Royals Rumblings - News for February 13, 2019

Royals Rumblings - News for February 13, 2019

In his Mellinger Minutes, Sam considers what a “successful” Royals season would look like.

A win total of at least 70, and probably closer to 75, with visible and obvious demonstrations of progress from Mondesi, O’Hearn, Brad Keller, Danny Duffy, Jorge Soler, Jorge Bonifacio, Hunter Dozier, and Jakob Junis.

Dayton Moore originally said he thought 2019 would be the worst year, but plans are fluid, and even if the Royals aren’t quite good enough yet to be judged solely by wins and losses it’s hard to imagine them being anything close to a success with a loss total in the mid 90s or higher.

This is still a group that’s more about the future than the present, so that’s why the guys mentioned above are either young or the product of long organization investment.

Salvador Perez thinks Brad Keller is the ace of the staff.

In fact, when asked if Keller can get better, Perez responded “way better.”

“I don’t think he surprised me. He’s a big guy. He’s got pretty good movement on his ball. He throws hard, and I think he’s excited to be here,” Perez said before he doubled down on his assessment of Keller. “Seriously, I think he’s a No. 1 this year.”

Billy Hamilton says he signed here because he liked the emphasis on speed.

Of course, it didn’t take long on Tuesday before Hamilton was asked to address the burning issue with this group of Royals: Is he the fastest or is Gore?

”I don’t know what that means,” Hamilton deadpanned. “You don’t know unless you race. I mean, [Gore] can say he is. I can say I am. The media can say what they think. You never know unless you race. I know he’s fast.”

But don’t expect an actual race to ever occur.

”Someone would get in serious trouble if we had a race and someone got hurt,” Gore said.

2080 Baseball reviews the Royals’ farm system.

This is one of baseball’s most improved systems since mid-2017, as the rise of (#3) Seuly Matias and two strong draft classes have stocked the uppermost portions of this list with a new wave of talent. Kansas City strayed from their usual prep-heavy tendencies in last June’s draft, making a run on collegians and selecting five arms from the college ranks within the first 60 picks. This system finishes near the middle of the pack overall, but that’s a big step forward from where it has been the last few years. Enough of the Royals’ top prospects are below Double-A that it’s safe to say the best days for this system are yet to come.

Adalberto Mondesi is one of the players Mike Petriello writes could bust out in 2019.

Mondesi in 54 second-half games last year: .286/.318/.517 with 11 homers and, wait for it, 27 stolen bases. If you’re a certain kind of serious fan you likely already knew that, but it’s also safe to assume that a large portion of the baseball-watching world wasn’t focusing heavily on August games in Kansas City.

Alex Duvall at Royals Farm Report projects what Omaha’s roster may look like.

Trevor Hooth at Kings of Kauffman says to keep an eye on Arnaldo Hernandez.

Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel at Fangraphs ranks Erick Pena, the outfielder the Royals are pursuing in the international free agency market, as the fourth-best prospect available this summer.

The Marlins sign reliever Sergio Romo.

Bryce Harper will not accept a short-term deal.

The Red Sox are shopping catchers and looking for starting pitchers.

Jeff Samardzija suggests baseball may need to move up arbitration and free agency earlier in careers.

The projection systems can’t agree on the Milwaukee Brewers.

Jeff Sullivan at Fangraphs thinks the velocity surge has plateaued.

The Cubs will “enhance” their domestic violence training.

26 NFL veterans that could get cut this off-season.

King, the Wire Fox Terrer is a good boy who won Best in Show at the Westminster Dog Show.

Activision Blizzard lays off hundreds of employees.

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