Are the Royals Better Than the Diamondbacks?
by Freneau on Feb 3, 2010 3:15 PM EST
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PrintI tried to go with a team that seems totally unrelated to the Royals in any way with this one. I'm as negative about the Royals as they come, but I don't have any immediate thoughts on this one.
2009 Record: Arizona 70-92, Kansas City 65-97
2009 Pythag: Arizona 75-87, Kansas City 66-86
Arizona additions: Rodrigo Lopez (P), Adam LaRoche (1B), Edwin Jackson (P), Kelly Johnson (2B), Ian Kennedy (P), Bob Howry (RP)
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I voted yes, but I guess better is really a relative term
I imagine the D-Backs will finish with a better record than the Royals, but I doubt they would win a series against us. Without checking don’t they have some young talent, i know Upton isn’t where they want him to be, but they aren’t completely inept, though I could be and probably am wrong
Pitchers and Catchers report February 17th... And so begins my masochistic addiction.
Upton put up 4.5 WAR at age 21 in 2009
I think they’ll take it
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by Matt Klaassen on Feb 3, 2010 4:18 PM EST up reply actions
Was it really that high...
yep which proves the ol adage, that the averagegatsby is quite average. I knew that not looking up thing was gonna bite me in the arse… Didn’t he have a slow start or something?
Pitchers and Catchers report February 17th... And so begins my masochistic addiction.
by averagegatsby on Feb 3, 2010 4:50 PM EST up reply actions
Upton is a flat stud
Beast.
by Fernando Vina School of Linguistics on Feb 3, 2010 11:22 PM EST up reply actions
well my eyes tell me otherwise
Pitchers and Catchers report February 17th... And so begins my masochistic addiction.
by averagegatsby on Feb 4, 2010 12:38 AM EST up reply actions
I'm curious as to why?
He was 21 last year and hit .300/.366/.532. Billy Butler (at 23) with more power. Are you really that down on his defense?
The same way that GMDM's eyes tell him that Yuni is great
Pitchers and Catchers report February 17th... And so begins my masochistic addiction.
by averagegatsby on Feb 4, 2010 5:14 PM EST up reply actions
how is that possible?
Did you see the absolute moon shots he hit last year…both in BP at Kauffman & during the season. He had a handful of the longest HRs in MLB. Also, check out his comparisons to Griffey’s age 21 season.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/337217-the-verdict-justin-upton
by Fernando Vina School of Linguistics on Feb 4, 2010 3:16 AM EST up reply actions
we are not better than the Omaha Royals!
i voted no, i know we beat them during interleague play a few times but i feel they are a team on the rise while we are stuck in the pods.
Warriors come out and play
D-Backs
Arizona is a weird team. Upton, Haren, and Webb (when healthy) are the elite talent and then . . . a pretty big dropoff to Reynolds and lots of guys who are solid but probably not great. But some of the merely solid guys like Drew and E. Jackson still have high upsides. The Scherzer trade is still a puzzler — someone in the organization must really love Ian Kennedy. Johnson was a smart signing, and the LaRoche deal was not a bad value.
In the AL East, Arizona might be recent vintage Toronto Blue Jays, but in the NL West, they are contenders.
NL West is almost as tight as AL West
just kidding. The Padres (rebuilding) and the Giants (not…) both suck
Dbacks seem like they should be better than they are. JOhnson was a good pickup, and although I think LaRoche is overrated, he’s a decent player.
Reynolds was underrated after 2008, now he’s a bit overrated due to their park. Good player, though.
The (non-) development of guys like Chris Young and Stephen Drew has really hurt them. Young has fallen apart on both sides of the ball, but Drew is still decent.
The trade made no sense… I’ve read in multiple places that they had doubts about Scherzer’s health, but still…
My current iteration of the NL West (and I need to fix some stuff) has the following most likely outcome:
1. COL 87-75
2. LAN 84-78
3. ARI 82-80
4. SFN 79-83 (squandering that whole pitching staff is worse than squandering Greinke, given their budget and choices)
5. SDN 76-86
And, whlie I’m pretending to be a real sabermetrician, I’m sure everyone wants an AL West update since the Garko/Pineiro signings — just keeps getting tighter
1. OAK 83-79
2. TEX 81-81
3. SEA 81-81
4. LAA 80-82
That’s basically a complete deadlock.
