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?)

Join Me For SABR Day In KC This Saturday, January 29

Society For American Baseball Research (SABR) chapters are meeting all across the world this Saturday. In Kansas City, I will be participating in a panel discussion on baseball blogging with actual journalist Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports and Craig Brown and Nick Scott from the essential Royals blog Royals Authority. Two local authors will also be discussing their work: Todd Peterson will discuss his book Early Black Baseball in Minnesota, and Phil Dixon will present a discussion on his book Andrew "Rube" Foster: A Harvest On Freedom's Fields. The meeting gets under way at 1:00 at Trailside Center, 9901 Holmes Road, Kansas City, MO. It is free to attend and non-members are welcome.

(I know some people confuse SABR with only being about advanced stats thanks to the unfortunate term "sabermetrics," but don't let that scare you away. SABR is for anyone who loves baseball. As you can tell from the speakers who will be at the meeting, the scope of SABR is broad.)

2010 Royals Pitcher wOBA

Wanted to move this from the sidebar, but keep it as a post for posterity:

.252 Soria

.285 Farnsworth

.291 Humber

.304 Greinke

.305 Tejeda

.320 C'mon Chen

.325 Hughes

.331 Hochevar

.341 Texeira

.344 Wood

.347 Davies
.361 O'Sullivan
.361 Meche
.361 Chavez
.367 Bullington
.374 Bannister
.414 Lerew's Sideburns

.423 Marte

wOBA = ((.72 x BB) + (.75 x HBP) + (.9 x 1B) + (1.24 x 2B) + (1.56 x 3B) + (1.95 x HR))/PA