FanPost

Based solely on AL Central 2011 xFIPs...

...how do the Royals compete in the AL Central in 2012?

Tigers xFIP
Verlander 3.12
Scherzer 3.70
Porcello 4.02
Penny 4.77
Fister 2.75
Total: 18.36

Indians xFIP
Masterson 3.64
Tomlin 4.03
Carmona 4.17
Ubaldo 3.81
Carrasco 4.07
Total: 19.72

White Sox xFIP
Buehrle 3.98
Floyd 3.81
Danks 3.82
Peavy 3.52
Sale 3.00
Total: 18.13

Royals xFIP
Hochevar 4.05
Chen 4.68
Paulino 3.74
Sanchez 4.36
Crow 3.34
Total: 20.17

Twins xFIP
Pavano 4.14
Duensing 4.05
Blackburn 4.32
Baker 3.61
Liriano 4.52
Total: 20.64

Switch Duffy for Crow, and it gets even worse for the Royals. And it's likely that Aaron Crow's xFIP would be much higher as a starter. Of course, this is using 2011 xFIPs and thus is a very crude estimation. But it puts the Royals in 4th in the AL Central.

What this says is that the Royals did not improve the starting rotation, which was priority #1 this offseason. Adding Jonathan Sanchez is not enough…in fact, it made our rotation worse from a xFIP perspective (switching Sanchez for Francis).

These Royals starters do not strike fear into the heart of opponents like the starters on other teams. How many of them would you draft in a fantasy baseball draft? Maybe a late round flyer on Paulino? Maybe Sanchez for some K’s? That’s about it. We still need a big impact starter. You have to go through 34 AL starters ranking in WAR before you get to the first Royals starter:

Sabathia 7.1 WAR
Verlander
Haren
Wilson
Weaver
Fister
Hernandez
Masterson
Shields
McCarthy
Price
Beckett
Harrison
Lester
Holland
Floyd
Ogando
Gonzalez 3.5 WAR
Humber
Morrow
Buehrle
Pineda
Santana
Danks
Jackson
Peavy
Colon
Romero
Pavano
Scherzer
Porcello
Baker
Nova
Paulino 2.6 WAR

This must change. Back when the Royals were in the playoffs, we had great starting pitching (Splitt, Leonard, Busby, Gura, Saberhagen, Gubicza, Liebrandt, Gordon, Black, etc.)

I just don’t see how we can compete with what we have now…nothing is going to change, even if we have a great hitting team, we won’t have the starting pitching to compete in 2012.

I hold out hope, though, by Dayton Moore's final sentence in the Bruce Chen KC Star story, "It’s a matter of getting the right guys. And we’re not done. We’re still looking to add another pitcher." Let's hope that pitcher has the ability to post a higher WAR and better xFIP than Felipe Paulino, our best starter from 2011.

Thoughts?
David

This FanPost was written by a member of the Royals Review community. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the editors and writers of this site.