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.

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The Most Under-Appreciated Royal

George Brett is undeniably the greatest hitter in the history of the Kansas City Royals.  Brett accumulated 3,154 hits, 665 doubles, 137 triples (yeah, you read that right), and 317 home runs.  He had 1,583 runs, 1596 rbi, and a .305 average on route to a first ballot Hall of Fame career.  As far as the Royals are concerned, no player is even close and I think Brett would be listed on most lists as a top 3 all-time third baseman, even though he played a lot of games at first and DH. 

The Royals have a hitter on their team right now that compares favorable to Brett at the same age.  No, it’s not phenom Eric Hosmer.  No, it’s not emerging Alex Gordon.  It is the veteran Billy Butler.  It seems like Billy “Country Breakfast” Butler has been around forever but did you know Butler just celebrated his 26^th birthday less than two weeks ago?  He has amassed some really impressive statistics at a very young age. 

George Brett basically got started a year earlier than Butler.  Butler got 390 AB at the age of 21 while Brett received 41 AB at 20 and 486 AB at 21 years of age.  For comparative purposes, I am going by games.  Brett had 731 games by the end of 1978, when he was 25.  Butler has 712 games through 04/28/2012, after just turning 26.  There isn’t that much difference in age between these two hitters after a similar number of games played

Brett had 3114 PA to Butlers 2947 at this stage.  Brett had an amazing 2850 AB with 870 hits.  He had led the AL in both of those categories twice by the time he was 24 years old.  Billy has 2653 AB and 789 hits.  Brett’s average in that time was .305 (a match for his career) and Butler is hitting .297.  The biggest thing that these numbers illustrate is that in his early 20’s, George Brett was already a hitting star.  We all know he was playing on a great team, one that won 3 division titles during this time.  Butler has been in the middle of the lineup for some of the worst teams in the majors so far in his career. 

If you delve deeper though, Butler compares even more favorably in some of the other stats.  Butler has 191 doubles to Brett’s 169.  Keep in mind that George Brett is 6^th all time in doubles.  Butler has been criticized that he doesn’t hit for power, yet he has out homered Brett during this stretch 79 to 51.  In fact, Butler has more extra base hits than Brett during these similar periods of their careers, 279 to 273.  This is despite the fact that Brett already had an incredible 53 triples by the end of 1978. 

(An interesting side note – George Brett ranks 67^th in triples with 137.  Of players who played in a significant number of games after 1970, only Lou Brock and teammate Willie Wilson hit more triples than Brett.  I think this is one of the more amazing stats of Brett’s career because he only stole 201 bases – he was not known as a speedster at all.)

As I mentioned before, Brett was in the middle of a terrific lineup and he scored 413 runs in those early years while Butler is quite a bit behind him with 321.  Butler is as slow on the base paths as any player you will see, plus Brett hit himself into scoring position a lot more with all of those triples.  This being said, Butler has more RBI through this point in their careers, 389 to 354, and impressive stat for Butler. 

I am not saying that Billy Butler is the player George Brett was.  Brett played in a much different era, on a much different team.  Butler will be forever cursed by the reality that he is a DH.  My point to this exercise is that Royals fans have been slow to embrace Butler as a favorite.  I think this is a mistake.  Butler is a consummate hitter and the ultimate leader of the Royals youth movement.  Butler is a very similar type of hitter to Brett.  His home run power will eventually develop, just like Brett’s did.  Even so, just like Brett’s, Butler’s power will probably top out around 30.  Butler will obviously never hit the triples King George did but his doubles’ numbers could be comparable.  The terrific stat site baseball-reference.com, has a great feature where they break down players careers into 162 game averages.  This is a good tool for comparative purposes.  Taking a close look at this, George Brett does have a slight edge over Butler in nearly every category.  That advantage though, is slight. 

George Brett was a first ballot Hall of Famer who received over 90% votes on that first ballot.  It is doubtful that Butler will play into his 40’s but I will tell you something.  As long as Butler continues to hit like a poor man’s George Brett, I want him penciled in my lineup everyday at DH.  Fans need to start appreciating Billy Butler.  The man can hit.

