GO ROYALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[brewcrew1000]

It looks like every single School District on the Kansas side is off, even all the way to Gardner. Meanwhile KCMO, Hickman, Grandview, others in Missouri are all open tomorrow as of 2pm. I guess this is Kansas's team after all and just add to the fact that the Royals play in Kansas.

[DaveKCMO]

ride FREE buses or shuttles tomorrow: http://ridekc.org/news/parade

[smh]

The Pitch is telling us its time to retire "Yosted" I think Yost just passed the torch to Collins, the Mets got "Collined" or "Coloned" about 10 times in that series

Harveyed (v.) The act of putting the individual ahead of the team, particularly in baseball.

[bobbyhawks]

I think Yosted just becomes like "aloha." It has multiple meanings, but can only be used in the pro-Yost context for at least three more years.

[grovester]

The Pitch is telling us its time to retire "Yosted" I think Yost just passed the torch to Collins, the Mets got "Collined" or "Coloned" about 10 times in that series

Harveyed (v.) The act of putting the individual ahead of the team, particularly in baseball.

Ouch. Seems a bit harsh, their bullpen was a shit-show.

[mean]

Can't blame Harvey for wanting to finish the game. If he'd put the Royals away the conversation would be about how the Mets starters were so great. He struck out a ton of guys, I don't know exactly how many, but it had to have been way more than deGrom or Syndegaard, so he was doing something right. Until he wasn't.

[pash]

.

[aknowledgeableperson]

"So, saber guys (I think there are a few around here)... what the heck is it that either isn't being measured or is being so dramatically undervalued about the Royals? Pretty much every stats-based projection and pundit had the Royals either barely making the WC, or, more often than not, finishing under .500 and missing the playoffs entirely. We can certainly attribute some of this to simple good luck, but it's clear that the Royals are a very good team yet again despite the fact that they were supposed to stink. Again. I'd be willing to say "late season fluke" if they had gone 78-83 like Fangraphs projected, but they came back this year and I think have pretty conclusively demonstrated that they are the real deal."

OK, so it seems the Royals over performed this year. And one might say there can be an occasional exception to the numbers. But what about teams that under performed this past season? Are there enough exceptions to the rule (projections) that make the rule meaningless?

[kboish]

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/ar ... 02245.html

What you need to know about the parade...

it starts off-

This is what downtowns are for: big, loud, crowded and joyous celebrations.

Damn right. Glad we have a good one now.

[WSPanic]

Familia had already blown two saves in the series. Can't really blame Collins for thinking Harvey was the best option in that situation.

Familia's defense and management let him down. Gordon's HR is on Familia - he pitched well the rest of the time. His last blown save was because Collins can't control his egotistical "Dark Knight". There's a big difference between coming in with no outs, no runners and a two run lead vs. a runner on second, no outs and a one run lead. In the second blown save, he had to deal with Clippard's two walked batters and Murphy's glove.

At least he took Madson off the hook for being the only pitcher with 2 blown saves in a WS.

With regards to the projections, People obviously put too much emphasis on those earlier in year - but that's really all there is to look at in April. Hard to blame those who project based on stats for trying. Hardball Times had a good article about it - two things they noted is that the projections can't really measure defense well and they undervalue the effects of a bullpen. Combine that with Moose realizing his potential, Morales bouncing back beyond what would be projected - and above average years for a lot of our batters (Escobar, Cain, Hosmer) - and you have a pretty good recipe for a blown projection.

[bobbyhawks]

"So, saber guys (I think there are a few around here)... what the heck is it that either isn't being measured or is being so dramatically undervalued about the Royals? Pretty much every stats-based projection and pundit had the Royals either barely making the WC, or, more often than not, finishing under .500 and missing the playoffs entirely. We can certainly attribute some of this to simple good luck, but it's clear that the Royals are a very good team yet again despite the fact that they were supposed to stink. Again. I'd be willing to say "late season fluke" if they had gone 78-83 like Fangraphs projected, but they came back this year and I think have pretty conclusively demonstrated that they are the real deal."

OK, so it seems the Royals over performed this year. And one might say there can be an occasional exception to the numbers. But what about teams that under performed this past season? Are there enough exceptions to the rule (projections) that make the rule meaningless?

The saber projections people are referring to were based on preseason stats, but sabermetrics is still more about knowing how to read the numbers and spot trends than in magical formulas that predict the future. A computer can predict if a coin flip will be heads or tails 50% of the time but is still limited by fact it can be wrong the other 50% of the time. The saber people were looking at stats that included Mike Moustakas who hit .212 last season, Kendrys Morales who hit .218, a team total of 95 homers last year (139 this year), the loss of 200+ innings out of James Shields, Infante/Rios/Morales/Guthrie/Young/Vargas at or over the age of 32, and video game crazy numbers from HDH that don't generally seem to be repeatable.

I find it kind of hilarious how many people are slamming sabermetrics and saying it is all smoke and mirrors because the Royals somehow disproved all of the math (the Royals were 5 games above their expected win total based on the numbers). There is absolutely an element of magic to the Royals season, and there will always be crazy deviations from the expected, but the 2015 Royals will probably do more to shape the future of MLB stats than they will to disprove their importance. Casual stats people (like me) focus on a few numbers because they are easier to understand, like OBP, ERA, HRs, WAR, etc. (I also find that anti-saber people most often try to disprove saber with more stats). Still, the Royals improved this season +8 pts as a team in OBP, the favorite whipping boy of anti-saber people, with their best total runs since 2011, when their OBP was even higher. While offense makes some sense still, stats people are only just starting to understand the importance of defense and how to weigh that against a players offensive prowess.

