The Orioles’ Relief vs. the Royals’ Offense

Over 162 games, which is the full season, the Royals were the best base-stealing team in baseball, and it was all worth to them about a dozen runs. That is not very many runs, unless they were to all happen in one or two games, and there’s a reason we don’t talk about stolen bases much during the year. They’re just such a minor factor, of far less significance than, say, playing good defense, or hitting for power. So maybe now you think the Royals’ running game is getting too much attention. They went nuts in one game, but that’s it. I’ve personally never before devoted this much attention to a running game, but here I am, putting together another post. I’m deeply interested in the way the Orioles’ ALCS roster matches up against how the Royals intend to score runs.

The matchups are a little thing, but we’re so bad at predicting the big things in a short series I might as well try something else. The Orioles released their 25-man roster, and while nothing came as a shocker, there is one notable swap — Ubaldo Jimenez will not participate. Brian Matusz will particpate, or at least he’ll be available to do so. The simple explanation is that Matusz is left-handed, and the Royals’ lineup is fairly left-handed, so Matusz fills a greater need. That’s all true, but there’s also a little more. The Royals want to get on base and run. They could have some difficulty doing both.

Let’s look at how the Orioles’ pitching staff shakes out:

Starting Pitchers

• Chris Tillman
• Bud Norris
• Miguel Gonzalez
• Wei-Yin Chen

Relief Pitchers

• Zach Britton
• Darren O’Day
• Andrew Miller
• Brian Matusz
• Kevin Gausman
• Brad Brach
• Tommy Hunter

Tillman, despite being right-handed, has done an excellent job of shutting down the running game. He’s not alone, as this is a team-wide priority. The Orioles want all their pitchers to be no more than 1.3 seconds to the plate, and now let’s look at a table of 2014 data. Here are steal opportunities, steal successes, steal failures, and steal attempts expressed as a rate.

Pitcher	Opps	SB	CS	Attempts	Attempt%
Norris	244	15	9	24	9.8%
Brach	84	5	3	8	9.5%
Gonzalez	216	12	2	14	6.5%
Hunter	92	4	1	5	5.4%
O’Day	93	4	1	5	5.4%
Gausman	164	5	3	8	4.9%
Miller	109	2	1	3	2.8%
Britton	82	2	0	2	2.4%
Chen	275	5	1	6	2.2%
Tillman	309	1	3	4	1.3%
Matusz	85	0	1	1	1.2%

The league-average attempt rate is just about 6%. This particular unit comes in at 4.5%, with a better-than-average rate of caught runners. Part of the reason for swapping Matusz in for Jimenez is because the Royals have more lefty bats than the Tigers did. But then there’s this part: over the last three years, Matusz has allowed three steals, with five unsuccessful steals. Jimenez allowed 19 steals this season alone, his mechanics too complicated to try to whittle down. Matusz is potentially a lot more useful.

One notes that, during the year against the Orioles, the Royals went 5-for-5 trying to steal. But, two of those came against Steve Clevenger, who is a bad defensive catcher who’s not on the roster. One came against Ubaldo Jimenez, who’s not on the roster, and the other two came against Bud Norris and Caleb Joseph. They’re both going to be here, and Norris will be pitching to Joseph, but Norris had the highest attempt rate on this roster, and he’s a starter. The Royals did nothing against anyone else, or the relievers.

So with quick pitchers and a good defensive catcher in Joseph, the Orioles overall will pose a stronger challenge to the Royals’ running game than, say, the A’s did. But now consider only the later innings. The Royals, for the year, stole fairly often early on, and they stole fairly often in the middle innings, but they really stole a lot in the latter third. In innings 7-9, there were 797 total stolen bases in baseball. The Royals were responsible for 8% of those, getting caught just nine times, and they stole 26 more bases than the second-place team. Why is that when the Royals are such a threat? Jarrod Dyson was responsible for a third of those late steals, often as a pinch-runner, and in this round the Royals will also have Terrance Gore to double the weapons.

As a pinch-runner, Dyson was never used earlier than the sixth. He made 13 of his 18 appearance between the seventh and the ninth. Gore made eight of his nine appearances between the seventh and the ninth. Against the A’s, Dyson pinch-ran in the ninth. Gore pinch-ran in the eighth. They both immediately stole bases.

