http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/r...ed-away-032514

Interesting article, the Mariners pulled a cheeseball move that I'd have expected out of the 90's Royals. They lost one of their top 5 SP options to free agency this week all over $1MM.

but, but....I believe everything I see on the interwebs.

The Pirates just locked up Starling Marte to a long-term deal. 7 years (including some options) starting in 2015, 31MM, that buys out 3 of his free agent years.

Marte was an international player who didn't get much of a signing bonus, so he's one of those guys (like Salvy Perez) who are more willing to sign this sort of thing. Hopefully we can work out one of those deals with Ventura if he does well this season, good for the Pirates.

OK, we've got some real news this morning.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Sounds like Louis Coleman could begin the season on the DL. Has a bone bruise in that middle finger. He won&#39;t make trip to Milwaukee.</p>&mdash; Andy McCullough (@McCulloughStar) <a href="https://twitter.com/McCulloughStar/statuses/448837731477491712">March 26, 2014</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>The Royals are contemplating taking 11 pitchers to start the season now, with a backup middle infielder to protect Omar Infante.</p>&mdash; Andy McCullough (@McCulloughStar) <a href="https://twitter.com/McCulloughStar/statuses/448837884372471809">March 26, 2014</a></blockquote>
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If Wolf is healthy, might be worth kicking the tires on and adding some more rotation depth.

Was thinking the same thing, if Chen is a dumpster fire and Duffy isn't ready yet, it'd be nice to have another lefty.

The media's opening day payroll estimates are out:

1. LA Dodgers $235,295,219
2. NY Yankees $203,812,506
3. Philadelphia Phillies $180,052,723
4. Boston Red Sox $162,817,411
5. Detroit Tigers $162,228,527
6. LA Angels $155,692,000
7. San Francisco Giants $154,185,878
8. Texas Rangers $136,036,172
9. Washington Nationals $134,704,437
10. Toronto Blue Jays $132,628,700
11. Arizona Diamondbacks $112,688,666
12. Cincinnati Reds $112,390,772
13. St. Louis Cardinals $111,020,360
14. Atlanta Braves $110,897,341
15. Baltimore Orioles $107,406,623
16. Milwaukee Brewers $103,844,806
17. Colorado Rockies $95,832,071
18. Seattle Mariners $92,081,943
19. Kansas City Royals $92,034,345
20. Chicago White Sox $91,159,254
21. San Diego Padres $90,094,196
22. NY Mets $89,051,758
23. Chicago Cubs $89,007,857
24. Minnesota Twins $85,776,500
25. Oakland A's $83,401,400
26. Cleveland Indians $82,534,800
27. Pittsburgh Pirates $78,111,667
28. Tampa Bay Rays $77,062,891
29. Miami Marlins $47,565,400
30. Houston Astros $44,544,174

The Astros are whining about their estimate, mentioning that they have to send about $5MM to another team for example, which is fair but those kinds of things have never been included in these rankings.

I don't recall actually having seen him pitch, but I seem to remember that it's been a rough spring for 'ol Cole Slaw. Maybe the injury had something to do with it?

Sheesh - I knew our payroll would be higher this year, but I didn't realize it would put us as the second-highest in our division.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>In all seriousness, credit the Royals for bowing to reality BEFORE the season begins. Just like with moving Hochevar to the pen last year.</p>&mdash; Rany Jazayerli (@jazayerli) <a href="https://twitter.com/jazayerli/statuses/448840555775021056">March 26, 2014</a></blockquote>
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so we've damn near tripled our payroll in 3 years....

The Ned Yost/Andy McCullough pants saga continues

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Ned Yost, flip flopper: &quot;I could really care less about your pants.&quot;</p>&mdash; Andy McCullough (@McCulloughStar) <a href="https://twitter.com/McCulloughStar/statuses/448841685401731072">March 26, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Except Ned is NOT flip-flopping. Grammar indicates Yost DOES care about Andy's pants.

Wow, so we're right smack in the middle as far as payroll goes. Now it's all a matter of how well that money was spent.

