Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 299: Was the Royals’ Season a Success?/October’s Best Non-Kershaw Starter

Episode Date: October 3, 2013

Ben and Sam discuss Dayton Moore’s comments about the Royals’ season, then talk playoff starters.

So light em up, oh, oh, oh Light em up, oh, oh, oh Light em up, oh, oh, oh I'm in the heart of the baseball world in a sense, but I have no sense of what – usually I feel pretty plugged in. I know what the people are talking about on Twitter and the blogs and everything. Yeah, yesterday – I think it was yesterday. It might not have been yesterday, but you asked me what the sound should be. Yes, that was yesterday. And I said, Mup, Mup, Mup.

And you had no idea what that meant? No idea. You are the only person on this earth who both enjoys baseball and has never heard the Fallout voice. Yeah, I didn't listen to it after that. But yeah. Yeah, I made my wife listen to it as well it does sound like my mom uh i i yeah i wish the podcast could just be you telling me what i'm missing uh because i really but i mean i haven't seen a game yet i don't have tbs

well then we're not prepared to podcast, but we're doing it anyway. I have heard, I have been listening to games, which is better. I've been watching games. I've been watching the Rangers play the Indians in Instructs, and the Mariners play the Reds in Instructs, so I can talk about what happened there. Tell me what happened there. Oh, by the way, Ben, I forgot.

I had a question for you before we get too far in. Earlier tonight, I was thinking about the number 60, and I was wondering if you could rate the number 60 on the standard 20 to 80 scale. The number itself as a number. Yeah. What number would you throw on 60? Um, probably a 50. Yeah.

Future, future 50 or present 50? Both. I can't, can't really imagine liking it anymore. Not a lot of projectability to 60. All right. Yeah, so my days here are fully booked with baseball that no one else cares about. I get up very early by my standards, and then we meet for a while in a big meeting room, and then we go to a ballpark, and we watch a game. Today's game was very long, and we try to focus on a couple players that they tell us to focus on,

but really have to kind of keep our eyes on everyone and then come back and write reports on those players and then eat something and then meet again to discuss the reports that we wrote on those players. And then it's time to podcast again. And then the day's over and then it starts again um so how do they do how how do they decide which players to have you focus uh i think it must just be kind of a spur of the moment thing because even the instructors

don't know who's going to be starting the games until we get to the ballpark and we actually beat the teams to the ballpark so uh we get the lineups the ballpark. So, uh, we get the lineups when, when they show up and tell us who's in the lineup. And then I guess so far it's just been the starting pitcher and one starting pitcher and one shortstop. Um, so. Have you, uh, have you seen a single name that you, that you recognize? Uh, yeah. Uh, the, rangers roster today was the roster was was full of many recognizable names not many of them were in the starting lineup uh but they were playing the indians and clint frazier played uh the fifth overall pick from wow he didn't start

he came in for one at bat at the end and singled and and looked like a high draft tape although i my scouting on him is that his his bladder is very small it's what i picked up from him because at instructs the players have to kind of walk around or at least at good year uh the ranger the the rangers park um the players have to walk from the visitor's dugout all the way around behind home plate, behind the home dugout, or I guess I got that backwards, to get to the bathroom. And Frazier went by at least three times over seven innings. So I don't know what that says about him.

I don't think it affects my projection for him. But it seems like something to note. Because, you know, in a game situation, you can't be going to the bathroom that often. Anyway. Right, right. I mean, he's probably not, but it's conceivable that he's actually a 70 year old man yeah well maybe it affects his aging curve in some way yeah

you would want to know you would want to know if he were really 70 yes so um that's interesting i would not be able to watch any once i noticed that that, that's all I would watch. And he's got the red hair and just kind of looks more like a baseball player than a lot of the other players there and kept running past to go to and from the bathroom. I'm curious. Do you think that they're going to teach you how to scout catcher framing? Do you think it's doable? I think it's it's it's it's doable i think it's doable i don't know that i mean i feel like the the closest that i have come to actual scouting in in my writing career

is that um and i i've certainly spent a lot of time staring at catchers catching baseballs yeah but i don't mean i don't mean on tv i mean in yeah uh I think it's certainly doable. We haven't really focused on a catcher yet, but I imagine that will happen at some point. And maybe all the gifts that I've made will stand me in good stead at that point. Yeah, I've asked two scouts that I happen to be sitting next to at games, and one of them was a former catcher. And he said, yeah, he can tell after about three or five pitches exactly how good the guy is at framing and the other one's like yeah no no idea no clue um so i mean it certainly doesn't seem like the thing where you would have the best angle yeah the best angle would have to be on tv right or actually the best angle is not

is math it seems like the best angle is probably a combination of math and watching on TV. Yes, I would say so. All right, so since you've been out of touch, I'll give you both topics today. Thank you. You're welcome. So the first one is the Royals, Dayton Moore. We've talked about Dayton Moore. The Royals, Dayton Moore, we've talked about Dayton Moore, we've talked about the Royals multiple times as sort of meta conversations about people saying dumb things and whether it's troubling if your team's officials can't help but say dumb things.

