Kevin's Royals Blog

One of the many constants through the Royals’ ten-year run of futility has been a poor track record of developing the organization’s own drafted players. In other words, despite choosing from the same pool of players that successful small-market organizations like Minnesota and Oakland have, too many of the Kansas City draftees have ended up like Roscoe Crosby and Jeff Austin as opposed to Joe Mauer and Dan Johnson.

Most of all, the Royals have had a combination of terrible luck and even more terrible planning when it comes to developing young pitchers. Austin, Colt Griffin, Chad Durbin, and Jeremy Affeldt among others have all proven to be disappointments to varying degrees. All were talented pitchers, and all fell flat on their faces once they left the amateur ranks and started pitching in the Royals’ minor-league system. As much as I’d like to understand why, it’s difficult for an outsider such as myself to even speculate as to what Oakland, Minnesota, and Florida do in their player development programs that the Royals don’t.

All of which leads us to the latest possible talented pitching casualty, Zack Greinke. Since the beginning of summer, it’s been pretty clear that Zack’s problems ran just a tad deeper than being in a funk, and that said problems kept digging the Royals’ grave just a tad (read: miles) deeper with every horrible outing. Last Sunday’s start against the Yankees wasn’t any exception. In 4.2 innings of work, Greinke surrendered seven runs and 10 hits, eight of which staying in the park. His ERA soared to 6.28, which is easily one of the worst figures in Major League Baseball.

My question, of course, is why. How could such a talented pitcher prove he’s more than ready to pitch against Major League hitters one year, and look completely lost the next? Two immediate answers come to mind. First, he could be injured and not telling anyone about it (remember the line drive he took off his pitching elbow in Detroit in April?). The other is that dreaded sophomore slump, in which a second-year player can’t buy a hit or, in Greinke’s case, an out. However, those explanations provide possible circumstances for why Greinke might be running into trouble. And while this subject has been beaten to death by Royals fans trying to drown away their Greinke-induced sorrows like Jose Lima‘s "fountain pitches" at Kauffman Stadium, what I (and if you all still care, we) want to know is how. Here’s how Greinke has performed in 2005 compared to 2004:

         IP     H/9     SO/9     BB/9     HR/9     ERA
2004     145    8.88    6.21     1.61     1.61     3.97
2005     147.2  11.86   5.69     2.81     1.22     6.28

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I don’t have to tell you this, but there’s no question that Zack Greinke’s regressed this year in most of the categories that he controls. His walk rate -- something Greinke prides himself on -- is up 75 percent from his rookie season. Additionally, his strikeout rate has fallen by about eight percent and he’s had to throw about 300 more pitches in 2005 in a similar number of innings. The only thing that he’s improved at is keeping the ball in the ballpark, allowing 24 percent fewer homers per nine innings pitched.

However, that hasn’t stopped hitters from teeing off on him anyway. The number that stands out to me is the alarming number of hits that Zack has allowed per nine innings pitched. For the season, he’s given up 34 percent more hits than he did last year, an extremely massive jump for a one-year gap.

There’s little doubt that Greinke, evidenced by his decline in strikeout-to-walk ratio, hasn’t located his pitches nearly as well as he did last year, which, along with “the book” being out on him, helps explain why AL batters are hitting him so hard. However, hope is alive because it doesn’t explain why so many of those hard-hit balls are finding holes in the defense. And while Voros McCracken’s original theory that pitchers have virtually no control over whether a batted ball is turned into an out or lands safely for a hit has been tailored and somewhat dis-proven over the years, the main idea -- that pitchers sometimes have to rely on luck -- still holds some significance.

For the season, Greinke has allowed the sixth-highest batting average on balls in play (.345) among all MLB pitchers who‘ve thrown at least 100 innings. Two of the guys ahead of Greinke in the standings -- Jeff Francis and Chan Ho Park -- pitch (or, in Park’s case, did pitch) in two of baseball’s harrowed launching pads for half of the season. Basically, if a guy isn’t pitching in Ameriquest Field or Coors Field, it’s extremely difficult for 35 percent of the balls put in play against you to turn into hits. Consider this: The only KC starting pitcher who’s been worse than Zack’s been this year, Lima, has “only” allowed a .311 BABIP.

However, a high BABIP isn’t only an indictment of poor luck, it’s also an indicator of a poor defense. According to Baseball Prospectus’ Defensive Efficiency statistic -- the rate at which balls in play are converted into outs -- the Royals have the worst defense in baseball, converting just 66 percent of balls in play into outs. Perhaps the Royals should follow Carl Peterson’s lead and get a Patrick Surtain of their own.

So just how unlucky has Greinke been this year in the runs department? A good way to answer that is by using Fielding Independent Pitching Statistics, or FIP for short. The brainchild of Tangotiger, FIP is pretty self-explanatory. It’s simply an indicator of how well a pitcher pitched, regardless of how well his fielders fielded. The category on the far right (FIP minus ERA) is a method I like to use to determine which pitchers have been lucky and which should invest a few bucks into a new rabbit’s foot. Check it out:

         ERA     FIP     FIP-ERA
2004     3.97    4.94    0.97
2005     6.28    4.73    -1.55

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According to FIP, Greinke's actually pitched better independent of his defense than he did a year ago. We all know that isn't an absolute truth, but it’s amazing how good fortune has a way of turning itself into misfortune anyway, isn’t it? A year ago, Greinke had the damning label of being one of the luckiest pitchers in baseball, meaning he’d likely suffer through a period of regression. I don’t think anybody expected him to be this bad, but looking back on it, the league catching up to him wasn’t a totally random event.

In summation, the Royals need to keep a close eye on Zack because of the declining rates in the things he controls, but need to do so with the understanding that there’s stuff going on that are almost completely out of his hands. Unlike Austin, Griffin, Chris George, and now Jimmy Gobble (to an extent) before him, all isn't lost. I still think he’s going to be a very good pitcher and, as a result, that the Royals need to roll the dice and sign him to a long-term contract.

From The Dugout...

Anymore, I rarely have a beef with Royals GM Allard Baird, but tonight I do. Before Tuesday's game against the Twins, the Royals shipped reliever Jonah Bayliss back to Double-A Wichita for the second time this year and called up outfielder Matt Diaz.

Unfortunately, what the Royals are doing with Bayliss isn't an unusual pattern of behavior for the organization. I'm no expert on player psychology, but I'd guess that a guy being shipped up and down between the minors and the majors would hurt that guy's development and chances of being a productive player. If I had things my way, the Royals' minor-leaguers would stay in the minors until there's a unanimous feeling that they're ready for the show. After being called to Kansas City, the player wouldn't go back to the minors for any other reason than an emergency injury situation.

There is a mental side to baseball, and a player knowing that he doesn't have to worry about making seven- and eight-hour bus trips would probably be a confidence boost. Right now, the Royals can use all the confidence they can get.

Is there anything worse than having Super Joe McEwing and Denny Hocking in the same lineup? To think, I believed the Craig Paquette, Cleanup Hitter days were the most unwatchable games ever.

Speaking of Hocking, Dick Kaegel, the beat writer for kcroyals.com, included this in his pre-game Notes article:

Country truth: When it came to picking an intro song when he comes to bat, infielder Denny Hocking went to a Toby Keith hit about an aging good ol' boy.

I ain't as good as I once was, but I'm as good once as I ever was.

"If I'm not having fun, it's going to be a long day," Hocking said, "so I'm not afraid to poke fun at myself."

I appreciate Denny for having a sense of humor, but I think Nine Inch Nails' Suck would've been a more appropriate song choice for him, no matter what the lyrics are about.

I was going to wait to announce this, but since I want to get some interest in KRB fired up again, I'll go ahead and let everybody know that I'm in the process of bringing you a comprehensive interview with a 2005 Royals high draft pick. I think it'll be a very enjoyable read, and we all will likely get to know this person a more personal level beyond baseball.

I know that most of you loaded up the new-look KRB today to read something about the Royals or baseball in general, but sometimes, baseball doesn't seem at all important to me when compared to the things that really matter. As a result, I periodically like to write about life and/or the people in my world. I express myself best in writing, so when times get tough, putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, in this case) is almost always very therapeutic for me.

My grandmother passed away on Friday night and was buried yesterday at a service in which I served as a pallbearer. Needless to say, times got very tough for me this past weekend. It wasn't that her death was tragic or anything; she lived to be 91 years old and was a very active and special woman up until the very end when her health took a turn for the worse. In fact, my family (and father, in particular) was so prepared for this that I, as a grandchild, was encouraged to write something in her memory. However, since I misunderstood what the memoriam was going to be (the tri-fold funeral program that's customarily given away at funerals), I wrote about four times as much as I needed to and, as a result, had my essay edited down to an extreme degree.

That's where KRB comes in. Although I'm not entirely sure how appropriate it is here, in place of the customary baseball-related stuff, I'd like to share that essay about Edna Agee, a woman who will always have a special place in my heart:

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“What else can I do for you today?”

In our everyday lives, we hear the words, “What else can I do for you today?” in every single imaginable setting. Think about it for a moment. Finished thinking? If so, here’s an example: a person calling his cell phone company to get a question answered will almost certainly hear that phrase spoken by the representative on the other end of the line after he or she -- hopefully -- has solved the problem. Similarly, waiters and waitresses at restaurants making two or more “Can I get you anything else?” trips to somebody’s table certainly isn’t an unusual sight. It’s only courteous, even if they ask in hopes that the customer will cave and order a triple-fudge chocolate tower of goodness. For the record, I’d like a refill.

All kidding aside, no matter what the environment in which we typically hear it, “What else can I do for you today?” and variations of the phrase are almost always uttered with the best of intentions. It’s a way to verbally extend a helping hand, a method used to open doors of possibility, and a blatantly-obvious sign that says, “I care about you.” However, the trouble with that question is how amazingly easy it is to present. In most cases, the amount of obligation attached to it -- after that particular visit -- is zero. A cable technician might be concerned about maximizing his usefulness to the customer during his appointed time, but in all likelihood, he isn’t all that concerned about being of help in other areas of that customer’s life. Such unintentional insincerity can even extend to families. It isn’t something anybody wants to hear, but let’s be real for a moment: we’ve all hosted large family parties and oftentimes, breathed a sigh of relief when the last person has left for the evening.

