Weekend Rumblings - News for May 12, 2018

Weekend Rumblings - News for May 12, 2018

Over at the Kansas City Star, Sam Mellinger wrote an interesting column detailing how Cardinals slugger Jose Martinez went from AAAA to the middle of the Cardinals order.

Salvador Perez was the Royals’ star catcher, of course, and Drew Butera a comfortable backup. But if one of them got hurt, the Royals didn’t have anyone they could trust to catch in the big leagues. Moore and his assistants liked Tony Cruz, the Cardinals’ backup who happened to be the cousin of Royals executive Rene Francisco.

So the Royals called the Cardinals.

”This is weird to say,” Cardinals GM Mike Girsch remembers telling a Royals assistant, “but we’d consider Cruz for either of your Jose Martinezes.”

Yes, the Royals had two.

In his weekly Friday Notes, David Lesky details how important Salvador Perez has been to the Royals offense.

It has been so nice to see Salvador Perez back in the lineup over the last two and a half weeks, and has helped to turn the offense into what I thought it would be when the season began. He’s hitting .288/.319/.515 with four homers and 13 RBI, which is very good, but more importantly, he’s helped to lengthen the lineup and put hitters in a more appropriate spot for them. Since he’s been back, the team has hit .279/.341/.434 and they’ve averaged 4.8 runs per game. Of course this isn’t all Salvy’s doing, but when you combine his return with Jorge Soler going nuts, I now feel a lot better for believing that this offense could be better than people believed it would be. If the Royals can keep him rested, maybe just maybe he can keep up some semblance of this offense without falling off in the second half. If he’s going to be hanging around for long enough to see the next good Royals team, there’s no reason for him to be behind the plate too often, so we’ll see how that goes as the season progresses.

Jon Heyman takes some guesses on where the top trade candidates might end up later this summer.

5. Kelvin Herrera, Royals RP. One of the game’s best closers may not be as well-known as some other relief stars, but he’s proven in big spots, including the postseason. The Astros look like they could use a boost in the bullpen. Best bet: Astros. Others: Angels, Blue Jays, Nationals.

Jumping over the FanSided Network, Leigh Oleszczak of KC Kingdom thinks the Royals need to ride with Eric Skoglund in the rotation.

Worse case scenario, the Royals work some of that 2014-2017 magic where they convert him into a dominant reliever. You know, the whole “failed starter to reliever” area that they’ve excelled in under Dayton Moore.

With much to do with the Royals, Jeff Sullivan examines how the AL Central has been uncommonly bad.

This year’s AL Central, combined, has won just under 40% of its games. The next-worst division won just under 44% of its games. The worst full-season division won just over 45% of its games. When the 1994 season ended early, the AL West was led by the 52-62 Rangers. As far as the 2002 AL Central is concerned, the Twins won 94 games, but two teams lost 100 or more. Obviously, it’s not fair to compare 2018’s partial season to all these other full ones. There’s regression to look forward to, along with a bunch more intra-divisional games that always pull the division toward .500. But the purpose of the table is to establish some context. Yes, there’s a lot of baseball to play. But if something like this performance were to keep up, then the AL Central would be historically bad.

In his return to Pittsburgh, Pirates fans gave Andrew McCutchen a warm welcome back.

Jim Callis put out another mock draft, pinning a Georgia prep righty to the Royals.

Early NFL odds have the Chiefs hovering around eight wins.

Jumping to the NBA, the Toronto Raptors fired head coach Dwayne Casey.

At ESPN dot com, Jordan Raanan writes about the crazy underworld of NFL undrafted free agency.

The Kilauea volcano in Hawaii could spit out boulders the size of refrigerators for miles.

The robot dogs are coming.

And ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ is set to return to televisions on NBC!

Your song of the day is (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones.