Dave Fleming, at Bill James Online (subscription required) tries to answer why the Royals are ahead of the Tigers:
This is what Jerry’s e-mail got me wondering: have the Kansas City Royals, a franchise whose macro (trading Wil Myers) and micro (their batting orders) decision have seemed not only random and senseless, but deliberately antagonist to anyone whose understanding of the game is even casually inclined towards sabermetrics….has that team somehow lucked into some secret formula for winning. And it that formula something as obvious as: “just have a really good bullpen”?
The Tigers and the Royals and the 2014 AL Central race is compelling, to me, because it seems an interesting test of that possibility. The Tigers have a much better offense, and they have slightly better starting pitching…and they have a much worse bullpen. Is that enough to keep these teams even? Is a one-run difference in bullpen ERA as significant as a half-run difference in runs scored per game? Is that one-run difference in bullpen ERA more significant?
I don’t know. But if I wanted to figure out why the Royals are ahead of the Detroit Tigers in the American League Central race, that’s where I’d be looking.
As I commented ten days ago, it strikes me that the KC bullpen is good because the manager conserves his relievers by allowing his starters to go deep in games. This may not be the type of bullpen that could come in the seventh inning every game and put out the lights.
Update: Via BBTF, the Royals might have also taken a page out of the 2002 Angels playbook:
When it comes to putting the ball in play, the Royals are, relative to the league, one of the most prolific teams in baseball history. Because while they’re last in the majors in walks, they’re also last in strikeouts: They’ve struck out more than 100 fewer times than every other team in baseball. Their three true outcomes percentage4 is just 23.6 percent; the major league average is 30.6 percent.
If you remember the 2002 playoff series between the Angels and the Yankees, Anaheim kept putting the ball in play, and the grounders kept going by Derek Jeter. (It was that series that started me on the probabilistic model of range work.) Those Yankees teams used a high K rate by their pitchers to cover up the weakness of their fielders. Take away the Ks, and the defense killed the team. If the Royals go up against a team with poor range, like the Tigers or the Yankees, those few extra hits might make all the difference.
It does make sense that a strong bullpen can have more “leverage” than a strong hitter or even a strong starting pitcher because the manager can strategically use it in the highest leverage situations. For instance, in consecutive games your #5 starter might lose 6-5 and your #1 might win 9-0, which in hindsight wastes one of your ace’s 35 starts. Reversing the order would have meant two wins.
With the bullpen, you don’t need hindsight because you know ahead of time whether it’s worth investing your best relievers in a particular game.
The offensive equivalent would be if you had the option of deciding in real time when your best hitter will bat rather than having to make out the lineup before the game starts. The bullpen is more like basketball, where the coach can decide who takes the last shot.
Imagine the last seconds of an NBA finals game with Lebron, DWade and Ray Allen on the floor, but Chris “Birdman” Anderson has to take the 3 pointer to tie it up because it’s his turn to shoot.