Kyle Davies

with all this mike aviles love going around, I think another player is getting overlooked for his hot streak. in 4 starts this year, kyle davies has allowed 1, 1, 1, and 1 run.

his walk rate is still high, and SO's are down a tad, but his hit rate is excellent and his overall strike% isn't terrible. still needs plenty more starts to really judge him, but he may be the hottest player on the team right now.

take that crappy 27 year old ss's with lifetime ops+ of 174!!

over 3 years ago ZeppelinDZ 13 comments 0 recs |

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He's looked a lot better, but there are multiple very troubling signs to go along with his spectacular ERA

K/9 4.38 (bad)
BB/9 4.38 (bad)
K/BB 1.0 (awful)
LD% 27.3% (bad and considerably higher than in past seasons)

So, many key indicators look really bad for him. Those signs point to a likelihood that his ERA is going to shoot up, and soon. But he’s managing to get the job done. He’s getting more ground balls and fewer fly balls, which his helping him. Maybe this means that when his ERA goes up it will stay at an acceptable level.

This is just my opinion. I could easily be wrong.

by Scott McKinney on Jun 18, 2008 10:43 AM EDT reply actions

Just watching him you can tell

he’s not really dominating out there. I was at one of his starts against the Rangers and never really thought he was cruising.

He’s now done it 4 times in a row, though, not to mention superb stats in Omaha, so something must be up.

by raefzilla on Jun 18, 2008 11:06 AM EDT up reply actions

I think he's been trying to pitch to contact somewhat

And for him, that’s not a bad idea. He’s always had very good stuff, but he could rarely control it. I think he needed to just focus on throwing strikes and not

trying

to avoid contact. Strikeouts are great, but if you try to strikeout everyone, and you don’t have great control, you’re going to end up walking a lot of guys. I think he’s just trying to focus on throwing strikes. So the K’s are down, and he doesn’t have great control so he’s still going to walk some batters. But he’s also doing a good job of keeping the ball down. So he’s doing some things right. But it still looks like he’s a decent #4 SP at best. I’d take that from him.

This is just my opinion. I could easily be wrong.

by Scott McKinney on Jun 18, 2008 11:14 AM EDT up reply actions

Yeah, I'd take that from him

especially since it only cost 2 months of Dotel. It’s nice to see him maybe bucking his trend of pitching decently every other game from last year. A little consistency goes a long ways when you’re talented.

Don't Stop Believing!

by KC Chris on Jun 18, 2008 11:49 AM EDT up reply actions

That reminds me

Wlad Balentien just demoted after hitting .196/.265/.346

Perhaps RoyalsFanin MarinerTown owes Dayton a mea culpa! ;)

Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com

by RoyalsRetro on Jun 18, 2008 12:02 PM EDT up reply actions

I just posted a fanshot on Wlad

Great minds think alike.

This is just my opinion. I could easily be wrong.

by Scott McKinney on Jun 18, 2008 12:08 PM EDT up reply actions

You guys.......

Har har har

I really don't know what to say... Did the post above this signature make sense? Probably not.

by RoyalsFanInMarinerTown on Jun 18, 2008 6:01 PM EDT up reply actions

For what it's worth

Davies’ BABIP so far this year is .295, which is a bit low, but it isn’t like he has gotten excessively lucky or benefited from incredible defense behind him. Frankly, I could take the 4.4 k/9 rate if he could ever lower the number of walks he gives up. I don’t think Davies needs to be a big strikeout pitcher to be effective.

I did watch him for a few innings last night (I caught the last half of the game, from about the 5th inning onward), and from what I saw of him, he looked fine when he wasn’t trying to force the ball, which it felt like happened on a couple of the walks I saw him give up. The Cards lineup, for whatever reason, didn’t figure out how to hit him hard, and from what I heard from Ryan and Split, the one run they scored against him was a little fluky (Cesar Izturis hitting a double? C’mon, the very concept seems fluky).

by DarthYoshi on Jun 18, 2008 12:31 PM EDT reply actions

The BABIP is fluky because he is giving up so many line drives.

Dave Studeman did some great work a few years back showing that over time, BABIP for a pitcher normalizes at a level consistent with his line drive rate—specifically, expected BABIP = LD% + ~.120.

In Davies’ case, his line drive percentage is an exceedingly high 27.3% where 19%-20% is average and most MLB pitchers fall in between 17%-23%. Pitchers who post LD% much above 23% over any significant period of time are usually out of baseball pretty quick. Line drives are bad because they go for hits about 75% of the time (while fly/ground balls go for hits only about 25% of the time).

With a 27.3% LD%, Davies’ BABIP should be around .393, so his .295 BABIP has been very lucky. He has only thrown 24 IP so far, so odd results like this are not uncommon. What should be clear is that Davies is not going to succeed if maintains the same K, BB, and batted ball rates.

by Gopherballs on Jun 18, 2008 1:12 PM EDT up reply actions

A link to the Studeman article?

That would be interesting to take a look at.

In any case, BABIP aside, I think we mostly agree—Davies’ peripherals are not at all desirable currently.

by DarthYoshi on Jun 18, 2008 1:15 PM EDT up reply actions

Studeman article

There are actually several articles, but this one from spring training 2005 serves as a good summary of his initial work (and as a bonus, discusses Greinke as a candidate to regress in 2005 based on his 2004 LD%/BABIP and ERA-FIP).

by Gopherballs on Jun 18, 2008 1:55 PM EDT up reply actions

Last night

Barton was down 0-2 and his hit was a mistake more because of Davies pitch count, Izturis ball should have been caught, take those away and you have 3 legit hits. 1 hard hit double and 2 singles. Not really a bad outing.

Davies games have been very similar to what I saw against the I-Cubs this year. For the most part he pitched ahead of the hitters and got a timely dp or K when he needed it. That could catch up to him at the end of the year. Especially when you are in the AL and don’t have the easy outs at the bottom of the order.

Billy at worst will be Sean Casey jr.

by kcscoliny on Jun 18, 2008 1:25 PM EDT reply actions