The truly difficult thing that people are still trying to understand is how to correlate different stats into an entire valuation of a player. This will always have to be attached to a human evaluation of the real life situation, and the Royals got that right so often over the last 5 or 6 years. They treated players well, got them into the best mental state possible, believed in them, and allowed them to grow into the best versions of themselves. This is not measurable because we will never know how a clubhouse who didn't care would have impacted the team. But as time goes along (Billy Beane only became GM in 1997), these stats on an island that have been created and made every team smarter are now being correlated, and the anti-stats Royals (who are not anti-stats by the way) actually end up as a teachable moment that will be studied for years. It turns out that, on the right team, defense and relief pitching are not only good for the regular season, but they make you a force in the post-season.

But in a league lacking in originality, everyone is trying to copy a blueprint rather than craft a team that fits their budget, ballpark, and cultural needs. This was my biggest lesson in 2015 and my crow-eating moment that I will happily digest. I fell into the same trap of complaining about DMGM because he was not able to recreate something that different teams with different makeups were trying to accomplish. To his credit, he stuck with his guns on his plan. I think he had to have a lot of unlikely things go his way, but after the Royals had so many unlikely things not go their way over 30 years, it is only poetic it came together so perfectly this season. So what if this team's pythagorean win percentage was only 90 games instead of 95. The stats would still have them in the post-season, and that is where the team is built for success.

[flyingember]

It was called a parade but downtown had its Quinceañera today as much as anything.

[earthling]

And while other championship parades show players in convertibles or floats, true to KC's cowtown image.. pickup trucks.

edit: well, OK Cards used pickup trucks too...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjbsS2RPMzQ

[bobbyhawks]

I saw on social media that one of my friends had to give Kelvin Herrera a ride to the stadium since he couldn't get an Uber or Taxi. Yordano slept through his alarm, but I can't imagine why.

[aknowledgeableperson]

bobbyhawks, I understand the limitations of saber projections. And one of those limitations is the look at the past and project that into the future. There is nothing wrong with looking at the past but maybe it should be just one of the tools used in projecting. I would compare it to weather forecasting and all the various models used, number of days out, etc. In the end it is many times just a lucky guess that the forecast 7 days out is near correct.
The human element in player evaluation, I think, has to have a higher influence on the decision process. Maybe it was just me but after the Royals scored two runs in the ninth to tie game 5 it seemed the Mets had a look of "here we go again, we have lost." For the Royals if it had happened to them I believe they would have said "OK guys, we got our work cut out for us, let's do it."

[Highlander]

It was called a parade but downtown had its Quinceañera today as much as anything.

One news station is putting the crowd at 700,000 people?! WOW.

I would have doubted that number but the pictures are pretty spectacular.

[mean]

It had to be over 500k. I have NEVER seen so many people, it was the most insane thing I've ever seen. I tried, along with I-can't-even-guess how many other people, to walk down to Union Station for the rally after the parade went by (I was right outside Sprint Center at the very beginning of the route); apparently they were at capacity, but nobody knew that and people just kept coming and coming and coming and coming, and then OOPS this is where the parade ends and all of a sudden there are tens of thousands of people shoulder-to-shoulder completely packing the viaduct south of 20th Street and a parade trying to come north up Main. It was a disaster. We had to make room for the firetruck by squeezing into each other, then they tried to get all these people packed onto the sidewalks, and there wasn't enough room... wow. It was fun as hell, but the (understandable) complete lack of information caused thousands and thousands and thousands of people to futilely try to get to Union Station, then turn around and try to go somewhere else while thousands more people were trying to do what the first batch of people just failed to do.

I was hoping to attend a thing that would be epic, and this delivered. There were SO MANY PEOPLE, they were parking on the highways and walking into downtown! Just unreal.

[flyingember]

this was 200,000 people in 1921.
http://www.donlsmith.net/ded01.jpg

The Union Station crowd easily beat that by 2-2.5x. So 500,000 people at Union Station is realistic
There were 62 blocks of parade. Each block can hold 1000-1500 people. rounding up, that's 100,000 people right on the parade route
There were 28 blocks that have the width for another 1000 each (parking lots, plazas, parks). So that's 25,000 more.
And on balconies, rooftops, etc I bet was another 25,000.

So that's 650,000 in the immediate vicinity. A number above 500,000 is very realistic.

That's larger than the population of KCMO itself. This was the perfect storm event for downtown. Today will help drive planning for the next 50 years.

It will lead to lessons learned for numerous systems like finding sewer capacity problems it takes every toilet in every building being flushed at once to find to where people will choose to park for a big event which will help modot and the city coordinate traffic plans better. it will help drive bike system expansion and transit improvements. Biking was a big winner today and today may have finally been what it takes to stop adding parking spots endlessly and to support all modes of transportation. Because we just can't get people to all the spots. I could see HOA lanes, express into the city, moving way up the list

It's not that we will have another purposeful event this large anytime soon. Today mimics an exodus out of an area. If a chemical plant were to breach in city X in KS people would head in every direction away from it. If the breach is in Gardner or Olathe a lot of people will head north on I-35. So today will be looked at by emergency preparedness planning teams regionally

The next 20 years of planning will be based off an understanding that we don't have a system that can handle even a fraction of the region wanting to go anywhere in the city at once.

[mean]

The main problem is that, this being KC, almost everyone drove. Even when you give them a free bus, they're like "ew, no thanks" and drive, so traffic was a complete freaking mess.

That every street was completely flooded with people blatantly ignoring the fact that they're walking down the middle of an active street didn't help, but the ONLY bad behavior I saw all day was some lady in the passenger seat of a pickup truck standing up out the window and gesticulating and shouting at another driver for some perceived transgression. Driving: it makes people stupid assholes.

[earthling]

ATA reported buses were packed, over 100K transported by 3PM, had to use extra 100 school buses and still not enough.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/governme ... 08343.html