Royals Rumblings - News for February 2, 2023

ICYMI, Kiley McDaniel dropped his Top 100 prospects list. It features only one Royal, and it is not who you expect ($):

78. Maikel Garcia, SS, Kansas City Royals

Age: 22 | Bats: Right | Throws: Right

Type: Hit-over-power, big-league-ready shortstop

The Royals have had trouble getting to the next stage of their rebuild, but they haven’t had trouble producing solid infielders. Garcia made his Double-A debut last season and ended the season in the big leagues but even after the Adalberto Mondesi trade, he’s still behind Bobby Witt Jr., Hunter Dozier, Nicky Lopez and Michael Massey as homegrown second base/third base/shortstop options. Garcia is a plus hitter with an excellent approach and a steady glove at shortstop, but below-average in-game power.

There is one less Royals source on the market now:

This piece from January 31st appears to be the last from the site:

No one is thinking about the Royals making the playoffs this year, but that’s exactly when a team can sneak up on their opponents. Last year, not many expected Cleveland to be in the picture for the AL race, and they won the division. The Royals could be that team this year.

If the Royals were to win the AL Central, or merely be a part of the wild card race, this would be an exciting development in the town. With a new downtown ballpark proposal on the horizon, a winning season could mean everything to this franchise and the future of baseball in Kansas City.

The team has narrowed down their potential new stadium sites from 14 to four or five.

If you’re a masochist, single-game tickets go on sale tomorrow.

Transactions!

• Tampa Bay signed Yandy Díaz to a three-year extension.
• Seattle signed Dylan Moore to a three-year extension.
• Toronto signed Chad Green to a two-year deal.
• Washington signed old friend Wily Peralta to a minor league deal.

Jeff Zimmerman quantifies the difficulty for hitters returning from labrum surgery.

This year’s Superb Owl features two teams built in quite different manners.

The Big XII released their 2023 football schedule with a collection of teams that we may only see for this year.

LeBron James’s pursuit of the all-time NBA scoring record may be the last such milestone chase we ever see.

The celebrity field at this week’s Pebble Beach Pro-Am includes Alex Smith, Buster Posey, Gareth Bale, and Jason Bateman among many others.

This week’s rental opportunity features more showers than stoves in the kitchen, competing types of flooring, and a mystery toilet in a cupboard.

Feral hogs are more widespread in the US than ever and present a major disease risk.

A startup is attempting to recreate extinct species from the Pleistocene. I see no way this could possibly go wrong.

Chick-Fil-A is experimenting with a new design to fix their ludicrous drive-thru traffic. I think a better solution would be to simply ban drive-thrus.

Your song of the day is Happy Now by Kygo ft. Sandro Cavazza