Why The Kansas City Royals Aren’t Anti-Sabermetric

Despite many claims to the contrary, the Kansas City Royals wild ride in the 2014 MLB postseason doesn’t prove the team is the complete opposite of ideals advanced by advanced metrics, or sabermetrics, and both sabermetric believers and traditionalists can (and do) function together in creating a winning MLB team.

The Kansas City Royals are going to the World Series, and in a lot of ways their playoff run defies logic — the extra innings magic, contributors from unlikely sources, and plenty of chances for the Royals to get #Yosted — a hashtag following the nearly-always curious decisions of Royals manager Ned Yost. Yost does things his own way, and has ignored his critics, much as GM Dayton Moore has ignored calls to break up the team, and this postseason appears to be affirming everything the Royals are doing as the correct way — especially since the Royals haven’t been defeated yet in this postseason.

It’s been fun to watch (well, at least if you’re not a fan of the Oakland Athletics, Los Angeles Angels or Baltimore Orioles — all teams the Royals have dispatched in their wake), but unfortunately, the surprising run has also lead to some people busting out their old “Jump To Conclusions” mat from Office Space and are assuming the Royals postseason is proof that KC is building the teams the correct way, and because it’s slightly unorthodox, the Royals must be bucking the “sabermetric trend.”

Sabermetrics, or advanced metrics (or Moneyball stats, if you really want a misnomer), are simply measures developed throughout the years to help us evaluate players better and to interpret performance more clearly. Now, in a small sample such as the playoffs, generally we can throw a lot of things out the window and simply enjoy the ride KC is taking us on, because it’s certainly been fun.

Nearly every team in MLB employs some kind of expert in these stats, but for most teams, the use of these stats and strategy are simply integrated throughout the organization. Stats and traditional baseball don’t need to be separated. But still, some assume that because Yost calls for the bunt like he gets paid by the out that the Royals have completely eschewed advanced statistics in baseball, and are hailing this as some sort of triumph for traditional statistics. These people are wrong:

Law is an ESPN analyst, but he’s also a former scout and member of the Toronto Blue Jays front office. He’s not always correct, but he’s also not completely ignorant to how most MLB front offices operate. Dakich is also an ESPN guy, as a basketball commentator and radio host, and his initial tweet was one of a series of tweets ranting against sabermetrics, and basically trolling away (including an odd attack on young people):

Dakich is really highlighting a huge flaw in calling advanced metrics “sabermetrics,” and this flaw is people instantly assume some weird stat that requires you to memorize a formula just to determine how good a player is. Advanced metrics is about far more than simply stats, and once both “sides” — traditionalists and new-school fans — can agree on this, we can realize just how helpful using both advanced metrics and traditionalist common sense can help our understanding of the game.

Law absolutely nails the key of what advanced metrics are so useful, and why it’s important to constantly be paying attention in MLB, and never simply assume something because it was researched years ago.

Consider “Moneyball,” and it’s subtitle — The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, too often lost when the book is dismissed by someone. “Moneyball” is book about how A’s GM Billy Beane was desperate for some sort of competitive advantage his small-market team could exploit, leading him to see how undervalued on base percentage was on the free agent market.

The book was published in 2003, and it’s now 2014. On base percentage isn’t so severely undervalued anymore, and unlike in 2003, power and offense aren’t so abundant. So what have the Royals done that proves they aren’t anti-sabermetric? They found flawed players nobody else was valuing, got the majority of them at a bargain, and have found ways to utilize these players to their fullest. The Royals knew it was unfair. So they went out and found their way to win.

The Royals traded then-ace Zack Greinke in a deal that netted them current center fielder (and ALCS MVP) Lorenzo Cain and shortstop Alcides Escobar. Alex Gordon didn’t last as a third baseman, but he moved to left field and became an elite defender at the position, and they replaced him at third with Mike Moustakas, and while the jury might still be out on Moose as a hitter, he’s a great fielder.

These great fielders help the Royals starters immensely, such as Jason Vargas, who the Royals signed to a four-year, $32-million dollar deal this past offseason to great fanfare from the team (and much snark from commentators), and the elite KC defense has helped Vargas (and the rest of the Royals rotation) stay on track.

But the Royals simply didn’t scour the past Gold Glove-winner’s list, or look for the players with the fewest errors when assembling their roster, either:

It goes beyond bunting and defense. Bullpens, long cried as a money pit by advanced metrics proponents, have become huge in the modern MLB, and both KC and fellow World Series competition, the San Francisco Giants, have the best bullpen ERAs in the playoffs this season, another shift in thinking as trends change.

So, no, the Royals aren’t proving sabermetrics “wrong.” And it’s not like the Royals are sabermetrical darlings, either (#Yosted). The 2014 Kansas City Royals are simply a great, hot, team that’s also incredibly entertaining, and should be enjoyed by all.

But if you’re desperate for a lesson from this MLB postseason, this is a good one to take away:

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