*** Official 2015 Royals Repository ***

[duncan_idaho]

In this thread: All things related to the AL Champions.

Duncan's Official Team Record prediction: 90 wins
Duncan's Official Team MVP prediction: Eric Hosmer

I can't wait for this season to start. The AL Central should be a very entertaining race. I'll give brief thoughts on each team the Royals must contend with to make it back to the postseason - strengths and weaknesses.

Detroit Tigers:
Strength: The offense is still full of powerful hitters, and Miguel Cabrera may be healthier.
Weakness: Rotation is questionable after Price and Sanchez, bullpen continues to be horrible.

Cleveland Indians:
Strength: Great manager and a deep, versatile lineup.
Weakness: The rotation is a question mark past Corey Kluber, and even he has a few questions about him.

Chicago White Sox:
Strength: 1-2-3 combo of Sale, Quintana and Samardzija is pretty formidable. Offense is anchored by Jose Abreu, too.
Weakness: Defense still has major questions, and this team has 20 games to improve by if it really wants to make the playoffs.

The Royals will be a division winner IF ...
1) Ventura and Duffy combine for 375+ innings of high-quality work
2) Eric Hosmer delivers on his potential with a FULL season of success rather than bursts
3) The deeper bullpen lessens the critical load on Herrera, Davis and Holland
4) Lorenzo Cain stays healthy
5) Either Alex Rios or Kendrys Morales bounces back to 2013 form

Let's get this started!

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by alnorth

I believe if the pitchers went to the hitters after they were hit a couple times and asked if they should back off a bit, the hitters would say "hell no, you keep doing what you are doing if it works!"

Again, you are missing the point. The point is that it becomes something that is thought about. That affects the mental aspect of things.

[Mr. Laz]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

Again, you are missing the point. The point is that it becomes something that is thought about. That affects the mental aspect of things.

I think he gets it. He's just shifting the goal post now to avoid a full backpedal.

[Prison Bitch]

If North is wrong, this is great news for Bubba Starling. This scout's wet-dream is only a healthy dose of confidence smoke blown up his ass and in no time, boom.

[Saul Good]

Originally Posted by alnorth

Haven't you been bombarded by all the stories about how rare 7-0 is? How even the greatest glorious teams in MLB history are usually not able to start with a 7-game winning streak?

Hell yes random chance had a part of it.

This is hilarious. The 7-0 part involves chance, but we are playing vastly superior to what we were roughly 100 games into last season. That isn't random chance. We're on a nearly 90 game tear that has spanned the course of two seasons. Immediately prior to that, we were a .500 team for a 300 game stretch.

On July 21, 2014, we lost our 50th game of the season, falling to 48-50. Suddenly, we went on a nice win streak and wound up going 41-23 the rest of the way. (How random!)

But the randomness didn't stop there. We went 11-4 in the postseason pushing our streak to 52-27.

But the randomness didn't stop there. We've gone 7-0 to start the season...bringing our random 86 game streak to 59-27.

Either the talent fairy arrived, her twin sister the luck fairy arrived, or we actually got on a roll, became more confident, and our talent that had been sitting dormant finally was able to be used to its fullest.

[suzzer99]

I really think getting a 29-year playoff monkey off our backs might be a bigger confidence boost than usual - especially with our young, enthusiastic players. Except for Gordon (who is the only Royals hitter I don't worry about wrt to confidence) everyone else looks so relaxed, patient and comfortable at the plate. It's like night and day from early last season.

[Canofbier]

This bickering is silly. Baseball is a sport of massive sample sizes and is therefore comparatively easy to evaluate. Isolate the variables at play here (times a team hits another team's batter, times a team has its own batter hit, win/loss record, etc) and make a real case (or provide a link to one that's already been made).

[Kidd Lex]

Originally Posted by Mr. Laz

I think he gets it. He's just shifting the goal post now to avoid a full backpedal.

This Is exactly what happened - go back and read our posts back and forth from last year - holy shit you would have thought to Al all the players were just dungeon and dragon cards that happen to be played - random rolls of the dice - random sequencing blah blah blah

Anyways I do enjoy the hell out of baseball discussion with him, and am glad to see him coming around and giving confidence even a 5% role in success. I definitely didn't ever think it was 50/50 thing, simply that it's played a positive role in or success over the last 80 or so games.

[Kidd Lex]

Originally Posted by Canofbier

This bickering is silly. Baseball is a sport of massive sample sizes and is therefore comparatively easy to evaluate. Isolate the variables at play here (times a team hits another team's batter, times a team has its own batter hit, win/loss record, etc) and make a real case (or provide a link to one that's already been made).

This is CP and a Royals off day - we will bicker and you will like it!!

[Prison Bitch]

Originally Posted by Mr. Laz

playoff fairy sprinkled talent dust on us during the playoffs last year

This conversation does bring back our old friend Chiefs&OsFan. Who told the SABRs here that Baltimore's crazy record in 1-run games wasn't a fluke but rather the genius of one Buck Showalter. And that reversion wasn't likely.


Of course, Buck's genius was rendered powerless vs the Royals as he lost all 4 games by a total of 6 runs. I don't recall if O'sFan ever reconsidered his theory.

