25 for 25: Royals

by Solanus on Sep 1, 2010 8:47 PM EDT

I'm actually a St. Louis Cardinals fan, but over the past few months I've been working on a roster for each franchise in the majors, composed of players over the last 25 years. The way this works is that I pick one player from each season and I have to fill out an entire roster (for AL teams, 2 catchers, 2 infielders at each position, 5 total outfielders, one designated hitter, 5 starting pitchers, 4 relievers)*. I can't take more than one player for each year, I have to take one player each season even in the bad years, and I can't use the same player for multiple positions or years. If a player played the majority of his games at one position, I can't use that season for another position even if he's played it before. And I used basic minimums of 60 innings or 250 PA's (prorated for strike seasons). I primarily utilized WAR from Baseball-Reference (Fangraphs numbers only go back to 2002), WARP1 from Baseball Prospectus, Win Shares, and OPS+/ERA+ to determine season value.

*Because the Royals are limited at first base (meaning that I can't move Sweeney) and the other good DH seasons are already claimed by other players, I made an exception and removed the DH slot, replacing it with a 6th outfield spot.

The interesting part with this are the decisions that have to be made, whether it is, "Dang, there are some really nice outfielder seasons to choose from, who gets left out?", or, "Does this team even have two decent catchers in a 25-year span?", or, "This guy had so many great years - which one do I choose?" Sometimes a great year gets left out, sometimes a fluke, partial season gets tabbed for the team. I actually posted a fully researched extended version for the Cardinals from 1910 to 1934. The NL versions for this era are there as well (linky, linky, linky, linky).

You're welcome to pick apart my choices and make suggestions of your own. I'm looking forward to hearing from everybody.

C – Bob Boone (1989), Mike Macfarlane (1996)

1B – George Brett (1990), Mike Sweeney (2002)

2B – Frank White (1986), Jose Offerman (1998)

3B – Kevin Seitzer (1987), Gary Gaetti (1995)

SS – Jay Bell (1997), Angel Berroa (2003)

OF – Danny Tartabull (1991), Jermaine Dye (1999), Johnny Damon (2000), Carlos Beltran (2001), David DeJesus (2005), Emil Brown (2006)

SP – Bret Saberhagen (1985), Mark Gubicza (1988), Kevin Appier (1992), David Cone (1994), Zack Greinke (2009)

RP – Jeff Montgomery (1993), Shawn Camp (2004), David Riske (2007), Joakim Soria (2008)

Notable exceptions: Joe Randa (1999), Mike Aviles (2008), Bo Jackson (1990), Bob Hamelin (1994), Charlie Leibrandt (1985), Tim Belcher (1996), Paul Byrd (2002), Dan Quisenberry (1985), Tom Gordon (1989)

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We're sorry - our bad

Before I go any further, I really, really want to apologize for not selecting George Brett’s 1985 season at third base. In terms of WAR/WARP1, it was the greatest offensive season by any Royals player in the last 25 years. I swear to all that’s important to me that I didn’t pick another year because I’m a Cardinals fan and I wanted to stick it to you somehow – really, I mean it.

The reason why I didn’t pick it, and stuck him with the 1990 season while playing first base, was that you guys have a real lack of quality players at 1B and at C, and you needed 1989 for Bob Boone, which bumped Saberhagen back to ‘85 and Brett over to first. The only other really good first baseman you have is Mike Sweeney (which robs you of a decent DH), so moving Brett helps at both ends. (Not that you have a ton of third basemen either; the two seasons chosen aren’t the most inspiring.) I might have been able to squeeze something out, but you’d’ve been looking at 3-4 players around 1-2 wins each.

Speaking of 1985, picking Saberhagen means that you guys miss out on Dan Quisenberry, one of the most fascinating players I’ve ever seen. Much like many of you, I tried my hand at duplicating his mystifying delivery. I could almost pull it off, but it seemed like a lot of effort to throw 65 mph. Plus, Bill James included him in his Top 100 pitchers (in The Bill James New Historical Baseball Abstract) and had many great things to say about him, namely his intelligence and viewpoint about baseball and life. He would definitely make the ‘61-’84 team.

