Savior at Shortstop

There some local bloggers in the Kansas City area who refer to the Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar as the Shortstop Jesus.  This comes from a loyal but perennially disappointed fan base that has endured a quarter of a century of failure and more of our fair share of terrible shortstops.  Sure, the Royals have briefly ran out guys like Rey Sanchez, Greg Gagne, Fred Patek, and Jay Bell out for a season or two but they have also paid good money to the likes of Yuniesky Betancourt, Neifi Perez, Angel Berroa, Onix Conception, and Tony Pena, Jr.

While I can’t remember every stiff to don the Royals uniform and play shortstop, I have seen them all since Freddie Patek in the 70’s.  I cannot remember any as spectacular as Alcides Escobar.  None have been as fun to watch on an everyday basis as Escobar.  None has combined the glove, range, and arm that Escobar possesses.  Some have been terrific at making the routine plays and some could make the highlight reel plays.  Escobar does both on a day in and day out basis.  One of the joys in watching the Royals every night the past season plus is that there is a good chance I am going to see something awesome from the shortstop position.

Escobar came to the Royals via the Milwaukee Brewers in the Zack Greinke before the 2011 season.  Escobar had a reputation as a slick fielder but his 2010 numbers were less than impressive.  He committed 26 errors in 711 chances in 2009 and 2010 for the Brewers, 20 of these came in only 552 chances in 2010, indicating he was a bit raw.  Since coming to the Royals, he has committed only 18 errors in 929 chances and only three of those have been fielding errors.  Read that again – he has made only 3 fielding errors in 929 chances and 190 games.  These numbers are not diluted by a lack of range because this dude has the best range of any shortstop I have ever seen and he has the arm to turn that incredible range into outs.

At the beginning of the 2011 season, Escobar struggled at the plate.  Through the first few days of June, he was hitting down in the Eric Hosmer .200 range.  He caught fire in June and raised his average up to the .250 range and he was able to maintain that average pretty much through the rest of the season, finishing at .254.  The funny thing was that even when he was hovering around .200 for two months, no one cared.  He was so much better with the glove than what Kansas City fans were used to, we didn’t care what he hit.  In this era of baseball, offense is king so it is very difficult to impress with the glove so much that no one really gives a hoot how a player hits.

Going into tonight’s game in Baltimore, Alcides Escobar is hitting .305 in 2012.  Three errors and a .305 average?  Are you kidding me?  He only has one home run and one triple but he leads the team in doubles with 13.  Keep in mind that the Royals are a team of double hitting fools.  To lead in that category is an accomplishment.  Throw in 7 steals in 8 chances and you are looking at a legitimate All Star candidate.  This all being said, I do not expect Escobar to maintain that lofty average.  He is an absolute free swinger with only 6 walks this season but he doesn’t strikeout at a crazy rate.  He maintains an excellent contact rate at 85% so he does put wood to ball when he swings.  He is enjoying an unsustainable batting average on balls in play of .354.  That will come down and so will his average.  When you consider his defense though, however long he hits like he is, his average is pure gravy. 

I would really like to see the Royals to go one a run in June and for more than the obvious reasons.  I would love to see the Royals get more than the one All Star roster spot.  It will be decades before the summer classic returns to Kansas City so it would be great for all of us long suffering fans to get a couple of hometown players in the game.  It’s hard to give a bad team two spots unless they earn them but the Royals have some guys who are earning those spots.  Billy Butler is having a terrific year and with the DH this year, he is the leading candidate to represent the Royals but there are some other guys who are worthy.  Mike Moustakus has had a good year at the plate and has been much better than anyone ever expected with his glove work at third.  A couple of the bullpen guys have been terrific.  And, of course, there is Alcides Escobar.  Derek Jeter will be the AL starter at shortstop and rightfully so but I don’t think any other shortstop is more worthy right now than Escobar.  If he can keep his average around .275 and continues his splendid defense, Alcides should get the nod.  No other shortstop outside of New York is having a comparable well rounded season. 

Despite all the frustrations in watching the Kansas City Royals, Alcides Escobar isn’t one of them.  He makes watching the games a joy and I have become a great fan.  I look forward to many more years watching this guy and I am excited about that.

Special thanks to baseball-reference.com and BaseballHQ.com for their excellent stat work.

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Thank You, I'll Have Another

I am by no means a horse racing fan.  I enjoy a good horse racing movie just like the next guy.  I grew up on a farm and always had quite a few cattle around at all times but I was never much of a horseman.  I always preferred the 3-wheeler instead as my mode of transportation when herding the cattle from place to place.  

