clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Royals Rumblings - News for June 6, 2014

By Max Rieper

If you buy something from an SB Nation link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

Royals Rumblings - News for June 6, 2014

As assembled by Royals Review Staff:

In case you missed it, the first and second round of the draft was last night. With the 17th pick, the Royals selected left-handed pitcher Brandon Finnegan of TCU. Finnegan is focused on getting to Omaha, but not to be a Stormchaser, but to get to the College World Series.

I don't know if you've noticed, but Alex Gordon is on a tear lately. LET'S HIT HIM FIFTH. Hunter Samuels of Kings of Kauffman takes a look at the new Alex Gordon.

Who is not on a tear? Eric Hosmer. Ned tries to defend his use of Hosmer in the third spot of the batting order:

"It’s a big deal to the people who want to talk about stuff," he said. "It doesn’t make that big of a deal on the context of the game." He added, "It doesn’t change things. It doesn’t all of a sudden make something happen."

Yost was not always this assured. As a coach on Bobby Cox’s Atlanta staff in the 1990s, he received some advice. "Somebody was really struggling, like Hoz was struggling, for 11, 12 days," Yost said. "And I said, ‘Bobby, when do you move a player down?’ He goes, ‘What I do, when I’m thinking about moving a player down,’ he goes, ‘I get to that point, and I wait another week.’"

Danny Duffy was on "Intentional Talk" on MLB Network. GNAR!

Royals minor leaguer Marten Gasparini, a 17-year old out of Italy, was featured in Baseball America.

"Here you get to face 90 miles per hour every day," Gasparini said, "which is not something you get in Europe. (Same thing with) all the breaking pitches and changeups. "The pitchers’ command is so much different here in the U.S. than in Europe."

Brian McRae was on 810 to give his thoughts on what impact a new hitting coach might have on the Royals:

"Anytime you have a change you have a period of some good results. Number one, this team wasn’t that bad. Maybe there was just an overload of information there with Pedro Grifol. Sometimes less is more. Sometimes coaches get a little too crazy with it and they try to do too much. … I still think they can win 84 games."

Aaron Stilley at Royals Authority takes a look around at the pitching in the AL Central.

Who's driving this bus?

RIP Don Zimmer. The Royals were just one of sixteen teams Zimmer never worked for.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are sort of our small market loser brother-in-arms, only they've made the playoffs in recent history. Jonah Keri of Grantland asks whether their penny-pinching ways have brought them back to irrelevance.

Gagnam-Style surpassed 2 billion views on Youtube this week. The Economist looks at what we could have built with all that time spent watching Psy. Heck, you could have built an 86-win baseball team in that time!

Who has the best Value over Replacement Burrito in Kansas City?

By request, your song of the day is Rage Against the Machine brought to you by Dayton Moore's alma mater.

More From Royals Review