Yeah, this is a hastily thrown together post of some statistical odds and ends I found while parked on the Royals team page at Baseball Reference. I'm just biding time until Dayton Moore fires his first off season salvo, which I figure will come just moments after the final out of the 2013 World Series.
-- Billy Butler had a 1.97 GO/AO (Ground Out to Air Out) ratio. Ummmm... for a guy with alleged gap power and the possibility of knocking the occasional home run, that's less than ideal.
Not only is that less than ideal, Butler's 1.97 GO/AO ratio was the highest in the American League in 2013. Second-highest was Elvis Andrus at 1.74.
-- With 69 games hitting second in the batting order, Alcides Escobar was the name Ned Yost wrote in that spot. Escobar posted a 4.42 SO/BB ratio, the third worst rate in the AL behind only A.J. Pierzynski (6.91) and Adam Jones (5.44).
-- Baseclogger? The average base runner scored 30 percent of the time in 2013. Butler touched home only 20 percent of the time he reached base, worst rate on the club.
-- Escobar was a perfect 22 for 22 in stolen base attempts. He stole second 15 times, third six times and home once.
-- When it comes to laying down the sac bunt, Yost asked Escobar to give himself up 14 times in 2013. He got the bunt down nine of those times. Chris Getz was eight of nine in sac bunt attempts. Mike Moustakas was a perfect one for one.
-- Getz grounded into the highest percentage of double plays, making two outs for his team 23 percent of the time he came to bat with a runner on first and less than two outs. Butler grounded into a double play 20 percent of the time in those situations.
-- Mike Moustakas hit with a total of 341 runners on base in 2013. He drove home 30 of those runners - just nine percent. No one with so many base runners, drove in so few.
-- Miguel Tejada and Justin Maxwell tied for the team lead with three pinch hits. Maxwell hit the Royals lone pinch hit home run.
-- Over 29 percent of Lorenzo Cain's strikeouts were caught looking. League average was 24 percent.
-- Contact man, Salvador Perez missed on just 11 percent of his swings. League average was 16 percent.
-- Getz swung at the first pitch in a plate appearance just 13 percent of the time. George Kottaras swung at the first pitch he saw just six percent of the time. Among players with 125 plate appearances (Small Sample Alert! Arbitrary End Point Alert!) no one swung at fewer first pitches than Kottaras.
-- According to Fangraphs, 16.6 percent of Moustakas' batted fly balls were classified as infield fly balls. Or as Steve Physioc would say, "Pop-ups."
That seems like a good arbitrary point on which to end.