Royals Rumblings

Royals Rumblings - News for October 17, 2022

Are the Royals looking to move downtown?

By Max Rieper@maxrieper Oct 17, 2022, 8:00am EDT

Kevin O’Brien at Royals Reporter remains optimistic about Daniel Lynch.

On an xERA and xFIP end, Lynch saw 1.24-point and 0.92-point improvements in 2022, which are both significant gains. There wasn’t a huge difference in the point difference in the area of FIP (19 points), but his FIP was under five, and at 4.63, it was the second-best mark of those four categories of metrics as well.

Another nice trend from Lynch in 2022 was the increase in K/9 (8.34), K/BB ratio (2.35), and a decrease in BB/9 (3.55). Those improvements demonstrated that Lynch had much better control with his pitches in 2022 in comparison to his rookie year, which is a good sign going into 2023.

Shawn Bauman at Inside the Royals grades Bobby Witt Jr.’s season.

One number that shows the potential for more fireworks to come is Witt’s average exit velocity of 89.7. That is 1.5 mph better than the league average. The Royals’ new manager would be wise to stick him in the three-hole in the lineup. When batting at the spot in the lineup, Witt produced an average 13 points higher, reached base 30 points more often and slugged at a 0.94 greater clip.

A Jackson County leader thinks John Sherman is making it clear he wants to move downtown.

The conversation was mostly about charity work, but a downtown baseball stadium did come up.

“It was pretty clear to me without him directly saying it that he wanted the team downtown,” Burnett said in an interview with FOX4 Friday. “The plumbing’s not good at Royals Stadium. There’s not hot water a lot of the time, so it was the sense that he wanted it moved.”

There’s buzz within the industry that Phillies hitting coach Kevin Long is emerging as a potential managerial candidate for at least one of the five openings (Royals, White Sox, Marlins, Blue Jays and Rangers).
— Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) October 15, 2022