Royals Straight Dope: All National MLB Writers Please Read

Are the KC Royals a good baseball team? How good? Why? How long has this been going on? What about their starting pitchers? How did the local KC radio jockeys miss it?

If you don’t ask the right questions, you’ll never find the answers.

You will learn more about the Kansas City Royals in this article than has ever been printed. Dayton Moore‘s book More Than A Season is very good and I recommend it highly. But Dayton Moore  CAN’T say his team is twice as good as yours and he WON’T tell you why they are. I will try. Please feel free to contact me for more information regarding this subject. Especially national sportswriters.

MLB writers; It’s not your fault. You are used to writing the scores, then out of the blue, the game itself changes. I know it’s not fair, but let’s move past that. I won’t ask you to forget everything you’ve been taught up to this point, we can use some of it. We just need to do some major altering.

Let’s get started:

Next: Answering Some Questions

Are the KC Royals a good baseball team?

Great question. Don’t assume. Ask. Start from square one.

Yes, they are a good baseball team.

How good?

Pretty darn good. They are the best team in baseball now and have been for almost 3 years. One day someone will come along and take that title from them. But it wasn’t any of the 12 super-hot teams that have come and gone in that time. Nor is it the 13th, the Chicago Cubs who won’t make the World Series in 2016.

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• KC Royals: Let the Ryan O’Hearn Watch begin…again
• KC Royals Roster Moves: 3 players added, 1 re-signed
• KC Royals News: Awards, a new coach, and more

When the time comes the Royals will recognize there is a better team and respectfully hand over that mantle. It won’t be to a team that they are twice as good as, like when they were recently asked to hand it over to the Chicago White Sox.

During their run the KC Royals have set more records that a 1965 Wurlitzer jukebox.

The last time any baseball team was this devastating, was the NY Yankees 1996-2000 team. But that was a different era for baseball. The Yankees actually didn’t earn many wins during that span. They bought and paid for almost every one. Lessor teams like the Royals and many other small market clubs were serving as nothing more than minor league teams to the biggies.

Most of the old-time Royals fans bolted their team not due to losing, as many have incorrectly suggested, but due to the lack of trying to field a serious team.  The Yankees were in the World Series 4 of those 5 seasons because there was no competition allowed at that time in MLB.

So you have to go back a lot further to find a team as totally devastating as the KC Royals.

Why?

It’s a pretty simple formula. They aren’t a minor league team anymore. Every player is available to them now. And they can keep their good players. It’s the “homegrown” process that Moore likes to champion. Players that were drafted into the system early by their extremely talented group of scouts. Giving players away because they are too talented is not an option anymore. They are a “buyer” at the trade deadline now, not a “seller”. And no more giving away the good players that they had worked so hard to procure.

It’s nice to be the best:

Next: The Best Of Something

How Long Has This Been Going On?

Thanks for the question Marvin Gaye. July 19th 2013 when the KC Royals beat the Detroit Tigers 1-0.  It was the first game after the all-star game. Mark it down. Since that game the Royals have beat every team in every possible category to measure who is the best team.

Wins #1. Series wins #1, Playoffs games won #1, World Series games won #1, Least games lost, least series lost, Best Playoff win %, Most all-star players, Best team in baseball, Best Bullpen, and the most World Series rings. (700) And you really think they are worried about who is the hottest new team of the moment?

More from KC Royals News

• KC Royals: No seismic moves announced by tender deadline
• KC Royals Free Agent Hunt: Any help in San Diego?
• KC Royals: Let the Ryan O’Hearn Watch begin…again
• KC Royals Roster Moves: 3 players added, 1 re-signed
• KC Royals News: Awards, a new coach, and more

This date is very important. Typically as a writer, you should go back to the date of the turnaround. This helps define the important moments. Did Raul Ibanez‘s clubhouse speech turn it around for the Royals? Probably not since that happened 12 months after the fact. How about adding the great Jonny Gomes? Same thing, too late.

What about Johnny Cueto and Ben Zobrist, that’s what you need to look at as a typical sportswriter. But those happened so long after the Royals made their original move, you’ll get no help looking there. Go back to 7/19/2013.

If you can’t figure it out from that, ask. It is was extremely subtle. It explains the when, the why, and the how.  I can tell if the Royals are going to win on a specific night because of this. I know what they need to do to win and usually whether or not they will.

I personally told two St Louis Cardinals fans that KC would beat them in a series, because the Royals were a better team than they were. While THEY were in the World Series! In 2013! The Royals hadn’t been in the playoffs in 30 years, but I’m telling Cards fans the Royals were better than them. Got some good laughs. But the joke was on them, they were a better team at that time and have been every day since 7/19/2013.

