2016 Opening Night Live Blog

8:30	Dave Cameron: Happy Opening Night everyone.

8:30	Dave Cameron: And welcome back, baseball.

8:32	CamdenWarehouse: Player/Team is on pace for impossible amount of stat for the year!!!

8:32	Dave Cameron: Chris Archer’s ~400 strikeouts seems perfectly attainable.

8:32	Andrew: Something I haven’t seem mentioned is that I don’t really see any impact SPs being available at the deadline a la Price/Cueto/Hamels. Am I missing anyone or will it be more difficult for a team to upgrade their pitching during the season than it’s been in recent years?

8:33	Dave Cameron: Tyson Ross is pretty good.

8:33	Dave Cameron: And I wouldn’t entirely rule out Grinke being available if the D’Backs season goes off the rails.

8:33	iHateKennyWilliams: Who is the most important player this year for the Royals?

8:33	Dave Cameron: Lorenzo Cain, probably. If he can keep being a +6 win player, that’s a huge benefit. The projections still aren’t totally buying in.

8:34	JKJr.: Ballgames all day long, a few cups of coffee and some Fangraphs. What more could I need? What a great day. Thanks for doing this, Dave.

8:34	Dave Cameron: Thanks for joining us! These things are always a blast.

8:35	Bad Hermit: Has it ever been discussed to make these live blogs a more frequent occasion? And by that I don’t mean to have two seasons per year.

8:36

Dave Cameron: Well, they’re a lot of work. We’re talking a ~4 hour time commitment, so doing it for just some random Tuesday night regular season game isn’t always a great idea. Plus, you want to have a critical mass of people watching the game, and that’s generally the case only for things like Opening Night, the All-Star Game, and the Playoffs.

8:36	Jack Elliott : You don’t think the DBacks would keep Greinke long term to pair with Golden is in his prime?

8:37

Dave Cameron: Well, the goes-off-the-rails scenario would have to be extreme enough to help convince them that they aren’t as good as they think. I’m not talking about a .500 finish where they say “if we just had Pollock…” I’m talking a disaster first half where they maybe see that they have some real flaws.

8:38	Ryan: So who gets thrown at, and when?

8:38	Dave Cameron: I’d imagine it will be in the middle of the game, when Volquez is already about to come out anyway. They’re not going to risk getting him ejected in the first few innings I don’t think.

8:38	Dave Cameron: Alright, game time!

8:39	Dave Cameron: As a reminder, this will be a little less Q&A than just us following the game together, so don’t get mad if I don’t answer your question.

8:40	Dave Cameron: Medoza talks about the front-door two-seam, and then Volquez throws it again.

8:40	Dave Cameron: She’s good at this broadcasting thing.

8:41	LJS: I’m so pleased they are giving Mendoza a real chance

8:43	Max: Volquez is wearing the wrong hat! Is there some kind of penalty for that?

8:44	Dave Cameron: He has to watch some alternate broadcast with John Kruk calling play by play later.

8:45	Guest: Polanco signed a five year extension today

8:45	Dave Cameron: I haven’t seen this reported. Source?

8:45	The Dude of NY: Jeff Passan said so.

8:45	Dave Cameron: Ah, okay. Hopefully for Polanco, he got a better deal than Marte.

8:46	Bad Hermit: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/source–gregory-polanco–pirates-agree-to-five-year-extension-131938688-mlb.html

8:46	Bad Hermit: “Mid-$30 million range.”

8:47	Dave Cameron: That sounds reasonable-ish depending on how much the option years are for.

8:47	Kimball: Esky magic time

8:48	Woj: Alcides Escobar first-pitch groundout to the surprise of absolutely nobodoy

8:48	Trainman: Well 1 pitch again but this time a simple grounder

8:49	Woj: Ohhh Cespedes…

8:49

?: Lol

8:49	Tom: Do outfielders not catch line drives anymore?

8:49	Who_Is_Zorbist?: Cespidarn

8:50	Cousin Mose: Also love her ripping on Cespedes’ fundamentals.

8:50	Mike Oxlong: At least he didn’t stand there and wait for CB Bucknor to come look at it

8:50	?: #royalsmagic starting early

8:51	Mike: Cespedes has to be more of a disaster in the outfield than Kyle Schwarber, right?

8:51	Dave Cameron: Uh, no. Cespedes is a plus defensive left fielder.

8:51	Dave Cameron: He makes some silly plays, but the arm is legitimately amazing.

8:52	Bad Hermit: Good thing the Mets can strike people out.

8:52	Shirtless George Brett: best OF arm in baseball?

8:52	Dave Cameron: It’s up there.

8:53	Dave Cameron: That’s a crazy throw.

8:53	Dave Cameron: But now we all have to watch that on loop.

8:53	Dave Cameron: Let’s find out where Jotcast’s delete is!

8:54	Trainman: Hit em where they ain’t again

8:54	DJ: Feels like October

8:55	The Dude of NY: That’s a ball that most SS can field, right?

8:55	Dave Cameron: Well he was playing almost behind the base.

