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Nzoner's Game Room>***Official 2021 Royals Season Repository Thread***
ChiefsCountry 12:01 PM 01-07-2021
For all things Royals for the new year.

Free Agent Signings:
Carlos Santana
Mike Minor
Michael Taylor
Ervin Santana

Top 10 Prospects:
1 Bobby Witt Jr., SS
2 Asa Lacy, LHP
3 Daniel Lynch, LHP
4 Jackson Kowar, RHP
5 Erick Pena, OF
6 Nick Loftin, SS
7 Kyle Isbel, OF
8 Khali Lee, OF
9 Jonathan Bowlan, RHP
10 Carlos Hernedez, RHP
[Reply]
dlphg9 09:24 AM 04-21-2021
Originally Posted by TomBarndtsTwin:
Not sure how he's doing in the minors, but in spring training this year with the Mets he was hitless in 18 AB's.

So there's that . . . . . . .
Oh yeah, because everyone knows that 18 crappy ABs in ST correlates to a shitty career/season!

All ya gotta do is look at Nicky Lopez's ST #'s this year and see how being shitty in the spring = being shitty in the season!

.378 OPS = .744 OPS

Spring training means absolutely nothing.
[Reply]
dlphg9 09:28 AM 04-21-2021
Originally Posted by tk13:
I'm not too worried about Benintendi yet. It's been a weird season so far, we've faced about 27 left handed starters in a row. Not really ideal for a guy who hits righties better than lefties.

I'm more worried about the defense, he's definitely made a couple sloppy plays out there. Made his 2nd error last night. We've been spoiled, Alex Gordon didn't have more than 2 errors in something like his last 8-9 seasons. Errors aren't everything for an OF but sloppy outfield defense at the K isn't what you want to see.

That all said, I liked Khalil Lee but he went 0-16 in Spring Training this year with 1 walk and 9 strikeouts, so I wouldn't exactly go crowning him either.
When did ST stats start mattering? N. Lopez went 4-34 13 strikeouts and he's been one of our best hitters so far.

Soler crushed it in ST with a 1.005 OPS and now he's at .565. Spring training stats have jack shit to do with the regular season.
[Reply]
Chiefspants 09:29 AM 04-21-2021
Originally Posted by dlphg9:
Oh yeah, because everyone knows that 18 crappy ABs in ST correlates to a shitty career/season!

All ya gotta do is look at Nicky Lopez's ST #'s this year and see how being shitty in the spring = being shitty in the season!

.378 OPS = .744 OPS

Spring training means absolutely nothing.
Dude you take it from 0 to 11 for no reason all the time. You weren't quoted or targeted there and reacted viscerally anyway. It's just sports talk, nothing to get upset over.
[Reply]
dlphg9 09:32 AM 04-21-2021
Originally Posted by Chiefspants:
Dude you just take it from 0 to 11 for no reason all the time. You weren't quoted or targeted there and reacted viscerally anyway. It's just sports talk, nothing to get upset over.
That wasn't a visceral reaction. I didn't call him any names. I'm not upset whatsoever, but people that use spring training stats as a reason that guy might suck should be ridiculed. I didn't even really ridicule him.
[Reply]
Chiefspants 09:37 AM 04-21-2021
Originally Posted by dlphg9:
That wasn't a visceral reaction. I didn't call him any names. I'm not upset whatsoever, but people that use spring training stats as a reason that guy might suck should be ridiculed. I didn't even really ridicule him.
TK: "We have no reason to crown this player yet from the Spring Training stats we have available"

DLPHG9: "How dare you suggest that Lee will suck forever because of a bad Spring Training!"

That wasn't what TK was saying and you just went to that level without prompting. Just felt off.
[Reply]
tk13 09:43 AM 04-21-2021
Originally Posted by dlphg9:
When did ST stats start mattering? N. Lopez went 4-34 13 strikeouts and he's been one of our best hitters so far.

Soler crushed it in ST with a 1.005 OPS and now he's at .565. Spring training stats have jack shit to do with the regular season.
I don't think they do but I also wasn't out here saying he's probably doing well with the Mets. Even in Spring Training going hitless with strikeouts in over 50% of your ABs is terrible.
[Reply]
TomBarndtsTwin 09:48 AM 04-21-2021
Originally Posted by dlphg9:
Oh yeah, because everyone knows that 18 crappy ABs in ST correlates to a shitty career/season!

All ya gotta do is look at Nicky Lopez's ST #'s this year and see how being shitty in the spring = being shitty in the season!

