KC Royals: Looking At How 2016 Luck Affects 2017 Projections

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For the KC Royals, one bounce can change the whole outcome of a game. Being lucky or unlucky can even determine if a season was a success or disappointment. I’ll take a look at some the players on the Royals that are due for an increase or decrease in production.

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These are the players that had trouble getting a break in 2016. You can tell this through certain detailed stats that explain luck.

Mike Moustakas

The real bad luck for Moustaks came from a collision with Alex Gordon on a foul ball that ended his season prematurely. The biggest disappointment from this injury was that we weren’t going to get to see a full season from Moustakas after an April and May that saw him flashing some elite power. But even will all the great production coming from his bat, he was a very unlucky hitter last year.

When Moustakas was healthy, he got few breaks on balls in play, evidenced by his .240 BABIP. Between the beginning of the season and late May, when Moustakas played, his BABIP came in 265th out of 277 hitters with at least 100 plate appearances. It wasn’t really a mechanical flaw either. As many Kansas City Royals fans saw, Moustakas may have improved even more from his all-star 2015. His hard hit % increased by about 6%. Moustakas also set a career high opposite %, suggesting maybe he can start to beat the shift more.

If Moustakas can start out with better luck this year and build off his recent success, he could maybe unleash a monster 2017 season.

Brandon Moss

Like Moustakas, BABIP wasn’t the nicest friend to Brandon Moss. One of the newer acquisitions of the KC Royals, many people hope he can fill the production that left in Kendrys Morales. The power is always there for Moss. The thing that is inconsitant is the batting average. And Moss isn’t to fond off it either.

At first glance, when you see Moss make contact, you don’t expect him to have a bad batting average. Last year, Moss was 8th in the MLB in average distance per ball in play, at 250 feet. So some good results would be expected. Well, last year Moss had a .102 BABIP on flyballs, well below his career average. This was also 145th out of 185 players with at least 100 flyballs hit. I would expect some positive regression for Moss this year.

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Joakim Soria

As I mentioned in a tweet recently, Joakim Soria had a very strange return with the Royals. In 2016, Joakim Soria’s BABIP rose from .263 to .323 in one year. You could suggest this happened because he is an aging relief pitcher, but last year Soria lowered his line drive %. For further evidence, among 22 relief pitchers with a BABIP higher than .320, Soria had the 6th lowest LD%.

Another odd thing was that his HR/FB% rose even after moving to Kauffman Stadium. I would think Soria has much better season this year. One thing to worry about though is the raising walk rate.

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These Kansas City Royals hitters always seemed to find the four leave clover in 2016. Expect them to decline this year.

Paulo Orlando

Last year Paulo Orlando hit a pace nobody expected he would, posting a .302 batting average. Paulo Orlando also had the 8th best BABIP among hitters with at least 250 plate appearances. This made a lot of sense, because Orlando raised his batting average 53 points. He did this even after decreasing his LD% and hard hit %.

I hold hope, though, that Orlando can still keep this up. Last year he started hitting more groundballs, which with his speed will result in more hits. Orlando is also very extremely hard to prepare for. He showed a great skill in spraying the ball all over the field in 2016.

Though he likely can’t sustain his insanely high BABIP, I think if he can keep his good approach at the plate, he can still be a serviceable major league player.

Whit Merrifield

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