Premises:

(1) Wins are traditionally the most important statistic for determining the Cy Young winner

(2) Greinke is quite weak in wins, but clearly the strongest candidate by any other yardstick

(3) Sabathia is the strongest candidate when measuring by wins

Conclusion:

If wins are important enough to the voters to not vote for Greinke, don't they almost have to vote for Sabathia?

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Well, this season has sucked in just about every imaginable way.  What makes it especially tough is that there's no realistic hope for things to turn around in the future.  Even long term, things don't look especially rosy.  So let's ditch this "realistic" requirement, and look toward a brighter future--one where the breaks go our way, where every prospect pans out, and no good players leave, get old, or fall off.

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Some quick facts:

-Kila Ka'aihue is hitting .267/.405/.466 in Omaha.

-Our DH is often a catcher.  Our catchers can't hit.

-Jordan Parraz has hit a cumulative .351/.435/.551/.986 this year in the Minors including .303/.351/.455 in a short stay in Omaha so far.  His career Minor League numbers are .294/.381/446

-Jose Guillen is hitting .245/.317/.371 this year while playing insanely bad RF defense good for a -18.2 UZR.  Yes, that's a -36.1 UZR/150 pace.

-Chris Hayes a 1.89 ERA this year between AA and AAA.  His AAA ERA is 3.00.  His season FIP is 3.18, and in Omaha, it's 3.16.

-I can't make this short enough to avoid wasting words trying to express how bad our bullpen is.  Everyone knows.  Let's try it this way--Kyle Farnsworth would be the second best member of the bullpen, but he's injured.

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This will be purely a, "How great is being a Royals fan today compared to seasons past?" post, so expect nothing thoughtful....

The Royals currently sit at 8-6 and in first place, which, as any Royals fan knows, is fantastic.  But it gets even better--MGD are starting the next 3 games, and as was the case the last time through the rotation, this means BIG starting pitching advantages.

Meche vs Anthony Reyes....huge advantage

Greinke vs Rick Porcello.....huge advantage

Davies vs Zach Miner.....less huge, but still rather sizable advantage

Better yet, after facing way too many lefties of late, all 3 of the opposing starters are right-handed.  This means many good things.  Most importantly, it means that the Royals 3-5 hitters won't be as laughable as they've been lately.  The Royals, quite frankly, do not currently have even a single half-decent middle-of-the-order bat against left-handing pitching.  (Unless you want to be really generous and say Butler is a half-decent power bat against lefties--at this point, I'm not that generous.)  But against right-handed pitching, DDJ, Teahen, and especially Jacobs are all non-embarrassing options to slot into the middle of the order.  The other very significant benefit of facing RHP's is that Maier will presumably start over Bloomquist in RF, resulting in a substantial upgrades both offensively and defensively. 

So, with 3 big starting pitching advantages with favorable platoon splits for our club coming up, I'd be disappointed if the Royals aren't at least 10-7 before Ponson gets rocked on Sunday, and I don't think I'm crazy in hoping for 11-6 instead.

How much better is this year than years past?

Dutton mentioned in his article today that while it may mean nothing at all, Davies and Ponson are lined up to start the 3rd and 4th games of the season on normal rest if no changes are made.  Meche, Greinke, and Davies as the top 3 has been all but a foregone conclusion throughout camp, but the last two slots have been up in the air with none of Hoch, Bannister, or Ramirez doing much to separate themselves from the pack so far this spring.  When Ponson was initially brought in, most informed fans took it as a depth signing--an improvement over Duckworth for the Royals' 7th starter.  In the last few days, however, Hoch has been bumped from a major league game to a minor league appearance to make way for Ponson to be evaluated in the A-game, and now this scheduling appearance would again seem to indicate that Ponson may have the inside track out of the 4 starting pitchers competing for the last two spots in the rotation. 

I personally would not mind if he did have the inside track out of the four, but I suspect that it would displease a large cross-section of the RR faithful.  The stats-based projections for Bannister, Hoch, Ponson, and Ramirez are all quite similar, and if trained eyes are convinced that they're seeing better pitches coming out of Ponson's hand than from the other three, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until Ponson gets lit up a couple starts in a row and Banny is mowing em down in Omaha.  Until then, I don't think it makes a big difference who of those 4 start the season in the rotation beyond the standard options/waivers concerns. 

What do others think?  Is it time to start firing up the anti-Ponson comment machine yet?  Are we going to be handing out innings to a no-upside 30+ pitcher when we'll have younger pitchers in Omaha who would likely do a comparable job?  Would that be a problem?

In the process of trying to say everything that can be said about the Crisp trade, I'm afraid we've hit a problem.  A big problem.  Is Crisp really better than Teahen?  I know we all think so, but can we twist up some numbers that will look definitive on the subject?  If anyone would want to invest time into this, it would be someone here at RR.

The problem stems from three premises:

(1): A player's value is equal to a sum of his offensive and defensive contributions

(2): Teahen and Crisp are roughly equally valuable offensively--perhaps a slight edge to Teahen

(3): The best defensive stats out there (none are great) peg both Teahen and Crisp as slighly better than league average defensively at their respective positions

So if we look at just that, we're pretty much forced to say that Crisp isn't an improvement over Teahen.  And we feel cantankerous.  But then we remember!  Crisp plays center field while Teahen plays right field!  And we all know center field is a more premium defensive position!

