Royals Rumblings - News for February 2, 2015

Royals Rumblings - News for February 2, 2015

Sean Keeler of Fox Sports Kansas City uses all the nerd/math cliches in the book to disparage the PECOTA standings and tell you why YA GOTTA BELIEVE in the Royals in 2015.

PECOTA, a stat-based computer projection system trumpeted by the folks at BaseballProspectus.com, dropped the big one earlier in the week. Deep Blue crunched the numbers, laid out its forecast for the 2015 major league season and pegged the Kansas City Royals, your defending American League champs, with 100 percent of its postseason bullpen and 80 percent of its rotation back in the fold, to win

... BLEEP! BLOOP! GLOP! WRRRR! (Punched card falls out of machine)

... um, 72 games. (Kicks machine) Really? Ninety losses? This roster? This staff? This outfield?

Craig Brown has the more mature and rational rebuttal to PECOTA's output.

Looking into this year’s PECOTA, the system really doesn’t like the Royals rotation. Like actively loathes it. Serial killers and email spammers get more love. Edinson Volquez? A 4.73 ERA and -0.7 WARP. Jeremy Guthrie? Not much better with a 4.66 ERA and the same WARP as Volquez. I don’t even know if I want to pass along the numbers for Yordano Ventura. (OK, a 4.16 ERA and 0.5 WARP.) Fold in the underwhelming numbers for Danny Duffy and Jason Vargas and the Royals starting five projects to have a -0.3 WARP. Damn. Those numbers are pretty grim. I

s that likely? Hell, no. Last year, eight pitchers in the majors finished with a negative WARP value. PECOTA projects the Royals to have three starters post a negative WARP. I don’t have team numbers broken down, but I’d guess that for an entire rotation to collectively have a negative WARP, it would be a historically terrible rotation.

Alex Gordon was in a cast at FanFest, but expects to only miss a week of spring traiing action and should be ready for Opening Day.

The surgery stemmed from an injury Gordon suffered in July. He sprained his wrist sliding shortly before the All-Star Break. Gordon sat out the game, but never landed on the disabled list. He dealt with the condition for the rest of the season.

"If anything, it wasn’t really painful," Gordon said. "It was just a constant popping sensation." ...

The pain returned during a series of offseason workouts. The technical term for the procedure was a wrist extensor retinaculum repair. "Short story, they just fixed a tendon that was not where it was supposed to be," Gordon said.

New Royals pitcher Krs Medlen is looking forward to pitching in spacious Kauffman Stadium.

Medlen, who spent the past six seasons with the Braves, pitches to contact and works quickly. The spacious outfield of Kauffman Stadium and highly regarded Royals defense fit his style. "Stealing bases. Playing great defense. Having great pitching. ... I'm a fan of the game. And I'm a fan of that style of play. I've done it my entire career in college and in high school, small-ball type player. "The importance of a defense of that caliber, it's probably the most important thing for me because I like to pitch to contact."

Its a match made in heaven.

The Royals sure are happy to see each other.

MLB.com placed five Royals on its top 100 prospect list - Raul Mondesi (40), Sean Manaea (56), Kyle Zimmer (58), Brandon Finnegan (75), and Miguel Almonte (83).

Ned Yost talks to KSHB's Justin Wilfon.

Baseball Prospectus has Mike Moustakas as a fantasy third baseman to avoid. Unless your fantasy basebal league collects points for pop-ups.

Royals radio announcer Denny Matthews signs a four-year contract that will keep him in Kansas City through their 50th anniversary.

Alex Gordon picked up the 50th annual Fred Hutchison Award for his charitable work.

Grant Brisbee asks which is better -the World Series or the Super Bowl.

Congrats to Kansas City Chiefs offensive guard Will Shields for his well-deserved election into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Here are the rest of your football inductees.

The Verge has its favorite films from the Sundance Film Festival.

Orphan Black's Tatiana Maslany will star in a new Star Wars spinoff movie.

The Super Bowl is a big game, but its not even close to being the most-watched sporting event this week.

There is a gap between what scientists think and what the general public thinks on public policy.

Nebraska may be getting rid of its unusual Electoral College quirk.

Your song of the day is Morris Day and the Time with "Jungle Love."