I was reading about how countless species are being pushed toward extinction by man's destruction of forests. Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. - Calvin, Scientific Progress Goes "Boink", Watterson

by Solanus on Sep 1, 2010 8:48 PM EDT reply actions

Looks good

Always good to remember Shawn Camp.

Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com

by RoyalsRetro on Sep 2, 2010 10:02 AM EDT reply actions

Sad to look at all those seasons from mediocre players

that had career years here and think; “oh shit, I remember that!”

Jose Offerman, ’98
Jay Bell, ’97
Emil Brown, really?

by I need more Esteban on Sep 2, 2010 10:13 AM EDT reply actions

Where's Mark Redman?

by AxDxMx on Sep 2, 2010 3:00 PM EDT reply actions

What a trip down memory lane,,,,,,,,,,thank you.

by Steve Hovley on Sep 2, 2010 8:43 PM EDT reply actions

Almost forgot

The Royals starting rotation is the best in the entire majors, using this exercise. All five pitchers had seasons with a 7.5 WARP1, WAR or both (Cone’s qualifies when extrapolated out to a 162 game schedule). The Braves have Glavine, Maddux (also ’94, extrapolates to over 13 wins) & Smoltz, but have to make do with Millwood ’99 and Vazquez ’09.

Something to hang your hat on.

by Solanus on Sep 3, 2010 7:12 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs

That might not say anything good about our rotation, necessarily.

If you are trying to maximize WAR values, you will usually get more WAR, on average, from position players. Since our position players are so poor, you were basically forced to take our best pitchers and then fill in the position players afterwards. I’d imagine that you did the opposite for most other teams (pick really good position players and then fill in the pitchers with the leftover years).

Also, that might be the best signature on the site.

"I DARE you to make less sense."

by dejackso on Sep 4, 2010 1:24 PM EDT up reply actions

Thanks about the sig

I love Calvin & Hobbes, and the mixture of pure chilhood silliness and remarkable moments of mature clarity that co-exist within Watterson’s work.

As for the rotation, nobody else had the depth of high quality pitchers, certainly not five 7.5-win starters. If I had seen another team with as many awesome hurlers, I would have grabbed as many as I could. Plus all of those guys other than Greinke were from back in the non-last place years, ’85, ’88, ’92, ’94. You still had plenty of good position players at that time.

by Solanus on Sep 4, 2010 6:42 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs

An interesting exercise

I’m wondering, did you find yourself surprised by how hard it was to do this after you’d been at it for a while, or did you know what you were getting into?

The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them. -- Albert Einstein

by The Ol' Perfesser on Sep 4, 2010 1:18 PM EDT reply actions

Interesting.

Though, I think Shawn Camp was a poor choice. There were several RPs in 2004 that had better WARs and that didn’t show up in your list. For instance, Jason Grimsley, Jamie Cerda, Jermey Affeldt (though he did start some), and Jimmy Gobble (though he started a lot, so maybe doesn’t count based on your criteria).

Also, WOW! 2004 sucked.

"I DARE you to make less sense."

by dejackso on Sep 4, 2010 1:20 PM EDT reply actions

Relievers in 2004

There were four guys in 2004 that qualified as relievers (>60 IP, more relief appearances than starts) – Affeldt, Camp, Scott Sullivan, Dennis Reyes. Affeldt was the closer, but had a below average ERA & a negligible WAR; Sullivan’s ERA was a little better, but the same WAR as Camp; and, Reyes was league average, his only benefit to his WAR being 100+ IP by being a swing starter. Jamie Cerda was an interesting choice, but he didn’t pitch enough innings to automatically qualify, nor pitch so awesomely to overcome that deficit (if he had popped a sub-2.00 ERA, he’d have been worth it); Grimsley even less so.

Do I think Shawn Camp is a great choice for the bullpen, expecially compared to the other seasons? No, but none of the other options were really all that great either. If it makes you feel better to put Cerda or Reyes in his place, go for it. If I had spent 25 hours researching this team, instead of the 10 that I did, I probably would have come to the same conclusion. Besides, we’re sort of arguing over whether a guy with a 0.5 WAR or a 0.9 WAR should be on the team; neither choice is going to inspire much confidence.

by Solanus on Sep 4, 2010 6:57 PM EDT up reply actions