2013 Opening Day Preview: The Final Result.

86-76.

On my last appearance of last season with 810 WHB’s Soren Petro, he asked me to predict what the Royals’ record would be this year. With obviously no idea what the Royals would do over the winter to improve their team, I said they’d win 86 games.

Nothing that has happened over the winter has given me reason to change that projection.

On the one hand, you could say that’s an indictment of the Royals’ decision to trade for James Shields and Wade Davis. I thought that they could get to 86 wins by adding pitching through free agency, and I don’t think that sacrificing Wil Myers et al made the team substantially better than it would have been had they simply signed Edwin Jackson and kept the status quo.

But the other, more optimistic view – and Opening Day was yesterday, so let’s be optimistic – is that an 86-76 record would make this the winningest season for the Royals since 1989. That would be an impressive accomplishment and a testament to a front office that, while making questionable moves at the major-league level, has been one of the game’s best when it comes to player development.

For those of you who think that my goal in life is to be critical of the Royals at every turn, it might surprise you that I’m more optimistic than most about the Royals’ record. Vegas has the Royals at around 78 wins this year; most projection systems have them in the 79-82 win range. Very few analysts project the Royals to win 86 or more. The obvious conclusion is that I’m still a blind optimist at heart.

But I think 86 wins is a very defensible position, because it relies on two simple precepts:

1) The Royals won 72 games last season.

2) The Royals are likely to be improved at many positions this season. They are likely to be worse at very few positions this season.

Let’s start with the first one. The Royals went 72-90 last season. They were outscored by 70 runs, so their true “Pythagorean” record was 74-88. In 2011, they went 71-91, but were only outscored by 32 runs, for a Pythagorean record of 78-84. I think it’s fair to say that the true talent level of the Royals was at least 72 wins last year, and probably closer to 75.

So they need to improve somewhere between 10 and 14 wins this year. That’s a substantial improvement, but hardly unprecedented; a half-dozen teams do that every season.

Now let’s go around the diamond and compare what the Royals got this year to what they’re likely to get next year.

Catcher: .266/.293/.400, 0/2 SB/CS, +15 Defensive Runs Saved

(Note: the defensive numbers I’ll use are the ones from Baseball Info Solutions, which are the ones I trust the most. But still: they’re defensive numbers, so they’re not anywhere near as accurate as offensive ones.)

Salvador Perez may not hit .301/.328/.471, but as long as he stays healthy, he doesn’t have to in order to improve on last year. Brayan Pena and Humberto Quintero didn’t hit at all, and combined for 350 at-bats. With Perez poised to grab most of those, and with George Kottaras wisely having been chosen to take the rest, the overall production from behind the plate should go up. Perez is 22 years old.

That’s an impressive defensive number to match, but most of that was from Perez to begin with. He threw out 42% of attempted basestealers last year.

First Base: .237/.312/.376, 17/1 SB/CS, -8 DRS

Hard to imagine the Royals could do worse here, and easy to imagine they could do MUCH better. Eric Hosmer is 23 years old.

Hosmer’s defensive numbers last year were better than they were in his rookie season, but they still don’t match his reputation. Again, it’s unlikely they’ll be worse defensively, and it’s possible they’ll be significantly improved. They’re not likely to match those stolen base numbers, but that’s a trivial concern.

Second Base: .256/.289/.359, 11/4 SB/CS, -15 DRS

In the three years (2009, 2010, and 2012) that Yuniesky Betancourt suited up for the Royals, they finished 29th, 30th, and 28th in Park-Adjusted Defensive Efficiency. This is not a coincidence. Yuni’s defensive atrociousness was enough to throw the entire team out of whack. Last year he cost them 10 runs in barely a quarter-season at second base. He’s gone now.

The Royals might not be much better at second base offensively, but they almost certainly won’t be worse. I expect that OBP to be higher and the slugging to be about the same, depending on how the playing time is distributed between Chris Getz and Johnny Giavotella.

Third Base: .243/.297/.404, 5/3 SB/CS, +14 DRS

I don’t expect Mike Moustakas to be quite that stellar defensively, but I think he’s going to be substantially better on offense. Moustakas is 24 years old.

Shortstop: .293/.330/.400, 35/5 SB/CS, -5 DRS

This is the one position where I would project the offense to decline, albeit modestly. Knock 20 points off all of those splits. On the other hand, I would expect a a modest bounceback in Alcides Escobar’s defensive performance. (It’s worth noting that Escobar was just two runs below average; the combination of Yuni, Tony Abreu, and Irving Falu cost the Royals three runs in just seven games.) Also, Alcides Escobar is 26 years old.

Left Field: .295/.370/.455, 11/5 SB/CS, +25 DRS

Remind me again, why wasn’t Alex Gordon the Royals’ Player of the Year? I think it’s reasonable to project Gordon to play about as well as he did last year. I wouldn’t be surprised if he starting turning on the inside pitch more and added another ten home runs to his ledger this year. He’s probably not going to be 25 runs above average on defense again - although he already saved a run yesterday with a brilliant backstab of a ball headed to the fence, holding a runner at third base - but overall I don’t expect a decline.

Center Field: .255/.314/.357, 31/7 SB/CS, -1 DRS

A healthy Lorenzo Cain may not reach those steal totals, but he should out-hit that split line handily.

Defensively, Royals centerfielders were below average, but that’s very deceptive. Cain and Dyson were a combined 11 runs above average, but everyone else (Jason Bourgeois, Mitch Maier, David Lough, and even two games of Jeff Francoeur) were so bad that they brought the team total down under sea level. This brings up an obvious point: injuries can play havoc with these projections.

Right Field: .241/.290/.377, 8/7 SB/CS, -12 DRS

Again: it’s hard to see how the Royals could be worse. Francoeur could be worse, but I don’t see the Royals letting him be worse for 600 plate appearances again.

Designated Hitter: .302/.360/.475, 8/1 SB/CS

Billy Butler did some of his best work on the days when he played first base (.288/.376/.534 in 20 games there), so the overall numbers at DH short-change his performance a bit. I think he can certainly match that split line above, even if he doesn’t hit 29 home runs again. And as hard as it is to believe, Butler is - at least for two more weeks - still 26 years old.

So on offense, that’s one position (shortstop) where the Royals are likely to see a decline, two (LF and DH) where they will probably stand pat, and six positions where they are likely to see improvement.

Now the rotation. Since there aren’t any set positions, I’ve taken the liberties of combining pitchers to fill specific “slots”.

#1 Starter (Bruce Chen): 34 GS, 192 IP, 5.07 ERA

I think James Shields can improve on this.

#2 Starter (Luke Hochevar): 32 GS, 185 IP, 5.73 ERA

I think Ervin Santana can improve on this. I’m not 100% certain, honestly; his 5.16 ERA last year in Anaheim would translate to close to a 5.73 ERA in a neutral park. (Santana’s ERA+ of 73 was just barely higher than Hochevar’s 71.) But that’s almost the worst-case scenario with Santana, and unlike Hochevar, if he pitches that poorly, he won’t keep his job all year.

Jeremy Guthrie’s slot (Guthrie, Sanchez, Mazzaro): 32 GS, 171 IP, 5.11 ERA

(I included Mazzaro here just to make the number of starts in each “slot” even.)

I don’t expect Guthrie to come anywhere close to the 3.16 ERA he posted with Kansas City last year. But he doesn’t have to in order to improve upon this slot overall, because Jonathan Sanchez was so bad in his 12 starts that the combined production from this spot in the rotation was pretty terrible. If Guthrie can’t improve on a 5.11 ERA this year, we’re in deep trouble.

Luis Mendoza’s slot (Mendoza, Teaford, Adcock): 32 GS, 178 IP, 4.55 ERA

This seems like a reasonable approximation of what Mendoza might do over a full season. He might be better than this if he carries over the success that he had with his new cutter last year, but let’s call this a wash.

Others (Paulino, Duffy, Verdugo, Odorizzi, Smith): 32 GS, 164 IP, 4.50 ERA

This is Wade Davis’ slot. Like Mendoza, I think this is roughly what we can expect from him.

So of the five spots in the rotation, the Royals will probably be about the same in two spots, and significantly better in three of them. Notice also the innings totals: Chen led the staff with 192 innings, and the Royals didn’t average even six innings a start from any of the spots in their rotation. Shields has thrown 200+ innings six years in a row (and 215+ innings in five of those six years). Santana missed a couple of starts last year and threw only 178 innings, but had thrown 219+ innings in three of the previous four years. Guthrie threw 182 innings last year thanks to his nightmare in Colorado, but 200+ innings each of the three years before that.

