Royals Rumblings - News for August 16, 2024 (2024)

At The Star, Jaylon Thompson writes about how the Royals bullpen has 4 lefties:

Across the majors, the Royals and Detroit Tigers are the only teams featuring four left-handed relievers on their respective active rosters. Several others have three. Already, that plethora of lefties has become a big advantage for Kansas City.

Long headlines the KC quartet. He is joined by Will Smith, Kris Bubic and Angel Zerpa. Together, those four have been thrust into key situations against both left- and right-handed hitters.

“Yeah, I think it’s real unique,” Royals bullpen coach Mitch Stetter said. “We got some guys that are a little bit different, too, with (Kris) Bubic and Sam Long. You know, they have weapons for both lefties and righties. (Angel) Zerpa has a two-seam that a lot of the guys don’t have.

Thompson and Pete Grathoff posted Twitter observations about Witt’s eye-level home run from Wednesday:

Speaking of Twitter (no, it’s not X - lol), Max mentioned the 2025 Spring Training schedule release yesterday and the Royals Player Development account noted when the Spring Breakout game is:

This isn’t directly Royals-related but it’s interesting baseball news. MLB appears to be leaking a proposed six-inning minimum for starting pitchers:

“We are interested in increasing the amount of action in the game, restoring the prominence of the starting pitcher and reducing the prevalence of pitching injuries,” an MLB official told ESPN. “There are a whole host of options in addressing those issues.”

The league has discussed a limit to the size of pitching staffs and the double-hook DH, according to sources familiar with the discussion. There is some belief around the game, however, that one idea could be a panacea: requiring starting pitchers to go at least six innings every time they take the mound...

The objective is to prioritize starting pitching, not to leave a struggling starter in to reach the innings threshold while his ERA skyrockets or at the risk of injury. So the league’s conversations have included carve-outs, instances when pitchers would not have to pitch the required six innings. Some instances when a starter would be allowed to leave early might include:

He throws 100 pitches

He gives up four or more earned runs

He gets injured (with a required injured list stint to avoid manipulation)

Here’s your Royals angle:

“I do that anyway,” Kansas City Royals starter Seth Lugo said with a smirk. “We all want to go at least six.”

Let’s end with a few stories that I’m just going to call the Bobby-Witt-for-MVP section:

At Fangraphs, Dan Szymborski (Szymborski! Szymborski!) has ZIPS look at Witt’s odds for MVP:

This model thinks Judge is the favorite, but his odds to lose are nearly a coin flip. Witt is the runner-up, followed by Soto, Henderson, and the somehow-still-underrated José Ramírez. If we look at a model that considers all the BBWAA-voting years rather than just the 21st century results, this becomes a much more lopsided race.

At CBS Sports, Matt Snyder looks at under-the-radar MVP candidates:

Bobby Witt Jr., Royals - Now, I don’t think he’s necessarily “under the radar,” as I’ve written multiple times about him and many national writers have done the same, but the fact remains that he’s on the Royals and gets overshadowed by the two Yankees stars. Witt leads the majors in hits and average. He has 33 doubles, 11 triples, 24 homers, 89 RBI, 102 runs, 25 steals and 7.9 WAR.

As Sports Info Solutions, Mark Simon writes an interesting article about how other teams play bad defense against Witt:

Opposing defenses have -16 Defensive Runs Saved on the balls hit by Bobby Witt this season. That’s the worst total against any player in the majors.

This is not to discredit Witt so much as to show that he puts a lot of pressure on opposing defenses with his speed.

For example, this ground ball hit to Mariners shortstop J.P. Crawford has a 92% out probability but Witt beats it out. This one to Dodgers second baseman Gavin Lux has an 87% out probability but again Witt beats the throw to the base. And here’s a comebacker that Casey Mize muffed, a play that had a 100% out probability at the time. But not anymore.