You see, while it’s one thing to ask it and genuinely be concerned about somebody’s well-being for any period of time -- be it 30 minutes or 24 hours -- it’s quite another to live it. That takes commitment. It requires unselfishness. And most importantly, its main prerequisite is having a heart of gold. So, would it be safe to say that Edna “Grandma” Agee had it all? Heck yeah, I think so. Safer than a $100 bill at Fort Knox. But let’s not short ourselves here. She didn’t just have it all, she always had it all. When I was a youngster, my dad -- Edna’s only son, Don -- told me that when he and his three sisters were growing up in Lebanon, Edna and my grandfather, Alva, almost never spent a dime on themselves, instead choosing to make sure their four children had everything they needed. Whatever was left over was put into savings. How about that?

Fast-forwarding to the 1990s, my memories of visiting her at the farmhouse and her new place don’t have much of anything to do with in-the-room items. Sure, I’ll always associate her with gardening tools, the very-realistic-looking decorative dog, Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman, and, of course, a $5 bill in a Christmas card. I don’t even consider preparing food -- what I always considered her greatest pride -- to be my most vivid recollection. That is until it was time for Mom, Dad, and myself to head for home, an act that always seemed to trigger Grandma’s already-amazing “giving” reflex and boost it into warp speed. “Well, if you’re gonna go,” she’d tell us, “you should take some food with you!”

Our typical response of, “No thanks, that’s all right. You keep it, Grandma” wasn’t made because we didn’t want to bring her delicious leftovers and cinnamon applesauce back to Springfield. Consider it more a fundamental disagreement over the definition of “some food.” Using that stubborn, giving manner she’d clearly mastered at a very young age Grandma always seemed to win these arguments, meaning that we usually ended up with at least one food from each of the six food groups. I’m still not sure if she actually had more food than she could eat herself, wanted to weight the car down so we wouldn’t drive too fast on the highway, just got a kick out of always emerging victorious in the Agee Family Food Standoff, or a combination of the three.

Come to think of it, she probably didn’t have any control over how much she gave, when she gave, or what she gave. It’s a trait that was always in her blood, and it was the only way that she knew how to do things. In every single day of her life, Edna not only asked, “What else can I do for you today?,” but also, “What else can I do for you today, tomorrow, next Thursday, and next year?” And make no mistake, because she’s still giving. Giving us a model to use in the way we live our lives every day.

Springfield News-Leader

On the night that Southwest Missouri State University officially became Missouri State University (pictured), KRB has made its return.

After a long and very unsuccessful run writing at All-Baseball.com’s Kauffman Confidential, I resigned my position with the Most Valuable Network last night to return to, as Orange & Black Baseball’s Daniel Smith put it, my "internet roots." There’s no question that being linked with MVN, an accredited member of Major League Baseball, was such a tremendous opportunity that I was perhaps a little crazy to just quit, but the truth of the matter is that I was uncomfortable over there from the get-go.

That may sound a little peculiar to most if not all of you. After all, if one’s main focus is writing about the Royals, what difference does it make where that person’s writing appears? In a way it doesn’t make a bean’s worth of difference, but in another -- my personal way -- it makes a whole world’s worth of difference. After awhile, I found that I’d lost my passion for writing. I wasn’t really sure why for the longest time, but after doing some thinking, I came up with a few reasons: Most importantly, I wasn’t down with sharing the page with Bill Heeter, who’s as passionate a Royals fan as you’ll find. I didn’t like the restriction of having to write almost exclusively about the Royals. Least importantly, I didn’t like the layout. Basically, I couldn’t set my own rules to the fullest extent and have that "personal touch", and that’s why I’m back here.

Moving past that, I decided that KRB’s return couldn’t happen without a brand-new layout so, after playing around with a few templates, I fell in love with this one and launched it early Saturday morning. It’s simple (which is what I liked about the old layout), but with a nice fancy touch at the top of the page. Hey, what self-respecting Royals blog would be complete without a picture of the beautiful Kauffman Stadium featured prominently on the front page?

Additionally, if you’ll look at the sidebar, you’ll see that KRB has a new Official Fantasy Girl. Yes, I’ve moved past my obsession with one attractive girl who can’t sing and have replaced her with an even-more attractive girl who can sing. I’m not expecting Carrie Underwood to be dethroned anytime soon. Her combination of looks and talent makes up what’s pretty much the sexiest girl I’ve ever seen in my life. If you’ve been living under a rock for the past six months or so and don‘t know who the hell I‘m talking about, click on the “Carrie Underwood” link, and check out her performance videos. You’ll thank me later, I promise.

I think that covers it, aside from the JEREMY AFFELDT SUCKS! section I may be starting soon. So let’s get back into the swing of things, enjoy Royals baseball, and most of all, have some fun along the way!

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