In winning the American League pennant in 2014 and the World Series in 2015, the Kansas City Royals had a system.
And on Opening Night of the 2016 season, they showed that the system still works.
The Royals began the new season on Sunday night the same way they ended the last season: by defeating the New York Mets. And though this one didn't win them a shiny trophy, the 4-3 victory they earned was still good enough for the adoring masses packed into Kauffman Stadium.
And let the record show that there were no fisticuffs. That seemed like a distinct possibility when word started circulating that the Royals were planning on exacting revenge for a wayward Noah Syndergaard fastball in the Fall Classic. But in the end, a dish best served cold was never served at all.
The Royals simply played baseball instead, and came away with more or less the type of win that they've specialized in. It's the kind of win where, when asked how it happened, the best response is, "Well, how long you got?"
Matt Harvey, one of baseball's best power pitchers, struck out only two batters in the process of giving up eight of Kansas City's nine hits in his five and two-thirds innings. That kept the pressure on the Mets defense all night, and the Royals further upped the ante by careening around the bases. Alcides Escobar stole a base, and aggressive baserunning plays by Mike Moustakas and Lorenzo Cain led to runs.
Ho hum. The Royals' strikeout percentage over the last two seasons is the smallest in baseball by plenty. And in 2015, they swiped 104 bases (fifth) while finishing fourth in extra bases taken percentage. Driving other teams nuts with their style of offense is what they do.
"It's all team-oriented offense," first baseman Eric Hosmer recently told David Schoenfield of ESPN.com, "and that's why we're so successful and so successful against ace pitchers. I know we beat a tremendous amount of ace guys because our offense has truly bought into a game plan each and every day."
While Kansas City's offense specializes putting pressure on the opposing defense, their own defense is certainly none too shabby in its own right.
No team has saved more runs on defense over the last two years than the Royals', and there was more of that excellent glovework on display Sunday night. Moustakas and Hosmer made nifty plays at the corners, and Salvador Perez and Omar Infante teamed up on a caught-stealing worthy of Statcast:
Edinson Volquez was the beneficiary of these plays, which had a hand in him logging six shutout innings. He wasn't quite as sharp as those six scoreless innings and the two hits he allowed suggest, but he made enough good pitches to deserve a quality start.
And though quality starts are something the Royals didn't get a lot of last season, that didn't stop them from finishing with one of the league's top 10 ERAs. So between Volquez's performance and all the hitting, running and fielding the Royals were doing on Sunday night, Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports was really just saying what everyone was thinking when he tweeted:
There was, however, one element of the Royals' system that wasn't quite there Sunday night.
The dominant relief pitching they're used to enjoying hit a snag. Kelvin Herrera did fine in a scoreless seventh inning, but offseason signee/old friend Joakim Soria had to be bailed out by Luke Hochevar after giving up three runs on three hits and two walks in the eighth inning. And in the ninth inning, Wade Davis put runners on the corners before striking out David Wright and Yoenis Cespedes to end the game.
But don't worry about Davis. He has the lowest ERA (0.97) and lowest OPS allowed (.429) of any reliever over the last two seasons. The excellent stuff that made that's made that possible was on display Sunday night. And though it was lost on a tight strike zone, so was the command.
Soria is more of a question, as his stumble out of the gate wasn't entirely unexpected after he out-pitched his peripherals in 2015. But if he remains a question, Hochevar could prove to be an unexpected answer. Now well removed from his 2014 Tommy John operation, he may get back to being the overpowering reliever he was in 2013.
So, the one blemish on Kansas City's season-opening takedown of the Mets isn't worth worrying about. After posting the AL's lowest ERA across 2014 and 2015, the Royals bullpen should remain one of Major League Baseball's most formidable strengths.
The Royals won't have to come up with a new system as long as that's the case. Nor should they be in any hurry to, for that matter.
At a time when hitters are striking out like crazy and still trying to trot rather than run around the bases, and when teams are trying to fool the defense gods with shifts and trusting more innings to their relievers, the Royals are basically Major League Baseball's answer to the Golden State Warriors. They're not just really good. They're ahead of the curve.
Of course, there is some doubt as to whether this system can be as successful in 2016 as it has been the last two years. Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projections have the Royals finishing last in the AL Central. And despite some reservations based on how drastically the Royals outplayed a similar projection in 2015, Sam Miller wrote that he's "not totally convinced that PECOTA was exactly wrong last year, or is wrong this year."
In time, such a stance could prove to be justified. But after the Royals' latest triumph, everyone should be in I'll-believe-it-when-I-see-it mode regarding their projections.
Their system hasn't let them down yet. And one game into 2016, it's still looking pretty good.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.
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