“Same old Royals.” “Another pointless September.” “Time to trade off our stars.” Those are the statements that you’ll hear from casual Royals fans every fall. Pessimism is normally at an all-time high, everyone is more focused on football, and nobody cares about making it out to Kauffman for a “meaningless” baseball game.

Things have been different this time around.

The hope and optimism surrounding “The K” during the current homestand hasn’t been higher since 2003 (the Royals last winning season). Fans are finally believing that the Royals are close to being a legitimate contender.

Right now, the Royals are 20 games under .500, 22.5 games back in the division, and way past being eliminated from playoff contention. It’s hard to see any fanbase in professional sports rallying behind a team with those numbers, but Royals fans did it during the past week. Kauffman Stadium attendance from last week (September 13^th-18^th) averaged out to 24,621 people per game. Last season during the same time period, attendance was at 16,952 people per game. The 2010 Royals had about the same record as the 2011 Royals (2010: 61-91, 2011:67-87) and both teams were eliminated from the playoffs right around the start of September.

The difference this year is that the players are still having a ton of fun on the diamond, which makes going to games much more exciting. The players on the Royals’ current roster genuinely love playing the game. Not only do they love playing the game, but they love winning, and they love winning together. They are a group of kids who really like each other and want to bring a winning team to Kansas City.

Does anyone think that Jose Guillen really liked playing for the Royals? How about Mike Jacobs? Ross Gload?

Doubtful.

And has any Royals team since 2003 been this excited about winning games in September?

Doubtful.

Has any Royals team had as much camaraderie and chemistry as this team besides in the ‘70’s or ‘80’s?

Highly doubtful.

Everyone on the roster is excited to be playing for this team in Kansas City. There’s no doubt that they are disappointed about how this season went, but you can sense that they are all anxious for 2012 to be here. The excitement on the field has brought excitement to the seats inside Kauffman Stadium. Expect the excitement to multiply in 2012.

The 2011 season did not start the way Joakim Soria wanted it to.

Through April and May, he gave up 16 earned runs over 23 innings. He was 3-3 with 5 blown saves in 12 opportunities.

Nearly every Royals fan was calling for his removal from the closer role (or the entire team, in some cases). There was talk about trading him before his value went any lower, converting him to a starter, or possibly even demoting him.

Many said his career was over and that the Royals needed to start fresh with the younger, more exciting Aaron Crow.

Well, Ned Yost did end up giving Crow the closer role.

However, he made it clear that it wasn’t permanent and that he wanted Soria to work some things out as a middle reliever until he felt more comfortable on the mound.

He ended up pitching 5 scoreless innings in 3 games as a middle reliever, which was good enough for the Royals’ skipper.

Yost immediately gave Soria back the title as closer, which turned out to be one of his best decisions of the year.

Since that point, Soria only has 2 blown saves while giving up 11 earned runs in 35.1 innings. He has also had 41 strikeouts compared to 7 walks in that same time period.

These numbers might seem completely inaccurate to most Royals fans because it feels like he has been much worse over the past three and a half months.

The main reason for this is because his two blown saves since the 1^st of June were the two most heartbreaking losses for the Royals in that span.

The first of the two came on July 30^th against the Indians. The Royals gave Soria the ball with a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the 9^th. He gave up a sacrifice fly to tie the game and a walk-off 3-run bomb by Matt LaPorta to end it.

Then came the Tampa Bay Rays game on August 10^th. No Royals fan will forget this one, so there isn’t a need to go into great detail. Crow and Soria gave up 5 runs in the bottom of the 9^th to lose 8-7. It was the epitome of a heartbreaker for the Royals and their fans.

Other than those two games, Soria has been almost lights out. It’s hard for fans to see it, but he is back to his old self.

Wanting a trade or a role change for Soria needs to come to a stop. His first two months of this year were horrendous to say the least, but he has definitely regained his form.

Other than perhaps Greg Holland, Soria has been the most consistent pitcher for the Royals this year.

