Hochevar & Bullpen Thoughts Headed Into Game Two

If Dayton Moore had gone out and acquired a bunch of young guys that no one thought had much of a future, it would at least be interesting to see if his scouts were right about some of them and maybe watch one or two start to blossom. But when the GM brings in a bunch of guys in their 30’s who aren’t any good, what do you have to hope for? A player in his mid-30’s isn’t going to suddenly turn into a different player. Players don’t blossom in their 30’s. I guess a player could have an aberrational bump for a year and have a good season, but that’s about it.

I can’t get excited about seeing how Pods, Ankiel, Kendall, Bloomy and Yuni pan out. No good can come of that. And we already know that Greinke, DDJ and Butler are good. More good seasons from them in the midst of yet another embarrassing, awful season from the team just make me sad. Such talented wated.

So what do I have to look forward to? Improvement from Gordon? Perhaps Getz showing that he can be a decent MLB second baseman? The development of Luke Hochevar? It gets harder every year to justify paying $180 for MLB Extra Innings.

Let’s face it, no matter how you do the math this is a pretty sucky guy to have as a #2 starter. But what difference does it make with a bullpen as on display Monday, so he pitches 6 good innings, where does it get you; and a lineup that if you are really lucky will put together 3 or 4 runs. Collectively this is about as bad a group as it gets. What is particularly irritating to me is that the big bucks guys, like Meche and Gordon (and Guillen last year) are always disappearing with injuries so there is never any momentum towards improvement. And don’t even get me started on the lack of any hope in the bullpen: Soria just becomes Mr. Irrelevant.

Another sad hope which won’t come true.

I bet Mike Moustakas is totallly gonna get a Sept. call up in 2011

I believe Luke still belongs in the pen.

I would like to see the lineup.
How the pen is handle after Luke blows up in the 4th or 5th?

Kinda want to see how E. Santana and Carmona pitch tonight.

that say AC won’t play today due to the cooler weather temps and not wanting him to strain that muscle again…

And then proceed to drive him into the ground by using him every day so that he posts an era north of 7 after the ASB.

I want them in a 7 game series

I think most of your discussion covers confirmation bias, but there’s certainly data there to support or refute our ideas.

Regarding the pen, it’s hard not to think they’re going to be awful, every time. There’s the bonus of confirmation bias—when you see what you expect, your awesome intellect is pumped up, and when circumstances defy your expectations, hey—pleasant surprise!

Think of it as a tortured Royals fan’s last shell of protection. It’s easier on the mind, soul, and body to be cynical and correct 70% of the time than it is to be optimistic and correct 15% of the time.

worst. birthday. ever.

If I had told you in 2006, Luke Hochevar would be the Royals de facto #2 starter behind the recently crowned Cy Young winner Zack Greinke, how happy or excited do you think you would have been?

Joel (PA)
Who is the worst team in baseball?

Jim Callis (2:36 PM)

The Royals.

Kevin Millwood
avg: 52.1
median: 53
st. dev.: 14.6

AJ Burnett
avg: 52.8
median: 55
st. dev.: 17.4

Luke Hochevar
avg: 42.8
median: 42
st. dev.: 21.4

sample sizes of 31, 33, and 25, respectively.

of course, this just plays into the confirmation bias b/c i’m looking at the most recent season, which is freshest in our memory, but you could do it for all seasons very easily with b-ref data.

But Hochevar’s case is different from what you describe. In his case, his “awesome” outings weren’t just good, they were spectacular and so odd – an 80 pitch shutout is spectacular and exceptionally rare , a 13 K shutout is spectacular and makes you think you have a HOFer, etc.

And those spectacular outings were so few and far between (seriously, Hochevar’s traditional stats and peripherals from last year are comparable to awful Chris George 2003, Jose Lima 2004 territory ) that I think the only reasonable response is, ‘WTF’.

This isn’t a ‘clutch’ thing because the mainstream concept doesn’t really apply to starting pitchers until the postseason , and Hochevar was so consistently bad last year that anything approaching clutch is laughable.

This isn’t a Kevin Millwood thing, because Millwood has always has good control but not blow-you-away stuff, which leads to a range of consistently below average to good performances.

This isn’t an AJ Burnett thing, because Burnett has great stuff but gets lit up from time to time because he can’t control it.

This is a Hochevar thing, because Hochevar has a mind-blowingly weird combination of factors behind him – good stuff but inconsistent velocity, doesn’t walk a lot of people, induces a lot of contact (especially grounders), plays for a shitty team with a shitty defense, traditional scouts question his toughness and love for the game after he reentered the draft, people question his body language because he doesn’t get too excited with a great start or an awful one, etc.

No one knows what to make of that. So the obvious but flawed conclusion for people to arrive at in order to make sense of things is to say, “well he runs hot and cold and it’s all in his head and it’s up to him to put it together.” That’s such an easy way out, a piss-poor response to a truly unique situation. Clearly there is something in Hochevar that can induce hall of fame-esque performance. And clearly there is another thing that makes him one of the worst pitchers in the game. Maybe he’s the Cuba Gooding Jr. of pitchers, winning an Academy Award for ‘Jerry Maguire’ but more likely to hang his hat on the straight-to-DVD release of ‘Snow Dogs 3’