Trying to keep it positive after a win. Honestly, it doesn’t matter anymore anyway….but still engaged with the team as much as can be without watching. Here’s my question for you on this Thursday -
What is the reason for the pitchers having low strikeout numbers? I ask because as much as we dog Eldred (deservedly so)….its usually the catchers calling the game. And we have/had Salvy, whose been doing this a long time. So are we to blame the catchers for some of the low strikeouts, high walks? It’s got to be either STUFF (get better pitchers), COMMAND (for sure….but get better pitchers/coaching), SEQUENCING (I put this more on catchers), GAME PLAN (coaching). I mean, I’m sure its all the above….but where do you put the most blame on the pitchers not being able to strike guys out….past Eldred…we already know about that one.
That's a very difficult question to answer because there isn't one factor that's making them not strike hitters out. Some of it is their philosophy. It's a bit archaic. Everyone wants early count outs, but the Royals prioritize that at times over the swing and miss. Some of it is the personnel. A guy like Brad Keller, for example, is not someone who is going to get a lot of strikeouts. I think he could, which goes back a bit to philosophy, but he's trying to get ground balls and those guys tend to have lower strikeout totals. Some of it is poor game calling and game planning, which is hard to know who is in charge of the game calling at least. I've never been a fan of the game calling from Salvy, but I have my doubts that MJ is calling his own pitches, for example.
But I also think it's quite a bit of youth. I know that Eno Sarris rates stuff in a statistical way and that model doesn't see it from Royals pitchers, but it's hard for me to watch Brady Singer's sinker/slider mix and Daniel Lynch's slider and sometimes four-seamer when he gets it up in the zone and Jonathan Heasley's slider and changeup and Jackson Kowar's changeup and Kris Bubic's changeup when he doesn't leave it center cut and think they don't have the stuff to get strikeouts. It feels like we're seeing Singer turn a corner a bit on this. He has a 24% strikeout rate since he's come back. Lynch has shown it at times. I think once they learn a bit more how to go about putting a hitter away, they'll start to get strikeouts. But that does come back to Cal, who is incapable of teaching those things properly.
It's a fine line to blame everything on inexperience, though, because that's hoping they can come out the other side. But look at a guy like Max Scherzer. The stuff is obvious. But in his first three full seasons, his strikeout rates were 23.5%, 23% and 20.9%. It was a different time, so those aren't the same as those rates today, but still, it wasn't what he would turn into. Aaron Nola was 21.4% his rookie year. Gerrit Cole was 21.3%, 24.2%, 24.3%, 19.4% and 23.1% in his first five seasons. Sure, he jumped because of better coaching, but the point is that the strikeout can be the last thing to come for a lot of guys.
I have my concerns that it'll ever come for these guys if they don't make a change in the coaching staff, but I keep coming back to the idea that there are other teams who would LOVE for the Royals to give up on some of these young arms and my hope is in the idea that they'll do the right thing and get better coaching soon. I don't know that the hope is based in anything, but it's my hope nonetheless.
Dozier had a good game. He gets a well deserved rap for his defense, but I actually think he's an above average first baseman. The two most important characteristics for a first baseman by far are wingspan and the ability to dig balls out of the dirt. Both of these characteristics/abilities lead directly to outs which otherwise would be baserunners, often advancing multiple bases. Dozier has the height and arm length, and seemingly a pretty good ability to dig low throws. If I'm a contender and my first baseman gets injured, he's a pretty good candidate.
I still think Dozier is a great fit for the Red Sox. They're getting very little from first base and have two corner outfielders who could use a righty platoon partner. Plus, J.D. Martinez is a free agent, so they could use a DH. And if they're wanting to go big to keep Bogaerts and/or Devers, it wouldn't hurt to have someone relatively inexpensive.
The last three nights I have missed the early part of the game, tuning in to see nice Royals leads. So I settle in thinking this should be fun to watch, only to see it slowly given away the first two night. I tune in last night thinking the same thing when I see 5-1, and just like ancient water torture it is soon 5-4. Gritting my teeth, I reach for the remote as I vow not to watch another stomach-turning loss. Just as I do, the words that make up your headline cross my mind, and I decide to tough it out. I'm glad I did, and I appreciate your summary today. I guess a win and two near-wins vs. a really good team is a bit of a moral victory, and it is certainly good to see some early offense. BTW, not sure what the stats say, but Dozier is passing the eye test at first, IMHO. I've gone from thinking he should be traded to seeing he could be the bridge to Pratto.