He is still the leader of the Royals’ bullpen and should continue to be as they make their push in the next couple of years.

A good closer is tough to come by, and the Royals have one in Soria.

It’d be a shame to mess that up as they get closer to becoming a real contender.

One of the crucial factors in the Royals quest to contend in the coming years is the bat of shortstop Alcides Escobar. The glove is clearly exceptional, so if he can complement it with a just a little hitting prowess, the Royals will be set at one of the premium positions. The question becomes just how much Escobar has to hit. Escobar himself told the Kansas City Star he feels he needs to have over a .280 average to be one of the best shortstops in the AL. “Baseball men” also talked in terms of batting average when telling Star writer Sam Mellinger how much Escobar has to hit, but we stat nerds can get more exact than that.

photo by Minda Haas

To answer the question, you must first quantify what his defense is worth. Defensive metrics are notoriously inexact when compared to offensive ones, but with a large sample size, they can shed a lot of light on just how many runs above or below average a fielder allows. Between 2003—2010, the best shortstop in MLB by Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) has prevented an average of 17.0 more runs than the average shortstop (RAA). Over the same time period, the metric Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) shows that the best shortstop prevented an average of 24.4 RAA. Here are the averages of the top five shortstops per year between 2003—2010:

Reasonable minds will differ on where Escobar might be expected to fall on those lists. In 2011, Escobar currently ranks second among shortstops in UZR (at 6.3) and tied for second in DRS (at 10). If he plays in 160 games this year, he is on pace to finish with a 12.3 UZR and a 20.5 DRS. It is impossible to know if those numbers reflect Escobar’s true defensive talent level, but they seem to match what people are seeing with their eyes. Projecting how many runs Escobar can be expected to prevent with his defense is not scientific. My guess is 15 RAA a year. It seems fair in that it puts him in rare company without getting crazy and expecting 20+ RAA year in and year out. If anything, 15 is a little optimistic, considering his career UZR per 160 games is only 3.9, but we will assume Escobar plays at the elite level of 15 RAA per year for this exercise.

Escobar can also be expected to add some value as a decent base runner. Fangraphs valued his base running in 2010 at 2.9 RAA. His career rate per 160 games is 2.5, which seems like a good number to use as his true talent level.

So. Plug in those 15 RAA on defense and 2.5 RAA running the bases into this handy WAR calculator (courtesy Jeff Zimmerman), adjust the league average wOBA down to .325 (it was .327 last season, and is .321 so far this year), assume 600 plate appearances, and you can get some answers about what Escobar’s overall value might be at different levels of offensive production.

First let’s get an idea of how much value the best shortstops provide. Here is the average fWAR the top ten MLB shortstops have posted over the last eight seasons (keeping in mind zero is replacement level and 2.0 is roughly average):

Now the payoff. This chart shows what Escobar has to wOBA, assuming my estimations of his defensive and base running values, to reach various benchmarks:

To answer the question, you have to decide what you want in Escobar. Want an average shortstop? He only needs to wOBA .278…which happens to very close to his career mark to date. I think Royals fans want a little more than an average shortstop, even if that would be an upgrade over most of the shortstops we have put up with over the last few decades. Want a nice 3 win player? Look for a wOBA close to .300. To be a top ten shortstop in the MLB, Escobar might need to wOBA .310.

Here is my answer: Escobar needs to wOBA at least .290. In my mind, that would make him a slightly above average shortstop in terms of overall worth, and I could live with that. I think he is easily capable of posting a .290 wOBA in the coming years. To get an idea of what kind of production is needed for a .290 wOBA, here is Jason Bartlett’s 2011 AVG/OBP/SLG line: .249/.317/.309. His wOBA is .289. It’s not asking for much. Given a few more years, his wOBA ceiling might go as high as .320, which could move him up into stud territory. So far in his young career, he has only hit enough to be a roughly average overall shortstop. If he can wOBA .290+ in the coming years, the Royals will really have a shortstop on their hands.