What 18-11 means
Posted: July 23rd, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 70 Comments »
I’m hard at work on a couple of pretty big things — details to follow soon, I hope — which is why the blog has been sort of inactive this week. But I have been checking in on the Royals from afar … and yes I did see that while Skipper Trey Hillman simply refused to put Joakim Soria into a game in the eighth inning with a lead, he finally did put Soria in a game in the eighth inning with the score tied and the bases loaded.
Remember the line in “It’s A Wonderful Life” where Ernie the taxi driver rolls past the bank and says, “I’ve never really seen one, but that’s got all the earmarks of being a run.” To me, when I saw him put Soria in there at that moment — I tried and tried and could not come up with one reason to do that — I thought, “Well I’ve never seen one, but that’s got all the earmarks of being a manager panicking.”
General manager Dayton Moore has spent a lot of time talking up the team too. The other day, Dayton told The Star’s Bob Dutton that he’s not “abandoning the process” and he’s entirely confident that “We will get this thing done.” I suppose that you could spend quite a bit of time picking apart those quotes but I will say that’s not the part that plinked off key for me … I mean, if I owned a team I would want a GM who has confidence in himself. And I think publicly you have to say you are not abandoning the process because … that’s just the sort of stuff you have to say.
I do think — and I know a lot of people disagree with me on this, though that’s a common feeling these days* — that it’s not entirely fair to judge Dayton on how the big league team is playing. Yes, I feel like he has made a few rather inexplicable moves, but let’s be honest: His big push has been in the minor leagues. The Royals brought in a lot of well-respected people — scouts and instructors. The Royals spent a lot of money on the draft and in Latin America. If that stuff pays off, and the Royals build the best farm system in baseball, then — not to take away from the sheer agony of watching this year’s team — that is a whole heck of a lot more important than what is happening now. Yes, some of the higher profile judgment calls — Mike Jacobs, Yuniesky Betancourt, Willie Bloomquist**, Jose Guillen, Kyle Farnsworth, Horacio Ramirez and so on — make you wonder exactly what talents this team values. But there have been a few good Dayton moves too — Ambiorix Burgos for Brian Bannister just as a start — and I think in fairness, there’s a revolution happening in the minor leagues and we don’t yet know who is going to win.
*OK, so I should probably offer a very quick explanation about my deservedly maligned Top 100 baseball list over at Sports Illustrated. First off, there is no way whatsoever to do a Top 100 baseball list without having it much maligned. There just isn’t. I probably put together 40 different lists, showed them to 40 different people in and around baseball (fans, scouts, managers, analysts, the guy on the plane next to me), and every time people said: “That list absolutely sucks.” And they were right. Lists like this do suck. They are made for ridicule. I have heard numerous sound complaints about the list … but I will say that every person who complained, if they put together a Top 100 list, I would and could probably tear it to shreds too.
The big trouble I had was trying to come up with the concept — what does Top 100 even mean? Is it the Top 100 in the first half of 2009? That was my first effort: But nobody really liked that. Nobody felt good about putting Jose Reyes 98th and Ben Zobrist 19th. So is it the 100 players you would take first in a draft? I tried that too … but nobody really liked that either because then you have to put guys on there with potential who haven’t done anything (wouldn’t Stephen Strasburg be a Top 100 pick? Matt Wieters? B.J. Upton? Tim Beckham? Rick Porcello? And so on). Plus it leaves off some of the older guys … and anyway the question is BEST PLAYERS in baseball.
So I tried to do a mishmash, and I took a lot of advice from a lot of cool people — I won’t name names to protect the innocent — and I really don’t think it’s a terrible list, though I will say in retrospect I probably weighed the first half too heavily. And I never did know exactly where to put closers. Ah well. It’s supposed to be fun … and anyway, funny thing, is the stuff that I’ve been hammered hardest about — numerous people wrote in to say that Hanley Ramirez was way too high at No. 3, for instance — I feel pretty good about. I’m like: Look, there are a million reasons to rip my list — Oswalt should have been on there, one of the Orioles should have been on there, I probably rated players I really like (Zack Greinke, Raul Ibanez and Pablo Sandoval for instance) too high and so on — but to me ranking HANLEY RAMIREZ as my third pick is not one of the list’s problems.
Anyway, as I mentioned in the intro there, if I did the list today I’m sure I would move quite a few people around. And tomorrow … I would move more people around. And so on. Forever. I suppose I could make it a weekly feature … please no one suggest this to Sports Illustrated. I suspect no one will.
So as a gift for nobody here bringing up the list — a blog exclusive — here are players 101-114 from my list. It was 101-115 until I realized that I had put Roy Oswalt on twice … I guess that’s how bad I felt about leaving him off. These are not really official, but then, none of it is official.
