The Remarkable Royals
Posted: September 29th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 32 Comments »
My friend, the legendary baseball writer Hal McCoy, wrote a couple of fun books back when the Big Red Machine won back-to-back World Series in 1975 and 1976. The first one he called The Royals Reds. And the second one he called The Regal Reds. In some ways, it’s probably good that the Reds stopped winning World Series at that point because I’m not really sure what alliteration he uses next. I suppose he could have gone with The Respectable Reds or The Reasonable Reds or The Ready Reds or The Ravenous Reds. Maybe The Rascally Reds.
Then … he could have used the word “remarkable.” But, you know, I don’t think that word means what I think it means. That is — I always thought of remarkable somehow being similar to the word “terrific” or “marvelous.” And those are indeed official synonyms according to the Oxford American Dictionaries.
The definition of remarkable is closer to “striking” — the definition is “worthy of attention” or “notably or conspicuously unusual.” There’s a subtle difference there. The Reds may or may not have been remarkable.
But the 2009 Royals — yes, I think they are remarkable.
Take Luke Hochevar. You know that Hochevar was the first pick in the 2006 draft — an unfortunate spot because it turns out that was a very good draft. Evan Longoria went No. 3, Clayton Kershaw went No. 7, Tim Lincecum went No. 10, Max Scherzer went No. 11, Joba Chamberlain went No. 41 — anyway, it’s a tough draft to be the No. 1 pick.
Well, you probably know that Hochevar has shown signs of sheer brilliance this year. To be specific, he has had three starts that were notable.
1. He threw a three-hit shutout against the White Sox just a week and a half ago.
2. In June, he retired the Cincinnati Reds on just 80 pitches. Yes, as mentioned by numerous Brilliant Readers, it was the Reds which takes away some of the brilliance. But an 80-pitch complete game is a rare thing.
3. In July against Texas, he had a 13-strikeout, 0-walk game against the Rangers. Another pretty rare thing.
So take those three starts — and add in a fourth, if you like a fairly impressive game against Minnesota — 7 innings, 2 hits, 0 runs against the Twins. You don’t have to count that fourth game — it wasn’t anything too special. But it does magnify the point.
The point? Luke Hochevar has a 6.24 ERA this season.
A SIX POINT TWO FOUR ERA. I mean … that’s horrendous. He has a 70 ERA+. You know, in baseball history there have only been a handful of players (well, 52 players — so 10 handfuls) who have thrown 140 innings with an ERA of 6.20 or higher. And four of those were from that preposterous hitting season of 1930.
Now to me — THAT is remarkable. You have a guy who three times this year has unmistakably been brilliant, the sort of brilliant that makes you think, “Well, OK now, that is why he was the first pick in the draft — this guy has figured things out.” And the rest of the year he is SO PREPOSTEROUSLY BAD that he can still manage to post a 6.24 ERA. That takes some work. The Royals have come to believe it’s from him tipping his pitches. But I’m not sure pitch-tipping would lead to this sort of craziness. This month is telling: Hochevar is 1-4 with an 8.16 ERA in September. But the month also includes his three-hit shutout against Chicago.
So this month, Hochevar is 1-0 with a 0.00 ERA in his victory.
And he’s 0-4 with an 11.90 ERA in his four other games.
For the year, Hochevar has four outings where he is 4-0 with a .084 ERA, 23 Ks, 6 walks.
And the rest of the year, he is 3-12 with a 7.83 ERA.
I don’t know. I think that’s kind of remarkable.
But there’s something even more remarkable about the Royals. You might remember back in June they lost five consecutive blowout games. That doesn’t sound all that special … but it is. It had never happened in team history. It had only happened eight times since 1954. Let’s face it, no matter how bad you are it’s just plain HARD to lose five games in a row by five runs or more. The ‘62 Mets couldn’t do it — in fact none of those terrible early Mets teams did it. The 2003 Tigers couldn’t do it. So, we knew that no matter what happened to the Kansas City Royals from that point on, they were in the record books having pulled off one of the great achievements of lousiness in recent baseball history.
So what if I told you that the Royals came pretty close to doing it AGAIN.
Oh yeah. You probably know that the Royals have been playing a lot better the last three or four weeks — a scary proposition for some Kansas City fans who worry (not without justification) that better play in a meaningless September might convince management that this year wasn’t as bad as it may have seemed, that with a break or two the Royals might have been contenders.
Well, they have stopped playing well so you can put that worry away. The Royals lost 9-2 last Wednesday against Boston, and then lost 10-3 the next night. They then lost 9-4 and 11-6 in back-to-back game against Minnesota. So they went into Sunday with a chance to AGAIN lose five consecutive games by five or more runs. Needless to say, no team had ever pulled the trick twice. I sincerely doubt that any team has ever had a five-game AND four-game string of blowout losses.
