KC Royals: Navigating The MLB Offensive Recession

How well will the KC Royals deal with the trending offensive regression being seen around Major League Baseball the past few seasons? Is this team built to succeed in the immediate future?

Every time KC Royals starter Yordano Ventura burns his fastball past a batter for strike three, I can’t help but imagine him saying to himself, “Estás despedido”—just like Donald Trump (but better hair) sitting in a board room firing a D-list celebrity.

Ok maybe not, but the MLB offensive recession is real.

Since 2006 the average runs per game in Major League Baseball has been regressing. The 2014 average of 4.07 runs per game was almost as low as the 1981 season with 4.00 Runs/game. If this trend continues we project to only average 3.79 runs per game in 2016, which would take us back to the days of 1972 with Steve Carlton’s 27 wins and Luis Tiant’s 1.91 ERA contributing to a 3.69 run per game average.

The next lowest run per game average was in 1968 of 3.42 Runs/game which resulted in the lowering of the mound and tightening of the strike zone. In 2020 we will surpass 1968 at 3.39 runs per game.

At that point we will be back to pure deadball in 1908 with 3-fingered Mordecai Brown, Eddie Plank, and Christy Mathewson blowing offenses out with the all-time staggering low of 3.38 runs per game.

So other than pitching how can you be successful in this barren wasteland of shutouts and 1-2 scored games? If you look back to the 1970’s, astroturf and the asphalt below it created an ideal running surface that was a significant advantage for teams with multiple base stealers.

In that era it wasn’t unusual for a home astroturf team to have 200-to even 300 stolen bases in a season, and the Kansas City Royals led all of MLB with 153 stolen bases in 2014. One of the reasons I believe Sabermetrics generally doesn’t favor the KC Royals, and all of these 2015 projections that put us at 4^th in the AL Central, is simply: walks.

We are diametrically opposed to Billy Beane’s A’s who led the league with 586 walks, while Kansas City Royals had a league low of 380 (KC also had the league low in batter strikeouts also). So how do the Kansas City Royals compensate for the extra 100 stolen bases of the 1970’s and extra few hundred walks?

I believe the answer is BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play). In effect BABIP is the frequency of a plate appearance not resulting in a walk, hit batter, strike out, sacrifice bunt, or home run. It rates how often the ball must be played.

In that regard, the Kansas City Royals upgraded Nori Aoki (.314) in RF with Alex Rios (.335). Even though the Texas Rangers Arlington Park is considered an easier park to score runs in than Kaufmann, the K (1B = 1.008, 2B = 1.038) has a higher single and double hit park factor than Arlington (1B = 0.981, 2B = 0.801). Rios also hit consistently at home .282 and on the road .279 in parks.

When you compare just park hit factors between the AL West (Rangers) and the AL Central, Detroit is equivalent to Arlington, Cleveland is equivalent to Angels Stadium, Houston’s Minute Maid is equivalent to Chicago’s US Cellular, and the K is equivalent to the A’s Coliseum.

Nori Aoki hit .322 at home, but .251 on the Road, and since Rios is coming into a better single hitting division for the road stadiums park factors, this gives him an edge over Nori. The KC Royals were 47-34 on the road last year and we need another consistent bat advancing runners on the road before the 6^th Inning. If Alex Rios can hit even .270 at Detroit when he equivalently hit .279 in Arlington, that will do much to help keep are batting average near the 2014 mark of .263, 4^th in MLB.

One large difference between the park hit factors of the AL West and the Central also deals with our newly acquired DH.

Kendrys Morales finished 59 games in 2014 with Seattle which owns the ballpark with the lowest single hit park factor in all of MLB after starting in early June at Minnesota’s Target Field which is the 2^nd highest in single hit park factor.

Kendrys Morales surprisingly had a BABIP of .273 in Minnesota after 2 months into the season waiting to get signed, yet struggled in Seattle’s park at the end of the season (.222 BABIP). BABIP cannot tell the whole story, it is effectively just a batting average when fielders are forced to play the ball.

However if you interlace BABIP with the net stolen bases (stolen bases minus caught stealing) with BABIP, it provides a factored probability of moving runners into scoring position that can translate into RBI’s.

In the chart below is the BABIP x net stolen base (SB-CS) for each of the AL Central teams based on their starting lineups.

This shows that the KC Royals have maintained a similar level with the acquisition of Alex Rios and Kendrys Morales. Minnesota has just as great of combined team BABIP as Detroit but they don’t steal as many bases. The addition of Rajai Davis to Detroit’s starting outfield has given them a boost in this factor.

In the second plot of BABIP x (SB-CS) for the 2014 Playoff contenders, we can see two of the best teams from the National League (Nationals and Dodgers) were playing very much our style.

The chart reflects that the loss of Dee Gordon and Hanley Ramirez has taken some speed from the Dodgers on the base paths, but with Kershaw on the mound they should still contend in their division.

Oakland and St Louis both upgraded stolen bases as well. Washington clearly is projected to win their division this year because of their scary pitching rotation, but it is interesting they are continuing to play our type of offense.

This type of analysis cannot fully encapsulate a team’s strategy, but it can show trends. How winning teams play offense during times of offensive drought usually stems from necessity, and this year will be an interesting one to watch.

Next: Ten Greatest Moments in KC Royals History

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