.378 OPS = .744 OPS

Spring training means absolutely nothing.
Good lord.

Are you related to Lee?

Literally the only 'stats' he has since he left the Royals were posted. No one claimed it was some future indicator of long term failure or success.


Sorry if that hurt your feels.

Might wanna switch to decaf.
[Reply]
KChiefs1 10:39 AM 04-21-2021
https://theathletic.com/2532954/2021...t-the-hitters/

Royals statistical breakdown: Which numbers matter this early, and what do they say about the hitters?
by
Alec Lewis


Originally Posted by :
Somehow, the Kansas City Royals are 9-7. That winning record might look surprising considering they’ve done it with notable hitters posting these types of numbers:

Jorge Soler: .559 OPS
Andrew Benintendi: .516 OPS
Hunter Dozier: .362 OPS


For reference, the major-league average OPS for 2019, the last full season, was .758, which shows just how much these three Royals have underperformed. Soler, Benintendi and Dozier were supposed to be among the Royals’ most productive hitters and key pieces for the team’s hopes in 2021.

Now, here comes the critical clarification: It’s very early. Soler had 679 plate appearances in 2019. This year, he’s had 62. This would be like judging Patrick Mahomes’ numbers after one quarter. You can’t read too much into that.

What you can do, though, is delve deeper into the detailed numbers and make some assessments — or at least begin to understand what’s closer to true and what is not. We’ll get into the nitty-gritty of each hitters’ specific statistics, but the premise is this: even small sample sizes can be revealing. At the risk of turning this into a calculus class, studies such as this terrific piece from 2016 found that certain statistics, such as strikeout rates and chase rates, start to stabilize at specific times, sometimes as early as now.

To explain things further, and to provide more context on some of the Royals’ most important hitters, we selected one meaningful statistic for each of them after these first few weeks.

Jorge Soler: 37.9
Here’s how this will go: We’ll lay out the number, explain what it means and why it matters.

Soler has a 37.9 strikeout rate. In total, he has 22 strikeouts in 62 plate appearances. This shouldn’t be mind-blowing. In 2015, when Soler was playing his first full season with the Chicago Cubs, he struck out 30 percent of the time in his 101 games. That ranked in the bottom 4 percent of Major League Baseball.

He improved the next year, striking out only 25 percent of the time. Then, after an uptick in 2017, he arrived in Kansas City and seemed to find some consistency. He struck out 26.8 percent of the time in 2018 and followed that in 2019 with the best overall season of his career, when he struck out 26.2 percent of the time. The trend seemed like a byproduct of Soler’s work with the Royals’ current special assignment hitting coach, Mike Tosar, throughout those offseasons. But in 2020, Soler struck out a career-high 34.5 percent of the time.

Because it was a short season, it seemed reasonable to write it off. That and, well, Soler played through an oblique injury for the majority of the season. He showed up to spring training this year healthy and appeared poised for a bounce back, especially in a contract year. Instead, he’s continued to strike out at an alarming rate. Studies have shown that the strikeout rate stabilizes around 60 plate appearances; Soler is at 62.

Concerning as it may be, it’s important to mention that Soler tends to be a slow starter. In 2017, Soler posted a .565 OPS in May. For now, let’s assess why this might be happening in 2021. It could be the way pitchers are attacking Soler as he’s seeing fewer pitches in the strike zone than ever (only 41 percent) and he’s been thrown more breaking balls than ever (40.6 percent). It could also be Soler shifting toward an all-or-nothing homer approach. He’s lifted 45.8 percent of the balls he’s hit this season. In 2019, when he broke the Royals’ home run record, that number was 27.7 percent. It’ll be interesting to watch these numbers as the season progresses.

In the meantime, Royals manager Mike Matheny said this on Tuesday: “(Soler) is close. Yesterday, he hit a moonshot. He was a fraction off of that landing up in some kind of water. He has a better foundation and timing. I’m expecting it to take off pretty soon.”

Andrew Benintendi: 89.4
Benintendi’s average exit velocity (the average speed at which the ball shoots out of the batter’s box) is 89.4 mph. That’s the highest average exit velocity he’s had in his big-league career.

According to studies, average exit velocity tends to provide an indicator after 40 batted balls in play. Benintendi is at 38, and while his overall numbers .204/.271/.259 have not been good, that should provide some semblance of optimism.

