Royals Rumblings

Weekend Rumblings - News for June 27, 2020

The skipper talks about getting back to baseball.

By Max Rieper@maxrieper Jun 27, 2020, 10:02am EDT

If you buy something from an SB Nation link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

Weekend Rumblings - News for June 27, 2020

Sam Mellinger writes about what we know about new owner John Sherman so far.

Sherman is not believed to have had much (if any) tangible influence on what became an embarrassing fight between the owners and baseball’s players. He hasn’t had the job long enough and isn’t sitting on influential committees.

That’s understandable, and perhaps beneficial — more time to concentrate on the Royals .

Sherman’s style is said to err on the side of over-communication, with a dizzying number — well over a thousand — of video-conference calls.

The juxtaposition here is hard to miss. While the commissioner and union were busy wasting time not talking to each other, Royals executives were getting to know each other in new ways. Department heads presented information to other departments, from analytics to scouting to business and more.

This next part will take time to confirm, but it’s also interesting what these last few months have done for the relationship between Sherman and Moore.

Lynn Worthy writes about what will happen to the newly signed draftees.

If there is no minor-league season this year, Picollo said the team would want to bring the players into their training facility and have their staff and coaches start working with them.

“Absolutely,” Picollo said. “We have a lot of different ideas of how we could do it. We’ve broken them up into different-size groups. You look at a facility like we have in Arizona — obviously, it’s closed right now — but we anticipate it’s going to be open again at some time.

“If you have a morning group, a mid-afternoon group, a late-afternoon group, a night group ... whatever we have to do to service players and to get them on a field.”

Jeffrey Flanagan talks to Mike Matheny about how the upcoming season.

Matheny obviously wouldn’t reveal how he’ll fill the four extra spots, but he indicated the Royals, who were limited to 13 pitchers for the 26-man roster, will have no limitations on the number of arms this time around.

But Matheny said it would be unlikely that the Royals would use all four spots on pitching.

“Seventeen would be a pretty big number to have,” Matheny said. “I think every team is going to take advantage of that 30-man, and I think you’ll see pitching-heavy rosters. I’ve just been so impressed with what our pitchers have done during this delay to the season. [Pitching coach] Cal Eldred and [bullpen coach] Larry Carter have put together a really good template for the pitchers to follow. And the guys bought in, and they have really kept building themselves up.

Here we go.

Manager Mike Matheny shares his thoughts on the unique challenges ahead. pic.twitter.com/Mv3N4J3t6o
— Kansas City Royals (@Royals) June 26, 2020