Earlier this week, Sports Illustrated posted the results (in slide-show form, yay!) of recent survey they took asking 228 MLB players to name the most underrated position player in the game. These sorts of things usually generate “interesting” results, and this case was no exception. This is supposed to be a fun exercise, so it would be unfair to complain about the “unscientific” nature of the poll: why 228 players? How were they distributed across the teams? Were they position players themselves or a mix? How many votes did each player get? The notions of “underrated” and is itself vague (underrated by the media? The fans? Statistics?), so the respondents may have been thinking of different things when answering. Wouldn’t a truly underrated player fail to show up on a list of “top underrated players” at all?

Such complaints sort of miss the point. I assume this was simply meant to be a fun way to generate discussion. I personally would have liked to have seen one or two comments from respondents about each player to get a sense of what the respondents were thinking about when they answered. In any case, the list has some results that are pretty hilarious, as one might expect. One way of responding would be to come up with a different list. Grant Brisbee wrote up an excellent list of his own. Another would be to simply go through SI’s list and comment on it.

This post takes the second path, but the truth is, it is not quite the “fisking” one might expect. Yes, some choices are downright hilarious. However, given the qualifications above, I thought the responding players did okay. It is not the list I would have made, but they made some decent choices. Or maybe the list is like the movie Juno: the beginning is so horribly annoying that the rest seems better than it actually is.

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On Tuesday afternoon, the Kansas City Royals designated left-handed starter Jonathan Sanchez for assignment. The Royals, of course, acquired Sanchez and rightleft-handed pitcher Ryan Verdugo from the San Francisco Giants over the winter, in exchange for Melky Cabrera. At the time, the trade came in for criticism and praise on both sides, which suggested it was a fair deal. Obviously, it was not.

Sanchez started 12 games for the Royals this season but pitched only 53 1/3 innings, an average of fewer than six five innings per start. He was on the disabled list from early May to early June with left bicep tendinitis, the same maladay that kept him the disabled list for more than a month last season. With the Royals, Sanchez’s strikeout rate (6.08/9), walk rate (7.43/9), batting average against (.294), and WHIP (2.04) were all the worst of his career. His FIP was 6.42, the highest in the majors for starters with more than 50 innings pitched.

Throughout his career, which began with the Giants in 2006, Sanchez battled problems with his command. His walk rate never dipped below 4.00/9, even in 2010, his best season in the majors. And yet, there were games — and stretches of games — when Sanchez was quite effective. His no-hitter against the San Diego Padres on July 10, 2009 is one example, but there were others. Because even when Sanchez was wild, he still possessed — until this season — “swing-and-miss” stuff.

Let’s look at some video first, and then delve into the numbers.

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Fare thee well, father, mother. I’m off
to de-luck the f*** out of this s***.

With this All-Star break forcing to watch so little baseball, we now have a moment to drink up the frothy milkshake of statistics from the first half. So, you and I, we shall dissect the stats and find out who has been lucky, unlucky and a little of both.

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[Author’s note, Saturday, July 7, about 12:30 PM EST: I changed some of the formulations in the post that I felt were unclear, or, in some cases, incorrectly expressed. The essential point remains the same, but I just wanted to note this in case one wonders what some of the comments are about. I note this so no one feels like a “fast one” has been pulled with the changes.]

Despite some shaky la1te moments from their usually excellent bullpen, the Royals defeated the Blue Jays 9-6 last night behind their usual combination of a “That was good? Or okay? At least he didn’t give up 8 runs” start from Luke Hochevar, a barrage of singles, and a random home run from Yuniesky Betancourt. The primary engine of the singles train was young catcher Salvador Perez, who hit four singles in five plate appearances.

Perez has been on fire since returning from the disabled list (due to an injury in Spring Training), and his current 2012 line stands at .425/.425/.725 (216 wRC+). Of course, that is over only 40 plate appearances, but hey, if you look at his major-league line from 2011 (.331/.361/.473), he does seem to have the ability to hit for a high average with some pop. Over parts of two seasons, Perez has a .351/.374/.527 career line.

