March 19, 2008
Rotation Evaluation, Kansas City Royals
The series looking at team pitching rotations using the Marcel the Monkey projections continues with the Kansas City Royals. Their starters posted a 4.88 ERA in 2007, eleventh in the American League.
Note that in figuring ERAs, I'm using Marcel's mIP and mER columns. The ERA listed in the spreadsheet uses the average of mER and bsrER. I wanted to avoid posting 1/2 runs in the table. Pitcher order is taken from the CBSSportsline depth chart.
Zack Greinke
Photo: Icon SMI
Marcel predictions for the Kansas City Royals top five starters for 2008.
| Starter | Innings | ER | ERA |
|---|
| Gil Meche | 186 | 87 | 4.21
|
| Brian Bannister | 145 | 66 | 4.10
|
| Zack Greinke | 100 | 48 | 4.32
|
| Kyle Davies | 132 | 85 | 5.80
|
| Jorge De La Rosa | 117 | 71 | 5.46
|
| Totals | 680 | 357 | 4.73
|
The front of the Royals rotation might actually be okay. Meche improved in 2007, and he's a pitcher who can give the Royals a lot of innings even though he may not produce the best ERA. There's no doubt the sabermetricians are rooting for Bannister to do well. He's demonstrated an understanding of fielding independent pitching stats, for example. Zack Greinke finished strong in 2007, posting a 1.85 ERA over his last seven appearances, all starts. He struck out 8.2 per nine innings while walking 2.6. If he comes anywhere near that ratio in 2008 he'll be the ace of the staff.
I'm willing to give Dayton Moore the benefit of the doubt on Kyle Davies. Moore saw something in Gil Meche, and he has more experience with Davies having worked in Atlanta. If Moore is wrong, however, there's going to be a lot of praying for rain on days the fourth and fifth starters are scheduled to pitch.
Previous posts in this series:
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