Qualifying Offers, 2015

I'm going to update my post on this topic from last year. It explains this topic, which comes up every year at this time.

So, what's a Qualifying Offer? It's a one-year contract offer teams can make to their players who have filed for free agency. This year, a qualifying offer is $15.8 million for the 2016 season.

Why would teams offer that much money for one year? Two reasons. First, the best free agents are worth at least that much. Second, and more importantly, if the player rejects the qualifying offer, the team offering it gets compensation, and the team signing the player gets a penalty.

What's the compensation? If a team offers a player a qualifying offer and the player rejects it, the team gets an extra draft pick between the first round and second rounds of the amateur draft in June. The extra picks (called "sandwich picks") are allocated in reverse order of standing during the prior season.

What's the penalty? A team signing a player who rejects a qualifying offer forfeits its first draft choice in the June amateur draft. One exception: The first ten picks in the draft are "protected" and don't get forfeited. The teams with the worst ten records last season--the Phillies, Reds, Braves, A's, Rockies, Brewers, Marlins, Padres, Tigers and Mariners--won't lose their first round draft choice if they sign a player who received a qualifying offer. Instead, they'll give up their second-highest round draft pick instead. If a team signs more than one player who received a qualifying offer, it'll give up its next-highest draft pick. 

How onerous is that penalty? It depends on the player. The Nationals didn't think about the penalty when they signed Max Scherzer, arguably the best player in last year's free agent class. Losing a draft pick won't stop a team from pursuing a big star like Dodgers pitcher Zack Greinke or Cardinals outfielder Jason Heyward. At the lower end of players receiving qualifying offers, though, relinquishing a draft pick can result in teams being unwilling to sign a player. After the 2013 season, former Mariners DH Kendrys Morales and former Red Sox shortstop Stephen Drew received and rejected qualifying offers and couldn't find anyone to take them. Drew eventually re-signed with the Red Sox in May (there are not penalties or compensation when a free agent re-signs with his original team), and Morales signed with the Twins on June 8 (after the amateur draft, so there was no penalty). Both those players were pretty obviously screwed out of money by the draft pick penalty.

Why is there a penalty? In part it's because baseball wants to compensate teams that lose star players to free agency. But let's be clear: The sandwich pick that the teams receive for losing a player to whom they made a qualifying offer is their compensation. The loss of a draft pick only hurts the signing team. It doesn't help the team losing the player. By penalizing the signing team, it hurts the player, because it reduces his value. It ultimately serves to reduce free agent compensation.

How did they come up with the $15.8 million figure? It's the average salary of the 125 highest-paid players in baseball. It gets recalculated every year. Last year it was $15.3 million, the year before $14.1 million.

Are there problems with the system? CJ Nitkowski wrote a nice piece describing them last year. The most glaring are how they screw players at the bottom of the spectrum. There's also a huge loophole: Players who are traded during the last year of their contract aren't subject to qualifying offers or compensation. They include Blue Jays pitcher David Price, Mets outfielder Yoenis Cespedes, Royals pitcher Johnny Cueto and infielder-outfielder Ben Zobrist, Giants pitcher Mike Leake, and Astros pitcher Scott Kazmir. The two top pitchers in this year's free agent class are Price and Greinke. By virtue of being traded last year from Detroit to Toronto, the team signing Price avoids a draft pick penalty that the team signing Greinke will have to pay.

How often do players accept qualifying offers? It hasn't happened yet. Every player who's received a qualifying offer has rejected it since the system was implemented in 2012. That could change this year, as there were a record 20 players who received qualifying offers compared to twelve last year and thirteen the year before. It would appear that Padres pitcher Ian Kennedy, who was 9-15 with a 4.28 ERA last year and 29-38 with a 4.25 ERA over the past three years, is a candidate to accept a qualifying offer. However, a lot of analysts expect nobody to accept a qualifying offer, given players' preference for multi-year contracts rather than a one-year deal, even for $15.8 million.

Who's received qualifying offers? The twenty players are, by team:

• Baltimore pitcher Wei-Yin Chen, first baseman Chris Davis, and catcher Matt Wieters
• Chicago Cubs center fielder Dexter Fowler
• Chicago White Sox pitcher Jeff Samardzija
• Houston outfielder Colby Rasmus
• Kansas City left fielder Alex Gordon
• Los Angeles pitchers Zack Greinke and Brett Anderson and second baseman Howie Kendrick
• New York Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy
• St. Louis right fielder Jason Heyward and pitcher John Lackey
• San Diego pitcher Ian Kennedy and left fielder Justin Upton
• Seattle pitcher Hisashi Iwakuma
• Texas pitcher Yovani Gallardo
• Toronto pitcher Marco Estrada
• Washington shortstop Ian Desmond and pitcher Jordan Zimmermann

When do the players have to let the team know? The players who received qualifying offers were notified last Friday and they have a week to respond. So by the end of business on Friday, November 13, they have to make a decision.