And that leaves the bullpen, which is the one area where the Royals can reasonably expect regression. The Royals got 561 innings of relief with a 3.17 ERA, which is fantastic. Let’s break that down into the four guys who are returning, and everyone else:

Fantastic Four (Holland, Herrera, Collins, Crow): 285.2 IP, 2.99 ERA

Everyone Else: 275.2 IP, 3.36 ERA

Health permitting, I think it’s reasonable to assume that the four returning guys will come close to last year’s overall performance. In today’s offensive context, and with the way that relievers are developed and deployed, an ERA under 3 just isn’t that hard anymore. Of the 167 pitchers last season who relieved in 40 or more games, 70 of them (42%) had an ERA under 3.

The challenge for the Royals will be getting a 3.36 ERA from Hochevar, Chen, JC Gutierrez, and whoever comes up during the season. The Royals definitely got lucky with the performances of some of their lesser relievers last year. Nate Adcock had a 1.32 ERA in 27 innings; Francisley Bueno had a 1.56 ERA in 17 innings. Jonathan Broxton pitched well, as did Jose Mijares. Louis Coleman, who really has no business being back in Triple-A, had a 3.71 ERA.

But while the Royals are unlikely to get an ERA this low from their middle relief corps, they are also unlikely to require nearly as many innings. The Royals got 890 innings from their starters last year, and it’s reasonable to think they’ll get another 80 or so innings from their improved rotation this year.

If you assume those innings won’t be taken away from Holland, Crow, Collins, and Herrera, that means fewer innings from the less effective pitchers in their pen. Even if the middle relievers aren’t as effective on a per-inning basis, the fact that they will be relied on less will mitigate the regression.

In sum, I don’t think the bullpen will be as effective as it was last year. But I think the decline there will be dwarfed by the improvement in the rotation and in the lineup.

Obviously, this is a rosy, best-case scenario analysis that includes one fatal assumption: that no one will get hurt. But even building in a fudge factor to account for that, I just think there are simply too many areas where the Royals can improve, and so few areas where they will decline, to project anything less than a 10-to-15 win improvement. Hence, 86 wins.

And if injuries do strike, at least on the pitching side, they’re better equipped to deal with it than they have been in years. They have two starters – admittedly marginal starters – in the bullpen already, and if an injury strikes in July or later, it may merely open an opportunity for Danny Duffy or Felipe Paulino. The bullpen doesn’t have room for Coleman or Donnie Joseph at the moment. An injury to Shields would be crippling; an injury to anyone else on the staff wouldn’t.

Offensively, the danger is that the Royals are protected at only three positions: center field, where Jarrod Dyson would be an adequate replacement for Cain, and right field and second base, where the incumbent isn’t clearly better than the alternatives in the first place. But everywhere else, the Royals are vulnerable. The dropoff from Perez to Kottaras wouldn’t be terrible offensively, but defensively would be significant. And if any of Gordon, Escobar, Moustakas, Hosmer, or Butler get hurt, the next guy on the totem pole is Elliot Johnson.

To protect against an injury at those five spots, the Royals have two weapons: age and history. Age, in that young players don’t get hurt as often as old hitters, and those five hitters collectively average under 26 years old. History, in that none of those five players has been on the DL in either of the last two years. They all played at least 149 games last year (Moustakas brought up the rear because he was sat against tough lefties). Butler has missed 11 games in the last four years combined.

So, there you go. 86 wins. Call me a bleeding-heart optimist if you will.

That leaves one last question: if the Royals win 86 games – but miss the playoffs, as I expect they will – does that justify the Shields trade? To me, the answer is obvious, but a lot of people share the opposite opinion. To a fan base starved of winning, for a team that has one winning season in the last 18 years, a team that hasn’t won 85 games since the 1980s, apparently it’s worth cashing in the farm system for respectability alone. And maybe the Royals share that sentiment. If the Royals win 86 games, a lot of people will declare the trade a success, I will claim that it’s a failure (at least pending 2014), and there may simply be no middle ground to compromise on. We may have to simply agree to disagree.

Last year I ran this list of the accomplishments the Royals needed to check off their list of goals. They only managed #3 on this list:

1) Win 76 games, the most by any Royals team since 2003.

2) Win 78 games, the second-most by any Royals team since 1993.

3) Finish in third place, the highest rank by any Royals team since 2003. (DONE!)

4) Reach .500 for the first time since 2003 and the second time since 2004.

5) Outscore their opponents for the first time since 1994.

6) Finish in second place, the highest rank by any Royals team since 1995.

7) Win 84 games, the most by any Royals team since 1993.

8) Win 85 games, the most by any Royals team since 1989.

9) Win the division or qualify for the playoffs, for the first time since 1985.

10) Win 92 games, the most by any Royals team since 1980.

For a lot of people, crossing off the first seven or eight items off this list would be enough to justify everything the Royals did this off-season. But for me, #9 is all that matters.

That’s the danger with being an optimist. When you expect good things to happen, you expect good things to happen.

2013 Opening Day Preview, Part 5.

If you missed the news, I wrote an article for the Kansas City Star that was included as part of the newspaper’s annual Sunday-before-Opening-Day blowout today. I’m very excited about the opportunity, and it’s possible I may contribute additional articles to the Star’s baseball coverage in the future. It’s not exactly a secret that the newspaper industry is dealing with unprecedented and literally existential challenges at the moment. I’m honored that the Star saw value in my writing anyway, and I give the newspaper tremendous credit for being creative with their sports coverage.

A nation without a vibrant and fearless media is a frightening thought, and I hope that the industry can weather the challenges that it faces. In the meantime, if you’re in their delivery area and can subscribe, or if (like me) you’re willing to pay for their online service, you’ll be doing your part to support quality journalism. Plus, you’ll be getting the best Royals coverage around. I couldn’t do what I do without it.

#5: Wade Davis

Davis ranks just 5th because this list only accounts for the 2013 season. If we were looking at players whose 2013 performance is most crucial for the Royals long-term, he’d rank as high as 2nd. Shields is the name in the trade, but Davis has a chance to be the prize.

I don’t have much left to say about Davis. He’s proven he can be an outstanding reliever; he hasn’t proven he can be more than a #5 starter. But if he’s even a league-average starting pitcher, he’ll have more value than all but the very best relievers, and that’s in the abstract: to a team like the Royals, even 180 innings of slightly-below average pitching would be more valuable than a reprise of his 2012.

In a spring training filled with positivity – that’s what happens when you go 25-7-2 – it’s worth mentioning that Davis, while nominally pitching well, walked 7 batters and struck out 6. Granted, it’s 14 innings. Far more concerning is his brief bout of shoulder trouble this spring. It probably wasn’t serious – he only missed one start, and teams are always going to be more cautious in spring training. But it’s a good reminder that transitioning a pitcher from the bullpen to the rotation isn’t risk-free.

It isn’t risk-free, but it’s still the right move to make. Davis makes $2.8 million this year, and $4.8 million next year – and then three options of $7 million, $8 million, and $10 million. As a reliever, he’s really only worth keeping for the first two seasons – there are only a handful of relievers worth paying $7 million a year for, and as we saw with Joakim Soria, sometimes even those relievers aren’t worth the risk.

But as a starter, even a league-average one, he would be a significantly under-priced asset for the length of his contract. There’s only one way to find out. The Royals have enough #5 starter options that it wouldn’t be the end of world if Davis doesn’t pan out in the rotation; they could have him swap places with Bruce Chen in June if need be. In the end, two months in the rotation is worth gambling for a potential five years of return.

#4: Jeff Francoeur

Well, he’s operating without a safety net now. Last year, if the Royals wanted to make a change – and if he hadn’t been in the first year of a two-year deal, they probably would have – they could have brought up Wil Myers. But now, if the Royals decide to bench Francoeur, their best in-house options are to either play Jarrod Dyson and move Lorenzo Cain to right field, or David Lough. Neither is all that palatable.

But neither would be as disastrous as getting the same kind of performance from right field as the Royals got last year, when Francoeur was literally the worst player in the major leagues. He had the lowest bWAR (-2.3 wins) in the majors.

There’s this perception around the game that right field is Francoeur’s job this year come hell or high water, that Dayton Moore loves Frenchy so much that he’s willing to overlook all his weaknesses. I think that’s a somewhat naïve and even cynical view of the situation. (Yes, I know – me calling out cynicism. Pot, meet kettle.) The Royals are quite aware that Francoeur was a terrible, rotten, no-good hitter last year. (I’m not sure they realize just how bad he was defensively, though.) Even by basic Triple Crown stats, he was a disaster. A .235 average? 16 homers? 49 RBIs from a full-time outfielder?

They played him last year because they had two years invested in him, and they weren’t going anywhere, and they needed to see if he could turn it around. But this year, if he’s approximating last year’s performance he’ll probably be demoted to a platoon role at best by Flag Day. I don’t know whether it will be Dyson, or Lough, or an outside mercenary that shares the job with him – but I’m fairly confident that Francoeur won’t be allowed to suck all year long.