At least on Tuesday night, they lost the lead quickly. It was a slow enough burn on Monday and it sure felt like last night would be another one. And to make matters worse, it was mostly little bloops and bleeders. But yeah, they held on and they haven't been run off the field, which I guess is good.
Dozier has looked better at first recently, but the issue with him being that bridge is that Pratto should be up soon, so might as well move on Dozier now!
How accurate do you think the speculation is that Pratto hasn't been called up because of his K rate?
My concern is this: maybe the real reason is that they have no intention of dealing Dozier, and they see him getting most of his playing time at 1B, so they don't see how they can get many PA's for Pratto without taking them away from Vinnie.
If they're not going to trade Dozier, my solution would be to play him at 3B, live with his defense, and bring Pratto up now. (Assuming they believe that Dozier HAS to play more or less every day.) If they're not going to trade Pratto before he ever sees a pitch in MLB (which might be an idea with some merit) then the sooner the big league evaluation of Pratto begins, the better.
The walk rate has been crazy to me. If you give the new hitting coaches two weeks to get their message across and start looking at the numbers from May 28 on, they have a 9% walk rate, which is SEVENTH IN ALL OF BASEBALL. WHAT???? Also a 104 wRC+ (16th), 36 home runs (18th) and a 20.6% strikeout rate (7th best).
This offense and the transformation has me hopeful that they'll do the right thing with the pitching staff and get someone in there who can help them figure it all out. I'm not saying things WILL turn fast, but they absolutely could if they can get these young pitchers on track. I'm quite confident Cal can't do it, but there's someone in the world who can.
After all the static the organization gave him for "fooling around with all that computer statistics crap" and "overthinking every single pitch" that seems incredibly unlikely to me.
Dammit, I wish I could remember who said that to him. Buddy Bell, probably. Maybe Dayton his own imperial self. Another opportunity destroyed by obsolete thinking.
Regarding Barlow's increased velocity and spin rate Wednesday night: do you think that was primarily just because he had Tuesday off? Or is there some other cause that contributed to that?
His velocity has been steadily climbing, so I don't think that had anything to do with the day off. I think the short spring really hurt him from that perspective and he's getting it back. The spin rate, I really don't know but it was up a lot on Monday too, so maybe it's just a good mound or a good set of balls in Houston? Could be a lot of things.
I noticed in the comments Nick Pratto's name came up a couple of times. I wish he was already up here, but I realize they're going to have to move a few players to make room for him. Who do you think are the main targets to be traded. I also noticed talk of trading Beni and one of target players coming back was the Groshens kid from Toronto. What do you think about him at 3rd base?
I would love to get Groshans for Benny, but that seems like a bigger return than he’d likely get. Still, the biggest potential movers are Benny, Dozier, Whit and Taylor. I’m not expecting Whit or Dozier to go, but I think there’s at least a decent chance Taylor does.
Maybe? It's so hard to say because I don't really know what their thought process is on these things. It's easy to say that they're competing with the Yankees so they would want to keep the Yankees from getting Benny, but they're also not really even competing with the Yankees at this point, so maybe it's not THAT urgent to keep him away from them. I would think the Blue Jays would like the fastball/curve combo on Staumont and they obviously need a bullpen arm or two, so I could see that getting it done.
Bubic's first 5 innings Thursday showed us everything that is so damnably frustrating about the class of '18. In the first four innings he gave up just one hit and no runs to the mighty Astros, an admirable performance against that bunch. OTOH he gave them five walks. It's almost incomprehensible how he kept them from scoring with all of those walks, but he did.
In the 5th inning, apparently in an effort to get the walks under control he threw three horrifyingly hittable "middle-middle" pitches. Unsurprisingly the Astros, being the Astros, knew exactly what to do with them: double, HR, HR. After that experience Bubic reverted to form and walked his 6th.
