Games: Texas Rangers, Sept. 3: Judging the Royals with Lee Judge

Games » Texas Rangers

Sep3

The problem with the Rangers

Here’s the problem with the Texas Rangers; they’re really good. It seemed like every time Bruce Chen made a mistake and left a pitch up, the Rangers hit it out of the park. They didn’t pop it up, hit a routine fly ball, a single or foul it back — they hit it a long way.

After the game, Brayan Pena took the blame. He said Bruce trusts him 100 percent, and Brayan didn’t think he mixed it up enough to keep the Rangers from teeing off on Chen. Going into Monday’s game, the Rangers were first in the American League in winning percentage, team batting average, total bases, runs, hits, RBIs and on-base percentage.

Like I said, the Texas Rangers are really good.

Game notes

In the 1st inning, Lorenzo Cain made a catch off Elvis Andrus in right center and immediately ran into the wall. OK, it’s actually more like a chain link fence out there. Cain ran into one of the out of town scoreboards at field level and those are protected by chain link fencing. The Royals outfielders show no fear of the wall. Some outfielders start to pull up when they hit the warning track, the Royals don’t do that. Fans should appreciate the Kansas City outfielders — I know their teammates do.
If you want to know what Lorenzo Cain experienced, find a chain link fence, run full speed at it and turn and look up into the sky behind you. Easy to get distracted by the looming collision, isn’t it?
Chen broke out a 70-mph curve ball in his last start against Detroit, and I asked him if it was possible to throw one even slower. Bruce said he wasn’t sure, but managed the trick against Josh Hamilton. A 69-mph curve locked up the Rangers center fielder for strike three and the third out of the 1st inning.
Yu Darvish gave up three earned runs in seven innings, but if you watched the game you know those numbers don’t tell the whole story. Darvish was perfect through five, lost the perfect game when he walked Johnny Giavotella on a 3-2 count with two outs, then lost the no-hitter when he gave up a flare off the bat of David Lough.
Darvish was topping out at 97 mph and throwing an even slower curve than Bruce Chen’s at 64 mph. darvish also hit a lot of the numbers in-between.
Darvish should not have given up three runs: Nelson Cruz misplayed Tony Abreu‘s line drive and turned what should have been an out into a two-RBI triple.
Adrian Beltre won the Gold Glove in 2011 and showed why in the 5th inning: he snagged a Lorenzo Cain bullet that appeared to be by him and threw Lorenzo out at first. As Bob Dutton said to me earlier in the day, this series features the champion (Beltre) and the heir apparent (Mike Moustakas). Any time the ball is hit to third base in this series, enjoy the show.
Alex Gordon doubled in the 6th inning. Gordon leads the American league in doubles, and a lot of them were like this one: hustle doubles hit to left field. Gordon always seems to bust it getting out of the box and makes a lot of his own luck through hard play.

A guy who didn’t hustle out of the box

Nelson Cruz hit a home run in the 5th inning and took his time admiring his handiwork before starting his jog around the bases. The next time he came to the plate Cruz got hit in the back by a pitch thrown by Louis Coleman. The official version of events is that the Royals were trying to pitch inside to keep Cruz from extending his arms and hitting another home run — the pitch just got away from Coleman.

The other version of events — which no one will verify — is Cruz got drilled for showing up a pitcher. The thinking goes this way: you already hit a home run and now you’re rubbing it in? We’ll show you what we think of that.

When a pitcher wants to send a message, he throws a fastball belt high and behind the hitter. The natural reaction is to back up and that puts the hitter in the pitch’s line of travel. The pitch must also be below the shoulders. Anything around the head is dangerous. Getting hit in the back hurts, but won’t put you on the DL. If Coleman wasn’t trying to hit Cruz, his pitch still had all the characteristics of pitcher intentionally hitting a batter.

And that’s what Cruz believed. After the game, Nelson said he thought it was intentional and also said he was mad at Brayan Pena for lying about it to his face. Brayan and Nelson have played on the same teams in winter ball and are not strangers. Nelson said he was angry that Brayan said it wasn’t intentional.

Either way, Pena did his job: he got between Cruz and Coleman. The benches and bullpens emptied — you don’t always have to fight, but you always have to show you’re willing. Everyone milled around for a bit, Cruz went to first and the game resumed. On the very next pitch Michael Young hit a home run and appeared to be giving Coleman a piece of his mind as he ran the bases. As Jeff Montgomery said on the post-game show, that’s acceptable. Young did not show up Coleman by doing anything fans could see. He just delivered his own message to the pitcher that drilled his teammate.

This may or may not be over.

