Given the obvious caveats regarding sample size and the oft-repeated problems with defensive stats, it may be incredibly foolhardy to put too much stock in sixteen games worth of defensive data. Then again, this is a blog, not congressional testimony. Plus, as long as the men in the manager's chair use stats with even smaller samples ("Player A is 3 for 5 against Johnny Pitcher, so he's hitting third today") I can't feel too bad about being a modern day Socrates and corrupting the youth of the world with my ill-handled stats.
Throughout the season I'll try to post these numbers every few weeks.
Here are the Royals' positional ranks in the AL using UZR. Although using ranks is itself incredibly fuzzy, in a way its a nice corrective to putting too much stock in minuscule data.
| Position | AL Rank |
| Catcher | 1st |
| First | 10th |
| Second | 11th |
| Shortstop | 8th |
| Third | 5th |
| Right | 13th |
| Left | 2nd |
| Center | 3rd |
| Pitcher | 1st |
| Overall | 6th |
These numbers reflect about what thought heading into the season: good (minus right) in the outfield, average to bad in the infield. According to these numbers on Fangraphs, Bloomquist was even worse than Guillen, so maybe we can dream big and hope that the Royals can move up to 11th or 12th in right-field defense soon.
I'm sure Luke Hochevar is dying to pitch in Kansas City, but he could have some nightmare starts with that infield behind him.
Individual stats can be found at Fangraphs.