There’s reason to think the Royals are already worried about his ability to bounce back. I’m not referring to the fact that he hit just .266 in spring training (remember, the Cactus League is very friendly for hitters), while literally everyone else in the starting lineup hit .310 or better. I’m referring to the fact that the Royals are making noises about using Eric Hosmer in right field during interleague play as a way to keep both Hosmer and Billy Butler in the lineup. At the end of last year, the Royals had made it clear that they considered that experiment a failure, that Hosmer’s defense in right field was so bad that it wasn’t worth trying to keep both bats on the field. That they’re backtracking now is telling. So, too, is the fact that Francoeur is batting 8th in the Opening Day lineup – he’s never batted that low in the lineup since he joined the Royals.

I originally had Francoeur 2nd on this list, because the range of his performance is so great. But in the end I moved him down a little, because there’s a limit to how much he can hurt the Royals before they’ll pull the plug on him. But if he can prove that 2011 wasn’t a fluke, and that 2012…and 2010…and 2009…and 2008 were all flukes, he’ll save the Royals the trouble of finding a replacement for him mid-season. Better still, he might get me to shut up about the loss of Wil Myers all season long.

#3: Salvador Perez

If you’re not aware of the Crown Vision-sized man-crush I have on Salvador Perez, you must be new here. Two years after the Royals had The Best Farm System Ever, the attrition of their nine Top 100 prospects has been humbling…but it’s also been mitigated by the fact that their 18th-best prospect, a 20-year-old catcher who had just hit .290 with seven homers in A-ball, might turn out to be the best of the lot.

It’s that very same fact, though, that makes us just a teeny bit nervous about his future. Perez has played at a superstar level in the major leagues – he’s amassed 4.4 bWAR* in 115 career games – but that’s just it: he’s played in 115 career games. Granted, he’s been awfully busy in those 115 games: he’s hit .301, swatted 14 homers, set the franchise record with eight pickoffs, and set the franchise record for the longest hitting streak (16 games) by a catcher. But still: 115 games.

*: You may notice that Perez’s bWAR is slightly higher than his bWAR that I quoted in my very last article. That is because in the last few days, Sean Forman of baseball-reference.com got together with the bigwigs at Fangraphs, who have their own version of Wins Above Replacement. While they haven’t agreed on a single formula, they did agree on a single, unified definition of “replacement level”. The new replacement level is lower than what baseball-reference used to use (but higher than Fangraphs’ level), which means that bWARs across the board have gone up by a fractional amount. I apologize for this tangent into nerdery. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

It’s not just that the sample size is so small, but that the performance level Perez has set is, frankly, insane. According to Baseball-Reference, Perez has been the 14th-most valuable catcher in modern baseball history through age 22 – sandwiched right between Brian McCann and Joe Mauer – and he’s played substantially fewer games than the 13 guys ahead of him. Those 13 guys include Johnny Bench, Joe Torre, Ray Schalk, Ivan Rodriguez, Ted Simmons, Darrell Porter, Bill Freehan, Tim McCarver, Gary Carter, and McCann. The next three guys are Mauer, Benito Santiago, and Bill Dickey. This is incredibly lofty territory.

Frankly, Perez might belong there. But another full season at that level would resolve any remaining doubts.

There’s also the matter of the “full” season, given that Perez missed half of last year with a torn meniscus in his knee. It is the only significant injury he has suffered as a pro, and he returned sooner than expected, so he’s certainly not injury-prone. You still have to worry about knee injuries in a young catcher.

So Perez still has something to prove this season. He has to prove he can play 140 games in a season (but no more than that, please Ned, I’m begging you). He has to prove he’s really a .300 hitter, something that’s hard to sustain when you’re a slow right-handed hitter who isn’t legging out a lot of infield singles. He has to prove that his small sample size of performance in the majors means more than parts of five seasons in the minors – when, granted, he was very young for his leagues.

If he proves all that, well, he just might be awesome. And he just might be signed to the best contract in all of baseball.

#2: Ervin Santana

For better or for worse, Santana is likely to play for the Royals for only one season. He’s a hired gun, and the fate of the Royals’ season may well depend on him. The Royals would probably settle for a perfectly mediocre campaign from Santana, but his history suggests mediocrity is not on the menu. Here are his ERAs the last six years: 5.76, 3.49, 5.03, 3.92, 3.38, 5.16. Three times he had an ERA under four – three times he had an ERA over five.

The reason for his variability is pretty simple. Here are his walk rates the last four years: 7.0%, 7.5%, 7.2%, 7.7%. Can you pick out which two were good seasons and which were bad?

Here are his strikeout rates: 17.4%, 17.7%, 18.8%, 17.4%. A little more of a clue, maybe.

Here are his home run rates: 3.9%, 2.8%, 2.7%, 5.1%. Yeah.

That’s pretty much the story with Santana: when he keeps the ball reasonably in the park, he’s effective. When he doesn’t, he gets hammered. The strange thing is that while his home run rate fluctuates, his flyball rate – which is the main determinant of those home runs – has been pretty stable. Santana has actually become a little more groundball-friendly the last two years; from 2005 to 2010 his flyball rate ranged from 41.5% to 45.7%, but the last two years have come in at 37.9% and 37.3%. Other things equal, that’s a good thing. But other things haven’t been equal; last year he gave up home runs on 19% of his flyballs, compared to 10% the year before.

The evidence shows that pitchers have little if any ability to control the rate at which flyballs leave the park. There’s no obvious reason why Santana should be this erratic. But he is. He’s erratic even within a season; last year he had an ERA of 6.00 through July 21, but then had a 3.76 ERA in his final 11 starts. He was still homer-prone during his hot streak – he gave up 16 homers in 67 innings – but was successful because he allowed a .186 BABIP, which I’m quite certain has never been sustained by a starting pitcher over a full season in the history of baseball.

So I don’t know what to expect from him this season. Kauffman Stadium is certainly a good fit for his gopher ball tendencies, but then Angel Stadium is (with the rebuilds in Seattle and San Diego) possibly the toughest home run park in baseball, and that didn’t keep Santana from leading the league in homers allowed last season.

Since I mentioned that Davis, despite a good ERA, had a poor strikeout-to-walk ratio this spring, I’ll make up for it by noting that Santana, despite a 4.70 ERA, struck out 21 batters and walked only four. His velocity seems to be good. He’s 30 years old, and in a walk year, and he just might live up to the #2 starter expectations that have been placed on him (even though, as I wrote at the time, I would have preferred Dan Haren.) But all we know for sure is that it’s likely to be a roller coaster ride with Santana. Whether it leaves us feeling exhilarated or nauseous remains to be seen.

#1: Eric Hosmer

How bad was Hosmer last year? At the plate, he was basically indistinguishable from Jeff Francoeur. He hit .232/.304/.359; Francoeur hit .235/.287/.378. Hosmer had an 82 OPS+; Francoeur was at 81. Hosmer was 14 runs below average with the bat; Francoeur was 18 runs below.

Hosmer put a comfortable distance with Francoeur in overall value, partly because he was fantastic on the bases (Hosmer was 16-for-17 in steals) and because Francoeur was also a defensive nightmare, with his cannon arm covering for the fact that he moved in right field like he had borrowed Jose Guillen’s Hoveround.

But still…Hosmer was Francoeur-level bad at the plate last season. That was unexpected.

I generally try not to dwell on psychological factors in my baseball analysis, partly because it’s very difficult to analyze something we can not see, and mostly because I think psychological factors like “grit” and “chemistry” and “intangibles” are vastly overrated. (See, for instance, this.) But if I’ve ever seen a case of a ballplayer whose season was destroyed by his mental approach, it was Eric Hosmer last season.

Hosmer, remember, actually hit the ball very well for the first six weeks of last season. He hit two homers in the Royals’ first three games – both in Anaheim – and continued to hit line drives all over the park. Through May 20th, Hosmer had walked 13 times in 151 at-bats, and struck out just 19 times – both rates a significant improvement on his rookie season.

Just one problem – he was hitting just .172.

People like to say that scouts and stats are at war with each other, but the reality is that most of the time they agree. And they were this time. The scouting eye – or even the fan’s eye – could tell you that Hosmer was hitting into some of the toughest luck you’ll ever see, line drives straight into an outstretched glove, a groundball up the middle that was eaten up by the shift, a home run that Mike Trout leapt over a 20-foot wall to corral. (Note: one of these things may not have happened.) The stats would tell you that through May 20th, Hosmer’s BABIP was .165. His luck was comically bad.

And from that point on, Hosmer was a mess at the plate. There was a hitch in his swing he couldn’t fix; he kept turning over the ball and grounding out to second base; his power stroke died. From May 21st onward, Hosmer’s BABIP luck returned to normal, pretty much, at .293. But he hit just .255/.329/.378. I don’t know about you, but when last season started, I didn’t think Hosmer was going to be the second coming of Doug Mientkiewicz.

