Royals Rumblings

Royals Rumblings - News for December 29, 2022

Time to reflect.

By Max Rieper@maxrieper Dec 29, 2022, 9:48am EST

David Lesky at Inside the Crown writes about his favorite Royals games this year.

July 14 - Royals 3, Blue Jays 1

There were more exciting wins this season in terms of action, but I don’t think there was a whole lot better than this one. The day before this game, we had learned that 10 Royals would be unable to make the trip to Toronto due to vaccine requirements. That meant the Royals could put them all on the restricted list and basically call up whoever they wanted, whether they were on the 40-man roster or not. They called up Angel Zerpa, who started this game, Maikel Garcia, Freddy Fermin, Eaton, Pratto, Rivero, Massey and Brewer Hicklen as players who hadn’t seen big league time or had seen minimal time.

Jackson Perdue of Royals Reflections reflects on some of the Royals’ moves so far.

If you’d like my two cents, there is nothing wrong with signing Lyles. He’s a decent pitcher who has proven himself as one of MLB’s most durable starters over the past two seasons. Heck, he hasn’t landed on the injured list in well over three years, so there’s not any significant injury risk. What I don’t fully support is giving him 2 years. I think if Lyles would have accepted one year and $10 million, go for it. That’s kind of a pricey deal, but it’s also cheap enough that you can ship him to a contender if the young guys start to break out.

Now again, this isn’t a bad deal, in my book. It’s just that Lyles’ last couple of seasons have been anomalies.

Kevin O’Brien at Royals Reporter compares Salvy’s deal with other recent deals with catchers.

Despite the rough defense, Salvy has been worth his extension thus far. though it’s been closer than Royals fans may like to believe He’s been worth 3.8 fWAR via Fangraphs over the past two seasons, which roughly accumulates to $30.2 million over that time span when it comes to WAR as a dollar value...

Nonetheless, while one could argue that Salvy’s extension has been money well-spent over the past two seasons, it will be more challenging for Salvy to continue to live up to that contract value when one part of his game weighs him down so heavily (i.e. the defensive framing).

Mike Gillespie at Kings of Kauffman writes about mistakes the Royals could make.

Beat writer Lynn Worthy is leaving the Kansas City Star.

Programming Note: My run at The Kansas City Star covering the Royals is coming to an end in the coming weeks. I'm grateful to those who've read and followed as well as the great journalists I've worked alongside. I'm also thankful for those who allowed me to share their stories.
— Lynn Worthy (@LWorthySports) December 28, 2022