What actually happened on Sunday

If you saw Alex Gordon give way to shortstop Alcides Escobar in Sunday’s game, there was a reason: even though outfielders coming in usually call infielders coming out off pop flies, Gordon was looking into the sun and Esky had a better view of the ball. So when Alcides called for it, Gordon was glad to give way. (That’s also why Alex gave him a high-five afterwards; Escobar saved Alex from having to attempt a difficult catch.)

Here’s another one from Sunday: in the second inning with one down, Mike Moustakas on third and Lorenzo Cain on second, Tony Abreu singled to right field. Both runners scored, but Abreu was thrown out trying to advance to second on the throw. Whose fault was that?

In a weird way, the culprit was right fielder Chris Parmelee.

First base coach Rusty Kuntz has to think through plays before they ever happen and he saw Parmelee was playing in. So Rusty figured if Abreu singled to right there would be a play at the plate and Abreu would be able to advance on the throw. Here’s another factor; David Lough was on deck. Rather than count on Lough to split a gap and score a runner from first, Rusty figured it was important for Tony to get to second. From there he could score on a single. If Billy Butler were on deck it would be less important to get to second — with Billy’s pop, Tony might be in scoring position standing on first base.

So when Tony hit the ball to Parmelee, Rusty knew just what he wanted to do; he was yelling “go, go, go” to Abreu as he approached first. The plan fell apart when Parmelee came up with a very weak throw (sometimes outfielders get a bad grip on the ball and that affects the throw). With that throw, the Twins had no shot at throwing Cain out at the plate, so Joe Mauer cut the ball and redirected it to second.

I asked Rusty if it was in a sense a “no-lose” play: if the Royals get a runner thrown out at the plate at least they have a man in scoring position and if the Royals get the runner thrown out at second at least they scored two runs. Rusty said he’d be more likely to use a runner to draw the throw away from the plate with two outs, not one.

(And if this all seems pretty complicated, that’s good. This is the reasoning that went into just one play. Baseball players and coaches have to make these kinds of decisions all day.)

Royals Kevin Seitzer discusses his batting philosophy

Kansas City Royals hitting coach Kevin Seitzer discusses his coaching philosophy to the Star's Lee Judge. September 3, 2012 (Video by John Sleezer/The Kansas City Star)

Comments

Terry Payne
8 months, 2 weeks ago

The problem with the Rangers is they have too many guys who can just walk up to the plate, then pound the ball out of the yard. Think we can trade Johhnny Gia for Ian Kinsler, straight up? How much cash would it take to even that one out?
Thayne Griffin
8 months, 2 weeks ago

Hope Cruz gets hit again tomorrow.
Jeff Frost
8 months, 2 weeks ago

Five homeruns will get you beat everytime! Bruce hit his spots 95% of the time. The 4 times he didn’t, the Rangers show why they are the two-time defending AL champions.

Sadly, we could have had Ron Washington before Trey! He wanted this job!! Make one wonder what could have been?
Jim Wilson
8 months, 2 weeks ago

Ron Washington is not the reason the Rangers are winning. They are winning in spite of him.
Terry Payne
8 months, 2 weeks ago

Totally agree re: Washington. The guy is a great cheerleader, not much else. Kinda like when he played: About all he was good for was as a pinchrunner. Offensively, the Rangers scare the crap out of me more than any other team in either league. What I wouldn’t give to have Kinsler playing 2B for KC. And I say that as a big Chris Getz fan.
George Reschke
8 months, 2 weeks ago

Last year around the time Moose came up there was an article in the Star with a comment from a scout that spoke about how poor Moose’s defense was. I remember thinking uh oh because at the time Moose was hitting under 200. I figured he was an all around bust.

Can’t believe he got that much better in just a year+ time. Makes me wonder how many scouts really know what they’re talking about or just like to talk.

Also see the comment about how much thinking goes into just one play and see all the criticism of Yost. Makes me wonder how much we really understand about what goes into his decisions.
Terry Payne
8 months, 2 weeks ago

Back in the early 90’s I read a book by George Will called “Men at Work,” that looked at the game from three different perspectives: a pitcher, an everyday player, and a manager. It was fascinating and really made me understand how little I knew and made me appreciate the complexities of the game. The manager was Tony LaRussa, BTW. I highly recommend this book or anything similar to it.

The scout was probably just repeating an old report on Moose, without having seen him play.
Mark Harkins
8 months, 2 weeks ago

“Men at work” was a really good read. Great stuff on all the details you can’t see.

That scout’s comments on moose may have been on back then… There was a lot of stuff this past spring about all the extra work on D that Mike was putting in. That hard work is clearly paying off now.

