Judging the Royals makes it's triumphant return
Despite objections from metrics fans, I thought it did a good job of analyzing players and the way they play the game. It told you Scott Podsednik played the wall poorly, had a weak arm and took too many called third strikes. It told you Jason Kendall was a terrific situational hitter and great at blocking pitches (which is part of why his teammates valued him more than the people who just look at numbers). It told you Yuniesky Betancourt was better than we all may have thought, but inconsistent, especially on balls to his left. So the site gave fans a lot of information about how the players actually played and what fans could observe during a game. (Several coaches and players told me the evaluations were pretty much right on and included many of the same conclusions they'd reached privately.)



