Royals Rumblings - News for September 2, 2020

Adalberto Mondesi sat last night, for the first time in his struggle-filled season.

“You just think that one hit is coming,” Matheny said. “... It’s something we all keep our eyes on: ‘When is it time?’ You’re listening to multiple voices, and ultimately, today was the day.

“And up until that point, I’m not going to flinch. He’s my guy. We’re going to roll. You never know when that night comes and everything just clicks. And when they’re in there, I have all the faith in the world in them.

“When there is a common belief that a day is needed, we’ll do it, but not until then.”

Matheny said he didn’t see anything significant on Monday night, a 2-1 Royals win, that led to Tuesday’s decision to sit Mondesi.

Speaking of Mondesi, take a look at where Alec Lewis of The Athletic predicts Mondi will fit in on the 2022 Royals:

Center field, Adalberto Mondesi (26): Breaking down this decision warrants a story. In May 2019, sitting in a makeshift office within the visiting clubhouse at Guaranteed Rate Field, I mentioned to then-Royals manager Ned Yost how critical good health had been for Jorge Soler. Yost asked rhetorically, “Why would health be critical?” I thought about it and gave a few answers he balked at. He then answered his own question: “The reason his health has been critical for him is that (his lack of health) has hampered his development. This kid needs time to develop.”

As much as Royals fans want to give up on Mondesi, the same truth fits. Mondesi was putting together a solid 2019 that he could have built off until he suffered a left shoulder subluxation that required surgery. Rehab isn’t equal to development. Rather than work on his swing and work on pitch recognition, Mondesi focused on strengthening his shoulder.

Sam Mellinger at the KC Star, in his latest Minutes column:

“A lot of owners would’ve fired Moore after the 2012 season, and a lot of GMs would’ve gone back home to Atlanta after the 2014 season. Glass believed in Moore, and Moore believed in Glass. It worked, but theirs was more than a business relationship. They had a deep and genuine mutual appreciation. Without it, they would not have lasted as long together.Moore and Glass did not have that kind of relationship immediately. Sherman and Moore are building it, but real relationships take time.

I have no doubt that they respect each other, but I also have no doubt that Sherman sees consecutive 100-loss seasons as unacceptable and that with his time in the game has a name or two of people he’d trust to run a front office.The Royals are building something. You can make a joke about that if you want, and the truth is nobody can be sure how this will go either way. But it’s an interesting group, particularly with the young pitchers. It’s hard to imagine Moore not being entrusted with seeing this out.

But the Royals have lost 207 games the last two years. They are terribly positioned long-term when compared to the rest of the division — the Royals’ young pitching is promising, but take a look at the White Sox’s young hitting. It’s hard to imagine Sherman reaching the point that he believes this push won’t take, and then not simultaneously reaching the conclusion that he needs a new general manager.This is not a GMDM On The Hot Seat take.

But a new owner means the timing has reset.”

A couple of briefly-Royals: Sam Gaviglio (4 appearances in 2017) was DFA’d by the Blue Jays, and Justin Grimm (16 appearances in 2018) was released by the Brewers.

Socrates Brito, an outfielder in the Pirates organization, opted out of the rest of the season after his brother died of COVID-19.

A couple things from FanGraphs:
1) Ranking the prospects who were traded on deadline day,
2) A full roundup of all of that day’s deals, and
3) A new shirt in response to John Sterling saying during a Yankees broadcast, “I don’t know who FanGraph is.”

Marlins 2B Isan Díaz is being allowed to opt back in after initially opting out of the 2020 season. (You may remember Díaz from the August 2019 clip of his father adorably losing his mind as Isan hit his first MLB home run in the middle of the family being interviewed on the air.)

Even Drellich of The Athletic ($) took a long look at Rob Manfred’s first five years as MLB commissioner.

Our friends at Beyond the Box Score are going to feature some new voices this fall, platforming BIPOC writers who haven’t traditionally had a seat at the table.

The Chiefs got their Super Bowl rings. And then Patrick Mahomes proposed to his longtime girlfriend Brittany Matthews and frankly this is the only sports stadium proposal ever to be allowed again. Also, she seems really delightful.

Here’s a contest where the prize is $1000 and an unplugged weekend in an RV in a National Park. Sounds blissful.

Los Angeles is in for unprecedented heat this weekend.

This week’s fun question from Reddit: Who is an actor who played a villain so well that you still hate the actor?

The executive producers of ‘Game of Thrones’ have a new project:

David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are getting a second chance to do it right.

The executive producers of “Game of Thrones,” who led the storied franchise to a reviled end last year, have set their next project in motion, a TV adaptation of the Chinese book series “The Three-Body Problem,” Netflix announced Tuesday.

Two weeks ago, I linked to a video of Nandi Bushell, the 10-year-old drumming prodigy who challenged Dave Grohl to a drum battle. Well, Dave Grohl is the best so he is obviously game. Here is his response.

MUSIC: I started overthinking what song to use, then tried underthinking instead. One simply cannot go wrong with Fleetwood Mac.