Royals Rumblings - News for July 10, 2018

Good morning. On this day in MLB history Dwight “Doc” Gooden became the youngest pitcher to ever appear in the MLB All-Star Game at the age of 19 years, 7 months, and 24 days old.

Stephen Josiah posed an interesting question on Twitter, and our own Max Rieper wants you to answer it for us.

Let’s imagine MLB expands to 32 teams. They inform the current 30 teams that they can protect just 10 players from their 25-man roster AND minor leagues. The expansion teams will draft out of the remaining players.

Quote this with the 10 players you would protect at all costs.

Over at Royals Farm Report, I highlighted a couple of Royals infield prospects that are having really nice seasons in the Carolina League (A+).

Merrifield: 23 YO, A+, 440 PA, .258/.333/.389, 8 HR, 25 SB, 9.3% BB%, 15.7% K%, 102 wRC+, 19.5% SwStr%

Burt: 22 YO, A+, 274 PA, .300/.396/.383, 0 HR, 22 SB, 13.5% BB%, 20.8% K%, 125 wRC+, 8.8% SwStr%

Here’s a list of some individual team needs at this year’s trade deadline from Mark Feinsand at MLB.com, could the Royals be potential sellers for any of these teams?

Athletics: Starting pitcherOakland ranks 10th among AL teams in starters’ ERA at 4.37, so a rotation addition could supplement the Athletics’ postseason hopes. With the exception of their 2014 deal for Jon Lester, it hasn’t been Oakland’s way to deal for expensive rental players, so it’s unlikely they would make a splash for a Happ or even Hamels, but there are some solid low-price options available that would make the rotation better without severely impacting the payroll or putting a huge dent in the Minor League system.

Matthew Lamar explains what it’s like to be a credentialed reporter.

Through this combination of viewership and corporate muscle, we were able to secure a press pass for the September 30 game. Indeed, we were credentialed through SB Nation—the Royals’ policy is to not give passes to ‘independent blogs.’ If they did, we would have likely acquired full-year passes versus single-game passes, and our coverage this past year would have been markedly different.

The rescue mission for the soccer team stuck in a cave in Thailand has gone pretty well so far.

Elon Musk is doing his part to offer aide toward the soccer team as well.

Ethiopia and Eritrea may be closing in on a long awaited peace deal.

The dramatic announcement of an end to the “state of war” between the neighbors came at the climax of a two-day visit to Eritrea by Ethiopia’s reform-minded Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who has led the push for a pacifying of relations.

Madden still loves Justin Houston.

I’ve been working on a way to effectively rank individual MLB pitches. I found a pleasant surprise at the top of my curveball rankings (min. 25 results):

Today’s song of the day is presented to you by the “Shuffle” button on my iPhone:

Great job iPhone.