Royals Rumblings - News for October 9, 2020

Bill Ladson of MLB.com writes that Kansas City will be getting a Buck O’Neil streetcar!

Baseball legend Buck O’Neil died 14 years ago this week, and Negro League Baseball Museum president Bob Kendrick is making sure O’Neil will never be forgotten. In partnership with RideKC, a mass transit company in Kansas City, NLBM will reveal a streetcar and metro bus dedicated to O’Neil on Nov. 13 — the day O’Neil would have turned 109 years old.

MLB Pipeline has their report from the Royals alternate site:

“He’s just so far advanced,” said J.J. Picollo, the Royals’ vice president/assistant GM of player personnel, about Witt’s offense. “It’s not just that he hits the ball hard — it’s his pitch recognition, his approach to every at-bat, his preparation for the games … he’s just an exciting player to have.”

At The Star, Lynn Worthy talked about the season for rookies Brady Singer and Kris Bubic.

The continued development of his curveball to complement his fastball-changeup combination will be a big factor in his ability to attack hitters. “I think it got a lot better as I went along, being able to land it more often,” Bubic said. “Just the overall ability to throw that whenever I want like I can most nights with my changeup (will be important).”

“I’m definitely going to sharpen everything,” Singer said. “That’s something I work on every year, and adding that changeup more into the repertoire. It felt good. I could’ve thrown it a lot, but I felt like I was having success with the slider and the fastball, so I didn’t throw it as much. That’s definitely something I want to bring into next year, have an improved changeup.”

Dayton Moore talked about giving advice as a parent:

“I think what I’ve learned, and in a lot of cases I’ve learned the hard way, the only thing our children really want to hear us say is, I love watching you play, great job, nice try, I love watching you play, I love watching you do something you love to do. And so when I started taking more of that approach, what I found out was my son began to ask me questions. instead of me trying to give him answers before he asked. And so we began to develop this relationship centered around the game where he would ask the questions.

If we can link to stories at The Athletic that require a sub, surely we can give some love to Clint Scoles and his Patreon account, writing about a potential Whit Merrifield trade last year:

If you have been watching the Playoffs, then you have seen the emergence of Randy Arozarena for the Rays. For those that have been reading here for a while, you likely remember a trade scenario a Cardinals scout pitched to me last summer. To refresh for those who don’t remember, the trade for Whit Merrifield would have been Arozarena, Kodi Whitley, and Kolten Wong. At the time, I thought Wong’s inclusion was the deal-breaker because he was owed $17m between ‘19 and ‘20. To take on that type of contract, they should get another prospect next to Arozarena instead of Whitley. If the Royals were offered that deal and passed, it may have been a misstep based on Arozarena’s play.

In the Kansas City Business Journal, Brian Kaberline writes that the Royals spent about $1.3M per win in 2020.

The Royals spent $1.32 million in payroll for each of the club’s 26 wins this season. That ranked No. 8 in the 30-team league in a study of cost-per-win by the Cincinnati Business Courier using data from sports payroll firm Spotrac.

Royals blogs?

U.L.’s Toothpick begins the 1980 postseason with game 1 of the ALCS:

From “here we go again” to “here we go!”, the Royals and their fans rode an emotional roller coaster during Game One of the ALCS, as Kansas City overcame an early 2-0 deficit to take a 7-2 win over their longtime postseason tormentors, the New York Yankees, on a warm and sunny Wednesday afternoon at Royals Stadium.

Royals Reporter “rank[s] the Royals’ 40-man ‘release’ candidates this off-season”, tiering them off as Certain, Likely, and Possible:

Certain: Matt Harvey, SP/RP; Kevin McCarthy, RP; Glenn Sparkman, SP/RP; Chance Adams, SP/RP; Ryan McBroom, 1B/OF; Erick Mejia, Utility; Bubba Starling, OF.

The Braves finished filleting the Fish with a 7-0 win yesterday to advance to the NLCS.

The Astros are moving on to their 4th consecutive ALCS.

And, no, as fun a story as it was that Zack telegraphed his pitch right before giving up a 3-run homer yesterday, that’s not quite how it went down.

The Yankees beat Tampa, knotting their series at 2. Game 5 is tonight at 6:10pm Royal Time.

Sorry, no news about Dodgers-Padres Game 4. Just think of it like one of those games that the newspaper listed as too late for print. Only you can just hit ctrl+T and find out what happened instead of having to wait until tomorrow’s newspaper. As I’m finishing this up around 9:30, it’s not looking good for the Padres with the Dodgers holding a commanding 6-2 lead after 3.

Terry Francona is on the list of people who have had a really rough 2020:

Francona revealed Wednesday that he underwent several surgeries in a four-day span and required an extended stay in intensive care at the Cleveland Clinic while dealing with medical issues that sidelined him for all but 14 games this season...

Francona, who has had both knees replaced as well as one of his hips, said he needs surgery on his other hip but not until he’s healthier. “I’d love for my quality of life to be a little bit better,” he said. “But I also don’t feel like going through the blood clots again. Limping’s better than being horizontal.

Is it tampering if it’s the player doing it?

There’s a fun story in the LA Times from a photographer who took a good picture of Cody Bellinger’s potentially game saving catch in Game 2. Sadly, he is a lifelong Padres fan.

Finally, if you didn’t think this story was going to make it here, you must be new to Fridays. At Fangraphs, Ben Clemens asks what baseball would be like if there was more rubber banding to baseball. In other words, “What if Baseball Were More Like Mario Kart?”

With a million games, no off days, and roughly six quality starting pitchers among the teams left in the playoffs, baseball is wall-to-wall action right now. You can’t take two steps without tripping over a four-hour game, and every decision — Bring in the lefty? Ride the hot hand? — feels momentous. But let’s take a moment to ponder something truly important. What if baseball were more like Mario Kart?

If you haven’t played Mario Kart before, first of all: I’m sorry. It’s honestly the best. It’s a racing video game series with a variety of beloved Nintendo characters, but there’s one part I care about most for the purposes of this article: the game actively works to slow down the leader and speed up the laggards. If you’re out front, you can expect middling power-ups and specifically targeted countermeasures to slow you down a bit. If you’re bringing up the rear, the game gives with both hands to help you get caught up. It’s possible to run away with a race, but the game is working hard to make it less likely.

best of RR notes - just don’t have time to do it justice

I love Van Halen - they’re my favorite band so I have to do something of theirs with Eddie passing this week.

As cliche as it is, I absolutely love “Jump”. It’s one of the most 80s sounding songs that has ever 80s’d the 80s. Unfortunately, in Guitar Hero: Van Halen, the whammy bar distorts the beautifully pure sound and I couldn’t find a video without the whammy. Instead, we’re going to the next track on 1984, another awesome song. I’m pretty sure most of you are familiar with “Panama”: