Royals Splits, or Jeff Francoeur Should Never Face A Righty

A look at the career wOBA splits of current Royals batsmen:

Amazing that Billy's weaker split is still the second best wOBA against righties on the team (Betemit barely beats him out). Then he adds 57 points to his wOBA against southpaws.

Kila has been the same guy regardless of the pitcher's handedness...unfortunately that guy hasn't been a very good hitter on average.

Three players have backwards splits, where they have done better against same-handed pitchers: Treanor, Maier and Getz. Treanor's is especially extreme.

.325-.330 is a roughly average wOBA. These players straddle the line between "good" and "bad" depending on pitcher handedness: Francoeur, Betemit, Gordon, and Aviles. Perhaps the solution at third base right now would be to start Betemit against righties and Aviles against lefties.

Francoeur's splits especially scream platoon player (though there is no obvious platoon partner on the roster right now):

Kevin Appier: Royals HOFer & Slam Dunk "Ace"

Good news from Royals-land today as Kevin Appier has been elected to the Royals Hall of Fame. He will be honored with a ceremony on June 25 before a game against the Cubs.
There's been some discussion on the interwebs recently about whether or not Appier was an "ace" pitcher. 610 sports radio host Robert Ford wrote a blog post recently about the history of Royals opening day pitchers, and lumped Appier into a class of pitchers he called "second tier." He defined an ace as one of the 10-20 best pitchers in the game, and a second tier guy as "a good, but not great, pitcher who can eat innings and give you a solid outing more often than not." I was flabbergasted that Ford considered Appier a "second tier" pitcher, and questioned him about it on his blog and on Twitter. Ford responded that he stood by it. I posted this screen-cap of the top pitchers by Fangraphs WAR (fWAR) between 1990-97 to Twitter:

clicky to biggy

As you can see, Appier ranks THIRD among all pitchers during his eight years as a healthy player.

Then today when it was announced Appier had been inducted to the Royals Hall, Ford tweeted "Royals announce Kevin Appier will be inducted into their Hall of Fame this season. Expect a 'Kevin Appier: Ace or Not An Ace' show soon." That lead to some more debate about whether or not Appier was an "ace," and Ford said he feels there are "10-15" aces per year, and Appier was often in the 16-20 range. "Ace" is obviously a highly subjective word, but I like Ford's general definition. If you go with 15 aces a year, that is the top 10% of starters in a 30 team league with five man rotations.

So, was Appier a top 15 pitcher, and if so, how many times: How about seven straight seasons? Appier's rank among MLB pitchers by fWAR:

1991: 2
1992: 9
1993: 2
1994: 6
1995: 3
1996: 5
1997: 12

If that is not an ace, I don't know what is. Greg Maddux was the only other pitcher who was a top-15 ace each of those seasons.

Most years as a top 15 fWAR pitcher, 1990-99:

10!: Greg Maddux
8: David Cone, Kevin Brown
7: Kevin Appier, Roger Clemens
6: Chuck Finley, Mike Mussina, John Smoltz, Randy Johnson
5: Jose Rijo

I don't know what Ford's opinion of "new-fangled" stats like WAR is, but Appier looks like an ace using traditional stats too. He was 15th in wins in the '90s, 16th in ERA, and 11th in strikeouts. I assume Appier just didn't "feel" like an ace at the time to some since he was playing on a poor team in a small market. But reality screams "ACE."

If you agree, get out to Kauffman Stadium early on June 25th and give Ape a hand.

Royals Seasons By ERA+ & OPS+

This post is directly ripped off inspired by this cool piece on Giants blog Bay City Ball in which every Giants season was plotted by ERA+ and OPS+. You end up with four quadrants: in the upper left are teams that were below average hitting teams but above average pitching/defensive squads. In the lower right quadrant are teams with plus hitting but poor pitching/defense. The lower left quadrant is for teams that were deficient in both areas, and the upper right is the sweet spot of good hitting and pitching/defense. Playoff teams are highlighted with red bullets.

• Only six Royals teams have had an OPS+ and ERA+ above average (100), and all six came in a seven year span between 1975 and 1981.
• The biggest discrepancy between team OPS+ and ERA+ came in strike-shortened '94 (91 OPS+, 118 ERA+). The biggest discrepancy on a team with a better OPS+ than ERA+ was last year's team (100 OPS+, 85 ERA+).
• Royals fans know the 1985 team's success was built on pitching; turns out, that combination of middling offense and great run prevention is a fairly common trait for World Series winners. On the other hand, it is almost unheard of to win the whole cheese with a big offense but no pitching/defense.
• Those '85 Royals - 95 OPS+, 119 ERA+ - were similar to last year's champion Giants - 95 OPS+, 121 ERA+.

Vote Ape

(Strikeouts that is. More than any other Royals pitcher.)

The Royals have opened up a small portion of the Royals Hall of Fame vote to the fans. There are some, uh, interesting options on the ballot (Kris Wilson anyone?), and it is kind of an awkward voting system (posts to Twitter or Facebook). But, here is your chance to do a tiny bit towards getting Kevin Appier into the Royals Hall. (I wrote this article back in October on i70baseball.com about why Appier should go in; Also check out this chart of WAR racked up by the nominees. Appier has 2.5 times more WAR than the next guy.) 

Home Runs Hit By Royals Pitchers

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All eight home runs hit by Royals pitchers.

I really didn't think I could hit that far, to tell you the truth. It just happened.--Zack Greinke

Jim Rooker

More On The 1956 Municipal Stadium Brawl

From the April 25, 1956 Kansas City Star:

"Our own estimate is that the number of students who got out of bounds made up a rather small minority. We're not counting the traipsing up and down the aisles or the pushing and shoving in the seats. That's the normal and natural thing. Those who threw things on the field made a real nuisance of themselves or got into the post-game fights were comparatively few.

The series of melees after the game began at a point near third base. It was between white and Negro boys. In a few minutes there were fights all over the place between individual white and Negro youths and between groups. One observer estimated that at one time there were 35 to 40 fights going. We're inclined to believe this estimate greatly exaggerated. Possibly a dozen at once was the maximum.

Attendants had little success breaking up the fights. Police were busy directing motor car traffic outside the stadium and obviously were not notified at once. By the time police got to the field the jousting was pretty well dissipated. The youths kept moving out through centerfield as they sparred, and the last glimpse of a commotion was that of 8 or 10 youths still throwing punches as they disappeared through the bull pen gates.

Apparently no one was severely injured, although one press box spectator reported seeing a youth with blood on his face.

After it was all over, Roy Mack of the A's front-office staff wagged his head a little sorrowfully.

'We used to have high school days in Philadelphia,' he said. 'They always gave us plenty of trouble. I wouldn't say these Kansas City youngsters are any worse than anywhere else...but I don't think we want another day like this one.'"

2008–2010 fWAR All-Stars

Here is what the ideal 25-man roster might look like going by Fangraphs WAR racked up over the last three seasons. (Has anyone else noticed the Phillies might have a pretty good rotation?)