And today Moore said something that is generally considered dumb, I think, by people out there. And he said, Sam Mellinger, who's a very reasoned and even writer, wrote, his lead was, Dayton Moore said something stupid. This stupid thing he said will hang on him. His words will be mocked. And what Dayton Moore said is, in a small way, I feel like we've won the World Series. He later on, after prodding, explained what I'm saying. I mean, look, World Series is the wrong term, but I feel very, very good about where our organization is. It means a lot to me.

You have to know how I'm wired. The only reason I'm a general manager is that this is my boyhood team it's a special place for me um i have a strong relationship with my grandmother she loved the royals when our games are on at night i picture my grandmother and people of her generation loving and tuning into this game i know how important it is their lives etc i i just want to know we just watched the indians uh get knocked out of the postseason they got exactly one game you know they got one playoff game. And their season is generally considered a success, and the Royals is generally considered a failure.

I just want to know if you think that there is a difference between their seasons. I don't know that the Royals' season was considered a failure. Well, I think in a way it was, and sort of in a way almost by it. Generally, I wouldn't. I don't know if it has. I would agree, I guess. I think that to some degree it's a little bit of bad luck. Not bad luck, but bad circumstances.

I mean, the thing about the Royals season is that that James Shields trade went suspiciously like we expected. I mean, it's very rare that a trade goes exactly as you expect. But it went exactly as you expect i mean every detail will myers was good immediately jeff francois was disastrous for the royals uh you know arguably that switch alone cost them you know a potential playoff spot um shields was very good he ate innings just like they hoped he was a strong starter. He was also not an ace. I think it would be, I don't think if his name were anything else, anybody would say he pitched like an ace, but he was very good. He's a good, he's a number two pitcher. He's good. And that's what he did for them. Uh, there's no doubt he helped them win games. Wade Davis was

just as disappointing as he had always been as a starter for Tampa. And the Royals, as it turned out, hit the exact sweet spot that everybody was saying they kind of were going to do. They improved just enough to win 80-some games, but they weren't a team good enough to be pushed over the top. Now, of course, we know, you and I know, that a team that wins 86 could have won 96, and they could have won 76. And that 86 is not the only outcome to a team of this talent but optics wise it's really unfortunate that everybody

said this about the royals every single person said it's a terrible trade because all they're going to do is win 85 games well and they won 86 there were a lot of people who liked the trade i mean there were people who said all all right, they're going for it. And, you know, sure there were. Not, you know, at baseball prospectus or sites like that, maybe. Well, even there, I can think of some people who didn't hate it. But, I mean, mainstream, you know, people didn't hate it, I don't think. And mainstream, you know, people didn't hate it, I don't think.

I don't even know what mainstream is. I mean, I don't even know what you mean. People who don't follow baseball didn't hate it. I genuinely I don't even know what the difference is between mainstream and non-mainstream at this point. Yeah. Well, you know, sabermetric and non-sabermetric. I mean, I feel like, I remember, like, Rani hated the trade, and pretty much everyone else in Kansas City liked it, at least the impression that I got from kind of following him on Twitter, freaking out about it for a while. And, I mean, my impression was that, you know, if you were in Kansas City and you read the paper or listened to the radio, not everyone was hating that trade.

That's my impression, at least. You know, because it's like they're going for it and they haven't won in forever. And the seven-year plan or whatever, that the time is up and you can't wait forever for all the young guys are on the roster, so now is the time to make the push and all that sort of thing. Yeah, I mean, my impression is that in a city like Kansas City, the local newspaper is always pro-home team. local newspaper is always pro-home team, that's where their money is, is saying good things about the team. I'll take your word for it. I guess you might be right. I don't know.

I think of mainstream as pretty much indistinguishable from the people that we follow. Keith Law I mean, Keep Law has 350,000 followers. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, it has worked out exactly that way. And you could say that a lot of things worked out better than you could have expected for them. But they still ended up in that place. And even though Shields pitched really well, according to any win value thing, right? If you put Myers in and just kind of put him over Francoeur for the whole season and subtracted Shields, they would have been better, right? Probably? I think so or just about pretty much a wash and then you'd have

more money and you'd have Will Myers yeah so I don't know I mean I get I actually didn't intend to be anti Dayton Moore in this conversation I think I probably turned out to be.