That is only 198 total career plate appearances. It appears that a strange phenomenon might have taken hold among some observers. I suspect that if Perez gone to the plate 198 times in a single season, it might have received less attention. However, since the sample has been broken up over two seasons, some people seem to have bought the idea that his hot (belated) start to 2012 somehow confirms that 2011 was “for real.” That seems obviously silly — we are still talking about less than 200 plate appearances. Perhaps this will sound just like another “small sample size” post, but nonetheless, let’s see we can glean from Perez’s performance at the plate in the majors so far and see what we can learn about him and about how we use numbers.

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It’s been a trying year for the Kansas City Royals. After being one of the better hitting outfits in the game last season, they have not hit nearly as well this year, and while the pitching has improved, they are currently down two starters in Danny Duffy and Felipe Paulino as well. Still, the team has persevered. Since posting a 6-15 record in April, they have gone 23-20 — including five wins in their past six games — to remain on the periphery of the American League Central “race.” They are still not scoring enough runs to be taken seriously as we move closer to the All-Star break, but unlike many teams, Kansas City has a great in-house solution laying in wait in prospect Wil Myers.

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Lost in the Kansas City Royals’ Yuniesky Betancourt-fueled 5-3 extra-innings win over the Cardinals yesterday was that Alex Gordon tied his franchise record with five walks in a single game. Yeah, I’m as furious as the rest of you that this was overlooked. But hey, at least this time he at least scored a run. When Gordon originally set the record (as I am sure you all remember) back on July 30, 2008 against Oakland, he did not score once. (I remember that game well, as not long before that I had an argument with someone who said that Jose Guillen was the Royals’ only “feared” hitter, unlike that loser Gordon. Guillen hit right behind Gordon in this game. FEAR.)

It was an amazing feat, in a way, but not nearly the most times on base without scoring. In fact, since 1918, there have been 73 players who have gotten on base six or more times without scoring in regular season games. What follows is a look at the most extreme cases.

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Confession: while I enjoy no-hitters as much as most baseball fans, part of me wanted Johan Santana’s no-hitter to get broken up. That impulse did not stem from a particular animus against Santana or the Mets. It most certainly did not stem from a liking for the Cardinals. In fact, the desire only reared its head when Carlos Beltran faced Santana. I thought it would be cool if Beltran rocked one out of the park in the midst of a dominating display. What can I say: I like watching Carlos Beltran, and I feel like he “deserves” to have some more memorable moments on the positive side of the ledger. I believe Beltran has a Hall-worthy resume already, but he also shares a few characteristics of the sort of players who get overlooked, which makes me wonder if he will be left out in the cold.

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Danny Duffy is headed for surgery. After an MRI revealed a torn ulnar collateral ligament in Duffy’s left elbow, it looks like Tommy John surgery will sideline the left-hander until next season. A former top prospect in the Kansas City Royals’ farm system, Duffy reached the majors last season. And even though he struggled initially, the 23-year-old seemed to be making progress this year. And now that he’s out for the season, the Royals’ rise to prominence may be put on hold even longer.

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The Peter Bourjos trade rumors have started to circulate again. The primary discussant in the linked article is the Nationals, but the Royals, Diamondbacks, and Blue Jays are also mentioned. With super-prospect Mike Trout in the majors, the Angels already having something of an outfield crunch and Bourjos flat-lining on offense so far this season, there is a surface rationality to the idea of trading him. Let’s briefly look at how Bourjos might fit into the plans of the teams allegedly interested in Bourjos before turning to the question of how this makes sense (or nonsense) for the Angels.

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The past weekend did not go well for the Kansas City Royals. They were not only swept during their opening series at home by division rival Cleveland, but the sweep was pretty humiliating. Although the Royals at least managed to make a game of it (including the obligatory Yunibomb) on Saturday, all three games exposed Kansas City’s starting pitching. The Royals do not get any respite — they welcome American League Central favorite Detroit to town today. If they thought Cleveland made mincemeat of their starters…

Some fans may be ready to jump off of the 2012 “Our Time” bandwagon. That is understandable (and we are all fans, so I will not pretend I am not subject to the same emotions), but to be “worried” about the Royals in the aftermath of this weekend’s sweep might sort of miss the point. If one wants to worry about the Royals, point that fretful energy in the right direction.

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