Comments on: Fronting the Rotation: Kansas City

By: gp

gp — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:49:56 +0000

It was clear from the beginning of the game that Meche just wasn’t right. Generally, though, even when he doesn’t “have it” he figures out a way to get through it in some manner that at least approaches effective. Not last night. Then, when he was pulled and it was revealed that his back was bothering him again, a collective “uh-oh” was uttered by Royals fans. Without Meche the KC rotation could be in a world of hurt.

By: Sass

Sass — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:41:22 +0000

I assume Felix/Bedard can’t be too far behind in this series…

By: Kevin S.

Kevin S. — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 06:44:02 +0000

Actually, let’s work this out. Ignoring BPF (because they would unnecessarily complicate this; while the numbers would be different, I believe the conclusion would be the same), HR/FB normalizes around 0.11, right? So, while batting average on ground balls would just be BAbip(GB), BA on fly balls should be 0.11*1.000 + 0.89*BAbip(FB). Furthermore, while OBPbip = BAbip, SLGbip is a different story, and it’s different for GB and FB. GB will typically result in singles; while there will be some doubles down the line, SLGbip is only going to be slightly greater than BAbip for GB. On FB, however, you have the ~11% that will become home runs, plus whatever the percentage of FB that turn into doubles and triples is, thus making FB hits much more damaging than GB hits. Because the process I cobbled together above is rather unscientific we can’t test examples, but even without being able to do that, it should be fairly clear that a significantly higher BAbip on GB would still be less damaging than a lower on on FB. Even with the current Royals infield and the current Ms outfield, I’d prefer my pitcher to keep his batted balls on the ground.

By: Kevin S.

Kevin S. — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 05:56:40 +0000

I’m pretty sure his HR/GB% is going to stay down at zero. I’d take the BAbip bump for that.

By: OsandRoayals

OsandRoayals — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 05:52:02 +0000

I’m wondering just how good it is that Meche’s groundball rate is increasing given how bad an infield defense he has behind him