In 1993, following the death of Ewing Kaufman and eight years after the Kansas City Royals' only World Series championship (to that point), David Glass took the reins of the franchise. At that point, I had been a diehard Royals fan, despite growing up 1200 miles away, for 23 years. I attended the 1976 playoffs at Yankee Stadium and died a little inside when Chris Chambliss belted a ninth-inning, game-seven home run to foreclose the Royals' World Series aspiration.
Though I had never been to the state of Missouri, I followed my team and clung to my idolatry despite a string of losing seasons, because that's what a fan does.
Glass, former CEO and board chair at WalMart, was not so much a fan. Glass was a businessman who had made a career racing to the retail bottom. He deduced that a similar strategy would work in Major League Baseball, as long as he defined "worked" as "made a profit."
So Glass bled the franchise, secure in the knowledge that fans -- short for fanatics -- would continue to buy tickets and watch games on TV, not only because fanatics are fanatical but also because every game featured an opponent who might be worth watching. If the buying public wasn't interested in purchasing a ticket to see Mike Macfarlane and Hipolito Pichardo, a sufficient percentage of it would pay to see Mo Vaughn, Jim Thome, Roger Clemens and Cal Ripken.
Here's the Wikipedia entry extolling Glass' early "accomplishments" as owner:
Under Glass' leadership, the board cut the payroll budget from $41 million to $19 million. During the Major League Baseball strike of 1994-1995, Glass opposed any settlement with the players' union without a salary cap,
and supported the use of strike breaking "replacement" players, despite
a court ruling that the use of replacement players violated federal
labor law
Lovely. So my favorite team was being guided by a Neandethal who cared not one whit about his team's place in the standings.
Letting Go of My Team
As you might imagine, my fanhood waned in the '90s, both because I grew other interests and because my team was literally a lost cause. By the early 2000s I had largely stopped following the Royals, who had not been competitive for 23 years and had no prospects of improving upon that record.
Indeed, despite the hiring of Dayton Moore as GM from the successful Atlanta franchise, KC had little to show for a string of high draft picks -- among Alex Gordon, Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer, Lorenzo Cain, Luke Hochevar and Billy Butler, only Gordon had performed as advertised. When they hired Ned Yost, a dinosaur manager who disdained new and improved baseball analytics, I scoffed. It occurred to me that not only was KC a pathetic shell of an organization, its mission was at odds with my fandom.
So in 2005, when the Montreal Expos moved to Washington, I seized upon the opportunity to attach myself to a new team. Living by then in Charleston SC, I was a lot closer to the District of Columbia than to Kansas City, and I could begin anew with a franchise whose long-term goal of a championship justified the lean times early on. And indeed, early investments paved the way for a pennant contender by 2012.
Falling Back In Love With My Ex
And then a funny thing happened in Kansas City. Moore's new strategy of signing glove-first, high-contact players for his spacious ballpark, combined with a pitching rotation built from back to front, began paying dividends. The Royals won 86-89-95 games the last three years, earning two playoff berths and winning a World Series title with thrilling never-say-die performances. The Little Engine That Could is eminently rootable.
Meanwhile, despite a pile of talent, the Nationals have stumbled the last few years, unable to win a single playoff series. Their stars can be cantankerous and their new ballpark is a junk pile. My head says I'm a fan but my heart is not with the program.
What's a boy to do? I don't have a favorite football, basketball or hockey team. Being a Royals fan, and later a Nats fan, has been part of my identity, and now I seem to be suffering from a split personality. In a baseball sense, I'm bipolar. It seems clear to me that a fan divided against himself can't stand, but if I return to my childhood crush it would require divorcing my current partner, to whom I have promised fidelity, til death do we part.
I am vexed. I must choose by Opening Day. Stay tuned, or help.
Showing posts with label David Glass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Glass. Show all posts
05 January 2016
07 June 2013
Dipping Their Toe In Knowledge: The Kansas City Royals Shake Up Their Lineup
In 2005, after 35 years as a Kansas City Royals fan, I renounced my affiliation and took up with the Washington Nationals. It had finally become evident that while I cared for the team, the owner, David Glass, did not. He operated the franchise like a WalMart, of which he had been CEO, which is to say his primary concern was earning a profit.
So Glass sucked the franchise dry and ran it on the cheap, relying on low-cost young talent to induce the flipping of turnstiles before earning their freedom.
In the ensuing eight years, KC is 506-685, a .425 winning percentage. This year, their 25-32 record is mostly attributable to their work in the batter's box: seven of their 11 most-used batters sport OPS+ of 80 or less. In other words, much of their starting lineup is at least 20% worse than average, including keystoner Chris Getz, who, at .207/.267/.289, is only the second-worst regular in the lineup.
The entire team has struck 30 home runs, three fewer than the Orioles' first baseman and shortstop.
Their manager, lightly-regarded Ned Yost, has not wasted any time perusing the newest research on game strategy. So, for example, he's given sabermetric punching bag Jeff Francoeur 167 plate appearances despite a predictable .213/.246/.319 performance. (Actually, it's not the batting average or lack of power that are so lamentable, since both of those can increase over the course of the season. It's the 3% walk rate, which tends not to change much over time and which would keep his OBP below average for an outfielder even if he batted .300.)
When it comes to lineup construction, it's no surprise that Yost has clung to the old ways. Before there was research that could muddy the waters with annoying "facts," managers arranged lineups by folk wisdom, some of which proved wanting. They batted a punch and judy lightning bolt first, a speedy bat handler second, the best hitter third and the slugger fourth.