And now everyone is spooked. People were freaking out about Hosmer’s performance in the World Baseball Classic, as if 25 at-bats could tell us anything, particularly when he went from leisurely batting against minor leaguers in early March to suddenly and unexpectedly facing the best pitchers Latin America had to offer, with the pride of their homelands at stake. In spring training, Hosmer has hit .385/.439/.596. That doesn’t mean much – he was even better last season – but if we’re going to take 25 at-bats seriously, we should take his other 52 at-bats of 2013 seriously as well.

I think it’s almost impossible for Hosmer to be worse than he was last year, and I think his ceiling is virtually unchanged. He has the talent to be a .300/.400/.500 hitter in the major leagues. Prior to 2012, he had the statistical track record that pointed in that direction as well. One awful year doesn’t change his ceiling, particularly when it wasn’t accompanied by a significant physical change. He didn’t suffer a ghastly injury, or suddenly gain 50 pounds. His swing might have been off, but his bat speed was about the same.

While his ceiling hasn’t changed, his beta level sure has. He could hit .232 or he could hit .332 this season – everything is in play. I’m not making any predictions, but I will just say: Hosmer is just 23 years old. When he was 21, he hit .293/.334/.465, and while his performance at that age wasn’t that unusual for a first baseman – this isn’t Salvador Perez’s comp list we’re talking about – it’s still pretty unusual.

Hosmer’s OPS+ was 118 in 2011. Since 1900, he is the 36th player with an OPS+ between 111 and 125 while qualifying for the batting title at the age of 21. In the last 35 years, 12 other players have done so. They are, in reverse chronological order:

Freddie Freeman (2011)

Starlin Castro (2011)

Ryan Zimmerman (2006)
Adrian Beltre (2000)
Andruw Jones (1998)

Alex Rodriguez (1997)

Juan Gonzalez (1991)

Gary Sheffield (1990)

Delino DeShields (1990)

Jose Canseco (1986)
Cal Ripken (1982)

Eddie Murray (1977)

The jury’s still out on Freeman and Castro, although both played very well in 2012. But every other guy on that list, even the goof-offs who coasted on their talent, had an outstanding career. The worst guy on the list is probably DeShields, who like Hosmer slumped as a sophomore. I wouldn’t read too much into the comparison – DeShields was an extremely different kind of player, all speed and little power, but even he bounced back with two excellent seasons – and then got traded straight-up for Pedro Martinez.

But the point is: even after a sophomore slump for the ages, Hosmer is part of a group that is almost always destined for great things. Last year complicates that destiny, but it certainly does not destroy it.

Which is good, because if Hosmer hits .232 again, the Royals are toast. They know this. You know this. The Royals can’t think about the playoffs unless Hosmer plays this year like 2012 never happened. And that very well might happen – last season seems like a bad dream anyway. But we don’t know. No one does. Which is why Eric Hosmer is the most important player for one of the most important seasons in Royals history.

No pressure, kid.

2013 Opening Day Preview, Part 4.

#10: Alex Gordon

It sound weird to say this, given all the drama and agitas that accompanied Gordon’s first four years in the majors, but at this point, he seems to me to be one of the most reliable and consistent players on the entire roster.

Last year he hit .294/.368/.455, and there’s no reason why he can’t sustain that performance. His numbers were all down slightly from 2011, but the only real difference was that he turned nine home runs into a triple and six more doubles. If you just take out his 2009-2010 seasons, his career looks like a smooth progression from College Player of the Year to Minor League Player of the Year to decent rookie to promising sophomore to, finally, a true major league star. He’s 29 years old now, but given that he’s a fitness freak, given his skill set (both power and speed), and given the position he plays, he’s probably a better bet to age gracefully into his 30s than anyone else on the team.

For what it’s worth, he’s raking in spring training, against relatively high-caliber competition. (His “opposition quality” metric at baseball-reference, a new stat that weights playing time in spring training against the opposition you face – so that we can differentiate the player who’s performing well against guys who were in A-ball last year – is 9.4, which is almost major-league quality. Most players have a rating between 8 and 9.)

And it’s time to finally ask the question: is Alex Gordon the most underrated player in baseball?

As Exhibit A, the prosecution presents the following list, of the players with the most Wins Above Replacement over the last two years:

Player             bWAR

Justin Verlander   15.9

Ryan Braun         14.5

Miguel Cabrera     14.2

Ben Zobrist        14.0

Robinson Cano      13.4

Alex Gordon        13.3

Dustin Pedroia     12.5

Clayton Kershaw    12.5

Cliff Lee          12.5

Andrew McCutchen   12.3

Adrian Beltre      12.3

Over the last two years, Alex Gordon has been the sixth-best player in the major leagues. But if you were to ask the casual fan, I doubt he’d make the list of the six best players in the AL Central. And frankly, the writers aren’t much better. In 2011, Gordon got three 10th-place votes for AL MVP. Last year, he got none. In neither year did he make the All-Star team. Josh Hamilton was the starting left fielder for the AL both years. Aside from the fact that Hamilton played nearly as much center field as left field the last two years, Hamilton’s value over the last two years combined (6.9 bWAR) was less than Gordon’s value in 2011 alone (7.1 bWAR).

Go to your average fan and assert that Alex Gordon is a better ballplayer than Josh Hamilton. Wait for the laughter to die down. It may take a while.

In The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, James writes this under the entry for Darrell Evans, who he ranked as the 10th-best third baseman of all time:

“Darrell Evans is, in my opinion, the most underrated player in baseball history, absolutely number one on the list. There are at least ten characteristics of an underrated player:

1. Specialists and players who do two or three things well are overrated; players who do several things well are underrated.

2. Batting average is overrated; secondary offensive skills, summarized in secondary average, are underrated.

3. Driving in runs is overrated; scoring runs is underrated.

4. Players who play for championship teams are often overrated; players who get stuck with bad teams are often underrated.

5. Players who play in New York and LA are sometimes overrated, while players who play in smaller and less glamorous cities are sometimes underrated, although this factor is not as significant as many people believe it to be.

6. Players who are glib and popular with the press are sometimes overrated, while players who are quiet are sometimes underrated, although, again, this factor is not as significant as many people think it is.

7. Players who play in parks which do not favor their skills are always underrated. Players who play in parks which favor them – hitters in Colorado, lefties in Yankee, pitchers in the Astrodome – are always overrated.

8. Hitters from big-hitting eras (the 1890s, the 1920s and 1930s) are overrated in history, and pitchers from the dead ball era and the 1960s are overrated. Pitchers from the big-hitting era and hitters from the 1960s are underrated.

9. Undocumented skills (leadership, defense, heads-up play) tend to be forgotten over time. Everything else deteriorates faster than the numbers.

10. Anything which “breaks up” a player’s career tends to cause him to be underrated. A player who has a good career with one team will be thought of more highly than a player who does the same things, but with three different teams. Switching positions causes a player to be underrated. A player who plays 1,000 games at third base and 1,000 games at second base may be underrated, because it’s harder to form a whole image of what he has done.”

Let’s go through the list one by one.

1. Gordon’s skill set is extremely diverse. He hits home runs but not a lot of home runs. He led the league in doubles last year. He draws walks. He hits for a high average. He plays great defense. He doesn’t ground into a lot of double plays. He doesn’t have one signature skill; his signature is that he has a lot of skills.

2. Gordon has actually hit for a good average the last two years, but had never hit above .260 before that; his career average is still just .269.

3. Gordon has been the leadoff hitter for most of the last two years, which of course means he’s going to score runs more than he’ll drive them in. He has 159 RBIs the last two years, but 194 runs scored.

4. Check.

5. Check.

6. Gordon is a very pleasant individual and certainly not combative with the media, but he’s a man of few words.

7. Kauffman Stadium is not a pitchers’ park overall, but it is a very tough park for power hitters, which cuts against Gordon’s primary skill when he reached the majors, and forced him to adjust his batting approach as a result.

8. Not really relevant, since we’re talking about a player who’s underrated in his own era.

9. A significant amount of Gordon’s value is in his defense – he’s won Gold Gloves the last two years, and deservedly so – and that’s a big reason why his overall value is not appreciated.

10. Gordon’s career has been broken up by his struggles in 2009 and 2010, which included a position switch and a remedial course in the minor leagues. I suspect a big part why he’s so underrated is simply that people have the Gordon of 2007-2010 in mind when they think of him. And because he was so highly touted, I think his failures hit people harder – he was already written off as a bust before he turned his career around.

In essence, Gordon is the best example of the Post-Hype Sleeper in baseball today.

So what we have is a player who’s a top-ten value in all of baseball even though no one thinks of him that way, and who ticks off pretty much every box on the How To Be Underrated At Baseball checklist. Does that mean Gordon’s the most underrated player in the game?

