Weekend Rumblings - News for October 14, 2017

Weekend Rumblings - News for October 14, 2017

Jeffrey Flanagan answers whether there are any future closers in the Royals’ system.

Probably not anyone who is ready by 2018. But the Royals do love the rapid progress of left-handed prospect Richard Lovelady (Royals' No. 24 prospect, per MLB Pipeline). Lovelady had a combined 1.62 ERA in 42 relief appearances between Class A and Double-A in 2017. He's got a plus-plus fastball and good breaking stuff. The best solution for the closer's role would be re-signing Minor, who was 6-for-6 in save chances when he got the role in mid-September. Funny how the entire back of the bullpen fell into place once Minor took over the closer's role. The problem is, every scout in baseball saw the same thing we did with Minor, and he will get paid.

David Lesky at Baseball Prospectus considers that bringing back free agents would cost the Royals valuable draft picks.

If you want to look at a way the Royals can attempt to be competitive while also rebuilding the system, it would actually make sense to sign guys who are maybe more of the stopgap variety for first and third, and take the picks/money for the guys leaving. So if they go out there and sign Yonder Alonso and Todd Frazier, they won’t get quite the production of Hosmer and Moustakas, but it wouldn’t be that far off in all likelihood and they’d be able to rebuild the system through the draft with all that money and in the international market after they lose their restrictions on July 2.

Jim Callis at MLB.com thinks the Royals’ 2017 draft class has the potential to be their best class in a decade, heaping praise on M.J. Melendez.

Signed for a well over slot $2,097,500, Melendez batted .262/.374/.417 in 47 games in the Rookie-level Arizona League. He threw out 26 percent of basestealers, while the other catchers on the AZL Royals nabbed just 17 percent.

"His defensive talent stands out with his arm strength, agility and athleticism behind the plate," Royals farm director Ronnie Richardson said. "His offense is going to take some time, but his power numbers in the Arizona League were impressive. We're very happy with the progress he's made with our catching coordinator, J.C. Boscan. He takes pride in his catching and he embraces that."

Lee Judge looks at how playing in Kauffman Stadium benefits Lorenzo Cain.

Could the Blue Jays be interested in Cain?

Justin Jones at Kings of Kauffman thinks the city needs more mass transit to make a downtown stadium work.

A Brewers blog proposes a Whit Merrifield trade with Milwaukee.

The Nationals are an underrated owner of sadness, writes Grant Brisbee.

How do we create more action in the game of baseball?

MLB needs to fix the replay rules on slides.

Rockies pitcher Greg Holland will decline his player option. Or will he? He will.

Why did the Red Sox fire John Farrell?

Former Royals catcher Dusty Wathan is a candidate to manage the Phillies.

Jeffrey Loria isn’t a fan of Derek Jeter’s early moves.

An Indians fan wants to raise money to remove his “racist” tattoo of their logo.

Kansas will play Missouri in basketball in an exhibition game for charity.

Why North Carolina avoided punishment from an NCAA investigation.

Cities aren’t quite prepared for self-driving cars.

Anthony Bourdain thinks Yelp is bad for chefs and restaurants.

People were tossing pizzas on a house in Albuquerque in tribute to Breaking Bad, so a fence was built.

Your song of the day is Dexter Gordon with Shiny Stockings.