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Tourney Chances for the Jayhawks

Trying to predict the outcome of the annual March Madness extravaganza is never an easy thing.  As parity becomes more prevalent in college basketball (some would argue that it is mediocrity, not parity), the excitement of the tournament has never been higher.  Tuesday night’s play-in games were absolutely thrilling, with one team trailing by 16 points with less than 5 minutes to go, then charging back for the win, and in the other game, one team scored 55 points in the first fifteen minutes, building a 25 point lead, but only scoring 17 points the rest of the way to lose in the end.  What a way to start the tournament!

The Kansas Jayhawks have, in my opinion, overachieved all season.  They ran out basically 5 BCS caliber players and still won the Big XII.  It did not hurt my feelings at all to see them fall early in the conference tournament and then to not have to play until late Friday evening.  This team appeared tired and beat up toward the end of the season and the extra rest certainly will do them no harm.  Yes, it would have been awesome to enjoy yet another KU/MU tilt but I think not having to play a relatively meaningless game against a tough opponent may help KU in the end.

After taking in all the brackets, I did not feel KU got the shaft in their brackets like I usually do.  In fact, after pouring over all of the regions, not one team really jumped out at me as having an overwhelming hard or easy path to the Final Four.  It seems to me that just about every match-up has its risks for the higher seeds.  There just isn’t that much difference in teams this season.  When you have a #15 seed Detroit with more McDonald’s All Americans on its team than #2 seed Kansas, that should tell you all you need to know about the state of college basketball.

I can honestly see KU possibly going down in every round.  Detroit is no slouch and neither St. May’s nor Purdue are pushovers.  KU beat Georgetown earlier in the season but both teams are significantly better than they were.  The Hoyas are a deep, young, athletic team that will be a hard match-up for the Jayhawks.  I assume that either North Carolina or Michigan will make it to the Elite Eight, although there are obviously no guarantees of that either.  If so, KU could beat either team in a scrap.  Of course, they could take a beating from either team, too. 

KU has a recent history of exiting the tournament too early, and with stronger teams than this one.  On the flip side, we as KU fans certainly know how far one player of the year candidate can carry a team.  Kansas has two outstanding players in Thomas Robinson and Tyshawn Taylor who will bad match-ups for just about any team.  Throw in a true, shot blocking 7-footer, and a couple of capable, tough defenders, KU’s starting five is as good as any in the nation.  The problem is an achingly thin bench.  If KU gets into any early foul trouble with the top 2 or three players, the lights will dim quickly on the Jayhawks’ hope. 

With all of these things taken into consideration, I think the Jayhawks will make it into the Elite Eight at least.  It would not surprise me at all if the exit earlier than that, and I will be thrilled if they make it to yet another Final Four.  A NC/KU battle for that Final Four spot could be epic.  Ole Roy wouldn’t like it much but as fans, it would be terrific.  If KU could scrap their way into the Final Four, anything could happen.  I think KU is one of eight to twelve teams that have the firepower to win it all. 

Of course, my dream final match-up would be the Kansas Jayhawks versus the Missouri Tigers.  How great would it be to defeat the Tigers in the final game and send them off to the SEC with their tail tucked firmly between their legs.  On the other hand, that match-up would also be my worst nightmare match-up.  Nothing would be worse than for the Tigers to end our great, historic rivalry by beating KU in the National Championship game.  Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, though.  KU has to come out every game and play every minute.  They have a tendency to come out flat, either to begin the game, or out of the locker room after halftime.  This cannot happen in the tourney or they will be done.  They must stay focused, healthy, and out of foul trouble of they want a chance for that Elite Eight.

As I ready for this phenomenally awesome sporting event, I know I will be bitterly disappointed with anything less than an Elite Eight and absolutely thrilled with anything more.  As always, I will cheer my team on as long as they are alive and I will complain initially upon their ouster.  Regardless, I love my team and would never want to follow any other in the country.

Rock Chalk, Jayhawk.  Go KU!!!

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