Four statistics that define the 2024 Royals

Starting pitching, defense, timely hitting and some aggression on the bases have been the building blocks for the Royals.

Here’s something I remembered last night: Losing streaks suck.

They’re decidedly ungood. Stupid. Just the least amount of fun.

Forgive me. I seem to have forgotten about losing streaks and how they feel. It’s kind of a recent development. It had been a month since the Royals last dropped three in a row. The last time was when they lost two on the road to the Tigers and one in Toronto. They previously lost three in a row when the Orioles took two from them at home which was followed by a loss to the Blue Jays.

Three games. That’s it. That’s the longest losing streak of the season. Doesn’t make what we saw on Tuesday any easier. Especially when the last two losses have come at the hands of the Twins. These AL Central matchups are going to be pivotal as the season unfolds.

Now it falls to the Royals other ace, Seth Lugo, to stop the bleeding and get this team back in the win column.

Maybe instead of rehashing Tuesday’s loss, we can look to how the Royals arrived at their 34-21 record entering play. We know it’s been built on the back of exceptional starting pitching, outstanding defense and timely hitting. With a dash of speed mixed in because they’re the Kansas City Royals for crying out loud.

Here are four statistics that define the 2024 Royals and are the reason they have jumped out to this amazing starts. All numbers are through Monday’s games.

The starting rotation has an fWAR of 6.6

That’s a good number. A nice total. It needs a little perspective, though.

Here is the list of teams with an fWAR greater than 5.6 entering play on Tuesday:

Philadelphia Phillies — 7.7 fWAR
Kansas City Royals — 6.6 fWAR

That’s it. That’s the list. Beyond that, there are just four clubs with a collective fWAR from their starting pitchers that’s greater than five. The Royals are lapping the field. The Phillies are lapping the Royals and the field.

Setting the Phillies rotation aside for a moment, who in their right mind saw this coming? Last year Royals rotation totaled 7.1 fWAR. Yes. Entering play on Tuesday the 2024 Royals rotation in two months of action was half an fWAR away from the entire total accumulated last season.

(It’s at this point I need to pause because I’ve seen people send notes like this out on Twitter. WAR is not a cumulative statistic. It is not like RBIs or strikeouts. It is a total based on performance. That means it can—and often will—fluctuate.)

They’ve done it on the backs of a durable quintet of pitchers. Royals starters have thrown 316.1 innings, almost six innings per start. Their collective ERA of 3.04 is tied with the Orioles for the second-best in the AL, behind only the Yankees. The only time a member of the original starting five missed a start was when Alec Marsh spent time on the IL with a forearm bruise when he took a comebacker off his arm. Other than that, this has been as dependable a rotation as you’ve seen in the majors all year.

One final fun fact from the rotation: Their 0.83 HR/9 rate is the best in the AL and fourth best in the majors behind Atlanta and Philadelphia (0.79 HR/9) and the Mets (0.82 HR/9).

The Royals have accumulated 30 Defensive Runs Saved

Despite the odd miscue here or there, the defense has truly been fantastic. The Royals rank third in the majors in DRS according to The Fielding Bible.

Dodgers - 35 DRS
Blue Jays - 33 DRS
Royals - 30 DRS

After that, there’s a gap of six DRS to get to the Yankees at 24 DRS. If you haven’t noticed this is what impresses me the most about these stats. It’s not necessarily where the Royals rank, it’s how much better they are than the rest of the field. It’s not like they had one or two games and inched beyond the pack. They’re out there with the best teams setting the pace. They’re legit.

Bobby Witt Jr. grades out as the top shortstop in baseball with 6 DRS. The pitchers have collectively earned a 6 DRS as well. The Fielding Bible and other advanced defensive metrics have never been fans of Salvador Perez behind the plate, yet he and Freddy Fermin have combined for 4 DRS at catcher.

And I haven’t even mentioned the top position on the diamond for the Royals yet. That would be second base. The revolving door at the keystone has been good for a whopping 10 DRS, making the Royals one of the few teams to have a double-digit total at any position. Michael Massey has 3 DRS and Adam Frazier is credited with 4 DRS, both are in the top 10 at the position. Nick Loftin has chipped it with 1 DRS. That leaves two more on the table. Those belong to…drumroll please…Garrett Hampson. No joke. In his 36 innings he’s played at the keystone, he’s been worth 2 DRS.

You’ll notice I’ve mentioned positions up the middle. The Royals could use some improvement in center. Kyle Isbel alone has been worth 2 DRS at the position, but overall the Royals have just 1 DRS out of that position. It’s a bit nitpicky on my part, but if you’re going to go with solid defense up the middle, you have to go all the way up the middle.