Lastly, the MLB.com staff writes a listicle about predictions they got wrong at the start of the season:

Royals: That Bobby Witt Jr. would be just an All-Star

OK, we got the All-Star prediction right for Witt, and you could predict he’d be the centerpiece of the Royals’ lineup. But the way he’s playing now? Come on. Witt is in the top five in many offensive categories, including his .347 average (first), .395 on-base percentage (third) and .607 slugging percentage (third). He’s one of four players in baseball with an OPS over 1.000. Witt’s 8.2 fWAR is already the fourth-best single season fWAR by a position player in franchise history, and it’s just slightly behind Aaron Judge’s 8.3 fWAR this year. To watch what Witt is doing every night, whether it be at the plate or in the field, is something to behold. He’s not just an All-Star; he’s a bona fide superstar. — Anne Rogers

We’ve got a good variety of blogs today so let’s dig in.

David Lesky ($) has an article about Witt, the playoff chase, and Cole Ragans:

I mentioned that fastball, and it’s been an issue of conversation with good reason. The last time he averaged 95 MPH on it for a game was on July 5. He averaged 95.3 MPH on it yesterday. That was so nice to see. It’s not that he can’t succeed without velocity. He posted a 3.23 ERA with a 25.4 percent strikeout rate and a 7.9 percent walk rate in the five starts between 95+ MPH games. But we all know that velocity allows a pitcher to be a bit less fine. He sat 93.4 to 94.7 to the first two batters he faced but fired off multiple pitches 95 MPH or harder to the third hitter and didn’t throw another fastball below 95 MPH until he threw 94.9 MPH to Kyle Farmer in the third inning. He even threw one 98.6 MPH in the sixth inning.

The Royals Reporter, Kevin O’Brien, asks “Should Paul DeJong Get Everyday At Bats With the Royals?” with some Process+ graphs that I’m unfamiliar with but are interesting:

When looking at the Process+ rolling chart data, there is much to like about what DeJong has done this season, especially compared to a year ago. With the Cardinals, Jays, and Giants, DeJong got off to a strong start and tanked in the last few months of the season. There has been an opposite trend this year, with DeJong’s power tool being much more consistent than in 2023.

Notice in August, DeJong’s power flipped negatively. That led to a massive decline in his rolling Process+, which started the year in the 110 range but fell to around the 60-70 range by the end of the year. That’s a primary reason why the White Sox were the only suitor for DeJong’s services this offseason (which only was a one-year, $1.75 million deal).

Based on the Process+ graph above, DeJong’s contact has always been an issue over the past two years. The lackluster contact ability trend correlates strongly with his plus-30% K rates in 2023 and 2024. Furthermore, DeJong’s decision value has been around average for the past two years, though it hovered more on the positive end this season than a year ago.

We haven’t heard from Hunter Samuels at Swinging Bunts in a while. He asks: “Ain’t Witt Fun?”

This one might be my favorite. Witt’s hard hit rate, when looked at on a rolling basis of 100 batted balls (a not-insignificant amount of time), is so far above the MLB average that the chart doesn’t even bother putting the red line.

Finally, how about another SBNation blog? Over at Red Reporter, Wick Terrell opines “There’s finally a meaningful Reds/Royals series on the horizon”:

...The emergence of young superstar shortstop Bobby Witt, Jr. paired with a shrewdly revamped pitching staff has them 66-55 and the current owners of an American League Wild Card spot. The Royals and the Cincinnati Reds have some pretty similar parallels, all told.

The Reds, fresh off a 3-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals that saw them blast 10 dingers and vault all the way into 2nd place in the National League Central, are a club that’s seen endless years of frustration after the even-year San Francisco Giants shot down their best hopes of a title last decade. They’re built around their own superstar shortstop and a revamped, refurbished set of starting pitching, and their pythagorean record - based on ther +55 run differential - actually suggests they should be 66-55 this year, too.

Blog roundup?

