Please welcome new Royals Review writers Greg Walker and Cullen Jekel

This will be a year for new Royals rookies to make their debut, so we’re debuting some new writers as well! Joining our staff will be Greg Walker and Cullen Jekel.

Greg Walker may be familiar to many readers as a longtime reader and commenter that wrote under the name “Cregwalker”. He wrote some terrific Fanposts such as “Team Health and the Importance of Depth” and “Who is Next for the Royals Hall of Fame?”

Hello hello, my name is Greg Walker, and I am the newest Kevin staff writer here at Royals Review. I have been commenting here semi-regularly under the name Cregwalker since 2016. I loved baseball as a kid, but unfortunately, the Royals were in their toilet years throughout my childhood. Living overseas also made it harder to keep track of them. On April 17^th, 2014, I was bored and looking for something to watch on TV. I saw the Royals were playing and, though I hadn’t been keeping track of them since 2010, I figured I’d give it a watch. James Shields struck out 12 Astros over eight 1-run innings and I was hooked. I didn’t know if they were supposed to be good or not but…well, you all know what happened in 2014. I’ve followed closely ever since. My favorite all-time Royal is Drew Butera, who famously led the Royals in wRC+ in 2016.

This isn’t my first gig covering baseball, as one of my friends and I have been running a baseball podcast since last May. We record our MLB show on Thursday nights and our college baseball show on Monday nights. If you’d like to check it out, look up Bat Flips and Infield Shifts on Spotify, Apple, or Google Podcasts. I am one of the nerds that some say is ruining baseball, so I will be providing analytical looks at the Royals throughout the season. Even as an analytics nerd, though, I also really enjoy the general zeitgeist of the game, so I may put out some more esoteric pieces as well. Finally, as we get closer to draft time, I’ll dig into my college baseball watching to share some pieces about potential Royals draftees from the college ranks.

Thanks to Max and all the excellent staff here at Royals Review, and I cannot wait to get started!

Cullen Jekel has written about the Royals before at KC Kingdom where he wrote pieces about the state of the Royals’ rebuild and appreciating Kevin Appier’s 1993 season

While hospitalized with pneumonia when six or seven, my parents gifted me a full set of that year’s Topps baseball cards. As my older sisters later said, a monster was born: I memorized nearly every stat for players from Darren Daulton to Lance Johnson to Dean Palmer. A Missouri kid by that point, I started rooting for all professional and collegiate teams in the state—a practice I keep today. But the Royals are at the top because I love baseball and I love calling Kansas City my home.

Plus, I have a lot of memories surrounding the Royals. I’ve witnessed three walk-off home runs in my lifetime, two of them by Albert Pujols, but Kila Ka’aihue’s back on April 1, 2011, was the coolest. My oldest son entered a world where the Royals were the defending World Series champions, a fact I find pretty dope.

Before Royals Review, I mostly covered the Royals and Chiefs for KC Kingdom, but took a break about a year ago. I’m excited to get back to covering a burgeoning Royals team. It’s going to be fun watching this team grow and compete over the next couple of seasons. Should be one heck of a ride.

Please join me in welcoming Greg and Cullen to the site!