Wait... the Royals are allowed to win games late?

Funny thing on the Teahen inside-the-park-homer. Back when I lived in Iowa, I listened to/watched a ton of White Sox games, and I can recall both the the TV and radio guys praising Alexei Ramirez's baseball IQ/grittiness/gamerness etc. Heard the same thing on BBTN after the two-run sac fly game: he's just a BASEBALL PLAYER or something to that effect. (I have a theory that baseball media people have a positive stereotype about Cuban (as opposed to Dominican) players, in much the same way they assume that all Japanese players are fundamental Gods, brilliant situational hitters, etc.)

Looking at the Teahen HR replay, it looks like he was less than aggressive in getting the ball into the infield however.

Although Teahen's blast was mostly icing on a game that had already been trapped in the bloody trap of Royal heart, it was a nice half-cap to the game, with a delicious Soria save the other half. (So Teahen's the coffee and Soria the cake?)

• Was Jermaine Dye hearing some boos this series? I seem to remember hearing Steve Stone say that a few nights back, but wasn't totally sure since I was listening on a very static-y connection.
  
• Thank you Zack Greinke. This is the dominant performance I'd been pining for. Ideally, maybe you would have lasted eight innings, rather than seven, but I loved the eight strikeouts balanced against just one walk.
  
• Ross Gload is upping his trade value nightly. Bring us that D+ prospect now and let's begin take two of the Shealy Era.
• Your Ron Mahay ERA update is 1.88.
• With six total bases tonight, Mark Teahen now has 731 total bases as a Royal, leaving him only four behind Paul Schaal for 31st in team history. by the end of the month Teahen should be easily past Schaal and Ed Kirkpatrick (740). Passing Jim Eisenreich (783) is going to take some time, as will getting to the next rung, the tie for 27th between Wally Joyner and Darrell Porter at 824.
• Teahen's homer was his 42nd of his career, tying him with Bob Hamelin for 30th in team history.

Another blast from the past (a haunting?) on a rainy Thursday. Back in January, I looked at the Top Five Doubles Hitters in the post-Brett Era...

Continuing the life-changing examination of the post-Brett era in Kansas City. This time, with a nod to the problems inherent in taking RsBI very seriously, lets instead look at doubles.

Doubles are interesting because a double is a fairly good play, but, at the same time, a double is also sometimes just a home run that doesn't go as far, or do as much damage. Here are the run expectancies for doubles, or, more properly, for a dude standing on second base:

Run Expectancy for a Dude Standing on Second Base:

Dude on Second, no outs: 1.154 runs
Dude on Second, one out: .736 runs
Dude on Second, two outs: .3645

Note: these numbers are just from the 2006 season.

Thinking more about doubles, a fairly common double situation is "man on first moves to third on double" (at least if Sweeney or Buck aren't on first). In that situation, with no outs, the double moves the run expectancy of the inning from .926 to 1.807. With one man already out, the double pushes the expected runs from .567 to 1.173. All good things.

Anyway, here are the top five doubles men since 1993:

Top Five Doubles Hitters For the Royals Since 1993:

1. Mike Sweeney- 292
2. Joe Randa- 223
3. Carlos Beltran- 156
3t. Johnny Damon- 156
5. Jermaine Dye- 115

About what you would expect regarding doubles. Mike Macfarlane has 174 doubles as a Royal -- good for 9th most in club history -- but the majority of them came in the early '90s, which is for whatever reason outside the data-set I'm interested in presently. Berroa currently has 103 doubles as a Royal, and David DeJesus already has 82. If David doesn't catch Angel in this category by the end of 2008, then that probably means things are going horribly wrong.

