Royalties

Dave Paisley

As the season progresses there are just a handful of teams that are still beating all expectations. I’ll take a look at two of them this week - the Yankees and the Royals. The Yankees are a strange animal because everyone expects them to win, so even a white hot start doesn’t really surprise anyone. I’m sure many people are attributing the start to things like the acquisition of Hideki Matsui. And boy, would they be wrong. Given the way Ichiro quickly became a household name, it’s to be expected Matsui would come with a lot of hype, and to be sure, he has some pretty gaudy RBI numbers. However, other than that, there’s not much to see.

The real key to the Yankees offense is that just about everybody except Matsui is playing way over their career numbers. Here’s a breakdown of the big nine, compared to their career numbers and last year.

                    OPS    OPS  Career   OPS   2002

Name               2003  Career  diff   2002   diff

Alfonso Soriano   1.103   .832   .271   .879   .224

Hideki Matsui      .678   .678   .000   .678   .000

Bernie Williams   1.073   .894   .179   .908   .165

Raul Mondesi      1.079   .828   .251   .740   .339

Jason Giambi       .733   .963  -.230  1.033  -.300

Jorge Posada       .944   .839   .105   .838   .106

Nick Johnson       .987   .772   .215   .749   .238

Robin Ventura      .864   .813   .051   .826   .038

Erick Almonte      .690   .695  -.005   .690   .000

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Averages           .906   .813   .093   .816   .090

Now, some of this improvement may be genuine. Alfonso Soriano, for instance, is definitely getting better every year. However, he’s unlikely to end the season with an OPS of 1.100 that he’s currently sporting. Same for Nick Johnson. Is he likely to end the season with Giambi-esque numbers? Not in my book. So there are two guys currently at more than 200 points of OPS over their career numbers.

But what of the other guys? Raul Mondesi is more than .300 points over his career numbers, while Bernie Williams is .179 over and Jorge Posada is .105 over. Only Jason Giambi is significantly down from his numbers, leaving the net effect that the Yankees are currently collectively playing about 100 points of OPS above their career norms. While it’s not unusual for guys to have hot months, the Yankees have five guys doing it all at the same time. The Yankees have mostly been playing sub-par teams, of course, and that helps. It doesn’t hurt that three of their five starting pitchers have been lights out, either.

The Royals are a different story. So far they’ve managed to get excellent pitching with decent offense. However, once things revert to normal, their record will begin to align with reality. Here’s how the hitting stacks up against previous performance:

                 OPS       OPS        OPS

Player          2003     Career      Diff

Michael Tucker  .780      .771      .009

Raul Ibanez     .966      .806      .160

Angel Berroa    .775      .705      .070

Joe Randa      1.015      .767      .248

Ken Harvey      .728      .725      .003

Mike Sweeney    .947      .882      .065

Carlos Febles   .619      .697     -.078

Brent Mayne     .987      .697      .290

Desi Relaford   .884      .688      .196

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Averages        .856      .749      .107

The Royals are actually higher above their collective career norms than the Yankees are, led by Raul Ibanez, Joe Randa and Brent Mayne. Put your hands up anyone who expects these guys to be close to 1.000 OPS at the end of the season. Ok just the three of you.

So this rag tag bunch of guys are in way over their heads. Sure, Carlos Beltran just came back, but let’s be real, this isn’t going to hold up.

As for pitching, the Royals have Runelvys Hernandez at 4-0 with a 1.36 ERA. ESPN projects that to a 29-0 record. Hernandez has 94 innings of major league experience. Now, even if he wins the Rookie of the Year Award, how likely is it that he’ll maintain that ERA? Not very. After him, the pitching falls off quite a bit. In the rotation, we have Miguel Asencio (1-0 record, 4.82 ERA, 151 innings experience), Chris George (3-2, 4.82, 124) Jeremy Affeldt (2-0, 5.12, 97) and Darrell May (0-1, 5.72, 211).

I don’t know about you, but it seems quite a lot to ask of that bunch to emulate Hudson, Zito and Mulder. Or even Larry, Curly and Moe, to be honest. Averaging less than one year’s starting experience in the majors across the board, with ERAs close to or over 5.00 doesn’t look like a recipe for success in the long haul.

So let’s just say I’m predicting that both the Yankees and Royals bubbles will burst. For the former it will be a short drop to their normal form. The Royals better have parachutes handy.

about the author

Questions? Dave Paisley wants you to send them along to drdjp@strikethree.com.