Jason Kendall's Absurd Playing Time Update
by Freneau on Jun 14, 2010 2:15 PM EDT
in Kansas City Royals News
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PrintInnings caught this season:
- Jason Kendall: 525.1 (92.4% of team total)
- Brayan Pena: 43 (7.6%)
No other team is doing something like this. Just looking at other situations where there is a clear #1 catcher who hasn't been injured, we see that Yadier Molina is at 84.2% and Matt Wieters is at 81.1%.
Can anyone really say that Kendall's been great defensively this season? No. Is he shutting down the running game? No, the opposite. Can anyone really argue that he's done great work with the pitching staff? Hardly. Is he hitting well? No.
I'm not trying to start a Brayan Pena crusade here. Pena isn't very good and might not even be able to handle catching defensively. (Though it's hard to say because he's only playing twice a month.) Pena isn't being blocked, so much as he's simply being underutilized.
Primarily, here are my objections to Mr. 92%:
- From a pure baseball perspective, this doesn't make sense. Kendall isn't performing well, and he's playing a demanding position. In his last 41 games Kendall is hitting .255/.304/.317. Alex Gordon would have been ritualistically executed, twice, for such a span of games. If we assume the Royals love Kendall's game, then you'd think they'd want to take steps to get him back to his old self (which of course doesn't exist, but just roll with it).
- Kendall is under contract for 2011 as well. Maybe you forgot that because it's absolutely terrible, but that is the case. I shudder to think what a 37 year old Kendall is going to do coming off a 150 start season in 2010.
- More philosophically, the Royals-Kendall love affair brings back to light everything wrong about this franchise for the last twenty years. It's got a dash of late-era Baird's love of random veterans who are supposed to teach the team how to compete (and really, where would we be without the teachings of Reggie Sanders from five years ago?) and be professional and whatever else. However, it's also particularly Mooresian in it's dogged look at how effing old school we are braggadocio. Basically, Jason Kendall is Joey Gathright Part 2: all the evidence is there that nothing is actually being gained, but for the Royals the player is a powerful statement about how rightly the franchise is going about things. Never mind the numbers, it means something to another horrible GM when he looks at your roster and sees that you've got Kendall.
- Jason Kendall just isn't good enough to dictate his playing time. I know he wants to play, because the Royals tell us that every day. But the Royals don't exist (or do they?) simply as a vehicle for 25 baseball players to get nice paychecks and playing time. And it isn't like Kendall is some beloved legend in Kansas City. He has no connection with the team or the city whatsoever. The Royals just handed Kendall everything he wanted. Why? It makes feel sick to think that I'm supposed to be a fan of the team, when really all the "team" is is a collection of random, un-related, beneficial-only-to-the-player relationships like the Kendall one.
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SB/PB/WP numbers
Kendall 2010: 2 PB, 17 WP, 57 SB = 76 in 61 starts (525 1/3 IP)
Pena, 2010: 3 WP, 2 SB = 5 in 3 starts (43 IP)
Olivo, 2009: 10 PB, 56 SB
Buck, 2009: 2 PB, 41 SB
Pena, 2009: 2 PB, 17 SB
BBRef doesn’t split the 89 wild pitches from 2009 by catcher.
Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bhindepmo (follow me, because reloading my twitter page 40 times a day is kind of creepy)
Uh, Greinke had 12 Ks yesterday
it’s obviously the case he’s only just now absorbing Kendall’s teachings
(holds up three fingers)
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs and Beyond the Box Score.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
At this point I'd rather go with a Pena/Maier catching situation with Kendall cleaning hotel rooms at the Holiday Inn across the street.
Killing time until time kills me
Yeah that's it.
The one with the Denny’s attached. Make him wash dishes by night after cleaning hotel rooms during the day. That’s a gritty double duty, right?
Killing time until time kills me
Well
The old Adams Mark is now a Holiday Inn, so there’s both a Drury and a Holiday Inn. Kendall can clean the rooms in one and telepathically mentor the housekeeping staff in the other.
