2015 ROYALS—The Cueto Conundrum

September 1, 2015—Tigers

The Royals lose 6-5 and after the game the big question is what the heck’s wrong with Johnny Cueto. In his last three starts Cueto has thrown 17 innings and given up 16 earned runs. If he doesn’t get this figured out pretty soon, the Royals are going to have a serious problem in the playoffs.

During the loss to the Tigers I’m asked if Cueto has abandoned his fastball. Johnny throws 100 pitches, 58 of them are fastballs and even without the aid of a calculator I know that’s pretty close to 58 percent, so I say no.

OK, so how about fastball velocity?

According to Fangraphs, Johnny’s average fastball velocity this season is 92.1 MPH. Of the 58 fastballs Cueto throws, 48 of them are 92-MPH or faster and he tops out at 96, so his velocity’s there.

How about his off-speed stuff?

In his previous two starts Johnny was giving up hits mainly on cutters and changeups, which might make you think his off-speed stuff is the problem, but tonight everything’s getting hit so there’s goes that theory.

After the game Ned Yost says Cueto wasn’t “sharp” for the first few innings and I know the feeling (I’ve spent several decades not feeling “sharp”) but I’m not a Big League pitcher so let’s try and figure out what not being “sharp” means for Johnny Cueto.

And we’ll start with the Yoda of Baseball, Rusty Kuntz.

Before the game Rusty and I talk about watching baseball on TV. When the Royals are on the road I have to watch the games on television, so Rusty asks if I’m focused on the catcher’s mitt or drunk.

“Can’t I be both?”

Personal problems aside, when you watch games on TV you get a very good view of home plate and not much else. That being the case, focus on the catcher’s mitt and how much it moves. That tells you a lot about the pitcher’s control that day. And if the catcher’s mitt moves up or toward the middle of the plate, that’s a bad sign.

(These days a high fastball is a popular pitch because everyone’s trying to hit home runs, which means an uppercut swing and those uppercut swings don’t handle high fastballs real well, so if the catcher sets a high target, his mitt moving down is a bad sign. OK, now let’s get back to 2015.)

Against the Tigers, Salvador Perez’ mitt is moving up and toward the middle of the plate. It didn’t move a lot, but this is the Big Leagues; miss your spot by a few inches and the hitters make you pay. So at least part of Johnny’s problem is missed location.

The next day I talk to Royals pitching coach Dave Eiland about Johnny Cueto and Dave says part of Johnny’s problem is “flying open.”

Here’s what that means in English: when a pitcher throws a ball to home plate, his front shoulder should drive forward in that direction. That keeps the throwing arm on line with home plate and the pitcher’s hand on top of the ball.

That throwing motion is going North-South.

But if a pitcher “flies open” his shoulder is rotating toward first base too soon (assuming the pitcher’s right-handed) instead of moving forward.

Now his throwing motion is going East-West.

When the front side flies open, the throwing arm drops, the hand tends to move to the side of the ball, the pitches flatten out and the pitcher tends to miss location high-and-in on his arm side.

It might be even more complicated than that, but that’s about all my brain can absorb as Dave demonstrates what happens to a pitcher who flies open. It’s fairly complicated so you can see why Ned decides it’s easier to explain Cueto’s ineffectiveness to the media by saying he’s not “sharp.”

To explain what’s actually happening would require a troupe of mimes and a PowerPoint Presentation.

September 2, 2015—Tigers

The Royals beat the Tigers 12-1 and when you’re blowing out another team, the Unwritten Rules of baseball say that you shouldn’t run up the score. But the problem with the Unwritten Rules is that—as the title suggests—they’re Unwritten; nobody’s 1,000 percent sure what they are.

To demonstrate the problem with blowouts, let’s go back to a game in August:

The Royals are playing the Orioles and blow the game open in the sixth inning; they score seven runs and take a five-run lead they never give back.

In that sixth inning Eric Hosmer comes to the plate twice; the first time he doubles and—after his team has scored seven runs—the next time up Hosmer tries to bunt for a hit. Some of the Orioles are yelling at Hosmer which leads some observers to wonder whether Hosmer will get paid back with a fastball in the ribs.

In the clubhouse after the game I ask Eric about bunting in a seven-run inning; the Orioles were still playing a shift on him—the left side of the field was wide open—did that lead Eric to believe it was OK to bunt?

The short answer is yes.

If the other team is going to play a shift, doesn’t the hitter have a right to attack that shift in the best way possible? If the other team is still playing like a hit matters, shouldn’t you play like a hit matters? And it was only the sixth inning; the Orioles had three more innings to score five runs which is not impossible.

The next day I ask Rusty about the situation and here’s his take on it:

The Unwritten Rule states that if you’re up by five runs after seven innings, you don’t run up the score. You still play hard, but you don’t bunt, you don’t steal, you don’t hit and run. The rule is five runs because a Grand Slam is only worth four, so one swing of the bat can’t tie the game.