I just happened to be at my parents' house yesterday.  My mom likes to watch the Triple Crown races so the Preakness Stakes were on.  I had seen the replays of the Kentucky Derby and was impressed by the winner, I'll Have Another.  It was quite the story.  The horse was buried in 6th or 7th most of the race then charged by the pack, including the favored Bodemeister down the stretch.  Bodemeister obviously ran out of gas (oats?) at the end of the Derby.  Throw in a first time winning trainer and owner, plus a no-name jockey and the story almost becomes Hollywood worthy.

Going into the Preakness Stakes, Bodemeister was again the favorite but I'll Have Another really jumped up the boards at 3:1 odds.  Everyone was wondering if the first race was a fluke.

This race was very similar to the first.  Bodemeister ran ahead of the pack almost from the get go and he looked stronger than 2 weeks ago.  I'll Have Another was back a bit but not as buried as in the Derby.  With maybe 300 yards to go, it looked like Bodemeister was going to win the thing easily.  He had a good lead and was running strong.  If you watch the video, you can actually pinpoint the moment I'll Have Another kicked it into high gear.  He blew by the horse who was running second like that horse was running on a tread mill.  It was amazing how fast I'll Have Another closed the gap on Bodemeister.  As they drew even, you can actually see I'll Have Another lunging his nose further forward than his rival horse.  You read about horses having heart and you see it in the movies but I personally had never seen it in horse race - until yesterday.  I'll Have Another was like any human athlete who wanted it more than their opponent.  The effort that horse put forth and the speed in which it displayed those last 300 yards was very exciting to witness.

I've watched the videos of both races a few times now and they both impress me every time.  I have become a fan of I'll Have Another and I will be cheering him on to complete the elusive Triple Crown.

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Kansas City Fool's Gold

When have we seen enough?  How many times can a pitcher utterly fail?  How many times will a team run a guy out and leave your team with little chance of winning?  I guess if you run a small market baseball team and drafted a guy first overall, the answer is indefinitely.

Luke Hochevar has over 600 career innings and over 100 career starts.  Not counting 4 appearances in 2007, Hochevar is in his fifth full season.  His lowest ERA is 4.68 and only once has his WHIP been below 1.427.  Because of a nice second half last season, he had a career low WHIP of 1.283.  It turned out to be fool’s gold.

He looked to have finally turned a corner last season.  In the second half, he turned in a respectable 3.52 ERA, 1.134 WHIP, and 7.7 K/9ip.  Expectations were high in 2012 for the former number one overall draft pick.  Fantasy experts were listing him as a big sleeper and the Royals were looking for him to prove that their infinite patience in him was justified.  Many, including myself, really thought maybe the light bulb had finally clicked on.  Unfortunately, it had not.

In six starts, Hochevar has only thrown 28 innings and is supporting a downright ugly 9.00 ERA.  In the past, he has shown a penchant for looking brilliant for 3, 4 , sometimes 5 innings then he just loses it completely, allowing fists full of runs.  This year, those innings have been early in the game, crippling the bullpen.  He hasn’t been walking an inordinate number of batters but has been getting hammered.  He has allowed 39 hits in 28 innings.  He is pounding the middle of the strike zone, never an ideal place to be against major league batters.  Check out this graph of his pitch location from texasleaguers.com.

Note the cluster of strikes in what is the general wheelhouse of most big leagues.  Throwing strikes is great but you can’t just throw it down the middle.  If a guy hasn’t learned this little tidbit after 600 innings, I doubt he will ever will.

So, what should the Royals do with this albatross?  Kansas City suffers from a horrible lack of even mediocre depth in their rotation.  Now, with Jonathan Sanchez (another apparent mistake and another article all together) on the DL, it appears the Royals won’t be able to do anything with Hochevar until Sanchez returns, and even then it is doubtful KC can come up with another starter.  Fourteen months ago, the Royals had 5 top pitching prospects but only Danny Duffy has really started to pitch to his potential.  There is no immediate help in the minors.  I would suggest that as soon as Sanchez comes back, they should send Aaron Crow to AAA and begin to stretch him out a bit.  Let him rejoin the club when he as built up some stamina and push Hochevar to the pen.  Hochevar has shown superlative stuff in the past, albeit in small doses.  He wouldn’t be the first pitcher ever to go to the bullpen and discover how to pitch.  Maybe he can learn to at least be a decent contributor to the team.

Who knows if the Royals will do anything in the near future.  Maybe Hochevar can turn it around in his next few starts.  Again, anyone, including Dayton Moore, who believes that will happen, is just fooling himself.  I don’t think I would ever trust him to be a reliable cog for my team again.  Considering the Royals ran Kyle Davies out to the mound for several years doesn’t lead me to believe they will do anything with Hochevar either.  If nothing else, the Royals have proved to be slow learners themselves. 