It's all ball bearings these days!
by CentralChamps20?? on Jun 14, 2010 2:49 PM EDT up reply actions
The old Adam's Mark got busted once
for discriminating against blacks as guests. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam’s_Mark) says that it was the whole chain that got in trouble for an incident in Florida, but I could swear I remember a specific case at the KC hotel that made the news.
"The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey" - Unfortunate cricket commentator
Kendall is becoming possibly my least favorite Royal ever
I really just don’t like the guy. I think part of me never got over him trying to fight the Royals, whenever that was (when his dad was our bullpen coach), but mostly I just want to punch him in the face every time I see that toolish picture of him with the blank stare. Maybe his tattoo ring also has something to do with it. He just strikes me as a huge tool who is missing his adderall.
Also, he leads the team in errors. Maybe subconsciously he feels the need to throw the ball in the outfield since he can’t hit it there.
This team is loaded with my least favorite Royals ever
It’s terribly difficult to be a fan of this team because there’s so many players I don’t “like” (it’s not necessarily the players themselves, its just the front office/managerial mindset they represent). I actually get upset when Kendall, Guillen Pods, or Betancourt do anything of value (I’d add Farnsworth, but I can’t remember the last timejust because I want them to fail so badly that Moore must admit at some point that he was wrong on his decision to acquire or keep every single one of these players. Ankiel will join that list when he returns. That’s half the starting lineup that I’d rather not be Royals.
I guess Jerry Seinfeld was right, I am just rooting for the uniforms.
It's all ball bearings these days!
by CentralChamps20?? on Jun 14, 2010 2:53 PM EDT up reply actions
I actually root for those guys to do well...
so there is some hope of trading them, ASAP (though I lost hope for Ankiel long ago after watching his first swing and first awful route in center field). I continue to hold onto the delusion that Gordon can be in the outflield and Kila at 1B/DH this season. And good news: Fullerton lost last night, which means Colon can sign and replace Betancorpse sooner.
A couple weeks won't matter
Especially if Boras takes it to the deadline. I was hoping he’d win it and prove his leadership skillz.
Maybe someone could set up one of those elimination bracket polls
on the question “Who is your least favorite current Royal?”
You’d have to be careful with the seeding. I’d go with
1) Guillén
2) Betancourt
3) Kendall
4) Ankiel
5) Farnsworth
6) Podsednik
7) Betemit
8) Tejeda
I see Hosey beating out Yuni for the championship, but there could be some upsets in this field.
"The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey" - Unfortunate cricket commentator
Don't EVER count out Jason Kendall in a battle of endurance
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs and Beyond the Box Score.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Jun 15, 2010 11:08 AM EDT up reply actions
what would it look like for "Who is GMDM's least favorite Royal?"
1) Gordon
2) Kila
3) Disco
4) Justin Huber
5) BPJ
"Things could always be worse." - Buddy Bell
not sure he knows Disco exists
and despite limited playing time, BPJ is a former Brave (he probably doesn’t play because he’s the point man on all Cuban acquisitions).
I’d say Aviles has to be on there, Butler is a dark horse (Yuni! trade)… J. P. Howell?
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs and Beyond the Box Score.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Jun 15, 2010 12:05 PM EDT up reply actions
good thing bannister has all those pitcher wins
or he’d be on the black list for talking sabermagics to the reporters.
by swing and a miss on Jun 15, 2010 12:15 PM EDT up reply actions
Somehow I missed Bloomquist
Tejeda drops out as eighth seed; Betemit drops to eighth and Willie moves in at seventh.
"The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey" - Unfortunate cricket commentator
so can we assume that Pena will never be the Royals main catcher?
It seems that they aren’t interested in him developing. If they were, he would either play more or be sent to AAA where he could play almost every freaking day. This speaks of a confusion of what should be going on this season. As was stated elsewhere, they should be evaluating how the “youngsters” can do at the big league level, not just in the extremely small sample size September call-ups.
"Things could always be worse." - Buddy Bell
I don't expect him
to be even the backup catcher in 2011. Pina should be ready to take his turn watching Kendall start 156 games next year.
It's all ball bearings these days!
by CentralChamps20?? on Jun 14, 2010 2:54 PM EDT up reply actions
Maybe they're trying to get him to...