Overall, Kauffman Stadium has played as a good hitters park over the last decade and change, usually posting solid pro-hitter park factor. Still, the dimensions have changed twice, and intuitively I would suspect that the moved in fences helped homers but suppressed doubles, while the new/old dimensions of the last three seasons have increased doubles while decreasing homers. Unfortunately, I don't have this data in front of me. If anyone knows where outcome-specific historical park-factors can be found, I'd love to know. However, it must be remembered that single-year PFs aren't terribly reliable as it is, and single-outcome ones can be fairly noisy.

Anyway, the beat goes on. Congrats to Sweeney on another post-Brett victory.

Update [2007-8-9 12:46:48 by royalsreview]:

While Sweeney's managed only a 10 double season to date, he's obviously in no danger of being caught any time soon. On other fronts, David DeJesus has, indeed, passed Angel on the All-Time Doubles list. As of August 8th, David has notched 108 2Bs, five ahead of Berroa's 103.

The sometimes maligned Emil Brown has snuck all the way up to 83 doubles as a Royal, passing Raul Ibanez's total of 81 with a two-double game against Texas back on July 28th. Amazingly, the Royals didn't honor this achievement with an in-game ceremony.

Mark Teahen now owns 73 career doubles (two behind our beloved Mike Tucker's total as a Royal), while Buck sits at 66.

Of the glories of the Royals in the All-Star game, our praise can have no end.

Since 1990 our Royals have gone 0-8 at the plate and failed to appear in four games. Five times, the only Royal involvement was a single at-bat.

Here's the year-by-year breakdown:

2007: Gil Meche named, did not play.
2006: Mark Redman named, did not play.
2005: Mike Sweeney named, struck out as a pinch-hitter in the 7th.
2004: Ken Harvey named, struck out as a pinch-hitter in the 3rd.
2003: Mike MacDougal and Sweeney named, neither appeared.
2002: Mike Sweeney named, replaced Paul Konerko at 1B in the 7th inning, flied out to right in the 9th inning.
2001: Mike Sweeney named, replaced Jason Giambi at first in the 8th inning, flied out to right in the 8th inning.
2000: Jermaine Dye voted to start, Mike Sweeney named. Sweeney pinch-hit for James Baldwin in the 4th, reaching on an error. Sweeney did not appear in the field. Dye walked once and struck out.
1999: Jose Rosado named and pitched a scoreless 4th.
1998: Dean Palmer named, and pinch-hit for John Wetteland in the 8th, grounding into a double play.
1997: Jose Rosado named. Rosado allowed one run in the 7th inning, tying the game at 1-1. However, in the bottom of the 7th the AL re-took the lead on a Sandy Alomar HR. Thanks to the eternal genius of the pitcher wins rule, Rosado was then credited as the eventual "winner" of the game.
1996: Jeff Montgomery named, did not appear.
1995: Kevin Appier named, actually throwing two perfect innings (the 3rd and 4th).
1994: David Cone named, somewhat disastrously. Cone allowed three runs over two innings, contributing to a 8-7 AL loss.
1993: Jeff Montgomery named and appeared, pitching a scoreless 7th.
1992: Jeff Montgomery named and appeared, allowing two runs in two-thirds of an inning pitched.
1991: Danny Tartabull voted to start at DH, going 0-2 with a strikeout. Tartabull was replaced by Harold Baines in the 6th inning.
1990: Brett Saberhagen named, pitching two scoreless innings (5th and 6th), and was named the winning pitcher in a 2-0 AL victory.
1989: Bo Jackson voted a started and Mark Gubicza named to the squad. Bo famously led off the bottom of the first with a homer. Bo went 2-4 with a steal and was named the game's MVP. Gubes pitched a scoreless 4th inning.

The All-Star bullpen warm-up that defined a generation.

Beyond two pinch-hit Ks, a Royal has not appeared on the field during an All-Star game since the infamous tie game in 2002, when Mike Sweeney played three defensive innings at first. Despite some occasionally relevant pitching performances, the last Royal to record a hit in an All-Star game was Bo Jackson in 1989. To put that in perspective, Bo hasn't played a major league game since 1994. (For a full run-down of Royal pitching in the ASG, click here, courtesy of the KC Star.)