No, because of the guy two slots ahead of him on the list above. Ben Zobrist might have a lower Q rating than even Gordon, even though Zobrist has been a better player for a lot longer. Gordon, at least, was the #2 overall pick out of college and the best prospect in the game once upon a time. Zobrist was a sixth-round pick, and while he hit .318 in the minors, his career high in home runs was seven. In his first shot at the majors, he hit .224/.260/.311; the following year, in 97 at-bats he hit .155. (And in one of the worst moves of my fantasy career, I released him from my Stratomatic team after his sophomore season. Oops.)

Since then Zobrist has hit .267/.367/.462. He plays for Tampa Bay, so while he’s played for a perennial contender, he also plays in one of the worst markets in the game and in a ballpark which masks his excellence. Gordon has changed positions once in his career; Zobrist changes positions once or twice a week, and has legitimate Gold Glove talent in both right field and second base, which is an exceptionally rare skill set. Gordon makes around $10 million a year on his long-term contract; Zobrist makes $5.5 million this year, with club options for $7 million and $7.5 million for 2014 and 2015.

So no, Alex Gordon is not the most underrated player in baseball. He might be the second-most, though.

#9: Second Baseman

I am slightly disappointed but not the least bit surprised that the Royals have selected Chris Getz to start at second base over Johnny Giavotella. I think Giavotella is the better player, because he’s a career .331/.397/.477 hitter in Triple-A, and because he’s only played 99 games in the major leagues, and because he’s nearly four years than Chris Getz, who by the way still has never hit a home run in the three years and 254 games he’s played for the Royals.

Am I 100% certain this is the wrong decision? No. I can’t deny that in his 376 plate appearances in the majors, Giavotella has hit .242/.271/.340, which is even worse than Getz’s career line of .257/.314/.316. Getz does have some other inherent advantages. He bats left-handed, which provides some lineup balance, because of the other eight starters, five bat right-handed, and only Gordon, Hosmer, and Moustakas bat from the left side. Having six right-handed bats approaches the point of being a tactical disadvantage*.

Getz is also a better baserunner (probably 2-3 runs over the course of a season) and a better defender. The defensive advantage is probably overstated, not because Giavotella is great – he isn’t – but because Getz is only average at best himself. Baseball Info Solutions has Giavotella at 5 runs below average in his career (about 9 runs over a full season), but they also have Getz at 17 runs below average in his career, which is around 6 or 7 runs a year. He looks like Frank White when put next to Yuniesky Betancourt, which is why the perception in Kansas City is that he’s a well-above average defender.

*: I’ve mentioned this right/left balance problem before, and in writing this it occurred to me – this wouldn’t be such a problem if the Royals had a switch-hitter or two in their lineup, and it feels like they always used to have at least one.

So I checked, and…it’s true. Since Willie Wilson entered the lineup in 1978, the Royals had at least one switch-hitter play 95 or more games EVERY YEAR from 1978 to 2004. They weren’t always good – David Howard was the sole entry in 1995 – but there was always at least one. Wilson, UL Washington, Kurt Stillwell, Brian McRae, Felix Jose, Jose Offerman, and Carlos Beltran helped keep the lineup balanced. As recently as 1997, the Royals had three switch-hitters in their lineup – Offerman, Chili Davis, and Bip Roberts.

But since 2004, only two switch-hitters have played in 95 games: Alberto Callaspo in 2009, and Melky Cabrera in 2011. (Wilson Betemit came close.) I don’t know if the Royals just got lucky all those years, but they could really use a guy like that in their lineup. Just another reason to love Adalberto Mondesi.

Anyway, I think going with Getz is a mistake, but I’m not certain. What I’m certain about is that I shouldn’t have to be uncertain. Last year the Royals gave Yuniesky Betancourt 43 starts at second base, almost all of them while Giavotella languished in Omaha. Give that playing time to Giavotella, and either he would have hit (and wouldn’t have had to fight for a job this spring) or he wouldn’t (and we’d have more confidence that Getz is the right choice.) The bad decisions of years past continue to echo in 2013, when they might actually matter.

The good news is that whether Getz hits or not, the Royals are almost certain to get a better performance overall at second base than they did last year. Last year, Royals’ second basemen combined to hit .256/.289/.359, and that includes Irving Falu’s fluky 18-for-50 performance at the position. But even worse, they combined to be 15 runs below average on defense. Thanks go yet again to Yuni, who in barely a quarter season’s worth of playing time managed to be 10 runs below average by himself. It’s almost as if letting the worst defensive shortstop in the majors play second base on a bad ankle is a terrible idea.

If Getz doesn’t hit, they’ll give Giavotella another shot, and if they don’t because he’s not hitting or because he’s traded, they’ll give playing time to Falu, or Miguel Tejada, or Christian Colon. Regardless, it will be hard for them to get a worse performance from second base than they did in 2012. Even if it looks like they’re going to try.

#8: James Shields

I’ve explored every angle of Shields already, so there’s not much more to say. If he’s healthy he’ll be valuable. How valuable he is comes down to 1) whether he can avoid the extremely poor results on BABIP that he had in 2010 and 2) whether his significant home/road splits throughout his career in Tampa Bay are exaggerated.

He has a 3.89 career ERA, and I think expecting 200 innings and an ERA around 3.9 is realistic. That makes him a valuable pitcher, and probably the best one on the Royals. It doesn’t make him an ace, or a game-changer, or worth a top-five prospect in all of baseball. If he can get that ERA down to 3.15, his mark over the last two years, then we’re talking.

#7: Mike Moustakas

There’s a limit to how valuable you can be when you play a corner position and have an OBP south of .300. To his credit, Moustakas approached that limit, contributing in other ways – 34 doubles, 20 homers, and stellar defense which may have been the most shocking (in a good way) development of the season.

There’s almost certain to be some improvement going forward. Moustakas is just 24 – he turns 25 in September – and the vast majority of players who establish themselves as an everyday player in the majors by the time they’re 23 will improve over the next 3-4 years. How much improvement is the question. Moustakas was worth nearly 3 bWAR last year because of his defense, but between the fact that he’s never fielded that well before, and the fact that defensive skills erode earlier than offensive ones, we have to assume he won’t be quite that good with the glove going forward.

There is also the matter of a knee injury last season, which he quietly played through even though he hit just .201/.262/.316 from August 10th on. Prior to that point, he was hitting .260/.312/.455. His perseverance is admirable, but the fact is that you’re probably not helping your team much when you hit .201, even if you are playing great defense. If the Royals could get a .260/.312/.455 line from Moustakas over the entire season this year, they’d take that, with a hope of further improvement to come.

For all the attention Eric Hosmer gets as the key to the Royals’ future, it’s quite possible that Moustakas will have the better career owing to his position and defense. And while neither one is likely to sign a long-term deal that buys out free agency years, owing to the fact that Scott Boras is their agent, I’d place Moustakas’ odds of such a deal at “slim”, not “none”. He already turned down Boras’ advice once, agreeing to the Royals’ $4 million offer out of the draft at the last moment. He’s not giving the Royals the Salvador Perez treatment, but I wouldn’t be shocked if the Royals were able to buy out one year and get him signed through 2018 by next winter. I’m sure they’d like to, as otherwise they’re looking at the specter of losing both Moustakas and Hosmer in the same off-season.

#6: Lorenzo Cain

I feel like Cain is talked about less than anyone else in the lineup, even the second base mess. It’s understandable given that he couldn’t stay healthy last year; once you get that injury-prone label it’s hard to break. On the other hand, Cain played a full season in Omaha in 2011, and played 127 games at three different levels in 2010. Since turning pro, the only other season he didn’t play at least 125 games (remember, minor league seasons run only 140 games) was 2009. Hopefully, last year was a fluke.

It’s also worth remembering that in 110 career games in the majors, Cain has hit .281/.327/.412. He has some pop (21 doubles, 8 homers) and a lot of speed (17-for-18 in steal attempts). He has a very good defensive reputation, and the numbers suggest that “very good” is an understatement: he’s been worth 19 runs above average in basically two-thirds of a full season.

Put it this way: you know how much I/we rave about Salvador Perez? How the mind boggles at the fact that in 115 career games, Perez has been worth 4.2 bWAR, which is practically an MVP-caliber pace? Well, in 110 career games, Cain has been worth 4.0 bWAR.

No, I don’t think that’s sustainable, because I don’t think his defensive numbers are sustainable. But be honest: you didn’t know he had been that effective in his career. I sure didn’t, and I get not paid to know this stuff.

Cain turns 27 next month – the most common age for a career year. If he stays healthy, that Torii Hunter vibe he gives off at the plate may reflect itself on the stat sheet as well. If you’re looking for a reason to believe that the conventional wisdom on the 2013 Royals is wrong, look no further than a breakout season from The Painkiller.

Five For Friday: 3/22/13.

Sparksjay (@sparksjay): 2013 Royals Post-Mortem Headline on your blog?

