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The big news from this game was Jason Kendall being out for the rest of the season. In a move that would make a masochist wince, Jason tore his rotator cuff six weeks ago and continued to play.
His throwing arm was so bad he couldn’t lift it above his shoulder. In order to make throws (and he was still throwing out runners), he was lifting his bad arm with his glove, getting his damaged arm into throwing position and then cutting loose.
Let me say that one more time…
HIS ARM HURT SO MUCH HE HAD TO LIFT IT WITH HIS OTHER ARM IN ORDER TO THROW!
Look, if I feel sinus pressure, I call in sick. I can’t imagine the pain he was putting himself through in order to play. Once, in describing another injury, Jason told me, “Pain is whatever you decide it is.”
I told Jason I had decided pain hurt and it hurt every damn time. I guess there’s a reason I won’t be catching 2,000 games in the major leagues soon. (That, lack of talent and the inability to stand up without help after getting into a catcher’s squat.)
One of the things I’ve heard over and over from ballplayers and coaches is that the game is not just a bunch of numbers. You can’t take the human element out of baseball, and any attempt to do so is a mistake. Showing up early, working hard, playing through pain…whether it shows up statistically or not, this stuff matters.
Ned on pitchers…
Ned Yost thought Phil Humber pitched well, Gil Meche pitched well and Bryan Bullington was just OK. He said Bryan’s got good stuff, but just “misses the mark too much.”
The ability to put the ball where you want it depends on a repeatable motion. Think of it like a pitching machine: If you only have one possible adjustment, it won’t take long to zero in. If everything else stays the same, you can concentrate on adjusting the release point.
If you’ve got six possible adjustments, each one affecting the other, now you’ve got problems, and it will take much longer to zero in.
Stuff to watch for…
Kila Ka’aihue got caught stealing, but it was Yuniesky Betancourt’s fault (hence the mental mistake). Yuni missed a hit and run sign. You can tell when this happens by watching the runner: He’ll be looking toward home to see the ball put in play.
Some base stealers take a quick glance, but Kila stared longer than a tourist at the Grand Canyon. When you see that, SOMEONE missed a sign, and in this case (Bob Dutton, the Royals’ beat writer checked), it was Yuni.
Of course, Betancourt hitting another bomb right after missing the sign probably went a ways to make up for it.
More stuff…
Another thing you can look for is Kila’s front foot. Hitters close their front foot (which means it remains roughly parallel with the front of home plate) and rotate on their back one (a pivot on the ball of the foot that turns the hips and supplies power).
Kila rotates his front foot. That means his front side (hips and shoulders) can open too soon. THAT means he’ll have a hard time hitting a pitch away. (Try it: get in a batting stance, rotate your front side open and take a swing at an imaginary pitch on the outside part of the plate. It’s like trying to punch someone standing around a corner.)
It doesn’t mean it can’t be done, it just means you’ve got to have a lot of talent to do it. Watch where they pitch him: I’m just starting to pay attention to this, but I’m guessing anything hittable inside might be a mistake.
Or, I’m entirely wrong. Either way, it should be entertaining to watch.
Coming soon…
I’m running out of room, but as soon as you talk about a hitting flaw, someone wants to know, “Why don’t they fix that?” There’s a reason, and I’ll shortly explain why…kind of.
Betancourt
Aviles
Maier
Frankly, that's just selfish of Kendall. He was already the worst hitter on the team of the everyday starters and was getting way too much time behind the plate. Then he gets hurt and refuses to tell anyone even though he clearly is unable to perform his job. Plus this normally takes 8-10 months to heal. If the Royals actually want him to start next year they now have to wait an extra 6 weeks to do it. As much fun as he can be to watch this really lowers my opinion of him. I don't know that we'll see anything better behind the plate this year or even next year but I'm sure they can find more of a team player. He's not a gamer...he puts himself and his own achievements (2,000 games caught)above the team.
Brian:
I'd disagree on several counts. Kendall has a higher average than Blanco, Getz, Gordon, Ka'aihue and the only other player that really counts in this situation, Pena (.256 vs. .213).