My thanks to baseball-reference.com and texasleaguers.com for their stats and pitch data.

The Crazy College Football Rumor Mill

Here in the great Midwest, crazy rumors have been circulating.  Over the past few days, the unsubstantiated gossip was gaining momentum.  What was the wacky hearsay - that Clemson and Florida State were leaving the ACC to join the Big XII. 

Now while I love the Big XII, I have a really, really hard time believing these two schools EVER seriously considered jumping conference ships.  While the rumor mill was churning out tidbits of speculation at its maximum capacity, I heard plenty of arguments from numerous talking head "experts" about why or why not these rumors could be true.  The two that grabbed my attention the most were both against the move.  Geographically, it just doesn't make sense.  I'm just not sure what the benefits would be for Clemson and Florida St. other than opening up Texas a little more for recruiting purposes.  The other reason, while not very glamorous, is that the ACC is a much better academic conference.  According to the U.S. and World New Report list of best academic schools, the ACC's average ranking for its members is 43rd and the Big XII is 106th (I think).  That is a HUGE difference.  While some may scoff that conference realignment has nothing to do with what happens in the classroom, I think this is short sighted.  Some conferences do stress academics more than others.  The ACC is one that does.  West Virginia was supposedly spurned by the ACC for this reason but the Big XII couldn't snap the Mountaineers up more quickly. 

Now with the ACC's new ESPN contract signed, sealed, and delivered, I hope these ridiculous rumors will disappear quickly.  It is amazing what can be expounded on the internet and how quickly it can spread.  While I would be interested to know if there was even a tiny bit of truth to this story, we will probably never know and I for one could live without knowing or hearing about it again.  I just wondered when the next crazy rumor will start making its rounds.

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365 Days of Eric Hosmer

It was a year ago today Eric Hosmer made his major league debut with the Kansas City Royals after demolishing AAA hitting in April to the tune of a .439 average and an 1.107 OPS.  The hopes and dreams of beleaguered Royals fans rested on the shoulders of this heralded young slugger.  There have been plenty of glimpses of stardom but the one year results are mixed.

Overall, the stats for Hosmer’s first full year are very promising.  Most of these stats were accumulated before Eric’s 22^nd birthday.  In 627 AB, Hosmer has 24 home runs, 80 runs, and 93 RBI.  He has a solid, if unspectacular, .276 average, a lower than ideal .323 OBP, a respectable .451 SLG, and a slightly disappointing .774 OPS.  30 doubles, 4 triples, and 12 stolen bases are all promising numbers.

Of course, these numbers are all skewed downward by a frustratingly unlucky first month of the 2012 season.  Hosmer is only hitting .192 with an anemic .654 OPS.  Hosmer has been plagued by a horrific bating average on balls in play (BABIP).  The league average is usually around .300 but Hosmer is only hitting .179 BABIP.  This is unsustainably terrible.  All of his skills indicators are intact.  His walk rate is 10% and his contact rate is 86%.  Both of these numbers are above average and indicate that he is being patient and making good contact.  The biggest problem is that his ground ball rate is way too high at 48%.  He needs to get more line drives (18%) and fly balls (34%).  His home run rate on fly ball is healthy at 17%.  I watch the Royals nearly every day and I feel like Hosmer is on the brink of going nuts on opposing pitchers.  He is hitting rockets and line drives all over the field that are all getting caught.  Defenders are making great plays on his hard hit balls every day.  It is only a matter of time before those balls start falling and then watch out!

The exciting thing about Hosmer is that as bad as his first month of 2012 has been, his total numbers in his first full year are still outstanding for a player who will still be 22 years old at the end of the season.  Last season, Hosmer show the ability to adjust to pitchers’ adjustments to him.  He is not being overwhelmed at the plate.  He is still hitting to all fields, just into bad luck.  I have not heard or read anything about the Royals thinking he needs to go to the minors to work out his swing.  Again, it is more about luck than the way Hosmer is swinging the bat.

I have seen little in the stats and data and even less in my observations of Eric Hosmer to have soured on him even a little.  I still firmly believe he will be a star for the Kansas City Royals, a stalwart in the middle of their line up who is a big run producer.  Even during this season long slump, Hosmer has still produced 24 runs and that is an excellent sign (Albert Pujols only has 14).  His first full season numbers for home runs, runs scored, and RBI all point to a kid who is on the verge of something special and I am excited to be able to watch this kid play every day.

Thanks to baseball-reference.com and baseballhq.com for their excellent statistics and skill indicators.

Get more small market baseball news at bigbrotherbaseballproject.blogspot.com and get movie and TV reviews at jawsrecliner.blogspot.com.  Follow me on twitter @jawsrecliner