Sports – Royals Trade Dotel for Davies

The Salary number is a little rough, but for approximately $2.5 million, the Kansas City Royals got this from Octavio Dotel:

23 Innings Pitched
11 Saves
29 Strike Outs
3.94 ERA
Kyle Davies from the Braves

Who is Kyle Davies? There are two ways to answer this questions. First, with the quick and dirty stats: 4-8 record, 5.76 ERA, 6 strikeouts a game (decent), 4.4 walks (not good).

The other answer is simply “a right-handed version of Jorge De la Rosa.”

To illustrate, I’m going to use a favorite stat called “Game Score.”

From Baseball-Reference.com:
“This is a value created by Bill James that evaluates how good a pitcher’s start was. Start with 50 points. Add 1 point for each out recorded, (or 3 points per inning). Add 2 points for each inning completed after the 4th. Add 1 point for each strikeout. Subtract 2 points for each hit allowed. Subtract 4 points for each earned run allowed. Subtract 2 points for each unearned run allowed. Subtract 1 point for each walk.”

The idea is that 50 is average, above 50 is a good start and below 50 is a bad start.

In descending order, here are the game scores for Davies and De la Rosa this season:

       De la
Davies Rosa
67     73
64     69
63     68
62     67
62     64
58     55
50     55
41     52
40     49
39     44
39     44
35     39
35     39
29     35
26     30
24     23
15     20
       13
       10
AVERAGE
44     45

For what it’s worth, Davies is also about 3 years younger than De la Rosa and at 23, has plenty of potential left in his arm.

Like De la Rosa, it all comes down to control. If the Royals coaching staff can manage to keep the new guy around the plate, he has the potential to be a strong contributer to the team.