Kendall was also one of the Royals best situational hitters, which is why he was in the two-hole. On a better team he'd be hitting 8th or 9th, but he's on the Royals. If they had someone better he would've been in there.
I also don't think he was clearly unable to perform his job. In one of his last games, he threw out two runners and in another, got the game-winning hit in extra innings.
He was continuing to do his job, it was just killing him to do it. When Juan Gonzalez was here and benched himself for every minor injury, fans complained.
Now we have a guy who's trying to give the team it's money's worth and we're still complaining.
Kendall's been hurting for six weeks, tried to play through it and only recently found out how serious it was when he had the MRI.
If you were a Jason Kendall fan before, I think you ought to be a bigger one now. Ned Yost was in awe of what he tried to fight through. Jason gets the money either way and he was going to eventually get to 2,000 games without killing himself.
I think he did what he did for his teammates and the ones I talked to felt the same way.
Hey, this was my first Royal's game of the season so forgive my ignorance, but there was one play in this game that really stood out to me.
At 2-3, one of the Royal's hit a great shot down 1st base foul line all the back to the fence. The Royal on second was held up on third instead of being waved into home. With 2 outs, there was little chance that the next batter was going to score the runner, and sure enough he got out.
The crowd was incensed when the 3rd base coach held him up, and in the end not taking that gamble did NOT pay off.
Also, if Ka’aihue doesn't get caught stealing it's a two run shot instead of one.
Graham:
Yeah, I saw the same plays. A couple factors to consider: normally the third base coach is going to make every effort to score a runner with two outs, just for the reason you mentioned, you only have one more out to work with.
Unfortunately, the runner in this case was Brayan Pena and he was looking a little gassed coming into third. Eddie Rodriguez has to factor that in: knowing Pena's going to slow up in those last 90 feet.
I was pulling for Brayan to turn the corner and head home also, but watching him come into third and then the Rangers' cutoff and relay, I thought there was a good chance Brayan would've been out.
If that had happened, the crowd still would've gone off on Rodriguez, so there was really no way Eddie could win. I ended up thinking he probably made the right call. Disappointing, but right.
Another thing to consider: crowds get to wait and see the results before they decide to boo or cheer. Base coaches have to make the decision before the outcome is known.
If a coach gets a guy blown up at the plate, the fans are all over him. If a player is safe on a bang-bang play, how many fans think, "What a great call by the coach"? I'm thinking none, and that includes me.
So those guys get abused, but never praised. (Can you tell I've coached third in about 500 games?)
As for Kila getting caught stealing: that was a blown hit and run. Yuni missed the sign and hung Kila out to dry.
The Rangers semi-pitched out anyway, so if Yuni had swung he wouldn't have done much with it. The best that could've happened there was a foul ball. No telling if Yuni would've gotten the same home run pitch after that.
To me, the most important play of the game was the semi-routine chopper that Wilson Betemit missed in the first inning. That would've gotten the Royals out of there with no runs instead of the two they gave up. If Wilson makes that play and everything else remains the same (always a big if) the Royals win by one.
Betemit's defense is a concern and it looks like his lateral movement isn't so hot. Put Billy Butler at first and you've got the same problem. That's a lot of defense to give up on the corners.
Anyway, thanks for writing. It's always interesting to go back over a close game and figure out where the key points were and you hit on a couple.
By the way, I express a lot of opinions on this thing, but that's all they are are: my opinions. Readers are free to come to their own conclusions about Jason Kendall, whether Eddie Rodriguez should've sent the runner, Ron Polk's system and anything else under the sun. Doesn't mean I won't argue my side, but I'm very aware that reasonable people can come to different conclusions...even though they're wrong.
(OK, that was a joke.)
Regardless of the hating on Kendall or this system, I'm happy to finally see some discussion going on here. I get tired of reading the regular newspaper articles every day about the game - I like this fresh look and thoughts on the game rather than the same ol', same ol'.
