The Kansas City Royals have not made it to the postseason since 1985, and early projections for the 2014 season indicated that fans would have to wait at least another year before getting a taste of October baseball. However, the Royals find themselves in the thick of the playoff race and in a dead-heat with Detroit for the AL Central crown.
The Kansas City Royals Exceeding Expectations
Most preseason projections had the Royals finishing third in the division with a record hovering around .500. And actually, the Royals have played like a .500 team this season. According to their Pythagorean Record, a formula devised by Bill James to approximate a team’s record using their run differential, the Royals have played like a team with a .509 winning percentage. That’s only 82 wins over the course of an entire season; not enough to be in the playoff picture in late September.
Team Win Pct. Pyth. Win Pct. Record Pyth. Record Difference
Angels .617 .601 95-59 92-62 +3
Orioles .601 .582 92-61 89-64 +3
Nationals .582 .595 89-64 91-62 -2
Dodgers .571 .560 88-66 86-68 +2
Cardinals .558 .510 86-68 79-75 +7
Tigers .556 .541 85-68 83-70 +2
A’s .549 .610 84-69 93-60 -9
Giants .549 .544 84-69 83-70 +1
Pirates .543 .536 83-70 82-71 +1
Mariners .543 .584 83-70 89-64 -6
Royals .546 .509 83-69 78-75 +6
Brewers .513 .497 79-75 77-77 +2
Among the teams that are serious playoff contenders right now, the Royals have the second lowest Pythagorean Win Percentage, ahead of only the slumping Brewers. Also, only the Cardinals have a greater differential between their expected and actual wins.
Another way to break things down is by using FanGraph’s BaseRuns. BaseRuns strips away the context of events and break apart potential sequencing. It attempts to convey what “should have happened” instead of what actually happened. By this metric, the Royals fall even farther to a .491 winning percentage. That represents and 8 game drop-off from their actual performance this season.
But if the Royals weren’t supposed to be good and maybe haven’t actually been good, then why are they good?
One of the main reasons, and one that has been well-documented, is the Royals defense playing out of its mind. They currently rank 1st in team defensive runs, and have a comfortable 10-run cushion over the second place Orioles. If you want to look at Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) instead, then the Royals still come in a close third place for the 2014 season. They are led by left-fielder Alex Gordon who has ranked as one of the top positional players in WAR this season, a hefty amount of which comes from the value he provides with his glove.
However, the Royals have also been getting it done at the plate, but only at crucial times. As a team, the Royals have a .304 wOBA, 10th worst in the MLB and better only than the Mariners for playoff-contending teams. The Royals infamously went seven games to start this season without a homerun, and have by far the fewest homeruns of any team this season. They are not a lineup built to mash the ball. However, the Royals have excelled in getting hits when they need them. In high-leverage situations, the Royals’ wOBA jumps all the way up to .326, second best in the league in those situations. If you’re not satisfied with the potentially arbitrary definition of “high-leverage” then we can also look at their performance with runners in scoring position. In that case, the Royals sport a .318 wOBA, 14 points higher than their average. To contrast, when the bases are empty, the Royals fall back below their team average and have only a .302 wOBA with nobody on base.
The Royals have exceeded the expectations many had for them entering the season, and continue to defy them. They are handedly outperforming their run differential expectations primarily due to their ability to turn other teams’ batted balls into outs and produce clutch hits when needed. However, the season is not over and the Royals are not in the postseason yet. The Royals need their good fortunes to keep rolling for another week and a half if they want to continue playing in October.
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