Will I Be Able To Count On You?

...or is your love in vain?
(From "Is Your Love In Vain," Street Legal)

Is the Royals' offense sustainable?

At the beginning of this season, I think most Royals fans felt pretty good about the team's pitching. Sure, no one was happy with the presence of Horacio Ramirez and Sidney Ponson in the rotation, and most fans were wary of Kyle Farnsworth in the bullpen and the middle relief in general. But with Gil Meche and Zack Greinke at the top of the rotation and the hope that last September's Kyle Davies would show up this season, plus Joakim Soria and Juan Cruz at the back of the bullpen, there were reasons to believe the pitching could keep the Royals in the race.

That meant the pressure was on the offense to improve from last year. In 2008, the Royals finished 12th in the 14-team American League in runs scored, 12th in on-base percentage, 12th in slugging percentage and 13th in home runs. Dayton Moore gave up two solid relief pitchers to add centerfielder Coco Crisp and first baseman Mike Jacobs, hoping the former would be an improvement in the leadoff spot and the latter would add some slugging ability. There was some skepticism as to how improved the offense would be, since Jacobs only had a .299 OBP last year, about the same as noted free-swinger Jose Guillen's .300.

The Royals are 25 games into 2009. That's still a small sample size, I think. But I also think we can draw some conclusions. Or at least look at the numbers and see if there are any reasons to be optimistic about the offense.

In those 25 games, the Royals have scored 119 runs. True, about a third of that has come in the last 5 games (41 runs). But teams will have good and bad offensive stretches, just like individual players. These will even out over six months. In the first five games of the year, the Royals only scored eight runs. But 49 runs in 10 games sounds a lot better.

Anyway, the Royals are now averaging 4.76 runs per game. The league average is 5.13 runs per game, so the Royals are about 7% below average.

In 2008, the Royals scored 691 runs, an average of 4.27 per game. The league average was 4.78 runs per game, so the Royals were about 11% below average. So the Royals are doing better so far this year. Also note that the Royals are almost at last year's league average.

When I noticed that, I wondered how this year's league average compared with recent years. The answer is, so far scoring in the AL is up. Way up. AL teams are averaging 5.13 runs per game this season, an increase of 7% so far. Going back to 2000, the AL has scored 4.92 runs per game on average. Last year was the lowest RPG number since 2005. It's probably still too early to say that this year's scoring increase is permanent or what the causes may be. But it does look like the Royals still have work to do; I don't think that's a surprise to anyone.

On the other hand, the Royals have only allowed 101 runs so far (thank you, Zack Greinke!). Thus, their expected win-loss record, using the Bill James Pythagorean theorem, is 15-
10. So the Royals really haven't been a fluke. So far, they really have been a .560 win percentage team. By the way, that would be 91 wins over a full season. I don't believe the Royals are that good, especially since I don't expect the pitching to stay this good. But there are reasons to expect the offense to improve; the question is whether that will offset the pitching staff's theoretical dropoff.

Right now, the two best OPS (on-base pct. plus slugging pct.) numbers on the Royals belong to Willie Bloomquist (1.020) and Alberto Callaspo (1.001). A 1.000 OPS is considered tremendous; last year, Albert Pujols led baseball with a 1.114 OPS. Obviously, Bloomquist and Callaspo are not Pujols and are not going to sustain this for an entire year. But to me, the exciting news there is that the players the Royals are counting on to carry the offense are not the ones playing way over their heads.

Mike Aviles led the team with an .833 OPS last year; this year he's at .539. Now, it's doubtful Aviles will be as good as he was last year, but I do not believe he is this bad of a hitter. By comparison, Joey Gathright's OPS last year was .584, and he had no power whatsoever.

David DeJesus was second on the team last year at .818. This year, he's at .663. In four of the five years DeJesus has been a regular, his OPS has been above .763. I expect he will improve as well.

And so it goes. Alex Gordon had a .783 OPS last year; he was only at .507 when he got hurt. I would expect improvement there. Jacobs has a career .813 OPS; he's at .742 right now. Billy Butler has a career .752 OPS; he's at .731 right now. I think Butler has even more room for improvement--he's only 23 and should be on the upswing.

Sure, some of the important Royal hitters are doing better than you would expect--Jose Guillen and Mark Teahen, to name two. The funny thing is that Guillen hasn't even really had one of his hot streaks yet. Due to his injury, he's only played in 12 games and may just be getting back in the groove (he hit two homers last Monday and one Sunday). Guillen's average, OBP and slugging percentage are all up from last year.

