Royals Game Recap: 5/14/14

*I am going to try my hand at a different type of writing with this post. In an effort to provide more content, I would like to write about things that are perhaps a little bit less research-intensive. Game recaps fit that mold nicely.

                The Royals are officially on a winning streak (3 games!) after Wednesday’s 3-2 win over the Colorado Rockies. With the win, the Royals climb ever so slightly back above the .500 mark for the season to 20-19 and maintain their 2^nd place position in the AL Central.

Yordano Ventura, Fire and Flame

          Yordano Ventura, he of firebreathing properties, burnt the aquatic Tampa Bay Rays to a crisp yesterday evening. Unfortunately, Chris Archer shot down the flailing Royals offense, too, so nobody did anything on offense until the starters exited the stage. Pitcher’s duels aren’t without their merit, though. Given that Yordano Ventura is the most-hyped Royals pitching prospect since probably Zack Greinke, it seems fitting to overanalyze and overreact to Yordano’s* performance last night.

*Ventura’s nickname appears to be “Ace Ventura”, but in keeping with Royals tradition, I’m sure Ned Yost will refer to him as “Yordy” at some point, if he hasn’t already.

Bronson Arroyo, Royals a Fit

                As we get closer to the beginning of Spring Training, Bronson Arroyo still doesn’t have a current employer. In each of the past two years, Arroyo has thrown over 200 innings and has had an ERA under 4.00 despite poorer peripherals. Given his durability, why hasn’t he found a home? Maybe it’s because the Royals haven’t jumped on the opportunity yet.

Luke Hochevar: Starter? (Again)

With the departure of Ervin Santana and Bruce Chen, and the ineffectiveness of Wade Davis, the Royals are looking for some starting pitching depth. To replace Santana, the Royals signed Jason Vargas. The rotation is Shields, Guthrie, and Vargas at the top; while that isn’t that bad, it doesn’t scream playoffs. The Royals have a multitude of players for the other two rotation spots, including Danny Duffy, Yordano Ventura, Wade Davis, and Luke Hochevar. Wait, Hochevar? Again? Yes, again. The Royals are aiming to give him another shot. What can we expect? 

No Mo #YoLough

                Dayton Moore strikes again. Another trade, this one an exchange of David Lough for Danny Valencia. Lough, despite accruing 2.4 fWAR in 96 games, was not likely to factor in to the Royals 2014 plans after they acquired Norichika Aoki. With Aoki, Gordon, Cain, Maxwell, Dyson, and Lough, someone had to go. Like the Will Smith-Aoki trade, the Royals have traded from a position of surplus to fill a position of need. I support this line of thinking. Lough’s value came from defense; he was merely average-ish at the plate but has poor plate discipline. Since Aoki offers good defense with better offense, Lough wasn’t going to play much, so it makes sense to trade him.

Optimism for 2014 and Caution for 2015 and Beyond

                The Royals continued their “spending spree” this offseason by signing 2b Omar Infante to a four year contract worth $30.25M with a team option for a 5^th year at $10M with a $2M buyout. Infante is coming off a season in which he batted .318/.345/.450 and accrued 3.1 fWAR, which if you were watching last year, would have been a massive improvement over what the Royals had at 2b. Infante is a solid player who has a fairly good chance of outperforming his contract over the first two years and underperforming the contract in the last two years to produce something like fair value over the life of the contract. The Royals managed to secure a good player to a good contract despite the current condition of the free agent market and competition from the Yankees for his services, and Dayton Moore deserves some credit for this. The team option seems like a waste of $2M, but the Royals somehow believe he will still be effective in 2018.

Dayton Moore Makes a Good Trade!

                Apparently channeling his inner good GM, Dayton and the Royals have acquired RF Norichika Aoki from the Brewers in exchange for SP/RP Will Smith. The instant reaction from the Twitterverse is that this deal is good for the Royals. My instant reaction? The same. While the Royals had to give up several years of control over a cheap, young pitcher, the Royals had depth at the position and can replace Smith. This deal should position the Royals well for 2014 in RF offensively, defensively, and financially.