In total he required 91 pitches to get through five innings, and fewer than 58% of them were strikes. While 18+ pitches per inning is slightly less inefficient than some other performances we've seen lately, it's not significantly so. When he made his exit after one batter in the 6th, he had thrown 98 pitches, 41 of which were balls. Thus the six walks. I've heard of "formulas for success" before, and that ain't it.
As I've said before, it's a shame that the Royals don't have an employee whose job it is to coach the pitchers and help them fix these kinds of problems.
On May 11, Gabe Speier was the Royals starter and pitched two innings. That was the one and only time ALL YEAR LONG, after the first time through the rotation, that a Royals starting pitcher had an ERA under 4.
But "Cal Eldred is doing an excellent job."
Thanks for letting us know that, Dayton. We could never have figured it out on our own. We all feel so incredibly reassured now.
Before the Royals can become a consistent winner they must be a team that no one wants to play. A team that throughout the batting order every of them is at the very least pesky. The pitchers must become stingy with walks, and develop an iron-will resolve on the mound that they'll win many more battles against the opposition in the batter's box than lose.
In short, the Royals are tough to defeat because they won't beat themselves. I look forward to those days again and last nights come from behind victory against Cleveland renewed my hope in my boyhood love.
This team has talent and I don't believe that they are as far off from contending for division titles and more as some think. The right choice for pitching coach could do for the young pitchers what the change of hitting coach did for the hitters on the Royals. Once the young pitchers get over the hump and the promising rookies get better along with adding Massey and others this could become a respectable batting lineup and a team that nobody in baseball wants to play.
We need a full and comprehensive scouting report on Michael A Taylor's pitching arsenal. 20,000 words minimum. Can we safely assume you're already working on it? 😆
Great work, David! I didn’t get a chance to watch the whole game. I understand a lot better and wow, Dozier!
Happy to be of service!
Trying to keep it positive after a win. Honestly, it doesn’t matter anymore anyway….but still engaged with the team as much as can be without watching. Here’s my question for you on this Thursday -
What is the reason for the pitchers having low strikeout numbers? I ask because as much as we dog Eldred (deservedly so)….its usually the catchers calling the game. And we have/had Salvy, whose been doing this a long time. So are we to blame the catchers for some of the low strikeouts, high walks? It’s got to be either STUFF (get better pitchers), COMMAND (for sure….but get better pitchers/coaching), SEQUENCING (I put this more on catchers), GAME PLAN (coaching). I mean, I’m sure its all the above….but where do you put the most blame on the pitchers not being able to strike guys out….past Eldred…we already know about that one.
That's a very difficult question to answer because there isn't one factor that's making them not strike hitters out. Some of it is their philosophy. It's a bit archaic. Everyone wants early count outs, but the Royals prioritize that at times over the swing and miss. Some of it is the personnel. A guy like Brad Keller, for example, is not someone who is going to get a lot of strikeouts. I think he could, which goes back a bit to philosophy, but he's trying to get ground balls and those guys tend to have lower strikeout totals. Some of it is poor game calling and game planning, which is hard to know who is in charge of the game calling at least. I've never been a fan of the game calling from Salvy, but I have my doubts that MJ is calling his own pitches, for example.
But I also think it's quite a bit of youth. I know that Eno Sarris rates stuff in a statistical way and that model doesn't see it from Royals pitchers, but it's hard for me to watch Brady Singer's sinker/slider mix and Daniel Lynch's slider and sometimes four-seamer when he gets it up in the zone and Jonathan Heasley's slider and changeup and Jackson Kowar's changeup and Kris Bubic's changeup when he doesn't leave it center cut and think they don't have the stuff to get strikeouts. It feels like we're seeing Singer turn a corner a bit on this. He has a 24% strikeout rate since he's come back. Lynch has shown it at times. I think once they learn a bit more how to go about putting a hitter away, they'll start to get strikeouts. But that does come back to Cal, who is incapable of teaching those things properly.
