Kansas City Royals: What Can Speed Do In 2015

Everything is great now for the Kansas City Royals. The Royals are hitting home runs in Arizona at nearly 1200 ft, which is a completely different story from their 2014 campaign.

It’s a different story when the Royals return to the K, however, as they must also return to the harsh reality that no Kansas City Royals player has hit more than 36 home runs in a season. That was Steve Balboni in 1985. Billy Butler came close in 2012 with 29 home ru,,,,ns, but the last time a single player hit 30 home runs in a season was Chili Davis in 1997.

More from Kansas City Royals

It is an unexplainable phenomenon why home runs are not hit at Kaufmann Stadium, but it isn’t just Royals players. If you look at the ESPN park factors for the Royals over the last 10 years, eight of those 10 saw Kauffman Stadium in the lower one-third of parks, and four of those times it was second to last.

Yet, historically the Kansas City Royals have seemed to thrive with playoff appearances when the offensive is struggling in the MLB. From 1976-1980, the Royals played for the AL pennant every year except 1979. When the Royals previously discussed the current offensive recession (which I wrote about a few weeks ago), they talked about how the runs per game is consistently regressing downward.

Following the 1968 season, when the MLB averaged 3.42 runs per game, the MLB average didn’t go over 4.5 runs per game until 1987. From when Kauffman Stadium opened in 1973 until 1985, all of MLB averaged 4.23 +/- 0.15 runs per game, which is notably less than the PED-fueled average of 4.80 +/- 0.16 runs per game from 1993-2009.

As shown in the figure below, if you look at the amount of home runs per plate appearance since the deadball era, you will notice that the 1970’s had some of the lowest HR/PA values post WWII. Another interesting point to consider is that up until the PED era, home runs per plate appearance never correlated with runs per game. This is the outlier we are looking for.

If you aren’t hitting home runs, and people generally don’t at the K, the Royals need to manufacture runs by putting players into scoring position, and this is what speed can do in 2015.

Live Feed

A's slug their way past Kansas City, wins 6-4 /

White Cleat Beat

This pitcher could break an unenviable KC Royals recordKings of Kauffman

MLB Playoff Odds vs. Baseball Reference Playoff Odds: Who Has Betting Value?Betsided

Royals vs. Athletics prediction and odds for Monday, Aug. 21 (Battle for last place)Kings of Kauffman

KC Royals fans need to watch this surging prospectKings of Kauffman

KC Royals News: Fireflies on fire, Brad Keller, and why a sweep would be goodKings of Kauffman

Before we look at 2015, let’s look at what it did in the 1970’s. From 1973-1976, for four straight seasons the World Series Champion and at least one other playoff team were the top three teams in MLB at stealing bases.

The Kansas City Royals as a team were in the top five for stolen bases every year from 1976-1980, and led all of MLB twice in 1978 and 1979. If you look at the make-up of the Royals, and other successful teams of the 1970’s (Oakland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh) there also appeared to be another factor.

In order to get up into the 200 stolen bases per season you typically need three players who were very adept at base stealing in the starting lineup. Willie Wilson, Amos Otis, and Freddie Patek were our guys during the AL pennant runs of the late 1970’s.

For the last two years, Jarrod Dyson, Alcides Escobar, and Lorenzo Cain have played a very large role in the Royals leading all of MLB in stolen bases. In 2014, those three combined for 95 stolen bases and 62% of the teams total stolen bases.

Dyson should be able to crack 40 stolen bases this year with Alcides and Cain hopefully pushing upper 30’s. Terrance Gore didn’t have his MLB debut until September 2, 2014, and he still got five stolen bases in the regular season with three in the postseason. Hopefully he can pitch run enough to pull down 20-30 stolen bases this year.

It would be great if the Kansas City Royals could push 200 stolen bases this year, the last team to do that was the 2007 New York Mets, and their 88-74 record isn’t something I would mind seeing one bit in October of 2015.

Next: Tim Collins Has Ligament Damage in Elbow

More from KC Kingdom

Home/Kansas City Royals