So how are our hitters doing so far?
by Juancho on May 12, 2009 9:53 AM EDT
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PrintFirst, request to RR and the people who run SB Nation: Fox Sports does one thing better than you. If you go to Fox's stats page, you can click on the statistical category at the top of the table, and the players will appear in rank order in that category. SB Nation's stats page does not do this, and it seems like something some main office computer genius oughta be able to figure out with no problem.
You probably already know that I'm an casual fan who manages to make two or three games a year and can only see the Royals' highlights through the Net. I love advanced stats (though they're well beyond my mathematical comprehension), and enjoy the debates on which ones are most accurate or significant.
But the good old counting stats and the AVG/OBP/SLG percentages are still very valuable tools for judging players' ability (though not the only way, or course). My favorite stat for hitters has always been strikeout-walk ratio, since it's a way to measure a batter's strike zone judgment and plate discipline.
This year, due to a couple of injuries and some dumb platooning at catcher, the Royals have seven guys playing as full-time starters (played in at least 29 of the 32 Royals games so far) and five more guys playing in about two-thirds of the games (between 18 and 21). Since we've now played a fifth of the season, our sample size is small - you can't form a permanent conclusion about a guy after 100 at-bats - but it's a definite indicator of how we're doing so far.
The seven starters:
Coco Crisp, 116 AB, 23 BB, 15 K, .369 OBP, 8 SB-2 CS, 4 3B.
Coco's discovered plate discipline. I think he's for real.
David DeJesus, 116 AB, 7 BB, 21 K, .278 OBP, 640 OPS.
He seems to be breaking out of his slump. Lousy plate discipline so far this year for an OBP guy.
Mark Teahen, 116 AB, 12 BB, 22 K, .386 OBP, 860 OPS.
Teahen is beating the snot out of the ball this year. Decent 1:2 BB:K. Let's hope this is the real Teabag. Only Royal to play in all 32 games.
Alberto Callaspo, 103 AB, 10 BB, 7 K, .395 OBP, 939 OPS. 13 2B.
This guy is a contact hitter with some line-drive power. He can't possibly keep this near-MVP-level pace up, but I think he's for real.
Billy Butler, 102 AB, 14 BB, 16 K, .371 OBP.
Billy's broken out of his slump. Look at those fourteen walks. I'm impressed. Breakout year?
Mike Jacobs, 101 AB, 11 BB, 31 K, .336 OBP, 811 OPS, and a team-leading 19 RBI!
Jake's playing full-time, not platooning, and isn't doing too badly. He K's a lot but at least draws the occasional walk. I'd be more than happy with an 810 OPS from Jake this season.
Mike Avilés, 99 AB, 3 BB, 21 K, .233 OBP, 506 OPS.
I fear this is the real Avilés. I hope I'm wrong. He's got to stop hacking at bad pitches. If his next 100 at-bats are this bad, a trip to Omaha might be in order.
The five who have played about two-thirds of the games:
Miguel Olivo, 70 AB, 1 BB, 26 K, .260 OBP, 617 OPS.
No plate discipline at all. Trade this guy for a case of ramen noodles. Brayan Peña can't be any worse. I don't care whether Zack loves him or not.
José Guillén, 66 AB, 9 BB, 10 K, .385 OBP, 824 OPS.
José seems to have caught the plate-discipline flu as well (Olivo's so tough his system is immune.) The opposite of hacktastic. If he can OPS 825 this year (his OBP will probably drop and his SLG will probably rise), he'll be almost worth his $12 million.
John Buck, 60 AB, 6 BB, 16 K, .299 OBP, 799 OPS.
Not great, but not bad for a catcher, and worthy of the full-time catching job. An 800 OPS from Buck for the season would be excellent.
Free Willy Bloomquist, 57 AB, 9 BB, 7 K, .448 OBP, 957 OPS.
This can't possibly be for real. He is showing plate discipline, though, with fewer Ks than walks.
Mitch Maier, 26 AB (in 19 games), 7 BB, 5 K.
Mitch's percentages are .231/.394/.260. He has more walks than hits. If I were Hillman I'd give him the permanent take sign. He's obviously being used as a late-inning defensive replacement, with barely one AB per game.
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So how are our hitters doing so far?
Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com
by RoyalsRetro on May 12, 2009 11:23 AM EDT reply actions 2 recs
Clearly he's choking up too far
Don’t know why Seitzer hasn’t been able to correct that yet.
"Now…put that in your [BLEEP]ing pipe and smoke it." -Hal McRae
"I was doing this when BJ was in his father's nutsack." -Renzo Gracie
by Sweep_the_Leg on May 12, 2009 12:02 PM EDT up reply actions
Who is that?
Mini-Miggy?
