Also, to make matters worse, Kaufmann's park factor is 1.074 right now, with most of that coming from extra doubles and triples. So our slugging is even worse than it looks.

I just can't stand the ineptitude of this offense. It's reminding me of the Herm Edwards Chiefs.

I think part of it is approach. These guys are way too free swinging for guys with no power. We should be preaching plate discipline, not "aggresssion". Especially to young guys.

A stat that might be interesting is how long the average starter last against each team. And where the Royals rank.
I would guess around the bottom relative to their OBP.

Yes, we can argue with how "replacement level" is arbitrarily defined, and smart minds can probably come up with as many different ways to calculate it as one could imagine, but regardless, VORP still does a GREAT job of comparing all players to all other players. VORP also accounts for position played. It does not take defense into account.

Retro raises a good point about KC - are our offensive problems as much about not having anybody accumulate a lot of positive VORP as they are about giving excessive ABs to poor players?

I don't have the answer to that, but here's something to keep in mind: It should be far easier to replace a guy with a negative VORP with a guy around zero than it would be to replace a guy with, say a +5 VORP with a guy with a +10. Talent distribution curves will back this up. That being said, my answer to Retro (and it's only a guess), would be that KC's crime has been more due to using the negative VORP players too much rather than not having "stars" on the team.

Nunez replaced Elarton
Thomson replaced Elarton
??? replaced Standridge
??? replaced Wellemeyer

Unfortunately, either Moore had no viable options on the hitting side, or just plain decided against said options when it came to addressing the VORP problems on the offensive side of the equation (1B, LF, DH)

The team is sorta on the record as saying they think Brazell is a AAAA player; I personally would have at least given him a couple of hundred ABs in place of Shealy just to find out if this is true or not.

Same can be said for Justin Huber. Moore is sorta on record as saying he will have to hit enough to justify playing LF or 1B (I presume due to his avg to below avg defensive skills), yet Brown, with arguably similar defensive issues and offensive production arguably worse than Huber would have provided, is given several hundred ABs and Huber never even gets anything remotely resembling a fair chance.

I think you make a great point - Moore has addressed many of the VORP-sapping pitching deficiencies, while (somewhat) ignoring the hitting deficiencies. I guess one might argue that he had pitching replacement candidates and not hitting replacement candidates, but I'm not sure I would buy that argument. For example, how many people considered (besides myself) Nunez a viable rotation replacement part, considering his previous ML track record? Was his previous ML track record any different than Huber's ? I would suggest no - both had a cup of coffee or two, and neither had success. Both have shown glimpses of potential big league ability in their minor league stats, but one gets a shot and the other, nothing. Both played positions were the Royals were woefully unproductive this season (5th starter, left fielder). Both were already on the 40 man roster...

I would love to hear GMDM's thought process in general on this whole issue.

Again, not trying to be too critical of Moore - I look to, borrowing a phrase from the NCAA, look at his entire body of work - he has done a great job overall.

Player A:
Born 08/29/79

6. 284/351/568
   
7. 256/326/512

6. 278/358/480
   
7. 269/328/510

I'm sure by now, astute readers know "A" is Shealy, and "B" is Huber.

To me, they look like close to the same player. Yes, Shealy is a better defender, but considering the age difference, isn't there at least a chance for Huber to turn into something better than Shealy, and if so, why is one given multiple chances and the other essentially no chance?

Ok, here's what I accumulated from http://www.baseballprospectus.com/

I excluded pitchers.  I could also set a minimum # of plate appearances.  Suggestions?

Our Max VORP player is 15.80, lowest in the league.  We're 2nd to worst in avg VORP.

        # of
      Players   AVG     Min     Max
TEAM  included  VORP    VORP    VORP
FLO    19    11.29    -6.80    67.50
NYA    19    14.96    -6.20    65.40
DET    16    15.01    -15.20    64.00
PHI    16    15.70    -4.70    54.10
ATL    20    9.74    -9.00    53.30
BOS    17    11.98    -3.30    50.60
MIL    15    11.63    -2.00    50.20
SFN    20    3.34    -10.10    50.00
COL    21    8.25    -7.90    49.50
NYN    24    7.83    -3.00    49.40
SEA    14    11.09    -3.10    48.90
ANA    23    7.37    -8.30    48.60
BAL    18    6.90    -10.70    48.30
SLN    18    5.84    -12.80    47.20
CLE    19    8.16    -10.60    43.10
TBA    19    7.17    -10.10    38.90
TOR    20    4.75    -8.70    36.10
CHN    23    4.89    -6.50    34.30
LAN    20    5.84    -11.20    34.30
HOU    17    6.06    -8.60    34.00
ARI    22    3.29    -10.80    33.80
WAS    19    3.43    -10.30    33.50
MIN    21    3.92    -19.20    33.00
CIN    20    6.34    -9.10    30.00
CHA    21    1.27    -10.40    27.80
TEX    23    3.71    -10.20    27.70
OAK    26    2.98    -12.50    22.80
SDN    22    3.45    -10.90    22.60
PIT    18    3.76    -6.60    17.40
KCA    20    2.55    -9.10    15.80
Total    590    6.77    -19.20    67.50

                AVG    
Royals Only     VORP

Alex Gordon    3.30
Angel Berroa    -2.80
Billy Butler    7.00
David Dejesus    15.80
Emil Brown    -9.10
Esteban German    10.00
Fernando Cortez    0.20
Jason Larue    -8.40
Jason Smith    -1.00
Joey Gathright    8.10
John Buck    13.50
Grudzielanek    11.80
Mark Teahen    11.90
Mike Sweeney    0.20
Paul Phillips    -0.40
Reggie Sanders    6.30
Ross Gload    4.20
Ryan Shealy    -8.60
Shane Costa    -7.90
Tony Pena    -3.10
Team Total      2.55

If anyone wants the spreadsheet, send me an email to gnevik@gmail.com.

Or if you have suggestions, I can do additional filters (just 1B or AL only) or give you specifics for another team.

VORP is a good idea in theory. The cutoff of league average - .070 OPS was determined by unpublished studies, so I guess I have to take the value for granted. No attempt was made to determine if this value held for all positions, so I definitely will not take that for granted.

For pitchers it's even worse, arbitrarily defined at league average ERA + 1.00. Nice and round, yes, but completely unsupported as far as I know.

I know very little about more recent incarnations like VORP3 so they may have made some progress here.

The arbitrary nature of these values undermines the attempt to evaluate players across positions. I really appreciate the effort to do so, and this is probably the best aspect of VORP, but take it with a grain of salt.

Most of all, though, I don't like the insinuation that there are "Replacement Level Players" lying around, especially given the suspicious way the numbers came about. That, combined with the highly constrained labor market, makes this unlikely.

VORP has a huge amount of potential, and the underlying idea is probably the best way to think about player value. I just worry about it claiming to do too much at this stage.