Royals Rumblings - News for April 3, 2019

Royals Rumblings - News for April 3, 2019

In his Mellinger Minutes, Sam considers Kyle Zimmer as a starter.

Stretching him out to see what he looks like as a starter doesn’t have to be a forever decision. If he finds himself uncomfortable, or the swings he’s giving up indicate it’s a challenge too much, then you can pull back. You’ll always have him as a reliever.

I know I keep mentioning this, but I do it because it’s important: the Royals believe that one area they can do better this time than with the first rebuild is with developing starting pitchers.

Part of that means taking five college starters with the first five picks last year, part of it means taking a chance in the Rule 5 draft on Brad Keller, and part of it means exhausting every in-house option to find the best five starting pitchers possible.

Ian Kennedy is still learning how to mentally prepare for his relief role.

“I’ve asked a lot of guys what they’ve done,” Kennedy said. “A lot of them — pretty much all of them — say make sure your body is loose and try to save as many throws as you can. You try to get a feel for the game as it’s going on. I watched Diekman. It’s nice to see them because we didn’t throw on the same day in spring training. I get to see guys who’ve done it for a long time.”

In his mailbag column, Jeffrey Flanagan defends Chris Owings, who is off to a slow start.

Give the Chris Owings experiment some time. It has only been three games. He was terrific all spring and showed why the Royals were eager to sign him. He has Whit Merrifield-like versatility and is a very smart baserunner. He also made an incredible play at third base in the ninth inning Sunday, which shows you his defensive value (yes, that is important). Royals general manager Dayton Moore said several times in the offseason that Owings was highly-coveted by 20 or so teams, so there is obviously talent there. That talent will surface soon.

Drew Osborne at Royals Farm Report previews the Northwest Arkansas Naturals.

Power-hitting catchers like Salvador Perez may be a dying breed.

The Blue Jays trade outfielder Kevin Pillar to the Giants.

The Braves sign outfielder Ronald Acuña, Jr. to a $100 million deal.

Randall Grichuk signs a five-year, $52 million deal with Toronto.

Rockies pitcher German Márquez gets a five-year, $43 million deal.

Nationals fans boo Bryce Harper in his return to Washington.

Realistic goals for all 30 teams.

Should the Orioles have pulled David Hess in the middle of a no-hitter?

Rays VP Chaim Bloom talks about baseball and his Jewish heritage.

Hall of Fame manager Bobby Cox is hospitalized after a possible stroke.

Sportswriters (including us!) should take the time to write the names of Latin American players’ names correctly.

MLB will stream just six games on Facebook this year, all non-exclusive.

Did Tom Dundon invest millions in the AAF just to get a gambling app?

The Washington Wizards finally fire Ernie Grunfield after 16 years of bad trades and drafts.

Youtube executive ignored warnings that toxic, conspiracy theory videos were rampant on the site.

The Milky Way has the mass of 1.5 trillion suns, but we have no idea what makes up most of it.

If the Oscars try to shut out Netflix, that could violate anti-trust laws.

Your song of the day is Kaiser Chiefs with I Predict a Riot.