Just a top down view of the Royals before we begin the playoff chase.
The baseball season is over halfway done and the All-Star game is behind us. I just wanted to take a look at where the Royals are relative to the league across a range of team stats before we head into (hopefully) an interesting playoff chase.
Here is how the hitters stack up so far:
All of these are ranks highest to lowest, so K% being low is good. The offense has been better than I think most people think it has been. Glaring lacks of production across half the team have been covered up by Bobby Witt Jr.’s MVP-caliber season and the hot start from Salvador Perez. Salvy has cooled off, but the team is still in the top half of baseball when it comes to scoring runs. They don’t walk, but they also don’t strike out a lot.
The only thing the team is particularly good at offensively is running bases. They steal a lot of bases and don’t get caught much relatively and that along with taking extra bases has pushed them to third in baseball in baserunning runs. Their ability to hit for power is really keeping them afloat too, though they don’t hit a ton of homers so it is more doubles-driven than most power-hitting teams.
Defensively the team has been excellent, which means that the position players are all worth more than their offensive stats might indicate. There are some regulars who have been negative defensively like Vinnie Pasquantino, MJ Melendez, Hunter Renfroe, and Adam Frazier, so it is not all roses. When Micahel Massey is at second, the infield is truly elite though, as I wrote about last year, Bobby is the highest-ranked shortstop defensively, Maikel Garcia is 9th at third, and Massey is 17th even though he has missed two-thirds of the season. When healthy, Massey is likely capable of being in the 5-10 range somewhere.
Here’s how the pitchers rank:
That defense has helped make the Royals the sixth-best team in baseball at preventing runs. I split the pitchers since the divide between the starter ranks and the relievers is stark. This is one of the best starting rotations in Royals history so far. They truly are doing it well in almost every way possible. The fact they are third in innings ptiched might be the most important as it has allowed the bullpen to throw far fewer innings and limit the damage that this bad bullpen could have done. The addition of Kris Bubic and Hunter Harvey will hopefully improve some of those ranks the rest of the way. Harvey will definitely help with the lack of velocity.
For this team to make the playoffs, the starting pitching has to hold up. Every one of their starters is on pace to throw many more innings than they ever have before, so I am a bit nervous that they won’t stand up to the long season. The bullpen needs to be better, and the two aforementioned additions makes that more likely. Walter Pennington could also help if they would let him. How much better will the bullpen be is the question. It needs to be way better.
The offense has to at least maintain what they are doing. Renfroe and Melendez have been better of late and Massey being healthy would help too. Maybe Garcia and Vinnie could pick it up a bit. Maybe a trade will help, but for the most part I am assuming we are just going to ride with this group to the end. Hopefully they can get the job done. So far they mostly have.