What happens if they reject the offer? They become free agents, able to sign with any team (subject to the compensation for their former team and penalty for their signing team) described above.

Are the parties happy with the system? Players understandably don't like any system that reduces their value, and attaching a penalty to signing a player reduces their value. Owners like getting compensated for losing players. So that's the impasse, and the qualifying offer system is the latest attempt to bridge it. I expect the qualifying offer system to be modified the next time the players and owners negotiate their collective bargaining agreement. The current CBA runs through December 1, 2016.

Next Up: The Kansas City Royals

"Momentum is the next day's starting pitcher."

That quote, attributed to Hall of Fame Orioles manager Earl Weaver, sums up one of baseball's appeals to me. The game is played almost every day of the week for six months straight. If you lose today, there's a game tomorrow, starting with a score of 0-0. The idea of one game or a handful of games that turn around a team's entire season is hard to justify in a sport in which the season consists of 162, rather than 16 (NFL) of 82 (NHL and NFL) games.

Just as a demoralizing loss can be put in a team's rear view mirror in 24 hours, so is the impact of a dramatic win limited and, as far as I'm concerned, often overstated. A come-from-behind or walkoff victory is exciting, but there's still a game the next day, starting at 0-0. If you think the positive vibes carry over for the victor (or harm the loser), consider the Pirates, winner of back-to-back extra-inning walkoff victories against the Cardinals prior to the All-Star break, cutting St. Louis's lead in the Central Division from 4.5 games at the start of their four game series to 2.5. Now, three games into the second half of the season, the Cardinals are back to leading by 4.5 games, having taken two out of three from a Mets team that's on the periphery of the National League wild card race, while the Pirates were swept in Milwaukee by the team with the worst record in the National League Central. Just as I'd caution against reading much into the Pirates' two victories against the Cardinal before the break and what they say about the two teams, so I don't read much into the three games since the break. It's a long season, and momentum is the next day's starting pitcher.

The next day's starting pitcher for the Pirates to begin a three-game series against the Royals in Kansas City are their two All-Star starters, A.J. Burnett and Gerrit Cole, as the team tries to turn things around against the best team in the American League.

How Are They Doing Lately? The Royals are one of the biggest surprise teams in baseball this year. Yes, they lasted until the seventh game of the World Series last October, but they made the postseason only as a wild card team, kind of lucked their way past the A's in the wild card play-in, and lost a couple key players (starting pitcher James Shields, DH Billy Butler) over the winter. They were picked by many (including me) to miss the postseason this year, finishing behind the Tigers, Indians, and, in the opinion of some (including me), White Sox in the American League Central. Of the predictors I track (Baseball Prospectus, FanGraphs, ESPN), I had them with most wins: 79, a sub-.500 season. Instead, they have the best record in the American League, 55-35, six games ahead of the even more surprising Minnesota Twins.

Over the last 30 days, the Royals are also the best team in the league at 17-9. They've scored the eighth most runs per game, 4.35, and given up the eighth fewest, 4.00, suggesting they've been a little lucky over the stretch (a team with that run differential is most likely to go about 14-12), but this is no fluke team: they've scored 67 more runs than they've given up this year, tied with the Dodgers for the biggest run differential in baseball after the Cardinals.

What's Going Right? The Royals' bullpen is a key strength, as the relievers are fourth in the American League in ERA and strikeout rate, fifth in ground ball rate and avoiding hard contact on batted balls, and the lead the American League in both holds and saves (but also blown saves) over the past 30 days. They've worked a lot, though, as their 87.1 innings pitched tops the Junior Circuit during the period. 

On offense, they're second in the league in batting and on base percentage over the past 30 days but ninth in slugging. If you followed the Royals' postseason run last year, you got familiar with their offensive storyline: Not a lot of walks, strikeouts, or homers, but plenty of stolen bases and sacrifice bunts. They've been true to form over the last 30 days: fifth-lowest walk rate, lowest strikeout rate, sixth fewest home runs, most stolen bases, sixth-most sacrifice hits. Basically, they've gotten on base enough that the lack of power hasn't prevented them from scoring runs, though again, their runs per game are exactly in the middle of the American League.

What's Going Wrong? The starting pitching has been shaky, with a 4.23 ERA over the past 30 days, along with the second-lowest strikeout rate and the fourth-highest walk rate in the league. Though the starters' control is good--they lead the league in percentage of pitches in the strike zone over the past 30 days--they're not fooling batters, who've swung at only 29% of pitches outside the zone, the second-lowest percentage in the league. 