One thing that has helped Guillen and the entire Royals offense is an increase in walks. KC had a pitiful walk total of 392 last year; that was last in the league by a wide margin. Enter Coco Crisp. He already has 17 walks after only drawing 35 in 118 games last year. Butler has 12 walks after getting 33 last year in 124 games. Might an understanding of the strike zone be the last step before he starts to hit at a level the Royals expect? Teahen has 10 walks compared with 46 last year in 149 games. Even better, his strikeout rate is down--he's on pace to K 90 times after 131 last year. Even free swingers like Jacobs and Guillen are on pace to have better walk totals than they did last year. As a team, the Royals have 86 walks: that's a pace for 557, which would have put them seventh in the league last year. Seventh is where they are so far this year.

It will be interesting to see if the improved plate discipline continues. I don't know if it's the work of new hitting coach Kevin Seitzer or what, but it is a good sign so far. And I think it will be a good indicator of the Royals' chances to show continued offensive improvement. In turn, that offensive improvement is what they will need to stay in the race all year. The pitching is good enough to win; the offense looks like it can be.

Don't You Try And Move Me

...you're just gonna lose.
(From "Crash On The Levee (Down In The Flood)," Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, Vol. 2)

Apparently the Royals are tinkering with the idea of moving Mark Teahen to second base. I can certainly see the rationale behind this. Two of the three outfield spots are locked up, with Coco Crisp in center and David DeJesus in left. And the Royals have collected so many 1B/DH types that, to get his bat in the lineup and justify his excessive contract, Jose Guillen has to play right, defense and on-base percentage be damned. And Teahen has shown defensive versatility and the willingness to play good soldier as he has bounced from third base to right field to left field to first base to center field without complaint (in the linked article, he says he is willing to try playing at second if it will get him in the lineup).

While I'm glad the Royals are thinking outside the box, I'm not sure this is their best move. First, I thought the recent signing of Willie Bloomquist, plus the roster presence of Alberto Callaspo, meant the Royals were going to give one of them the second base job (for the purposes of this discussion, I'm giving Callaspo the job now). If they put Teahen at second, the Bloomquist signing really seems useless (although he would still be a better backup option at shortstop than Callaspo or Tony Pena Jr.). Second, putting a guy at a premium defensive position when he has not played there in roughly 10 years (freshman year of college, according to the Star) strikes me as a bad idea. Finally, I'm not convinced that Teahen is an offensive upgrade from Callaspo.

Callaspo's offense was pretty much unnoticed last year. He only played 74 games, and missed two months in the middle of the season. He normally hit at the bottom of the lineup, so he was rarely in the offensive mix. He had little power (8 doubles, 3 triples and no home runs in at-bats) and only had 2 stolen bases. Still, he did hit .305, with an OBP of .361, which by Royals standards is tremendous. And he ended up with an OPS+ of 98, which isn't good but also isn't terrible (a 100 OPS+ is a league-average player).

On defense, Callaspo didn't make anybody forget Frank White, but he also played 365 innings without an error. So he wasn't a butcher either. And, as mentioned, second base is an important defensive position, where you would prefer someone who is used to playing there.

I'm sure the Royals are looking at the fact Teahen hit 15 homers last year, while the Royals' second basemen combined for 3 (all from Mark Grudzielanek). But power seems to be Teahen's only advantage over Callaspo. Granted, for a team that finished 12th in a 14-team league in runs, that's an important consideration. But I think the Royals need more on-base percentage in the lineup, especially if they insist on having OBP-challenged players like Guillen, Miguel Olivo and Mike Jacobs in there. Callaspo's OBP was nearly 50 points higher than Teahen's (.361 to .313).

The Royals may be considering this move in case Callaspo has more off-field issues. Those two months he missed followed his arrest for drunk driving and were presumably time he spent in rehab. In that case, getting Teahen some experience at second is a good idea. If you're giving me a choice between Bloomquist and Teahen at second base, I will certainly take Teahen. True, Bloomquist had a higher OBP, but he has absolutely no power and that OBP last year was some 50 points higher than his previous best, which makes it look like a fluke. His career OBP is lower than Teahen's.

Since the Royals gave up a pitching prospect (Billy Buckner) for Callaspo, I wish they would at least give him a chance to see what he can do. I also think they have jerked Teahen around enough and wish they would let him settle on a spot--it might improve his offense. And I also wish the Royals would have thought of this before they spent any money on Bloomquist.