Royals Rumblings - News for December 1, 2020

Royals Rumblings - News for November 30, 2020

Jeffrey Flanagan gets comments from Dayton Moore about the Michael Taylor signing.

“He understands the importance of improving his swing and miss,” Moore said. “But he’s a terrific athlete and very intelligent. He’s a guy that [manager] Mike Matheny and [bench coach] Pedro Grifol and all of our scouts recommended ... and we wanted to add to our outfield depth, get more starting pitching and add an impact bat or two for the middle of the lineup.

“Mike makes out the lineup. But we’re going to give Michael Taylor a lot of opportunity to play every day. We expect Michael Taylor to get the first crack at that.”

The Royals may not be done, writes Lynn Worthy.

“We’re not done with trying to add to our lineup with more guys that can get on base and give us a professional at-bat. We do think Michael will continue to get better. We don’t think he’s reached his ceiling by any means.”

Asked if the Taylor signing makes it more or less likely the Royals make more additions to the outfield, Moore said the versatility of Whit Merrifield and Hunter Dozier “opens up a lot of different opportunities for our team, but we’re focused on a middle of the order bat or continuing to be able to lengthen out our lineup a little bit.”

Alec Lewis writes about five questions following the Mike Minor signing.

Doesn’t Minor’s signing block the progression of the starters coming through the system? The answer works two-fold, and Moore explained the first element.

“You used to go into a season needing seven to eight guys who could come up and start,” Moore said in late September. “Now, it’s more 10 to 12 throughout 162 games. The data pretty much tells us that.”

Pitchers are fragile in normal years, but how about a year after the most topsy-turvy season we’ve seen, when pitchers ramped up their arms, ramped back down, then ramped back up again? If anything, Minor is more insurance.

Kevin O’Brien at Royals Reporter lists three sleepers on the pitching staff to keep an eye on.

Mike Gillespie at Kings of Kauffman would like to see Richard Lovelady to get more of an opportunity.

The Idaho Falls Chukars will no longer be affiliated with the Royals as the Pioneer League becomes an independent “partner” league with MLB.

Chris Young pulls out of the running for the Mets GM opening.

The Mets are in on free agent George Springer.

Kim Ng makes her first trade as Marlins GM, acquiring Adam Cimber from Cleveland and dropping José Ureña.

Korea’s NC Dinos will post slugger Sung-Bum Na.

A look at each team’s non-tender decisions.

The Mets part ways with hitting coach Hensley Meulens.

Wichita’s new baseball team will reportedly be a Double-A affiliate of the Twins, not a Triple-A affiliate of the Marlins as expected.

Bill James takes issue with Wins Above Replacement.

Some historians are pushing for the Negro Leagues to be considered “Major League.”

Adam Wainwright’s love of fantasy football has helped numerous charities.

Felicity Huffman will star in a baseball comedy for ABC.

A look at the death of the department store.

How raunchy comedies like American Pie shaped masculinity for millennials.

J.R.R. Tolkien unpublished Middle-Earth essays will finally be released.

Your song of the day is Chris Isaak with Somebody’s Crying.