101. Roy Oswalt, starter
102. Adam Jones, centerfield
103. Marco Scutaro, second base
104. Ted Lilly, starter
105. Jake Peavy, starter
106. Adam Lind, designated hitter
107. Freddy Sanchez, second base
108. Mike Napoli, catcher
109. Nick Markakis, corner outfield
110. Huston Street, closer
111. Cole Hamels, starter
112. Ricky Romero, starter
113. Jair Jurrjens, starter
114. Jason Varitek, catcher
**In one of the odder moments the last few days, Dayton — in defending the Betancourt trade — made some reference to how nobody believed in the Willie Bloomquist signing either. I’m just telling you: That was weird. I found it hard to believe that he was declaring victory on the Bloomquist move already since the guy does have a 79 OPS+, and since the end of May he’s hitting .249/.275/.325. I mean, hey, I’ve come around to thinking that Bloomquist can help a team if used right (and used less) because he does play a lot of positions and he does play hard, and he can steal you a base now and then. But I’m not sure it’s time yet to declare Brock for Broglio on this one.
No, my problem with Dayton’s comments and the comments you generally hear around the Royals is that there seems to be an overriding certainty that this team was not fundamentally flawed but, instead, has been jinxed. I have written at some length about this in the Life’s Not Fair series, but here I want to make a specific point: The Royals apparently keep pointing to their good start — 18-11 after 29 games — as proof that this wasn’t that bad a team before injuries and what have you. I wrote about this in the past, but I want to make the point a bit more strongly here: An 18-11 stretch, while nice, does not tell you almost anything about a team.
Bill James once wrote about how, if a big league pitchers strikes out 15 or more in a game while not walking anyone, you can conclude that he probably will be an outstanding big league pitcher. It’s one of those persuasive achievements. Look: Twenty-one pitchers have pulled it off since 1954 …
Dominant, Hall-of-Fame-type pitchers (9): Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Pedro Martinez, Luis Tiant*, John Smoltz, Curt Schilling*, Johan Santana, Nolan Ryan, Mike Mussina*.
*These pitchers may or may not get into the Hall of Fame … but they have a case. Clemens is a whole other thing.
Pitchers seemingly on their way to dominant careers who were derailed by injury or some other issue (8): Dwight Gooden, Kerry Wood, Frank Tanana (who still had an excellent career), Mark Prior, Gary Nolan, Sam McDowell, Vida Blue, Erik Bedard.
Darned good pitchers (3): Mark Langston, Mario Soto, Sid Fernandez.
Anomaly: Sterling Hitchcock.
So, that’s a pretty impressive group … and if someone tomorrow would strike out 15 or more and walk none you would probably be safe to say that pitcher will be at least really, really good and will probably be great at least for a short while. You could not say the same thing for, say, a pitcher who throws a perfect game*.
*Mark Buehrle already was a terrific pitcher even before the perfect game, though numerous people thought I ranked him too high on my list too. Of course, if my list had come out AFTER his perfect game, I might have ranked him seventh overall … I am easily persuaded.
So what does a team going 18-11 actually mean? Is the predictive of anything?
Well, there are at least two ways you could look at it. One, you could point out that some really bad teams have gone 18-11 or so over 29 games. The 2002 Kansas City Royals lost exactly 100 games. They were 18-11 from June 22 to July 23. The 2006 Chicago Cubs lost 96 games and were one of the great bad teams in recent memory — they had an 18-11 stretch. The 1980 New York Mets lost 95 games — that’s the last full year of Joe Torre in Queens. They had TWO 18-11 records. The 1996 Detroit Tigers lost 106 games had one of the worst pitching staffs ever. They had a 30-game stretch of 17-13, which isn’t quite 18 games, but that team was awful.
The other way is to look at ALL the teams that go 18-11 and determine if it tells us anything. Well, last year, 24 of the 30 teams in baseball had an 18-11 stretch somewhere along the way. So, 80% of teams last season went 18-11. So that means 18-11 is pretty darned common. And more: Three of the six remaining had 17-12 stretches, two more had 16-13 stretches. The only team to not have at least a winning record over any 29 game stretch was the Seattle Mariners.
So, it’s pretty clear: That while 18-11 is nice, it’s not predictive. It happens all the time, to good teams and bad. Having back-to-back 18-11 stretches, yeah, that might tell you something.