Man, I wish this team could get some pitching because I love so much of everything else that’s going on, moose being just one example.
Scott Harrison
8 months, 2 weeks ago

Lee, you began yesterday’s column by saying how the Rangers hitters excel at not missing their pitch when they get it, and consistently hitting mistakes a long way. Is that something a hitter can learn to do, or is it just natural ability?
Lee Judge
8 months, 2 weeks ago

Scott: Not missing your pitch is probably due to a lot of things: talent, mind-set and experience, for example.

When I first began learning about hitting I thought good hitters hit everything. In fact, they don’t try, but what they do hit, they hit well.

Nobody can cover the entire plate—at least not for long. When guys try to hit everything they’re swinging at pitches out, in, up, down, fast, slow, curving and straight. Because they’re all over the place, they can get a very hittable pitch and not square it up. You see some of the young Royals in this mode. (We’ll soon post a video with Seitzer that talks about this.)

Experienced hitters know the percentage pitch in each count and what the guy on the mound likes to do. Basically, this type of hitter is looking for a mistake—a poorly executed pitch—usually in his “happy” zone and when he gets it, he doesn’t miss.

This kind of hitter doesn’t let his timing get jacked up by trying to do too much and cover too mnay locations, speed and trajectories.

I’ve told this story before, but I was admiring the bat Jason Kendall used to get his 2,000th hit and he said “about 1,800 of them were right down the middle.”

Wait for a mistake and don’t miss. The young guys will eventually figure this out.
Lee Judge
8 months, 2 weeks ago

George: Moustakas was drafted as a shortstop so he had to have some defensive skills, but when he got to the big leagues his defensive reputation was average.

Mike did a lot of work in the off-season: losing weight, working with a trainer on lateral quickness and working with a tiny training glove that forced him to catch the ball cleanly or it wouldn’t stick.

I watched this in spring training and he showed me how he had to angle his wrist to keep the ball in the glove. In addition he’s had to learn a lot about third base: the positioning, the angles and the different throws that position requires (especially charging a slow-roller).

Moose has put in a lot of extra work and made himself better. He always had the arm (which is the second half of a great stop), but he’s done the work on the other parts of the game that the position requires. Mike deserves a lot of credit and fans should enjoy watching one of the better defensive third-basemen in the game.
Lee Judge
8 months, 2 weeks ago

I’d also endorse “Men At Work.” One of the recurring—OK, daily—themes of this web site is how seldom we know exactly what went into a decision on the ball field.

Just about every night I ask about a play or decision and find out several things I didn’t know. That keeps you humble—or at least it should.

Sometimes players and coaches do screw-up and for the most part, they’ll admit it. Ned has told me times he thought he made the wrong call and I’ve written about those incidents. But much more often I find out there were thing I hadn’t considered that went into what happened between the white lines.

When we were in St. Louis Yost was way ahead of me on how he was handling double-switches. Yost has been heavily criticized for bunting early in games and it was only recently we found out Escobar was doing that on his own.

I’ve learned that being quick to judge is a good way to be wrong. And I’m wrong often enough even when I go slow.
Brendan Woodbury
8 months, 2 weeks ago

A lot of the defenses of Yost remind me of the guy I think all of us have probably worked with at some point: he doesn’t get his work done, and whenever anyone tries to talk to him about it, he has a dozen excuses about how we don’t understand the complexity and difficulty of what he’s trying to do, and blah blah blah.

In an individual game, I often am interested in why Yost gave Francoeur the start against a RHP or why Betancourt got the start at all, but in the big picture, all I need to know is that Betancourt, who was supposed to be a backup, got 51 starts this year before Moore got rid of him, and Francoeur, who has been a well-below-average hitter against RHP in his career (his decent numbers overall come from dominating LHP), has 78 starts against RHP.

Fans don’t need to know anything about baseball to know that the Royals aren’t getting results, and they don’t need to know a whole lot more to be able to pin some of the blame on the lineups and other managerial decisions (like baserunning). That’s absolutely fair game for questioning Yost.

Regardless of how complex the calculus that goes into the decisions, the whole Royals braintrust should be judged on how their results compare to the 29 other franchises they’re competing with.
Lee Judge
8 months, 2 weeks ago

Brendan: You’re arguing that all that matters is results and fans don’t need to know a lot of baseball beyond that. No matter how complicated the decision, or how much information isn’t available to the public, the bottom line is how the team does compared to other teams.

15 MLB teams have losing records. Should everyone involved with all 15 teams be fired? If you don’t care what went into the decisions or who is to blame, why not fire everyone? GMs, managers, coaches, players—what difference does it make? Get rid of the people who have gotten poor results.

If you want to be a bit more discerning than that, then it matters that Yuni was supposed to be a backup, but Giavotella didn’t win the job as expected in spring training and Getz suffered a variety of injuries.

