Thursday, September 29, 2011

Kansas City Royals 2011 Season Review


Well it’s in the books.  The 2011 Royals season, the most exciting one since 2003, has ended with the Royals at a solid if not unspectacular 71-91.  The usual “thank God it’s over” attitude has been displaced with the “I can’t wait till next season,” attitude.  The Royals have had 20,000+ fans at nearly all the September games all this while we are still having football season.  The reason for this is the youthful air of excitement around the Royals team and players that are making us all think that the future in Kansas City is extremely bright. 

Looking back on this season, with the exception of a small blip around June, I really don’t remember having a negative thought about this team.  We all knew what this was when we came in to this season, the Royals weren’t going to compete for anything meaningful but they were going to bring a lot of players up from the minors and they needed to develop.  Both those suppositions became reality as the Royals started the season with an incredibly young bullpen with players such as Aaron Crow, Tim Collins, Greg Holland, and Blake Wood, then bringing up players like Louis Coleman and Everett Teaford. 

The Royals didn’t stop there, May 6th they made a decision that will cause that date to forever be known as Eric Hosmer day.  I don’t know that I have seen this town so excited for a player in my lifetime.  Alex Gordon was hyped but nobody walked around saying happy Gordon day in 2007.  Eric Berry, Glen Dorsey, Billy Butler, all hyped players that just didn’t get the KC denizens as excited as Eric Hosmer.  He was followed a couple weeks later by Danny Duffy, then the onslaught of Rookies began.  Moustakas came up, followed Johnny Giavotella, and then Salvador Perez.

Eric Hosmer obviously showed himself to be the most impressive rookie and will definitely compete for AL Rookie of the Year with a line of .293/.334/.465 with 19 HRs and 78 RBIs (in 128 games no less).  This is quite an amazing run for a 21 year old rookie.  To put this in to some context, let’s look at the lines of other notable rookies:

Troy Tulowitzki - .291/.359/.479; 24 HRs, 99 RBIs (155 games)
Evan Longoria - .272/.343/.531, 27 HRs, 85 RBIs (122 games)
Jason Heyward - .277/.393/.456, 18 HRs, 72 RBIs (142 games)
Ken Griffey Jr. - .264/.329/.420, 16 HRs, 61 RBIs (127 games)
Mark Texeira - .259/.331/.480, 26 HRs, 84 RBIs (146 games)
Joey Votto - .297/.368/.506, 24 HRs, 84 RBIs (151 games – 24 the year before)
Prince Fielder - .271/.347/.483, 28 HRs, 81 RBIs (157 games – 39 the year before)

You will notice he stacks up pretty favorably with most of these players.  Especially the ones in which he played a similar number of games.  The one that jumps out is future hall of famer Ken Griffey Jr. who even had a lesser stat line than what Hosmer was able to put down.  I have no doubt that his HR numbers would have stacked up much better if he played as many games as the others did.  Longoria’s stats might be better in a similar amount of games, but he hasn’t done much better than that line in his career.  It’s a good bet that Hosmer will probably hit for a higher average over his career than the current .274 Longoria is putting up.

Moving on from Hosmer, the most impressive rookie might just be Salvador Perez.  A call up based on need more so than merit, that decision was thought to be a temporary one and that Perez might not be fully ready for the majors after only two weeks in AAA.  He wasted no time in showing that he was absolutely ready, throwing out two players in his first game up and holding his own at the plate as well.  In 39 games, Perez was able to put a line of .331/.361/.473 with 3 HRs and 21 RBIs.  For a barely 21 year old catcher (and sharing a birthday with yours truly), Perez looks like one of the most promising prospects on the roster.  He won’t continue to hit that well at the plate, but showing the ability to have solid stretches of excellence is a more than positive sign, especially coupled with his solid defense.

Moving away from the player specific look, from a team perspective, there are some indications that the Royals have shown that they will be able to compete, but also some news to temper expectations a little bit.  I have done a little rudimentary, non-scientific research to see how the Royals stack up for the future.
Going back to the last 10 years with the most important offensive statistical categories there are some interesting things you see.  The seemingly obvious, yet not so obvious one being that On Base Percentage seems to be the most important statistic to predict success.  More than On Base plus Slugging (OPS) and slugging itself, getting on base seems to be paramount.  The league leader over the last 10 years for OBP has made the playoffs each year, been to the Championship Series 6 times, and won the World Series twice.  The team that led in BB% went to the playoffs 7 times, with 3 CS trips, two World Series trips, and one World Series champion.  Those are roughly the same for OPS league leaders, but compared to league leader in slugging percentage in which the league leader only went to the playoffs 4 times in the last 10 years, with 3 trips to the CS, and 2 World Series championships.