Instead of signing Garko, Seattle should have tried to trade for Scott Hairston for a RHH outfielder who’s also good on defense.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs.
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by Matt Klaassen on Feb 3, 2010 4:27 PM EST up reply actions
(obviously, SDN would have to go for it at a reasonable price)
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs.
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by Matt Klaassen on Feb 3, 2010 4:27 PM EST up reply actions
or Aaron Cunningham
Really, the A’s need to waive and the Angels need to claim a 1 WAR player, so we have the four 81-81 projections.
In a neutral context, the D’Back’s best course might be to trade Webb as soon as he proves he’s healthy (since he probably will not pitch enough to qualify for draft pick compensation) and keep rebuilding, but given the state of the NL, they are probably better off holding onto him (unless they completely tank) and try to make the playoffs.
ha ha to the top
I know you’re joking around, but it touches on a piece I want to write when I have the time. It’s difficult to upgrade on mediocrity. Yeah, Johnny Damon (~2.2 WAR) is better than Ryan Langerhans (~1.5 WAR), but it’s a pretty marginal improvement if Damon won’t sign for less than $7M/1.
So the Angels don’t really have an obvious place to add 1 win, unless maybe Wood really sucks and they give up on him.
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by Matt Klaassen on Feb 3, 2010 5:58 PM EST up reply actions
You Can Always
Add more Molina to taste.
I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.
by philofthenorth on Feb 3, 2010 5:55 PM EST up reply actions
i wonder if the royals are really this terrible
or if we’ve just gone really negative here
you would think that fans of a team would be a little more positive
lets just trust the process
I'm Trusting My
Ass off. Right now.
I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.
by philofthenorth on Feb 3, 2010 6:00 PM EST up reply actions
Well, this is a team that finished with one of the worst records last year
and after a “meh” offseason, is projected to do so again this year. What are the other teams in this series? The D’Backs are a decent team but had a bad last year despite a good amount of talent. The Orioles underwent a major rebuilding process and have a large infusion of good young talent. Despite the struggles, the Royals have not really started a true rebuilding process, so there is not much reason to think the major league team will get significantly better anytime soon.
Plus, there is certainly a segment of commenters on this site who are positive but probably feel hesitant about posting because they will get called out by others who view the team less positively. This is unfortunate because in general, I do not think that merely being positive encounters the wrath of others. The problem is that being positive sometimes is used as a way to stir things up — by playing the “I’m a better fan than you” card, or “hey look at me, I’m the contrarian” card. Those circumstances certainly do tend to, ahem, engage others and result in unreadable threads that drift toward the far right margin. Those are certainly the exceptions, but if you see that happening and do not understand the context, well, it kind of creates a disincentive to comment more.
the Silentest Majority in the History of Whatever!
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by Matt Klaassen on Feb 3, 2010 6:23 PM EST up reply actions
You probably have to dig down to Pittsburgh, San Diego, and Washington
to find a team that we might vote the Royals better than.
by Fernando Vina School of Linguistics on Feb 3, 2010 11:24 PM EST up reply actions
or the Durham Bulls
Zapp Brannigan/Dayton Moore quote of the day: "In the game of chess you can never let your opponent see your pieces"
by SagehenMacGyver47 on Feb 4, 2010 8:09 PM EST up reply actions
First pick in 2011 draft here we come!
Go Royals!
My question:
Are the 2010 Royals better than the 2009 Royals?
OF defense looks to be improved with Guillen being removed. Ankiel may be a step back from Maier, but even as an average corner outfielder, Pods is a huge improvement over Guillen.
Royals look to have made a substantial downgrade at catcher, although there is upside here if Pena plays well enough to take the starting job. Still, it’s Kendall’s job, and he’s much worse than what we fielded last year.
