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

[phuqueue]

I don't disagree that the models are flawed (even pointed it out in places in my wall of text there), but in this particular case (certainly not in all cases of advanced baseball stats), I think you're overstating it some. When you look behind the curtain, a lot of sabermetric stats are definitely a little bit smoke and mirrors, full of arbitrary multipliers and coefficients and so on, generating a number the creator of the formula was looking for, but a number whose meaningfulness is an open question. Stats like FIP or WAR should be taken with a large grain of salt and are best used, if at all, for internal comparisons (eg one guy's bWAR against another guy's bWAR to evaluate relative value).

On the other hand, while Pythagorean expectation (and its derivatives) shouldn't be thought of as some kind of crystal ball, it has been developed and refined based on a vast trove of data and has had reasonably accurate predictive power. "Luck" is, like I said, basically just shorthand, it is not some inelegant label for the mysteries that baseball guys haven't been able to crack. If you've developed a formula that describes the data you already have and can predict future results with some degree of accuracy, it's less likely that the model is fundamentally off the mark and more likely that this one team is, in fact, an outlier. You're going to have outliers even with the best model. I will grant though that describing the 2014 Royals as an "outlier but not a fluke," like I did above, might not have been the best way to put it. It's known, for instance, that bullpen quality will affect the accuracy of Pythagorean calculations. I described the issues the bullpen presents above in trying to make my point, but maybe I should have been more explicit that this is one such flaw in the model. A better model would account for that, and better models exist, in the forms of second and third order wins, but these models aren't perfect either. I don't think that was ever in dispute, though. In time, even better models will be developed, but for now, these do a good enough job in spite of their flaws.

In other news, the Royals are the last unbeaten team and have finally taken sole possession of first place. Doesn't mean much on April 13, but it feels great to say it anyway.

[aknowledgeableperson]

Noticed that the word "predict" was used. Isn't "predict" the wrong word to use? It's been decades but from what I can remember from my coursework in stats, from a teacher, stats give you the ability to have a scientific wild ass guess instead of just a wild ass guess. And there is just a thing called "luck". Of course it depends on how one looks at things. Forgive my terminology since I do not shoot Craps and am a little rusty but rolling a seven or hitting your number once isn't luck. Doing it two, three, or four times more in a row may not be luck. But being successful seven, eight, or more times in a row would have a degree of luck even though it is statistically possible. It's luck because it just doesn't happen that many times.

[schugg]

Go Royals !

[Unknown JimmyD]

lawrie's getting plunked tomorrow ... errr, today, i mean.

[Unknown JimmyD]

man, so much for avoiding the injury bug this year. rios fractures his finger (opponent's fault), escobar last night (opponent's fault), and now holland gets placed on the dl with a pectoral strain.

at least detroit finally lost another game today.

[Unknown JimmyD]

disappointed that no one had anything to say about saturday and sunday. still have a bad taste in my mouth about the whole thing. it should've been done saturday night. lawrie did the right thing and walked right away to first base when ventura plunked him. i thought it was crap that ventura was immediately ejected. it should've just been a warning. then kasmir hits cain in the 1st inning yesterday. i don't buy for a second that it was accidental. now the ump just gives a warning. yost knows that's horse crap, so he goes out to have his say and gets tossed. kelvin blazes one behind lawrie later in the game and immediately gets tossed. i'm ok with that one.

what pisses me off, though, is that oakland has been all out in the media complaining that we're unprofessional and bush league and throwing at people's heads. that's what seems to be getting all the media traction. that we're classless now and royals fans are classless as well for cheering for it. it's crap. no one threw at anyone's head. after this series, we're the ones sitting here with guys that have been hit by 14 pitches, one of which is missing significant time because of one of those, our shortstop who's out of the lineup because of a dirty slide that could've ruined his career... and we're the ones who have 5 guys ejected and the other teams have gotten all of one warning... and we're classless because we're finally standing up for ourselves.

honestly, i kind of blame ned a bit for this. instead of calling a spade a spade, he played down lawrie's dirty slide after the game friday. he was trying to be mature and diplomatic about it, but all it did was put the public opinion on oakland's side when we inevitably retaliated. if our own manager has said publicly that it was just playing hard and wasn't dirty, then we shouldn't need to retaliate, right? at least, that's the way it's being viewed publicly now.

if this was soccer, by the way, that slide by lawrie would be a straight red card followed by a minimum 3 game suspension for violent conduct. studs up, right into the leg ... that's how you break someone's leg or blow out their knee. in baseball, though, the league says it's just playing hard and part of the territory. that's moronic. at an absolute minimum, lawrie should be suspended for as long as escobar is out of the lineup.

[chingon]

Ned did a very old school thing (shocking, right?) and let the players regulate player behavior on the field, as opposed to in the media. Which is doubly ironic, of course, because the Royals are getting plunked for not being old-school enough, and they are retaliating in a very old-school way.

For the record, I love it. I love that the Royals are literally changing the game right now, and they are doing it in a way that so closely mirrors what I think is the true character of Kansas City: chip-shouldered and proud of it. We aren't the mousy, meek and mild midwesterners everyone thinks we are. NFL fans have long known it. Now the MLB fanbase is getting a taste of who we are and it's giving them indigestion.

[chaglang]

It's early but IIRC the Royals have won all the series that have been chippy and looked flat in the series that wasn't. If that's what it takes for them to get going, it's going to be a very memorable summer at the K.

[grovester]

I enjoyed yesterdays game so much I watched it twice. Probably should have left Lawrie alone, as he took his medicine Saturday. Maybe plunked the catcher instead.

[chaglang]

Is it too early to worry that Salvy is going to play 150 games again this year?

[mean]

I think I'd actually be more worried if he wasn't.

[AllThingsKC]

I'm worried I'm going to get ejected from a game just for associating myself with the Royals.

I'm worried that I'm not worried enough.

[mean]

I'm worried about how worried you are about whether or not you're adequately worried.

[chaglang]

TBF, both of you guys outhit Salvy in the second half of last year.

[mean]

Maybe I'm more down on Kratz than I should be, but it seems the Royals don't think all that highly of him either given how infrequently he plays.

[chaglang]

At the very least, having a serviceable backup at the most physically demanding position on the team should have been a higher priority than it apparently was. Unless they have someone in Omaha who whould take over if Salvy got injured.

[grovester]

I don't think it's a slight towards Kratz. Salvy is hitting 400 and doesn't want to sit. There have also been multiple off days so far.

[mean]

Fair point. Salvy being among the best catchers in the game doesn't hurt either, I'm sure, and I suppose that could be a big part of why I'm so down on Kratz. It's perhaps not so much that Kratz is bad as it is that he looks like a chump compared to Perez.

[pash]

.

[mean]

Good enough to catch Guthrie every fifth start? Not being sarcastic, genuinely curious as to whether you think so.