Royals Rumblings - News for August 11, 2017

The picture and the song of the day both involve Animal Crossing. We could all use some happy, furry (maybe aquatic) animals in our lives.

If you missed the news yesterday, Trevor Cahill is going on the DL, Kevin McCarthy called up, and Jake Junis will likely start Monday

The Royals will play an exhibition game in Omaha next spring.

Kansas City announced Thursday it will play an exhibition game at Werner Park -- home to the Storm Chasers -- on March 26. It's the first time the teams have played against each other since 2000

Should there be a trophy for the I-70 series winner?

*Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: The Royals already have the original trophy given to the winner of the first I-70 Series: the 1985 World Series

Dale Sveum and Alex Gordon are tinkering with the benched franchise player’s swing.

He took the first steps during a prolonged session in the batting cages Tuesday night, working with hitting coach Dale Sveum on some adjustments. Gordon refused to discuss what they were trying to accomplish, but the swing that once made him a three-time All-Star is clearly flawed.

Kings of Kauffman's Alex Duvall suggests Jake Junis should replace Trevor Cahill in the rotation

The problem is that when Trevor Cahill has started a game away from Petco Park, he’s allowed 33 ER in 47 IP. Good for an ERA of 6.32. This was a concern I expressed when the Kansas City Royals acquired Cahill.

I believe he’s far more valuable out of the bullpen than he is in the rotation. I have no idea why he can’t pitch outside of Petco Park but he certainly does not deserve another start for KC... Jakob Junis does.

BP Kansas City's Hunter Samuels looks at how often the Royals swing at 3-0 pitches compared to the rest of baseball (hint: it's a lot): "The Royals are not only number one, they’re lapping the field. "

Some Royals players talked to the Kansas City Star’s Pete Grathoff about why they chose their nicknames for Players Weekend.

More about Players Weekend from SBNation:

• These 58 MLB players won't have a nickname on their jerseys because they hate fun
• The greatest and most disappointing MLB Players Weekend nicknames, ranked

The Cleveland Indians pick up Jay Bruce from Mets for the low price of an A ball pitcher.

There was talk before the deadline that Cleveland would have interest in Bruce. That seems all the more necessary now, with Michael Brantley joining Lonnie Chisenhall on the DL and the Royals continuing to hang around in the AL Central.

Dave Cameron at Fangraphs also wrote about the “trade”.

The Rangers took out a full page ad in the Dallas Morning News to thank Yu Darvish for his time with the team.

Update on the Marlins sale: Jeb Bush’s group out; Derek Jeter’s group probably behind Miami businessman Jorge Mas’s group.

The Rally Zoo animals are not the only ones unhappy with Photobucket’s new policy against free third party hosting.

This story seems to be making the rounds on social media again. It usually has a title like “World Renowned Heart Surgeon Speaks Out On What Really Causes Heart Disease”. There also seem to be a number of stories not really disputing all the findings but making sure you are aware he’s trying to sell something with this.

The thing is, like so many viral posts, this is a rerun. It's an old one. That's fine, except that learning it makes the "Today is the day" framing feel disingenuous. Lundell's same confession was also very popular when it was published on the website Prevent Disease in 2012. At that time it openly included a plug for his book, The Cure for Heart Disease, which made the same argument. That was published in 2007.

Like a lot of nutritional science, there are probably some true elements, some half truths, some fabrications, and a lot we just don’t know. Although another thing that I always think about with stories like these is how easy it is to slime a person these days, whether it’s true or not (in this case, looks like it probably is).

I feel like I’ve posted a few too many stories about AI, but this story is pretty fun and led to some out of control reporting about how Facebook shut down Skynet or whatnot.

But in a game of content telephone not all that different from what the chat bots were doing, this story evolved from a measured look at the potential short-term implications of machine learning technology to thinly veiled doomsaying.

I don’t think this story is a rerun, but if we have, well, it’s Take Out the Trash Friday! While a lot of “kids these days” articles talk about how the avocado toast generation is ruining America, this article from the Atlantic looks at how smartphones are significantly altering the current “iGen”, using generational surveys.

Summer colds are the worst. After talking about it one of the game threads this week, I went to figure out why. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a very satisfying answer: “the reason why summer colds are so insufferable may be more psychological.”

Some reddit power users are taking over previously controversial and offensive forums.

When you click on “WHITE POWER,” it shows a 136 kilowatt power generator. That power generator is white. The post below it, titled “Why whites must be separated from blacks,” is about laundry. On WhitePolitics, according to a stickied post on the site, “racism is now banned,” and it is now a place to “hail the greatest of whites, Swiss Coffee!”

In local news, Tuesday was not a good day for Kansas City streetcar advocates.

Netflix series “Ozark” is being filmed in Georgia due to tax credits.

With no real segue, we’re onto the song of the day. Currently, I work in a cubicle hell. It wasn’t always this way but that’s how it is now and I have a lot of loud coworkers. One of the greatest investments I’ve made is on some Bose QC35 headphones. And the thing I listen to most during the day is the Animal Crossing soundtrack.

Animal Crossing came out before its time - it’s a social media game before social media or cell phone gaming existed. The first (of four) in the series was released for the Gamecube back in 2001. For the uninitiated, you build your own town doing fun and relaxing activities: catch things for your museum like fish and bugs, collect furniture for your home, plant trees and landscape, talk to other NPC villagers, and, generally, waste time (or it’s an Orwellian slave camp simulation).

The game works off of the system’s real time clock. So when it’s nighttime in real life, it’s nighttime in the game. If it’s summer in real life, it’s summer in the game. If it’s nighttime and summer in the game, you can catch bugs that you would find at that time like fireflies. Similarly, to vary up moods in the game, there is different music for each hour - softer at night, peppy in the morning, leisurely in the afternoon. At the top of every hour, the music changes to the next track. If you want to check out what the current song, based on your computer time, there’s even a site for that. Many on YouTube have created extended “videos” of the songs so you can listen for 30 minutes or an hour at a time and even compiled playlists of entire song days. Conceivably, one could even download the audio off of those, create a playlist on iTunes, and just pick a random spot each day.

Honestly, I had a hard time picking one since they’re pretty distinctive tunes. I went with the infamous 1pm “catting” hour.

But could have just as easily gone with a random 2am peppy dance mix, something that feels like the 8am start of a busy day, or something quiet for the evening.

These last couple of weeks have been a bummer. Let’s hope the Royals start a fresh new winning streak tonight.