Now, the other point is that the Royals have gone 19-46 since that 18-11 start. Does that tell you anything? Um, yeah. In 2008, only one team managed to go 19-46 over a 65 game stretch: The worst team in baseball, the Washington Nationals. In 2007, the only team to do it was … the worst team in baseball, the Tampa Bay Rays. In 2006, the only teams to do it were … the Kansas City Royals, the Chicago Cubs (who also went 18-11, you might recall) and the Tampa Bay Rays, the three worst teams in baseball. In 2005, only the Royals and Tampa again, two worst teams. In 2004, it was Kansas City (again), Arizona (horrendous) and Milwaukee, which was actually not the third worst team, but was plenty bad, a 94-loss dud.
And so on. So being that bad over 65 games just about ALWAYS tells you that a team is terrible. Being 18-11 over 29 games, meanwhile, doesn’t tell you much at all.
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What a train wreck. While I can no longer share your optimism about the minor league system, Joe, I can at least be faintly happy that somebody has optimism somewhere.
I disagree with Roy Oswalt being both 101 and 104. I say you compromise and make him 102.5
Psst, Joe. You put Oswalt on that list twice. Nice list though.
Well surely the braintrust over at KC can see that a 65 game sample is more predictive of future performance than a 28 game one? If not, well then, the Royals need a new FO. It’s really not that hard, is it?
So, you need to win this year… and you choose Adam Wainwright nearly 40 slots ahead of Roy Oswalt? Really?
About half your choices are virtually indefensible, either by virtue of how high you’ve slotted them, or that you’ve selected them at all. Did Steve Phillips ghostwrite this thing for you?
I remain a huge fan of your work.
I might be saying this because two Brewers are in the top 15, but I don’t think 50 of the picks are ‘virtually indefensible.’ Not that Mr. Posnanski is infallible, but I don’t think even ONE of the picks is ‘virtually indefensible,’ especially given the criteria.
“Deservedly maligned.” C’mon Joe. It’s not like you did something Brantley-esque and put Papelbon #1.
I will admit that I am a huge Phillies fan, but even with his struggles this year, I can’t imagine any coherent way one could argue that there are 110 players in baseball who would be selected before Cole Hamels in a theoretical draft. It is indefensible.
Thanks, Joe. Insightul as always, while also being backed up by well-researched statistics (as always). I enjoy reading your work, especially on the wretched Royals. The only humor I can find in their awful play comes from your columns and this blog. Keep up the good work, I can’t read enough Joe Poz… Pozna.. Poz-something!
Top 100 lists are easy if you do it objectively after -subjectively- defining the criteria and then calculating the metric. For example, if it’s the start of the 2009 season (instead of now in July), one could look at the Wins Above Replacement the past three years, weight the seasons accordingly (2008 more than 2007 more than 2006), perhaps throw in an age factor, and Presto!, a Top 100 list.
Fantasy baseball providers do it all the time. Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball updates the rankings on a daily basis, IIRC.
It seems to me that Joe was asked by SI to create a list, he did it mostly in a subjective fashion, and then of course thousands of others are going to chime in with their own subjective way of ranking the players. It’s one big clust… well, I’ll keep it clean for once.
But it would have been more entertaining and more thought-provoking if Joe had presented his subjective metric and then simply ranked the players based on this metric. We could at least then argue about the metric rather than “I think Player A is better than Player B” “No he’s not! But Player C is better than both!!” (Yawn)
Hell, I did not even look at Joe’s list after reading his introduction. What’s the point? OK, so he ranked this guy 10th and higher than this other guy. Peachy. Now what?
Next time, spend ten minutes creating a list and the rest of the time sharing your always entertaining anecdotes and opinions. Fuck lists.
i have to admit, i thought your list was absolutely awful. when i read it, i literally messaged my friends telling them how ridiculously terrible it was. greinke at #4 overall? above lincecum, halladay AND santana? markakis not even in the top 100? ibanez in the top 20? i don’t know if you could have made a worse list if you had tried.
I don’t think that you can use DM’s work at the minor league level as an excuse for his work at the major league level. I think most people would agree that his work at the minor league level seems to be a huge improvement over the past. This does not relieve him of his duties at this level. It does not allow him to waste money in a way only Bill Bavasi could surpass. The only players that have had much success here since DM has been running things were/are A.) Gone B.) Already established and in the middle of their prime years or C.) So good that even the Royals couldn’t screw them up.
You mention the increase in instructors into the system. I may very well be blind, but I don’t see any instructors anywhere near this team. Maybe they are forbidden to come within 50 yards of anyone on the major league roster.
His need for sub .300 OBP hitters is unmatched in this league outside of maybe Seattle. Obviously, Seattle is getting better as we get worse in that area though.
Using something he has been successful in to forgive him of the unforgivable moves he has made at the major league level just doesn’t make much sense to me.
Still think you’re great though.