Yet look at how the Orioles match up. Andrew Miller is left-handed, and the Orioles love him, and this year he saw just three steal attempts in 109 opportunities. O’Day is right-handed and he has a seemingly exploitable funky delivery, but against him there were just five attempts in 93 opportunities. Britton’s left-handed, and two runners tried to steal out of 82 opportunities. And then you include Matusz in the equation — one attempt, 85 opportunities.

Those are the guys most likely to handle the sixth through ninth innings, if a game’s close, and combined they saw 11 steal attempts out of 369 opportunities, for a rate of half the league average. It helps that they’re all fast, it helps that they have a good catcher in Joseph, and it helps that three of those four pitchers are left-handed. The Royals ran on the left-handed Jon Lester, but he does a lousy job of controlling the running game. The Royals ran on the left-handed Sean Doolittle, but he, too, doesn’t care much for controlling the running game. The Orioles are very different, and while that doesn’t make them impossible to steal against, it does make the Royals more likely to run into a handful of outs. Against the A’s, the steals were almost automatic.

Brach will pitch, and he can be run on, but someone needs to reach first, and maybe the Orioles would then sub in a different reliever. Hunter and Gausman didn’t get hurt too bad by stolen bases. This part of the game is a huge priority for Buck Showalter, and it just so happens he’s matched up against the runningest team in the league, competing for the right of advancing to the World Series. This is exactly what Showalter’s been preparing them for.

He himself is realistic:

But facing Kansas City — with a trip to the World Series on the line — Showalter said the most important factor will be keeping the Royals’ speedsters off the bases.

“It’s something that I’ll think about,” Showalter said about who he will start behind the plate. “But guys like Gore and Dyson, they get on first base, there are a lot of really good throwing catchers, but it doesn’t really matter. The focus still has to be on keeping people off the bases as always. You’ve got to be careful robbing Peter to pay Paul.

“The really plus basestealers [will steal]. You’re trying to —the guys who shouldn’t steal — try to prevent them from stealing. The guys who are really good, nobody’s really come up for a defense for that.”

Dyson, when he runs, is great. Gore might be even better. They’re the two best runners on a team full of good ones. So the Royals are still going to try to be aggressive, and they’re going to pull off a few successful steals, but it’s going to be harder for them to get good jumps, and it’s going to be harder to get good reads. Which increases the likelihood of a failure, or even a non-attempt. This is going to be a matchup of strength against strength, and while it’s not as conventional a showdown as a powerful lineup against a dominant pitching staff, who doesn’t like to observe elites against elites?

And I’ve barely even mentioned the hitting part. The Royals need to get on base before they can try to get another base, and the Orioles now are well-equipped to handle that part, too. Some of that is because anyone facing the Royals is well-equipped to keep the bases empty, but the Orioles’ bullpen matches up well, just as the Royals’ bullpen matches up well with any opponent. Miller’s a lefty who pitches well to righties. Britton’s a lefty who still pounds his sinker in against righties. Gausman plays up well in relief, and Hunter’s fine, the home runs having gone away. You don’t really worry about dingers when you’re playing the Royals anyhow.

Alex Gordon‘s left-handed. Norichika Aoki’s left-handed. Eric Hosmer‘s left-handed, and Mike Moustakas is left-handed. Jarrod Dyson’s left-handed. The Royals’ biggest righty threats are Lorenzo Cain and Josh Willingham, and Willingham is going to be relegated to the bench. Salvador Perez’s plate discipline has completely eroded. Billy Butler isn’t worthless, but if the Orioles isolate him against righties, they’ll negate his power and keep him on the ground, where he’s worst. Against Oakland, Butler and Willingham were removed for pinch-runners. So the Orioles want to keep them in particular off the bases in the later innings, and while the Royals can select when to deploy Willingham, the only guy the Orioles shouldn’t want to face him is Matusz. So it’s Matusz who should be used against a lefty the Royals won’t replace, like Gordon or Aoki.

Buck Showalter’s an excellent playoff tactician, and now he’s got himself a whole staff that will allow him to play matchups with an opposing roster that demands them. And as much as the Royals feature the best running game in the league, there might be no greater potential challenge than taking on the Orioles, in particular the Orioles’ bullpen. The Royals are going to want to run, and the Orioles are going to want to not allow them to run, and that’s a fascinating showdown the likes of which we seldom see play out this time of year. The Orioles’ pitchers, of course, match up well against the Royals’ hitters. But they also match up well against the Royals’ runners. If ever that were to be a worthwhile storyline, it would be for this ALCS.