Royals In Monarchs Duds: May 30, 2009

For the '09 Salute to the Negro Leagues, the Royals went back yet again to the 1924 Monarchs uniforms, the fifth time they sported the look. Their opponents were the Chicago White Sox, who wore uniforms in the style of the 1926 Chicago American Giants. Gil Meche and Mark Buehrle faced off, and were in a 2-2 deadlock after seven innings. John Bale pitched the eighth for KC, and yielded a run. Buehrle came out for the eighth, but the first batter, Miguel Olivo, hit a bomb to tie the game back up. Juan Cruz got the call to pitch the ninth for KC, but couldn't hold, as theWhite Sox touched him for two and the game ended in a 5-3 White Sox victory.

Royals WPA At The Break

Win Probability Added is kind of a convoluted stat, but an interesting one. Click here for a primer. It attempts to measure how pitchers and hitters effect their team's chance of winning based on the outcome of every plate appearance (defense is not part of the stat). That means it is context specific; as the Fangraphs primer linked above says, a walk-off homer will be worth more than a homer in a blowout.

If Jason Kendall's "bat control," "productive outs," "sacrifices," and OHMYGODHE'SSOGRITTY actually contributed something to the team, this is the stat where it would show up. You can see how that's going for him. Good thing his defense is so incredible.

Royals O-Swing% At The All-Star Break

This graph will give you an idea of how Royals batters have been doing at laying off pitches outside of the strike zone. (Click here to read an introduction to O-Swing%.) Best in the AL so far this year is Bobby Abreu, who is swinging at just 15.9% of pitches out of the zone. Three regular AL batters have a higher O-Swing% than Yuni: Alex Gonzalez (41.0), A.J. Pierzynski (43.7), and--who else?--Vlad Guerrero (48.4).

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Here's a look at all those great outside-the-zone pitches Yuni has hacked at so far:

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Royals Pitchers wOBA Against

Here's a stat I don't think you'll find anywhere else: pitchers wOBA against. I plugged the pitchers' numbers on Baseball-Reference.com into this wOBA equation by Tom Tango: (0.72xBB + 0.75xHBP + 0.90x1B + 1.24x2B + 1.56x3B + 1.95xHR) / Batters Faced. Obviously, for pitchers, the lower the better. AL average wOBA this year is .327. Here's how Royals pitchers who have thrown at least 25 innings have fared:

.281 Soria
.283 Farnsworth
.289 Tejeda
.293 Greinke
.302 C'mon Chen
.323 Wood
.327 Hochevar
.334 Hughes
.340 Davies
.353 Bannister
.383 Meche
.398 Lerew's Sideburns

AL Central xFIP At The All-Star Break

Steel yourself, and behold, the xFIP numbers for pitchers in the American League Central Division (easily one of the top six divisions in Major League Baseball):

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AL Central wOBA At The All-Star Break

Presented in chart form for your viewing pleasure, I give you the current wOBA for the 32 qualifying hitters (at least 3.1 plate appearances per team game played) in the glorious Central Division of the spectacular American League of baseballers:

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Royals In Monarchs Duds: June 22, 2008

The 2008 Salute to the Negro Leagues turned into a wild affair against the San Francisco Giants. The Royals donned uniforms based on the 1951 and '52 Monarchs style, seen here (hall-of-famer Willard Brown on left):

The visiting Giants presented a bit of a challenge, as there is little Negro leagues history on the west coast. A design based on a 1927 Royal Giants team was chosen; according to Around The Horn, an official Royals blog, the Royal Giants were an all-star team that toured through California, as well as a 1927 tour through Hawaii, Korea and Japan. That's hall-of-famer Biz Mackey second from right:

The Royals had the daunting task of facing eventual Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum. Kyle Davies started for KC, and had a short nightmare of a day, giving up five runs while only lasting one and a third innings. The Giants were up 6-0 after three innings, and 10-3 after four and a half. The Royals win probability at that point was 3%. The Royals made Lincecum work, and crawled to within 5-10 before knocking him out after just five innings and 109 pitches. The Royals jumped all over the San Francisco bullpen in the sixth, coming all the way back to tie the game at 10 by piling up eight base runners and five runs. In the seventh, Joey Gathright singled Alberto Callaspo home, and the Royals clung to a 11-10 lead for the duration. After a parade of ineffective pitchers from both sides, Ron Mahay came in for KC and breezed through the seventh and eighth, and Joakim Soria nailed down the ninth. The two teams trotted out 11 different pitchers, and the eight and a half inning game dragged out for four hours. According to the Kansas City Star, it was the second biggest comeback in club history.

The Royals did a great job of covering the salute on Around The Horn.