Top Fives: OPS, OBP, SLG, BA

by Will McDonald on Jun 13, 2005 3:31 PM EDT in News Comment 4 comments

On this well-earned off day, lets take a look at the Royals "Top Five" in a few critical categories.

OPS:

Matt Stairs .907
Mike Sweeney .847
Emil Brown .834

(4. Shane Costa .796 in 16AB)
5. Tony G. .796

Well, right off the bat, we see a problem, as Stairs and Sweeney essentially play the same position, although the Royals have been fairly good about getting them as many combined ABs as possible. Once again, its nice to see Emil Brown doing OK, and a .834 OPS is nothing to dismiss too easily. Pickering never got his chance, but Emil did, and is making the most of it.

OBP:

Shane Costa .421
Matt Stairs .411
Tony G .387
Emil Brown .356
David DeJesus .352

DeJesus continues to fashion himself as a good OBP source, despite his batting average and power struggles thus far. I'm not sure why he's continually stayed in the 2-hole behind "Berroa's Magical Out Machine", but then again, I've never looked into the fiery eyes of Buddy Bell. Sweeney's eroding discipline continues, and his 12 walks drawn this season is a major disapointment. Simply put, he's just not an elite player with a walk-rate that low. I'm convinced Mike's on about year three of pressing big time, but there isn't much that can be done about it now.

SLG:

Mike Sweeney .505
Matt Stairs .496
Emil Brown .478
Tony Gr. .407
David DeJesus .402

So clearly, DeJesus is already a superior player to Angel Berroa (.368), who supposedly is a decent power source. In the New/Old K however, homers are harder to find, although triples and doubles are a tad more plentiful. I wouldn't bet on Sweeney staying above .500 all season, and its not a good sign when Tony Graffanino is fourth on your team in SLG. That gaping maw between Emil and Tony on the power depth chart should have been filled by Eli Marrerro or Pickering this season, but alas, for differing reasons that wasn't allowed to happen.

BA AVG:

Tony G. .321
Shane Costa .313
Mike Sweeney .298
Joe McEwing .294
David DeJesus .283

Welcome to the unsustainable portion of today's programme, as we have Tony Graffinino's, Shane Costa's and Super Joe McEwing's runs at team glory. Mike's tough June (.238 AVG) has dropped him below .300, which has probably hurt his trade value in Anaheim and elsewhere. I'm not even sure how I'm supposed to feel about that anymore.

Finally, think lineup order is irrelevant? Thanks in part to his health, and in part to his frequent lead-off role: Angel Berroa leads the Royals in PAs this season, with 258- and its not even close. As we can briefly see here, Berroa ISN'T REALLY GOOD AT ANYTHING, but becuase he's fast (yet still dumb on the bases) the Royals view him as the lineup's "spark plug" and have seemingly made a committment to letting him begin as many games with an out as is possible. The man has drawn 8 walks this season. Eight!

Whats so hard about this?

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Comments

...Berroa

I would just love Berroa lower in the lineup, like perhaps 8th or so, because his feast/famine at-bats are great there -- you don't expect anything from that part of the lineup, so when Berroa pulls out one of his 2 or 3 hit games, it's gravy.

All of the players I'd rather not see do well (Graffy, Long, McEwing) are doing just that, and thus will continue to take at-bats away from the younger players. It's hard to argue with giving Graffy some ab's, because he's really hit lately. But Long simply stumbled into a hot streak because he kept getting at-bats -- Long sucks something terrible, but we all know he isn't a .200 hitter. Given enough at-bats he was sure to catch fire, and now he's taking at-bats from Shane Costa. Funny how TLong got hot juuuuust as Marrero was sent down and Costa was called up, huh?

And of course, McEwing's trying hard to be a poor man's Craig Counsell, or a poor man's David Eckstein, or a poor man's utility player...whatever. He'll end up doing just enough to get more at-bats than he should and will somehow magically parlay that into a one-year contract or something equally stupid. Sheesh.

I'd be the best at everything, if only there weren't so many people better than me at everything. Or, if everyone died, just for a few seconds.

by Daniel on Jun 13, 2005 3:58 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Right on on Berroa; go Emil.

I agree that Berroa is a great 6 or 7 hitter since he has a little pop and no one expects anything from the Royals 7 hitter anyway. But it's insane to make sure he gets more ABs than anyone else on the team.

I would prefer DeJesus/Brown/Sweeney/Stairs in the 1-4 slots, but I guess we can't play Stairs every day and we need a spark plug to hit leadoff even if he can't steal or get on base.

I don't understand why we did Eli the favor of giving him to a real team but we keep TLong around to take ABs from all the unready young OFs we have. I'll take Costa or even Guiel at this point.

It's nice to see Brown turn things around and put up respectable numbers. If he keeps it up, he could be the one Royal to hit 20 HRs, an achievement the author of this blog doubted may happen.

by Hippstar on Jun 13, 2005 4:12 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Odd thing we forget sometimes...

That Brown is over 30 and TLong is under 30. Not that it changes anything, but sometimes I still think of Long as another old guy, when that's not really the case.

I'd be the best at everything, if only there weren't so many people better than me at everything. Or, if everyone died, just for a few seconds.

by Daniel on Jun 13, 2005 9:37 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs