clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Royals Rumblings - News for March 15, 2024

Asia Baseball Previews start today!

By sterlingice
/ new

If you buy something from an SB Nation link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

Uni-Lions v Fubon Guardians - CPBL
Salvy Splashes are not just for MLB
Photo by Gene Wang/Getty Images

Max was, of course, all over the notable news that last couple of days. On Wednesday, the big story was that Bo Jackson would be inducted into the Royals HOF. Yesterday, it was announced that former GMs Cedric Tallis and John Schuerholz would join him.

Just wanting to link to some stories about this that we haven’t yet from The Star. Jaylon Thompson wrote the Bo Jackson profile while Vahe Gregorian wrote about his larger-than-life persona while tying it back to his friendship with soon-to-be fellow Royals HOFer Art Stewart:

Whenever his mind does wander to his favorite moments as a player, Jackson said it often starts with being in the on-deck circle for home games and looking in the stands and winking at Stewart’s wife, Donna.

“Because she and Art were like my mom and dad when I was in Kansas City,” said Jackson, who today is immersed in numerous business endeavors. “And I would always speak to her or wave to her or wink at her every time I went up to the plate.

“It’s things like that. The baseball part was easy. It’s just the fact that I was able to come into a great organization and do the things I did, and the Royals allowed me to blossom.”

Also in The Star, Thompson profiles Daniel Lynch:

Kansas City Royals pitcher Daniel Lynch IV has logged a lot of innings this offseason. Lynch, 27, spent time in the Arizona Fall League. He made five starts with Leones del Escogido in the Dominican Winter League. Each stop served a purpose: Lynch needed playing time after being sidelined with a left shoulder strain last July...

This spring, Lynch has pitched in five games and made three starts. He credits his busy offseason for helping him pitch in different situational roles.

“I don’t always have to have the perfect routine and structure,” Lynch said, “... as long as I believe that once I step out there and have the ball, I can execute and get guys out. And that was a huge step forward for me.”

MLB.com put out a number of stories about this weekend’s Spring Breakout games as they started on Thursday. We mentioned these prospect-only games last(?) week. There’s a FAQ from Anthony Castrovince. A list of all of the games around MLB from Ben Weinrib. If, like me, you were trying to figure out why there are 16 games and not 15, it is because of the odd number of teams in Florida and Arizona so the Reds and Cardinals each get 2 games. And, of course, Anne Rogers has the Royals-centric coverage:

3. The new guys

There are five members of the Royals’ 2023 Draft class on their Spring Breakout roster, including Mitchell and Wolters. The others:

OF Carson Roccaforte (No. 17)

LHP Hunter Owen (No. 23)

RHP Hiro Wyatt (No. 26)

Roccaforte played in 31 games last season after the Draft and posted a .779 OPS, but this could be the first time we see Owen and Wyatt on a bigger stage if they’re lined up to pitch. The Royals had a strong Draft last year across the 20 rounds, and many of those players are expected to move fast, including Owen, who brings a great presence and tempo to the mound in addition to his four-pitch mix.

Does this count as a listicle or a full article? Jim Bowden gives offseason grades to every team at The Athletic ($). Below is the Royals entry:

Key takeaways: The best move the Royals made was the statement extension signed by their best player, Bobby Witt Jr., which ensures he’ll remain a Royal for at least seven more seasons. (The 11-year deal includes opt-out clauses four years in a row starting after the seventh season.) Their pitching staff is much more competitive this year than it was last year, highlighted by the signings of former Padres starters Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo. The Royals also made a solid bet in trading for Kyle Wright, which could be beneficial in 2025 — the right-hander, who won 21 games with the Braves two years ago, is expected to miss the 2024 season after having shoulder surgery.

Biggest question: How much can the young players around Witt in the Royals lineup, guys such as first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino and outfielders Drew Waters and MJ Melendez, improve?

At CBS Sports, Dayn Perry asks about what the Yankees could do to help their pitching with Gerrit Cole injured and dropped in this nugget:

Elsewhere, there’s 13-year vet Jordan Lyles of the Royals. The Royals may be looking to get out from under his $8.5 million commitment given their spending elsewhere and given Lyles’ struggles of 2023. Again, though, what does Lyles actually do for the Yankees? Not much, probably.

I don’t know what’s more sad? That the Yankees pitching “woes” are, of course, a front page story. Or the suggestion that Jordan Lyles could help.