Getz should be a small downgrade from Callaspo—better with the glove, worse with the bat. Overall, a net negative.
Regression should be Yuni’s friend at SS, so I’m tempted to list SS as an improvement even tho it’s the same poor player manning the position.
Random shuffling hasn’t left the bullpen any more talented than it was last year, but again, regression should be on their side. Still, this was a weak unit in 2009 even with one of the game’s better relievers in Soria, and it looks to repeat this unlikely feat in 2010.
One would hope the collective numbers from 3B will be better in 2010 than they were in 2009 given Gordon’s injury, but I’m not making a call here. Wait and see.
If memory serves, the Royals were historically impotent collectively from the DH slot. Guillen sucks, but again, regression can only help.
I’m guessing the starting pitching will be about where it was last year, although with the goodness spread around a little bit more. I’m guessing Meche and Hoch will have better years to offset some of Greinke’s regression to the mean.
All in all, I’m tempted to say the Royals will be sliiiightly better, but not by much. The only positive is that this account assumed Callaspo would be traded, but didn’t include any return on the trade, so there should at least be an extra decent prospect in the mix.
That is a stunning level of incompetence
That’s got to be toward the bottom of team DH performance for the entire history of the DH.
"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 Feb 3, 2010 6:18 PM EST up reply actions
That Would Be
Unacceptable for a slick fielding SS.
I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.
by philofthenorth on Feb 3, 2010 6:23 PM EST up reply actions
We should have just batted our pitchers all year
Seriously, could they have done any worse? And it would give us more pinch hitting flexibility. Hell Guillen could be the Manny Mota of the present day!
It's hard to say
I think they’ll have a better record than last season — probably 73-74 wins. I do think they “underperformed” their “talent” last season.
So I guess, yeah, they’ll be better, but it doesn’t represent real “improvement,” if that makes any sense. There isn’t much reason to think the team will take another step in 2011, either.
Running iterations with smarter lineup now…
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Feb 3, 2010 6:22 PM EST up reply actions
Count The Number
Of times Sporqie started anywhere other than 2B; that position should see an upgrade at least that many times next year. Actually, count 2B, too. Then throw in all of Freel and Anderson’s starts. Unfortunately, with Hillman filling out the lineup cards, we won’t even be as good as we could be with the current roster.
I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.
by philofthenorth on Feb 3, 2010 6:33 PM EST up reply actions
i'm a little concerned the pitching might take a step back
Greinke will probably not be as good, Meche may be worse and/or traded, Banny is Banny, we still have the Davies/Hochevar/Mystery Starter vortex that will appear in 40% of the team’s games, if not more
Greinke could be 2 wins worse
and still be the best pitcher in the league
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by Matt Klaassen on Feb 3, 2010 6:56 PM EST up reply actions
Any Falloff In
Starting pitching should be made up in the bullpen. It can’t be as bad as last year, right? Please?
I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.
by philofthenorth on Feb 3, 2010 7:35 PM EST up reply actions
Subtle Irony Is
GMDM’s forte.
I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.
by philofthenorth on Feb 4, 2010 6:35 PM EST up reply actions
okay... smarter lineup thing done
Using CHONE for offense, then Jeff’s stuff for defense (CHONE for catchers, some of my own), and distributing playing time as best I could, the “current” Royals plan as best I can decipher, anyway, leaving Guillen out of the OF, Pods/Ankiel/DDJ OF, lots of Jason Kendall, and so on, and taking the schedule into account (it’s a Monte Carlo simulator I found, but I’m tweaking it)
That team is about a 74-75 win team.