Article in the Omaha paper today:

http://m.omaha.com/article/20140325/...late=mobileart



Kansas City may not have added an impact bat to the lineup or a power arm to the pitching rotation.
But the Royals can still play some defense. Really, really good defense.
Whether that's enough to contend for an American League Central title or a wild card spot remains to be seen over a 162-game schedule, but — whether by strategy or good fortune — in assembling a team aiming for its first postseason berth since 1985, the Royals have perhaps baseball's best defensive unit.
Left fielder Alex Gordon, catcher Salvador Perez and first baseman Eric Hosmer won Gold Gloves last year for their fielding excellence, representing that they are the best at their position in the American League in an award sponsored by Rawlings, a glove company. Another glove company, Wilson, named outfielder Lorenzo Cain the Royals' defensive player of the year.
So yes, the Royals truly can pick it.
The team's major offseason acquisitions — offensive table-setters Norichika Aoki and Omar Infante — are both solid to above average defensively. The club lost starting pitcher Ervin Santana to free agency and signed Jason Vargas — but the finesse pitcher's overall effectiveness could benefit from the Royals' ability to go get it behind him.
A newer statistic called ultimate zone rating sheds light on the Royals' defensive excellence. The formula for determining the rating is complicated. But according to fangraphs.com, it “puts a run value to defense, attempting to quantify how many runs a player saved or gave up through their fielding prowess.”
Last year Alcides Escobar led all American League shortstops with a UZR of 10.9 (10.9 runs saved over the course of a season).
Many believe Mike Moustakas living up to his offensive potential will be the missing link for the Royals, but his glove is already where it needs to be — he was fourth among AL third basemen with a 10.0 UZR.
Winning Gold Gloves isn't necessarily about statistics. Hosmer was only sixth in the AL with a UZR of 2.5.
Cain was second among American League outfielders and fifth overall among outfielders with a UZR of 20.0. Gordon was 10th among AL outfielders and 19th overall at 8.6. Jarrod Dyson, among outfielders who played a minimum of 500 innings, ranked 10th in the AL and 18th overall at 10.4.
As for the newcomers: Aoki, playing with Milwaukee last season, was 29th among outfielders at 3.2, while Infante was fourth among AL second basemen at 2.4. (Former Kansas City starter Chris Getz didn't play enough innings to qualify, but was slightly better at 3.0).
Perhaps the best defensive statistic for catchers is defensive runs saved above average. Perez led the AL and was fourth best overall at 11.
Want to try to grasp just why the Omaha Storm Chasers' 2011 outfield seemed impenetrable? Consider that the outfielders were Cain, Dyson and David Lough — who, of those playing a minimum 500 innings, was fourth among AL outfielders and ninth overall with a UZR of 10.4.
With so many terrific defensive outfielders on hand, Lough was traded to Baltimore in the offseason. And it's probably not surprising he wound up there — the Orioles also like their defense, with three Gold Glove winners (third baseman Manny Machado, shortstop J.J. Hardy and outfielder Adam Jones).
Baltimore and Kansas City shared 2013 AL Defensive Team of the Year, an award handed out by Wilson. Kansas City ranked just eighth in fielding percentage, despite posting a franchise-record .986 mark. Baltimore set a major league record with just 54 errors while compiling a fielding percentage of .991.
A playoff team in 2012, Baltimore went 85-77 in 2013 and fell six games short of repeating.
So how much can defense determine a team's playoff fate? It's still pretty hard to measure. But if Kansas City makes the postseason in 2014, it will be a major reason why.

Hosmer won the gold glove but from my eye test could have done way better.

Paul Bessire's Predictalator (cdcox style of simulator) has KC's win total at 79 this year, mainly due the Vargas, Gutherie, Chen middle of the rotation.

I said 80 but I think it'll be our lack of power again. We can't win in the AL without at least some power, I'm not sure what the historical data is but I'd bet teams that hit the fewest HR in the AL tend to not do very well in the standings. We really need Butler and Moose to combine for ~50 HR which they are more than capable of doing (they did in 2012) and for Hosmer to take that next step into the 20s. Alex has a lot more power than he's shown lately so hopefully he stays healthy and also gets to the 20 range.

Funny that he's not including Ventura in his prediction.

I agree. I feel like at least one of those 4 guys has to top 30 HR's this season.

