Royals Straight Dope: All National MLB Writers Please Read

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?