SB Nation User Blog: Sean O Se

Quick hits on status of Royals season

Sean O Se — Mon, 18 May 2009 22:06:11 -0000

Just a quick summary of some seasonal predictive indicators.

First, the Royals (20-18) are one game behind their pythag (21-17), in large part due to their horrible record in one run games (2-7). The Tigers (20-16) are also slightly behind their pythag (21-15).

However, the Royals have, right now, a stronger 3rd order wins number than the Tigers: the Royals should have 21.3 wins, while the Tigers should have only 20. (Baseball Prospectus.) Third order wins are adjusted for opposing pitching and hitting faced so far. (I should note that the Indians have 20.2 3rd order wins, with a win% just behind the Tigers and us, so if they perform at ability it's not a two-way Royals-Tigers race. The White Sox and Twins appear to be as flawed as their records indicate.)

On this note, the Royals have a fairly easy season schedule. Our Strength of Schedule is 0.492, putting us in the bottom third of baseball. (ESPN stats.) Also, our Relative Power Index, so far, indicates we've played teams of strength 0.501, indicating that we might have easier days ahead to dip down to 492.

These easier days are likely to come in the form of what seems to me a very easy interleague schedule. Although the Cardinals are never pushovers, and the Reds are a decent team this year, we are also playing Pittsburgh, the Astros, and the Diamondbacks. This probably contributes significantly to our 0.492 SoS.

We are also doing well on some little predictors. The Beane Count (measuring walks taken, home runs hit, and walks given up and home runs given up, and named after Billie Beane's style) puts us as the 4th best team in MLB, with only Toronto ahead of us in the AL. Detroit is 7th, although the gap between us in absolute points is not large. We don't seem to be lucky or unlucky on BABIP for our hitters or our pitchers as a team, so our success, such as it is, is real. (So is the Tigers', though.) The Dartboard really likes us, putting us at 91 wins and taking the division (although it doesn't regress skill sets to preseason evalutions, and so many of its guesses are really questionable: see the AL East). ESPN's power rankings put us as the 13th best team in baseball, after only Detroit at 10th in the AL Central.

In summary, our current post-season odds are given as 19.6%, well behind Detroit's 39.9%. But we legitimately are the second most likely team to make the playoffs from the AL Central, and I didn't feel that way even at the height of 2003. Some good baseball, and we're in. If Soria comes back and Cruz slots in before him so that we can beat our pythag by a few games, and if we wallop the NL, I think we should be playing meaningful baseball in a few months.

swings and misses: royals back end

Sean O Se — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:07:17 -0000

swings and misses: royals back end

also some interesting discussion on the same subject at fangraphs:

fantasy league

Sean O Se — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:01:59 -0000

fantasy league

Hi, fellow Royalitos.

I'm running a non-keeper fantasy league on ESPN for the third year, and was lookin fer folks to stock it a bit deeper this time. We have about 10 so far, and we're looking for 20 to get a bit of depth in the rosters and reward those who can see past the A-Rods and the G-Loads.

We also have a couple of interesting statistics for the rotisserie, including, on the position player side, pitches per plate appearance and (the obviously deeply flawed but still amusing) errors; and on the pitching side using K/BB, OBP-against, and both wins and win% to encourage starts but avoid the annoyances of the losses category.

If you'd like to participate, please email me at sean.strasburg at the google app which rhymes with "email".com. There are a number of AL Central-team fans playing.

(The current settings, like league-name and scoring details, are not final.)

I hope this is an appropriate use of RR!
Thanks.:)

anyone know the Royals Diamond Mind results?

Sean O Se — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:43:10 -0000

the Projections CD was released a few days ago.

over at Viva El Birdos, they note that the Diamond Mind predictions almost exactly mirror the overall guess of the VEB contributors and posters. i wonder if DM is as optimistic as we seem to be!

Soria as closer: leverage and his "stuff"

Sean O Se — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 05:31:50 -0000

A great post at Rany on why Soria would likely be especially valuable as a starter.

http://www.ranyontheroyals.com/2008/03/reason-9-closer.html

Closers have the bonus "leverage" of working in swing innings, and thus are 1.5 to 2 times as valuable per-inning as starters. But starters still eat up innings and set the tone of games.

The typical closer increases in ERA 25% when moved to the rotation. But Soria might do better than this. He has great control, and a tremendously low batting-average-against. Furthermore, his low isolated-power-against also bodes well for getting out of jams when pitching 6 innings--avoiding the 3-run homer.

Rany notes that even if his "real skill level" is closer to 3.0 ERA than 2.48, treating the 25% increase as an upper bound (due to his good control) would put him at 3.75 ERA, making him on par with Meche and Banny.

The Rany arguments make it almost unthinkable that he won't be moved, I should think.

http://www.ranyontheroyals.com/