I'm going to let you in on a little blogger secret: as I'm writing this post about the Royals, the Royals are actively playing the White Sox, on Thursday night. I usually try to shy away from writing about someone or something as they're playing, because something might conceivably change, and then I could have to re-work my thesis if not abandon the article entirely. But I'm going to stick with this and cross my fingers. In fact, I can even use this to my advantage.
So, here's a neat thing. Thursday, the Royals are facing Chris Sale! Which means for you, the reader, on Thursday, the Royals faced Chris Sale. At this writing, Sale has two strikeouts through three innings, having faced 14 batters. For Sale, it's not his greatest outing, especially given the two runs he's allowed. But about the whiffs: through these three innings, the Royals' team strikeout rate has gone up.
That's a little perspective. The Royals have been red-hot, and the Royals' offense has been red-hot. This is a rather distinct change from the editions of the Royals we've seen over the past few years. We knew the team would be able to defend, and we knew the team would have a lockdown bullpen; we didn't know the offense could do something like this. At FanGraphs, we track a stat called wRC+, which is like OPS+, but better. As I look at the team leaderboard, the Royals are second in baseball, between the Dodgers and Padres. As always, plenty of factors go into making an offense good. You can never discount the variable of good luck. But something that's driven the Royals to this point: they simply haven't been striking out. Their contact has been absurd.
It's not only that the Royals have the lowest team strikeout rate in baseball. A year ago, they had the lowest team strikeout rate in baseball. The year before, they had the second-lowest. The Royals have been a contact-oriented team. What's most notable is the magnitude of the Royals' advantage over everyone else. Here are the lowest team rates, through some of Thursday, but not all of Thursday:
The Royals are in front of the Mets, by more than five percentage points. What does that mean? The gap between first and second place is bigger than the gap between second and 21st place. It's an extraordinary lead, and any time you see such a gap on top of a leaderboard, you know you're dealing with either a data error, or something incredible. This is the latter.
Rightfully, you might wonder about quality of opposition. This early in the year, nothing has necessarily been balanced out, so maybe the Royals have faced a bunch of contact pitchers. Yeah, they're facing Sale. They've faced Jeff Samardzija, and Sonny Gray, and Scott Kazmir, and Jose Quintana. They've also seen Tommy Milone twice, and Kyle Gibson twice. The Royals have played the Twins. For two series! That matters, some.
It just can't explain everything. Let's have some fun, using the splits available at Baseball-Reference. Below, the lowest team strikeout rates, in a bunch of different splits.
vs. Starting Pitchers (league average: 19%)
vs. Relief Pitchers (league average: 22%)
vs. Power Pitchers (league average: 26%)
vs. Average Pitchers (league average: 21%)
vs. Finesse Pitchers (league average: 17%)
You can see it. In every category, you can see it. The Royals lead, and the Royals lead by a substantial margin. The Royals have struck out less often against power pitchers than the average team has struck out against finesse pitchers. It is early. These numbers will change. But they're so extreme right now, you wonder how much they'll regress.
Think again about the size of the Royals' current lead, overall, over second place. You remember that they lead by more than five percentage points. I decided to go back to 1950 to examine the very biggest differences between first and second place in team strikeout rate. There's nothing even close to five percentage points. Or four. The biggest separations: 2.1 percentage points. In 1986, it was by that margin that the Red Sox bested the Blue Jays. In 2002, it was by that margin that the Angels bested the Cardinals. Incidentally, those Red Sox went to the World Series, and those Angels won it. The Royals are blowing everybody else away, and in an era of increasing strikeouts, Kansas City's gone the complete other direction. This is an unprecedented kind of lead.
A drawback is that the Royals don't walk much. Walking is a product of both discipline and deep counts, and the Royals like to put the ball in play early. But more balls in play also means more hits, and the Royals have additionally upped their power game. ISO, or Isolated Power, is simply batting average subtracted from slugging percentage. A year ago, the Royals finished with the lowest ISO in baseball. This year, they rank 10th, meaning they've improved both contact and quality of contact. It's relatively simple to help one and hurt the other. Helping both at the same time is a far greater challenge.
You can spot where there have been some individual gains. Lorenzo Cain has trimmed his strikeouts, while putting more balls in play in the air. Salvador Perez has cut his strikeouts in half, and he has yet to hit a single pop-up, after hitting 34 last season. Eric Hosmer's strikeouts are way down, and his walks are way up. Alcides Escobar has struck out just three times. And there's Mike Moustakas, who's cut his own strikeout rate in half. Moustakas is a case of a hitter with a changed approach: he already has 10 hits to the opposite field, after collecting 17 all of last season. Generally, hitters don't change things this quickly and this dramatically, but the Royals are at least raising a whole lot of eyebrows.
I remember writing something kind of similar about a year ago, about the Rockies, who were then showing a big improvement in contact. Through the end of April, they'd struck out just 17% of the time. From there on out, the rate shot up to 22%, and the team collapsed. But, those Rockies went through some major injuries. Their low-strikeout rate was less impressive than the Royals' low-strikeout rate. And, one busted example doesn't automatically bust a second, unrelated example. The Rockies came apart. The Royals won't keep hitting this well, but their plate appearances are starting to pile up, and their strikeouts aren't. You figure something could be going on.
So we'll just keep on monitoring. I was nervous about writing this during a Sale start, since Chris Sale is outstanding, but then, even if Sale threw a perfect game against the Royals with 27 strikeouts, they'd still have by far the lowest strikeout rate in baseball, so that's food for thought. Also, I said earlier that through three innings of this ongoing game, Sale had two strikeouts. He still has just the two strikeouts. At this writing, the Royals have faced Chris Sale on the road and watched their strikeout rate go a little bit down.
There's no way to know how far this goes. There's no way to know where the Royals' strikeouts end up. But this, I think, would be a safe assumption: the Royals' strikeouts will end up not close to anyone else's. All along, people wondered when the Royals would start to hit. Better question now is when they're going to stop.
