Royals Rumblings

Royals Rumblings - News for July 13, 2016

Pokemon Go to rule us all.

By Max Rieper@maxrieper Jul 13, 2016, 8:00am EDT

Royals Rumblings - News for July 13, 2016

Sam Mellinger predicts what the Royals will do at the trade deadline.

Assuming things stay relatively steady, my guess is they’ll add something relatively small. They don’t have the pieces to add anything big — Cueto or Ben Zobrist type moves — and they don’t have the motivation to sell anything big. If they’re out of it at the deadline, they could trade one of the probable free agents — Kendrys Morales, Edison Volquez, Luke Hochevar, or Kris Medlen.

I haven’t gone through the other contenders to see what they need, but lots of teams could use a bat (Morales), a veteran starter (Volquez), or a bullpen arm (Hoch). I would be surprised if the Royals moved anyone if they were within eyesight of the playoffs, if only because two years ago they were in such a similar situation — middle of the AL pack, and a more tradeable piece in James Shields, plus the injury to Hosmer weighed on the team — and ended up in the World Series.

Darin Watson at Baseball Prospectus Kansas City mulls over the Royals' options at the trade deadline.

Then there’s the "go for it" option. Normally, I would be on board with this....

This year, I have my doubts. For one thing, I’m not sold on this team being a playoff team. Certainly, they are "in the hunt" for a wild-card spot, at least. And yes, if they got to the playoffs, I think they’d be dangerous, for the same reasons they were successful in the postseason the last two years. But they are fighting with eight teams for two wild-card spots. Frankly, I’m not convinced the Royals are better than Boston or Toronto (or Baltimore, currently leading the AL East by a slim margin over those two). But for the sake of argument, let’s say that those eight teams are all roughly equal. That means a 25% chance of getting into a one-game playoff, which is basically a 50% chance of advancing to the next round. By my math, that’s a 12.5% chance of making it to the "real" playoffs. Is that worth giving up Raul Mondesi or Jorge Bonifacio? I don’t think it is.

The Royals have been looking at A's outfielder Josh Reddick.

Reddick is drawing plenty of trade interest, with the Royals, in particular, following him closely. Others to have scouted him include the Giants, Cubs, Dodgers, Blue Jays and Nationals, along with a handful of non-contenders looking at him as a free-agent option for next season. Reddick has been slow returning from a fractured left thumb, batting .209 with a triple, two RBIs and five walks in 11 games. But he still makes his presence felt in numerous ways, including with his defense and hustle.

John Viril at Kings of Kauffman thinks the starting pitching trade market is overpriced.

According to Crasnik, teams want to offer bottom of the rotation options when teams want guys that can help win playoff games. While a good no. 4 or no. 5 starter would actually help the KC Royals, it probably wouldn’t be enough to help them run down the Cleveland Indians in the AL Central—who hold a 7.0 lead over Kansas City. With the Kansas City Royals depleting their prospect depth by dealing five left-handed pitchers in deadline deals last season, the front office is likely to get out-gunned by prospect rich shoppers like the Chicago Cubs or Los Angeles Dodgers.

Pete Grathoff takes a look back at Eric Hosmer and Salvador Perez over the years.

Slugerrr trolls Mr. Met.

Rusty Kuntz likes the All-Star Game uniforms.

A local man is keeping alive the memory of the women's professional baseball league at All-Star week.

Why is the National League developing more young stars?

The Tenors apologize for changing the lyrics of the Canadian national anthem to say "All Lives Matter."

Commissioner Rob Manfred talks about the state of the game, including expansion and the fight to raise minor league wages.

MLB is abandoning their efforts to play games in London next year.

Who are the "out of nowhere" All-Stars for this year?

The top ten hits in All-Star game history.

Joe Paterno new about Jerry Sandusky’s sex crime allegations as far back as 1976, according to new court documents.

The NFL may be playing a game in China in 2018.