Who's Hot? The three workhorses in the bullpen are Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland. The trio's combined for 1.88 ERA and 45 strikeouts in 38.1 innings over the past 30 days. The rest of the bullpen's been pretty good too, with a 2.94 combined ERA. (As an aside, here's a fun fact: Wade Davis's career ERA as a reliever, 1.40, is more then three runs better than his career ERA as a starter, 4.57).

The Royals have three batters with on base percentages in excess of .400 over the past 30 days: center fielder Lorenzo Cain, who's been absolutely on fire (.429/.500/.753 slash line with a team-leading seven stolen bases), shortstop Alcides Escobar (.346 batting average, .409 on base percentage, though only four extra base hits) and left fielder Alex Gordon (.298/.420/.474 but unfortunately disabled until September with a groin pull).

Who's Not? The only Royals starter with an ERA below 3.70 over the past 30 days is Danny Duffy, whom the Pirates won't face. Instead, they'll go against Yordano Ventura (in only his second start since June 12 as he's dealt with hand and elbow issues), Jason Vargas (coming off the disabled list; he last pitched on June 8), and former Pirate Edinson Volquez. Volquez has a 3.71 ERA but--sounds familiar, Pirates fans?--not enough strikeouts (14.2% of batters faced, the league average is 18.9%) and too many walks (8.1% of batters faced, the league average is 6.7%).

It's easy to make fun of Royals hitters, since the team's fans voted five of them to the All-Star team. Over the past 30 days, two of them have been bad. (The others are Cain, Escobar, and Gordon). Catcher Salvador Perez has hit five homers but has a .179 batting average, .198 on base percentage, and only one walk over the past month. Manager Ned Yost has a reputation for overworking his young (Santana turned 25 in May) backstop, but unlike last year, when he caught nearly 130 more innings than any other American League catcher, he's only tied with Seattle's Mike Zunino for the most innings behind the plate this year in the American League, and those two trail St. Louis's Yadier Molina, who's caught 7% more innings. Third baseman Mike Moustakas, who got off to a hot start, has a decidedly un-hot .224/.287/.355 slash line over the past 30 days. Almost-got-voted-to-the-All-Stars second baseman Omar Infante is hitting .240/.262/.280. For a frame of reference, the American League average slash line over the past 30 days is .254/.312/.411.

What's the Outlook? The Pirates enter the series with a 53-38 record, 4.5 behind St. Louis and 2.5 behind Kansas City. Add to that the fact that the Royals play in the better league, and it's hard to conclude anything but that the Royals are the stronger team so far. But that doesn't mean they're unbeatable. The Pirates will face two pitchers with a lot of rust on them and one whom they know very well. And the rotation is the Royals' weak spot. If you can run up the score against the Kansas City starters, you're in a good position to win. You just want to keep them from handing the ball to that bullpen in late innings with a lead.

Reality Check: The Gold Glove Awards

On November 8, I received my 2015 edition of The Bill James Handbook. I wrote a lot about the Handbook last winter, and I will again this year. It's a fun book. I'll find myself going through it, looking at the pages, all the way until the 2016 edition's delivered next November. It contains career records for every player who appeared in a major league game in 2014 as well as all sorts of features on pitching, managing, fielding, hitting, and baserunning. Want to see how much Phillies starter Cole Hamel's fastball slowed down last year? (It didn't; he's been around 90-91 mph each of the past eight years.) Wondered who got thrown out trying to take an extra base most frequently? (The Dodgers' Yasiel Puig, which isn't a surprise, and the Brewers' Carlos Gomez, which sort of is; both with nine.) Which AL manager called the most sacrifice bunts? (Trick question; the Royals' Ned Yost has a reputation for being bunt-happy, but he trailed Cleveland's Terry Francona, Tampa's Joe Maddon, Baltimore's Buck Showalter, Toronto's John Gibbons, and Seattle's Lloyd McClendon.) You can order it here or at your preferred book retailer. I really like it.


The first thing I do every year when I get the Bill James Handbook is check out the Fielding Bible Awards. These are fielding awards voted by a panel of twelve baseball experts. You've heard of several of them, probably: Bill James, ESPN analyst Doug Glanville, MLB Network host Brian Kenney, sportswriter Peter Gammons. The voters receive data from John Dewan's Baseball Info Solutions, which compiles and distributes baseball statistics to teams and consumers, to help them make their decisions. The two key differences between the Fielding Bible Awards and the Gold Glove Awards is that the former are voted by baseball experts who use statistics, while the latter are voted by managers and coaches. I like to compare how the more empirical vote does compared to the more intuitive one. The stats vs. scouts storyline is a false dichotomy, and the Gold Glove voting includes a statistical component, but I always look to see how the Gold Glove winners do in the Fielding Bible voting to get a read on how the much the two views of the game are diverging.