The 18-11 start was legit. They were playing pretty good ball and really they should have been 20-9. The 19-46 record since then is just as legit. I’m not sure I’ve seen a worse Royals team. Its not that they lose, its how they lose.
The thing that’s killing me about Dayton Moore isn’t so much the awful signings, it’s the lying. He says he’s looking for one thing, then signs a completely different type of player. He says he doesn’t understand defensive stats. Hello? A GM that doesn’t even understand those stats? Com’on.
If he’s building up the minors & has a great major league club built from it in 2013, that’s great. I’d love that. But I will still lack confidence in him if he keeps lying to us about what he’s trying to do.
That’s the real problem with Dayton Moore. If he’d just say, “look, we have to focus on the minor league system so we can get back to being a perennial winner, and until then I just need to fill the slots on the major league level…bear with me a little while, and it’ll be worth it” ….then I’d see these awful signings and think “no biggie, he knows what he’s doing and he’s doing it” …but I’m left thinking “he knows what he wants to do, and he’s not doing it”.
The Royals are losing me.
Aren’t 100 loss seasons generally considered predictive of poor teams? Predicting the past is generally more successful than predicting the future. Basing predictions on 19-46 partial seasons, is probably too soon, though you’re headed in the right direction.
I am curious what the Royals’ process that Moore talks about is. It seems to me as if he is throwing darts at the board blindfolded in the hopes of hitting the bullseye.
When he signed Meche to a big contract it was generally derided on sabermetric sites and elsewhere. In the first two years it appeared that Moore had the last laugh as Meche was good, although I still am dubious it was a proper signing for a club in KC’s position.
Since then it seems he is trying to duplicate that result, selecting players with talent who have not performed well or have serious flaws and expecting them to emerge as stars. That is a very haphazard approach, not a process.
Making lists is always fraught with danger. So Mr. Posnanski isn’t the best list maker in the world. That doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s the best danged writer in the world of baseball.
The Royals and Dayton Moore keep reminding me of Joseph Kennedy right before WWII. The sky is falling and these guys keep defending their choice of beds they made.
What’s funny to me (an Indians fan) is that you have bent over backwards to try to see things the Royals’ way and yet this blog is a carefully-researched portfolio of the huge, ugly (fatal?) flaws in the organization. The Betancourt thing may be most recent, and you were careful and respectful in pointing out that, hey, maybe they just see it differently. I finished that post and was like, “those Royals guys are incompetent.” I mean, who trades *for* “maybe the worst everyday player in the league”?
Imagine if you stopped giving them the benefit of the doubt. *shiver*
Joe, next week can you do a list of the worst 100 players in baseball? I think that could be a lot funnier. Of course, it may limit the number of players you’ll be able to interview…
As a Cardinals fan, seeing Dan Haren so high on the list (and deservedly so, I think) sends me into a “if only Jocketty hadn’t…” funk. Can you imagine Carpenter/Haren/Wainright in a short series?
On the other hand, w/o Jocketty’s wheeling and dealing we would be Blank/Haren/Blank, so I guess things aren’t so bad.
Joe, the blog hasn’t that “inactice this week”. 5 posts (in the last 7 days) is great. Many bloggers don’t even post on the weekends. As long as your involved, the quality should make up for the quantity.
“…it’s not entirely fair to judge Dayton on how the big league team is playing.”
I think this statement is technically correct since your threw “entirely” in there, but the overall sentiment is wrong. Yes, Moore gets some credit for helping out the farm system. I’m sure he’d be a wonderful Player Development Director, or Minor League Scouting Director. But that doesn’t mean he can be a good overall GM, because developing the minors is just one of many of his responsibilities as GM, and I haven’t seem him be successful in ANY of the others. Big-league talent acquisition? Fail. Hiring a manager? Fail. Objective analysis? Fail. Payroll management? Fail.
So, “entirely” fair to judge him on the big-league results? No. But it’s a solid majority of his job and he’s been pretty damned bad at it.
Not really related, but given what was at stake can anyone think of a better regular season defensive play ever than Dwayne Wise’s catch yesterday?
I can’t but maybe somebody here can.
If Joe does a “worst 100) list, you can bet that it will be well populated with Royals.
Putting more emphasis on the 18-11 vs. the 19-46 is the same kind of faulty thinking that leads a team into signing a Jacobs or Farnsworth or Betancourt. Placing too much hope into a small sample of past goodness vs. a career of general badness.
Although the list of people who have thrown perfect games isn’t necessarily a list of great pitchers (See, e.g., Len Barker), the list of pitchers who have thrown a perfect game and another no-hitter in their career is pretty darned good.