OK, got it.

But keep talking (and me and Rusty almost always keep talking) and you find out the Unwritten Blowout Rule has more addendums and sub-clauses than your average tax legislation.

The “after-the-seventh-inning-five-run-lead-rule” goes out the window if you’re playing in certain ballparks: Fenway, Coors Field or Wrigley—especially when the wind is blowing out—all those places allow teams to score runs in bunches.

You can also forget the rule if you’re short in the bullpen; if the Royals don’t have Herrera, Davis and Holland available to hold a lead, it might be OK to tack on a couple more runs.

And things can get even more complicated than that.

Let’s say your team is up by five runs and you’re standing on first base. The other team decides to play their first baseman back on the grass to give him more range; they just want outs. If you don’t steal second base—a base that’s being offered to you on a dirt platter—and somehow the other team comes back and makes the game close?

Now you’re the one in trouble; you got soft and the other team took advantage. And if you’re going to have anyone pissed off at you, make it the other team; you don’t have to take showers or share meals or fly home with them.

The baseball solution to this situation is a compromise: if the defense doesn’t want the runner stealing second base, they have to give him an excuse for not running—keep him close to first base. The first baseman shouldn’t play all the way back on the grass. He can play behind the runner, but he needs to play close enough to first base so the runner has an excuse for not running.

If you’re confused, congratulations, you have an accurate picture of the situation.

We just looked at one situation and the ins-and-outs of what you can and cannot do get complicated. And since nobody has written this stuff down and different players and teams can interpret situations in different ways, it’s easy to see how disputes arise.

Now let’s talk about numbers and money.

When your team scores 12 runs it’s a great chance to put up numbers: the opposing manager isn’t going to waste his best relievers on a game he’s losing by a dozen runs, so he’ll drag some long-reliever out of the bullpen to take a beating.

Ballplayers get paid for the numbers they put up and at the end of the year nobody remembers that four of a player’s RBIs came in a blowout. So asking a team to be nice and back off when there’s blood (and money) in the water goes against the grain. Blowouts provide ballplayers a great chance to put up the numbers they’re going to need when it’s time to negotiate.

If you’re still trying to win—and no player will ever admit he gave up—the opposing players should do everything in their power to keep you from winning. In 2001 the Cleveland Indians were getting beat 14-2 by the Seattle Mariners, but came back and won the game 15-14 in 11 innings. So overcoming a big deficit can happen and you shouldn’t expect your opponent to play like it can’t.

Bottom line: This is professional baseball and if you don’t like getting your ass beat, play better.

Kendrys Morales—2015

Former Royal Billy Butler was often described as a fan favorite, but you don’t hear his name much anymore. I’m in the Kansas City Star’s newsroom and ask an editor the last time he’d heard anyone say Billy’s name. A reporter sitting nearby pipes up and says her husband had mentioned Billy just the night before:

He said: “Billy who?”

That’ll happen when your replacement has the kind of year Kendrys Morales is having.

• Kendrys Morales is hitting .293 and has 99 RBIs. Kendrys will reach 100 RBIs unless he gets hit by a meteor.

• Billy Butler, on the other hand, is out in Oakland hitting .247 and the next RBI he gets will be his 51^st.

September 6, 2015—White Sox

In the Old Days one-by-one reporters tracked down the manager whenever they could find him and asked whatever questions they had. Baseball teams have since gotten a lot smarter and hold a pre-game press conference with the manager so he only has to answer the same dumb questions once. Ned Yost usually holds his pre-game conference in the dugout, but on Sundays Ned does it in his office.

On this Sunday morning we all trudge into Ned’s office and stare at him while we try to think of some intelligent question to ask. Ned does not suffer fools and/or reporters gladly, so if you ask a question, you want to make it a good one. The office is crammed with media, but only three reporters speak up.

To be fair, everybody’s working at less than full capacity on Sunday mornings.

Teams play every Saturday night so every Sunday morning everybody is short of sleep. And if you don’t have anything smart to ask, you count on other reporters to do the questioning. But when everyone is running on fumes and decides to let someone else ask the questions, it can get pretty quiet—and embarrassing.

Ned stares at us like he’s wondering why the hell his office is filled with people who have nothing to ask, when a reporter asks about Johnny Cueto’s mechanical problems.

The current theory is Cueto has struggled because he’s opening up, so I pipe up and ask Ned if Johnny’s success in the last two innings of his last start indicate he has the problem fixed. Ned says yes and also says the adjustment has carried over to Johnny’s side sessions; he looks good in those as well.

Then the game starts and Johnny faces five batters before he gets an out.

