Scouting Survey Results - Position Players

The Royals are known as a scout first/only organization. The organization isn't the only group of people watching and critiquing the team's talent. The us fans also watch the games and seei how the players are performing. Today, the results of the first of several Royals Review scouting reports are released.

A couple of weeks ago, I ran a poll (Moose poll) rating the Royals according to the 5 traits scouts use: Speed, Arm, Fielding, Hitting for Average, and Hitting for Power. Now it is time to see the results. Here are the average values for each player. I removed any ridiculous responses (like 10 for Butler's speed or Getz's power). They are ranked according to their non-adjusted total.

It can be seen why Dyson and Francouer getz so much love, we scouted them being better than Butler using just these 5 metrics.

I can't argue too much with most of the values. The one I have the most problems with is Perez's speed of 4.1. IMO (and more on this at a later date), he is just as slow as Butler. Another one I disagree with is Francoeur's power. There is no reason it should be rated the same as Giavotella's power. Whenever I see Giavotella or Cain hit a 450 bomb like this one, I will rank them higher than Francoeur.

These differences in opinion can be seen by taking the standard deviation (how much the answers differ) of all of the values (any value over 1.5 is bolded).

There is agreement among some players like Gordon, Butler and Cain (somewhat of a surprise). Less disagreements exists among the veterans compared to those players with less experience. And then there is Francoeur and Hosmer. The pair's biggest disagreements are with their defense and to a lesser extent with their hitting.

With the values, I decided to group them according to athletic ability and hitting to get a total value. Since hitting is more important than the other three aspects, I multiplied the two batting values. Finally, I combined the values for a total score which seems pretty consistent with the player's overall value.

Butler is at the extremes of being the least athletic position player, but the best hitter. All the players, IMO, seems to rank out accordingly.

Finally, I compared the values from Royals Review to The Fan Fielding Ballot run by Tom Tango. To compare the values, I lumped the running, fielding and arm categories from The Fans and compared them to our values.

Again, a few values are off, but the overall values make sense.

I can see why the organization is high on some players, Getz, Dyson, Francoeur. They look good on the field. The problem is they are not good in the most important baseball trait, hitting.

What's next? I plan of tracking these values and polling people on new players at different points during the season. Players can then be compared on how they have performed over time.

Finally, I have another poll. Besides a player's physical traits, their mental makeup can be tracked. Could you please complete as much of the following poll on some other traits. The categories are based off a discussion at The Book blog. Thanks in advance.