Cy Young
Addie Joss
Jim Bunning
Sandy Koufax
Randy Johnson
Mark Buehrle
4 HOFers and another certain one. And I would guess the chances of Buehrle being a HOFer someday are pretty high too (in fact I venture to say in about 12 years we will be having the same tired discussion about him being the last 300 game winner ever)
And hats off to Ozzie Guillen yesterday, whose Wise defensive move in the top of the 9th preserved the perfect game. No way Posednik catches that ball.
I didn’t watch the Royals game you describe, but I was surprised to read that you “tried and tried and could not come up with one reason to” put Soria in a high-leverage situation in a tie game. Isn’t that just where you want to bring in your best reliever? Isn’t our railing against Hillman’s bullpen handling based on his unwillingness to do things like this? It didn’t work out, but a bad outcome does not imply a bad decision. Perhaps it was, but I don’t (yet) see why.
The fact that the move was so out of character for Hillman might argue that it was made out of desperation rather than premeditation, but it still doesn’t strike me as an indefensible move.
By the way, like essentially everyone who reads it, I love the blog. Rock on.
115. Asdrubal Cabrera
Slick fielding 23 year old MIFers with .350+ OBPs don’t grow on trees, ya know.
Doesn’t Moore say those things to keep the fans coming out?
Joe, I love your writing. But a quarter of the way through that list I have already had numerous WTF! moments.
So now it’s 115, and still no room for Troy Tulowitzki?
The minor league teams are no better. Every Royals affiliate ranks in the bottom half of their league in OBP. Most rank in the bottom 2 or 3 of their leagues. Dayton sure paid a lot of lip service this fall to OBP, but he’s not doing a thing about it. For that, he has to go.
Joe, don’t cower from the angry hoards, your list was perfectly defensible. As a catalogue of the 100 best players right now this reads pretty well. Sure some biases crept in, and maybe you did lean a bit too heavily on first-half numbers, but they didn’t topple the apple cart. Chin up man!
Hey Joe, I would like to start by saying I do not agree with your list but I do not think its terrible as some are saying. Going through and looking at players by position I came up with a mock 25 man roster from your top 100. Starting players are highest players at specified position and bench players were chosen by next best at position in order to fill out a semi-realistic 25-man roster.
Starting 9
C: Joe Mauer
1b: Albert Pujols
2b: Chase Utley
3b: Alex Rodriguez
ss: Hanley Ramirez
lf: Ryan Braun
cf: Carlos Beltran
rf: Ichiro
sp: Zack Greinke
Bench
C: Pablo Sandoval (I know he hasn’t played much C this year but he is way higher than the next full-time catcher and I’m a Giants fan – Go Panda!)
1b: Prince Fielder
ss: Derek Jeter (I am assuming he could also cover at 2b)
3b: Evan Longoria (could also probably cover ss/2b since he converted from ss in college for troy tulowitzki)
of: Manny Ramirez
of: Josh Hamilton (sorry Raul Ibanez I know you are higher in the list but I need at least one backup outfielder who can cover all three outfield positions)
sp: Tim Lincecum
sp: Dan Haren
sp: Johan Santana
sp: Roy Halladay
rp: Mariano Rivera
rp: Joe Nathan
rp: Johnathan Broxton
rp: Johnathon Papelbon
rp: Joakim Soria
rp: Ryan Franklin (arguably could have put in another starter here instead in which case it would be Felix Hernandez or an extra infielder)
I think that would be a terrific openeing day roster. Is it the best possible roster? Maybe, maybe not but I’m pretty sure that everyone an agree this team would have a fantastic shot at winning the world series and would be considered pre-season favourites by near-all.
Geoffrey, that would be quite a lineup. Who bats eighth (or if you’re Tony LaRussa, who bats ninth)?
If you were starting a team, etc., etc., you’d take Scutaro over a 26 year old lefty who’s coming off an LDS and WS MVP season? Yikes.
@Perry 30: Yes, there is still no room for a guy who I believe was benched twice earlier this year because he was playing like crap and has inflated power numbers because of where he plays…
@Mikey 22: How about a catch that wins you the game or prevents the winning run from scoring? The catch was good, but if he didn’t get it, the White Sox will still be up 5-1 in the 9th.
@Geoffrey and Spud
If it were me, I’d go with a batting order like so.
1. Ichiro
2. Chase Utley
3. Albert Pujols
4. Alex Rodriguez
5. Carlos Beltran
6. Joe Mauer
7. Ryan Braun
8. Hanley Ramirez
I suppose you could switch interchangeably though just depending on who’s hot and who isn’t. I mean with a murderer’s row like that it doesn’t really matter who you bat where.
