KC Royals: Edinson Volquez Deserves Some Respect

This off-season, the KC Royals signed veteran Edinson Volquez to be a placeholder in the rotation as the team waits on youngsters like Kyle Zimmer and Sean Manaea to develop to the point they are ready for the majors.

Besides the projected 72-90 record for the 2015 KC Royals, the most alarming part of the PECOTA projections according to Baseball Prospectus, was that the Royals were projected to give up 103 more runs next year.

The outfield defense has improved by the addition of Alex Rios, the bullpen has gotten stronger by the return of Luke Hochevar, and I would argue our starting pitching rotation has pushed at the blackjack table compared to 2014.

How does the swap of James Shields for Edinson Volquez in the starting pitching rotation equate to us giving up 103 more runs? It doesn’t.

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Another surprising aspect of this swap is how Edinson Volquez hasn’t gotten the level of hype that the number one starter coming off a NL Wildcard appearance deserves. In his last start, he gave up five runs in five innings to the Giants on October 1, 2014 (the NL Wildcard game), but so did James Shields in only three innings on October 21, 2014 (Game 1 of the World Series).

Volquez is also two years younger than Shields, and the miles on his arm are roughly half that of Shields with 1,042 innings pitched versus 1910 innings pitched.

When you compare the 2014 stats of Edinson Volquez and James Shields from Baseball-Reference, they are pretty equivalent:

Granted, Edinson needs to cut down on walks and he didn’t produce as many strike outs in 2014, but he eats innings. In addition to the outcome statistics (ERA, Win-Loss, Strike Outs, etc.) of their pitching, their pitching style is very similar. About two thirds of the pitches they threw in 2014 went for strikes.

Both of their Balls put into play percentage of strikes were roughly at one third, and almost half the strikes they throw are swung at. These similarities to me are very eerie, and it is about to get eerier. Even their pitch type and movement on those pitches are very similar as shown by BrooksBaseball for Edinson and Big Game James.

For my money, Edinson Volquez is James Shields without the cutter. Is that cutter worth four years at $75M versus two years at $20M. I don’t think so.

Even Pittsburgh realizes what a 30-game starter means to the Pirates, according to Jason Rollison of Rum Bunter, so why don’t Royals fans? Put simply, Dayton Moore has put together a formula for winning that I don’t think the MLB truly appreciates yet.

It’s not flashy, the Royals don’t hit a lot of home runs, and they don’t have starting pitchers that are dating super models (yet…though I think Yordano Ventura will be breaking some hearts soon), but in this era of baseball and in Kauffman Stadium, the Royals don’t need those things.

I hesitate to say that Volquez is an average starter, but he keeps the runs down for 200 innings a season, and gives our boys at the bat a good chance to win those 4-3 games. We don’t need Volquez to have 200 strike outs and the lowest ERA in baseball to get back to the playoffs, we just need someone who can start a game and go 6-7 innings without giving up five runs.

The other part of this is Edinson doesn’t have to be the KC Royals’ number one starter like he was in Pittsburgh. Though based on what he did last year helping them get to the Wildcard, I think he can.

Whoever in the Kansas City Royals front office had the idea for Volquez replacing Shields deserves a trip to the Bahamas on that one.

Next: KC Royals Offense Needs a Cornerstone

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