Royals Rumblings - News for May 27, 2022

Royals Rumblings - News for May 27, 2022

Mike Matheny gives an update on Salvador Perez.

Perez did both hitting drills and catching drills prior to batting practice on Thursday at Target Field. The 10 days he’s required to miss will be satisfied on Friday, but he’ll likely have at least one more day of drills and hitting work and coming out of it pain free before he’s in consideration for being reinstated from the IL.

“He’s champing (at the bit),” Royals manager Mike Matheny said of Perez. “... We need to see both. He did both today, and we’re just waiting to see how he feels.”

Lynn Worthy talked to Brewer Hicklen about his call up.

“I think for me what comes to mind first and foremost is not necessarily all the success that I’ve had, but more so the failure,” Hicklen said. “A lot of people let failure define them. It was just 12 months ago that I was in Double-A and I really was at the lowest place in my life. I remember specifically being in Frisco and in the outfield and struggling so bad that I didn’t know if I was ever good enough to be here. I said this may be the end for me. I just don’t know if I’ll ever get it figured out.”

Alex Duvall at Royals Farm Report writes about reasons for optimism in the farm system.

Massey’s 119 wRC+ (meaning he has been 19% better than the league average hitter) is good for the 77th best mark among 216 qualified hitters at AA this year. The biggest reason for the gap between Massey’s perceived production and the rest of the league is the fact that he has the 51st lowest BB% in all of AA at 7.4%. The median BB% at AA right now is over 10%. Massey swings A LOT. That’s not an inherently bad thing, but we’ve seen with guys like Salvador Perez at the big league level that you can lead all of MLB in home runs and still have just the 37th best wRC+ if you’re not on base all that often.

Kevin O’Brien at Royals Reporter takes a look at what’s wrong with the bullpen.

Though Barlow has struggled lately, his high WPA and positive shutdown to meltdown ratio signify that he’s still a reliever who can be dependable for Matheny. Garrett also performs well on a WPA and context-neutral wins-end with 0.37 and 0.33 marks, respectively. Even though his 20 percent walk rate is alarming, he should continue to be utilized in crucial situations, especially against lefty-heavy lineups.

Clarke and surprisingly, Staumount deserve some reservation in the late innings.

Baseball America wrote about some of the players from each team making the biggest jump up their team prospect lists.

Drew Parrish, LHP (Moved from NR to No. 18)

The Florida State product is dominating Double-A hitters in his return to Northwest Arkansas, with his strengths being a fastball that he lands to all quadrants of the plate and a plus changeup with pitch characteristics resembling the heater. He rounds out his arsenal with a work-in-progress curveball typically thrown in hitter counts. He’s not overpowering, with the fastball sitting 88-92 mph, but succeeds with mound confidence and pitchability.

The Royals promoted outfielder John Rave and infielder Nathan Eaton to Omaha.

Jim Callis at MLB Pipeline projects prep outfielder Justin Crawford to the Royals.

Salvador Perez was on Ben Verlander’s podcast.

The son of former Royals outfielder Jermaine Dye will play football at Kansas.

Keith Law does a re-do of the 2012 draft, when the Royals took Kyle Zimmer.

The Yankees sign infielder Matt Carpenter.

Peter Gammons at The Athletic writes about pitcher injuries piling up.

MLB will allow teams to carry 14 pitchers through June 19.

Josh Donaldson apologizes to Jackie Robinson’s wife Rachel.

MLB sends a memo scolding some teams for not providing acceptable accommodations for women traveling with opposing teams.

How good are the probabilities listed on Apple TV+ broadcasts?

The Mets infield defense may be their weakness right now.

Baseball Savant now tracks “pitch tempo.”

What’s next for the Angels now that the city council has pulled the plug on their stadium deal?

The funniest moments from Charles Barkley on Inside the NBA on TNT.

The Raiders work out quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

Crypto may have an insider trading problem.

The most anticipated video games to be released this summer.

Your song of the day is TV On The Radio with Wolf Like Me.