Right now, my guess would be “Good. Not good enough.” I think this will be the Royals’ winningest season since 1989; I don’t think they will make the playoffs. For some people, the former will justify the James Shields trade. For me, the latter will justify my criticisms of it.

I’m sure I’ll make this point a few dozen more times as we go along, but to be clear: I hate the trade, but I’m still optimistic bout the Royals in 2013 – in large part because the costs of the trade won’t manifest themselves until 2014 and beyond. But in order for the trade to be a true win this year, the Royals have to go to the playoffs. It should be telling that I’m more optimistic about the 2013 Royals than virtually every other analyst out there – and even I don’t think they’ll make the playoffs.

Adam Pearce (@pearcead): What will you be looking for once the season starts (i.e. Hosmer’s ability to hit inside pitches) to believe the Royals have a chance?

What will I be looking for? Wins. Specifically, a winning April. It would have symbolic significance, given that the franchise has had just three winning Aprils in the last 23 years. But it would also have immense practical value, because here is the Royals schedule from April 30th until June 2nd:

vs. Tampa Bay (3)

vs. White Sox (3)

@ Baltimore (3)

vs. Yankees (3)

@ Angels (3)

@ Athletics (3)

@ Houston (3)

vs. Angels (3)

vs. St. Louis (2)

@ St. Louis (2)

@ Texas (3)

There’s a breather in there against the Astros, but aside from that, the easiest series of the bunch could be the one against the Yankees. Seriously. (Assuming Granderson and Teixeira aren’t back by that point.)

The Royals don’t have to come out of the gate like they did in 2003, but if they’re 10-14 when the Rays come to town, they could already be in selling mode by the time they leave Texas.

Bart Parry (@Bart41CPA): If Frenchy struggles, who are the likely trade candidates? Seems like real upgrade possibilities are scarce/costly (i.e. Stanton).

I’ll spare you my pie-in-the-sky trade ideas for Stanton until the Royals are actually in contention this summer. If the Royals do make a trade, it will likely be for a left-handed bat, which would allow them to use Francoeur in a platoon rather than give up on him completely.

I’m sure there are a number of left-handed bats in the major leagues who could fit the bill, but the name that stands out to me for obvious reasons is David DeJesus. DeJesus is only under contract for 2013, the money isn’t crazy, the Cubs are rebuilding…I’m sure they would be happy to trade him for a prospect of some worth. Since leaving the Royals he’s hit .252/.337/.390 the last two years, which comes out to an OPS+ of exactly 100. He has a fairly sizeable platoon split – for his career, he’s hit just .256/.325/.346 vs. LHP, but .292/.367/.449 vs. RHP. He doesn’t have a classic rightfielder’s arm, but he makes up for a lack of strength with impressive accuracy, and he played 86 games in right field for the Cubs last year.

Basically, DeJesus’ strengths and weaknesses makes him a perfect complement for Francoeur (or more precisely, makes Francoeur a perfect complement for him). He’d be an ideal candidate even if the Royals didn’t have a familiarity with him.

The only downside is that it requires Dayton Moore to make a trade with Theo and Jed. Well, nothing’s perfect.

Greg Brokaw (@gregbrokaw): Another “if contending…” question: What does your ideal September/playoff rotation look like?

That’s a good question, because on the one hand, it’s possible that some of the pitchers who will be in the minors or on the DL in April will be among the Royals’ five best starters by September. But on the other, if the Royals are actually contending in September, then things have likely gone well with the rotation that the Royals are opening the season with.

So the only two things I’m fairly certain about are that 1) barring injury, James Shields will be your Game 1 starter and 2) none of Mendoza, Chen, or Hochevar will be in the playoff rotation.

If I had to guess, Ervin Santana would start Game 2, if only because it’s hard to imagine the Royals going to the playoffs without Santana bouncing back to his 2011 form, and if he does, he’s a worthy starter. I’ll go with Danny Duffy in Game 3; a playoff berth from the Royals will likely include a big boost from his return in July. You could round out the rotation with a bunch of guys – Jeremy Guthrie, Wade Davis, Felipe Paulino, even Yordano Ventura or Kyle Zimmer.

Peter Radiel (@petercr1): Do you think the Royals can win the World Series with the current front office?

Yes.

There are two main reasons for my confidence. The first is that asking “can X win the World Series” is just a subset of the question “can X make the playoffs”. There’s no hard evidence that one particular type of playoff team is more likely to win a World Series than another. Teams that win more games in the regular season have a slight edge, but even that’s less than you would think. Anything can happen in a best-of-seven series, to say nothing of a best-of-five or the new Wild Card game (what my friend Joe Sheehan refers to as the Coin Flip game).

In the last 14 years, do you know how many times the team with the best regular-season record went on to win the World Series? Once. In 2009, the Yankees won 103 games and a world championship. (Okay, 1½. The Red Sox, who tied with the Indians for most regular-season victories, won the title in 2007.)

So if the Royals can reach the playoffs – or at least win the division, so they don’t have to play a fourth playoff round – they can win the World Series.

The other main reason is this: the San Francisco Giants have won two of the last three World Series. (They didn’t rank among the top 3 in regular-season wins either year.) Maybe Ned Colletti Brian Sabean isn’t as bad a general manager as I thought he was in the summer of 2010, when he was on my list of the five worst GMs in the game. But he is still the guy who:

1) Traded a living, breathing human being for Jose Guillen that summer.

2) Gave Barry Zito a 7-year, $126 million contract.

3) Refused to commit to Brandon Belt at first base for the better part of 2 years.

4) Signed Aaron Rowand to a 5-year, $60 million contract.

5) Signed Barry Zito. For seven years. And $126 million. No, really.

The secret to the Giants’ success? Draft Matt Cain. Draft Tim Lincecum. Draft Madison Bumgarner. Draft Buster Posey. Sign Pablo Sandoval out of Latin America. The rest is just details, honestly.

The Royals haven’t hit on their draft picks quite that well, but they’re still working on it. If Brian Sabean can win not one but two World Series, then yes, Dayton Moore & Company can win one.

2013 Opening Day Preview, Part 3.

#15: Luke Hochevar

Hochevar was going to be third on this list until he was moved to the bullpen, and I don’t have to tell you how much of a relief it is to move him down this far.

I already said plenty last time, but two points I didn’t get to:

- When Kyle Davies was stinking up the joint for the Royals year after year, I kept asking why they wouldn’t at least try him in the bullpen. The results he was getting didn’t correlate with his stuff, so he seemed like a prime candidate to see whether working in short stints might give him some more velocity on his fastball, which would in turn make his off-speed stuff play up.

The Royals never did give the bullpen a shot; Davies never pitched a game in relief for the Royals. And maybe it’s a moot point; Davies was released a season and a half ago, and hasn’t even thrown a pitch in the minors since. (So much for the Royals’ claim that if they let him go, 29 other teams would want him.)

I have to think that’s factored into the Royals’ decision with Hochevar a little. Hochevar’s problem is a little different – whereas Davies had good stuff but poor peripherals, Hochevar has good stuff and good peripherals – in particular, his walk rate is about 30% lower than Davies. Hochevar’s problem is that his ERA trails his peripherals by a historic degree. I don’t know whether that problem can be solved in the bullpen, but having advocated the same move for Davies, I’d be disingenuous if I said it wasn’t worth trying for Hochevar. I don’t like the price, but the experiment itself is fine.

- Of course, the reason Hochevar’s ERA is so much worse than his peripherals is because he can not pitch with men on base. That doesn’t seem like a problem that will naturally get fixed in the bullpen. At the very least, he’s not a reliever you want to bring into a game with ducks already on the pond. This may factor into the Royals wanting to try him as a short reliever – long relievers have to come in to clean up the starter’s mess, and there may be no one in the major leagues more ill-suited to the task. If Hochevar can start an inning clean and air it out for an inning or two, he might surprise us. But I’d keep him away from the high-leverage situations until he’s proven himself – many times over.

#14: Tim Collins

Speaking of Greg Holland and strikeout rates last time around, here’s a chart for you:

Highest Strikeout % by a Royal (min: 25 IP)

Year Pitcher        K%

2011 Greg Holland 31.76%

2012 Tim Collins  31.53%

2012 Greg Holland 31.49%

2009 Joakim Soria 31.08%

While strikeout rates have gone up significantly just in the last 5-7 years, that’s still an impressive testament to the current administration’s bullpen-building skills. That’s a Rule 5 pick, a 10th-rounder listed at 5’10”, and an undrafted 5’7” guy who was acquired for Rick Ankiel and Kyle Farnsworth. Not bad.

(Of course, the bullpen also will have two guys drafted in the top half of the first round. Neither Crow nor Hochevar was drafted to be a reliever, but it’s a good reminder that drafting relievers in the top half of the first round is almost always a mistake.)