8:55	RedRifle: Professional DP there

8:56	Mike Oxlong: HEY LOOK A SLIDE TOWARDS THE BASE INSTEAD OF THE KNEES

8:57	Shirtless George Brett: I’m pretty sure you would have to straight up murder the SS for Morales to beat out a DP

8:57	MattyHarvey: brb, gotta pee for half an inning

8:57	Royals fan: Defense matters and its criminally underrated in a low scoring era. It doesn’t matter nearly as much when the average game is 7-5, but its huge when most games are 4-3.

8:58	Dave Cameron: If the people who think we’re overrating defense in WAR could get together with the people who think defense is wildly underrated and settle on a criticism, that’d be great!

8:58	The Dude of NY: Carson Cistulli on Twitter: Announcement: I will be chatting at FanGraphs tomorrow during the Brewers game to blindly defend my endorsement of their wild-card chances.

8:59	Alex: Running jotcast fullscreen instead of as a plugin makes it run really nicely

8:59	Dave Cameron: Good to hear!

9:01	Dave Cameron: Aaron Boone could use a 5 hour energy. He sounds a little too low key for Opening Night.

9:02	Kimball: Sponsored content!

9:02	Dave Cameron: I’ll call them and tell them they owe us $500

9:03	Trainman: High strike? Really? That was ball 4

9:03	Dave Cameron: Yeah, that’s not a pitch a hitter can really hit.

9:03	Dave Cameron: You call that a strike all night, we’ll end up 1-0.

9:04	Who_Is_Zorbist?: I really miss the super emphatic strike 3 calls from yesteryear

9:04	Dave Cameron: Is Tom Hallion still around?

9:04	Dave Cameron: He’s the upper-cut guy, I think.

9:05	Poor Man’s Rick Reed: Tom Hallion, 1-2 uppercut combo

9:06	Dave Cameron: Volquez not exactly commanding his fastball right now.

9:07	JohnRocker: Pretty sure he’s just aiming it high and hoping for more high calls

9:07	Dukes: Yeeeeesh

9:07	Dave Cameron: Yeah, forget the K-Zone, thats at his chest.

9:08	Dave Cameron: That was a nasty change-up.

9:09	Dave Cameron: Looks like Layne’s not calling the low strike, at least. His zone is shifted up apparently.

9:10	Royals fan: Defense matters.

9:10	Trainman: Nice play.

9:10	Greg: didn’t think he’d get that flat footed

9:10	Shirtless George Brett: Well didnt take long for someone to throw out Darnaud haha

9:12	The Dude of NY: Only two low strikes have been called as a ball. The K-Zone is lying to you!

9:12	Dave Cameron: Only 2? Through 2 innings, that’s a lot.

9:13	Nick : Nasty change to Gordon

9:14	Shirtless George Brett: Thats just an awful tattoo, salvador.

9:15	RedRifle: Good defense, Matt Harvey could be a Royal!

9:15	Dave Cameron: Ooh, Arrieta/Richards. That’s going to be the best match up of the day, stuff wise.

9:16	Trainman: Kluber/Price? I think that’s the best

9:16	Dave Cameron: Price has great command, but he’s not at Arrieta or Richards level of pure stuff.

9:16	Bad Hermit: Will Arrieta/Richards be live blogged? Pretty late game.

9:16	Dave Cameron: We’re only doing the 1/4/7 pm games tomorrow.

9:17	George Harrison: Excited for Stros/Yankees, who is doing that game?

9:18	Dave Cameron: Sullivan and Dolinar are doing the early games, then Craig Edwards is jumping in, then Owen Watson, with Cistulli jumping in for Cistulliness.

9:18	Crazy Buck Martinez: Sale/Gray will be worth staying up for

9:18	Dave Cameron: Lots of great matchups.

9:19	George Harrison: Now Im not excited Cistulli needs to STAY AWAY

9:19	CamdenWarehouse: all in one chat or each game has one?

9:19	Dave Cameron: One big long live blog.

9:19	Blerick: NO NUMBERS!!!

9:20	Stu: Oh boy- The “Royals don’t care about numbers” talk begins…

9:20	Schwarbomb: do you still get annoyed when announcers down play numbers in evaluating a team? It really bothers me…

9:20	Dave Cameron: It doesn’t bother me much anymore.

9:20	Dave Cameron: Data and logic have made huge strides in helping people understand how baseball really works.

9:21	Dave Cameron: We can’t expect every single person to buy in immediately.

9:21	Dave Cameron: But it’s all going the right direction.

9:21	Guest: Also the Royals have one of the stronger analytics departments in the game

9:22	Dave Cameron: They have a big staff doing data research, for sure. How much that actually gets used in decision making remains an open question.

9:23	Schwarbomb: whats the point in spending resources on it if they dont use it?

9:23	Dave Cameron: Not saying they don’t use it. It’s about how much weight gets put on it.

9:23	Dave Cameron: Everyone is mixing a lot of different inputs. The mix isn’t the same in each organization, though.

