FanPost

Royals Confidence Index - December Results

 

Rci_medium

The first Royals Confidence Index (RCI)* for the 2009 season is 6.42

 

Sept. 2008

Dec. 2008

Change

Royals Confidence Index

4.64

6.42

28%

1. Team

3.6

6.3

43%

2. Pitching

5.4

6.9

22%

3. Hitting

2.7

5.3

49%

4. Defense

3.6

5.6

36%

5. Dayton Moore

6.4

7.1

10%

6. Trey Hillman

4.1

5.7

28%

7. Minor league system

6.4

7.0

9%

8. Future

6.1

7.7

21%

With a new season, hope springs eternal.  Confidence is up across the board, especially with regard to the hitting (which had really cratered by early September when the last RCI was taken) and defense.  Confidence in the team doing better next year makes sense.  On paper, the 2009 team should be better, due to additions (like Crisp), subtractions (like significant playing time from TPJ and Gload) and the continued development of young players (like Gordon and Butler).  On the other hand, a significant spike in the confidence in Trey Hillman doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.  Is he really going to get much better?

The greatest variance in opinion was seen in our opinions of the Royals defense and the Royals manager (standard deviations = 1.6).  The most agreement was with regard to our feelings on the Royals pitching (SD = 0.8) and the team overall (1.0).

Bonus questions (these have no bearing on the RCI):

A.     Considering everything, how would you rate the Jacobs-Nunez trade on a 1-10 scale?

Average = 5.5

B.    Considering everything, how would you rate the Crisp-Ramirez trade on a 1-10 scale?

Average = 6.6

C.    Do you think the following players will be traded by July 31, 2009?

1.      Teahen     Yes 58%, No 42%

2.      DeJesus   Yes 9%, No 91%

3.      Butler        Yes 5%, No 95%

4.      Greinke    Yes  16%, No 84%

5.      Others

Buck               17 votes

Guillen            14

Mahay            14

Gload             10

Shealy            6

German          5

Bannister       4

Gathright        4

Callaspo        2

Ka’aihue        2

Peralta           2

Hochevar       1

Jacobs           1

Meche            1

Olivo               1

Rosa               1

Yabuta            1

D.    How many games will the following players play for the Royals in 2009?

1.      Grudzielanek 2.0 (average) – only one respondent said more than zero

2.      Gload 35.3 – 39% of respondents said zero

3.      Shealy 61.4

4.      Ka’aihue 34.6

E.     Do you think the Royals will make any trades during the winter meetings next week?

Yes 89%

No 11%

F.     Do you think the Royals will acquire any player in the Rule 5 Draft on Dec. 11?

Yes 86%

No 14%

G.    What is your best estimate of how many games the Royals will win in 2009?

Average = 80.9

Apparently Teahen goes, along with perhaps Buck, Guillen and Mahay.  Even though, or perhaps because Moore has been active already, we expect a lot more action.  Sounds good.  I hope he makes the right moves.  Almost no one expects Grudz back.  We’ll get our answer on whether he’s accepted arbitration very soon.  We’re all pretty wishy-washy on the playing time of Gload, Shealy and Kila, and with good reason.  Who knows what’s going to happen.  And so far, we think the Royals will be about a .500 team.  Seems fair to me.

Hopefully the RCI will be back in January, and we’ll have a lot of new moves which may or may not change our opinion of the 2009 team.

 

* Without going into too much detail, the RCI is computed by taking each of the above averages, weighting them appropriately (the team number is weighted highest, then piching and hitting, then the rest) and crunching them into an overall average.

This FanPost was written by a member of the Royals Review community. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the editors and writers of this site.