Royals Rumblings - News for March 20, 2021

Song of the Day

“Drunken Lullabies” by Flogging Molly

I hope everyone had a great St. Patty’s Day. Add it to the list of holidays messed up by the COVID. My usual St Patty’s routine consisted of forgetting to wear green, remembering St. Patty’s of yesteryear, and maybe mixing in a Guiness at home on the couch instead of the usual. All of that was achieved so I guess MY holiday wasn’t really ruined. I appreciate your congratulatory messages in advance. Hopefully this is the last holiday where we lose our normal routine.

On to the Rumblings...

The Royals kissed their cousin yesterday

We’re getting closer to seeing how the Opening Day roster will shape up.

Lynn Worthy wrote about Bubic being optioned at The Star.

With Bubic apparently set to start the season in the minors, the leading candidates for what appears likely to be a four-man rotation at the start of regular season are Danny Duffy, Mike Minor, Brad Keller and Brady Singer.

Right-handers Jakob Junis and Ervin Santana remain candidates to make the Opening Day roster, but Matheny has had discussions with both pitchers, who’ve been starters, about being ready to pitch in hybrid roles and being used out of the bullpen if needed for either shorter outings or multiple innings.

JJ Cooper at Baseball America looked at some of the elite company that Bobby Witt Jr. finds himself in.

Craig Brown at Into the Fountains talked about what teams really look at during Spring Training among other gold nuggets.

Teams are not looking at statistics during spring training. They aren’t going to make evaluations based on 21 plate appearances or a handful of innings on the mound. They are looking at approach. Process. And that naturally had me thinking about Witt. The few plate appearances I’ve seen from him this exhibition season have looked extremely strong on the process, regardless of the results. The things you read from scouts and insiders about his knowledge of the game and level-headedness are obvious when watching him play. And that’s a good thing.

While process is definitely important in a player’s development, once the regular season starts it also has to be about the results. This is the line teams always have to walk with their prospects. The process with Witt is exceptional. If the Royals are happy enough with how that is going that they decide to bring him north with the big league club, how will that translate to results?

Mike Gillespie at Kings of Kauffman wonders if Kris Bubic is playing himself out of a rotation spot.

Also at KoK, David Scharrf says that Jake Newberry needs to show a bit more consistency in order to stick in the majors.

Bally’s was named an official MLB sports betting partner.

Everyone loves an upset...

#15 Oral Roberts pulled off the big upset in the first round of games, beating #2 Ohio State, 75-72 in OT.

Sticking with upsets involving the Big 10 conference that required overtime, #13 North Texas upset #4 Purdue, 78-69.

#12 Oregon State pulled off an upset of their own, beating #5 Tennessee, 70-56.

The Chiefs lost out on another free agent signing when JuJu Smith-Schuster made a weird choice to return to the Steelers.

Adrenaline Rush of the Week

The Kansas City Housing Market

So we accidentally entered the shark infested waters of the KC housing market. Since I’m working from home, we thought we could take that opportunity to get my wife a better commute, so we started taking a look at some houses. Soon we realized what we had just gotten into.

In order to buy a house ANYWHERE in Kansas City, you better be prepared to offer something stupid over asking, naming rights for all your current children, and multiple years of doing the seller’s realtor’s laundry just to get into the door.

THEN comes the waiting. I was never a big fan of dating (shoutout to my wife for ending that) and it was mostly because I do not have the gene that allows me to play mind games. I am too damn self conscious to be left with my thoughts. Waiting for word on an offer is extremely similar to waiting for a call/text/IM/DM/carrier pigeon from a romantic interest. You get into your head with thoughts like “Should I have offered to have another child for them to name?” or “Should I have made better jokes to make a better impression?” or “Am I even worth a response? I knew I should have showered prior.”.

Once you get the word that they went another direction, you slip into a fun little stage of grief that is like losing that main toy as a kid. And it makes no sense at all. You have no emotional attachment to that house. It didn’t raise you. You haven’t bled in that house (as long as the showing went according to plan). There is no reason to have that feeling. Yet there it is, sitting on your shoulders like a Swedish weightlifter picked you to hold him in a game of pool chicken.

Once you’ve swallowed those feelings (chased by a few Guiness’s’s’s’s) you open Zillow once more to start the whole process over against because your soul mate is out there somewhere.

It’s the goddam best.

Have a Saturday, everyone.