On the flip side, knowing what we’ve laid out with strikeout rate, Benintendi is at 27.1 percent over 63 plate appearances. That’s much higher than his 16 percent strikeout rate of 2018, and it might be a byproduct of slower bat speed. Benintendi is whiffing on a higher percentage of fastballs (24 percent) than he did in 2018 (17.8 percent). He’s also hitting the ball to the opposite field 39.5 percent of the time, which is almost double the percentage from some years past.

About a week ago, Benintendi was asked about his swing, which has gone through a whirlwind of changes over the years.

“There’s been a lot of times this year, almost every at-bat, where I’m fouling off a pitch I should be driving,” Benintendi said. “Then I’m down 0-2 or 1-2, and you have to battle.”

Why has that been the case?

“I feel like I’m so close,” he said. “It’s so frustrating. Even compared from now to spring training, I feel like it may not look different, but I’m a lot closer to where I want to be. Those pitches where I should be driving, it is frustrating. But sometimes you have to slow it down and say, ‘we still have 150 games left.’ It’s going to come eventually.”

Hunter Dozier: .200
This is Dozier’s on-base percentage. Unlike strikeout rates or average exit velocity, this is a statistic that requires a much larger sample before stabilizing. About 460 plate appearances, to be exact. Dozier has had 39.

It didn’t help that Dozier suffered a bruised right thumb in the first game of the season. He’d timed his swing up, but missing games messed up that timing. He’s been fighting that uphill battle ever since.

Two other notable numbers are his swing rate and chase rate. He’s swinging at 48.6 percent of pitches in 2021, which is up from the 44 percent clip of his combined 2019 and 2020 seasons. Swing rates typically become easy to pinpoint at the 50-plate appearance mark, so Dozier is fairly close. Similarly, Dozier is chasing 39 percent of pitches, up from 29.5 percent over the two previous seasons.

Still, he says he’s not worried about the overall numbers, nor should you be.

“I’ve just kept telling myself, ‘I have 600 more plate appearances. It’s a long season,’” Dozier said.

Carlos Santana: 46.4
Not since the beginning of Statcast in 2015 has Santana recorded a swing percentage above 41.4 percent. He has this year. In 63 plate appearances, Santana has swung at 46.4 percent of pitches faced.

As with Dozier, that swing percentage statistic becomes meaningful as early as 50 plate appearances into a season. What does swinging more mean for Santana? Well, his 17.5 strikeout percentage is the second-highest percentage of his career.

Alternatively, Santana has done some damage, especially of late. His 89.8 mph average exit velocity is higher than it was in 2020. He’s also barreling 9.5 percent of baseballs, close to his 9.6 percent number from 2019. This, among other factors, explains why the Royals recently moved Santana to the No. 2 spot. That, and the fact he has eight hits in his last 16 plate appearances.

Nicky Lopez: 92.2
Only four players in MLB have made contact on 92.2 percent or more of the pitches they have swung at. Lopez is one of them.

Among all of the positives in this Royals season, Lopez’s resurgence ranks up there. He posted a .378 OPS in spring training. The Royals optioned him. He then watched the video of his minor-league swings alongside Royals staffers. Lopez saw his old rhythm. And he saw that he wasn’t whiffing at 95 mph fastballs. He got the point: Get back to that guy.

So that’s what he and the Royals did. There were hours spent in the cage in Surprise, Ariz. There were many conversations. Lopez planned to test out the adjustments in a game on the back fields. But would-be starting shortstop Adalberto Mondesi suffered a strained right oblique, forcing Lopez to instead test out his adjustments against big-league pitching. And the adjustments have paid dividends.

Lopez has batted .302/.354/.372. Unlike 2020, when his contact percentage sunk to 80.7 percent, it has jumped back up. It’s a bit early for contact percentage to stabilize — that’s typically around 100 plate appearances — but through 48 plate appearances Lopez is off to a nice start.

And get this: He’s making contact on 97.8 percent of pitches in the strike zone.

Salvador Perez: .322
There is a baseball statistic designed to measure raw power, and that’s ISO. Perez is at .322, ranking 17th in MLB and ahead of sluggers such as Atlanta Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman (.304).

Before 2020, Perez had never posted an ISO above .227. Last year, he posted a .304 ISO. This year’s ISO shows how hot of a start Perez is off to. An ISO tends to stabilize around 160 at-bats. Perez’s 63 total at-bats mean he’s not even halfway there. But there’s reason to believe in an improvement.

In the 2019 offseason, Perez worked with Royals special assignment hitting coach Mike Tosar. They ironed out Perez’s stance, focusing on balance. They adjusted Perez’s head position, similar to a tweak Tosar made with Soler. Perez’s barrel percentage in 2020 was the highest of his career and it’s continued to go up in 2021. That, of course, translates to power and production, which the Royals will continue to need as long as their other middle-of-the-lineup bats are struggling.