At their Effectively Wild Podcast at Fangraphs, Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley preview both the Mariners and Royals, clearly a nod to the Battle of Grass Creek. Wolves, etc, indeed.

Also at Fangraphs and with some Royals mentions, Zach Buchanan wrote a fun story where he talked to some GMs about their first trades:

For one awkward beat, there was silence.

Just like always, everyone in the room had offered an opinion. The December 2022 move the Royals were discussing was hardly a blockbuster – right-handed reliever Wyatt Mills to the Red Sox for relief prospect Jacob Wallace – but the process leading up to it was still time-tested and thorough. One by one, members of the Kansas City brain trust chimed in with their thoughts. Then, they turned toward Royals general manager J.J. Picollo.

Three months earlier, with the previous season winding down, the Royals had dismissed longtime GM Dayton Moore and elevated Picollo after years as Moore’s top deputy. Small as it was, the Mills-Wallace deal was to be the first of his administration. He’d been in that room for countless trade discussions and he’d listened as each department in baseball operations weighed in. Except now, the final say was his and his alone. So long as he remembered.

“I sat there after I got everyone’s opinion,” Picollo recalls, “and somebody actually said, ‘You’ve got to make the call now.’”

For Royals blogs, roster projections are all the rage right now!

David Lesky (reminder to subscribe before his stuff goes pay-only on April 2nd) puts out his “Best Royals Lineup They Can Field”, at first taking a guess at the “optimal” Royals lineup and then plugging it into an online tool:

Every one of the best lineups has Pasquantino leading off and Garcia hitting ninth. In my heart of hearts, I know that’s probably the way to go based on the modern game and is SUPER interesting, but I also know that’s never going to happen. The “best” lineup is also one that is pretty friendly to opposing bullpens with three lefties at the top. I find it interesting that so many of these lineups show Isbel hitting third, the spot that used to be reserved for the very best hitter on the team. For whatever it’s worth, the lineup I think the Royals put out shows at 4.634 runs per game, so that’s even better than my lineup.

I think we have a pretty good idea that Garcia and Witt are going to be 1-2 to start the season. I think your 3-4-5 are Pasquantino, Perez and Melendez. I’m not sure that I can pin down how the bottom of the order is going to look, but if the Royals are going to score enough runs to win a division, they’re going to have to optimize the lineup as best they can and hope someone steps up to make more of a clear case for who should hit sixth and who should hit ninth. One of the downfalls of the Royals offense last year wasn’t who was hitting at the top but rather that they simply couldn’t score the guys at the top with the poor hitters at the bottom.

At the Royals Reporter, Kevin O’Brien takes a swing (I’m pretty sure I’ve already used this pun in the last couple of weeks) at the positional part of the roster:

Having Loftin on the Opening Day roster also puts a microscope on Massey, which is needed for the Royals to avoid a disastrous start like 2023.

If Massey has another poor April like he did in 2023, the Royals can gradually give Loftin more plate appearances and innings at second base. Quatraro wants to play multiple guys and use various lineups, and Loftin helps accomplish that goal better than a year ago when Matt Duffy and Nicky Lopez rotated at second base with Massey.

I don’t know if Loftin will start on Opening Day, March 28th. However, we will see him in a Royals uniform for the National Anthem against the Twins.

Blog Roundup:

It’s March so it’s time for me (and the other couple of people who read these) to start thinking about baseball overseas. No, I’m not talking about next week’s Seoul Series, though that also sounds like a blast. It’s time for our Friday Rumblings Asia baseball previews. Last year, we had the WBC and three teams ending long droughts. This year we have the Olympics (oops, never mind, thanks, IOC!) and more!

Here’s our schedule for this year. We’re doing CPBL a couple of weeks before Opening Day, but the other leagues we’ll be doing just as they start - the schedule works out nice and timely this year:

  • This week: CPBL
  • March 22nd: KBO
  • March 29th: NPB

For a reminder about competition level, here what Baseball America said in 2020:

Overall, here is the hierarchy of how MLB front office officials and evaluators generally view the quality of the various Asian leagues compared to MLB and the minor leagues.

MLB

NPB (Japan)

AAA

KBO (Korea)

AA

High A

CPBL (Taiwan)

Low A

Finally, here’s a link to our old articles.

Today, we’re going to start out with the CPBL, which will always have a special little place in my heart from 2020 and helping me with the pandemic, mentally. I still very much want to go to some games there.