Still, this is one of the top defenses in the game. You don’t think the success of the starting pitchers, who keep the ball in the park and on the ground at around a 42 percent rate has something to do with that? They absolutely go hand in hand.

A runner on base scores 37 percent of the time for the Royals

If the Royals get a runner on base, he’s scoring more than a third of the time. Again, a highly impressive stat that can use a little context. That 37 percent run-scoring rate is tied with Cleveland for best in the league. League average hovers close to 31 percent. Since the Royals won the 2015 World Series with a 32 percent run-scoring rate, they’ve hovered somewhere between a rate of 29 to 31 percent.

Simply put, they’re excelling at getting their runners around the bases. That’s the name of the game, isn’t it?

Guardians - 37%
Royals - 37%
Orioles - 36%
Phillies - 36%

At this point, I’d normally lament that, despite the baserunners cashed in for runs, the Royals are lacking in the actual baserunner category. Except this year, with offenses crashing down, that’s not exactly the case. Sure the Royals .315 team OBP seems low, but it’s really not that bad. That’s the ninth-best on-base percentage in the majors and a few points ahead of the league average .311 OBP. That’s how they are averaging 4.9 runs per game, the sixth-best mark in the majors to this point.

As you would expect, Bobby Witt Jr. is the best regular at bringing home baserunners. What you might not believe is how great he’s actually been at it. Witt is driving in 49 percent of all runners on base, an astronomical figure that is the best in baseball. Hold on to your hats for the next one…the second best at bringing home runners is Hunter Renfroe at 43 percent. He hasn’t had enough plate appearances to get ranked on the league leaderboards, but if he had, Renfroe would rank 12th with his run-scoring rate.

The surprise? How about Salvador Perez who, despite being tied for third in the AL with 39 RBIs, has brought home just 18 percent of the runners on base. That’s six points off his career rate of 24 percent.

The Royals are taking the extra base 47 percent of the time

Speed and aggressive baserunning are ingrained in the DNA of this franchise. It’s not really a surprise that they’ve swiped 54 bases and been caught just 11 times (an impressive 83% success rate) and they’re running with abandon when the ball is put in play. Baseball-Reference defines an extra base taken (XBT) as advancing more than one base when a single is hit or more than two bases on a double, when possible.

Reds - 49% XBT
Diamondbacks - 48% XBT
Royals - 47% XBT
Tigers - 47% XBT

The Reds are just a team on a baserunning mission this year. They’ve attempted 106 steals!

As you can see from the list above, the Royals are once again among the pacesetters. The aggression sometimes results in outs on the bases—Royal runners have been cut down at home seven times this year—but like with their success rate on steals, there’s a generally net positive in taking that extra base. The league average is 41% XBT.

Think there’s speed at the top of this lineup? Garcia and Witt both take the extra base 67 percent of the time. They rank fifth and sixth, respectively, in XBT according to Baseball-Reference. MJ Melendez, on the ever increasingly rare occasions he reaches base will grab an extra one 64 percent of the time.

The Royals insist they aren’t concerned about dropping three in a row. I believe them. This isn’t a team that will panic. These statistics above will keep me from being too concerned for the moment.

A win on Wednesday would be nice, though.

Central Issues

Blue Jays 7, White Sox 2

With two outs in the second, the Jays strung together a single, a walk and two doubles to plate three. They hit six singles in the eighth to plate three more. As if that wasn’t enough the Baseball Gods decided to summon the Rain Gods an there was a rain delay in the bottom of the ninth inning that lasted a couple of hours. As if there was any chance Chicago would mount a comeback. White Sox baseball is pain.

Guardians 13, Rockies 7

A Coors Field special. Josh Naylor homered twice and drove in five. David Fry homered and drove in three. José Ramírez homered and drove in two. Ramírez now has 12 home runs in the month of May and has struck out 12 times. I’m not supposed to say this, but I really enjoy José Ramírez.

Pittsburgh at Detroit - Postponed

The teams will play a straight doubleheader on Wednesday. Props to more teams playing the straight doubleheader these days.

There’s quite a bit of volatility in the playoff odds at FanGraphs. Losing back-to-back games to the team immediately behind you in the standings—a team that was initially favored to win the division—will do that apparently.

If you want to feel just a little bit better, the mothership has an article up about the postseason scenario if the season ended today. It doesn’t end today, of course, but it could put you in a better frame of mind. Personally, I hope the Central stays strong. As long as the Royals are included.