Royals Rumblings

Royals Rumblings - News for February 25, 2016

Salvy's agent says 50/50 chance on a new deal?

By Max Rieper@maxrieper Feb 25, 2016, 8:00am EST

Royals Rumblings - News for February 25, 2016

Sam Mellinger says negotiations with Salvador Perez are picking up.

"I want to be George Brett," Perez says. "I want to be like Frank White, like Alex Gordon. One of those guys. Because this team gave me the opportunity to play in the big leagues."

Negotiations are impossible to predict, but there is an openness from the team’s side that didn’t exist before. As an organization, the Royals credit much of their success to a relentlessly supportive culture for their players, and rewriting a lopsided contract for one of their most important players would be a tangible and undeniable sign of their commitment to maintaining that. Rafa Nieves, Perez’s agent, said that "there’s been some movement" and he has "a 50-50 feeling" that a new deal will be done by opening day.

Pete Grathoff at the Star takes a look back at the much-heralded Royals farm system from 2011 with J.J. Cooper of Baseball America.

"The list, looking a few years back on it, I think it holds up," Cooper said by phone. "Obviously, it took them a little while, and there was some ups and downs there. Always going to have regrets; I regret that Salvador Perez isn’t on that top 100. He moved so quickly. We thought he was pretty good, but we had no idea that he was this good, especially this good this fast.

"The other thing that stood out at the time was they had those guys and they had Alcides Escobar and Lorenzo Cain, who they acquired, who were not prospects but were. They didn’t qualify to be prospects because they had too many at-bats at the big-league level, but they weren’t in the sense big-leaguers, either. "What really stood out about the Royals club is they had so many guys who all arrived at the same time."

The Royals insist they are looking to win past 2017.

"We fully expect to sign as many of our players that we currently have on our team to long-term contracts," Moore said. "We anticipate that happening as we go forward. Will we get them all? Time will tell. "We've had success keeping our homegrown players. Alex Gordon is a guy we've signed twice now to multiyear deals. We'll do our best to keep as many of our players here."

The Royals also believe that even if some of their players leave for better deals, they will have younger players to take their place.

Sam Mellinger defends PECOTA.

The level of sports-righteousness that follows the PECOTA projections, for instance, is completely silly. PECOTA is a good system, an interesting one, but like all attempts at predicting the future remains flawed. One of the more obvious flaws happens to center around the Royals, and no matter how much the people in charge of Baseball Prospectus acknowledge those flaws, people in and around the Royals are going to dismiss the whole thing.

Which is understandable, and predictable, and fine. But I don’t think that makes PECOTA any less interesting or worthy of consideration than other projections, even and perhaps especially compared to predictions made by humans — predictions that are clouded by bias, or groupthink, or a need to stick out from the pack.

Mellinger also recounts the time Ned Yost told owner David Glass not to watch his terrible team.

Jose Martinez is psyched about his first big league camp.

"Guys were asking me, 'Bro, what did you do?'" Martinez said. "I would just say, 'I don't even know.' It was pretty good. Obviously, it was the best year of my career. Hopefully, it will help me get to the big leagues.

"It seemed every ball was getting to the outfield and falling in or getting through the infield. It won't happen all the time like that, but if you keep the same mental approach, then good things will happen."

Mike Moustakas is going to try to continue hitting the ball the other way.

Episode 1 of the Star's video series Becoming Royal.

Governor Sam Brownback got his picture taken with the World Series trophy.

The @Royals' World Series trophy crisscrossed KS in its multi-state tour. Glad to catch it at @WashburnUniv! #ksleg pic.twitter.com/KuNvYykjZG
— Sam Brownback (@govsambrownback) February 24, 2016