There is one Fielding Bible Award per position, while the Gold Gloves are awarded to a player in each league. Here's the rundown:

FIRST BASE: Adrian Gonzalez of the Dodgers won the Fielding Bible Award. The Gold Gloves went to Gonzalez in the NL and Kansas City's Eric Hosmer in the AL. Hosmer finished in a three-way tie for twelfth in the Fielding Bible vote. He was tied for sixth in the American League, which was led by the Angels' Albert Pujols, so there was a pretty big disagreement there.

SECOND BASE: Boston's Dustin Pedroia won the Fielding Bible Award and the Gold Glove, with the NL Gold Glove going to the Rockies' D.J. LeMahieu. LeMahieu was the top National League vote-getter in the Fielding Bible balloting, so there's no disagreement here.

THIRD BASE: Oakland's Josh Donaldson won the Fielding Bible Award, edging out Colorado's Nolan Arenado, who was the top National League vote-getter for the second straight time. The Gold Gloves went to Arenado and Seattle's Kyle Seager. Seager was ninth in the Fielding Bible voting, behind Donaldson, Chase Headley (who split his season between the Padres and Yankees), Texas' Adrian Beltre, and Baltimore's Manny Machado among American Leaguers. 

SHORTSTOP: Brave sensation Andrelton Simmons was a unanimous Fielding Bible Award winner for the second year in a row, and he took the Gold Glove too. Baltimore's J.J. Hardy won the AL Gold Glove and was the top American League shortstop in the Fielding Bible voting. No controversy.

LEFT FIELD: The Royals' Alex Gordon was a unanimous Fielding Bible winner, besting the Marlins' Christian Yelich. They won the Gold Gloves too. No disagreement.

CENTER FIELD: Juan Lagares of the Mets got all but one first-place vote to win the Fielding Bible Award. He won a Gold Glove, along with the Orioles' Adam Jones. Jones is probably the one player for whom the analysts and the managers have the widest disagreement. He has a strong arm and he can go over the fence to rob a homer, but he's well below average at getting to balls. He finished behind six American League center fielders, led by Boston's Jackie Bradley, in the Fielding Bible vote, en route to a 13th place finish overall. Big continuing dispute here. 

RIGHT FIELD: The Braves' Jayson Heyward was a unanimous Fielding Bible winner and he took the National League Gold Glove too. He's now a Cardinal. In the American League, there was another Oriole-related difference, as Tampa Bay's Kevin Kiermaier was first, followed by Oakland's Josh Reddick and Boston's Daniel Nava, ahead of Baltimore's Gold Glove winner, Nick Markakis. 

CATCHER: Jonathan Lucroy of the Brewers barely edged out the Pirates' (now Blue Jays') Russell Martin, who in turn was just a bit ahead of the Cardinals' Yadier Molina in the Fielding Bible vote. Molina won the Gold Glove, as did the Royals' Salvador Perez, who was the top-rated AL catcher per Fielding Bible. Close enough.

PITCHER: I've always been skeptical of fielding awards for pitchers because the sample sizes are so small. The Fielding Bible Award went to Houston's Dallas Keuchel, who also won the Gold Glove. The NL Gold Glove went to the Dodgers' Zach Greinke, who was third, behind the Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw and the Marlins' Henderson Alvarez in the Fielding Bible vote. 

So that wasn't all that controversial, was it? There was a big disagreement between the Fielding Bible votes and the Gold Glove voters for the AL center field and first base awards, and a smaller disagreement over third base and right field in the American League. But that's pretty much it. Every Fielding Bible award winner got a Gold Glove other than Lucroy and Donaldson. 

It wasn't always this way. What this is saying is that the empirical view and the intuitive view are getting closer together. I'll leave it to you to figure out who's influencing whom.

The Royals: This Changes...Well, Nothing

With eight straight wins in the postseason--a new record--and their first trip to the World Series since 1985, the Kansas City Royals have become the "it" team of this October. But it's for more than their long playoff drought and low payroll ($89.3 million, 17th of 30 teams). It's because of the way they play, and how they've advanced in the playoffs. Pitted against two slugging teams, the Royals swept the Angels (top scoring team in the AL) in three and the Orioles (top home run team in the majors) in four. The Royals are throwbacks: Last in the majors in homers, last in strikeouts, last in walks. All the things that modern analysis embraces, the Royals reject, and are now four wins away from being world champions.