Not big enough of a sample size to really judge. That’s less than a fifth of a season for sample size and while it was a great start for the Royals, it needs to be sustained. The Rockies of 2007 were a .500 team before they went 20-8 in September to snatch the Wild Card. Unfortunately, the R’s aren’t even a .500 caliber team yet. I think in another two years, if they make smart moves and don’t let anyone of importance leave (pitching staff) the investment in minor leaguers should pay off big.
So when do we get to see the fruits of the minor league talent? It would seem like we should hear of someone tearing it up down there
The Royals always seem to consistently play bad baseball, its just mind blowing, but hey as soon as they go on another 18-11 run, I’ll be back on the bandwagon like everyone else
Am I the only one that thinks Moore’s recent comments smack 0f Allard Baird?
Moore: “OK, then,” he said. “Let’s just trust the process. If other people don’t want to trust the process, that’s fine. If other people want to abandon the process, then abandon it. I’m not abandoning the process. I believe in the process.
Baird: “We’ve got to stick with our plan. We have no other alternative. We feel like we have some good, young players.”
We need another Cedric Tallis…
[...] win-loss trends…only to find that all I had to do was wait for Joe Posnanski to do the work for me: Well, there are at least two ways you could look at it. One, you could point out that some really [...]
The most telling thing to me is that no Royals position players are in the top #114, and none are probably even close. No reasonable case could be made for any of them, as well.
What does THAT tell you about our team, Dayton??
Dayton’s delusion regarding Blümqvist absolutely blows my mind. It’s like he doesn’t realize that everyone thought it was a terrible signing, then everyone got temporarily caught up in him hitting .380, then he came back to earth and now…
Now, most people seem to view it as “well, not as bad as we thought it would be, but it’s still not really a good signing.”
That he thinks Willie belongs in his plus column says everything about him, really.
[...] 100 best current baseball players. It's not that he did a bad job (though of course there are things to quibble with), it’s just that he’s got a comparative advantage in excellent baseball writing. But [...]
@Spud
I plugged each of the starters* career obp and slg numbers into baseball musings great lineup analysis and it came up with the following as the most productive lineup
*using the starter in my lineup like the NL because I prefer pitchers hitting over the DH
6.437 runs per game
Mauer
Pujols
Utley
A-Rod
Hanley
Braun
Beltran
Greinke
Ichiro
This is an intriguing lineup.
Firstly though, remember that this lineup is calculated solely by using obp and slg so speed, base running and stealing success are not considered.
Ok so all the top lineups have;
Mauer leading off (mostly due to his obp, only he and Pujols are above .400 lifetime), Greinke in the 8 spot and Ichiro in the 9 spot (Tony LaRussa must be onto something, personally, I am a big fan of hitting the pitcher 8th)
Other notes;
Pujols dominates the 2 spot, of the top 10 lineups he is no.2 in all but one (the 10th best lineup, where they put him cleanup)
Utley/Ramirez are the dominant no.3’s with 4 of top 10 lineups each
A-Rod hits cleanup, he has 6 of the top 10 including all top 4, Braun is consensus 2nd choice here
5 spot appears to mostly be an opposite Utley/Ramirez split of the 3 spot
Braun hits 6th mostly with 5 of top 10 lineups, Beltran has 4
7th is Beltran mostly
Personally I like the lineup although its not quite what I would choose. I agree with Greinke in the eight spot and Ichiro 9th but would bump Hanley up to leadoff and then flop Utley and Pujols leaving me with this
Hanley
Mauer
Utley
Pujols
A-Rod
Braun
Beltran
Greinke
Ichiro
This lineup would produce 6.388 runs per game average, a drop of .050 runs per game from the average, I can live with that.
I think I’ve probably already gone way further than anyone cares with this post but just for completion I also ran the lineup with a DH using Prince Fielder since he was the highest ranked of my bench players.
6.889 runs per game*
Mauer
Pujols
Utley
A-Rod
Hanley
Braun
Fielder
Beltran
Ichiro
*almost a whole half run ahead of a non-DH lineup at +.452* runs
*Could a half run a game be the difference between having a DH and not? I’m not going to look into this right now but is an interesting idea to research
Looking at the Top 10 lineups the outcomes are almost identical to before except Beltran becomes the unanimous 8 spot hitter (Pujols becomes a consensus in the 2 spot) and Fielder plays a utility role through the lineups, hitting anywhere from 3rd to 7th (6th is his most common spot with 3 appearances)
I know this is probably a lot more than you were asking for Spud but I have found analysing these lineups very enjoyable/interesting
Just to respond to the question I posed in my previous post; Could a half run a game be the difference between having a DH and not?
Consider that the WORST DH lineup from my previous post would score 6.521* runs per game (more than the best NL style lineup) and the worst NL style lineup (using Greinke instead of Fielder) yields 5.690 runs per game.