The truth is you don’t really know everything that went into the decision to sign Betancourt, make out a lineup a certain way or play Francoeur.

But if that doesn’t matter to you, then I guess you can take the position you have.
Brendan Woodbury
8 months, 2 weeks ago

Lee -

I’ve posted a couple hundred comments on here, most of them delving pretty deeply into the publicly available measures of baseball performance. I’ve offered links to different methods of measuring baserunning performance as well as the results showing the Royals as a truly awful team in that respect. More recently, I linked to the calculations showing how taking 20 plate appearances away from Gordon, Butler, Perez, etc and giving them to Dyson would be expected to cost the team about 12 runs a season.

Moore isn’t giving him the best tools, but Yost isn’t making the most of his tools. The Royals are worse than they could have been because of decisions that Yost is responsible for. I’ve made specific complaints about Yost and backed those up with data.

But I’m not going to look down on another fan who looks at six straight years without getting within 10 games of .500 under Moore and who looks at Yost and sees that the Royals have the worst record in the AL since he arrived and decides on that basis alone that both of them should be fired.

On a perfect blog, the people who pay money to go to the ballpark to support a losing team would get more praise and the people who get paid to go to put a losing team on the field would get more criticism. But this isn’t a perfect blog.
Larry Tindle
8 months, 2 weeks ago

Brendan, you remind me of people I have worked with that think they know more than the boss or owner, but keep working there so they have something to complain about. My suggestion is start your own blog and see how many follow you. It’s always easier to stand on the side and take shots at the doers.

As for your couple hundred posts, yes you have had a lot, but they are all along the same theme. I don’t even have to read them to know the line of thought.

If you want a perfect blog, start one.
Joel Kallem
8 months, 2 weeks ago

Brendan, people who support a team (win or lose) do deserve praise, but your rants based on limited knowledge takes away from that. You are entitled to your opinions, but stop acting like those opinions are the only options. Some of us see things differently, and we are entitled to those viewpoints. Let’s face it - if you were as correct as you think you are, somebody would be knocking down your door with a job offer. Until that happens, and you prove your points on the field with a real team, recognize that you have only one point of view which is as subjective as the views that others may have. Doesn’t mean that anyone is right or wrong - we just differ.
Josh Cooper
8 months, 2 weeks ago

I appreciate the thought that goes into your posts, Brendan. I agree with most of your thoughts as well. It’s just one of those things where the media is not ever going to be overly critical of a team because they don’t want to lose access. If Lee would start calling Yost an idiot I doubt he’d be allowed to speak with him.

I would love to see the guys over at Royals Review interview Yost and Moore, but truth be told, they probably wouldn’t exactly rip them to shreds either if they ever wanted to talk to them again.
Brendan Woodbury
8 months, 2 weeks ago

Larry -

I don’t know what sort of people you hang around with, but I don’t I’ve ever met anyone who stays at a crappy job so they can complain about it.

I don’t have the time or the interest to start my own blog, but even if I did, it wouldn’t make my points here any more true than they already are. I don’t know why Lee keeps taking shots at the fans and apologizing for the team, but he does, and it’s wrong, and anybody with or without their own blog can see that and say it.
Brendan Woodbury
8 months, 2 weeks ago

Joel -

Since Dayton arrived, the Royals have the worst record in MLB. Since Yost arrived, the Royals have the worst record in the AL. It doesn’t take a genius (or the kind of guy who’d have MLB teams knocking down their door) to see they’re probably doing a lot of things wrong.

I don’t have an opinion on lots of the stuff Yost and Moore get criticized for. I don’t know anything about pulling starting pitchers or managing bullpens or why so many of our pitchers get hurt or how best to develop young players or all sorts of stuff. I know about a few things, and I post about those few things.

Beyond that, I look at the team’s results. I don’t know exactly why our pitching has been consistently awful in the Moore era, but it has. I don’t know entirely why our run production has consistently underperformed our hitting in the Yost era, but it has. From this I conclude that they’re doing a bad job overall and I look for ways to explain that within the areas I can understand.

I don’t have any quarrel with anyone on here except for Lee when he takes shots at the fans (and once with Jim F). For example, I think Terry Payne and I see the game as differently as possible, but I like his reminiscences that he posts.

I just want us to win, which is the same as everyone here I’d guess, and I feel like the less the management is held accontable for the specific actions that hurt us (like our insane baserunning earlier in the year), the farther off that goal is.
Brendan Woodbury
8 months, 2 weeks ago

Josh -

Thank you for the kind words.

I think it’s possible to disagree without being disagreeable, but I agree it’s much easier to get maximum access if you don’t set yourself up as an advocate instead of an impartial observer.
Terry Payne
8 months, 2 weeks ago

And I thought I could rant.

Judging the Royals