Royals Rumblings - News for July 31, 2019

I’ve never done a Rumblings before! Let’s go!

Ned Yost says Bubba Starling’s newfound aggressiveness is part of a smart plan in a Kansas City Star story by Lynn Worthy:

“For me, I was always an early swinger in the count, which is the reason I’ve got a lifetime .210 batting average,” Yost said. “I think what Bubba’s doing is getting good pitches and swinging early in the count, which is exactly what you want. If you get a pitch that you like, go ahead and turn on it, but if you’re just up there hacking to be hacking, thinking that you can put anything in play — dumb.

Bold move by a manager calling himself “dumb” on the record.

Jeffrey Flanagan reports what appears to be a depth signing for Omaha. It also now means that Omaha has three people with the same first name but all spelled differently: Eric Skoglund, Erick Mejia, and now Erich Weiss.

At Royals Farm Report, Ryan Ruhde writes the Royals are harming themselves both now and in the future by not making trades:

The next step in an ideal rehaul of the Royals ideology is to eliminate the signings of and loyalty to players like Lucas Duda, which have backfired especially this season in several ways. The primary reason is this: the goal of a rebuilding team is to build up young players who may be supplemented by free agent signings in order to create a winning team when the time is right, and those young players being blocked by veterans who are accomplishing nothing on a losing team makes this goal very difficult to accomplish.

ELSEWHERE IN BASEBALL:

Basebrawl!

Kiley McDaniel and Eric Longenhagen at FanGraphs put together a look at how the structure of various teams’ 40-man rosters might be affecting their trade deadline behavior:

Teams with an especially high number of rostered players under contract for 2020 and with many prospects who would need to be added to the 40-man in the offseason have what is often called a “40-man crunch,” “spillover,” or “churn,” meaning that that team has incentive to clear the overflow of players away via trade for something they can keep — pool space, comp picks, or typically younger players whose 40-man clocks are further from midnight — rather than do nothing, and later lose players on waivers or in the Rule 5 draft.

Some last-minute rumors on Noah Syndergaard before this afternoon’s trade deadline.

Ken Rosenthal at The Athletic wrote this about Trevor Bauer, who has since been traded to the Reds (and may be dealt again before this afternoon is over):

A number of Indians players like Bauer; all recognize his value. But some likely would be relieved if his personality quirks no longer became an occasional distraction, and manager Terry Francona and his coaches likely would be relieved, too.

PUIG FOR BAUER! Baseball America has a rundown of all the players involved in the three-team deal among the Reds, Indians, and Padres.

Inevitably, some trade stuff will have happened between compiling this post Tuesday night and it being published. As always, hop in the comments with any trade news you hear.

MISC:

John Scalzi writes about Mary Robinette Kowal and The Calculating Stars, which is nominated for a Hugo and also is a book I loved so, so much. This book and its sequel, The Fated Sky, got me all starry-eyed about space travel in a way I had not felt in maybe ever, or at least since childhood.

Pocket just reprinted this delightful tale of how Stephen King’s alias, Richard Bachman, was unmasked by a book store clerk.

Rep. Sharice Davids works a shift at Jones Bar-B-Q, the one that was made over on Queer Eye. I am asking in sincerity, and not trying to start a donnybrook, because I have never been there: is that place good?

Song for the day:
I’m really mad now at how few songs by women were ever on the radio growing up. The only Bonnie Raitt I ever got to hear was Something to Talk About, which is great but also not her only spectacular song. She’s divine. Tell me what other music by women should have been on classic rock stations.