Royals Rumblings - News for January 18, 2017

Royals Rumblings - News for January 18, 2017

Sam Mellinger has mixed feelings abou the Royals’ offseason.

This is an awkward offseason, because David Glass has gone shortsighted and cheap, demanding both a lower payroll and a better team, which is sort of like telling your personal trainer you want to eat wings for dinner every night and still lose weight.

I believe this is a fool’s errand. I believe Glass should’ve bumped payroll one more year, then used the next few years of lower payouts to build the farm system and create another wave.

That’s not the path Glass and Moore have chosen, and again, I believe this is a mistake, but if you’re going to go down this path, trading for Jorge Soler and Nate Karns, and signing Duffy to a club-friendly contract extension is exactly how you do it.

I do understand and appreciate what the Royals are trying to do. If I can use a cross-sport analogy, my route is like working as much of the shot clock as you need to get the best look at the basket. The Royals’ strategy is like getting more shots up.

But ESPN’s Buster Olney approves of the strategy. (INSIDER)

Moore is doing the right thing by beginning the process this offseason, because if the Royals waited to do all of their business in midsummer -- executing a big wave of trades and signings -- they would run a heightened risk of making mistakes and squandering value.

Mike Petriello thinks Danny Duffy reminds him of Carlos Carrasco.

Let's look at the difference between strikeout rate and walk rate, and see who had the biggest step forward. It boils down to "more strikeouts are good, fewer walks are also good and the difference between the two tells you something about a pitcher." The fact that Duffy leads this list isn't the impressive part. It's that he leads it by twice as much over one of baseball's true aces.

Duffy increased his whiff rate from 17.4 percent to 25.7 percent, basically going from "Jimmy Nelson and Colin Rea" to "Chris Sale and Jon Gray." He cut his walk rate from nine percent to 5.8 percent, going from "Edinson Volquez and Shelby Miller" to "Noah Syndergaard and Kyle Hendricks." If that sounds impressive, well, it is.

David Lesky at Baseball Prospectus Kansas City sees any number of possibilites for the 2017 Royals.

Maybe I’m just too close to the Royals and every team has these issues. I don’t know. Maybe this is one of the problems of trying to do it with a fully ensemble cast. You can’t look at any one player on this team and know what you’re going to get (well that may not be true because we have a pretty good idea of what Alcides Escobar is ). With that, there’s plenty of variance in performances. I think it’s partially one of the reasons projection systems aren’t too keen on the Royals year in and year out. Maybe I’m on an island here, but I look at how the 2017 Royals are shaping up and I see a team that could win 95+ games again. Then I look a different way and I see a team that could lose 85+ games. I guess we’ll have to do one of the hardest things in the world and wait to find out.

Danny Duffy opened up about leaving the game of baseball early in his career.

South Side Sox says the Royals are trying to keep the Indians honest in the Central.

Tragic news - Edinson Volquez’s brother is stabbed to death.

Here is Whit Merrifield lifting 500 pounds.

The Rangers sign Dillon Gee to a minor league deal.

Daniel Stumpf, selected from the Royals in the Rule 5 draft, is ready to make the Tigers roster.

Jose Bautista returns to the Blue Jays on a one-year deal.

Carl Crawford may be ready to retire, leaving more time for his antiquarian bookstore.

Alex Rodriguez will have a reality show coaching athletes who have lost their money.

A Hall of Fame voter tried to abstain, but submitted a blank ballot instead.

Jayson Stark thinks transparency will improve Hall of Fame voting.

There has been far less franchise relocation in MLB than the NFL.

Joel Embiid is a historically good rookie.

A PED lawsuit may challenge the legitimacy of Ultimate Fighting.

In honor of Vine closing down, here are the best sports Vines.

In Switzerland, you can be denied citizenship for being too annoying.

Will Hollywood learn from the success of Hidden Figures?

Super Mario in the real world might be too real.

Your song of the day is The Jackson Five with I Want You Back.