So we rejoice, and we exclaim, "Yes, they two are even, but Crisp is More Premium!"  But then we remember that we wanted a number, and "More Premium" is better suited to meats than cereals. 

So now we ask, "How much is average center field defense worth?  How much is average right field defense worth?"  I know people have asked these questions before.  Tom Tango came up with a system of positional adjustments to get at the relative values between positions.  I've seen his system used by a few analysts lately, but I'm not a fan.  He comes up with his values by looking at how a player's performance relative to the average changes when that player switches positions.  For example, if DDJ is 5 plays below the average defense in center field, but 10 plays better than the average defense in left field, this might indicate that the average defense in center field is 15 plays better than the average defense in left field.  I don't like it--who's to say DDJ isn't better suited to left?  Maybe Maier doesn't call him off flyballs between them because DDJ is also a proven center fielder?  I don't like the idea of taking data points exclusively from tweener outfielders who play both CF and R/LF, and generalizing the conclusions derived from that data to the broader population of all centerfielders and left and right fielders.

So those adjustments don't work for me.  I don't want say Coco Crisp's defense in CF is X runs more valuable than Mark Teahen's defense in RF because David DeJesus is X runs better in left field than he is in center field.  I want something that says Coco Crisp's defense is worth Y runs because if you brought in some AAA CF, he'd surrender Y more runs than Crisp would.  We need to know Crisp and Teahen's values over replacement defenders. 

Value over replacement player is pretty easy--as far as I know, they just take the league average, and multiply it by about 80%, and bam! that's what Jason Smith can offer you.  But defense doesn't seem to be like that.  A AAA center fielder won't catch 20% fewer fly balls than Crisp will.  Garth Brooks would do better than that.  So how is a replacement defender defined?  VORP assumes league average defense for the position.  Perhaps VORD should assume league average offense for that position?   Something tells me our RF replacement defenders who can play league average offense for RF are already in the Majors playing 1B.  So how do you define a replacement defender?

Okay, I'd posted this in the comments section of another post a few days after it had been originally posted, but immediately realized that no one will read it there, so I'm putting it up here again.

A lot of people like to look at a player's BABIP, and if it's above league average, they say that player has been lucky--if it's below league average, they say that player has been unlucky.  Others refine their statements somewhat by comparing that player's BABIP to an expected BABIP that is generated predominately from the player's line drive percentage.  I am wholly unconvinced of the legitimacy of either method and have become increasingly frustrated with these seemingly unfounded proclamations.  Do you feel likewise?  Read on!

My premise:  Ignoring wind and sun-aided hits, whether a ball in play is recorded as a hit is a matter of it's velocity and its trajectory, wherein a ball's trajectory is essentially it's vertical angle relative to the ground, and its lateral angle relative to the left and right field lines. 

I'm willing to grant that the latter is predominately a matter of luck--a low line-drive straight up the middle is a single, but if it's 10 degrees to the right or left, it will caught by a middle-infielder.  xBABIP, you ignore this matter entirely and for good reason.  You're quite shaky on the rest though.

A ball's vertical trajectory determines whether it is called a ground ball, a line drive, or a fly ball, and a batter's ability to affect his batted ball's vertical trajectory over the course of a season is absolutely NOT a matter of luck.  Alex Gordon generates twice as many fly balls as Joey Gathright.  If they're both still playing in 5 years, Alex Gordon will still be generating twice as many fly balls as Joey Gathright.  I know most xBABIP calculations take things like LD%, GB%, and FB% into account, but these 3-way classifications are not sufficiently specific, nor are they especially accurate.  One fly ball is not the same as the next, and it's not even always clear whether a batted ball is a fly or a line drive.  Likewise, a one-hopper through the infield has a lot more in common with a line drive than it does a ground ball pounded straight down into the dirt. 

xBABIP calculations that rely on LD/FB/GB percentages are assuming that the majority of one player's flies, grounders, and line drives are leaving the bat at roughly the same vertical angles as the next.  This assumption is certainly flawed, but at least the calculations are taking the vertical angles of batted balls into account when determining their probability of generating hits.  The much more serious flaw in these calculations is that they don't even take the velocity of batted balls into account.  Certain players consistently hit balls harder than others.  Likewise, certain players consistently hit balls more weakly than others.  And the velocity of a ball of the bat has a HUGE impact on whether it generates a hit.  A weakly hit fly ball is called a pop-up and is a nearly automatic out; a hard hit fly ball lands behind an outfielder for a double.  Even a ground ball that's hit straight down will generate a hit if it's hit hard enough to produce a large bounce.  Likewise, a line drive is an easy out for an infielder if it's hit softly. 

Any calculation that purports to generate a player's expected batting average on balls in play without taking into account the speed of that player's batted balls is neglecting one of the most important factors in that expectancy.  Because of this, we end up calling players who consistently make hard contact lucky, and players like TPJ who consistently fail to get the barrel of the bat on the ball extremely unlucky.  Does this make sense?