Breaking Down Baseball: What is a quality start in baseball and why should KC Royals fans care?
What exactly is a quality start and why does it matter for the KC Royals?
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Starting pitching struggles and the KC Royals have gone hand-in-hand for years now. The team has only had two pitchers with at least 10 wins above replacement (WAR) across their Royals careers since 2000. For reference, the Royals had 10 pitchers with at least 10 WAR from 1973 to 2000. That is a crazy disparity.
Let's look at what a quality start is and why it matters to the KC Royals.
One way Royals fans can try to identify which starters are actually succeeding is by looking at quality starts. The term describes a starting pitcher's outings with at least six innings pitched and three earned runs or fewer. These are simple benchmarks in a baseball world that adds more and more advanced metrics every year.
The term is hardly a new one. Philadelphia Inquirer writer John Lowe introduced a quality start in 1985. The article. titled A stat for off-season: A new gauge of starting pitchers, laid out the reasoning Lowe introduced the term.
The foremost attribute of this statistic is that it shows exactly how many times a man has done exactly what his job is-pitch well enough for his team to have a chance to win.
Lowe pointed out that a quality start does two things. First, it drowns out the importance of a pitcher's win-loss record. Royals fans should know better than others that a pitcher can have a quality start, but still receive a loss simply because of no run support. For example, Royals legend Zack Greinke had 99 quality starts in his first stint in Kansas City. Yet he had a 60-67 record in 127 starts from 2004–2010.
Fans unaware of Greinke's performance may see that record and think of him as a pedestrian starter. But the 99 quality starts show that Greinke kept Kansas City within striking distance more often than not. Greinke doing so for so long exhibits pitching longevity Kansas City fans have not seen in a long time. But the quality of starts over a season still matters for the 2023 Royals.
Who leads the 2023 Royals in quality starts?
Player | # of Quality Starts |
---|---|
Brady Singer | 9 |
Cole Ragans | 6 |
Jordan Lyles | 4 |
Daniel Lynch IV | 4 |
Zack Greinke | 2 |
Kris Bubic | 1 |
Brad Keller | 1 |
Alec Marsh | 1 |
The number of quality starts a pitcher has should help Royals fans project the 2024 rotation better. Ragans has unquestionably been the Royals best pitcher since the All-Star break, but Lynch over Singer is not a popular pick. The numbers do not lie, though.
This also shows what starters need to leave Kansas City. Greinke has the fewest quality starts among pitchers, with at least 20 starts in 2023. The player above him? None other than Jordan Lyles. Both are huge negatives in the Royals rotation this season, but Royals fans did not need to be reminded of that.
The ratios are everything in quality, as well. For example, Lyles has had more starts than Lynch this season. Let's look at the percentage of starts that were quality ones for each starter, sorted by their total quality starts this season.
Player | % of Quality Starts |
---|---|
Brady Singer | 33% |
Cole Ragans | 66% |
Jordan Lyles | 15% |
Daniel Lynch IV | 44% |
Zack Greinke | 9% |
Kris Bubic | 33% |
Brad Keller | 11% |
Alec Marsh | 13% |
This paints a different picture. Instead of Singer leading the rotation by a healthy margin, he ties for the third-best percentage in the Royals rotation. Greinke's disappointing 2023 season sees a new low, and Royals fans are reminded that Kris Bubic started out the season strong before undergoing Tommy John surgery.
No statistic is perfect in baseball, which is why there are so many of them. But a quality start is a quick way to see which starters keep their team in the game the best. I like the quality start percentage because even bad pitchers can rack up a few quality starts over the course of a season. It takes more skill and effort to pitch six innings with three or fewer runs allowed in the majority of games.
This is also your reminder to hitch the 2024 wagon to Cole Ragans and see what happens.
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