Clint Scoles at Royals Academy wrote about catching prospect Sebastian Rivero:
Future - The Royals speak wonderfully of Rivero’s receiving skills and ability to work with pitchers, drawing similar remarks to what Perez had at the same age. Defensively Rivera shows quick movement behind the dish with soft hands, receiving the ball and going out of the catcher pocket with ease. The arm is above average and while not quite the rocket that Melendez has it’s more than adequate with good footwork to control the running game. While he’s able to move well behind the dish and block the ball well in front of him his framing skills leave something to be desired. There is a lot of glove movement which isn’t good for trying to deceive the umpire into getting close strikes.
Rivero was briefly called upon to catch for Triple-A Omaha last summer, and starting pitchers there raved to me about his brilliance.
At Kings of Kauffman, Jordan Foote isn’t opening the Royals’ window of contention til at least 2022.
If playoff contention is your goal for the 2021 Kansas City Royals, then you may be a bit disappointed. It’s not impossible, but involves putting a ton of stock into unknown variables. Young players sometimes need longer than a season to adjust to Major League Baseball (see, Mondesi). Who knows whether Moore will be able to rebuild the bullpen in one offseason.
KC Kingdom continues their series on the best Royals of the decade, with Cody Rickman selecting Alex Gordan as best LF.
Do you want to put faces with names of all but one of the players who suited up for the Omaha Storm Chasers in 2019? Have I got a thread for you!
Just about everyone who played for the @OMAStormChasers in 2019, a thread.
— Minda Haas Kuhlmann (@minda33) December 31, 2019
1. Humberto Arteaga
2. Scott Barlow
3. Jacob Barnes
4. Scott Blewett pic.twitter.com/ifgru0ftsy
The Twins added 2/5 of a new rotation in one day, signing both Homer Bailey and Rich Hill. Bailey is perhaps best known* for his storied days with the Kansas City Royals. Hill was in the news earlier this week for getting arrested when his wife tried to carry an oversized purse into a Patriots game.
*it’s important to me that you know this is sarcasm.
SPEAKING OF THE TWINS, I’ve got more Twins news: they have made a four-year offer to Josh Donaldson (subscription required).
The Red Sox (I believe we are finished with Minnesota Twins news) are not actively shopping Mookie Betts.
When will Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy land an NFL head coaching job?
Zion Williamson might finally get to play in the NBA this month.
Elsewhere in the NBA, Steve Kerr isn’t pleased with the state of officiating, saying ““We’ve rewarded offensive players for fooling the officials and attempting to fool the officials.”
In Illinois, marijuana is legal now. To go along with that, 11,000 people have been pardoned of crimes that are no longer crimes.
Planned obsolescence is out in the open now, with Sonos speakers and their “recycle mode” coming to light as actually bricking the devices.
Is TikTok a national security threat? The US Army thinks so, and banned soldiers from using the app.
A necessary piece of Star Wars discussion:
we don’t talk about the fact that c3po essentially wears a crop top nearly enough as we should pic.twitter.com/pwbNdyZ3iZ
— Emma Bolden (@emmabo) January 1, 2020
NOTE! It looks like there is a New Year-specific post coming up later this morning, so this can be a regular day in the Rumblings, comment-wise. Unless you want to talk about January 1 stuff twice! I’ll be here for it, either way.
Music: First Aid Kit - Emmylou. (If you like it, you can also see when they got to perform it live, in front of Emmylou Harris, for whom the song is named.)