Had KC made the playoffs that year, which they almost did, having the best record in baseball after the all-star game, they would have won easily. No one was beating them in a series at that time. The Royals would have beat the Cardinals in that series in 2013 just like Boston did.

What makes them a super team? Look back to 2013 dawg. Ask yourself why they started winning on that day. Were they just hot like so many other teams since? It’s the same today. Ned Yost knows the answer and he knows his job is easy. He knew it in July of 2013.

Next: What About The Starters?

What About The Starters?

This is tricky, but it’s the key. It also belongs under the “why” category. This is the main reason all baseball teams are misjudged and by so much.

Think about the NY Yankees with Babe Ruth in the late 20’s. What was important in baseball? How did it break down? Here’s my rough estimate about positional values in 1930; 45% batting, 45% pitching, 10% misc. (base running, coaching, aggressive play, etc.) Relief pitching .5%.

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Batting 45% then, 29% now. Falling.

Starting pitching 45% then, 28% now. Falling

Relief pitching .5% then, 26% now. Skyrocketing

That comes to 83%. Leaving 17% (rising) for misc. (base running, defense, coaching, clubhouse attitude, team speed etc..)

This is where the mistake is made. It was said last season during the World Series that the Mets had better pitching than the Royals. That was dead wrong. The Royals pitching staff was much better than the Mets. The NY STARTERS were better than the Royals starters but not by near as much as the Royals relievers were better than the NY relievers. So the odd thing about the Mets having better pitchers than the Royals, was that in actuality, the Royals had better pitching than the Mets, and by quite a bit.

This changing positional percentage is the key to why the Royals are so underrated and misunderstood. As the pitcher and batter value drop like a rock and the reliever values skyrocket, we are left to assume what will happen in the future. Has the number for relief pitchers steadied? Or is it going to keep rising? That is what Moore is betting on and right now it looks like he’s winning and that leaves plenty of losing to go around.

Next: How Did Local Media Miss All Of This?

How Did KC’s Local Media Miss All Of This?

This is a simple one. Even the good announcers like Josh Vernier missed it. Josh is excellent let’s start with that. Like the great Denny Mathews, a real baseball guy. Those are the only two that can forecast future events with any regularity, that I am aware of.  When I came up with these theories four and five years ago, only Josh was feeling it too. He was generally two or three months behind because he hadn’t figured out my positional percentage theory.

Last year he was off because he thought it was going to be all about the starting pitching. Ventura and Duffy “had” to perform well. That was a miscalculation. They were starting pitchers which Josh gave (and still gives, though less) too much weight.

More from KC Royals News

• KC Royals: No seismic moves announced by tender deadline
• KC Royals Free Agent Hunt: Any help in San Diego?
• KC Royals: Let the Ryan O’Hearn Watch begin…again
• KC Royals Roster Moves: 3 players added, 1 re-signed
• KC Royals News: Awards, a new coach, and more

He was thinking they were 45% like they were in the old days but they were actually closer to 28%. He also wasn’t giving full credit to the relievers and their skyrocketing values. If Ventura and Duffy didn’t play at all last year the Royals still would have won the World Series.

Will the day come when relievers are more valuable than starters? According to the numbers, probably yes. The only question is how high they will go and how low the batters and pitchers will go. This brings us to Wade Davis. He’s pretty good. No, he’s not “pretty good” he’s without a doubt one of the best if not THE best player in baseball. This was missed due to everyone underestimating the value of a relief pitcher. And overvaluing the starters and batters.

The 610 traffic jockeys missed all of this because baseball is really not their area of expertise in the first place. So they ran with the starting pitching being the key without having heard of the positional percentage theory. You can’t blame them for that. Before a World Series game, one of them told me that many in KC think Eric Hosmer has the smoothest swing on the Royals.

I felt pretty bad for them after that as I was imagining Hoz’ violent swing, so I went back and told them; “Hoz is the most aggressive runner on the Royals, not the fastest, but the most aggressive.” Wanted to give them some juicy info for their listeners since they were in over their heads covering the Royals in the World Series. The rest is history. “What did that nut job tell us about Hoz being an aggressive runner or something? Oh well, it probably wasn’t important.”

SAFE!

Next: Omar Infante Clears Waivers, Possible Landing Spot

Homework for national sportswriters, oddsmakers and local traffic jockeys:

Reevaluate your player values.