9:24	Shirtless George Brett: Just to clarify, are you implying that you dont think they do put much weight on it or just that you dont know how much they do?

9:25	Dave Cameron: The moves the team makes raise a question of how much the data is getting put into practice at the executive level. A team that put a lot of weight on analytics doesn’t give Ian Kennedy $70 million.

9:26	The Dude of NY: Volquez is too cool for throwing near the strike zone.

9:27	Bad Hermit: Couldn’t there be data not privy to the public upon which they are basing the analytics validating the Ian Kennedy deal? Not saying there is, but we don’t know there isn’t, do we?

9:28	Dave Cameron: Anything is possible, sure. But to believe that, you have to think that the Royals analytics staff is so advanced that they saw something that the staffs on the 29 other teams didn’t see, which I find improbable.

9:30	Dave Cameron: Pretty nice play there.

9:30	bill: <3 the guy who punched the sky and didn’t know he was on camera

9:31	Owen S: Hosmer was mean to Eno once. I don’t like him

9:31	Dave Cameron: I’ve been mean to Eno before too.

9:31	Dave Cameron: A few years ago, at Spring Training, he was responsible for driving a car of our writers to Goodyear Ballpark to watch the Reds play whoever they were playing that day. He drove to a Goodyear Tire instead. We made fun of him endlessly.

9:34	machetko: Would be awesome if they could figure out a way to do this rematch thing every Opening Day.

9:34	Dave Cameron: Agreed. I know it was a scheduling fluke, but this is neat.

9:34	Greg: mmmm what is he looking for…

9:34	Dave Cameron: Someone might have told him to not swing at the first pitch this time.

9:35	bill: who should lead off for KC?

9:35	Dave Cameron: Cain, maybe.

9:36	Greg: Gordon?

9:36	Dave Cameron: Sure, he’d work too.

9:37	Trainman: Harvey is nasty so far.

9:37	Bip: I mean, what are the chances that Mr. consistent Ned Yost removes a guy from the leadoff spot after winning it all, and given that he had a whole superstitious thing going with their clubhouse? My over/under on games AE is available and doesn’t lead off is 10

9:37	Dave Cameron: If they get into a slump and Escobar is running a .270 OBP, I could see him mixing it up.

9:37	Dave Cameron: But yeah, not while they’re winning.

9:39	Ernie Camacho: Dave! Kind of a random question for the commercial break: can we look at BIP wins as a crude measure of contact management?

9:39	Dave Cameron: Over a longer period of time, yeah. You don’t want to assume that single-season BIP-wins is true talent level.

9:40	Michael Scarn: Gut feeling – what’s your non-Royals prediction for the 85+ win team from last year that collapses?

9:40	Dave Cameron: Well, I don’t think the Cardinals will get near 100 wins again.

9:41	Dave Cameron: They won’t be bad, but they’ll probably be 10-15 wins worse.

9:41	Woj: Dave, do you think a 90-win STL team gets a WC bid?

9:42	Dave Cameron: Well I don’t think they’ll win 90 either, but certainly it would have them in the mix.

9:43	Stu: Conforto has a great approach.

9:43	Dave Cameron: Well, let’s be real; not swinging at Volquez right now doesn’t take a genius.

9:44	Trainman: Cabrera didn’t get the memo, swung at the first two pitches

9:44	Who_Is_Zorbist?: Cabrera’s legs look more like a linebacker’s than a SS

9:45	Greg: His plant foot is wild if you watch close no consistency. Also showed some wild mechanics out of the stretch earlier.

9:45	Greg: His plant foot is pointing at 1b at times.

9:47	bill: Do you think George Brett could hit .150 right now?

9:47	Dave Cameron: Sure. Pitchers hit .150.

9:47	Trainman: Holy crap a throw

9:48	Trainman: What a throw*

9:48	Schwarbomb: nice defense by royals all game

9:49	egm: What do you think Barry Bonds could slash if given a full offseason and spring training to prepare?

9:49	Dave Cameron: .220/.330/.450, something like that.

9:50	Trainman: Here come the stolen bases.. Cain laser single.

9:50	RedRifle: It’s just me or is this Salvador Perez love fest a little too much?

9:51	Dave Cameron: It’s not just you.

9:51	Shirtless George Brett: For all the gushing they are doing about the Royals bullpen, everyone but Davis and Herrera scares the crap out of me.

9:51	Dave Cameron: And Davis’ velo was way down in spring training.

9:52	Schwarbomb: no way Hosmer is actually looking to hit the ball like that, right?

9:52	Dave Cameron: Yeah, I don’t buy that he’s really trying to hit weak grounders.

9:54	Dave Cameron: Well, RBIs do stink, so makes sense he’s smelling them.

9:55	Poor Man’s Rick Reed: Dave Cameron joke alert!!!! Judges?

9:55	Trainman: 6 out of 10

9:55	bill: Judge from Romania: 5 blinks

9:55	Tucker: 35/80

9:55	PRJ: I assign 5 worry points to that joke.

9:56	Scott: Duda can throw!

9:56	Trainman: Nice double play turn there.