Fortunately, the Royals had Zack Greinke going Sunday. And, in another show of his greatness, he not only stopped the blowout string, he pitched seven strong innings, had two dramatic strikeouts with the bases loaded, lowered his ERA to 2.06, and the Royals won the game 4-1.
Monday, in New York, the Royals lost another blowout game (8-2), this time to a New York lineup that did not have Derek Jeter, Johnny Damon, Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez, Nick Swisher or Hideki Matsui, and with Chad Gaudin as the Yankees starter. So that’s five consecutive non-Zack games where they Royals got blown out. And counting.
The Royals are not the worst team in baseball — they probably will finish with better records than Washington, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and maybe Cleveland — but they are kings of the blowout loss. They have now lost 40 games by five or more runs — most in the big leagues. Only seven teams in baseball history have lost more.
1996 Tigers: 47 blowout losses
1932 Red Sox: 45 blowouts
1936 St. Louis Browns: 44 blowouts
1954 Athletics: 43 blowouts
1915 Athletics: 41 blowouts
1920 Athletics: 41 blowouts
1998 Royals: 41 blowouts
– 2009 Royals are one of 12 teams to get blown out 40 times in a season.
The Royals are mathematically eliminated from catching the ‘96 Tigers, and I think the Red Sox and Browns are probably out of reach too. But they could certainly tie the team record — maybe as soon as tonight! It’s remarkable. It really is.
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Amazing. How many teams in history have had a starter and a closer with ERAs below 2.25 and lost 95 games?
Joe:
Any theories as to why, at the Amazon page for The Machine, in the “Frequently Bought Together” section, your book is paired with a Dan Brown novel and Ted Kennedy’s memoirs?
They seem a pretty disparate trio from my point of view.
Also, that’s a *fantastic* pic of you and your daughter in the “more about the author” section.
Joe, I tried to look this one up, but lost my patience. The Royals had a 5 error game several nights ago, which generated a huge debate between my friends and me as to just how often they happen. I clicked through the box scores of the Nationals in the second half to find out (supporting my point) that they had not done it in the second half of this year (and they are AWEFUL). I believe that a professional baseball team that is capable of commiting 5 errors in a night is very remarkable.
And could a Brilliant Reader out there please find an instance or two where a high-draftee pitcher has shown both significant signs of dominance as well as significant signs of weakness in the same season?
Please. This is maddening.
“five consecutive blowout games in a row.”
Is that one after another?
Take everything Joe said, and then add in a contract extension for the GM, and a commitment to stick with the manager for next year. Truly remarkable.
Shelby,
I think the reason you see Dan Brown’s book packaged with Joe’s as “Frequently Bought Together” is because they were both available for presale at the same time. I know this because that is why I bought them at the same time! I used B&N, so since it takes $25 to get the free shipping, I wanted to find something else to purchase with “The Machine” that I didn’t mind waiting for. When I saw that Dan Brown’s book was also available for presale (with a release date that was close enough to 9/9/9), I packaged them together!
Fifth ‘graf intro, Henny Youngman mix: “Take Luke Hochevar—please.”
reeeMARKable!
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strange, that was supposed to post this Little Rascals video – http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/entertainment/watch/v142593808BkBGBxd
Greinke & Soria combined:
19-10 (.655), 275.1 IP, 64 ER, 2.09 ERA
Rest of team:
45-83 (.352), 1009 IP, 667 ER, 5.95 ERA
Worst ERA in AL: Baltimore, 5.19
Worst ERA in NL: Washington, 5.13
What is this World Series thing you keep talking about? And is the Red Machine a fire engine or tractor?
[...] The Kansas City Royals are very lucky to have Joe Posnanski to make the team seem interesting. [...]
Ah, the ‘96 Tigers. Team ERA of 6.38. Allowed 1,103 runs. Now that’s worthy of attention.
It seems to me that this is as good a control case for assessing a pitching coach as you could ask for. Hochevar is clearly — on the basis of his pre-draft scouting reports and his intermittant brilliance — a serious talent. And he is just as clearly not producing at the level he is capable of. Isn’t that the job of the pitching coach? Shouldn’t someone be able to identify whatever it is that’s holding this kid back, whether it’s tipping his pitches or pitch selection or a mechanical flaw or whatever, and help him to harness his ability?
Sam Mellinger makes this point much more eloquently than I could in his Royals blog today: http://royalsblog.kansascity.com/?q=node/466
What is it about KC sports franchises that not only encourages abysmal play but actually rewards it? I guess that is what you get with absentee owners.
For some reason this feat comes to mind after reading this:
In 1972 Steve Carlton won 27 games on a team that only won 59 games. He won 45.8% of his team’s games – a major league record since 1901. In fact, he’s one of only ten pitchers since 1901 to win more than 40% of his team’s games in a season and the only one to do so since 1922.
