The legendary Bill Pecota turned 52 today. I'd post his stats, but Baseball-Reference has destroyed my will to live by throwing random minor league garbage into everything now. (Only .01% of the world knows what I'm talking about, but they know exactly what I'm talking about)

Pecota was a Royal from 1986-1991, went to the Mets in 1992, then played two final desultory years with Atlanta in a reverse Dayton Moore John Schuerholz move.

Pecota was a 10th round pick back in 1981 (he was the only player from his round to make the Majors), and while he became famous for being basically random and not that good, he carved out a decent career: 1729 PAs, playing just about every position and hitting .249 with some walks and some sometimes doubles. He peaked in 1991, posting a .286/.356/.399 line, which was good for a 109 OPS+

In what we might call the identity formula of sabermetrics, the PECOTA comparable for Pecota is Pecota.

Kansas City's starters were not able to throw late into games last year. They were tied for 12th in the AL with Boston at 5.8 IP/GS (Baltimore was worst at 5.4). Tampa on the other hand averaged 6.5 IP/GS. This difference is huge when looked at over the course of a season. With the average AL game going 8.9 innings, Kansas City will would need their bullpen to throw 3.1 innings and the Rays only 2.3. Over the course of the season, this difference works out to be a difference of 130 innings or over 14 full games.

To put it another way, the bullpen would need to throw 502.2 innings. With a 7 pitcher bullpen, that works at to ~72 IP per pitcher. With a 8 person bullpen, it works out to ~63 IP. Dave Eiland better have the bullpen ready to go.

Going into 2012, the situation doesn't look to be any better than last year, especially with the addition of Jonathan Sanchez. Here is a look at the IP/GS for the most likely starters and some other samples for reference:

Continue reading this post »

In 1980, George Brett hit .390, flirting with the magical .400 line all season long. He was hitting .406 on August 30th and was at .400 as late as September 19, game number 148 on the season. In the last forty years, we've really only seen a handful of players get this close to .400.

What drove Brett's quest that season was an absolutely insane July. Brett played regularly through June 10, before hitting the DL. To that point, he was having a MVP-level season, but not necessarily an all-time great campaign, hitting .337/.407/.609. Ho, hum.

On July 10th Brett returned, going 2-4 in a 3-2 Royals win (Splitt picked up the win). The next day he went 3-5 as Jack Morris expertly pitched to the score in a 7-3 Royals win. And that was pretty much the entire month. Brett hit .586/.636/.862 in his first seven games back, raising his batting average to .374. A 2-3 game on the final day of the month pushed him all the way up to .390.

Overall his July line was .494/.541/.812 in 98 PAs. Crazy.

In August he hit .430 and got over .400 on the season. Too bad he only hit .324 in September.

So really, we should just pause and reflect on that month. One of the greatest players of all time, in one of his best seasons, in the middle of an absolutely insane hot streak. Your homework assignment is to find other singularly great Brett months.

There has been a lot of talk about what the Royals 2012 rotation might look like. A conventional wisdom (which has come at least partially from the Royals front office) has emerged that there are three pitchers who, barring injury, will definitely be in the rotation: Bruce Chen, Luke Hochevar and Jonathan Sanchez. Then, there is a larger group of pitchers who are competing for the last two spots.

Given his 2011 performance, career MLB stats and his scouting reports, I have been both bewildered and frustrated that Felipe Paulino hasn't been considered a lock for the rotation. There's a lot to like there, and it seems to me that his only serious competition is prospects who may or may not be Major League ready. Anyway, I thought it would be useful to see what the projection systems say about the Royals rotation candidates. For 10 pitchers, I compiled the ERA and FIP projections from CAIRO, ZiPS and PECOTA. Then I averaged the ERA and FIP projections and finally did a weighted average of those averages (CAIRO = 1, ZiPS = 2, PECOTA = 2). The results are after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

In my many adventures trying to find cheap stuff, I bought this box of SI's for $10.

Here are some of the highlights that I read on the Royals

Fred Pateck Quotes

Sounds like Pateck could give Getz some advice

Cheerleaders

Royals cheerleaders. Really. I searched for 15 minutes for some images online with no success. Help me here. I have to see these an image of these cheerleaders.

Continue reading this post »

I've already done a team win projection for the 2012 Royals based on the individual player projections from the CAIRO and ZiPS systems. I have now done it with the recently released PECOTA projections. You can look at the ZiPS version for details on my methodology. I also put together the projections from the three systems for a mega-projection. All results after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

Late last week the Royals and Alex Gordon agreed to a one-year $4.775 million dollar contract, essentially splitting the difference between what both sides had wanted this winter. Although discussions of a long-term contract with Gordon came to a head this month, there is not immediate urgency here: Gordon is still under team control through the 2013 season.

Gordon's at an interesting point in his career. He's not quite the second coming of Jose Bautista, but he fact remains he hit .244/.328/.405 in his first 1641 PAs, then hit .303/.376/.502 in 688 last season. He has the pedigree and a number of plausible explanations for his previous struggles, but you have to look at all the data.

Alex Gordon

#4 / Left Field / Kansas City Royals

Height: 6-2

Weight: 220

Bats: L

Throws: R

Born: Feb 10, 1984

I'm a Gordon believer and a Gordon defender, and it's a rare opportunity for me to feel right about something. Nevertheless, no matte what you think the ultimate cause was, Gordon has had an up-and-down career, with some definite downs. Heading into his age 28 season, Gordon could take another step forward and develop into a real offensive force. He might also see his batting average drop down closer to his career levels, which might offset continued gains in other areas.

Just under $5 million is still a very good price for Gordon. Jeff Francoeur, mind you, is getting paid $6 million for 2012 and $7.5 M for 2013. If Gordon reproduces his 2011 in 2012, the Royals will have one of those good problems teams face, with a valuable player heading towards a nice 3-arb payday. Having good players is a good thing. Of course, they also risk Gordon deciding he'll want to hit the free agent market.

On the other hand, the Royals hold some flexibility at the moment, which is apparently what they value more. If Gordon struggles again, they might be able to secure him for a lower price.