Well, I wouldn't say that batting average is a very good way to measure a hitter. I would prefer OPS or better yet OPS+ (I assure you that this isn't just to make this point about Kendall and that I normally prefer OPS+ when talking about hitters). Kendall has a .616 OPS which leads to an OPS+ of 70. For those unfamilar with OPS+, 100 is a league average hitter. So every point above or below 100 is 1% better (if over 100) or worse (if below 100). According to this Jason Kendall is 30% worse than the league average hitter. I went ahead and checked all catchers with at least 275 Plate Appearances (the number may seem arbitrary but I wanted to get as low amount as I could without getting 2 catchers from the same team listed, turns out this was the number) and Kendall is last in OPS in the AL. He is 50 points behind Pierzenski. Just to throw this out there I do not believe that OPS or OPS+ is the best hitting stat. It under rates OBP but I've had too many conversations where I use WAR, VORP, or WARP and it just turns into bickering so I try to use something a little easier to compute in the head and that I can figure up quickly while watching a game. If you want though I could throw those 3 figures out there in this debate as well :)
As far as him hitting better than those guys, over the season this is true Kendall has had a better OPS than Getz, Kila, or Pena. Since the injury, which I am seeing was on July 17th, Kendall has had 125 at bats and has a .529 OPS. That is worse than any of those 3 (both Pena and Kila have under 100 AB for the season, so it’s really tough to say that this is the hitters that they are). So I really do think it’s reasonable to say that he has hurt this team by playing, at least offensively. I would say that Kendall is better defensively. I don’t know that this would be enough to say that Kendall is still more valuable but I would say that even if it does make him more valuable, that’s all the more reason to make sure that he is ready to go for next season instead of possibly injuring himself further now on a season going nowhere.
To take your points in order, Kendall is pretty good at situational hitting. We could argue over whether giving up outs is worthwhile until we are blue in the face but I don’t think we will change each other’s minds so I think we can agree to disagree :) I did look into some of the numbers however hoping to find that there is some evidence of good bat control. On Sac Bunts Kendall is 6/9, 66.6%, in successfully moving the base runner. This is exactly league average. Baseball Reference has a stat called Productive Outs which is basically the ability to advance a runner with less than 2 outs (it’s a little more detailed than that but this comment is already going to be long enough). Kendall has a 43% success rate which is well above the league average of 32%. Given these numbers Maier is actually doing exactly the same with better overall numbers. It would be interesting to see how he would fill in at the 2 hole. As a bonus Maier in 70 chances has hit into 2 double plays.
Interesting note while looking at some of these numbers. Would you have guessed that Chris Getz and Gregor Blanco are 2/5 and 2/6 respectively at successfully laying down a sac bunt. For 2 guys whose careers look like they might be coming off the bench they should probably spend a little time with Bloomy learning this skill. Conversely, Alex Gordon is 2/2 in Sac Bunts. Just so that we know that the universe is still in order Billy Butler, thankfully, has not attempted a Sac Bunt :)
As for the rest of your reply, not sure I have much more to say than I did originally. As you put it. You certainly have a right to your opinion…no matter how wrong it is.
I know this comment has already been long but I did want to say that I have come to appreciate what you do with this site. When I first saw Polk’s system I didn’t like it much…and that hasn’t changed. Reading your commentary on each game is excellent though. If your goal is to help others see the game differently then you have succeeded with me. Watching for mechanics that you have pointed out instead of just watching for the results is very interesting stuff.
Brian:
First, thanks for the reasonable response. You're right, there's a lot we won't agree on, but it's clear you've put some thought into your position.
I don't doubt your numbers and maybe we're not as far apart as it would seem. I haven't seen them recently, but Kevin Seitzer has been feeding me the inside stats he keeps.
One is 'Quality Plate Appearances' and that includes hits, walks, hard-hit outs, 8+ pitch at-bats, etc. and Jason has consistently been one of the better hitters in that category. The other is 'Situational Hitting' and that includes things like sac bunts, moving the runner over from second with 0 outs, hit and runs, getting the runner in from 3rd with less than 2 outs, infield in and infield back, etc. and Jason has also consistently been near the top in that category. (So has Mitch Maier by the way, so wondering how he would do in the two-hole is vaild. I'll ask next chance I get.) Of course, Jason being one of the better hitters on the Royals may mean the Royals need better hitters.
