Have umpires been unfair to the Royals? It might not be your imagination
Kansas City Royals general manager JJ Picollo didn’t have to think long to come up with a positive development from his team after its 9-14 start.
That also was followed, though, by an area where he’d like to see improvement.
Picollo, when speaking with reporters in the team’s dugout Tuesday afternoon, was happy to see that KC’s pitching had kept it in most games this season.
Some situational hitting, however, could be better.
“I think what we’ve got to try to get back to doing is really just being more selective when we have opportunities to score,” Picollo said. “I thought we saw some signs of it, but not enough to win ballgames.”
And though Piccolo was specifically talking about clutch situations — such as with runners in scoring position — there could also be a natural reason why Royals hitters have hesitated to be choosy.
Through 23 games, the statistics show, the Royals are on a historic pace when it comes to strike calls that have gone against them.
Statcast provides the evidence. Entering Tuesday’s game — about 1/7th of the way through the season — the Royals’ hitters had lost six runs of value based on opponents’ pitch-framing. The San Francisco Giants, in second place, have only lost three runs.
In essence: The strike zone against the Royals’ hitters, so far, has hurt them twice as much as any other MLB team.
Here’s another way to look at it. Statcast tracks a “shadow zone,” which consists of the area on the edges that are “roughly one ball width inside and one ball wide outside of the zone.”
MLB average for strike calls on those pitches is 43%. Royals hitters, meanwhile, have seen those pitches called as strikes 51% of the time.
Those percentage points add up through a game and season — and also can lead to some natural frustration during a slump. Royals hitting coach Alec Zumwalt, for example, was ejected late in Thursday’s game for arguing balls and strikes.
The data suggests that, to this point, the Royals are validated if they’ve had some grumbles.
In the team’s four-game series last week at Detroit, for instance, 59% of pitches (69 of 117) in the shadow zone were called strikes against the Royals. Remember, league average is 43%.
And catcher Freddy Fermin would have the biggest beef of anyone. He’s had 15 of 20 shadow zone pitches called strikes against him this season (75%), the second-highest mark in the majors.
First baseman Vinnie Pasquantino, meanwhile, had the toughest call go against him. According to Statcast, he took the Royals’ most damaging pitch (in terms of framing run value added to the catcher, or therefore lost to the batter) when watching this 2-1 fastball against Cleveland’s Tanner Bibee get called a strike on April 11.
It’s worth pointing out that the Royals have faced some strong pitch-framing catchers thus far. The Tigers (third), Yankees (seventh), Brewers (ninth), Guardians (11th) and Orioles (14th) all rank top half in this skill-set. That means the Twins (24th) have been the only Royals opponent that’s been below-average in this area.
What should be comforting for the Royals is this string of bad luck (or bad calls, if you prefer) shouldn’t be expected to continue — or at least not at this rate.
Since 2015, when Statcast began tracking framing stats, the team hurt most by opponents’ framing was the 2017 Astros, whose hitters lost 27 runs of value. This year’s Royals, if the current pace held, would lose 42 runs because of opponents’ framing — easily eclipsing the highest mark of the last decade.
More likely, though, is that the calls even out a bit. Last year, the worst MLB team (the Blue Jays) had 13 framing runs go against them, meaning outliers with this stat don’t typically emerge to this extreme.
Perhaps the trend will start to turn around Tuesday. The Rockies (18th) don’t thrive at pitch-framing, while KC’s next two opponents — the Astros (28th) and Rays (30th) — haven’t been great at it either.
It might be one thing for the Royals hitters to keep in mind following a slow offensive start.
The Royals’ patience can still improve, yes. But it’s also more likely to be rewarded in the future.