It's a fine line to blame everything on inexperience, though, because that's hoping they can come out the other side. But look at a guy like Max Scherzer. The stuff is obvious. But in his first three full seasons, his strikeout rates were 23.5%, 23% and 20.9%. It was a different time, so those aren't the same as those rates today, but still, it wasn't what he would turn into. Aaron Nola was 21.4% his rookie year. Gerrit Cole was 21.3%, 24.2%, 24.3%, 19.4% and 23.1% in his first five seasons. Sure, he jumped because of better coaching, but the point is that the strikeout can be the last thing to come for a lot of guys.
I have my concerns that it'll ever come for these guys if they don't make a change in the coaching staff, but I keep coming back to the idea that there are other teams who would LOVE for the Royals to give up on some of these young arms and my hope is in the idea that they'll do the right thing and get better coaching soon. I don't know that the hope is based in anything, but it's my hope nonetheless.
Dozier had a good game. He gets a well deserved rap for his defense, but I actually think he's an above average first baseman. The two most important characteristics for a first baseman by far are wingspan and the ability to dig balls out of the dirt. Both of these characteristics/abilities lead directly to outs which otherwise would be baserunners, often advancing multiple bases. Dozier has the height and arm length, and seemingly a pretty good ability to dig low throws. If I'm a contender and my first baseman gets injured, he's a pretty good candidate.
I still think Dozier is a great fit for the Red Sox. They're getting very little from first base and have two corner outfielders who could use a righty platoon partner. Plus, J.D. Martinez is a free agent, so they could use a DH. And if they're wanting to go big to keep Bogaerts and/or Devers, it wouldn't hurt to have someone relatively inexpensive.
Agreed. Seems like a good guy. I hope he goes to Boston and wins..... and we get some decent prospects.
The last three nights I have missed the early part of the game, tuning in to see nice Royals leads. So I settle in thinking this should be fun to watch, only to see it slowly given away the first two night. I tune in last night thinking the same thing when I see 5-1, and just like ancient water torture it is soon 5-4. Gritting my teeth, I reach for the remote as I vow not to watch another stomach-turning loss. Just as I do, the words that make up your headline cross my mind, and I decide to tough it out. I'm glad I did, and I appreciate your summary today. I guess a win and two near-wins vs. a really good team is a bit of a moral victory, and it is certainly good to see some early offense. BTW, not sure what the stats say, but Dozier is passing the eye test at first, IMHO. I've gone from thinking he should be traded to seeing he could be the bridge to Pratto.
At least on Tuesday night, they lost the lead quickly. It was a slow enough burn on Monday and it sure felt like last night would be another one. And to make matters worse, it was mostly little bloops and bleeders. But yeah, they held on and they haven't been run off the field, which I guess is good.
Dozier has looked better at first recently, but the issue with him being that bridge is that Pratto should be up soon, so might as well move on Dozier now!
How accurate do you think the speculation is that Pratto hasn't been called up because of his K rate?
My concern is this: maybe the real reason is that they have no intention of dealing Dozier, and they see him getting most of his playing time at 1B, so they don't see how they can get many PA's for Pratto without taking them away from Vinnie.
If they're not going to trade Dozier, my solution would be to play him at 3B, live with his defense, and bring Pratto up now. (Assuming they believe that Dozier HAS to play more or less every day.) If they're not going to trade Pratto before he ever sees a pitch in MLB (which might be an idea with some merit) then the sooner the big league evaluation of Pratto begins, the better.
Something I continue to track: The Royals are now 7th in the AL in walks (248), 8th in OBP (.307) and 11th in home runs (70). We're making progress.
The walk rate has been crazy to me. If you give the new hitting coaches two weeks to get their message across and start looking at the numbers from May 28 on, they have a 9% walk rate, which is SEVENTH IN ALL OF BASEBALL. WHAT???? Also a 104 wRC+ (16th), 36 home runs (18th) and a 20.6% strikeout rate (7th best).
This offense and the transformation has me hopeful that they'll do the right thing with the pitching staff and get someone in there who can help them figure it all out. I'm not saying things WILL turn fast, but they absolutely could if they can get these young pitchers on track. I'm quite confident Cal can't do it, but there's someone in the world who can.
Whatever Brian Bannister's salary is with the Giants, triple it and bring him back.
Honestly, just a blank check. Whatever he wants would be worth it.