Here, look at this table:

Tm	HR%	SO%	BB%
Kansas City	1.6%	16.3%	6.3%
League Average	2.3%	19.8%	7.7%
KC's Opponents	2.9%	19.6%	9.8%

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

Generated 10/17/2014.

The percentages are the percentage of plate appearances. So, for example, while the average AL team hit a homer in 2.3% of plate appearances, the Royals did in only 1.6%, while its playoff opponents--the Angels and the Orioles--averaged 2.9%. (I excluded the one-game wild card game against Oakland because the roster rules allow teams to pack extra hitters for the one game, making the conditions unlike other games). As you can see, the Royals eschewed the strategy of standing at the plate, taking pitches, and waiting for a ball to drive over the fence. And it's worked. Can the Royals' success be a blueprint for other teams in the future?

My answer is clearly no, for two reasons. First, let's not forget the regular season. The Royals won 89 games, playing in arguably the weakest division in baseball. They didn't win their division. As a wild card team, they finished only one game ahead of Oakland, two ahead of Seattle. A couple balls going bouncing differently than they did, and the Royals are traveling to Oakland for that wild card game, or maybe watching it on TV. And let's not forget the wild card game: If the A's don't blow a 7-3 lead with one out and one on in the eighth, or an 8-7 lead with one out and nobody on in the twelfth, and we're not even talking about the Royals.

Second reason: I lied. That table above? The third line of figures aren't combined totals for the Angels and Orioles. They're the numbers compiled by the Royals in their seven wins. Yes, for all the talk about small ball, the Royals have been hitting a bunch of homers, drawing a bunch of walks, and striking out in nearly one of five plate appearances--just like the other teams. It hasn't been a case of the Royals winning because they're playing a new brand of baseball; they're winning because they're playing like their opponents. It's not a case of showing us a new way; it's a case of imitation being the sincerest form of advancing in October. The Royals have won by slugging.

Three aspects of the Royals have endured, though. First, their bullpen, as I explained earlier, has been historically great, and has remained so in the playoffs. But a strong bullpen isn't a new idea. Second, their defense has been airtight, with multiple highlight-reel plays in every game, seemingly. But that's not unique to Kansas City. Every team aspires to that. The Royals' success is one of execution, not strategy. Third, the Royals steal a lot of bases. During the season, they led majors with 0.94 steals per game. No other team had more than 0.85. During the playoffs, the Royals have continued to steal a lot, albeit at a slightly slower (0.86 per game) pace. But those steals haven't been a major factor:

• Divisional Series Game 1, tenth inning: Terrance Gore steals second, doesn't score.
• Divisional Series Game 2, second inning: Alex Gordon steals second, doesn't score.
• Divisional Series Game 2, ninth inning: Gore steals second, doesn't score.
• Divisional Series Game 2, eleventh inning: Gordon steals second, later scores, due to a throwing error that allowed him to advance to third and score on an infield single.
• Divisional Series Game 3, third inning: Billy Butler steals second, doesn't score.
• Championship Series Game 1, seventh inning: Jarrod Dyson caught stealing.
• Championship Series Game 2, fifth inning: Lorenzo Cain steals second, doesn't score.
• Championship Series Game 2, seventh inning: Dyson caught stealing.

That's it. For all the noise about the Royals' stolen bases, they led to only one run, and that one was lucky (helped along by an error) after the Royals already had a two-run lead. It really hasn't been a factor.

So when you hear, as you undoubtedly will, that the Royals have won because of a brand of baseball featuring speed and defense with a de-emphasis on homers, walks, and strikeouts, you'll be listening to someone who hasn't been paying attention to the Royals this postseason. They've won because of defense and their bullpen, yes, but also because of an above-average rate of homers and walks, with little upside from stolen bases and little downside from a lot of strikeouts. That's the same brand of baseball as the teams they've swept.

Flyover: Kansas City Royals

With the season winding down, and the postseason pretty much set, I figured I'd wrap this up by covering the remaining contenders, starting with the Kansas City Royals. Here are my links to the Orioles, Tigers, A's, Angels, Cardinals, Pirates, Dodgers, and Giants. As a reminder, for each team, I'm looking at how they've done over the past 30 days.

How Are They Doing Lately? They've kind of slouched into the postseason. A month ago, the Royals were 2.5 games up on Detroit in the AL Central. Were they to fall out of the top slot, they were four games behind the Athletics and two ahead of the Mariners for the wild card. Since then, the Tigers have taken control of the division, going 18-11, while Kansas City's played .500 ball, 14-14. However, they've pulled away from the A's (9-19, worst in the league) and the Mariners (13-15). If the season were to end today, they'd host Oakland for the wild card play-in game. They'e scored 3.46 runs per game, just tenth in the league, while giving up 3.75, the seventh fewest, over the past 30 days.