This becomes relevant when you look at the Royals and how they rand in those categories.  The Royals are 8th in the league in OBP, 7 in slugging, and 7th in OPS.  This shows that offensively the Royals can compete and are not out of their element.  However, there is a caveat; at 7.1% the Royals walk rate ranks 28th in the league.  Once pitchers get used to this lineup, it will become much more important for this Royals team to work counts and work pitchers to get the pitches they want to be more successful hitters.  Kevin Seitzer will be back and has stressed patience at the plate and waiting for your pitch, and as the league adjusts to the likes of Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas and Salvador Perez, it would stand to reason that Seitzer will continue to stress this approach and that number would hopefully increase.

That is not the only offensive concern heading in to next year.  Alex Gordon will be back and with a line of .303/.376/.502, 23 HRs, 87 RBIs, we may have seen the ceiling for Gordon.  He has certainly played well and while it’s not outside the realm of possibility for him to keep this up for the next 5 years, the greater likelihood is that there will be a regression next year.  Assuming the Royals keep Melky Cabrera around chances are he will likely regress as well coming off a career year that saw him nearly keep pace with Gordon in every category putting up a line of .305/.339/.470, 18 HRs, 87 RBIs.  The plus side to keep in mind is that even with a regression of those two, it will most likely be offset with an increase from the likes of Mike Moustakas, Johnny Giavotella, Eric Hosmer, and possibly even Alcides Escobar.

With all that said, this brings us to the Achilles heel of this team: starting pitching.  The Royals ranked no higher than 25th in any meaningful statistical category for team pitching.  What’s funny to note is that looking at team pitching statistics brings you to the conclusion that they are not as indicative of success as team hitting stats are.  The reason for this seems obvious, pitching stats are usually based a lot on team defense which is largely out of their control (ERA, WHIP); even stats designed to predict success don’t really mean much from a team perspective.  Stats like FIP and xFIP are predictive values that make more sense for individuals.  In fact, ERA is probably the only real relevant team pitching stat, but shouldn’t even be a strictly pitching stat.  ERA should just be a team stat because it’s the pitcher and the defense that allow these things to happen.

Therefore, from a team perspective, you could probably argue that ERA is the most important, because what really matters is the amount of runs a team gives up (but even this isn’t perfect because it doesn’t factor in unearned runs, but we have to work with the info we have).  That’s not breaking any new ground but it bears to mention because the Royals currently rank 27th in ERA and won’t be winning anything with that line.  In the last 10 years the league leader in ERA has made the playoffs 7 times and all 7 of those teams have made the Championship Series, 3 went to the World Series and one team won the whole thing (2010 Giants).  It’s no surprise to say that the amount of runs you give up is important, but this just stresses that the Royals don’t need marginal improvement, they need to improve way more than you would normally think possible.

The average rank for ERA for the last 10 World Series winners is 7th, and the lowest to win was the Cardinals in 2006 at 15th.  However, those who watched knew that that was due to injuries, and with their pitchers healthy in the playoffs they performed much better than that ranking.  The Royals need to crack the top 10 if they want to get to the postseason and make some noise.  They have a long way to climb to get to the top 10 in team ERA.

What are we to look forward to with pitching next year?  Well one thing is for sure; Luke Hochevar, Danny Duffy, and Filipe Paulino are going to be in the rotation and probably in that order.  Bruce Chen might be back, but I doubt Jeff Francis returns.  That leaves one and possibly two openings in this rotation that will need to be filled.  With Mike Montgomery having an ERA a shade under 6 in AAA, his spot in the 2012 rotation is not as secure as it was going in to 2011 (as weird as that sounds).  Luke Hochevar had an excellent second half of the season with a 6-3 record and 3.55 ERA since the All-Star break.  If he can continue that, he will be a solid option as a #1 pitcher.  If he can win 2/3’s of his games and keep his ERA below 4.00, let alone around 3.5, nobody in KC will complain about that.

Danny Duffy developed this year and no doubt has the skill but will need to put it together and throw strikes more consistently.  Looking at his splits, his numbers got worse as the season went on, but we all know that that doesn’t tell the whole story.  He showed lots of flashes of dominance and if he gets his control mastered can be a legit star pitcher in this league. 

The question is how are those other spots going to be filled?  There is talk of a trade, but the Royals don’t want to mortgage their future for such a player, they also don’t want to overpay a free agent.  Aaron Crow will be tried out as a starter, the organization has already admitted that, and Everett Teaford looked great in his three late starts during the year putting up a line of 3.38 ERA, 1.19 WHIP and 13 SO.  Point here is the Royals do have some internal options.

As this season has come to a close, there is more excitement around this team than there has been as long as I have been alive (or at least can remember).  Even after that 2003 season, when everyone was picking the Royals to win the division in 2004, this still seems more exciting.  We have heard about all these players since they were drafted and feel like we know them all and the best part is they are here for another 5 or 6 years each.  Opening day 2012 will be quite the scene next year and should prove to be an exciting day for Royals fans.  Dayton Moore looks good now and with Ned Yost has done enough to garner a ton of goodwill among the KC faithful and this is the perfect time to grab hold of the city’s fan base.  If this team comes out and competes next year, this will turn back into a baseball town, but if they come out and have another 90+ loss season, Dayton Moore might have to start looking for another job.

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