SB Nation User Blog: KCBear

White Sox, Teahen Agree To Three-Year Deal

KCBear — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:25:29 -0000

White Sox, Teahen Agree To Three-Year Deal

Teahen and the White Sox have agreed to a 3-year, $14 Million deal. It buys out one year of free agency.

Why is the AL better than the NL?

KCBear — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:47:21 -0000

There have been a few posts recently where the difference in quality between the leagues has been a contentious topic in the comments section. However, nobody is arguing with the fact that the AL is unquestionably the superior of the two. Here a few quick pieces of data that back up that supposition.

AL Interleague Record 2008: 149-103, .591 winning percentage

AL Interleague Record 2009: 137-114, .546 winning percentage

Add that to the fact that the AL hasn't lost an All-Star game since forever ago, and it looks like the AL has been kicking around the NL for over a decade. However, the AL hasn't been quite as dominant as those facts suggest. In the eight years preceding 2005, the NL actually had a winning record of 988-960 (.507) against the AL. That said, the last five years have been really bad for the senior circuit. The question is why.

Many people immediately point the finger at the DH, but it doesn't seem like that could be the answer, or even a big part of it. If that was the case, it wouldn't make sense that the NL found sustained success against the American League when they started playing each other for the first time. In fact, I think that in interleague play having a DH is arguably a disadvantage. I don't have any data to support this, but it seems like it would be easier for a major league hitter to adjust to not playing defense than for a pitcher to adjust to hitting major league pitching. Anyway, the DH rule doesn't seem to have much bearing on the difference in quality of play between the two leagues.

The second major factor I could think of was payroll.

2009 Average Payroll for the AL was slightly over $93 million compared to around $84 million for the NL. This difference of around 10% is fairly consistent with the numbers for 2008. However when you look at the median payroll for each league in 2009, the AL sports a figure of about $81 million to the NL's $79 million. This is starting to get at what I think the problem is. The Yankees skew the AL on the high side. You could argue that the Mets do the same thing in the NL, but they still spend $50 million less and their exorbitance is spread over 2 more teams than they Yankees'. What really skews it for the NL is its bottom four teams.

There are four NL teams with payrolls lower than the most miserly AL club. About three of these teams spend on the order of half of the lowest playing AL team. I think this is the biggest source of the disparity between the two leagues. It has been shown (I don't remember where) that having a couple of players on your team that are well below replacement level can far outweigh the production of a couple of superstars.

Take the Royals and Pirates for example. Both of these teams are terrible, but they are arguably terrible for very different reasons. The Royals were a victim of ownership for some time, but for several years have proven that the real problem is the way the front office spends the money that they have finally been given. This is why many of us Royals fans are not always optimistic about the future of the club even if the farm system provides us with some good talent. The Pirates are largely terrible right now because their ownership has not really ever invested in them at all. A payroll around $30 million is inexcusable when they get help from revenue sharing to the tune of nearly $90 million (according to Soren Petro and Jayson Stark).

Payroll doesn't directly translate into wins (Mets) but a higher payroll does give you a better chance to win. For the majority of the AL, teams are awful because of management, not because of ownership. In the NL, this isn't always the case. Some teams are unlucky enough to have both be awful.

If the NL and the AL are to be equals again anytime soon, there are several National League owners that need to quit taking money from revenue sharing and putting it in their pockets and start investing some actual money in their ballclubs.

Royals Review Demographics

KCBear — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:29:35 -0000

I read Royals Review daily, but I don't usually post a whole lot. I only say that because I'm sure there is a large number of people like me and probably even more who read frequently and don't post at all. Anyway, I generally find the discussion and user commentary on the site to be of a far more intelligent and educated and a far less petty and argumentative nature than the vast majority of what I find on the internet in general. It also seems that the readership of Royals Review is comprised of a wide array of age groups. This got to me to wondering if having a community with a more balanced age distribution could potentially relate to a better overall site environment. While other age groups are growing quickly, the majority of internet users are still under 30. All of that to say, I would like to know how the age distribution on Royals Review compares to the internet as a whole. Please indulge my curiosity, and participate in this highly unscientific poll.

Poll

Which of the following age groups are you a part of?

Under 20

5 votes

Twenties

76 votes

Thirties

42 votes

Forties

19 votes

Fifties

10 votes

60+

2 votes

154 votes | Poll has closed

Ka'aihue to not get September call up

KCBear — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 23:55:01 -0000

Ka'aihue to not get September call up

Previously, the Royals brought up pitchers Victor Marte, Carlos Rosa and Dusty Hughes from Omaha. Hillman said the DiNardo and Gordon promotions signal the end of September callups. That means that Omaha first baseman Kila Ka'aihue (.252, 17 homers, 57 RBIs) will not get a look this year, as he did in 2008.

Interesting Minor League Site

KCBear — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:22:42 -0000

Interesting Minor League Site

I found this site today, and it is pretty interesting. It has a lot of useful information. The prospect rankings are a little off perhaps, but they were probably made before the season.

You can add players to a tracker so you don't have to look up each minor league team every day. They also have minor league batted ball data.