SURPRISE, Ariz. — Bill Pecota was a 10th-round pick of the Royals in the 1981 draft, made his major league debut for Kansas City and played a utility infield role there off and on through 1991, with a couple of truly solid seasons at the end of his tenure in western Missouri before being traded to the Mets.
PECOTA is an acronym for Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm, and while those words were put together to name Baseball Prospectus’ projection system as an homage to Pecota, who might be fondly remembered by Royals rooters, there is no love lost for PECOTA in Kansas City.