*that is still ridiculous (in a good way)
There is a difference of .368 runs per game in the best/worst DH lineups and 0.747 runs per game difference for the best/worst NL lineups (mid-point is .5575). Not sure if these differences would hold if you analysed all teams lineups with and without a DH (that would be interesting to find out)
I mentioned that the difference between the two best lineups was .452 runs. That shoots up to a difference of .831 runs using the worst lineups. This year the NL is averaging 4.42 runs per game vs the AL’s 4.78 runs per game giving a difference of .36 runs in favour of the AL.
Obviously all the data I am using is not independent of ball parks etc… but using it to guess I would assume that half a run per game* may be nearly right (over-estimating slightly?) in measuring the difference between DH and non-DH lineups.
*remember half a run a game is 81 runs a season which is quite a large gap when considering runs scored (and run differential)
I was just thinking what an 18-11 record out of the gate must have felt/meant to loyal Royal fans… ( I mostly follow the Pirates so I have some empathy here.)
They probably bought a few more tickets for future games with the hopes of continued success or at least the thought of a sure thing to see competitive baseball for the remainder of the campaign. Now that the complexion of the season has completely changed (can a particular team’s season get severe acne ?) the frustration is increased.
But, ask yourself this Royals fans. Given how good you felt when your club was 18-11, wasn’t that feeling better than being a .380-.400 team throughout the entire year? I think that it’s better to have loved and lost than not loved at all…..Good luck the rest of the way. Maybe that acne will clear up before 2010!
Yea, a Pirate!
We’re #107!
Until he gets traded. Just slightly bitter here.
Ranking Adam Lind behind Marco Scutaro is equally sad and hilarious.
And no, I didn’t read the original article.
People who complain about Joe’s *admittedly* subjective list make Baby Jesus cry.
….and also make me want to punch them in the neck.
Which also makes Baby Jesus cry.
Bottom line, you people are turning Jesus into a crybaby, stop it.
God forbid anyone gives their subjective opinion about Joe’s subjective list. How DARE they!?
[...] Joe Posnanski ” Blog Archive ” What 18-11 means [...]
So where do you think the Royals rank in comparison to the Jays? The Jays got off to a hot start, considering what would have been expected with their decimated pitching staff.
That probably raised expectations.
They are certainly ahead of the Royals, but after 8 years of Ricciardi are they any further ahead talent wise than under Gord Ash?
I don’t follow as much ball as I used to, I see the Jays with the sinkhole of Wells contract, somewhat less so with Rios. Rolen (one of my favourites) is 30+, I just don’t know really how much the Jays have worked to a plan originally envisioned.
Albeit they have the Yankees and Red Sox to compete against, so I’m not merely looking at win-loss record here, but how well have they developed farm wise?
Moore has a plan, so did Ricciardi, I’m wondering how much a plan actually gets executed.
I thought your list was far from perfect (probably better than I would have done), but I just checked out the comments and they’re ridiculous. My favorite one is “No Paul Konerko???” No, a 1st basemen with a .780 OPS last year isn’t exactly a guy you’d want to build your team around. I agree you should have probably ranked more catchers, but don’t understand why everyone is clamoring for Yadier Molina of all people.
The Royals major-league squad currently emits an offensive odor, with about six exceptions. I thought Dayton was supposed to get us a good team. He most certainly has not, and now we’re in the hole for a bunch of bad contracts for the next couple years. So our major-league team will continue to have real nasty BO for the foreseeable future.
Nick @57: If I am ranking catchers, and I admit to being rather inexpert, Yadier Molina is top five.
Mauer
McCann
Martin
Molina, Yadier
And then someone else who I can’t think of right now, preferably someone whose last name begins with an “M”.
Do not know that I would rank him among the top 100, but he is worth mentioning in the discussion.
I’m glad to see Oswalt somewhere on the list, he is one of my favorites and has amazing career stats. Have you ever tried a top 100 list of all time? That might be fun.
Isn’t it possible that the Royals plan is for the MLB team to suck as much as possible so that they can stock up on great draft picks like the Rays did?
That makes more sense to me than anything.
I find it interesting that everyone likes to compare the first 29 games with the rest of the season.Why not look at their record for the year (now 38-58) to assess the team. This projects to 64-98 record. Pretty bad. I’m optimistic the Royals will do better than that. The schedule for the first 29 games I believe overall was softer than the recent schedule (I didn’t go through the stats of it but it seems that way). The schedule for the rest of the season looks more similar to the beginning of he season.
