Offseason Move 1: Jason Vargas

            With the first notable move of the offseason, the Royals signed Jason Vargas to a 4 year, $32M contract*. GM Dayton Moore cited things like “he always gives you a chance to win” and that he has a “mindset that [he’s] going to compete”. These kinds of phrases give no real information; if a player makes it to the major league level, he’s a competitor in some way. GMDM always makes these kinds of comments when referring to players, which suggests that he doesn’t value advanced statistics very much. However, when looking into Vargas’ stats and this deal, I think it could turn out to be a good partnership.

Free Agent Target: Dan Haren

               The Royals will need to sign a free agent starting pitcher sometime this offseason (if they don’t go the trade route). They are losing Ervin Santana and Bruce Chen, and Wade Davis was not very good and needs to see a lot of improvement before providing value. The only guarantees for the rotation are Shields and Guthrie. Bob Dutton of the KC Star has said that Yordano Ventura has a spot in the rotation that’s his to lose. Danny Duffy will probably get a spot. That leaves 1 more spot for a 5 man rotation, but injuries happen. They’ll need more than 5 starting pitchers to get through the season. Due to the Royals’ stated budgetary limitations, if they go for a free agent starting pitcher, he’ll have to come cheap. My first free agent starting pitcher target is Dan Haren.

Starting Pitching Review

GMDM and Yost declared before the 2013 season began that they wanted and would get 1000 IP from their starters. I laughed; an absurd claim, I thought. By the end of the season, the starters threw 986.2 innings, good for 4th of 30 teams. Pretty close; I was happy. The starters had done their jobs in 2013. This was in stark contrast to 2012, when the starters pitched 890 innings, good for 28th of 30. What worked, and what didn’t?

Magic Santana

Magic. Ervin's season was definitely not lacking in it. I wrote at the beginning of the season that Santana needed to reintroduce his sinker and rely more on his off-speed stuff in order to have a successful season. Santana's slider was deadly this season, so it was easy to rely on that for strikeouts. Santana did indeed re-introduce his sinker, and he used it at a greater proportion than he ever has before (21%) at the expense of his 4 seam fastball. He had about a 58% GB% with his sinker. The reintroduction of his sinker allowed his pitch mix to be more unpredictable and to keep the ball on the ground more than he did in 2012. In addition, his slider's effectiveness increased. The combination of his pitch mix and pitch usage tells me that Ervin figured out how to pitch this year, rather than try to throw.

The Wade Davis Issue

If you look at his ERA, Wade Davis was abysmal, Kyle Davies-esque even. However, his FIP and xFIP were in fact less than abysmal; one might say they were slightly below average, which they were. They were actually his best FIP and xFIP as a starter since 2009, which not coincidentally is his greatest fWAR season prior to 2013. So, why the difference? One reason, and a big reason, is that his BABIP was way out of control. Davis had basically the highest BABIP of all starting pitchers. He also walked a few too many guys. Beyond his BABIP and BB%, doing some research is revealing; all data following are from Brooks Baseball.

Evaluating the New-Look Starting Rotation

             In 2012, after 10 games, I looked at how the starting pitching was doing using various statistics.  In 2013, after 10 games, I'm going to do the same thing, since that will give an interesting comparison to how the starting rotation has improved since last year.  Keep in mind that the small sample size rule applies here, and one game can change statistics drastically.  Like Mendoza's start last night.

Introductory Post and the Starting Rotation

          Since this is the first post of this blog, I should lay out some thoughts about the purpose of this blog.  The primary goal of this blog is to write about baseball.  I have been a Royals fan for my entire life, so naturally I will write mostly about the Royals; however, I will probably add in some posts every so often about other teams in baseball or the sport in general.  I am also a fan of the Chiefs and Sporting KC, so I might post about them every once in awhile.