Royals Rumblings - News for December 9, 2020

Former Royals beat writer Dick Kaegel was chosen for the J.G. Taylor Spink Award, a high honor for baseball writers:

Kaegel received 183 votes of the 374 ballots, which included three blanks, cast by BBWAA members with 10 or more consecutive years’ service, becoming the 72nd winner of the award since its inception in 1962. His career spanned 53 years, covering the Royals and St. Louis Cardinals for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Kansas City Star and MLB.com. Additionally, he served as editor-in-chief of the Sporting News from 1979–85, when circulation spiked. He spent one spring as a player in camp with the Baltimore Orioles and filed weekly reports about his experience. He also covered all 162 Royals games in 2011, just four years after undergoing liver transplant surgery.

He served several terms as chair of the Kansas City Chapter of the BBWAA and twice served on the Hall of Fame’s Golden Era Committee.

Over at Let’s Go Tribe, Matt Schlichting gives the perspective from Cleveland of the Royals’ signing of Carlos Santana:

As a loss, it unfortunately makes sense for the Indians, too. A slew of young players are poised to crack the starting lineup full-time, and first base is a potential landing spot for no fewer than four of them. Whether the Indians play Bobby Bradley, Jake Bauers, Nolan Jones, or Josh Naylor at first, they now have the roster flexibility to give each of them an opportunity to earn their keep. Maybe more importantly the Indians need to find out whether Bradley or Bauers are major-league-caliber players sooner rather than later.

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Personally, I don’t have any hard feelings about this one. I love Carlos Santana as a player and I will miss him dearly. His time in Cleveland really does feel like it is coming to a close now, though. I cherish his contributions and wish him the best, but also hope that Bradley or Bauers or Naylor or somebody hits fifty bombs from the corner next year.

I can dream.

At Kings of Kauffman, David Scharff includes a look at overall hot stove activity in his post about the Santana signing:

The Santana signing by Kansas City has taken some by surprise as the team typically stays quiet and makes a few small name acquisitions. If looking at the spotrac free agent tracker, though, the Royals have two singings at the top, both for 2 years and for $17.5 and $18 million each.

It’s also interesting to note the MLB offseason spending chart at spotrac. The Royals are currently highest on the graphic that takes into account players re-signed and extended, free agents, and those who avoided arbitration.

And at KC Kingdom, Leigh Oleszczak takes a look at what Santana means for Ryan O’Hearn.

Rewind yourself to 2015: Mets manager Terry Collins likely wouldn’t have left Matt Harvey in the game if World Series Game 5 had been in Kansas City.

Fast forward to 2020. Collins made an appearance on WFAN Saturday night and was asked if he would’ve put Harvey back out on the mound if the game wasn’t at Citi Field.

His answer was simple:

“Probably not,” Collins said to Zach Gelb, who was there that night in the stands as a Mets fan and wanted Harvey to come back out himself. “I had a guy out in the bullpen (Jeurys Familia) who saved 50 games for us that season, but you know what? The emotion of that night in Citi field, with all our Mets fans — that energy you cannot create in any other place except for Citi Field — I looked on and Matt came down and said ‘I’m ok, I want this game.’

“I preached that in our players. You’ve got to want to finish the games. You’ve got to want to be there in crunch time. And I said ‘I cannot deny this guy the opportunity to go out there.’”

The order for competitive balance draft picks has been announced. This is the one that is based on things like market size and revenue, not W-L records. The Royals will receive the 67th pick, as part of Round B.

The White Sox traded for Lance Lynn, and are reportedly interested in reliever (and former Royal!) Liam Hendriks.

Craig Calcaterra continued his annual tradition of ranking MLB managers by handsomeness.

Why did the Mets give a big league deal to Sam McWilliams, who has never thrown a pitch in the Majors?

Hello old friend:

Because apparently there are no other broadcasters anywhere, former Reds announcer Thom Brennaman will call games in Puerto Rico this winter.

Former Stanford volleyball player Hayley Hodson’s career was ended by a pair of concussions. She shared her story with the LA Times to try to help other athletes the NCAA is failing to care for. Also, her suite of symptoms is basically identical to my own post concussion nightmare.

Legendary pilot Chuck Yeager died, at age 97.

Mount Everest is taller now.

Please enjoy this cat jumping on a piano and freaking out when it...is a piano:

SOTD: obviously. Santana!

But there’s another way! We could also dip into the well of Santana from Glee, played by the late Naya Rivera, whose voice has that something to it that always made her my favorite. And this duet is just amazing anyway.