Johnny strikes out the final two batters of the first inning, but once again, his command is not great. Pitches are up in the zone and missing location. Cueto only gets through three innings, allows five runs to score and takes another loss.

Big League managers also do a post-game interview and after Sunday’s game Ned Yost is once again questioned about Cueto. Ned says Johnny is physically fine; there’s no issue with his shoulder, elbow, legs or back. Ned is asked to identify his level of concern about Cueto and Ned says: “None.”

On the other hand, managers tend to minimize problems so Johnny’s head could explode and Ned would probably say the trainers are looking at it and they’ve got some super glue and duct tape and he expects Johnny to make his next start.

Ned is asked about Cueto’s mechanics (me again) and Ned says Johnny’s mechanics are just fine. So if Johnny’s not injured and his mechanics are fine, why is he getting hit?

Ned explains it this way: “He’s just not throwing the ball well.”

Thanks for clearing that up.

Once Ned Yost finishes his post-game press conference all the reporters march over to the clubhouse to talk to the players. After a loss, players are unhappy and would rather not talk to us. They’d also rather not to talk to us after a win, but after a loss they really don’t feel like talking.

If that sounds unprofessional think about it this way: let’s say every time you had a bad day at work, a group of reporters gathered around your desk and asked about it.

• “Why do you think you were so bad today?”

• “What did you do wrong?”

• “Are you disappointed that you let your company down?”

Now let’s say that you’re in a business where even the best workers fail 40 percent of the time. (Even great teams lose about four-out-of-ten ballgames.) It wouldn’t take long for you to get sick of answering the same questions about bad days.

And what if you were asked about a co-worker?

• “Hey, Joe had a real bad day; how concerned are you about Joe dragging the company down?”

Any co-worker worth a damn would not throw Joe under the bus. A good co-worker knows that next time he might be the one who has a bad day and he doesn’t want Joe talking shit about him when that happens.

So when reporters ask Ned Yost or Royals players about Johnny Cueto and are they concerned about him hurting the team, the players think those questions are dumb: there’s only one way to answer them—be supportive—and anyone who knows his way around a clubhouse would not expect a manager or player to publicly criticize a teammate.

(As you may have already noticed this is not Johnny Cueto. If I’m not mistaken—and I often am—it’s NBA player Manu Ginobili, but it gives you an idea of what locker room interviews look like.)

After every game reporters gather around the starting pitcher’s locker to ask questions and write down quotes. The loss to the White Sox is no exception; we all gather around Johnny Cueto’s locker.

The only thing missing is Johnny Cueto.

Johnny comes walking up, but can’t get to his locker because we’ve formed a human barricade around it. Reporters scramble for a good position, especially the TV people because they want a clear camera shot of the current victim. TV camera men think nothing of pushing and shoving their way to the front of the crowd, so when one of them walks into a wall while shooting video, we all enjoy it immensely.

But us print guys aren’t much better; in our haste to establish and defend our territory, we’ve blocked out the guy we need to talk to. We have to be asked to move so Johnny can get to his locker and nobody wants to give up his or her position.

(And reporters wonder why players think we’re dumb.)

Once Johnny is in position we start firing questions at him and Royals coach Pedro Grifol interprets Johnny’s answers. Through Pedro, Johnny says he feels fine and has no physical issues. Johnny is then asked about mechanical issues and says he has none.

I tend to wait until the press conference is breaking up to ask my questions because my questions are often somewhat technical and will take some explaining by the player. Everybody else is on deadline and I try not to slow down the other reporters. They don’t need to hear a long conversation about the intricacies of a double steal or the difference between a suicide and safety squeeze or—in this case—a front shoulder flying open.

When Johnny was asked a general question about his mechanics he said he had no issues; but when I ask a specific question about his front shoulder flying open, he nods and admits that’s part of the problem. The other reporters are peeling off to talk to other players while Johnny and I stand there and talk about his stubborn front shoulder.

I ask about his side sessions and say I’d heard they were good. Johnny says they were, but when the game starts the problem shows up again and he isn’t sure why. I ask if adrenaline has anything to do with it and Johnny shrugs and doesn’t answer. On the other hand, I don’t know the Spanish word for adrenaline, so that might be my fault. (Turns out, it’s “adrenalina”—you’d think I could figure that out without Spanish lessons.)

In any case, Johnny says he’s never struggled with flying open before, so fixing it is a bit of a mystery. I say at least he has a month to figure it out, but Johnny’s a starting pitcher so he actually has only five more games to get his shit together.

Some Royals fans—who have never thrown a pitch in their lives—say Johnny needs to miss a start, but if what Johnny is saying is true, and there’s no reason to think that it isn’t, he needs to pitch and pitch in games to get this problem fixed.

He isn’t going to fix it sitting on the bench.

Next Up: A Big League catcher’s Jedi Mind Tricks.