In sum:

-No Royal has appeared in an All-Star Game since 2005.
-No Royal has appeared in the field since 2002.
-No Royal pitcher has appeared in the Game since 1999.
-No Royal has recorded an ASG hit since 1989.

George Brett retired after the 1993 season. Since Brett leads the Royals in just about every single statistical category, I thought it would be interesting to examine the Royals leaderboards for the post-Brett era. At random intervals over the off-season, I hope to do just that.

Without further ado, the leaders:

Top 5 Royal HR Hitters Since 1993:

1. Mike Sweeney- 190
2. Carlos Beltran- 123
3. Joe Randa- 86
4. Jermaine Dye- 85
5. Johnny Damon- 65

Its a little surprising to see Joe Randa come out ahead of Jermaine Dye on this list, although Randa did play nearly twice as many games as a Royal (1019 to 547). Randa's final homer as a Royal came on September 25th, 2004 against the White Sox, the only Royal highlight in a 5-1 loss that pushed the Royals to 57-97. Moreover, I've always felt Dye was a little overrated as a player, at least until his random MVP-level season in 2006. After a solid 1999 with the Royals, Dye went nuts in April/May of 2000, hitting .388/.459/.847 with 11 homers. Considering he finished the season hitting .321/.390/.561 with 33 homers, you wouldn't say he was horrible the rest of the way, but he did cease being a truly elite player. Still, thanks to the early season glory he earned an All-Star berth and a disproportionate amount of media coverage. If he'd thrown up his 1.306 OPS in a July/August stretch only the rotoheads would have truly noticed... But anyway, nothing against Jermaine Dye, but he is out-homered as a Royal by Randa.

After Damon's 65, Raul Ibanez comes in at 6th in the post-Brett era with 55 homers, followed by yes... the one and only Angel Berroa with 45. Actually, Berroa's tied with the Mighty Mark Quinn at the moment, but should inevitably pass him.

To celebrate Jermaine Dye's appearance in the 2005 World Series, let us take a look at Dye's Royal legacy, which unlike, say, Terrence Long's, is actually worth pausing to remember. Who knows, maybe he'll return to KC someday.

Games Played:(547) Tied for 30th with 90s-era shortstop Dave Howard, himself perhaps one of the worst players ever to record over 1500 career at-bats. At 30th, Dye's close to some rarified air in terms of Royals history, only just behind such luminaries as Daryl Porter (555, 29th) and Steve Balboni (566, 28th). With regards to some of his immediate late-90's contemporaries, Dye's well behind Carlos Beltran (795, 15th), Johnny Damon (803, 14th) and Mike Sweeney (1147, 7th).

Hits:(584) Dye ranks 21st all-time here, in a somewhat strange category. At some level runs scored reflects raw playing time, OBP and the strength of guys behind you on a daily basis. You can probably throw speed in there too. So, yea, Dye's 21st all-time, which I guess, in tandem with his games played ranking, reflects his general offensive abilities, as well as some strong hitters behind him.

Doubles:(118) 18th all-time, two doubles behind Wally Joyner and one ahead of Al Cowens. Dye played in a run environment much better than that of the great 70s & 80s era Royals, although its possible the natural surface at the K may have actually been less double-friendly. Still, 18th all-time. Not shabby. Had Dye finished the 2001 season he would have likely climbed as high as 14th all-time.

Triples:(11) Tied for 35th with three players, and only one behind Cookie Rojas and triple machine Tom Goodwin.

