2015 Playoff Preview: The Kansas City Royals

Lorenzo Cain is on his way to a six-win season.  He'll still catch anything, but this year he's
showing improved power and patience.
Photo credit: Keith Allison

As we get ready to turn the page into September, it's time to look toward the 2015 playoffs. The Kansas City Royals, last years' playoff sweethearts, look like a lock to make their return to October baseball, and currently lead all of baseball with a 100% chance of winning their division (at FanGraphs, projection method, and I'm sure that's rounded).  I did profile the Royals in May when they faced the Reds, and the team the Reds faced then bears a lot of similarities to their August version, though with two main differences.  First, the Royals offense had been ridiculous through the first month and a half, but has settled down to post solid-average numbers.  That's still better than last year, but they're not doubling people to death anymore.  Second, their rotation has improved, in no small part thanks to the Royals' acquisition of one former Reds ace, Johnny Cueto.

Still, the hallmarks of this team are constant.  They field better than any other team in baseball, they have a killer bullpen, and they do the rest of it good enough to be a very good all-around team.  And I like them better in the short playoff series format than over the long season because they can leverage their bullpen more, and they can lean on Cueto, and they have some good bench pieces that they will be able to use to mix and match their way through series.  They look really strong, and will certainly be a team that I will cheer for this postseason.

Position Players

I'm making some guesses here.  Alex Gordon has been out with a bad groin injury, but is currently on a rehab assignment and should return to the lineup soon.  He'll take his job back in left field.  That leaves new acquisition Ben Zobrist, Omar Infante, and Alex Rios to divvy up time between second base and outfield.  I've always like Infante and two offseasons ago advocated for the Reds to go after him to help them justify unloading Brandon Phillips.  Nevertheless, had a completely miserable season.  Alex Rios hasn't exactly caught the world on fire this season, but I just don't see how Infante could keep his job once Gordon returns.

I'm burying the lede.  The biggest story on this team is probably the revitalized careers of Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas.  Last year, Moustakas was sent to AAA due to ineffectiveness.  Last year, Hosmer was a replacement-level hitter.  And then, in October, they both seemed to find their stroke, and it's carried forward into this year.  Both of them have cooled off from their hot starts to the season, but they are both now solidly above-average ballplayers that anchor the team.

And if they're not the biggest, then we have to be talking about the amazing year of Lorenzo Cain.  Cain has hit every bit as well as those others, while playing his typical brand of sparking defense in center field and brilliance on the basepaths.  Last year, you might have argued that his 5-WAR season was due to inflated fielding numbers.  But his bat has taken a step forward this year, and he's in line to reach 6 WAR by season's end.  He might not be the best CF not named Mike Trout just yet, but he has to be in that conversation.

The Royals continue to let Salvador Perez play roughly 5 out of 6 games.  His offense has slipped as the season has gone on, and one has to wonder if the workload has something to do with that.  If I were Kansas City, I'd at least try to get him rest in September now that the division is more or less wrapped up.  He is a good hitting catcher, but he may be too fatigued to show it.

I also want to give a nod to Alcides Escobar as a quality fielding-first shortstop.  I don't think he gets a lot of respect, but he has been solid and dependable the last few seasons.  And this year, he has hit better than two of the other regulars in the Royals' lineup.

Starting Pitchers

Johnny Cueto sure gives this staff a different look, doesn't he?  Cueto hasn't been quite as good for the Royals as he was for the Reds this year (strikeouts and ground ball rates are both down), but I see no reason to expect that he'll be anything but brilliant for them this postseason.  Following him will probably be their other former-Red, Edinson Volquez, who has also had himself a nice season.  Volquez still walks too many, but he gets a good ground ball rate and strikes out his share of hitters.

I still really like Yordano Ventura.  Listed at 6'0", 180 lbs, he looks like a little dude out there.  But he throws hard, has a nice breaking ball, and has looked good whenever I've had the chance to see him pitch.

Their #4 pitcher will probably be one of Danny Duffy or Kris Medlen.  Duffy hasn't been able to repeat the success he had last year.  But Medlen has only just entered their rotation, but is an intriguing option for them.  He's had fantastic success as a starter in the past, of course, and if they can keep him healthy and effective through the end of the year he could be a really nice boost to this staff.  I could even see a scenario where he gets the second start of a playoff series, behind Cueto and before Volquez, on the strength of a strong September and significant veteran cred.  He could be a really good choice, too.

Bullpen

These guys are the best bullpen in baseball.  Again.  Greg Holland has actually had an off year, but it can't be overstated how brilliant Wade Davis and Kelvin Herrera have been.  They don't even worry about left-right match-ups, really.  Franklin Morales has been quality for them as the lone left-hander in this bullpen, and he barely is ever used in a high leverage situation.  Ryan Madson has been used as their #4 reliever, and his season seems to indicate that he is still capable of closing.

This kind of depth gives the Royals a really nice advantage in the offseason.  Sure, they can ride Cueto to a 7- or 8-inning shutout, great.  But in the other games, if Volquez or Ventura start getting hit, they can bring in their bullpen in the 4th inning and still have a relievers pitch one inning apiece for the rest of the game, knowing all of them have posted sub-100 xFIP-'s and ERA-'s this year.

Southpaw Surprise: Reds Exchange Cueto for Three Pitching Prospects

Steve Mancuso at Redleg Nation kindly asked me to write a post about the Johnny Cueto trade, which just went live this afternoon.  In it, I compare the return the Reds received for Johnny Cueto to other deadline deals for quality starting pitchers, 2012-2015.  Here's the money bit:

It seems clear that the return for Johnny Cueto was pretty fair, given what the market has been paying for rental starters over the past several years.  If I had the choice, I would have preferred the return that the Brewers got for Greinke, based on what we knew at the time of the deal.  But given that Brandon Finnegan and Jean Segura were ranked at exactly the same spot in BA’s prospect rankings, someone who was really sold on Finnegan’s stuff could probably argue otherwise.  Furthermore, Cueto brought with him some degree of injury risk that was less of a concern with Greinke.  And, frankly, there has been discussion among journalists (whether or not they’re correct) that the market for rental players is getting weaker every year.  Therefore, for the Reds to fall within a few breaths of the Greinke return seems reasonable.  I’d expect that the Reds went with this deal because it was the best offer they received, based on their evaluations of the players. 

The Cueto return does look better than every other trade deadline return for a rental starting pitcher from the past four years.  While it’s not the most likely scenario, there’s a legitimate chance that each of the three starters the Reds acquired could be a valuable member of the Reds’ rotation by 2017.  None of them is likely to ever be the kind of pitcher Cueto was, but this is a substantial infusion of talent at a position where the Reds have been looking pretty weak.

While writing the article, I also whipped up quick profiles on each of the players involved.  I felt they made the article too long, however, and were kind of redundant with work already published by Redleg Nation authors this week.  So, here is what got cut:

Johnny Cueto, RHP, 29 years old

We all know he’s amazing.  How amazing he is depends on how you evaluate him.  By pure FIP-WAR (FanGraphs’ default, which is based strictly on his FIP), Cueto ranks 21st in baseball over the past calendar year at 4.2 WAR.  However, Cueto has consistently posted numbers better than his ERA estimators thanks to a consistent skill to induce low average on balls in play (career BABIP against = 0.271, and it’s been in the .230’s the past three seasons) and an exceptional pickoff move that shuts down the running game.  As a result, by RA9-WAR, he ranks 5th in baseball over the past calendar year with 6.1 WAR, behind only Greinke, Keuchel, Scherzer, and Kershaw.  His true talent probably lies somewhere in between, but I’d peg Cueto as among the top 10 or 15 pitchers in baseball.

Brandon Finnegan, LHP, 22 years old

The 2014 draftee has outstanding stuff: he throws hard, especially for a left-hander, has a plus slider, and his change-up is usable.  The main questions surrounding him are his height and build; at 5’11, 185 lbs, he’s not a big guy, so there are concerns about his ability to hold up to a starter’s workload.  He also has suffered from lapses in control.  That all said, the 22-year old has been in professional baseball for one year, has major league experience, has been constantly jerked across the minor and major leagues since signing.  He has yet to throw more than 25 innings with any one club, and was frustrated with how he was being handled.  He ranked as the #55 prospect in baseball according to Baseball America entering the season, and Kiley McDaniel recently reaffirmed his preseason 55 Future Value scouting rating on Finnegan.

Cody Reed, LHP, 22 years old

Reed has been a rising star in the Kansas city Royals system this year.  Like Finnegan, he also throws hard, hitting the upper 90’s regularly, and has a plus slider to go with a developing change-up.  Unlike Finnegan, he has a more traditional power-pitcher body that scouts like to see at 6’5”, 220 lbs.  The knock on Reed has been his control, which has ranged from bad to horrific.  This year, however, he seems to have taken a major step forward, showing much better control and command across A+ and AA levels.  McDaniel rated him as a 50 FV prospect this week, and he made Baseball America’s midseason Royals list as their #9 prospect.  His strikeouts have taken a hit with his promotion to AA, but it's early and he's young.  I'm pretty bullish on him.