[Reply]
dlphg9 12:46 PM 04-21-2021
Originally Posted by Chiefspants:
TK: "We have no reason to crown this player yet from the Spring Training stats we have available"

DLPHG9: "How dare you suggest that Lee will suck forever because of a bad Spring Training!"

That wasn't what TK was saying and you just went to that level without prompting. Just felt off.
The post you quoted was a reply to Tom. My post to TK was in no way out of line.
[Reply]
dlphg9 12:52 PM 04-21-2021
Originally Posted by tk13:
I don't think they do but I also wasn't out here saying he's probably doing well with the Mets. Even in Spring Training going hitless with strikeouts in over 50% of your ABs is terrible.
He clearly had no clue that Lee was in the minors and said he wouldn't be surprised if he was doing well with the Mets, which isn't nearly as absurd as judging a player by 18 ABs that happened in ST. No it's not terrible. It's nothing and means nothing because ST stats mean nothing.
[Reply]
dlphg9 01:03 PM 04-21-2021
Originally Posted by TomBarndtsTwin:
Good lord.

Are you related to Lee?

Literally the only 'stats' he has since he left the Royals were posted. No one claimed it was some future indicator of long term failure or success.


Sorry if that hurt your feels.

Might wanna switch to decaf.
Youre literally judging a player by spring training stats. Maybe no one is using those stats to make any predictions, but you are very clearly using those meaningless stats as a negative against him.

There were literally idiots on this very site using Patrick Mahomes 2018 preseason stats and saying we should have never gotten rid of Smith. It's the same thing. Using meaningless stats as some negative mark against a player.
[Reply]
tk13 01:16 PM 04-21-2021
Originally Posted by dlphg9:
He clearly had no clue that Lee was in the minors and said he wouldn't be surprised if he was doing well with the Mets, which isn't nearly as absurd as judging a player by 18 ABs that happened in ST. No it's not terrible. It's nothing and means nothing because ST stats mean nothing.
Nobody is actually judging a player on a handful of spring training ABs. It's not that serious.

Just like no one should be judging Benintendi on 50 or 60 ABs. Time will tell.
[Reply]
TomBarndtsTwin 01:23 PM 04-21-2021
Originally Posted by dlphg9:
Youre literally judging a player by spring training stats. Maybe no one is using those stats to make any predictions, but you are very clearly using those meaningless stats as a negative against him.

There were literally idiots on this very site using Patrick Mahomes 2018 preseason stats and saying we should have never gotten rid of Smith. It's the same thing. Using meaningless stats as some negative mark against a player.
Judging?

This is LITERALLY what I posted:

"Not sure how he's doing in the minors, but in spring training this year with the Mets he was hitless in 18 AB's.

So there's that . . . . . . ."

It was speculated on how he was doing with the Mets. I posted the ONLY stats I could find on him since he left the Royals. That's it. I couldn't find any minor league stats on him with the Mets. So I posted what is above. And then you proceeded to lose your shit and get all defensive.

Nothing was stated about the future long term success or failure of Khalil Lee in the Mets system based on his spring training stats. You drew that conclusion on your own.
[Reply]
bringbackmarty 02:28 PM 04-21-2021
Woo, I'm going to the game tonight. It's my third of the season. So lucky!
[Reply]
sweendog48 04:51 PM 04-21-2021
Originally Posted by Chiefspants:
That book swap story is the EXACT type of talk radio drama that the Bible study one was for the Cards :-). Are there any articles about the book swap or is it just chatter?
I think the story if I remember, came from Joel Goldberg and Ryan lefever during one of the broadcast,it might have been in spring training, which would make sense because lee was in camp and would have had interaction with Metheny but I heard them tell the story.

They said Metheny likes to give people books to read and then they will pick out something for him to read and lee gave him a book called,Race matters so its not fake news or some radio drama, with that said, I have no idea if that's why he was traded, that was my own speculation based on 16 years of the Royals front office and Dayton Moore and knowing how they value cohesiveness and refer to there organization as family and team chemistry but for a guy that I heard JJ Picollo referring to as, dynamic, and using words like Ken griffy Jr. to describe lee, it seems strange that when their depth for trades is pitching and not position players that they would move Lee, but again, its possible that their expectations for Lee changed in the last year and so he became expendable and that's most likely the reason he was traded but I cant rule the other issue out.
[Reply]
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