What's Going Right? The Royals haven't scored a lot due to a lack of power, as I'll explain below, but they're OK at getting on base: fifth in batting average over the past 30 days at .259, sixth in on base percentage at .317. Not great, but OK. They could help themselves by walking more (7% of plate appearances, fifth fewest in the league), but that's not been a Royals team strength--they're last in the league, walking in just 6% of plate appearances, for the full year. Once on base, they've been the league's most prolific basestealers (36 over the past 30 days, no other team's even at 30) and competent as well (success on 80% of attempts compared to a league average of 76%). 

The team ERA of 3.25 is fifth in the league over the past 30 days: 3.26 for the starters (sixth), 3.23 for the relievers (fifth). They've been extremely stingy with the long ball, allowing the fewest homers (ten) and the lowest percentage of fly balls becoming home runs (4.3%). Those numbers are particularly impressive when you consider that the Royals pitchers don't get to pitch to the Royals hitters. They've followed the On The Field Of Play mantra, it's good to throw strikes, but better to get strikes. They've been a little below average at throwing strikes, with 48.4% of pitches in the strike zone, fifth fewest in the league over the last 30 days, but well above average at getting strikes, inducing batters to swing at a fifth-highest 32.0% of pitches outside the strike zone.

Part of the success of the pitchers is attributable to the team's defense. Virtually every fielding metric ranks the Orioles and Royals as the best-fielding teams in the league by a fair margin.

What's Going Wrong? The Royals have had a power outage all year, slugging .376, fourth lowest in the league compared to a league average of .390, and the last 30 days fit the pattern. They've hit ten homers, fewest in the league. Their isolated slugging--slugging percentage less batting average--is .098, second lowest. Some of that is probably bad luck, as their percentage of fly balls that go over the fence has been just 4.1% over the past 30 days, second lowest in the league and less than half the league average of 8.7%, but they're last over the full year (6.5% vs. the league's 9.5%) as well, so it's not like this is something new.

As for their inability to draw walks, last year their GM, Dayton Moore, fairly improbably blamed their home field, Kauffman Stadium, for their lack of walks, claiming the ballpark suppresses free passes. If that were true, the Royals would draw more walks in road games than at home. In actuality, they've walked more frequently at home (6.4% of plate appearances) than on the road (6.1%) this year. Good try, though, Dayton.

Who's Hot? Right fielder Nori Aoki is batting .361 over the past 30 days, fifth in the league, and has an on base percentage of .415, sixth. Center fielder Lornezo Cain's batting .327 and is tied for third in the league with seven stolen bases. Shortstop Alcides Escobar is batting .321 (though with a barely higher .336 on base percentage, as he's drawn only two walks) and is tied for eighth with six steals. The best power source has been first baseman Eric Hosmer, batting .310 with a .368 on base percentage and .529 slugging percentage (eleventh in the league).

The top of the Royals rotation looks set for the postseason. The top four starters are James Shields, who's 2-1 with a 2.14 ERA over the past 30 days, Jeremy Guthrie (3-1, 3.25) and rookie Yordano Ventura (4-1, 1.62). Lefty starter Danny Duffy, sidelined much of September with shoulder pain, put up good numbers in his first start over two weeks on Monday, holding Cleveland to six hits, two walks, and no runs while striking out five in six innings, though not everyone was impressed. 

If the Royals starter goes six innings, the Royals hand the ball over to Kelvin Herrera in the seventh, Wade Davis in the eighth, and Greg Holland in the ninth. Over the past 30 days, those three have combined for 40 appearances covering 38.2 innings, during which they've allowed 25 hits and eight walks while striking out 49 with a 1.16 ERA. The thing is, that's not a big outlier for this trio: they all have ERAs below 1.50 for the full season, the main reason the Royals are 64-4 in games they've led after six innnings. If the three maintain their sub-1.50 ERAs, the Royals will join the 1907 Chicago Cubs as the only teams in history with three pitchers with over 60 innings pitched with ERAs that low. (Fun facts: Those Cubs won the World Series, had a team ERA of 1.73, used only eight pitchers all year, and the three with sub-1.50 ERAs were all starters: Mordecai Brown had a 1.39 ERA over 233 innings, Carl Lundgren was 1.17 over 207 innings, and Jack Pfeister was 1.15 over 195 innings.)

Who's Not? Left fielder Alex Gordon is a lock for a Gold Glove award, but he's batting only .188 over the past 30 days, striking out in 27% of his plate appearances. Third baseman Mike Moustakis has a .211/.273/.244 slash line (the league average is .249/.309/.380) and DH Billy Butler has barely been better at .219/.286/.281.

