Can Twins match the Royals in preventing runs?

[jorgenswest]

2014 fWAR of Twin starters

 

Hughes 6.1

Santana 2.8

Gibson 2.5

Nolasco 1.2

May/Milone/Pelfrey -

 

The Royals 5 starters combined for 12.5 fWAR. Their pitching and defense held opponents to 624 runs (4th). The Twins were last in the AL at 777. It seems reasonable that the Twins have put together a rotation that contributes 12.5 WAR next year. How close can they come to matching the Royal defense?

[TheLeviathan]

Not close.

[DocBauer]

With what shapes up to be a better offense....close enough?

 

Between these two teams, it could come down to how quickly and well the Twins re-shape their bullpen.

[Mike Sixel]

Not sure what offense has to do with run prevention, unless you are voting on the golden gloves of course.....

 

No, the Twins cannot come close on defense. Arcia and Hunter and ????. No, not close.

[Kirby_waved_at_me]

Depends on how bad Alex Rios' legs are, I guess. The Royals "weak link" in the outfield was Nori Aoki, who was actually really good. It's possible that his defense was aided by how great Gordon was in LF and how Dyson and Cain covered a ton of ground in CF.

 

The Twins' OF defense got worse so far, assuming that Arcia and Hunter will man the corners and one of Schafer or Hicks will be on the bench.

 

Ervin Santana will probably notch more strikeouts than the slot in the rotation he's replacing, and Gibson will hopefully be more consistent. Not to mention Meyer/May/Milone; it's too early to tell what the Twins can get out of them.

 

Depending on the starters to strike out more hitters won't cut it, and the defense did not get any better than last year - so I will say not close unless the Royals regress by a large margin.

[The Wise One]

Volquez for Shields vs  Santana for Correia   that alone might ofset Hunter's defense versus Gordon, though they do not play the same position in the outfield

[Willihammer]

Seeing as the 2014 Royals had arguably the best defensive outfield of all time, no. I do think the Twins outfield will be better, and the Royals worse.

[SwainZag]

I don't think the Twins can or will match their defense, but it's not the way the team is built either.  The Twins scored almost 80 more runs than the Royals did last year, and that certainly could improve this upcoming season as well. The defense certainly needs to improve, but it will never be what KC has.  

[Otto von Ballpark]

You know how much better we were offensively in 2014 compared the Royals?  50 offensive runs, according to Fangraphs.

 

You know how much worse we were defensively?  110 defensive runs.

 

Going back to 2008, only 1 team (out of 180) improved by that many defensive runs over a single offseason (the 2008-2009 Mariners).  Only 11 teams (6%) improved by 60 or more (including the 2010 Twins).  3 of those clubs had a worse starting point than the 2014 Twins (-59 runs).

[jokin]

You know how much better we were offensively in 2014 compared the Royals?  50 offensive runs, according to Fangraphs.

 

You know how much worse we were defensively?  110 defensive runs.

 

Going back to 2008, only 1 team (out of 180) improved by that many defensive runs over a single offseason (the 2008-2009 Mariners).  Only 11 teams (6%) improved by 60 or more (including the 2010 Twins).  3 of those clubs had a worse starting point than the 2014 Twins (-59 runs).

 

The Twins can make some decent defensive improvements with more, and better, strategic shifting, plus... many more innings with three actual OFers playing in the OF, and finally, in the IF, an uber-heroic first year, full-time performance by Santana at SS, the same performance from Plouffe, and necessary incremental improvements from Dozier and Mauer.  But even in the offhand chance that they click on

every one of these problematic dimensions, it's difficult to imagine they can still come anywhere close to a 110 DRS improvement

[DocBauer]

Not sure what offense has to do with run prevention, unless you are voting on the golden gloves of course.....

 

No, the Twins cannot come close on defense. Arcia and Hunter and ????. No, not close.

Sorry, my reference to "close enough" was in reference to a better offense," close enough" on defense, to offset as a TEAM. The bullpen perhaps being the overiding difference between the Royals and Twins on a TEAM  basis.