Royals Rumblings - News for August 12, 2020

At The Athletic ($), Alec Lewis spoke to assistant general manager J.J. Picollo about the Royals’ alternate site. Among many other things, Picollo had high praise for T-Bones Stadium:

The facility is excellent. The batting cage is great. The playing surface is great. The mound is great. All the things we need from a baseball standpoint couldn’t be better, really. The challenges lie in the work. We’re getting a lot of work in, which is a positive thing, but at the same time, not having two full teams creates some issues as far as playing intrasquad (games), making sure guys’ legs are fresh and ensuring we’re not overworking them.

At Kings of Kauffman, David Scharff takes issue with the Royals falling in the power rankings after their good week.

Among other notes in his most recent Minor Thoughts column ($1/mo Patreon tier), Clint Scoles shared this about seeing a Northwoods League game in Waterloo, Iowa:

Also in that game was Robert Moore, Dayton’s son. It wasn’t his best game as he made an errant throw to third base on an ill-advised play and pulled another throw on a play in the hole. Moore did have a pair of hits and worked the count well to show off his grinder mentality. One look doesn’t do Moore a lot of justice with limited power and good speed but not off the chart stuff.

The official roster move that Cleveland made for Zach Plesac and Mike Clevinger was placing them on the restricted list while they get tested to see if their night on the town in Chicago left them with covid.

Jay Jaffe at FanGraphs celebrates Fernando Tatis, Jr.

Also at FanGraphs, David Laurila spoke to Blue Jays farm director Gil Kim on how to develop all their prospects under this year’s circumstances.

The Yankees recalled Clint Frazier, whose role this season got all messed around with the delay and the domino effect of his teammates’ injury recovery timelines.

Astros hitting coach Alex Cintron and and Oakland outfielder Ramon Laureano received their suspensions for inciting a brawl. ICYMI, Cintron could be seen on video chirping at Laureano, and Laureano later disclosed that Cintron had said something about his mother. A timeless fight starter.

The Big Ten and Pac-12 are pushing football to the spring.

THIS IS PRECIOUS:

This could go in the baseball section since so many MLB personnel wear gaiters as their face covering of choice, but it’s also an at-large story: some clarification on that study that was publicized in such a way that suggested gaiters/buffs were worse than nothing.

The letter of the week from Ask a Manager was a situation so dicey that the top advice from commenters was that the letter writer needs to change their name, and probably move states, to get away from a bad thing they did a long time ago. I’m not making that up.

Halo Infinite is delayed.

This video of a man walking around Shibuya (a ward of Tokyo) like a video game guy is great.

MUSIC: The Refreshments - Dolly