If Duffy's not right, the No. 4 postseason starter will be Jason Vargas, who's been bad (6.46 ERA) over the past 30 days. But we may be getting a bit ahead of ourselves talking about a No. 4 starter in the postseason anyway.
  
What's the Outlook? The Royals are one of the nice stories of this season, as they'll play in the postseason for the first time since they won the World Series in 1985. As of now, they'll host Oakland for a one-game play-in on Tuesday. However, they could win the division (they enter play today a game behind Detroit), their wild card opponent could be Seattle (which is two games behind Oakland), and they could lose the home field advantage in the play-in (if they lose their last two games and Oakland wins theirs).

Assuming the Royals are a wild-card team, a victory would take them to a best-of-five Divisional Series against the Angels, who have the best record in the American League and against whom the Royals split six games this year. They're not a good hitting team. They'll be the only American League postseason team to score a below-average number of runs (unless Seattle sneaks past Oakland). But with their solid starters and lockdown bullpen, they're well-positioned for the postseason, where good pitching beats good hitting, right? Except, as I showed yesterday, that's not the case. The Royals' long postseason drought has ended, but maybe not for long.

2014 Predictions: AL Central

As Yogi Berra is alleged to have said, it's tough to make predictions, especially about the future. These predictions for upcoming season are going to be pretty quick and dirty. You don't want to spend a lot of time reading them anyway, do you? Unlike other prognosticators, though, I'll revisit these to see how badly I did.

Since baseball games are the product of runs scored and runs allowed, I'm going to focus on those two metrics in developing my 2014 predictions.  Here's the National League West, Central, and East, along with the American League West and East. 

Detroit Tigers - 96-66 in 2013, 4.9 runs scored per game (2nd in MLB), 3.9 runs allowed per game (7th in MLB): They've still got Miguel Cabrera and those starting pitchers, they've added a strong closer in Joe Nathan, but the injury bug has bit LF Don Kelly and SS Jose Iglesias. Their hitters are the second-oldest int he league, so time's running out on this team to win a World Series. Prediction: Fewer runs scored, same number allowed, 91-71.

Cleveland Indians - 92-70, 4.6 runs scored per game (6th in MLB), 4.1 runs allowed per game (14th in MLB): After the Pirates, the Indians were the happy-story team of 2013. But they lost SPs Ubaldo Jiminez and Scott Kazmir via free agency (those two combined for 37% of the team's starting pitcher innings) and didn't add a lot. I could see them regressing a lot. Prediction: Fewer runs scored, more allowed,  84-78.

Kansas City Royals - 86-76, 4.0 runs scored per game (18th in MLB), 3.7 runs allowed per game (6th in MLB): The Royals continue their quest to end the longest postseason drought in American sports today. SP James Shields is a free agent after this year, LF Alex Gordon is 30, and the bullpen's best-in-the-league 2.55 ERA last year probably isn't sustainable, so the clock's ticking. But the club addressed weaknesses at 2B and RF, adding Omar Infante and Norichika Aoki, and has one of baseball's most exciting rookies, hard-throwing hurler Yordano Ventura. Prediction: More runs scored, same number allowed, 89-73.

Minnesota Twins - 66-96, 3.8 runs scored per game (25th in MLB), 4.9 runs allowed per game (29th in MLB): The Twins' starters were historically bad last year, which is why the addition of OK-but-not-great Ricky Nolasco and Phil Hughes via free agency is a big upgrade. Unfortunately, the same can't be said of the Twins offense, and stud slugging prospect Miguel Sano is out for the year with Tommy John surgery. Prediction: Same number of runs scored, fewer allowed, 69-93.

Chicago White Sox - 63-99, 3.7 runs scored per game (29th in MLB), 4.5 runs allowed per game (23rd in MLB): The White Sox's Cuban import, 1B Jose Abreu, could provide pop that was lacking last year. Fangraphs projects him to be 33%-40% above league average, with power and good on-base skills. CF Adam Eaton, acquired by trade, is a formerly highly-regarded prospect looking to improve from a change of scenery. This is team with an offense that's the analogue to the Twins' pitching - can't help but get better. Prediction: More runs scored, same number allowed, 68-94.

The Offseason Gets More Tolerable

Today, just two days after the Series ended, I received this in the mail:

The Bill James Handbook is full of stats on the 2013 season: Career records for every player who appeared in a major league game as well as all sorts of features on pitching, managing, fielding, baserunning...it's really a fun book, and I'll pull out some excerpts over the next few weeks.

Oh, and you can order it here. You should. It's a lot of fun.

