The author has recently been contemplating about the struggles of Royals pitcher "James Shields." Mr. Shields had himself a very testing May and June. There is no doubt that he internally looked inside himself on late nights perhaps asking "Why God? Why me? What am I doing here?" While some will think those existential-like questions to a higher deity may be in vain, others may think it is a practical exercise. This is not the subject of today's article so curb further thoughts on that subject.
What this article's subject is is the struggles of James Shields. This subject is not subjective and is entirely objective. Thanks to the infinite inter-workings of the digital phenomenon know as "the internet" we have at our fingertips access to perhaps an infinite amount of data. That perhaps is a subjective subject, but much like the previous questioning of a deity, that isn't the subject of this article.
Royals pitcher James Shields has struggled on an , empirical, statistical. and analytical standpoint. One can watch every Shields start from May and June to empirically see his struggles. One can look at the data from said Shields starts and then one can analyze that data to form an opinion. The author has done some of those on a personal level, but will do none in this article. The author will provide to you, gratis, perhaps a visual description of previously mentioned struggles. One could perhaps call this a mold of empirical, statistical, AND analytical data, but the author gives no guarantee.
Some of the visual data below will give the reader multiple years of data to look at. This is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing that A) said data exists on the internet B) said data is available free and C) comparisons can be made across multiple seasons to find trends. A curse that A) may distract you from the more pertinent data B) may take away visually from other years data and C) doesn't focus on 2014, the subject of this article.
So with both sides of the coin explained to you I ask, solely for the purposes of this article, that you look at 2014. I cannot stop you from looking at other years data but you do so at your own risk. There are no lifeguards of the internet and the deeper you swim in data, the higher chance you could drown.
With a full disclaimer presented above, I will shuffle off this digital coil for now, and with no critical analysis personally represented, I present to you, free as always, the struggles, visually, of James Shields.