Without adding any other players, and simply
1) Making DDJ (LF)/Maier (CF)/Ankiel (RF) the main OF. 4th OF PAs are mainly pods, with some B. Anderson. Fields (with bad defense) gets some time in RF
2) Making Brayan the starting catcher (I even downgraded his defensive projection just so I wouldn’t appear to “rig the process”
3) Cutting Guillen and Bloomquist entirely, which gives more PT to the OFs, as well as Getz and Callaspo and also
4) use Fields/Kila as primary DH combo (Fields also gets some time at 1B and RF, Kila a bit at 1B)
5) Callaspo and Getz split 2B, Callaspo backs up 3B
6) Make Aviles the starting SS as soon as he gets back (I said halfway through the year)
Those aren’t that complicated, and cost no more money above replacement salaries…
That makes the team from 74.4 wins (on average over 2000 iterations) to 76.9 wins over 2000 iterations. Simply by recognizing 1) who the better player is and 2) sunk costs
And that’s with a bunch of bad players (Pods, Anderson, Ankiel, Kendall, Yuni) still getting significant playing time, just not as much.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs.
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by Matt Klaassen on Feb 3, 2010 6:56 PM EST up reply actions
Like I said
Doing my best to project playing time from what the team has said, I have the team at 74.4 wins (74, basically).
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs.
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by Matt Klaassen on Feb 3, 2010 8:56 PM EST up reply actions
We should be able to upgrade the bullpen, too with some minor league promotions, right?
Thinking Disco over Marte, in particular. But perhaps that’s wishcasting on Disco’s part.
Disco might be useful
CHONE has him as replacement-level RA/below replacement FIP reliever in 2009, but who knows? That’s better than Roman COlon… but I’m not sure the difference is that great.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs.
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by Matt Klaassen on Feb 4, 2010 10:35 AM EST up reply actions
How long before this series asks:
“Are the Royals better than a good AAA team”?
Mr Glass, this is a pro sports team, not a retail store - run it like one!
Ask R.J. Anderson how well that gets received.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Feb 3, 2010 6:22 PM EST up reply actions
yes
The one here is pretty good
I’m not sure, though the Fangraphs thread was also classic
although nothing will probably top Cameron’s post on Mike Jacobs
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs.
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by Matt Klaassen on Feb 3, 2010 6:46 PM EST up reply actions
I haven't noticed
is it the “dry” guy?
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs.
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by Matt Klaassen on Feb 3, 2010 7:02 PM EST up reply actions
yeah, that's the guy
that comment had “you will rue the day you discredit my thoughts” written all over it
I know it's supposed to be a gut reponse, But lets break it down by position.
LF — Podsednik < Connor Jackson/Gerardo Parra
CF — Ankeil < Chris Young.
RF — DeJesus < Justin Upton
3B — Gordon < Reynolds
SS — Yuni < Stephen Drew
2B — Getz/Callaspo = Kelly Johnson
1B — Butler > Laroche
C — Kendall < Montero
P1 — Greinke > Webb
P2 — Meche < Haren
P3 — Banny < Edwin Jackson
P4 — Hochevar ? Ian Kennedy
P5 — Tejeda/Davies > Buckner
CP — Soria > Qualls
Rest of Bullpen — Royals < DBacks
Don't look now, but Buckner is turning into a decent pitcher
A fluky home run per flyball rate (with an assist from his home ballpark) led to a misleading bad ERA. His FIP was 4.70 and his xFIP was 3.95. I would take him as a starter over Davies or Tejeda.
... and then we'd have a really good pen
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Feb 3, 2010 6:23 PM EST up reply actions
Trust...
aww, you know the rest.
Hey, can I change my screen name to "CentralChamps20??"?
by CentralChamps2009 on Feb 4, 2010 10:21 AM EST up reply actions
The only one that we win is Butler v LaRoche & Greinke v Webb...maybe Ankiel v Young?
Conor Jackson missed almost all of last year with Valley Fever, but he was a solid, if unspectacular, player the year before last.
I was very impressed with the little bit I saw of Gerardo Parra last year too. The kid has a cannon in the OF and had his spurts on offense.
Miguel Montero will be an All-Star this year if he performs like he did last year in the second half. He was raking for an extended period.
by Fernando Vina School of Linguistics on Feb 3, 2010 11:29 PM EST up reply actions
Gordon ? Reynolds
Yeah, chicks dig the long ball, but CHONE has them within a win (3.3 WAR for Reynolds, 2.6 for Gordon) and has Gordon playing average defense while Reynolds is, umm, not good. The fans’ projections slightly favor Gordon (4.0 WAR Gordon, 3.8 WAR Reynolds). I don’t think that one can be called yet.