Last winter I postulated that Collins’ control problems could improve quickly, because a higher-than-normal fraction of his walks as a rookie came on 3-2 pitches – in other words, he wasn’t walking guys because he couldn’t throw strikes, but because he was just nibbling too much. As it happens, Collins’ walk rate dropped significantly, particularly when you account for the fact that he intentionally walked eight batters last year (up from just two as a rookie). He faced exactly 295 batters in both 2011 and 2012, and his unintentional walks dropped from 46 to 26. His K/UIBB ratio jumped from 1.30 to 3.58. Partly this was because his command problem wasn’t as bad as it looked, and partly this was because of some changes Dave Eiland made to his delivery (detailed here by Baseball Prospectus).

Collins is just 23, and it’s unusual for a left-handed reliever to establish himself in the majors at such a young age. Collins has made 140 relief appearances in the majors, and just three other lefties in major league history have relieved 100 or more times by the end of their age 22 season: Terry Forster (201), Billy McCool (174), and Mitch Williams (164).

Mind you, Collins is already notable for being the shortest successful pitcher the majors has seen in a half-century. Collins already has more Wins Above Replacement than any pitcher listed at 5’7” or shorter since Bobby Shantz retired in 1964. Seabiscuit is among the most unique players the Royals have ever employed, a bundle of contradictions. He’s the shortest pitcher ever to suit up for the team, but throws harder than all but a few left-handers in the organization’s history. At age 17 he wasn’t considered good enough to be drafted, but by the age of 21 was in the majors in a role usually reserved for much older players.

And he’s left-handed, but for the second straight year he was more successful against right-handed hitters. As I wrote last year, that’s not a fluke – the combination of his delivery (over-the-top) and repertoire (reliant on a 12-to-6 curveball) is typically associated with reverse platoon splits. Right-handed batters hit just .196/.293/.333 against Collins last year – but left-handers hit .239/.333/.436.

While I think the Royals are aware of this to the point where they don’t use him as a lefty specialist, I also think Ned Yost doesn’t appreciate that Collins is legitimately better against right-handed hitters. Last year, 135 of the 295 batters Collins faced were left-handed. The first batter he faced was typically left-handed, and not surprisingly, the first batter of each appearance hit .237/.361/.492 against him. It’s unconventional, but the Royals would be better off calling on Herrera against left-handed hitters and Collins against right-handed hitters, at least until Donnie Joseph or someone else establishes themselves as a legitimate lefty specialist.

However he’s used, Collins is a joy to watch and a bear to hit. The novelty of his height wore off a long ago; what we’re left with is a hell of a reliever.

(Although he also makes a hell of a leprechaun.)

#13: Billy Butler

Again, these rankings account for a player’s consistency – Butler ranks this low not because he’s not important, but because even in a down year he rakes. He hit .291/.361/.461 in 2011, and all three rate stats were his worst numbers of the last four years. The legends say that hitting .300 is the mark of a good hitter. Billy Butler’s career batting average is .30006. That’s who he is: Billy Butler, Professional Hitter.

I’d like to say that I buy into his power surge last year – hitting 29 home runs after never hitting more than 21 before – but I suspect it will turn out to be an outlier. A true power surge would have resulted in more extra-base hits overall, but Butler hit just 32 doubles after hitting 44 or more in each of the previous three years. His extra-base-hit totals the last four years read: 73, 60, 63, 62.

In essence, about a dozen balls that bounced on the warning track in years past just cleared the fence. He didn’t hit more fly balls than in years past. He didn’t show better plate discipline – actually, he had the fewest walks (54) and the most strikeouts (111) of the last four years, suggesting he might have been selling out for power a little bit at the plate. Those are not the signs of a player who took a legitimate step forward with his power.

Not that he needs to; Butler has been one of the best DHs in the league for four years running, and doesn’t even turn 27 for another month. While I wouldn’t bet on a player with his physique to age particularly gracefully, he’s still years away from a likely decline. He is also a graduate of the Prince Fielder School Of Surprisingly Durable Fat Guys – Butler has only missed 11 games in the last four years, and at least a couple were probably interleague games where he couldn’t start and wasn’t need as a pinch-hitter.

It certainly wouldn’t be a surprise if Butler did take a real step forward this year – this is his age 27 season, and 27 is still the most common peak age for a hitter. But the Royals don’t need Butler to take a step forward. They just need him to be himself. That’s plenty good enough.

#12: Jeremy Guthrie

It’s hard to evaluate a pitching coach after just one season, but between his work with Collins and with Guthrie, Eiland certainly earned his keep last year. Guthrie was broken when the Royals got him last year. Eiland said it would take a couple of starts to work out the problems with his delivery, and sure enough, he got rocked in his first two starts with the Royals. From that point on, he had a 2.34 ERA in 81 innings.

Of the four starters the Royals are really counting on, Guthrie strikes me as the guy with the smallest difference between his floor and his ceiling in terms of his skill set. Last year was screwed up by his Colorado Experience, but from 2007 to 2011, his xFIPs read 4.18, 4.48, 5.13, 4.60, and 4.47. He’s a low-walk, low-strikeout pitcher, which limits his downside and his upside.

But it also makes him more dependent on his defense than the average pitcher, because more balls are going to be put in play against him. He has maintained below-average BABIPs throughout his career; his career mark is .278, and excepting his time with the Rockies, since 2007 he’s never had a mark above .286. After 1200 innings, it’s reasonable to suggest that his below-average BABIPs are a real skill. At the same time, if he has anomalous year where his BABIP is .320, he gives up so much contact that he could get slaughtered. So while his skill set is stable, the end results may not be.

I continue to think that Bronson Arroyo is a really good comp for Guthrie. Since 2005, Arroyo has a 15.2% strikeout rate, to Guthrie’s 14.2%, but Arroyo has spent almost all that time facing pitchers in the NL. Their walk rates are similar (5.9% for Arroyo, 6.7% for Guthrie), as are their home run rates (1.29 HR/9 for Arroyo, 1.26 HR/9 for Guthrie), their groundball rates (40.2% for Arroyo, 40.6% for Guthrie), and their BABIPs (.283 for Arroyo, .278 for Guthrie). And the end results are about the same (4.14 ERA for Arroyo, 4.28 for Guthrie). One big difference: Arroyo’s fastball has averaged between 87 and 89 mph for most of his career. Guthrie’s fastball has been 92-93 mph his entire career, and showed no hint of a decline last year, coming in at 92.6.

Neither pitcher is going to excite a fan base, but they both have value because they provide league-average innings in bulk. Arroyo has made 32+ starts for eight years running, and Guthrie has averaged 30 starts a season over the past six years – his own streak of 32+ starts was snapped only because he was shell-shocked by Coors Field.

After the 2010 season, the off-season before he turned 34, Arroyo signed a 3-year deal with the Reds for $35 million (but with a lot of deferred money). This winter, at the same age, Guthrie got 3 years/$25 million. If you believe that last year’s carnage was entirely explained by the altitude, then Guthrie’s not overpaid. Though looking at the way the market shook out, they probably didn’t need to guarantee him that third year.

In the first year of his deal, Arroyo pitched about as well as he usually does – except he surrendered a whopping 46 home runs in 199 innings, leading the NL in runs allowed with a 5.07 ERA. But last year he bounced back as if nothing had happened, throwing 202 innings, walking just 35 batters, with a very solid 3.74 ERA. If Guthrie follows the same path, I think we can expect him to be durable and to maintain his skill set for the bulk of his contract – but the vagaries of the batted ball means at least one of his three years is going to be a stinker.

#11: Alcides Escobar

One of the reasons why I am reasonably optimistic about the Royals’ performance this season – certainly more optimistic than the consensus – is that there just aren’t a lot of guys on the roster who are likely to be significantly worse than they were last year. On the offensive side of things, Escobar is the most likely to decline, and even in his case I expect the decline to be modest.

Escobar’s batting average has gone from .235 to .254 to .293 over the last three years, despite no real change in his home run or strikeout rates (last year his strikeout rate actually jumped along with his batting average). The difference stems from his BABIP, which has climbed from .264 to .285 to .344. Now, here’s the thing: hitters have much more control on BABIP than pitchers do, so we can’t simply chalk up an 80-point jump in his BABIP to randomness.

