Royals Rumblings - News for November 5, 2021

Royals Rumblings - News for November 5, 2021

Lynn Worthy writes that the Royals plan to stay the course, without many changes.

“We know what our plan is,” Royals president of baseball operations Dayton Moore said. “We’re going to be very disciplined with continuing to give our young players opportunity and transition our young players to the major leagues.”

Anne Rogers talks to J.J. Picollo about Adalberto Mondesi’s role in 2022.

“Typically, you don’t want to break up your middle,” Picollo said. “As we go through March, that’s the type of discussion we’ll have. There’s an argument to be had that if Bobby Witt Jr.’s your future shortstop, put him there now. … We have to discuss that. I think if we went the other way with Mondi at shortstop with off-days, we have enough confidence in the mental toughness of Lopez and Whit that they can slide in. Lopez goes to short, Whit at second.”

She also writes about Rusty Kuntz transitioning into a front office role.

The Royals announced that Rusty Kuntz will not return as the first-base and outfield coach next season, instead taking on the title of special assistant to the president and GM/quality control. This allows Kuntz, 66, to cut back on travel and hours spent at the ballpark.

“Probably with about one month left in the season, I just hit a wall,” Kuntz said. “And it was like, ‘OK, I don’t know if I can keep this pace for another year.’ So once I figured it out, I asked Dayton and J.J. if I could do something different next year rather than what I was doing this year. … That enabled me to have an opportunity to go back, slow it down a little bit.”

Steve Adams at MLB Trade Rumors gives his off-season outlook on the Royals.

Alternatively, it’s inevitable that catching-needy clubs around the game will see a blocked catching prospect who just put the finishing touches on a mammoth minor league season and try to pry him loose. The Marlins, Astros, Rangers and perhaps the Yankees are all teams in need of long-term solutions behind the dish. This isn’t a situation where the Royals would use Melendez in order to shed a contract such as Santana, to be clear, but Kansas City will field plenty of interest in Melendez this winter. Miami, in particular, is teeming with young pitching it could offer the Royals.

Jonatham Mayo cites Nathan Eaton as a standout performer in the Arizona Fall League.

This has been a good fall for “out of nowhere” performers. On the offensive side, there’s Nathan Eaton from the Royals, playing for Surprise. A two-way player at Virginia Military Institute, Eaton hasn’t done all that much in the Minors since the Royals took him in Round 21 of the 2018 Draft. There is some speed (23 steals in 75 games in 2021) and some raw power, though his career .406 slugging percentage says he hasn’t tapped into it that much. In 11 games this fall, however, he’s put up a .444/.479/.667 line while playing third, short and the outfield.

Alex Duvall at Royals Farm Report reflects on the 2014-15 Royals.

The Royals had 17 different pitchers amass at least 20 IP in 2015 and only FIVE (5) of them had an ERA over 3.98. That is INSANE. Every single thing King Midas, er, Dayton Moore touched that year turned into gold. Add in the fact that 6 of your every day hitters had a wRC+ over 120 and 2 more were Gold Glove winners (Perez + Escobar), you have what was the best team in baseball for the entire 2015 season. What a team, man.

Jordan Foote at Inside the Royals writes about how Jorge Soler will be remembered as a Royal.

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Reds outfielder Nick Castellanos opts out of his deal and becomes a free agent.

Jay Jaffe at Fangraphs writes that Buster Posey is a Hall of Famer.

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Your song of the day is Kings of Leon with Supersoaker.