After all the static the organization gave him for "fooling around with all that computer statistics crap" and "overthinking every single pitch" that seems incredibly unlikely to me.
Dammit, I wish I could remember who said that to him. Buddy Bell, probably. Maybe Dayton his own imperial self. Another opportunity destroyed by obsolete thinking.
Regarding Barlow's increased velocity and spin rate Wednesday night: do you think that was primarily just because he had Tuesday off? Or is there some other cause that contributed to that?
His velocity has been steadily climbing, so I don't think that had anything to do with the day off. I think the short spring really hurt him from that perspective and he's getting it back. The spin rate, I really don't know but it was up a lot on Monday too, so maybe it's just a good mound or a good set of balls in Houston? Could be a lot of things.
Wouldn't surprise me at all for the mound or the balls in Houston to be "better" than they should be.
All mounds can be slightly different though. Some pitchers like certain mounds better. Barlow might just like the Houston mound.
I noticed in the comments Nick Pratto's name came up a couple of times. I wish he was already up here, but I realize they're going to have to move a few players to make room for him. Who do you think are the main targets to be traded. I also noticed talk of trading Beni and one of target players coming back was the Groshens kid from Toronto. What do you think about him at 3rd base?
I would love to get Groshans for Benny, but that seems like a bigger return than he’d likely get. Still, the biggest potential movers are Benny, Dozier, Whit and Taylor. I’m not expecting Whit or Dozier to go, but I think there’s at least a decent chance Taylor does.
Would Beni and say Staumont be enough to get Groshens? Thanks David.
Maybe? It's so hard to say because I don't really know what their thought process is on these things. It's easy to say that they're competing with the Yankees so they would want to keep the Yankees from getting Benny, but they're also not really even competing with the Yankees at this point, so maybe it's not THAT urgent to keep him away from them. I would think the Blue Jays would like the fastball/curve combo on Staumont and they obviously need a bullpen arm or two, so I could see that getting it done.
Bubic's first 5 innings Thursday showed us everything that is so damnably frustrating about the class of '18. In the first four innings he gave up just one hit and no runs to the mighty Astros, an admirable performance against that bunch. OTOH he gave them five walks. It's almost incomprehensible how he kept them from scoring with all of those walks, but he did.
In the 5th inning, apparently in an effort to get the walks under control he threw three horrifyingly hittable "middle-middle" pitches. Unsurprisingly the Astros, being the Astros, knew exactly what to do with them: double, HR, HR. After that experience Bubic reverted to form and walked his 6th.
In total he required 91 pitches to get through five innings, and fewer than 58% of them were strikes. While 18+ pitches per inning is slightly less inefficient than some other performances we've seen lately, it's not significantly so. When he made his exit after one batter in the 6th, he had thrown 98 pitches, 41 of which were balls. Thus the six walks. I've heard of "formulas for success" before, and that ain't it.
As I've said before, it's a shame that the Royals don't have an employee whose job it is to coach the pitchers and help them fix these kinds of problems.
On May 11, Gabe Speier was the Royals starter and pitched two innings. That was the one and only time ALL YEAR LONG, after the first time through the rotation, that a Royals starting pitcher had an ERA under 4.
But "Cal Eldred is doing an excellent job."
Thanks for letting us know that, Dayton. We could never have figured it out on our own. We all feel so incredibly reassured now.
Before the Royals can become a consistent winner they must be a team that no one wants to play. A team that throughout the batting order every of them is at the very least pesky. The pitchers must become stingy with walks, and develop an iron-will resolve on the mound that they'll win many more battles against the opposition in the batter's box than lose.
In short, the Royals are tough to defeat because they won't beat themselves. I look forward to those days again and last nights come from behind victory against Cleveland renewed my hope in my boyhood love.
This team has talent and I don't believe that they are as far off from contending for division titles and more as some think. The right choice for pitching coach could do for the young pitchers what the change of hitting coach did for the hitters on the Royals. Once the young pitchers get over the hump and the promising rookies get better along with adding Massey and others this could become a respectable batting lineup and a team that nobody in baseball wants to play.
We need a full and comprehensive scouting report on Michael A Taylor's pitching arsenal. 20,000 words minimum. Can we safely assume you're already working on it? 😆