The sabermetric cognoscenti are all agog about something called Kila Ka’aihue, a towering Hawaiian first-baseman/DH for the Kansas City Royals. It could be that he's the closest thing to gush-worthy in KC or it could be that they've tired of waiting for Matt Wieters, the Oriole catcher whose projected rookie batting average looked like a Dean's List GPA.
Baseball Prospectus's projection algorithm rates him the eighth best hitter in the AL in 2011 with a .262/.387/.473 line bolstered by 95 walks and 25 home runs. BP equates Kila with Ryan Howard both at the plate and in the field. They both sport nifty projected "true averages" of .302 (Kila on base more, Howard more power) and sub-nifty fielding projections.
Ka'aihue (pronounced: Good God, even if I knew how to pronounce it, I wouldn't know how to write it), sipped a cup'a Joe with the big club in '08 and retired his rookie status last year with 208 plate appearances. In that time, he did little to light the fires of conjecture, authoring a .224/.314/.398 resume with nine home runs.
These projections are based on the past three years and historic comparisons to those with similar experiences. Kila showed some Triple-A mettle, slugging .285/.424/.521 in 1,110 plate appearances from '08 to '10. There's no guarantee that will translate to the majors, or even to Kansas City, but it's not like there's no correlation between AAA performance and MLB performance. Add in that Kila's turns 27 this year and will be given regular playing time by a franchise not currently in danger of missing a playoff appearance because of one bad personnel decision.
Still, a .302 true average -- a kind of catch-all batting metric put in batting average form -- sounds like a best-case scenario. The Royals and Kila fantasy owners nationwide should be happy if he hits well enough to justify his at-bats and show some future promise. And that sounds like a lot more reasonable expectation. In any case, he'll be someone to keep an eye on in 2011. Maybe we'll even learn how to say his name.
b
No comments:
Post a Comment