Home Runs:(85) Should be more, but still good for 13th best in Royals history. In a relatively short tour of duty, Dye sits one homer behind The Joker, although Randa did get roughly 500 more ABs to do so. Weirdly, Dye's not too much closer to anyone else. After Randa, Dye needs 18 more homers to catch Mike Macfarlane and 24 behind Bo Jackson for 10th all-time. Dye's 33 homers in 2000 ranks as the 6th best single-season all-time for a Royal, one behind a three-headed Dean Palmer/Danny Tartabull/John Mayberry and two behind Gary Gaetti (what???!!) in 1995. Of course, Steve Balboni still leads the team with 36. Wow, Gary Gaetti... damn that's weird.

RsBI:(329) In short time, Dye climbed to 17th, just a good game behind Cookie Rojas despite the Cook? playing in over 340 more games. Actually, between Balboni (318, 18th) and Fred Patek (382, 12th), its quite bunched, and again, Dye coulda been a contender? had he just been around longer. In 1999 Dye batted in 119, good for third best ever, followed by a 2000 season that featured 118 RsBI. It should be noted that George Brett has a 583 RBI lead over 2nd place RBI man Hal McRae.

Total Bases:(979) 18th most in Royals history. Not the most talked about category, but personally I prefer total bases to hits if we?re talking rawest of the raw counting stats. As you?ve noticed, Dye and Balboni appear close by often, and its no different here, with Balbo at 19th with 917 bases. Dye?s 2000 still stands as the second best season, bases-wise of all-time, behind only Brett?s 1979.

Stolen Bases:(13) Tied for 62nd all-time with Raul Ibanez, David DeJesus and Tony Graffanino. Dye was a good athlete in his KC days, but wasn't the most graceful runner. Other than the fast, but dumb DeJesus (16 caught stealings??), Ibanez and Graffy are actually nice comparables for Dye.

The story of Jermaine Dye?s Royals career really begins in 1999, when Dye burst onto the scene with a .294/.354/.526 line buoyed by 27 homers and 74 hits. I still remember Dye?s spirited 8 triples, good for 5th best in the American League. That was a magical triples race that season. A .526 slugging percentage in 158 games? I?ll take it. Although, with a little historical perspective it probably isn?t great potatoes, given the late 90?s run environment, which saw the league line get to .276/.349/.442. The good news in 1999 was that Dye finally started taking pitches, boosting his OBP above (gasp!) .300 for the first time.

In 2000, Dye continued towards an age 26 peak-season that made him look like one of the best players in the American League. As is often the case, his bat led him to a Golden Glove for his work in the outfield, and his 193 hits (7th), 337 total bases (5th) and 132 runs created (10th) all cracked the league top ten. In 157 games, Dye crested to a .321/.390/.561 line. Not shabby for a guy who two years before hit .234/.270/.336 in 60 games. Maybe this can happen with Mark Teahen, no? That season Dye blasted 33 homers for a Royals team that went 77-85 and looked vaguely interesting heading into the rest of the decade. Five years later and the franchise is no better off, and the core of that team hasn?t been together in 4 years. That team went 21-32 in June and July, and played 56-53 in the season?s beginning and ending months. Just a weird, tantalizing team that ultimately let us down.

In 2001, Dye was traded to Oakland on July 25th that sent Neifi Perez to Kansas City (while the Rox got three minor league scrubs from Oakland). In 97 games with the Royals that season, Dye hit a sick .272/.333/.417 with 13 homers. Jermaine did however rebound with a .297/.366/.547 line with the A?s to finish the season. Plus, in only 61 games with the A?s, dude hit 13 homers.

You might like to know that Dye was making $260,000 dollars a year in 1999 when he first became a competent major league player. The Royals paid him $2.3 million in 2000 and part of his 3.8 million in 2001. Since then, Dye?s been well-compensated, for those that care about such things, earning somewhere in the area of $41.4 million for his career thus far. This season, Dye?s settled back into his career norm, .274/.333/.512, as the OBP and BA have settled down to only semi-competent levels, offset somewhat by a modicum of power. Still, he hit 31 homers, (thanks US Cellular) which doesn?t hurt, and somehow led AL Right Fielders.

A haunting image of a past's promise unfulfilled.