But, yeah, I mean, I see where he's coming from. I mean, it is a team that is going to go into this offseason with a different kind of, pardon me for using this word, but a different aura around them. It could help them sign a free agent. I don't put it past the way the market works. I don't put it past it to help them sign a free agent. I don't put it past the way the market works. I don't put it past it to help them sign a free agent or at least to focus on their needs a little bit more. It was a consolidation year maybe and I don't think that they're necessarily in a bad position.

But on the other hand, they didn't accomplish anything, and to me they're just as likely to go down next year. In fact, I would say they're more likely to go down next year than to go up. So it's a little early to start sounding optimistic. I mean, I don't know. I'm not sure if it suits Dayton Moore more to sound like overly happy about the things he hasn't accomplished or to be real mean and be like, ah, we suck. Well, you got to be better because we're horrible. I don't know which one is better for him. I mean both of them have downsides and probably – maybe this just reflects his nature.

Maybe he's just a sunny guy. Yeah, I don't know. You can't hate a guy for that. I don't know if the typical Royals fan, I don't know what the mood of the typical Royals fan is right now. If the typical Royals fan is just so beaten down by years of losing and not having a winning season in a decade, that this is considered a success because it was interesting right

up until the end of the season. I guess you could make that case. And I would make that case if not for how the offseason went and how the moves of that offseason really seemed to be targeted towards making the playoffs this year because it was clearly going to hurt the franchise beyond this year. So, I mean, in that context, it's an improvement, but I don't know if it's a success, really. Yeah, in a weird way, that trade made this season a disappointment,

whereas if they hadn't made that trade and had this season, it would have been a celebration. Yes, definitely. All right. The second thing, we barely even have time. What were the other things that we, the other, the Royals foot and mouth topics that we did? There was the one where the hitting coach said that they're not trying to hit home runs or something right before he let go and then was that a separate comment

about the not being able to walk or hit home runs in Kauffman or was that the same it was separate it was separate comments and I'm not sure there might have been another one but I don't remember what it was but yeah one was Dayton Moore and one was the hitting coach

it's not a good thing to you know that these things keep becoming stories uh for the wrong choice of words or the wrong wrong way to phrase things well and they probably i don't know if they would be stories if john daniels said it i mean it could just be the anti i mean you know there's a little bit of a of an anti-royal kind of mood i think among well it's it's probably a little bit less now but um i mean poor dayton more he he's the guy who signed jeff brancourt and who you know traded milky cabrera for jonathan sanchez i mean just can't catch a break. So, all right. The quick thing,

the Tigers announced that Max Scherzer would be their Game 1 starter. And this isn't a big deal or anything like that, but I'm writing the preview for that series, and so I had to leave those kind of empty spaces because it wasn't clear who would start that game. And it seemed like you could have made a case for Anibal Sanchez. You could have made a case for Verlander. You could have made a case for Scherzer.

I thought that it was going to be Verlander, but I really had absolutely no idea. And it just got me thinking that clearly Kershaw is the best pitcher in these playoffs, without a doubt. There's nobody else. And if you asked me who the best pitcher in baseball is after Kershaw, I probably would go with Matt Harvey or Hugh Darvish, both of whom are gone. Cliff Lee is gone. Felix Hernandez is gone. Strasburg is gone. It's not clear to me who the second best pitcher is. And so if I had to pick one pitcher,

like if I could pick any one pitcher in these playoffs to start one game i don't know who it would be and that got me thinking about how it how i should make that decision and i wanted to know how you would make that decision so if you could only know one thing you're you only get to know one detail about all these guys what is the one question you ask? So we're pretending that I don't know anything about these starters? It's just... You don't. You don't know anything. You don't know anything.

Or you've forgotten. I mean, you know Justin Verlander is famous. And you know that he has pitched in postseason games before, but you don't know anything about him. I guess I would want to know their... Their what exactly? Yeah. I guess, I don't know.

I guess I just kind of want to know their... If I can only see one piece of information or one stat, I guess I just want to see their war or warp or whatever. But for what period? For how long? Well. Sure. Probably more than one year, but not more than three. Maybe the last couple seasons.

Because I feel like pitchers, we've talked about sort of their true talent might change more quickly than a position players. Or your projection for them would change more quickly. So like with Scherzer, he kind of reached a new level last year. Um, he was a good pitcher before that, but he, especially like the second half of last season, pretty much since then, he's been, you could make the case that he's been one of the, I don't know, five best pitchers in baseball. Yeah. So you could have made the case. You could have made the case. I think that he was one of the five best pitchers in the american league before this season began yeah maybe just based

on how he finished last season um so so that's all i need to know for him i guess to want him and i probably would want him but if verlander had a higher warp over the past two seasons than him which I think he did I mean Verlander was only 0.6 warp behind him this year and I imagine that he was quite a bit ahead of him last year so you're you're actually taking Verlander yeah and I'm not comfortable with that yeah see what I mean uh okay so so what's the minimum amount of time that we need to to change our opinion on who we would want in one game uh hmm well clear clearly let me let me yeah let me let me ask you this uh chris medlin over the last over his last nine starts has a 1.37 ERA he's got 5-1 strikeout rate

you remember Chris Medlin in the second half last year I mean unthinkably good he was my number three Cy Young pick even though he had like 110 innings pitched is there any point at which nine starts would do it for you if the guy had a nine-start scoreless streak, is he your guy?

