The Angels are about to take on the Royals in the 2014 ALDS. Can the Royals pull off the upset or will the Angels move on to the ALCS?

Angels vs Royals

Starting Pitching

Angels

The Angels are fortunate that Matt Shoemaker will be available in the playoffs. While he isn’t an ace, he’s still a lot better than their other options. While Jered Weaver (101 ERA+) and C.J. Wilson (81 ERA+) have a combined 31 wins, their performance doesn’t exactly inspire confidence as the FIP for both of these pitchers are above 4.

Royals

The Royals took a lot of criticism when they traded for James Shields but it did help achieve their goal of getting to the post-season. With Shields starting in the wild card game and Yordano Ventura inexplicably coming out of the bullpen (after pitching on Sunday) the Royals are at a weaker spot than normal as they’ll likely have to start off with either Jeremy Guthrie (96 ERA+/4.32 FIP) or Danny Duffy in Game 1 (157 ERA+/3.83 FIP). Even with that said, their rotation is still in better shape.

Advantage: Royals

Bullpen

While the rotation is weak, the Angels have a decent bullpen. Closer Huston Street and set up man Joe Smith both have ERA+ above 200. In addition, they have gotten solid but unspectacular performances from middle relievers such as Kelvin Jepsen, Mike Morin & Fernando Salas.

On a talent standpoint, the Royals have a much stronger bullpen front to back as Greg Holland, Wade Davis & Kelvin Herrera have been almost unhittable all season. With the revelation of Brandon Finnegan during the wild card game (he could be in line to have a breakout performance similar to what K-Rod had back in 2002), their bullpen looks tough (though is subject to being horribly mismanaged by Ned Yost).

Advantage: Royals

Infield Defense

To evaluate defensive performance, we’re going to use one of the metrics available in Baseball-Reference (that is provided to them by Baseball Info Solutions) Defensive Runs Saved Above Average (Rdrs). The definition given on this page when you bubble over the Rdrs category is as follows:

“The number of runs above or below average the player was worth based on the number of plays made”.

The numbers in parenthesis in the below section indicates the number of runs they are above or below defensively based off this metric.

The fielding information referenced for the Angels can be found here

The fielding information referenced for the Royals can be found here

Angels



C: Chris Ianneta (-10), Hank Conger (1), 1B: Albert Pujols: 6, 2B: Howie Kendrick: 7,3B: David Freese: -9, SS: Erick Aybar -3

Total: -8

While the Angels got decent defensive production from Pujols & Kendrick, their overall infield defense still leaves a lot to be desired.

Royals

C: Salvador Perez (8), 1B: Eric Hosmer (3), 2B Omar Infante (1), 3B: Mike Moustakas (-2), SS: Alcides Escobar (-4)

Total: 6

The one surprise in this data is that the advanced numbers do not appear to be favorable to Escobar. Even with that disadvantage, the Royals infield defense is still stronger.

Advantage: Royals

Outfield Defense

Mike Trout (-9), Kole Calhoun (2), Collin Cowgill (9), Josh Hamilton (-1)

Total: 1

The one surprise here is that the advanced numbers are not too crazy about Mike Trout’s defense. Overall, the advanced numbers don’t hate the Angels defense but they don’t love it either.

Alex Gordon (27), Lorenzo Cain (24), Nori Aoki (-8), Jarrod Dyson (14)

Total: 57

While the Royals infield offense is respectable, their outfield offense is off the charts strong as they saved their pitchers 57 runs. Saving about 1 run every 3 games may not be visually obvious but can be the difference between playing in the ALCS and watching it on TV.

Advantage: Royals

Infield Offense

C: Chris Ianneta (122 OPS+), Hank Conger (79 OPS+), 1B: Albert Pujols (125 OPS+), 2B: Howie Kendrick (115 OPS+), 3B: David Freese (103 OPS+), SS: Erick Aybar (102 OPS+)

While Pujols is not the mega-star player he once was in St. Louis, he still had a very good season hitting 28 HR with 105 RBI. The rest of the infield offense while not spectacular also does not contain any automatic outs.

Catcher: Salvador Perez (90 OPS+), Eric Hosmer (98 OPS+), 2B Omar Infante (76 OPS+), 3B Mike Moustakas (74 OPS+), SS Alcides Escobar (92 OPS+)

It’s a good thing that the Royals are good at preventing other teams from scoring runs from their defense because their offense is not very good at scoring runs (despite Tuesday’s 9-run outburst). It’s borderline mind blowing that they made the playoffs without getting average production from even one position in the infield.

Advantage: Angels

Outfield Offense

Mike Trout (167 OPS+),Kole Calhoun (122 OPS+),Collin Cowgill (98 OPS+),Josh Hamilton (114 OPS+)

As expected, Mike Trout had another MVP-Caliber season. Kole Calhoun quietly had a very solid season at the plate while Josh Hamilton was limited to 89 games due to injury. Overall, the offensive production from their outfielders was also very strong.

Alex Gordon (117 OPS+), Lorenzo Cain (108 OPS+), Nori Aoki (98 OPS+), Jarrod Dyson (82 OPS+)

In the outfield, we continue the theme of lackluster offensive production. While Gordon & Cain are nice players to have on your team, when they are your two most productive hitters, scoring runs is likely to be at a premium.

Advantage: Angels

Strengths & Weaknesses

For the Angels, their primary strength is that their offense is very strong top to bottom. Their main vulnerabilities are a weak starting rotation and a lackluster defense.

For the Royals, their main strengths are tied to top of the line outfield defense and their bullpen. Their weakness is a lackluster offense, their obsession with sacrifice bunts and having one of the worst mangers in the game in Ned Yost.

Team History

This category is a push as they split the six games they played this season. The Angels get the final nod here as they outscored the Royals 30-26.

Advantage: Angels

Final Verdict:

While the Angels have the much better record and higher expectations for the postseason, the Royals match up surprisingly well to the Angels and actually hold the advantage in four of the seven categories that were covered. I’m going to go out on a limb and pick the Royals to upset the Angels in 5 games.

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All stats referenced found on baseball-reference.com

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