• Darin Watson at U.L.’s Toothpick: This Date In Royals History—1984 Edition: August 15 - In a wild game, the Royals score seven unearned runs in the sixth on their way to a 13-8 win over Boston
• Jacob Milham at Kings of Kauffman: KC Royals trade deadline castoff already giving front office second thoughts
• Mike Gillespie at Kings of Kauffman (slideshow warning): 3 big new KC Royals questions and answers
• Mathey Gibson at KCRoyals on SI: Royals Eye Washington Square Park as Possible Site for New Stadium
• Also Gibson: Where Royals Top Prospect Jac Caglianone Ranks on the MLB Pipeline Top 100 List
• Curt Bishop at The Sporting News (local?): Royals could target Guardians ace this winter to bolster rotation

The Olympics are done and we’re hitting the dead of summer so it’s time to check back in on Asia baseball! In case you missed the previews back in the Spring, here are links to the CPBL, KBO, and NPB previews. As always, the midseason checks are more laid back than the previews and season wraps. We’ll see what stories around the league filtered back to US audiences and how our rooting interests are doing.

The first half title and automatic bid to the playoffs went to the Uni-Lions at 37-23. Our Rakuten Monkeys (33-27) edged the CTBC Brothers (32-28) for 2nd. The Fubon Guardians (29-31), Wei Chuan Dragons (26-34), and expansion TSG Hawks (23-37) finished with losing records.

The new Taipei Dome hosted an All-Star game to remember. Former Detroit Tiger and current TSG Hawk Steven Moya won the home run derby while Uni-Lion An Ko Lin won the MVP for both All-Star games. However, towards the end of the second game, things got really fun:

After two outs in the top of the ninth, fans started to request their favorite legendary players into the game. The calling of 29,000-plus fans in unison received answers from the legends in the games as 2008 Summer Olympics Chinese Taipei manager I-Chung Hong (Hawks manager) took the plate first and faced former New York Yankees pitcher Chien-Ming Wang (Brothers pitching coach).

Chin-Feng Chen, the first Major League Baseball player from Taiwan (Guardians manager), also stepped into the batter’s box before getting hit by Wang, and both benches cleared as all players rushed to the mound for a group photo.

Fans then called CPBL’s Mr. Baseball Cheng-Min “ChaCha” Peng (Brothers farm director) to the plate, and he doubled to the left. After Wang took himself out of the game, the fans called Yueh-Ping “Daddy Pie” Lin (Lions manager) to the mound and Chun-Chang “The Invincible” Yeh (Dragons manager) behind the plate, as another legendary hitter Chien-Ming “Brother Fire” Chang (Dragons coach) was called by the fans to the plate for a ground out to end the 35th edition of CPBL’s summer classic.

Could you imagine if fans at the MLB All-Star game started yelling for, I dunno, Bartolo Colon and Ken Griffey Jr. to get into the game in the 9th... and they did! Then, Big Papi comes up - Colon beans him (lightly) and then the benches clear so they can take a team picture on the mound. I’m pretty sure I found a video of the scene on YouTube and it’s awesome:

The CPBL Draft was notable for a couple of reasons. Japanese-born Masaki Takashio becomes the first non-Taiwanese born player to go in the CPBL Draft and count as a domestic player draft due to his play in semi-pro leagues in the country. But the big news was that former MLB infielder (Guardians, Pirates, Rays, Red Sox) Yu Chang returned to Taiwan and submitted his name for the draft. He was the #1 overall pick and signed the richest contract in CPBL history:

“I thought about it for a year and a half,” Chang Yu-Cheng said when discussing his decision to return to Taiwan. “This year, I wanted to see if I could make it to the major leagues, but I encountered many setbacks, so I decided to come home.” Chang Yu-Cheng also admitted that playing overseas often felt very lonely, and he wanted to return to Taiwan and be happy playing baseball again.

It’s been a while since we looked at Star Fox for the SNES. We first talked about it in 2017 (Corneria) and then revisited it in 2018 (Venom Orbit), 2019 (Fortuna), 2020 (Black Hole), and 2021 (Asteroid Belt). And, while I stumbled across the oddball Out of This Dimension (that I never knew about) while looking for a level, we’re going with something more standard like Sector X