…the 288 HBP mark.
As his current rate, he’s gonna need about 750 more games as a Royal to get there.
good point
when we complain about the contract, we need to also factor in the merchandising and ticket sales for his record push
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs and Beyond the Box Score.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Jun 14, 2010 2:33 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Plunked: A Royal Leans Into History
The Jason Kendall Story, as told to Sam Mellinger
by Freneau on Jun 14, 2010 2:35 PM EDT up reply actions 4 recs
No, you're thinking of GROUNDED: From Omaha to KC and Back
The Ken Harvey Story
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs and Beyond the Box Score.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Jun 14, 2010 2:38 PM EDT up reply actions
"Grounding Out, Like a Spork in a Socket"
-The William P. Bloomquist story
by Official Arrowhead Pride Parade on Jun 14, 2010 3:13 PM EDT up reply actions
Nice
Given enough velocity even a pig will fly
by MarioVanPeebles Republic of China on Jun 14, 2010 11:55 PM EDT up reply actions
The Ken Harvey Story: How I Solved Two Problems in One Play
"Things could always be worse." - Buddy Bell
it's damn tiring
watching young guys that suck. But at least you can hold out hope that they “are improving”. If that doesnt work you can say, well here’s a kids chance to live his dream.
watching old guys that suck, is simply no fun, and serves no value to anyone or anything.
~~~if there is one thing i absolutely know for sure its... ummmm uhhh.... uhhh
nevermind
quote from ESPN Match LIVE:
Gilardino flicks on a lump up the pitch by Zambrotta but it comes to nothing. Italy attack again.
"Things could always be worse." - Buddy Bell
i dunno what that means
but is sure sounds painful
~~~if there is one thing i absolutely know for sure its... ummmm uhhh.... uhhh
nevermind
I'm sure that baseball jargon
Makes that much sense to a bunch of Italian soccer fans, too.
It's all ball bearings these days!
by CentralChamps20?? on Jun 14, 2010 2:55 PM EDT up reply actions
Pepe is unhappy with Morel for some reason and runs across the pitch to wag a finger in his face.
by Official Arrowhead Pride Parade on Jun 14, 2010 3:18 PM EDT up reply actions
perhaps there is a spot for such a gritty veteran on our squad
"Things could always be worse." - Buddy Bell
the pic of Kendall and Pods on the Royals homepage
is the only non-rotating player picture on the site, I can only surmise that the Royals brass feels that they are the best representation of members of the team. In fact, I am shocked that Yuni is not also in that photo collage with them.
by swing and a miss on Jun 14, 2010 2:50 PM EDT reply actions
I may be the only one
But Pods and Kendall bug me way more than Yuni.
For me, the Kendall signing was the biggest head-scratcher since the Neifi trade. Plenty of others have been easy to dislike the moment they happened, but no one who has seen Kendall play in the past 4-5 years, let alone looked at his stats, could chalk that move up as anything but blatantly stupid.
Usually if I don’t like a move, there is a sense of “I could be wrong though.” With Kendall, like Neifi before him, it was, “There’s no way our GM actually did this.”
The Neifi trade was a GREAT move
ok, so it wasnt so much a “trade” as much as putting him on waivers, but still a huge plus
~~~if there is one thing i absolutely know for sure its... ummmm uhhh.... uhhh
nevermind
who's the other 1%?
* Jason Kendall: 525.1 (92.4% of team total)
* Brayan Pena: 43 (6.6%)
Wil Myers
Being telepathically taught by Kendall to telepathically catch games in KC.
"You'll never make it to the bigs with fungus on your shower shoes."
by MinnesotaRoyal on Jun 14, 2010 3:35 PM EDT up reply actions
All that matters is this
I once had hope...now I have Moore.
by Dubya on Jun 14, 2010 3:26 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
And at the end of the day - @HOW CAN YOU BENCH THIS@
note the ALL THE TIME phraseology. He’s not kidding.
I once had hope...now I have Moore.
Is anyone else surprised....
that he has 12 doubles? I would’ve thought he had somewhere around 6-8.