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

Again, you are missing the point. The point is that it becomes something that is thought about. That affects the mental aspect of things.

I think I might know what you are saying. I think what you are arguing is really kinda subtle: that even though the pitcher may have all the encouragement and support to go keep going inside from his coaches and teammates, when it comes time to throw if he was on the fence on whether to go inside or low on a particular 2-2 pitch, he might now be slightly more inclined to go low for that pitch instead of inside and over the course of the entire game, maybe its 4 or 5 fewer inside pitches? Maybe the pitcher doesn't even realize that his approach has slightly changed. I'm just throwing numbers up, but is that the gist of it?

If thats your argument, then the effect you are arguing for is really subtle, but plausible enough that it might be difficult to argue against it. I'd still lean towards it generally not having an effect, but I'm not going to put up much of a fight if all you are saying is it might lead to a couple fewer inside pitches in 9 innings.

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by Mr. Laz

I think he gets it. He's just shifting the goal post now to avoid a full backpedal.

I don't know why you've gotten ticked off at me on this, but I am arguing in good faith, explaining my point, and trying to understand others. You've seemed to have full tilted though.

[KevB]

Originally Posted by alnorth

I believe if the pitchers went to the hitters after they were hit a couple times and asked if they should back off a bit, the hitters would say "hell no, you keep doing what you are doing if it works!"

Has it been working?

I hate to come off as combative....I love that there are smart people on this board that can disagree. I guess this is one of those times. If we start hitting the other team's batters in retaliation for our guys getting hit first, you better believe it will change their behavior. It's how the players police themselves.....that's how it's always been. I agree the dynamics have changed a bit due to the amount of money involved now. And if we were just talking about retaliation for Rios' injury in a vacuum, I'd agree with you. But at this point it wouldn't be retaliation so much as protecting our guys.

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by alnorth

I think I might know what you are saying. I think what you are arguing is really kinda subtle: that even though the pitcher may have all the encouragement and support to go keep going inside from his coaches and teammates, when it comes time to throw if he was on the fence on whether to go inside or low on a particular 2-2 pitch, he might now be slightly more inclined to go low for that pitch instead of inside and over the course of the entire game, maybe its 4 or 5 fewer inside pitches? Maybe the pitcher doesn't even realize that his approach has slightly changed. I'm just throwing numbers up, but is that the gist of it?

If thats your argument, then the effect you are arguing for is really subtle, but plausible enough that it might be difficult to argue against it. I'd still lean towards it generally not having an effect, but I'm not going to put up much of a fight if all you are saying is it might lead to a couple fewer inside pitches in 9 innings.

BAM! That is exactly what I was getting at.

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by Saul Good

This is hilarious. The 7-0 part involves chance, but we are playing vastly superior to what we were roughly 100 games into last season. That isn't random chance. We're on a nearly 90 game tear that has spanned the course of two seasons. Immediately prior to that, we were a .500 team for a 300 game stretch.

On July 21, 2014, we lost our 50th game of the season, falling to 48-50. Suddenly, we went on a nice win streak and wound up going 41-23 the rest of the way. (How random!)

But the randomness didn't stop there. We went 11-4 in the postseason pushing our streak to 52-27.

But the randomness didn't stop there. We've gone 7-0 to start the season...bringing our random 86 game streak to 59-27.

Either the talent fairy arrived, her twin sister the luck fairy arrived, or we actually got on a roll, became more confident, and our talent that had been sitting dormant finally was able to be used to its fullest.

Jesus, nice healthy amount of snark there, you've gone angry full tilt also.

That player meeting that you seemed to be putting so much weight on did not suddenly make us a good team. First of all, we were a better team at the end than at the beginning from a personnel standpoint after cutting or diminishing the roles of some ineffective pitchers. We just were better. Second, its not weird to think that we were a little unlucky at the beginning of the year, and played a bit better than expected at the end, baseball is a very high-variance game with plenty of randomness built in. You are sarcastically pointing at the .500 point and asking how luck made a .500 team win so much. But we weren't a .500 team. Thats what our record was, but we were better than our record. Finally, when you bring in prior years, the maturation of young players as they catch up to MLB pitching and hitting and learn how to succeed belongs on the talent side of the scale.

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by KevB

Has it been working?

I hate to come off as combative....I love that there are smart people on this board that can disagree. I guess this is one of those times. If we start hitting the other team's batters in retaliation for our guys getting hit first, you better believe it will change their behavior. It's how the players police themselves.....that's how it's always been. I agree the dynamics have changed a bit due to the amount of money involved now. And if we were just talking about retaliation for Rios' injury in a vacuum, I'd agree with you. But at this point it wouldn't be retaliation so much as protecting our guys.

Well, the fact that baseball is not played like it was in the 50's suggests that pitchers aren't feeling the heat. Its not just a "Royals have been a bit too timid" thing, with some exceptions (Diamondbacks) teams just don't retaliate as often as they used to in prior generations for HBP that look unintentional. Teams are far more willing to just go "well, shit happens, pitchers have to be able to go inside, and we're not going to overreact"