Royals v. Angels – Two Franchises On Opposite Paths

The Royals head to Anaheim for a three-game set against the Angels this week

The Royals are coming off a 4-2 home stand against two likely contenders in the Tigers and Orioles, sitting at 12-6 after 18 games.

For what it’s worth, the 2015 Royals were also 12-6 after 18 games.

The Royals and Angels certainly classify as tales of two completely opposite franchise trajectories.

Rewind back to 2014, the Angels entered the postseason as the best team in the American League with 98 wins.

Their lineup included MVP’s in Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, and Josh Hamilton, while their rotation featured a peaking combination of Garrett Richards and Matt Shoemaker, along side a not so terrible Jared Weaver.

The Royals, on the other hand, entered the postseason as the fourth seed, with 89 wins, having to win a win-or-go-home wild card game just to advance in the postseason.

The Royals would go on to win that wild card game, obviously, and sweep the Angels in a series that signaled the end of a contender.

Since then, the Angels have riddled in mediocrity, with a roster that lacks talent to surround a prime Trout and an aging Pujols.

The Royals, on the other hand, ran that wild card momentum right into a World Series appearance and followed that run up by becoming the class of the American League, winning 95 games in 2015.

Needless to say, the Royals head to Anaheim in a much different position than they did a year and a half ago.

Next: Game One - Ian Kennedy Looks To Stay Hot

Tuesday: RHP Edinson Volquez (3-0, 1.46 ERA) v. Jered Weaver (2-0, 3.12 ERA)

The Edinson Volquez renaissance has culminated from a good-luck 2014 (3.04 ERA v. 4.15 FIP) into a legitimately productive 2015 (2.6 fWAR; highest since 2008).

Regression was *reasonably* expected for 2016, but Volquez has went into the opposite direction, spitting directly into typical baseball reasoning’s face and finding his prime at age 32 (going on 33), in his sixth full season.

After surrendering whiffs the last two seasons in favor of control, he has meshed the two so far this season, averaging just over eight strikeouts per nine innings, while walking less than three per nine innings.

For reference, Volquez has set new career lows in BB/9 the last two season, and his 2.92 mark this season would do that once again.

Volquez has also seen a light bump in veloctity, along with a boost in horizontal movement (see sinker, which is his two-seam fastball, because Ed is good).

Volquez certainly doesn’t love Anaheim, giving up 15 runs in his 14.1 innings against the Angels, but his last start against the Halos was back in 2007, so I wouldn’t worry too much about that.

The Royals, meanwhile, torched Jered Weaver last season, with him giving up eight runs in 10.1 innings of work.

What Weaver starting really does is give me the excuse to share this tweet with the Kings of Kauffman readership.

This is easily my favorite tweet of all time, because it’s not wrong.

If you are a baseball fan, as well as a Royals fan, you probably heard about his Spring Training velocity woes.

His velocity has stabilized since, but it is still ridiculously low.

This is a trend that has come to a climax after years of development.

As you can see in this chart, via Brooks Baseball, his velocity hovered around 90 MPH fora solid four-year period, before starting a rapid decline to its current position.

This doesn’t usually profile well for the Royals, who obviously love guys who through really hard, but as we know from last year, Weaver doesn’t exactly fool the Royals.

Must-See Matchup – Edinson Volquez v. Albert Pujols

As he has been for so many pitchers over his 16 year career, Pujols has been a thorn in Volquez’s side.

Although he only has 14 plate appearances against Ed, Pujols has hit two homers and a double off of Volquez in 10 at-bats, adding four walks as well.

Although Pujols is aging and the Angels lack lineup depth, the presence of Trout and Pujols still give the Halos a fairly potent middle of the lineup.

Trout will get his, but if Trout and Pujols are giving Volquez problems, the Royals could have some trouble on their hands.

Next: Game Three - Chris Young Looks To Continue Rebound

Wednesday – RHP Chris Young (1-3, 6.41 ERA) v. Nick Tropeano (1-0, 1.69 ERA)

So far in 2016, Young has sandwiched two very Chris Young-esque starts with two real stinkers, giving up just four runs in 11 innings in the bread starts and 10 runs over 8.2 innings in the meat starts.

Coming off a start in which he gave up just two runs over six innings of work, as well as striking out 10, Young has another chance to re-establish his position as the Royals fourth starter.

Despite the struggles, Young has still struck out more batters than innings pitched (20 to 19.2), even with that being aided by his 10 strikeout performance last week.

Young only threw one inning against the Angels in 2015, but he did make two starts against a much better 2014 squad while he was in the Mariners rotation, giving up just four runs in 12.1 innings, while striking out 12.

Pujols has more at-bats against Young (17) than any other Angel, but has only recorded four hits and one extra-base hit during that span for an average of .235.

Trout has been worse, recording just one hit in six at-bats against Young, which makes sense, given Trout inability to hit pitches up in the zone the last time he faced Young.

Young, as we all know, lives up in the zone.

Opposing Young will be a third-year right-hander in Nick Tropeano, who only has 75.1 Major League innings to his name.

What that means for the Royals is that virtually all of their hitters have never seen Tropeano before.

And when I say virtually all, I mean that Kendrys Morales is the only Royals hitter to see Tropeano, and it was only for two at-bats.

I know about as much about Tropeano as you likely, meaning that I don’t know a whole lot. In fact, until I saw his name on the game preview, I had never heard of him.

After a bit of research, I have concluded that he is a pretty run-of-the-mill Major League starting pitcher.

His fastball sits in the 91-93 range, rarely touching 94, and he throws that pitch over 50% of the time, often closer to 60%.

His main off speed pitches are a slider and a changeup that he mixes up pretty consistently, while also sneaking in a few split-finger fastballs.

If I am not mistaken, this is the first pitcher the Royals have faced this year with a splitter in their arsenal.

I could also be wrong.

Must-See Matchup – Chris Young v. Mike Trout

For those of you who are interested in the deeper scouting aspects of baseball, you understand why this intrigues me. I mentioned it a bit earlier in this slide.

Through 2014, Trout’s Achilles heel was pitches in the upper part of the strike zone, and more specifically, elevated fastballs.

However, he adjusted, and saw much better results in 2015.

Obviously, he still isn’t thriving against that pitch. He wrecked pitches on the inner-upper half of the plate, but still struggled a bit across the plate.

Next: Carlos Beltran to Kansas City in 2017?

However, that skill is still evolving.

With Young being an unapologetic abuser of the top half of the zone, it will be interesting to see who has the advantage in this matchup.