Hundreds of studies later, covering tens of thousands of games, there is a whole matrix of rules for optimal lineup construction, which can be summarized this way:
1. Bat your best hitters at the front of the order so they get to the plate more.
2. Table-setters in the first two positions need high on base percentages.
3. Alternate handedness as much as possible.
4. Beyond that, it doesn't matter much.
Managers still walking among the great lizards fail the test most often with respect to Rule 2 (and by extension Rule 1). For example, throwback strategist Dusty Baker bats shortstop Zach Cozart and his .270 OBP in the two spot, costing the Reds bits of runs every game.
That's exactly the error Ned Yost makes, albeit with fewer options than Baker has. Yost hits the Royals' best player, Alex Gordon (.315/.360/.468), at the top of the lineup and then follows him with speedy, punchless shortstop Alcides Escobar. The Gordon choice is defensible because he's likely to author the top OBP on the team.
As for Escobar, remember him from his Milwaukee days? His Kansas City glory? I didn't think so. He might not be the worst hitter in the Royals' starting lineup, but if you made the case you wouldn't get an argument. That's the guy Yost sends to the plate the second most often.
But! Earlier this week, Yost finally caved to the seamheads employed by the team (though one wonders why it bothers) and allowed them to re-arrange the order. Against a RHP, they dropped Escobar to the nine hole and moved first baseman Eric Hosmer, a .273/.332/.440 lifetime hitter against righties, up to second.
When asked whether he'd extend the experiment following a four-run effort the first night, Yost replied, "We'll see how it works tomorrow." (They scored seven the following night.) Yost is understandably wary, in as much as the new lineup represents a repudiation of everything he's believed for all his decades in cleats, but even a stubborn innumerate should be able to understand that a game or two is an insufficient sample size for testing a strategy that might boost scoring by a run every few games.
Obviously, optimal lineup construction is only optimal for the lineup in question. No batting order rife with dead weight, like KC's, can be transformed into the '27 Yankees simply by rearranging the uniforms. The improvement on offense that a more rational batting order conveys might bump the Royals to .500, but no further, and only if they improve elsewhere as well. But the decision to start listening to what the research says could transform the entire organization and produce occasional contenders.
The likes of Ned Yost probably won't be there to experience it. And I'll stick with my Nats all the same.
So Glass sucked the franchise dry and ran it on the cheap, relying on low-cost young talent to induce the flipping of turnstiles before earning their freedom.
In the ensuing eight years, KC is 506-685, a .425 winning percentage. This year, their 25-32 record is mostly attributable to their work in the batter's box: seven of their 11 most-used batters sport OPS+ of 80 or less. In other words, much of their starting lineup is at least 20% worse than average, including keystoner Chris Getz, who, at .207/.267/.289, is only the second-worst regular in the lineup.
The entire team has struck 30 home runs, three fewer than the Orioles' first baseman and shortstop.
Their manager, lightly-regarded Ned Yost, has not wasted any time perusing the newest research on game strategy. So, for example, he's given sabermetric punching bag Jeff Francoeur 167 plate appearances despite a predictable .213/.246/.319 performance. (Actually, it's not the batting average or lack of power that are so lamentable, since both of those can increase over the course of the season. It's the 3% walk rate, which tends not to change much over time and which would keep his OBP below average for an outfielder even if he batted .300.)
When it comes to lineup construction, it's no surprise that Yost has clung to the old ways. Before there was research that could muddy the waters with annoying "facts," managers arranged lineups by folk wisdom, some of which proved wanting. They batted a punch and judy lightning bolt first, a speedy bat handler second, the best hitter third and the slugger fourth.
Hundreds of studies later, covering tens of thousands of games, there is a whole matrix of rules for optimal lineup construction, which can be summarized this way:
1. Bat your best hitters at the front of the order so they get to the plate more.
2. Table-setters in the first two positions need high on base percentages.
3. Alternate handedness as much as possible.
4. Beyond that, it doesn't matter much.
Managers still walking among the great lizards fail the test most often with respect to Rule 2 (and by extension Rule 1). For example, throwback strategist Dusty Baker bats shortstop Zach Cozart and his .270 OBP in the two spot, costing the Reds bits of runs every game.
That's exactly the error Ned Yost makes, albeit with fewer options than Baker has. Yost hits the Royals' best player, Alex Gordon (.315/.360/.468), at the top of the lineup and then follows him with speedy, punchless shortstop Alcides Escobar. The Gordon choice is defensible because he's likely to author the top OBP on the team.
As for Escobar, remember him from his Milwaukee days? His Kansas City glory? I didn't think so. He might not be the worst hitter in the Royals' starting lineup, but if you made the case you wouldn't get an argument. That's the guy Yost sends to the plate the second most often.
But! Earlier this week, Yost finally caved to the seamheads employed by the team (though one wonders why it bothers) and allowed them to re-arrange the order. Against a RHP, they dropped Escobar to the nine hole and moved first baseman Eric Hosmer, a .273/.332/.440 lifetime hitter against righties, up to second.
When asked whether he'd extend the experiment following a four-run effort the first night, Yost replied, "We'll see how it works tomorrow." (They scored seven the following night.) Yost is understandably wary, in as much as the new lineup represents a repudiation of everything he's believed for all his decades in cleats, but even a stubborn innumerate should be able to understand that a game or two is an insufficient sample size for testing a strategy that might boost scoring by a run every few games.
Obviously, optimal lineup construction is only optimal for the lineup in question. No batting order rife with dead weight, like KC's, can be transformed into the '27 Yankees simply by rearranging the uniforms. The improvement on offense that a more rational batting order conveys might bump the Royals to .500, but no further, and only if they improve elsewhere as well. But the decision to start listening to what the research says could transform the entire organization and produce occasional contenders.
The likes of Ned Yost probably won't be there to experience it. And I'll stick with my Nats all the same.
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