The Wilson Defensive Players of the Year at each position were named yesterday, and Alex Gordon was deemed the best left fielder in baseball.
Left field: Alex Gordon, Royals (third)Gordon took home his sixth Gold Glove Award and third Defensive Player of the Year honor this season after leading all left fielders with 18 Defensive Runs Saved. He had nine outfield assists, his most since 2013 (17), and his 91 career assists is tied with Colorado’s Gerardo Parra for the most in baseball since ‘10.
Baseball Prospectus prospect team released its top 10 prospects list for the Royals. On top KC prospect Seuly Matias, they said:
The Report: Scouts will often talk about how it “sounds different” when an elite prospect makes contact. Matias may not be an elite prospect yet, but it sounds likes an M-80 when he squares one up. Not coincidentally, that’s also the grade on his raw power projection. Matias has plus bat speed and gets easy extension. The power plays line-to-line when he connects—just ask Justus Sheffield—but he needs to make more contact. His swing isn’t super stiff or overly leveraged and Matias’ pitch recognition is pretty decent for a 19-year-old facing mostly older arms, but he swings hard and he’ll come up empty fairly often. Lucky for him, a 35% strikeout rate isn’t a deal breaker in today’s game.
In the field Matias is an average runner at present and should be an average glove in a corner. He has plenty of arm for right, which is another plus-plus tool in his locker. He projects as your prototypical right field slugger. Matias may only hit .250, but it could come with a shiny OBP and 35 bombs.
The list is behind the paywall, but you should already have a subscription for BP, shouldn’t you?
David Lesky broke down the Royals Statcast leaders on the pitching side of the game:
So here’s what I’m learning. Tim Hill limits good contact pretty well. I was pretty hard on him because I just didn’t see it and a guy who isn’t good against righties should be better than he is against lefties. But he gets an awful lot of weak contact and he’s capable of getting the strikeout. Maybe I’m underestimating him. Also, Keller had a really nice season.
Mandy is now available on Blu-ray. You can buy it at Amazon or your favorite local Blu-ray having spot.
Here is what Royals prospects did in the Arizona Fall League on Wednesday.
If you haven’t decided whether to buy Mandy yet, why not read this glowing review?
At RFR, Drew Osborne catches us up on what the Royals prospects did in the AFL over the past week.
At the Athletic (subscribe and give me Amazon bucks to buy more copies of Mandy), Rustin Dodd looks at trade-bait Whit Merrifield and when the Royals can contend again:
“I’m not declaring that we’re going to win in 2020 — or ’21 or ’22,” Moore said this week in a conversation with The Athletic while attending the annual GM meetings. “I just feel like in 2021, we’re going to be in better position to be more aggressive.
“We’ll have a better feel for the timeline of our players. We’ll know how this current group of Royals has performed.”
In other words, the club is not counting on contention in 2020, yet team officials wish to keep an open mind.
Jeff Sullivan isolates the problem with Bryce Harper’s contract season.
Panos Cosmatos talks about how he found a kinship with composer Jóhann Jóhannsson when scoring would would be Jóhannsson’s final film, Mandy.
Why wouldn’t Nevada have elected a dead pimp to its state senate?
Weed won some more on Tuesday.
It may be a surprise to some of you, but heavy metal was a primary influence for Panos Cosmatos on his visionary film, Mandy.
The song of the day is “Memories” by Jóhann Jóhannsson from the soundtrack of the inimitable masterpiece Mandy.