Yeah? From what I hear, you couldn't hit water if you fell out of a f@#%ing boat.
the tip off was the
closed eyes in the top right frame
Yeah? From what I hear, you couldn't hit water if you fell out of a f@#%ing boat.
So far...
The OBPs of Crisp, Callaspo, Butler, and Teahen are all encouraging. Same for Jacobs—a .336 OBP is normally pretty unremarkable, but for Jake, this is a pretty significant improvement, and he’s drawing walks at an acceptable rate. Kevin Seitzer for President.
Buck is cooling off from his hot start in April, but he still deserves more ABs than Olivo—Olivo has been that awful.
I’m a little worried about Aviles, but his LD% has stayed consistent with last year and he has been having absolutely horrendous batted ball luck. Point being, he’s hitting the ball as hard as he has been, it has just usually been right at someone. The lack of plate discipline is concerning, but he’s still hitting the ball hard.
And Guillen will need to OPS higher than 825 to be worth $12 mil. We are getting very close to that kind of OPS production from Jacobs for less than a third of that price. Guillen is valuable only so far as his bat is valuable—his defense and baserunning are both abysmal.
Really nice post.....
However, I could not disagree more about DeJesus. I would call 0-12 with 1 BB in the three games vs. Anaheim the opposite of breaking out of a slump. If anything that slump just got worse. I think he can turn it around but outside of Miguel Olivo and Mike Aviles there has been no bigger disappointment IMO than Dejesus. I honestly would say Dejesus might be a bigger disappointment than Aviles. Aviles’s production last year exceeded what anyone in the organization thought he could provide. Now, with more exposure and scouting, the holes in his swing are glaringly obvious. DeJesus was expected to be the smart, disciplined .290 ish hitter that draws walks. Other than that great post and lets go get them A’s!
Thanks.
Glad you liked it. I agree that DDJ has been disappointing this year and has played much worse than expected. He’s a solid all-around player who has an established track record, who’s probably more valuable than his stats show, and he’ll bounce back out of this. If he can somehow get back to a 775 OPS for the season, it won’t be a complete waste.
I read and liked the post (by Sweep?) about Avilés having a good line-drive percentage and a very unlucky low BABIP, which I agree are both signs that his current counting / rate stats may be undervaluing him. But those 3 BB and 21 K show that he either a) swings at a lot of balls or b) doesn’t swing at a lot of strikes. They’re a bad, bad sign. He showed enough skill last year to deserve at least a couple more months of trying to turn it around before we send him back to Omaha and pick up some replacement-level player.
Olivo is not a disappointment. We already figured he was going to strike out a lot and hit a few homers. Now he’s striking out a whole lot and hitting nothing, a non-surprising career development for a catcher in his early thirties. His value to the team, except as a competent backup catcher to spell Buck once a week, is negative.
It's pronounced Poo-ZHOLS in Catalan.
New nickname for Bloomy
“Faust.” He must have sold his soul to Mephistopheles in exchange for that 950 OPS.
It's pronounced Poo-ZHOLS in Catalan.
Royals top 7 OBP players have an average of .385 OBP which is not that bad.
However, these same players have a RBI/PA of .098. The Royals just have too many unproductive outs with K’s and popups and the like. They have to do a better job then scoring one out of every 4 players that get on base. This is sort of a basic setup for Woba to work. This is how many runs you would expect from a hit/walk
1B = .47
2B = .78
3B= 1.09
HR = 1.40
BB = .33
Out = .25
So for a walk, we should expect .33 runs to come from it, and more for singles doubles, etc.
However, the Royals top 7 OBA players are batting in runs per non outs of .25 when even walks should score us .33 runs. Non productive outs are killing this offense! The numbers are kind of unbelivable, some of it has to be luck as well?
Go Royals!
Some bad luck.... of course but
I ve seen way to many stupid at bats for me to really acknowledge luck at all. I agree with the fact that we ve been putrid as it gets with moving base runners, doing the smart baseball things, etc. This team more than anything needs to win tonight and restore the so called “shaky confidence” thats been going on for almost a week now. I love the stats but wins are the cure for now. And we sure as hell need this one tonight before we come home. A winless road trip hurts a homestand almost always.
by 2LegittoShit on May 13, 2009 9:37 PM EDT up reply actions
seems like every team in the league should be scoring at least 8 run a game with those weights
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by Matt Klaassen on May 13, 2009 10:18 PM EDT up reply actions
I dunno
Where did you get those figures? And shouldn’t an out mean a -.25 chance of scoring rather than a +.25? Or am I missing something?
It's pronounced Poo-ZHOLS in Catalan.
this was a joke I was hinting at above
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.
by Matt Klaassen on May 14, 2009 5:55 PM EDT up reply actions
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