Also, we'll need a midseason contribution from either Duffy or Zimmer to add to the rotation.

He simulated the season with the expected starting rotation, Ventura included.

Forbes values the Royals as next to last in the league at $490 million. Yankees are the highest at $2.5 billion. Only the Marlins had lower revenues in 2013.

The problem with projections is that they don't work very well with young teams. They'll do the best they can with them, if you take a AAA ERA or a AAA OPS, we can convert those to MLB-level numbers, and they try to project improvement as a young player ages, but the variance is enormous.

If you take every rookie and 2nd-year player in baseball, and compare their projected 2014 season numbers with the actual combined total 2014 numbers of all those players, it may end up being very close, but the projections for any particular individual young player are going to be way off for many if not most of those players. Young players tend to crush or fail their projections, and those projections adjust until they get old enough to know what to expect.

Once you get a track record and you are looking at 29-year old players the projections get better. There are still some surprises and some variance, but not nearly as much. Those projections are better suited for older teams like the Yankees.

The scouts think Moustakas has fixed his swing and is ready to roll, but the projections have no way of quantifying that. He played decently in 2012 and looked like dogcrap in 2013, so they take something in between those 2 years and project a slight age-based improvement on that. The projections have no clue what to do with a Ventura who the scouts all say has really put it together and will be a ROTY candidate, the projections don't have anything to back that up, and just take his minor league numbers and assume he'll be a typical SP rookie with that minor league pedigree.

If you hard-coded "someone will hit 30 HR, and Ventura will be great" into the system, the results will change quite a bit.

Projections have a hard time with:

1) Young players (as you pointed out and I and others have before. For example,even a premium star like Mike Trout, the projections keep saying is going to hit right around .300 even though he has two .320+ seasons so far)

2) Players who consistently outperform their peripheral stats. Since becoming an Oriole in 2007, Guthrie has outperformed his FIP by somewhere between 0.75 and 0.25. All the projections just drop him in at 4.75-5.00 ERA, but odds are good he outperforms that significantly.

3) Defense. Projection systems typically look at a great defensive team/performance as a fluke.

Considering the Royals are stacked with young player, rely heavily on defense and run prevention, and have two starting rotation members who consistently outperform peripherals (Guthrie and Chen), I just don't place much stock in what any projection system has to say about the team as a whole.

Someone should probably study this, I think this is one thing the SABR folks can probably figure out. The question: "how many years do you need to outperform FIP until we can reasonably believe they will continue to outperform?" One or two years is a fluke. What about 5+ years? For all we know, that could also be a very unlikely fluke, we were lucky, and we're just wrong about 2014.

They should be able to perform some kind of cohort analysis where you gather players in MLB history that have outperformed for 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, all the way through 6 and 7 years, and figure out what they did the following year. Players who outperformed for 1 year would be expected to generally crash back to earth, but what about players who keep doing it? (we don't need to study players who underperform, they just wind up demoted and out of baseball)

I would love to have one ore starting pitcher. Other than that, this team is well constructed.

If Santana wasn't such a blithering idiot.... :(

Or his agent...

That's who the blame really rests with, in my opinion. Santana paid that guy to know how to handle contract stuff, and he clearly did not.

It would be like your accountant screwing up your tax return. You're not an idiot because your accountant (who in all other context had been competent) screwed the pooch.

uhhh.... wow.

Is their pitching coach Al Nipper?

Seems they are taking the Royals approach!

The Rangers opening day pitcher will be making the first start of his MLB career.

edit: what the hell? He was also a relief pitcher in the minor leagues. Its not like they put a hot young starter in the bullpen to get him used to the majors.

Wait. Who?

Well then. They are either brilliant or certifiably insane. I guess we'll know more in a couple of months.

No pressure, rook. Go get 'em.

Tanner Scheppers is the Rangers' equivalent of Aaron Crow. Will be interesting to see how long they stick with this before Darvish is healthy.

A couple of those guys have nice, sparkly ERA's, but don't forget to check their 2013 "GS" and "GF" stats.

They'd decided he would be a starter about a week ago. Guess he must be the best of the bunch.

This is good news for the Royals wild card chances.