Not that that changes the overall picture.
Hey, can I change my screen name to "CentralChamps20??"?
by CentralChamps2009 on Feb 4, 2010 10:45 AM EST up reply actions
yeah, I was surprised
not as much as others might be, but still surprised. I you look at CHONE’s own pages, not FanGraphs, Gordon’s actually projected as a better hitter.
My guess (I don’t know the inner workings) is that it’s the context-neutralization — Arizona is a home run hitters park, Kauffman is hard on LH flyball hitters. Also, the AL/NL thing makes a difference.
We’ll see.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Feb 4, 2010 11:13 AM EST up reply actions
I saw that
But I was certain I was misreading something. For those who haven’t looked, all things being equal, Gordon had 11 R/150 over Reynolds 8 Reynolds had a better SLG, but Gordon projected better hitting for average and getting on base.
That seems like a more appropriate name.
by CentralChamps20?? on Feb 4, 2010 3:25 PM EST up reply actions
D_F, this is one of those fantasy questions you were asking earlier
Reynolds is an absolute stud in fantasy 5×5. A solid second round pick and you wouldn’t get laughed at if you took him at the end of the first round (depending on how many teams you have).
Meanwhile, in the real world, Gordon projects to be about his equal in WAR. This is why you occasionally need to ignore advanced statistics when playing fantasy. For instance, OBP is for all intents and purposes, is useless in traditional fantasy leagues.
oh yeah, I know all about the fantasy/reality divide
I’m in an AL only league, too…
don’t worry, I’m not gong for defense/OBP guys
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Feb 5, 2010 12:59 AM EST up reply actions
you should pick your fantasy team like DM picks a real team
grit
Zapp Brannigan/Dayton Moore quote of the day: "In the game of chess you can never let your opponent see your pieces"
by SagehenMacGyver47 on Feb 5, 2010 12:29 PM EST up reply actions
Obviously, the Royals are the worst-run team in MLB
but maybe they’re doing it on purpose…
The Pirates are run by Nutting and company to make money off of profit sharing, and anything they say otherwise is a bunch of easily seen-through BS.
The same goes with the Marlins. The Marlins just happen to be good at it and be over .500 most of the time.
Maybe the Royals realized that they couldn’t play it off like Pittsburgh, and weren’t smart enough to play it off like the Marlins, so they’re feigning incompetency by making silly moves within a low salary structure, and allowing the public and the writers to come to the conclusion that the Royals’ FO are a bunch of blooming idiots, so that eventually it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and a smokescreen for the reality that the Royals are merely another profit-generating arm of Wal Mart, rather than a club competing for the AL Central title and the AL pennant…
"Sniff some krazy glue, and start a religion!"- The Reverend Billy Lard
Yes to Marlins, eh to Pirates and Royals
Looking at the recent Forbes numbers, the net operating income for the Royals and Pirates falls well behind the Marlins and other several teams.
athough,
“complete-and-utter-idiot like a fox” is about as good an explanation as any for what’s going on with the FO.
Zapp Brannigan/Dayton Moore quote of the day: "In the game of chess you can never let your opponent see your pieces"
by SagehenMacGyver47 on Feb 3, 2010 7:21 PM EST up reply actions
How could anyone be better than the Podster?
I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.
by philofthenorth on Feb 4, 2010 3:13 PM EST up reply actions
as long as Webb comes back healthy the D-Backs
when a team has 2 of probably the top 10-12 starting pitchers in the NL it makes them very tough. Last season with Webb hurt the pen winds up getting used more. Plus they got Jacksom who may pitch 200 innigs also..really giving the team a well rested pen for their 4 and 5 starters.
Adam Laroche is a good signing, but he has shown in th epast that pre-allstar game he isn’t much of a threat but then after he is a stud.
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