What Sets the Royals Apart?

The last week of October is here; the clocks are about to be turned back, autumn is in full swing, and there are two teams left standing in pursuit of the World Series title. This week, we’re taking a look at the defining characteristics that have delivered the New York Mets and Kansas City Royals to the brink of the game’s ultimate goals. Earlier this week, we discussed the Mets. Today, it’s the American League champion Royals.

In 2014, the Royals snuck up on a lot of people, including myself. This year, not so much. They have once again ridden their own unique formula — a combination of contact hitting, speed, defense and a deep, flame-throwing bullpen — to the Fall Classic. While the Mets were a second-half phenomenon, the Royals sat at the front of the AL Central pack all season. The only doubt was whether they would earn home-field advantage throughout the AL playoffs, which they did with a productive final weekend of the regular season.

The postseason has been a little dicier. The Astros appeared to have them pinned in the ALDS, only to watch the Royals escape with a late Game Four rally. The ALCS versus the Blue Jays wasn’t quite as eventful, though the Royals needed to survive a classic Game Six at home to finally put away the Blue Jays. They unleashed a bit more of their blue magic in Game One of the World Series, winning an instant classic that featured everything from leadoff inside-the-park homers to Bartolo Colon–Chris Young relief pitching duels, to you name it. What are some of the distinguishing characteristics that have the delivered the Royals to this moment?

Their Position Players Show Up for Work
About a year ago, in this space, and a couple months back at ESPN Insider, I examined the continuity and dependability of the Royals’ position player corps. In 2014, they became only the sixth AL playoff team in the divisional era to return eight or nine of their position player regulars from the previous season. Last season, 84.9% of the Royals’ total plate appearances were recorded by their nine regulars, fourth highest among that group of six clubs.

This year, I decided to go back and look at what happened to those six clubs the very next season. Was the health of their position player nucleus a one-year deal, or was it a true talent of those clubs?

Of those six playoff clubs with almost no turnover in Year One, only the 1976 A’s and 2015 Royals again were able to almost completely rely on their front-line position players in Year Two. The bulk of that A’s club was fresh off of three consecutive World Series titles from 1972 to -74, and these Royals have now conclusively proven that they too are more than a one-year wonder, no matter the final outcome of this year’s Series.

Now, the Royals position players weren’t completely healthy this season. Game One hero Alex Gordon missed a chunk of time, and both injury and ineffectiveness cost Omar Infante his job, necessitating the key deadline deal for Ben Zobrist. In contrast to their laissez-faire 2013-14 offseason approach with regard to position players, the club didn’t stand pat after last year’s World Series near miss. Exit Nori Aoki and Billy Butler, enter Alex Rios and Kendrys Morales. While Rios struggled, Morales turned out to be a clear upgrade.

To what can we attribute the durability and dependability of the club’s position players? In general, youth, athleticism, and the ability to hit same-handed pitching, which eliminates the need for platooning, and enables the clubs to stash a specialist or two on their bench at all times. Mike Moustakas looked helpless versus lefties at times in past seasons, but he made major forward strides this season.

Their athleticism is the key to their team defense, which has been the best in baseball by any measure over the past three seasons. Their overall team UZR has paced the majors all three seasons, at 87.6, 61.1 and 50.9. These ratings are largely attributable to superior range, but very quietly, the Royals have also become one of the more sure-handed clubs in the game, with a much better than average error total in 2015. Their up-the-middle defense is stellar, with Salvador Perez, Alcides Escobar and Lorenzo Cain among the upper crust in the game at their respective positions.

I’ve always been a firm believer that defense is just as much a team as an individual proposition. The presence of Escobar and Cain simply makes life easier for their neighbors in the Kansas City infield and outfield. Positioning can be adjusted accordingly, and pitchers can comfortably pitch to contact when appropriate. Game One had innumerable twists and turns, but ultimately, the biggest one just might have been the first, when Escobar circled the bases on a catchable ball hit to a non-center fielder playing center, while Juan Lagares, who might be Cain’s defensive equal, sat on the bench — for all intents and purposes so that Kelly Johnson could get a couple of at-bats.