John Lamb, LHP, 25 years old

Lamb is a former top prospect with the Royals, reaching #18 in all of baseball on Baseball America’s 2011 prospect list.  That was the same list that featured five Royals in the top-20; he was one of those guys.  It was that year, however, that his ulnar collateral ligament gave out, and he submitted to Tommy John surgery.  Lamb’s recovery did not go very well.  He missed most of 2012 in recovery, lost a lot of velocity, and had lackluster results in 2013 and 2014 between high-A and AAA.  This year, however, reports have it that his velocity is back up in the low 90’s, almost where it was at his best.  His results have improved as well: his strikeouts are up over the past few years, and his walks are WAY down.  Having already spent a year and a half in AAA, he is thought to be almost ready for his big league debut.  I expect we'll see him this year, and probably before the other two pitchers.

Series Preview: Reds at Royals

To kick off the week, the Reds travel to last year's postseason sweetheart team, the Kansas City Royals for a short, two-game series.  The story on last year's Royals seemed pretty clear: they were a decent, not-great team that squeaked into the playoffs and got hot at just the right moment.  They got a lot of attention for their ability to leverage their excellent bullpen in the postseason, but the real story, for me, was the explosion of their offense in October, which had been below-average all year (94 wRC+).  This year, however, most prognosticators, and most projection systems, expected them to regress back to a 0.500 ballclub.

That clearly hasn't happened.  The Brawling Royals have instead been an offensive juggernaut, tying the Tigers as the second-best offense in baseball behind the Dodgers by wRC+.  They're getting on base, but more surprisingly, they're hitting for extra bases.   Aside from one player, their lineup is virtually identical this year to the 2014 team, which posted the LOWEST home run total in baseball.  They're slightly better this year in that department, but mostly their extra bases are coming in the form of doubles: they lead the majors with 82.  Oh, fun thing: the Reds trail the majors with 38.

If there's a weakness to the Royals, it's their pitching.  Their bullpen has been superb thus far (by results, at least), but their rotation has been shaky.  Some have speculated that they might be a good trading partner for a team that has minimal prospects of making the postseason and viable starting pitching options who are approaching free agency.  Anyone know a team like that?


Position Players

About 5 years ago, the Royals had the best farm system in baseball.  In fact, it was not just the best, but it was described as "the best farm system in recent memory."  Alex Gordon, after several false starts, has turned into a legitimate star.  But two of the other cogs in their plan, Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas, were starting to look like busts.  After a good first full season in 2012, Moustakas seemed to be fizzling, and last year was sent to the minors mid-summer in a desparate hope to jump-start his career.  Eric Hosmer was arguably worse.  He had a good year in 2013 (3.2 fWAR), but was otherwise a replacement player (or worse!) in 2011-2012, and 2014.

This year, however, they've been outstanding.  Hosmer is walking for the first time in his career, has a .400+ OBP, is generating tremendous extra base hit totals.  Moustakas will probably never be a patient hitter, but this year has shown dramatically improved contact rates and is spraying the ball to the opposite field 50% more often than in prior years.  Lorenzo Cain, who is perhaps better know for his defense, is also hitting well, and they've been bolstered by a resurgent Kendrys Morales.  The only weak spot in their lineup is Jarrod Dyson, pinch-runner extraordinaire, who is filling in the the injured Alex Rios.  I don't know if this will continue, but thus far the Royals have been a legitimately outstanding offense.

Probable Starters

We only get two games against the Royals, but one, at least, features the fascinating Yordano Ventura.  Thus far in his young career, the 24-year old Ventura has yet to post the high strikeout numbers his superb velocity would seem to predict.  This year, however, he's shown considerable improvement in his ground ball rate, giving him at least one excellent component.  I like him a lot, despite middling results thus far.

Jeremy Guthrie, on the other hand, basically just looks old.  He's never been a good strikeout guy, but he currently has the lowest strikeout rate among all qualified pitchers.  He's also a fly ball machine.  Yeah, he doesn't walk anyone.  Doesn't much matter with those numbers.  If you like high-scoring baseball, the Guthrie/Marquis match-up looks like a dandy.
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Bullpens

Both teams are currently sporting rather full bullpens due to the fairly restful period in the bullpen.  The Royals' collective ERA has been ridiculous.  Their peripherals have been less so, though I'm pretty intrigued by what former-Red, doomer-of-Chapman-to-Pen Ryan Madson has done.  Wade Davis still hasn't allowed a run, and has been phenomenal.

Reds note: Jumbo Diaz is the only non-Chapman reliever with a sub-100 xFIP-...of course, his ERA- has been brutal.  He's been pitching pretty well, though, aside from the occasional homer allowed.  It's frustrating, as he's getting ground balls at a good rate, and his strikeout-to-walk rates have been phenomenal.