I do believe the taxpayer signs the return that all the information is correct.

Fair point.

According to Forbes, the Royals had an operating loss of $6.5MM in 2013.

LMAO

Oh wait, you weren't being sarcastic?

Right. But if the accountant misses a technicality that requires expert tax knowledge... isn't that what the taxpayer is paying the guy/gal to handle?

Same thing with the agent. It's his job to read the market, talk to teams, handle media stuff. Not Santana's.

What is sarcasm?

Just started listening in to the radio broadcast that Salvy was hit in the head with a ball earlier today and was taken out of the game as a precaution. Evidently there were no concussion-like symptoms, so it doesn't sound like we have anything to worry about this time.

What happened to Shields today?

Ugh, don't scare me like that! :#

Scary

How's the weather looking for next week?

All 3 games are afternoon games? Glad to be off work at 11 if so!

Wear. The damn. Hockey mask. Salvy.

He was batting when he got hit. It was a curve ball that didn't curve.

The players and MLB are negotiating a new drug testing agreement. The players want to increase the penalty for steroids and reduce the penalty for an inadvertent positive test, what they are trying to figure out is how you determine who is an intentional cheat and how to prove that the player did not intend to take something that was banned.

They have agreed on new penalties, the new penalty would be 100 games for the first time and a season for the second time. The penalty for an inadvertent positive test would be 25 games.

Does his head have a magnet in it?

It very well might, but what does that have to do with a baseball?

In case you guys haven't seen it yet, I wrote a song about the 1985 World Series and had Clay made a video for it:

http://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=282588

Opposing teams have been putting metal in their baseballs for years. That's why none of our guys have any power and Alex Gordon's bat breaks about 17 times a game.

Everything is so clear now!

Glad to be of service. :)

Ah, never mind then.

I think he should still wear it.

Net income loss or operating loss?

Didn't see this posted in the last 4 pages, so if Q, get bent.

Read more here.
http://www.royalsreview.com/2014/3/2...-finally-loose

This seems to have been the consensus on Moose this spring. Like you, I'm not ready to be enthusiastic yet, but I'm sure as hell ready and happy to be proven wrong during the regular (and post?) season.

Moose can't hit breaking pitches, yeah, we know.

Random funny baseball image of the day, found this posted somewhere else

http://i.imgur.com/VIyh1yz.jpg

I can't post it from my phone, but Jon Heyman picked KC to win the American League. It's on the CBS Sports MLB page. That's a shocker.

Buster Olney on 810 Wednesday picked the Royals to win 92 games and claim the second wildcard.

Here's the link:

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/writer/...sas-citys-year

If the Royals win 92 games, I'd give them about a 60 percent chance of winning the division outright. Just don't see the Tigers getting there.

New MLB replay control room. More pictures in the link.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...psac5c48ee.jpg

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/inside-...032951044.html

I just have a hard time really believing in this rotation. However, if the offense can be above average and we do well against the lesser division opponents in Cleveland, White Sux and Twins, we could do it. Lots of things have to go right for this rotation to keep us in it. I think low 80's is the likely win total. :(

Rusty Kuntz seems like a cool cat to play for

http://m.mlb.com/video/v31676139/kun...-training-game

Wow.

I have said all along we need another starter.

I think all of us feel that way, especially with the spring Duffy had.

Fangraphs has our pitching staff ranked 17th and obviously has concerns about Vargas/Guthrie/Chen. They would think more highly of us if we replaced Chen with Duffy.
Posted via Mobile Device

I tend to agree with you, but from Olney's standpoint, he was asked about the Tigers declining and he thought they still had enough, even without Iglesias ... said Verlander was looking great, their defense is better, they've got Nathan, etc. He thought Smyly would replace Fister's production. We'll see.

That's where I'm at.

I’m assuming that will happen.

It seems like Duffy and Chen are going to combine to be 1 pitcher, because neither can go 7 innings. Have one pitch 4 or 5 and the other 2 or 3.

The thing that sucks is that our offensive could move forward in a big way this year, and we probably take a step back in the win problem. Especially if there are ANY injuries with our pitching staff (stay healthy James).

PLATOON PITCHING MOTHER****ERS!!!!!