But if it’s not randomness, than what is responsible for the jump? And which number is most reflective of Escobar’s abilities? To answer those questions, I searched for a formula that would project Escobar’s BABIP based on his inherent skills – most notably his rate of hitting line drives (which turn into hits 75% of the time) and pop-ups (which turn into outs 95% of the time). I unfortunately wasn’t savvy enough to figure out how to use the most sophisticated xBABIP calculators, but I was able to use this quick-and-dirty one, which projected these BABIPs for Escobar:

2010: .315

2011: .333

2012: .348

First off, Escobar has legitimately improved his ability to turn balls in play into hits. In 2011 he cut his pop-up rate in half, and in 2012 he increased his line-drive rate by 5%. That’s enough to move the needle a little. He also gets a bonus for his speed – his stolen bases climbed from 10 to 26 to 35, and the formula assumes that more stolen bases means more speed, which means beating out more infield singles. On the one hand, I’m not sure Escobar got faster so much as he learned how to use his speed better; on the other hand, he’s also become more proficient at bunting for a base hit:

2010: 3-for-10 (.300)

2011: 7-for-32 (.219)

2012: 11-for-27 (.408)

So some improvement should be expected. But the big take-home point is that last year’s BABIP was not the anomaly – his BABIPs in 2010 and 2011 were. If that’s the case, his .293 average may not be quite the outlier I thought it was. I still think he’s more of a .270-.280 hitter, unless he’s able to cut back on the strikeouts, but that’s still plenty good enough. (And let’s not forget: after Kevin Seitzer fixed his swing in 2011, Escobar hit .286/.323/.411 from June 7th onward. So he’s basically been a .290 hitter for his last 250 games.)

His offensive breakthrough last year allowed his defensive decline to fly under the radar. To the naked (non-scouting) eye, Escobar looked like a perfectly average shortstop last year, but not the defensive marvel he was in 2011 (particularly the first half). The defensive metrics are not that kind. Almost all metrics were in agreement that he was one of the best shortstops in the AL in 2011, but in 2012, their evaluations range from slightly below-average to well below-average.

The truth, as it usually is, is somewhere in between. He was a good shortstop; he just wasn’t the shortstop he was in 2011. He was only 25 and it might be a fluke, but analysis shows that defensively, players peak in their early 20s, which is to say they start declining in the field almost from the moment they reach the major leagues.

Regardless, Escobar was a more valuable player on the whole. He’s 26 years old and he’s under club control for the next five years at a total cost of under $21 million. He’s not Salvador Perez, but he’s a highly underrated asset.

Five For Friday: 3/15/13.

Eric Loes (@loeseric): How would you rank those in competition for the 5th spot as of right now? (Chen, Mendoza, Smith, Ventura)

I still think it’s a two-man race for the fifth starter’s spot, with Chen perhaps having a slight advantage. On the one hand, I think Mendoza is better suited for the long relief role; on the other hand, if Chen starts, Tim Collins might be the only left-hander in the pen. On a third hand, even if Chen relieves, that would leave the Royals without a left-handed pitcher who actually gets left-handed hitters out – both Chen and Collins have been more effective against right-handers in their careers.

I know Ned Yost mentioned Ventura’s name as one of the candidates for the job, but I have to think this is just a case of positive reinforcement for the kid, telling him that if he keeps doing his job that he’s on the fast track to the majors. I love Ventura, but he’s made six starts above A-ball in his career, and Allard Baird isn’t the GM anymore. He doesn’t even turn 22 until June. To start his service time clock would be foolish even in a case of extreme need, and the Royals don’t have an extreme need.

That leaves Will Smith, and let’s be frank…giving Will Smith the job because of a terrific spring training would be a thoroughly Royals move. He’s been fantastic in Arizona this year – in a grand total of seven innings. Smith has allowed more than a hit an inning at every stop since he got out of A-ball. Giving him the #5 spot would mean that the Royals would enter the year with Chen, Mendoza, and Hochevar all in their bullpen. That would be weird.

So barring a trade or an injury, my guess is that Chen’s the fifth starter, Mendoza’s the long man, Hochevar will be the short man in the middle innings (with a chance to move into a later role if he pitches well), and the seventh reliever is J.C. Gutierrez, who’s out of options. But I wouldn’t sleep on Donnie Joseph, who’s been fantastic this spring and would be the perfect compliment to Collins, as Joseph is death on left-handed hitters.

I give the Royals a lot of crap, but that’s actually a pretty damn nice pitching staff.

Jeff Crawford (@jdcraw82): Hosmer looks awful in the WBC. Please tell me not to be concerned.

I’m not going to tell you not to be concerned, because you have plenty of reason to be concerned. But the reason to be concerned is because Eric Hosmer hit .232/.304/.359 last year. Hosmer was below replacement-level last year – THAT’S why you should be concerned.

But concerned because he’s 4-for-21 in the WBC? Nah. Not any more than I’d be excited that he was 9-for-23 in spring training before he got an emergency phone call to report to Team USA the next morning.

Marshall Miller (@iammarshall913): If Royals are in contention near the trade deadline, do you think GMDM completely leverages the farm in another “win now” trade?

Not only do I think that Dayton Moore might completely leverage the farm at the trading deadline, I think that in the right circumstances, and for the right player, he absolutely should make another win-now trade.

I don’t have anything against trading prospects for established major league players. I had a very serious problem with the specifics of the James Shields trade, but the concept is sound, in the right situation.

As to what that situation is, well, I have some ideas that I may explore once the season gets underway. Let’s just say that if the Royals are in contention, and their right fielder isn’t hitting very well, there’s a player down in Miami that I’d be willing to move the sun and moon for. You know that Dave Dombrowski would love to get his hands on Giancarlo Stanton, and the Tigers and Marlins have a long history of making trades together. This is where the Royals could leverage their superior farm system to hand the Tigers the first of what we hope will be many defeats.

LM (@LDMalm): Is the front office allowing Kyle Zimmer to long toss?

Two years ago the Royals had developed a very strong reputation as one of the teams most resistant to the growing trend of extreme long-tossing (300 feet and up) among high school and college pitchers. This reputation had a lot to do with Mike Montgomery, who chafed at the restrictions the Royals had placed on his throwing.

But since then, a couple things have happened:

1) The Royals, from what I’ve been told and what has been reported publicly, have become much less resistant to the concept of long-tossing.

There’s a story of the Royals meeting with high school sensation Dylan Bundy a month before the draft in 2011. Here’s Albert Chen reporting in Sports Illustrated:

"They did not like Dylan throwing long toss," says Denver. "They were discussing the way he throws, how he shouldn't throw on a long arc. Dylan and I were sitting there, just listening. And then, at some point, Dylan just took over. He took over the whole conversation, talking about specific muscle groups, why he does what he does. Before the session was over, he was teaching them about how the shoulder really works. They were in awe."

The story makes it appear that the Royals are these unfrozen caveman lawyers who are frightened and confused by our modern pitching methods. But here’s the thing: the Royals were planning – hoping – to draft Bundy, to the point where they had a financial deal in place had he slipped to #5. That wouldn’t be the case if they hadn’t agreed to accommodate Bundy’s pitching regimen.

2) The Royals let Montgomery have his way and allowed him considerably more autonomy on his throwing program after he got off to a poor start in 2011. This did not, unfortunately, fix whatever it was that was ailing Montgomery.

The night before Chen’s column ran, I spoke for over two hours with Alan Jaeger, a pitching coach in California who is widely considered to be the guru and driving force of the long-toss movement. While criticizing the Royals for not agreeing with his methods in the past, he was also complimentary of the fact that the organization had become more open minded over the past year.

So while I haven’t heard anything specific about Kyle Zimmer this spring, I believe that the Royals are as accommodating of long-toss programs as any other team. They want to make sure their pitchers aren’t overdoing it, obviously. But I no longer have concerns that the Royals are behind the curve on this subject.

Greg Brokaw (@gregbrokaw): If no major injuries surface and the team is in contention in September, how worried are you that Ned will hold us back?

It’s a good question, because Yost’s tactical errors were a big part of his undoing in Milwaukee, and it takes a special kind of panic to fire your manager in September when you’re in a pennant race. Joe Sheehan has been riding me on this point all winter, telling me that even if the Royals are a contender this year that their manager is going to cost them wins with his tactical moves.

It’s certainly a concern of mine, but I do think Yost won’t hurt the Royals too much if only because the team he’s being handed is kind of a push-button roster. The Royals have four closer-caliber relievers in their bullpen, so even if Yost screws up by bring in the right-hander when he should bring in the left-hander, at least he’s bringing in a quality pitcher.

The biggest potential mistakes are these:

- Failing to recognize that Collins gets right-handers out better than left-handers, and using him as a LOOGY.

- Failing to recognize that Crow is quite vulnerable to left-handers, and leaving him in to pitch against them in crucial spots.

- Letting Hochevar pitch in important situations and/or with men on base before he’s proven he can be effective in relief.

- Riding Salvador Perez’s knees into the ground by starting him 145+ times behind the plate.

Beyond that…I mean, sure, he’ll probably let Francoeur bat when he shouldn’t, and he might bunt too much with Alcides Escobar, and he’ll pinch-run for Billy Butler and then lose Butler’s bat in extra innings. But those are the kinds of moves that every manager in baseball makes. If Yost can just avoid the big mistakes and be a perfectly mediocre game manager, the Royals can win with him.

It remains to be seen whether he can rise to the level of mediocrity.