The Effects of the Non-Tenderization of Chris Getz

Of the players eligible for arbitration, which is the contract negotiation process for players without enough service time to be considered a free agent, the Royals kept all but one. The Royals have finally cut ties with Chris Getz. Getz was often praised for “doing the little things” like sacrifice bunting and other such things. Unfortunately, Getz didn’t do the big things, like hit. Not giving a contract to Getz complicates the 2b situation for the Royals, but it absolutely had to be done.

Dayton Moore Is Probably Not As Bad As Most Think

With the offseason fully underway, there has been a substantial amount of activity. Normally, this amount of activity isn’t seen until the winter meetings of all the GMs next week, but this offseason appears to be different. The market for catchers, specifically, has been very interesting so far. With Dayton Moore being extended, I’d like to offer a ray of hope that while he isn’t the best GM in the game, he most likely isn’t the worst. 

David Lough is a Poor Royals' Version of Manny Machado...For Now

This could turn out to be a rambling post. The impetus for writing this one was just through exploration of FanGraphs’ leaderboards rather than through something structured and well-conceived. David Lough became relevant for the Royals in 2013 after Jeff Francoeur was shown the door (thankfully). Lough showed an ability to play all 3 outfield positions with slightly below average offense. In order to show that David Lough might be underrated, I will compare him to Manny Machado. 

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.

Comparing Ranges of K% and BB%

Recently, I’ve begun comparing pitchers based on their K% and BB% going back to 2002, which is when batted ball data begins to become available on FanGraphs. My thought is this: pitchers have pretty good control over their K% and BB%, so those reflect true skill. What I want to see is a range of effectiveness for pitchers in the MLB within a set range of K% and BB% to compare players. I recently looked into John Lamb, who is a pitching prospect in the Royals minor league system. What follows is not a rigorous analysis but just something interesting I observed. 

Where Escobar's Poor Offense Is Explained

Alcides Escobar started 2013 almost right where he left off in 2012. In March and April, Escobar hit .286/.330/.439 with a .287 BABIP. Things were looking great. It appeared that his good offensive performance in 2012 would continue in 2013. However, that's not how the rest of 2013 turned out. Escobar's season went downhill very quickly after the initial start. Escobar's BABIP did decrease after that initial month, but it did not decrease very much. Escobar's horrible offensive season had other factors behind it. 

Positional Flexibility and Salvador Perez

According to a statement by Ned Yost in late September, Salvador Perez is going to play first base in winter ball. Yost wants to see if Perez’s glove could work there, and he believes that Perez has the defensive talent to play there. This could easily be nothing; for the conspiracy theorists, this could point even more toward a Billy Butler trade. Theorizing aside, why would Yost want to see if Perez can play first base? 

Free Agent Target: Phil Hughes

Continuing along the theme of finding cheaper free agent SP targets, Phil Hughes presents another opportunity. Hughes, like Haren, is a fly ball pitcher whose fly ball tendencies might play well with the Royals’ outfield defense and home stadium. Hughes has been a Yankee, which means his fly ball tendencies do NOT translate into good results since that stadium is a home run haven. What kind of pitcher is Hughes? 

Billy Butler and Trade Scenarios

Like Alex Gordon, Billy Butler had a down year. While his overall batting average and OBP remained near career values, his SLG and ISO were WAY down. He hasn't had a worse year of power since 2008, his second year in the league. However, his walk rate was its highest ever. Butler swung at fewer pitches outside the zone, and he was given fewer pitches inside the zone. He also had a lower swinging strike rate, which all combine to say that at least some of the increased BB% is for real. His GB% was above his career rate, and his FB% was below his career rate. For a man of Butler’s body type, he really should be hitting fewer ground balls. His HR/FB% also declined back down to career levels, which means that 2012 was probably a random outlier.

Alex Gordon's Down Year

Alex Gordon is up for another Gold Glove, which is great. While the Gold Glove historically may not represent who is actually the best defender at each position, the 3rd consecutive nomination at least represents that Gordon is appreciated and recognized for what he does. On the other hand, appreciation and recognition can sometimes disguise actual results. On the offensive front, Gordon again experienced a decline and put up a performance that was only slightly above average. Unfortunately, slightly above average was good enough for 3rd best (behind Hosmer and Butler) on the Royals. 

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.