direction which I believe is needed.
I am afraid that the Royals and Dayton Moore are content at sitting where they are and thinking they have a core of young players to build around. They have a few but clearly are not close to competing just yet and I believe they need to concentrate on getting more hitting and power in the lineup.
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