I guess it could be worse. Though it’s hard to keep track of what’s worse.
It could also just mean they have the worst bullpen in baseball. This causes the manager to leave starters in longer on days they are getting shelled. It also leads to blow out losses since they are so bad they always give up more runs in lopsided wins. It could just be the worst bullpen ever, outside of Soria of course.
Barnhart- I did a quick search and found six teams with a starter (I defined that as qualifying for the ERA title) and a closer (25+ saves), each with an ERA of 2.25 or under. Two of those teams (1995 Braves and 1978 Yankees) won the World Series, and two others (1988 Mets and 1972 Reds) made the postseason. The 1964 White Sox won 98 games, but finished a game out of first place in the pre-divisional play era. The worst 2.25/2.25 team so far is the 1996 Marlins, who went 80-82 the year before they won the World Series. Unless Greinke or Soria fall, the Royals will easily be the best.
It’s possible that there were teams that were bad enough that their sub-2.25 closer got fewer than 25 saves, and, of course, teams didn’t have closers at all until relatively recently.
And by “easily be the best,” I mean “easily be the worst.”
For what it’s worth, all of the games in the 5-game blowout streak in June and all of the games in the 4-game blowout streak in September occurred in Kansas City.
> of course, teams didn’t have closers at all until relatively recently
As in, the first 30-save season was Hoyt Wilhelm in 1965, and John Hiller’s 38 in 1973 was the all-time record for ten years, until Quiz broke it.
“But, you know, I don’t think that word means what I think it means.”
Holy crap does SI rub-off quickly — Joe has turned into Peter King!!
I assumed there would be an entry about last night’s Royals/Yankees game, and I wanted to ask (as a Yankee fan) – was that the most embarrassing Royals loss of the year? Not the worst lost, but just the most humiliating?
Honorable mention:
May 21-blowout loss
May 22-blowout loss
May 23-blowout loss
May 24-win
May 25-blowout loss
May 26-win (Greinke)
May 27-blowout loss
May 28-off day
May 29-blowout loss
May 30-31- losses
June 1-off day
June 2-loss
June 3- blowout loss
June 4-loss
June 5- blowout loss
Also:
July 29-lost by 4
July 30-lost by 4
July 31-blowout loss
August 1-blowout loss
August 2-win
August 3-blowout loss
August 4-loss by 1
August 5-blowout loss
August 6-win
August 7-blowout loss
And also:
Sept. 19-blowout loss
Sept. 20-22- 3 wins
Sept.23-26-4 blowout losses
Sept. 27-win
Sept. 28-blowout loss
Home/Road split – 23 blowouts at home, 17 on the road.
I notice that 5 of the 6 teams with the most blowout games were before the move to the 162 game schedule. That’s impressive!
The point missed here is that Hochever was decent for six innings last night. He never should have come out in the seventh and once the inning started with a double, he should have been out. Once a single followed the double he should have been out. Once a walk followed the single, he should have been out. Once he gave up the grand slam, he was finally out. I would take six innings and three runs from a young pitcher. Hillman buried him in the seventh. I wonder how many of Hochever’s runs came in such an instance.
“But, you know, I don’t think that word means what I think it means.”
I thought this was a reference to Inigo Montoya in the Princess Bride. (Although he says, “I do not think it (that word) means what YOU think it means.”)
Joe, I love you, man. And I don’t know baseball as well as you do. But Hochevar is still young and is still learning his trade, right? Your post came off as slamming him, which I’m guessing was not your intention.
Mets – Giants – Indians are the other teams that have 5+ errors games in 2009.
http://killersports.com/mlb.py/query?sid=guest&text=+%27League%27%3D%27League%27+and+errors%3E4&submit=query
Hmm, I think pitch tipping might actually be his problem. If some teams don’t know (yet) about the tipping (and lets face it, nobody is worried about KC beating them out, so word won’t spread as rapidly as if, say, the Yankees had a pitcher tipping his pitches. In fact, against the Royals teams might keep it quiet, knowing they’ll face Hochevar again. It’s up to the Royals pitching coach to try and find a tipoff (if one exists). Otherwise, it just seems to be a consistency issue to me, not at all uncommon in young pitchers.
[...] When it comes to sports, this is obvious to us. It’s obvious that there is an unfair payroll discrepancy between the Yankees and the Marlins. On a more basic level, it is obvious to us that the game should be fair. It seems intuitive that every team, in every sport should have as much of a chance as anyone else to win. The difference between a championship and a stinker of a season should be about talent, execution, and allocation. The fact that the Yankees play in New York, and the Royals in Kansas City, shouldn’t be the reason one team is great, while the other is unbelievably bad. [...]