Royals Rotation Projections

I saw a reputable ESPN reporter end his evaluation based on past wins in article a few days ago. I was actually mildly with his analysis until that epic failure. Seriously. I mean, people knew to discount wins as any kind of viable metric even before the so-called sabermetric revolution. – TL

be it motivational tactic or not. Deciding to answer the question at all is a bit odd, and so is the answer he gave. But his hands were tied, I think: a) he was only going to list 3 pitchers at max (he’s not going to verbally lock down 4 or 5 spots), b) Chen and Sanchez had to be listed b/c they were just acquired/re-signed, and c) Hoch actually is a lock in the sense that he’s a veteran and almost certainly going to be one of the top 5. So, Paulino got left out b/c of the logistics of answering the question more than anything, IMO.

We don’t even know if he’s going to start the season in the rotation, much less how long they’ll leave him there. He’s going to get a look as a SP in spring training. So far, that’s all they’ve said. I don’t know why anyone would assume that Crow is definitely going into the KC rotation, or even that it is likely at this point.

He does a hell of a job.

Sánchez – Paulino – Chen – Hochevar – Montgomery/Duffy is probably the way it’s going to work out.

I really feel like the optimal outcome would be starting with that rotation, including probably Duffy. Then Monty gets half a season to hopefully improve at AAA. In July Sanchez (or god willing Chen) is traded to a contender and Monty is promoted.

I still like my idea of a four-man rotation of two-man stacks. Everybody else hates it. Well, jeez, we got nothing to lose and a whole bunch of lousy pitchers, so why not try it?

I like it in theory, but I have two problems with it. First, I think you want to develop young pitchers (especially Duffy and Monty) in the way that will help them hopefully become good or great SP’s who can go deep into games and pitch 200+ innings (eventually). And I think it hurts their development to become that kind of pitcher when they are starting paired with someone else, with the idea that they pitch 3-4 innings and get pulled as soon as things start to go south. Second, while I like having one or two rotation spots as a “stack”, I think if you have four, that will leave a pretty thin bullpen. Now the bullpen wouldn’t be needed to pitch as many innings, but I still think the balance would be off there. It would only leave 3 pure relievers and things could get tight quickly.

Or Teaford? (almost called him Teahen)

At least they provide some depth, in that they can impersonate a starter if necessary, probably not too dissimilar from where Duffy/Monty are now.

Was 4.96 as a SP and 5.24 as a RP. That was quite a bit higher than his ERA (3.38 SP, 3.21 RP) and his xFIP (3.55 SP, 4.17 RP). The sample size is small (44 IP, only 16 of those as a starter).

Beyond that, I can’t explain why the ERA projection is that high, though the FIP projections are not surprising. Hopefully someone else can shed light on that. I am hopeful that Teaford can be a useful long reliever and spot starter and eat some innings this year, and that consequently Mazzaro, Mendoza or SOS would be a little less likely to spend much if any time in KC.

Teaford may well perform better than those pitchers, but there clearly is at least some reason to believe he’d do worse. Those projections come from somewhere. They come from his major league stats, and his minor league stats (taking into account performance, level and age). They do not dictate what his future performance will be, but there is something there to back them up.

Sack of S**t.

Site traffic really picks up in late February and especially in March. There’s going to be 10 times as much talk about the rotation soon. Get used to it.

Outside of Duffy, I don’t think any of those pitchers are flat out terrible. Though Duffy does have some upside because he has good stuff (if only I had nickel for every pitcher that had “good stuff” and never made it).

I could see not one of those starters posting an ERA under 4 or above 4.5. Sure that’s not good, but it’s not as bad as we’ve seen in some years.

Paulino could be GMDM’s next big find; and I do not think GMDM will discard him.

I don’t think he’ll discard him, but I do think it is possible that he and Yost will underuse and misuse him. Moore could focus too much on the “these starters don’t go long enough into games” issue and think he really needs a good long reliever, and use that ass backwards illogic to push Paulino to the bullpen. But I won’t condemn Moore for this mistake unless and until he makes it. I am somewhat concerned though.

Til I saw Soria pitch in an exhibition game. I thought he looked really awesome.

No one knew anything about him except for that perfect game in the Mexican League which he threw around the time of the Rule 5 draft. That made it look like a good acquisition to some. Mostly it just looked like another Rule 5 acquisition where the guy was worth a flier, but that’s about all.

Is his BABIP. His career BABIP is .340 in 347.2 IP, which is insanely high. And it wasn’t an artifact of his pre-Royals days either, as his 2011 BABIP was .341.

So what does this mean? We know that every once in a while a pitcher will show up whose ERA constantly underperforms his FIP—Bruce Chen has been this way for the last couple years. It therefore makes sense that some pitchers’ ERA is always over their FIP for one reason or another. That BABIP might be because Paulino’s stuff is sometimes very hittable, and not because of luck. Not sure about that, but that is my unprofessional opinion.