Royals Rumblings - News for April 4, 2016

Royals Rumblings - News for April 4, 2016

Lucas Duda took issue with the Royals scouting reports on his defense.

"I read something from Kuntz, the third-base coach," Duda said of the Royals’ first-base coach. "He said ‘we’ve got this guy as a DH,’ and again, that’s an opinion. But it’s somebody to me that really doesn’t matter. How many big-league games has that guy played in?" The answer is that before becoming a well-respected coach, Kuntz played 277 games in parts of seven seasons with three different big-league teams. To Duda, the point still stands.

"That opinion has no substance," he said. "It’s a guy talking that coaches third base."

Speaking of Rusty, Lee Judge gets some more pearls of wisdom from the coach.

Sam Mellinger gets the scoop on Jonny Gomes' speech - the one he gave to the team at 3 a.m. following their World Series win.

"Epic stuff," first baseman Eric Hosmer says.

Some of it is similar to what Gomes said two days later after the parade on stage at Union Station while holding an American flag. Other parts were more personal. All of it was laced with certain words we can’t print here, and fueled with the drinks of an adult party. "Unbelievable moment right there," shortstop Alcides Escobar says. "What you heard on stage would be like PG-plus, but at the hotel it was a little different," pitcher Kris Medlen says.

"I have the video of it on my phone," infielder Christian Colon says. Oh, really?

Clark Fosler at Baseball Prospectus Kansas City tries to imagine a full season of Terrance Gore.

All that said, let’s go back to the 52 total pinch running opportunities we had above, through out a few, add in a few for an occasional run for Infante or Moustakas and then take a few off for games that just don’t seem to matter. As the hard data for Gore’s running that we started out with had him on base 16 times in his regular season career, let’s say a full season worth of pinch running might yield 48 appearances. By the numbers, Gore would end up the season being 5.7 runs above average and would compile that in place of players who, for the most part, are decidedly below average on the bases.

John Viril at Kings of Kauffman worries that Wade Davis' velocity drop hints at an injury.

As you can see from the above chart, Wade Davis has lost velocity across the board. According to Brooks Baseball’s tabular data, Davis’ fourseam fastball is down to 93.61 mph from 96.47 last season, his curve registered 81.59 mph this spring down from 84.89 mph in 2016, and his cutter is down to 90.42 mph from 92.71 mph.

I’m hoping that Davis is holding himself back this spring to save himself for the season. But, if he’s not, his lost velocity suggests he won’t be the dominating closer that KC Royals fans have begun to take for granted.

Ned Yost discusses some of the spring surprises.

Mets fan Linda Cohn of ESPN made good on her World Series bet with Royals-fan Jonathan Coachman.

Ranking the Truman Sports Complex parking lots by tailgating prowess.

Salvy and Lorenzo are at it again.

A.J. Pollock fractured his elbow on that slide in the exhibition game against the Royals.

Zack Greinke wasn't a big fan of the Diamondbacks' off-season moves.

The Pirates lock up outfielder Gregory Polanco to a five-year deal.

The Blue Jays sign former Royals reliever Franklin Morales.

The Indians will de-emphasize the Chief Wahoo logo.

Curt Schilling takes issue with Chris Archer's hair.

Richard Linklater's latest film is a love letter to baseball.

Complete coverage of Wrestlemania 32.

FanDuel and DraftKings will no longer operate contests on college sports.

An alien cult wants to build an extraterrestrial embassy in Russia.

Apple's new spaceship campus is coming along nicely.

A massive document leak reveals a global web of corruption.

Your song of the day is the Dropkick Murphy's with "The Boys are Back".