Royals Rumblings - News for May 5, 2021

Lots of Daniel Lynch today, here we go!

Craig Brown sees the potential, at Into the Fountains:

There were positives. Lynch spun 28 sliders on the night. He got 14 swings and six whiffs off the pitch, a whiff rate of 43 percent. When it was working, the slider was as-advertised: A spinner with late break and sharp bite that could befuddle hitters when located low in the zone.

David Lesky does, too, at Inside the Crown:

It was clear he wanted to put his fastball up and his slider and changeup down. And he mostly succeeded with that. There were a few that caught too much of the plate, but all in all, he did what I wish we’d see more of from Brady Singer. He changed eye level with the fastball and changed timing with the non-fastballs.

I was a bit surprised at the spin rates he put up last night. The fastball averaged about 2300 RPM and his slider was just over 2200. I don’t know if that’s nerves or what, but everything I’ve seen from him in the past has been higher on those two numbers, so I anticipate we’ll see better spin numbers moving forward from Lynch. He also only had seven swings and misses... His slider was filthy, getting six whiffs on 14 swings.

Ben Palmer at PitcherList broke down Lynch’s debut in gifs and also words:

“Ben, why are you just giving me a GIF of a fastball?” That’s a great question, and I debated on including this one for a while, but something about it man, I just like it.

That fastball is an absolute bullet. It’s 95 MPH, on a rope, with Lynch using all six feet and six inches of his frame to shoot it out of a cannon. And he can throw it harder too! Basically what I’m trying to show you here is Lynch has a really nice fastball.

But before Monday night’s debut could happen, Lynch had a lot of coaches along the way. Alec Lewis reported on that aspect:

Nicholson then asked another question: “Well, how much of your training do you spend on the mental aspect of the game?”

This time, as is often the case, the players, including Lynch, were taken aback. Some answered with 25 percent, but most answered with zero.

“Well, does that make sense?” Nicholson then asked. “If you’re telling me the mental part is 75 percent and you’re spending 15 percent of your training on it, that doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m not the smartest guy in the world. But that doesn’t make any sense to me.”

On his Patreon, Clint Scoles compared Kansas City’s Nicky Lopez with Chicago’s Nick Madrigal:

The two players are the tops in the league in contact rate, both overall and in the zone contact, while Madrigal ranks top 2 in out of the zone contact rate. They get to these rates slightly differently, with Lopez offering at fewer pitches (6th lowest in the league) at 38.9% than Madrigal (44.3%) does.

Through a month, the White Sox are getting more out of their middle infielder offensively than the Royals are with that Sox infielder hitting .313/.364/.413. Compared to Nicky’s .235/.346/.324 line so far. The biggest difference we see between the two is Madrigal doesn’t put the ball in the air, hitting more line drives when he makes contact than Lopez does.

The Mets fired their hitting coaches, Tom Slater and 1997 Royals alum Chili Davis.

At FanGraphs, the White Sox are losing a lot with Luis Robert’s injury.

The Pirates released former Royals outfielder Brian Goodwin.

Chiefs WR Gehrig Dieter picked up some dogs running along the highway:

Disney unveiled a “real-life lightsaber.”

A look at America’s “dire” Pokémon card crisis.

Conan O’Brien is winding down his late-night show on TBS.

SOTD: Alabama - The Cheap Seats.