Tension is the enemy. - Charlie Lau
by aHorseWithNoName on Jun 14, 2010 3:53 PM EDT reply actions
Maybe that's it,
we hear teams say all the time they’d rather have double than homeruns, well, Kendall refuses to hit homeruns. He’s no rally killer.
dude just doesn't
Look healthy. Has that out of control prison guard look.
"Shot by my own men."
by StonewallPDS on Jun 14, 2010 6:10 PM EDT via mobile reply actions
He looks like he should be one of the washed out extras
on The Smoking Gun’s World’s Dumbest. And like everyone else, I’ve been trying to find, with the latest in micro-imaging technology, the upside to this guy who haunts the damn lineup every night. I cringe and fall into a state of irritation before every game now when I see his name up there. The special nights are when he bats second. Really, Dayton. If I could just ask what the fuck you were smoking when you made this deal?
Place witty signature here.
He's 18/75 throwing out baserunners? Is that right?
75 seems like a crazy high number. To be fair, he’s only been caught stealing himself five times, which nets out to +13 given the 18 he’s gunned down.
by James Kannengieser on Jun 14, 2010 11:09 PM EDT reply actions
He doesn't have the arm nor the instincts of a veteran
Did you see the ball he hurled into center the other day? Looked like a nervous kid who just got ride of the ball as fast as he could. Dammit, this post makes me want to kick him in the jimmy more than ever.
Place witty signature here.
Meanwhile, John Buck
is hitting .266/.307/.532 for Toronto, with 11 homers. Same old weakness: only eight walks in 173 ABs.
"The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey" - Unfortunate cricket commentator
The best thing about this post
is that the way it formats on my screen the first line reads:
Jason Kendall’s Absurd Playing
I think it could stop right there.
~~~if there is one thing i absolutely know for sure its... ummmm uhhh.... uhhh
nevermind
I disagree to an extent, but only to an extent.
Even with his poor batting numbers he is by far superior defensively to anything we’ve had here in the last 5 years. You guys knew he wasn’t going to hit when we signed him and that was part of the problem with the signing.
The surprising thing to me is the amount of bases that have been stolen off of him. That might be, in part, due to slow deliveries and readability from our pitchers. If you remember, we had a lot of bases stolen on us the last few years, particularly when Buck was behind the plate. I think teams realized that Olivo would just let the ball go to the back stop at some point so they didn’t need to run as often….
Here’s what we know. 57 Successful SBs against him, 18 runners CS. Approximately 24% CS rate. Barajas, a name that was tossed around here as one of the should have been signed guys, has thrown out 2 runners in 21 chances. Or a 9% CS rate. Which would you rather have? .260 and no bombs + 24% CS rate or 2% CS and 10 bombs with .260 average?
…If you answered the 24% CS rate over the course of a season rather than the HRs over the course of a season, you want Kendall, if you wanted the D over the power, you wanted Barajas. Interesting.
Coffee. The NEW Performance Enhancing drug for Sport's Writers. Just ask Ken Rosenthal.
That last sentence should read:
If you answered the D over the power, you want Kendall, if you want the power over the D, you wanted Olivo/Barajas.
Coffee. The NEW Performance Enhancing drug for Sport's Writers. Just ask Ken Rosenthal.
and John Buck.
Coffee. The NEW Performance Enhancing drug for Sport's Writers. Just ask Ken Rosenthal.
But Kendall doesn't give you D
The Knock on Olivo is his passed balls. Whoop de fucking doo, Kendall gives up a massively higher number of free bases on steals than Olivo does on PB’s. And even allowing for the odd runner scoring from 3B on a PB, I bet Kendall gives up more runs letting runners run at will than Olivo does giving up a PB every 3 weeks.
What else does he give you? Awesome pitch calling?
by kcbottom9th on Jun 15, 2010 12:04 PM EDT up reply actions
Despite his reptuation
Kendall hasn’t been good at throwing out runners in years. he did have a good year in 2008, mostly because teams tried to run on him way to much. He was below average in both 2007 and 2009.
I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs and Beyond the Box Score.
Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.
by Matt Klaassen on Jun 15, 2010 12:01 PM EDT up reply actions
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