But to me, all this is somewhat beside the point: (and you touched on it) the Royals got Jason for his defense, not his hitting. They let John Buck and Miguel Olivo go because of their defense. One guy high up in the organization told me Olivo was back at the screen so much, he knew everybody's name that had a front row seat.
The feeling is (and I've asked quite a few people) that what a catcher does with 120 to 150 pitches far outweighs what he does with four plate appearances.
There are arguments to be made both pro and con about Kendall's work behind the plate (for instance the team ERA is up vs. look what he's had to work with), but everybody I've talked to thinks Kendall is much better than what they've had in the recent past.
I've tried to make that point by calling attention to the games he's saved by blocking pitches with a runner on third (nine). Baseball guys will tell you it doesn't make any difference whether you put runs on the board or keep them off, it's all part of winning. (Although the runs you put on are a lot easier to measure and I think that's one of the reasons they get more attention.)
Finally, (about time) we're not going to agree about Ron Polk's system, but we probably mishandled that from the beginning.
Start talking about points and ratings and lot of people turn off. (I felt a little drowsy halfway through your first paragraph myself.) But I never saw Polk's system as the best or only way to measure a player.
It uses a lot of categories that teams use and I saw it as an interesting way to introduce some 'inside baseball' and talk about the game. I'm glad you're enjoying that part of the website.
If we repeat this next year I think the game notes will be the part we promote the most. A website that breaks down plays and tells you what you might want to look for at the next game is probably an easier sell.
In any case, (if you're still awake after my long-winded answer) thanks.
I am intrigued by this 'Quality Plate Appearances' metric. Is there anyway we can get some more info on this? Not to sound overly pessimistic but I would imagine that Kendall ranks near the top purely because he see's pitches, because he surely doesn't hit the ball hard, I can't even begin to put into words how frustrating it is to see Yuni get out on a first pitch (or a lot of other Royals for that matter).
One other thing, I think Olivo gets too much bad press. Yes he chased a lot of balls to the backstop, but Greinke seemed to pitch quite well with him behind the dish, much like Ubaldo is in Colorado this year. Now Im not expert (and was a pretty terrible catcher in my day), but Kendall called for way more fastballs than Olivo who seemed to get the most out of Greinke's slider, maybe this is because Olivo knew his weakness of the slider low and away. I would say that regardless of how many runs were allowed by Olivo's poor ball blocking skills he more than made up for it with his extra base hitting power and his rocket canon for an arm. Kendall had allowed 101 SB's, Olivo has only allowed 38.
Oh man, one more thing that I just thought of, and maybe its more of a conspiracy theory. But perhaps Kendall allows less passed balls because he calls for less sliders? Now I will not go as far as to say that Kendall calls for less sliders so as not to have to go get them, but I don't think its unfair to point out that Olivo has more passed balls because he calls more sliders. And over the course of the whole season, Olivo has only allowed 3 more passed balls this year than Kendall.
I don't have the stats in front of me, but as I recall, Quality Plate Appearances include: hits, hard-hit outs (Kevin Seitzer told me it really had to be smoked to qualify), walks and 8+ pitch at-bats.
He also keeps track of moving the runner over from second with 0 outs and getting the runner in from third with less than two outs (subdivided into infield in or back), successful hit and runs and sacrifice bunts.
The latter stats fall under 'situational hitting', but I'd think if you succeeded in those situations that would count as a 'Quality Plate Appearance'. I'll ask Kevin when he gets back from the road.
I was introduced to the 'Quality Plate Appearance" concept back in 1990 and it was probably around long before then.
The Colorado Rockies and now the Texas Rangers keep 'Team Plate Appearances', much the same idea: measuring success that doesn't show in the box score.
Clint Hurdle told me they've figured out that 16 'Team Plate Appearances' in a game computes to winning 65% of the time.
Don't ask me if that's right, I have hard time balancing my checkbook, but the idea of looking for things that aren't necessarily reflected in the numbers makes sense.
P.S. Apparently, breaking pitches are easier to block than fastballs. Weirdly enough, breaking pitches actually kick back towards the catcher (the opposite direction of their original line of travel). Fastballs continue straight and don't come up as much because of the original trajectory...plus the catcher has a lot less time to react.