The dog days of spring
Come on...give us the real games!
It doesn’t take long, does it? After a long winter, the crack of the bat and the snap of the ball hitting the padded catcher’s mitt give you that boost of baseball adrenaline. Baseball is back. Real action is going to take place on that diamond. And soon.
But it’s just a tease. A nice tease, but a tease just the same. Over a week after pitchers and catchers report and a handful of days after the rest of the squad joins them in camp, certain tedium (or is it routine?) settles over the proceedings. You can watch only so many bullpen sessions or fungos hit to charging outfielders. It’s game action you crave. But the exhibition slate is still a few days away.
Besides, we’ll run through the same emotions anew starting on Sunday. We’ll be jazzed that there are real games and Steve Stewart will be there, guiding us through the “Sounds of Spring” in between innings on the webcasts, but that will sate us for only so long. Eventually, the novelty of baseball in the desert will fade and we’ll be itching for the real action.
Opening Day can’t get here fast enough.
Clay Davenport, one of the founding fathers of Baseball Prospectus, posted his 2021 projections this week. If you’re looking for spring optimism, you won’t find it here. Sorry.
I can get behind the order of finish, but that win total of 70 feels awfully low. Alas, his projections have the Royals pitching staff as…uninspiring. There’s a negative run differential of over 100. The only team projected to allow more runs in the majors is the Blue Jays. To put it simply: the Davenport projections do not care for the Royals pitching staff.
(All of his projections are worth checking out. The Royals can be found here.)
When you see projections presented like this, with subpar pitching and close to a league-average offense, you can understand why the win total might be lower than your own estimations at this point. Still, that number (along with most Vegas over/unders I’ve seen of 71 1/2) just seems kind of low. Maybe I’m drunk on Spring Training Optimism (some brewery should make this a beer), but I’m sticking with 75 wins for now. It’s possible I may bump this a little higher as we get closer to the start of the season. Guess it depends on how much Spring Training Optimism I consume.
Ahhhh, more projections…Vegas over/under win totals…We are in full “waiting for the exhibition games start” mode. I just can’t believe the “Best Shape Of His Life” square is still open on my Spring Training Bingo Card.
Anyway, the latest slate of projections, along with so much time spent watching pitchers practicing pickoff moves, got me thinking as to who shall I anoint as the “key player” for the Royals this year? Who will the team need to take that next step in their development (or bounce back from a down season the year before) in order to help drive the team to their final win total? The guy who, at the end of the year, you say it’s a good thing he was on the team because without him…total disaster. Personally, my spring go-to the last couple of seasons has been Adalberto Mondesi. Last year, post-COVID, I put a ton of pressure on him saying he was not only the Royals’ key player, but due to the shortened schedule, it was imperative he establish himself with a decent start. He just possesses so much talent, he’s the obvious candidate for that breakout. That we continue to wait for that breakout is a little disheartening.
Looking at the Davenport projections along with individual projections from ZiPS and PECOTA and the like and I’m wondering if maybe the key player in 2021 won’t need to come from the pitching staff. You figure with the experience Brady Singer and Kris Bubic gained in 2020, their stock for 2021 should be trending up. (It is, at least according to the Davenport projections, pegging them for 1.1 WARP and 1.4 WARP respectively.) Or perhaps it’s simply another solid season from Brad Keller. Or Mike Minor. Or even Danny Duffy in a contract year. Or would it be someone like Daniel Lynch coming in and making a difference?
I’m going to have to chew on this for a bit and get back to you. Something to occupy my time during the dog days of spring.
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