The first thing I do every year when I get the Bill James Handbook is check out the Fielding Bible Awards. These are fielding awards voted by a panel of twelve baseball experts. You've heard of several of them, probably: Bill James, ESPN analyst Doug Glanville, MLB Network host Brian Kenney, sportswriter Peter Gammons. The voters receive data from John Dewan's Baseball Info Solutions, which compiles and distributes baseball statistics to teams and consumers, to help them make their decisions. The two key differences between the Fielding Bible Awards and the Gold Glove Awards is that the former are voted by baseball experts who use statistics, while the latter are voted by managers and coaches. I like to compare how the more empirical vote does compared to the more intuitive one. The stats vs. scouts storyline is a false dichotomy, and the Gold Gloves include a statistical component, but I always like to see how the Gold Glove winners do in the Fielding Bible voting to get a read on how the much the two views of the game are diverging.

There is one Fielding Bible Award per position, while the Gold Gloves are awarded to a player in each league. Here's the rundown:

FIRST BASE: Paul Goldschmidt of the Diamondbacks won the Fielding Bible Award. The Gold Gloves went to Goldschmidt in the NL and Kansas City's Eric Hosmer in the AL. Hosmer finished seventh in the Fielding Bible vote, but was second in the AL to Mike Napoli (!) of the Red Sox, so we'll say the two awards agreed.

SECOND BASE: Boston's Dustin Pedroia won the Fielding Bible Award, getting 11 of 12 first place votes. He also got the AL Gold Glove. The Reds' Brandon Phillips took it in the NL. Phillips was fifth overall and third in the NL in the Fielding Bible vote, behind the Cubs' Darwin Barney and the Dodgers' Mark Ellis. It wasn't all that close between the Barney (7 seconds, 3 thirds, a fourth and fifth) and Phillips (one first, one third, everything else fourth or lower, and not named on Gammons' ballot). Let's call this one a disagreement along the lines of the typical complaint about Gold Gloves: the award went to the better hitter who makes some eye-popping plays but may not be as reliable overall.

THIRD BASE: No surprise that Oriole Manny Machado won the Fielding Bible Award unanimously. Rockies rookie Nolan Arenado was second. They won the Gold Gloves. No disagreement here.

SHORTSTOP: Brave sensation Andrelton Simmons was a unanimous Fielding Bible Award winner, and he took the Gold Glove too. J.J. Hardy won the AL Gold Glove, but he ranked behind the Rangers' Elvis Andrus, the Twins' Pedro Florimon, and the Royals' Alcides Escobar in his league. Hardy tied Troy Tulowitzki for homers by shortstops, and one of the complaints about the Gold Glove is that it goes to guys who hit well...I'm calling this a dispute.

LEFT FIELD: The Royals' Alex Gordon tied with the Pirates' Starling Marte and won the Fielding Bible Award on a tiebreaker. The Gold Gloves went to Gordon and the Rockies' Carlos Gonzalez. Cargo finished third in the Fielding Bible vote. We'll call this one an agreement, but barely.

CENTER FIELD: The Brewers' Carlos Gomez got all but one first-place vote to win the Fielding Bible Award. He won a Gold Glove, along with the Orioles' Adam Jones. This is the one case where there was a wide disagreement between the voters. Jones received almost no support among the Fielding Bible voters; there were ten American League centerfielders who got a higher vote. The knock on Jones has always been that he's got a cannon for an arm and he can go over the fence to rob a homer, but he just doesn't get to as many balls as he should. Big dispute here. 

RIGHT FIELD: The Diamondbacks' Gerardo Parra got all but one first place vote in capturing the Fielding Bible Award, and he won the Gold Glove too. Boston's Shane Victorino was second, and he was the AL Gold Glove. No disagreement.

CATCHER: Yadier Molina of the Cardinals was the Fielding Bible Award winner, edging out the Pirates' Russell Martin and the Royals' Salvador Perez in a close vote. The Gold Gloves went to Molina and Perez. Complete agreement.

PITCHER: I've always been skeptical of fielding awards for pitchers because the sample sizes are so small. Kyle Kendrick led the majors in pitchers' assists with 43. Andrelton Simmons got more assists every two weeks or so. Anyway, the Fielding Bible Award went to R.A. Dickey, who won a Gold Glove. The NL Gold Glove went to Adam Wainwright, who finished only seventh in the Fielding Bible voting. I suppose you could call this a dispute, but with pitchers, I'm disinclined.

So that wasn't all that controversial, was it? There was a big disagreement between the Fielding Bible votes and the Gold Glove voters for the AL center field award, and a smaller disagreement over AL shortstop and NL second baseman. Kind of a disagreement over NL left fielder. But that's it. Every Fielding Bible award winner got a Gold Glove. 

It wasn't always this way. What this is saying is that the empirical view and the intuitive view are getting closer together. I'll leave it to you to figure out who's influencing whom.