Bats bats bats. Lineup sucked balls. Without a healthy Cain this is one of the worst lineups in the AL. Dead last in wRC+ at 88. To wit:


146 qualifiers, fWAR


1. Trout
119. Gordon
135. Kendrys
137. Alshittys
143. Cuthbert
144. Hosmer

I thought Dyson more than made up Cain's absence from your WAR calculations.

I keed, I keed.

You laugh, but Dyson finished the year #1 in war at 3.0, with only 334 PA. That's how utterly shitty this offense was.

This is why I don't put a lot of stock into fangraphs WAR. Our offense sucked, but they always overvalue Jarrod.

Meh. He led the team on Baseball Reference to at the same 2.9 value.


He's an awesome defender and awesome base runner. He even hit .277 with an ops of .725 (wRC+ of 93 which was close to Cain at 98 and higher than Salvy, Gordon

Don't get me wrong, Jarrod is one of my favorites and I'll be forever appreciate his amazing defense and base-running in clutch situations.

However, I've always felt he was overvalued for the playing time he was receiving. He did make strides on offense this year (and was one of the few), but according to fWar, it should have been a minimum drop off for us when we switched to Dyson from Cain judging by Cain's 2016 WAR. The fact that this obviously wasn't the case makes me wonder if these metrics are off in some capacity.

Writing on the wall regarding 2017 and beyond:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Dayton Moore says Royals were &quot;living above their means&quot; in payroll this year. It may &quot;regress a little bit&quot; going forward.</p>&mdash; Rustin Dodd (@rustindodd) <a href="https://twitter.com/rustindodd/status/782978727596683264">October 3, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">MOORE: I don’t think we’ve signed many guys to long-term deals going into their final year of control.</p>&mdash; Soren Petro (@SorenPetro) <a href="https://twitter.com/SorenPetro/status/782979047169011712">October 3, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I fear they'll be having David Howard Bobblehead Night in 2018.

WAR is an excellent tool but can't be judged in a vacuum. Like most baseball stats, you have to apply some context to it.

I'm actually more optimistic about Dyson being ready for everyday play than I've ever been, though. He finally accepted who he was as a hitter in the second half.

Stick him in CF, play Cain in RF, and give Dyson breaks vs tough lefties.


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Moore has talked about how poor they are and how payroll has to come down for several years in a row now. I have a hard time taking that seriously.


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Yeah, he says that literally every year. The only time they've cut payroll really is when they brought up Moose, Hosmer, etc... And that was because they were all rookies or young players. It wasn't some intentional payroll cut. I imagine we'll see a lesser version of that in 2018, but not next year.

Exactly. You don't go to a car lot and tell the salesman how much you have in the bank.

I look at WAR kind of like Waze. It can steer you away from major wrecks, and show you some interesting routes you may not have even realized. But if you rely on it solely it will have you turning left from a stop sign at the end of a small side street - onto a 4-lane road at rush hour. You have to cross-reference with reality.

I played online poker Sit N Goes for a living for 3 years. It's a very similar concept. You can and should study the math (SNGs are very math-heavy). But the real art is knowing when to follow the numbers and when to deviate.

Team WAR is very highly correlated to record, so no, it's not just some helpful tool. It's extremely predictive.

Bravo.

Only one to finish hitting above .300 on a team of a few high paid stars. I hope they sign him to another contract as he was the best $550k player in the MLB.