The pitching has improved since Dayton came in.Offensively the team has regressed. I think partly because team management is as impatient as the fans and tried to find a quick fix for this year. It didn’t work. I think if the Royals are ever going to be good again it will take patience to let the farm system develop Hopefully Dayton and staff are making the right moves at that level.
So what does it mean that tonight Hoechever struck out 13 with no walks?
#59. Really? I know the guy plays good defense but he has a career .363 slugging percentage (.382 this year). His OPS isn’t really much higher than Rod Barajas’s, who’s regarded as a great defensive catcher as well. Mike Napoli, Chris Iannetta, Miguel Montero, and Geovany Soto (despite his step back this year) are just a few guys with good reputations with the glove whose offensive numbers are much, much better than Molina’s. Then you have guys like Posada and Pierzynski and Doumit and Brother Bengie who are not so great on defense but so much better with the bat you’d think it’d trump any difference with the glove. I’d compare Yadier to a guy like Kurt Suzuki. Suzuki’s a very good defensive catcher with better offensive numbers in a tougher park in the tougher league. No one’s clamoring for Suzuki to be in the top 100.
I guess this is why lists like Joe’s are so tough…
I try to give public figures who answer questions all the time some slack when they say stupid things. However, I agree Moore’s statemenst raise concern because, in addition to normal blather that any GM would state, they also reveal some analytical weaknesses.
Hillman is worse. He continuously says things (with great confidence) that make no sense, e.g., the “four out save” silliness.
[...] and Historic Ineptitude on Friday, I neglected to link Joe Posnanski’s Thursday post titled What 18-11 Means which fits in with the other links I [...]
First, the grammar (in case SI decides to move your blog to its blog): “if a big league pitchers strikes” should be “pitcher strikes”.
I have zero objections to your list. None. Yeah, many of your favorites were too high. But you weren’t making a draft list. You were listing the 100 best players, in your opinion, right now. So somebody else thinks #84 should have been #48. Big deal! Who on your list didn’t belong on your list? In fact, you listed a couple of guys I was questionable about so I went and looked them up, and my objections went away. And that’s why I loved your list; you opened my eyes to some guys I didn’t know about (because I gave up hard core baseball studying for being a better father back in 1986 at my wife’s insistance, and haven’t gotten back into it now that the kid’s out of the house).
This wasn’t a fantasy draft order. This was the guys you thought were the best 100 players in baseball right now, this season. It was a fine list for that. The guys having mediocre seasons historically were second half heroes, and everybody else was having a great season. Be proud of that list*! Good job!
Of course, maybe your next list could have an extra player or two from the team with the best record in baseball. I mean, NINE Yankees? Oh, wait, that’s right. This is an SI article, and Yankees, or players who beat the Yankees, get way too much credit from media operations based in you know where. Based on record, too many Red Sox as well. I’ll give you too many Cardinals, since they’re local to you and you can hardly put on more Royals. But if there’s ever a sign that New York media influences too many baseball decisions, it has to be your list. The Yankees missed the playoff last year, don’t have the best record in baseball this year, but have the most players on your list. Which Yankee am I going to throw off your list? Um, er, well – psych! Both starting pitchers. I mean, no starter with an ERA above 3.5 and no more than +4 WL for the team with the second best record in baseball deserves to be on that list.
But if you want to be friendlier to your critics, group them in groups as follows: one position player from each of the eight positions, one utility player/DH (or slugging first baseman who doesn’t field well), four starting pitchers, one relievers, one other pitcher (could be starter, reliever, setup guy, whoever). Put out six teams, add in the ten best guys who you couldn’t fit in for whatever reason at the end. Because your list goes to #19 before finding the third outfielder, and the premise was, you need to win THIS year. And I bet players 14-19 (I know, Manny’s the third outfielder at #19) wouldn’t be on your team, and #20 (Ichiro) would be. The advantage of grouping them that way would be it becomes clear if bias is creeping in. Every team needs a player at every position, with mild capacity for fudging between 1st/3rd/LF. So I doubt if your premise was to win this year you’d really pick Ryan Zimmerman (the last 1B/3B/LFer) over, say, Orlando Hudson, or some other worthy second baseman. Else all those pitchers at the top of your list might rebel.
[...] Clayton Kershaw threw a special game but I didn’t realize how special it was until reading a column by Joe Posnanski yesterday in which he mentioned this Bill James [...]
[...] now, I actually don’t have the slightest idea. Tags: crimes against humanity, dayton moore, hide the sharp objects and [...]
[...] Remember the line in “It’s A Wonderful Life” where Ernie the taxi driver rolls past the bank and says, “I’ve never really seen one, but that’s got all the earmarks of being a run.” To me, wheRead more at http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2009/07/23/what-18-11-means/ [...]