CPBL - Chinese Professional Baseball League

Country: Taiwan

Opening Day: March 30

International Players: Not a lot of (any?) big name former players in the CPBL but this section will be more populated for the KBO and NPB; Full list from CPBLStats

Former Royals: Some old ones like Tim Melville left the league but there’s an influx of new ex-Royals in the CPBL; only Daniel Mengden (Brothers) and his magnificent “gentlemanly mustache” has any MLB experience; a number of Royals farmhands have new homes: Pedro Fernandez (Monkeys), Marcelo Martinez (Monkeys), Eric Stout (Brothers), and Jake Kalish (Uni-Lions); Keyvius Sampson (Uni-Lions, not a former Royal but former Kansas City Monarch in 2021)

Last Season: The first half went to the Uni-Lions while the recently reborn Wei Chuan Dragons won the second half crown. Our Rakuten Monkeys were the wild card team and knocked off the 2nd seed Uni-Lions in the playoff series. In the Taiwan Series, game 1 went 14 innings and ended in the “1st Taiwan Series walk-off home run in CPBL history”. The Monkeys won game 2 in extras. Then the series went: Monkeys, Dragons, Monkeys, Dragons, setting up a winner-take-all Game 7. The Dragons were victorious, winning their first title since 1999.

Rooting Interest: The Rakuten Monkeys are our squad here at RR. As noted in a previous preview: “they had the first English broadcasts and were the inspiration for my first article”. Our red clad simians have been runner up both in 2022 and 2023. However, they have not won since they took on the Rakuten name. They won as the Lamigo Monkeys in 2012, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, and 2019. Longtime franchise star Chen Chun-Hsiu has left the Monkeys, signing with the Brothers. Chu Yu Hsien bounced back after a really rough 2022, but the 32yo slugger and former MVP may just be losing his battle with Father Time.

Random Nuggets:

  • Back in 2020, there were only 4 teams: the Rakuten Monkeys, the CTBC Brothers, the Fubon Guardians, and the Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions (Uni-Lions). The Wei Chuan Dragons rejoined the league in 2021. Now, the league is up to 6 teams with the new TSG (Taiwan Steel Group) Hawks joining this year. This is the most teams since there were 7 back in 1997, prior to the game-fixing scandals. As per the standard process, the Hawks played in the minor league last year and finished in 2nd place.
  • The CPBL is also implementing some of the MLB rule changes. Back in 2022, they introduced a 20-second pitch clock to try and decrease the game times that were well in excess of 3 hours. This year, they are making minor tweaks to it and implementing PitchCom. I wonder how rigorously they are enforcing the pitch clock as game times were at 3:27 prior to the pitch clock and were only reduced to 3:20 last year. The league has a lot more offense than MLB, especially once you get into the bullpens, but I think a pitch clock would have lopped off more than a few minutes. Sadly, they are also implementing the Manfred Man for the 10th through 12th inning. After that, the game will be a tie. Was this really needed? It’s an abomination to baseball and there were only 11 ties all last season. Boo!
  • All of our CPBL news is “new” news. The Taipei Dome opened in late 2023, a brand new 40K seat stadium that was more than 10 years in the making. They hosted a pair of exhibition games between CPBL and NPB teams that drew over 67K fans and over $4M in ticket sales for the weekend. Kansas City-based Populous was involved in designing the stadium.
  • Unfortunately, the English broadcasts from 2020 are a thing of the past. If you want to sign up for games in the native language, here’s the 2023 handy guide, which is almost the same for 2024. At $70, I can’t justify that one. This guide is even older, but does link to some Twitch rebroadcasts that still work. Again, not in English, though.

Links:

Continuing on from last week, I have Part 2 of my “hey, I just noticed some music happened in 2023”. And, again, as last week, we all agree I’m way out over my skis talking about this. If we were talking 80s arena rock and 90s alternative, I could hold my own. But post-2000, I rarely listen to modern music and only have albums from a handful of artists. That said, I searched in Google to see if we had ever referenced them on the site before, and there’s only one hit, so let’s do this. Also, assume that there might be some NSFW lyrics in the videos - not all, but some.

Apparently, Panic at the Disco broke up last year. Can we call it breaking up? Check out wiki’s “band members” chart for the band. The original band members lasted exactly one album. After the second album, a second original member left as well as the replacement for the one who left after the first album. Only lead singer Brandon Urie and drummer Spencer Smith remained. Smith would later leave, fighting drug addiction.

