Ian Kennedy, Kansas City Royals

How Royals’ Pitchers Have Limited the Damage

While I was doing research for another article, I noticed a surprising statistic. Currently, the Royals have allowed the third-fewest runs per game in the league. Perhaps that statistic doesn’t surprise you, but with all of the concern over the starting rotation (most of it deserved), I assumed the run prevention was closer to average than elite. Considering the pitchers have walked roughly every single batter in the major leagues, minor leagues, and even most independent leagues, I thought the Royals would have surrendered more than 3.8 runs per game. As it is with many things, I was wrong.

Despite the walks, the Royals have been able to keep runs off the board in large part because of terrific defense all over the diamond. However, the pitching staff has also contributed to the cause, in the form of contact management.

Generally speaking, for a pitching staff, allowing line drives is bad, and allowing popups is good. Line drives aren’t all created equal, nor are popups, but this is a case of the broad brush doing an adequate job of painting. Those aren’t the only two kinds of batted balls, but they’re on the extreme end of the spectrum, and they’re more likely to fit the basic “bad” or “good” distinction.

The Royals currently rank fourth in the league in popup rate, at 7.8 percent. That rate isn’t too much higher than the league average of 7.3 percent, but seven of the eight starters the team has used this season have popup rates above 7.6 percent. Only Danny Duffy sits below the league average, at 4.6 percent, and he has a history of generating those popups, so it’s possible he brings the average up even higher.

On the line drive front, the Royals lead the pack, not only in the American League, but in all of baseball. Their pitchers have allowed liners on just 21.9 percent of batted balls, well below the league average of 24.1 percent. Their top three starters each sit below 22.4 percent line drives, and Wade Davis has allowed three line drives all season, proving that his programmers knew what they were doing.

When we focus on the combination of line drives and popups, we can look at them similarly to how we look at strikeouts and walks. Popups aren’t guaranteed outs, nor are line drives guaranteed to put a runner on base, but the general idea holds. So, in order to see how the Royals ranked when combining the stats, I thought it may work to use a calculation like strikeout-to-walk ratio. Except in this case, it’s line drive-to-popup ratio, and the closer to zero, the better.

By taking the number of line drives allowed and dividing by the number of popups allowed, we come to a rate of line drives per popup allowed. See, your eighth grade math teacher was right: you will eventually use that stuff. Using this statistic, the Royals rank second in baseball, at 2.8. Only the Tigers have done better, at 2.7.

Another calculation that may be applied here is strikeout percentage minus walk percentage. Using the batted ball rates, we’ll subtract the popup rate from the line drive rate, and once again, smaller is better. In this category, the Royals are at the top of the leaderboard. The difference in those two rates for them is 14.1 percent, while the Tigers are at 14.3.

Below is a table, containing all of these numbers for all AL teams, sorted by the latter statistic. Think of it as a contact management leaderboard.

TEAM LD POP LD/POP LD% POP% LD%-POP%
KCA 247 88 2.8 21.9 7.8 14.1
DET 273 103 2.7 23 8.7 14.3
TOR 274 94 2.9 22.1 7.6 14.5
TBA 240 81 3.0 22.8 7.7 15.1
OAK 287 97 3.0 22.9 7.7 15.2
ANA 301 102 3.0 24.6 8.3 16.3
BOS 265 81 3.3 24 7.3 16.7
TEX 299 90 3.3 24.3 7.3 17
CHA 301 95 3.2 25 7.9 17.1
NYA 255 63 4.0 23.1 5.7 17.4
BAL 271 76 3.6 24.3 6.8 17.5
SEA 293 84 3.5 26.2 7.5 18.7
NYN 282 71 4.0 25.3 6.4 18.9
HOU 311 74 4.2 24.8 5.9 18.9
CLE 278 63 4.4 24.9 5.6 19.3
MIN 331 83 4.0 27.1 6.8 20.3

Obviously this only takes into account those two types of batted balls, and no other outcomes, so it won’t capture everything a pitching staff does. As it is with just about any statistic, it’s a portion of the picture. And of course, each team’s defensive capabilities will have a large impact on what happens when these types of batted balls are in play. For instance, despite being near the top of the above table, the Athletics and Tigers have allowed the second- and fourth-most runs per game this season, and that’s because each team has a defense that most people would describe as “bad at fielding.”

On the other hand, simply having a great defense doesn’t prevent runs from scoring, especially if the pitchers are allowing lots of line drives without a hefty dose of popups. Just ask the Astros.

So, what happens when you have a pitching staff that limits line drives, generates plenty of popups, and pitches in front of an elite defense? You have a team that is allowing the third-fewest runs per game in the league. All of this, despite the fact that the Royals have allowed a .324 on-base percentage to opposing batters, which is the fifth-highest mark in the AL.

Royals pitchers are still walking too many batters, but they’re making up for it by limiting hits (.246 average) and extra-base hits (.385 slugging percentage). Some of that credit certainly goes to the defense, but thus far in 2016, the pitchers are doing their part as well. They’re keeping line drives to a minimum, and getting more popups than the average team. Whether those rates are sustainable is up for debate, butĀ if the Royals are able to maintain some semblance of this type of contact management, their recent surge in the standings should continue.

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2 comments on “How Royals’ Pitchers Have Limited the Damage”

Jeremy

I think the thing is, if you want to argue that the Line Drive and Popup rates are unsustainable, so too are the walk rates. If they all normalize, the pitching may not get significantly worse.

Hunter Samuels

Absolutely, the walks look like an outlier right now, and if the line drives do increase (the popups aren’t unreasonable at all), the overall run prevention should still be fine.

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