If he was just average before that or a little above average before that? Well, I mean, you don't know. If the dude's thrown 55 scoreless innings in a row, you've got to figure he's not nothing. Yeah. If he's just the dudes thrown 55 scoreless innings in a row, you got to figure he's not, he's not nothing. Yeah. Uh, well, it depends on the quality of those innings,

of course. And it sounds like a cop out, but I mean, if you, you know, if it's a, if it's Jeff lock or something in the first half, not giving up runs or not having overpowering stuff, then,

then no, really no amount of starts. Well, some amount of starts, but it would have to be a lot longer than that for me to want him. But if it were Scherzer striking out everyone and throwing really hard, then maybe. The other thing is that Warp is a counting stat, but like Anibal Sanchez threw 60 fewer innings than some of these guys, and on a per-inning basis is actually ahead of them.

I mean, he had the best ERA and the best FIP in the American League, and by a healthy margin over the next best guy in the playoffs. I mean, over Scherzer, he's, you know, half a run of ERA and a third of a run of FIP. And I don't know who else you would be thinking of, but, you know, like he's well ahead of David Price and he's well ahead of Verlander. So... I think, well, length matters less probably, right? In the postseason? Well, length matters, but I mean i mean he also he only started 29

games because he missed five starts or four starts um and and also yes like i well i would i would take the the effectiveness per inning guy the guy with the just the best per inning rates in the postseason as long as he's you know if he can go six or something instead of seven or whatever it is, I'll take the guy who has the shorter outings and is more effective because you get more days off and it's the playoffs, so you're playing like the playoffs and you're bringing in the leaders. So you're taking Sanchez then? Sanchez is your game one start? Nope. Nope. so you're taking Sanchez then Sanchez is your um nope nope and I mean come on what we haven't even mentioned I mean do we does Clay Buchholz even get a mention in this I mean on a per inning basis

his warp is up there with anybody and he had like uh you know mean, there's all sorts of things you could say about Clay Buchholz, but he had a 1.74 ERA. I think his lowest game score was 49. Does, is there, what do you do to exclude him? What is your reason for excluding him? What is your reason for excluding him? Well, I mean, he's not as effective as Scherzer, right? He's not as overpowering as Scherzer. Well, he gives up fewer runs than Scherzer.

He has given up fewer runs this season. This year. Yeah, this season. But you don't buy it. He's got a lower FIP than Scherzer and fip is not park adjusted so he's got a lot lower fip really yeah not not doing it for me i don't know um so you're going with scherzer and you can't answer the question. He actually has the exact same fifth as Scherzer. Sorry. Yeah, and Scherzer...

What reason would I take Buchholz over Scherzer? Scherzer has... He allows fewer... Well, he's allowed a lot fewer runs. Yeah, but that's got to be it's got to be partially some some luck stuff right yeah but he's he's allowed a lot fewer ones like a lot a lot fewer better defense all right yeah okay all right so you're taking Scherzer. I'm taking Scherzer. Is there someone you're taking other than Scherzer?

I don't know, man. Verlander in September was something else. Was he? Yes. I was just looking up his splits. Fastball's two miles an hour faster than it was in April and May. And he was just dominant in September. I was on a radio show last night, and they asked me about Verlander, and I was expecting the question was going to be about how he's back

and better than ever and how the Tigers will never lose, but it was actually about whether the Tigers are nervous because they lost six of his seven starts in September, and I got completely confused. And I was like, wait, how did that, what, why? And so I just, I thought, oh no, is the thing that I thought I knew wrong? And so I hedged. It was pretty awful.

And then I went to the internet and it was like, wait a minute, he allowed like four runs and lost six games. They lost six of the seven starts but he was incredible well that's okay so that's uh how many starts he made six starts in september and so that's why i thought he might be the pitch yeah pitch pretty much like verlander so is that enough yeah uh since he's shown that before and just kind of had a lull then you say maybe it's the same guy and you go back to him? I'm asking you. You're the manager.

Well, I don't know. Jim Leland likes the guys with the better win-loss record. So that's Scherzer. All right. All right. That'll do it then. Let's end it. All right.

We'll be back tomorrow with episode 300, and we'll be back on Monday with episode 301. All right. See you later.