We can even tie this back to last week, per wiki:

The group formed in Las Vegas in 2004 and began posting demos online, which caught the attention of Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz. Wentz signed the group to his own imprint label, Decaydance, without them having ever performed live.

Yet, somehow, the “band” cranked out 7 albums across nearly 20 years with a high degree of success. Five of the albums were certified Platinum and was certified Gold by RIAA. This wasn’t just a one hit wonder that coasted on a popular first album. Similarly, I’m not sure you could nail down what the band’s “sound” is. With the exception of one album, the genre category for each album’s wikipedia page has 5(!) or more entries. And they’re not the same 5 genres, either. For instance, I think a lot of folks are familiar with “I Write Sins not Tragedies” (edited, but still lightly NSFW - if you haven’t seen it, it’s a fun early 2000s video), their biggest hit and award winning video. But it’s worlds of sound apart from another hit, the Vegas crooning “Death of a Bachelor”.

Fairly or unfairly, I think the band became labeled as a showcase for Urie’s vocals, a diva who chased off his band mates. Again, this is the type of judgement where I’m out of my depth. That said, his vocal talent is undeniable. I think the best example of this is how his voice explodes into the refrain of “This is Gospel”. But that’s far from the only spot. For instance, it feels a little like he’s mailing in a soundtrack paycheck for the credits version of Frozen 2’s “Into the Unknown”. However, his vocals still go toe-to-toe with Idina Menzel’s version, even the huge sound in the bridge and the finale.

It seems like the music industry is full of “I love being a musician but hate being a musician”. Generally, musicians are a bit of a dramatic bunch and they’re surrounded by seedy businessmen. Maybe that goes doubly so for musicians like Urie, raised in Las Vegas. It’s a timeless theme - just think of the implications underneath the lyrics of Rush’s “Spirit of Radio”.

But Panic at the Disco seems to use this more than most. Early on, it’s front and center. Their very first single, “The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide Is Press Coverage”, is all about it, while another song off the first album is literally titled “London Beckoned Songs About Money Written By Machines” (that lyric about “webzines” makes you feel old, doesn’t it?). This feels pretty similar to Fall Out Boy’s “This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race” mentioned last week. Maybe a little less sarcastic, a bit more cocky and confrontational - but, hey, young punk bands.

But in the last coupe of albums, it gets quite dark. Again, going back to last week, the last scene in FOB’s “Hold Me Like a Grudge” video is Pete’s mom saying she likes the older stuff better. It sounds like a subtle shot at fickle fans. Maybe the venerable punk band doesn’t like hearing it, but they’re confident enough to keep dishing it out. On their second to last album, Pray for the Wicked, they were atop Billboard’s Hot Rock Songs for a staggering 76 weeks (though this is partially a product of a more “empty” Rock chart, but this does go back to that comment about success across the band’s history). One of those songs was the optimistic “High Hopes”. The other was “Hey Look Ma, I Made It”. Maybe the music and the video are just really doing their job, but that just looks like one giant cry for help. I believe the first two thirds of the video much more than the happy ending.

Last year, their final album, Viva Las Vengeance dropped (the only one that didn’t get certified Gold or better by RIAA). The video for the first song on the album and first released single, same title, has Urie continuously being injured on stage, even having his piano eat him with lyrics like “I don’t wanna be anonymous but I don’t wanna be you”. The official notes on the video even say “Welcome to Viva Las Vengeance. This is the tale about growing up in Las Vegas. It’s about love, fame, burnout and everything that happens in between.”

The last song on the album is “Do it to Death” and that’s today SotD. Honestly, of all the songs I’ve linked to today, it’s probably one of the weaker ones. But the video is, um, interesting, in the same vein as we’ve been talking about. Urie is not feeling well and overwhelmed, but has to go do a show. He tries but, mid-show, he explodes, and everything goes black and white. The rest of the video is two scenes spliced together: one of his memorial service, with clips from previous videos in the album, and the other of him pushing a piano up a ramp Sisypheanly (that’s a word, right?)

Maybe it’s all an act, a show, and I was taken in. If so, bravo (I guess?) - bands and music videographers are entertainers and that’s what they do. However, as I said up above, I feels like more of a cry for help. I’m not asking people to feel sorry for a wealthy musician who is probably also a high maintenance human being. But suffering is still suffering, even if it’s not the same suffering “regular people” experience. That said, there appears to be a happy ending, of sorts. Urie announced in early 2023 that he was disbanding the band as he and his wife were expecting their first child.

More From Royals Review

Loading comments...