Uncanny Ability to Make Contact
As clear an advantages as their durability and team defense might be, it can be argued that they aren’t the most in-your-face of the Royals’ traits. How about their ability to make contact? In this day and age, strikeout (K) rates have risen through the roof — well, at least for everyone but these guys. Below is a list of the 10 AL clubs since 2000 with the lowest K totals, as measured by number of standard deviations below league average:

Yup, that’s this year’s Royals, the toughest AL club to strike out since 2000. And there are last year’s Royals, just a little farther down the list. In a sport where K totals are spiking, and homers are accounting for a historically high percentage of runs scored, the Royals are doing things a little bit differently. It’s interesting to see some other very accomplished clubs on this list; you’ve got the 2002 World Series champion Angels, as well as a pair of World Series runners-up in the 2014 Royals and 2011 Rangers. You don’t have to rack up piles of strikeouts while going for the fences to have a productive offense. In an article I wrote over at ESPN Insider a little while back, I argued that, relative to the league, this year’s Blue Jays were the best offensive club in the AL since 2000. They had much more power than this year’s Royals, but also had a below league average K rate.

Some of the teams listed above were bad baseball teams; making weak contact isn’t exactly a positive. As a group, however, the ten clubs listed above averaged 86 wins. When you put the ball in play, good things can happen. These Royals don’t pop up, and with the exceptions of Escobar and Infante, don’t make much weak contact, either. This game is about finding edges and exploiting them; everyone else is swinging and missing while going for the fences, while these guys are content to put the ball in play and let their natural athleticism take over. Oh, and there’s another aspect to it…

Using the Entire Field
Infield overshifts have dramatically affected the way the game has been played in recent seasons. Obviously, this has been a direct response to excessive pulling of the baseball, especially on the ground. Hitters like Albert Pujols and David Ortiz, who still absolutely crush the ball on the ground, have been reduced to well under .200 hitters on ground balls as a result. Not only do these Royals make a ton of contact, they by and large keep opponents honest by using the entire field.

Left-handed hitters in particular have been impacted by overshifting. Not Moustakas or Eric Hosmer, however. Hosmer hits the ball to the opposite field over one standard deviation more than the average AL regular. I first witnessed him crushing the ball to the opposite field as a high schooler. On the other hand, Moustakas had devolved into a dead pull hitter as recently as 2014. In a major change this season, he hit the ball the opposite way over one half standard deviation more than the average AL regular. Escobar goes oppo about as often as Hosmer, Cain about as often as Moustakas.

Overall, the Royals ranked 11th among AL clubs in pull percentage, fourth highest in hitting the ball up the middle, and sixth highest in going the other way. They may be free swingers, with well below average walk rates, but this club simply doesn’t give away many free outs by swinging and missing or giving away half of the field.

About that Bullpen
I have never been an advocate of expending massive sums of cash on the building of a bullpen. Sure, you can spend on a truly great reliever, but there just aren’t that many of them out there. Bullpen performers turn over at an alarming rate. Build up a stockpile of homegrown hard throwers and converted starters with an out pitch or a pronounced bat-missing, pop up or grounder tendency. Most of the time, relievers will compile their best seasons while still under team control, prior to their first free-agency eligibility.

The Royals have built their bullpen wonderfully. Homegrown guys? Greg Holland and Kelvin Herrera say hello. Converted starter acquired via trade who lacked the repertoire to start, but became an absolute monster when moved to the pen? Meet Wade Davis. Toss in injury reclamation project Ryan Madson, and the Royals were able to weather the storm when Holland went down late in the season. Game One relief hero Young started 18 games this season, but his extreme pop-up tendency also marked him as a perfect candidate for a well-rounded pen.

Bullpen performance as measured by traditional metrics fluctuates wildly from season to season. In 2014, the two AL pens with the lowest cumulative ERAs belonged to Seattle (2.59) and Oakland (2.91). This year, those two plunged to 12th and 15th (i.e. last) in the AL, respectively, at 4.15 and 4.63. The Royals pen ranked fifth in the AL in ERA in 2014 at 3.30, and then moved to the head of the class this season at 2.72.

Making this feat even more impressive is the fact that Royals’ relievers led the AL in innings pitched this season with 539.1. Let that sink in for a second; the team that went to its pen the most is the one team still standing. This is due both to the club’s pen depth and the relative weakness, especially for a contender, of its starting rotation. Bottom line, the Royals get both quantity and quality from their pen, without devoting extreme dollars or years of commitment to its members. They have struck the right risk/reward balance with this key component of their club.

In many ways, the typical major league baseball game has become much less watchable in recent years. More strikeouts, fewer walks, fewer sequential rallies, heavier reliance on the home run, endless lefty/righty pitching matchup substitutions… the Kansas City Royals have become a friendly oasis to the hardcore baseball fan. Oh, they can hit it out of the park when they need to, but the things they do extremely well are in short supply throughout the game, and have made them an October staple. Their work is not yet done, but this is not a team that will go away easily.