Nope. Not giving anything there. Get a Mahomes Royals jersey if you have to wear it. There are 78 home dates that the Cardinals are not here (other teams have a primary color of red, but it's especially annoying with the Cardinals) to wear a Mahomes Chiefs jersey. Just wear blue.
It’s just an interesting debate for me. I know the offense “should” get better. But we are over a quarter of the way now and they aren’t. So maybe they just are not a good offense.
But then I ask myself, does it even matter? No, it probably doesn’t, because they can pitch and pitch well. Can they still win a playoff series with this offense? Yes.
So I don’t even really know how to take it. Lol. I’m just waiting for a bat at the deadline I guess.
Are they not getting better or did they have a bad series? I don't know the answer, but I can tell you that they had a 62 wRC+ for the first 19 games and now a 99 wRC+ for the last 23. Look, you are what you are and what they are is in the middle of that, but they've been "fine" for a bit. They're not scoring runs, but I still think that follows actually hitting. Again, though, this weekend felt like the first 19 games. I guess we'll see how they respond.
The crazy part is though, I don’t think it matters that much. Now, it matters some, but as long as the starting pitching stays healthy. 3 runs as game isn’t really all that much to ask for. They look a lot like Tampa to me. Which is a good thing.
It matters in that they need to score four more often than they have. But, again, they have generally had the runners on. I can't imagine they'll continue to struggle with runners on the way they have, though there are some legitimate reasons behind it. Something will give. I just hope it gives in the way of getting to four runs regularly.
Yes and no? I mean that was unsustainable but they’ve also been unsustainably bad as well. Forget those first three or so weeks. Since they’ve been hitting in general, that part hasn’t gotten much better. I think there are still too many holes in the lineup, so it becomes a struggle to sequence hits. But it’s the lack of power, which is kind of weird for a team that has guys with power. It’s just a lot of things. And bad baserunning doesn’t help. Actually Jared Koller just sent me a new video that’ll go up on the YouTube channel a little later that gets into it some.
I still don't think I'm that concerned about Cole. If injury was hampering him I would've expected to see more of a downturn in his velo/pitch shape and that didn't seem to be the case on Saturday. Mostly I think, like you said, he's just that little bit off and it's causing him to miss his location; it seemed like he was in the middle of the zone a bit too much and his offspeed/breaking pitches tended to hang. I think he'll turn it around, he's too good not to. Like you said the strand rate is unsustainably low and (like I mentioned the other week) the BABIP is unsustainably high!
I'm not concerned about him at all, honestly. I would, however, like to see a solid six innings against the Cardinals this weekend. That would make me feel better.
Let's hope Cole gets his rhythm back and become their "ace" again. Right now I think I prefer Lugo, Wacha or Bubic as their number 1 starter. However, with the kind of pitching the Royals can put on the mound, they have a chance to win every game IF they can score a few runs.
Yeah I mean the designation really is irrelevant at this point. It becomes relevant again at the break if they want to reset the rotation. And then again in the postseason. The fact that Cole Ragans is the starter giving the Royals the least says a ton about the other guys.
Pretty tough to watch the Royals “offense” score all of four runs in the Boston series. Glad to see that you believe Jac is ready for Omaha as you well know if I was the general manager he would be in Houston tonight starting in right field! I still believe that Renfroe needs to go and Massey still looks lost at the plate as his swing looks awful (back problems again?). India is not hitting either. Vinnie started to look good and then did nothing in the Boston series! I am also pleased that Waters is improving and is hitting 0.270 and can play the outfield. Hitting 0.270 makes him a star on this Royals team! The Royals have one of the best starting pitching staffs in the American League and if we had a consistent offense the Royals could win the Central Division!!!
Right on! The Royals need to cut ties with Stratton and Renfroe. They signed them to two bad contracts and time to acknowledge that. As a sidelight MJ is now hitting a robust .159 in AAA with 1 home run in 69 at bats. I sure did like him, but unfortunately he appears lost even in the minors.
If I’m Melendez’s team, I’m begging the Royals to throw him into a deal as a lottery ticket. The guy works hard, I’ll give him that. But now give the guy a chance somewhere else. It clearly isn’t going to work here, and nobody can blame the Royals for not trying. Sometimes these things just don’t work. I’m all for him getting a chance with another organization. A different message may help him.
Joel, you are so right! I really like MJ, I saw him at his best here in Omaha. I feel sorry for him because he works so hard at what he is doing. He is not a quitter, I pray that he finds himself again even if it is with another organization.
Obviously only scoring four runs (one earned) in a three game series is concerning, but you're not kidding about Dobbins being more responsible for the lack of offense on Friday night than the Royals. He was nailing his spots with his fastball and then making them look silly with breaking stuff. I don't think any team would have looked good against him that night.
And then the next two starters were Garrett Crochet and Lucas Giolito, and those guys got paid for a reason. They're very, very good. You would have liked to see Ragans in particular do better, but even Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson had bad games sometimes.
Your series preview has Hunter Brown starting Wednesday, and that's how their rotation lines up, but the Astros still have TBD listed. Any thoughts about that?
I do think it was a particularly tough series to hit against, though I still say Giolito just didn't look that good and the Royals helped him a lot, but I found it really interesting that all three pitchers were pretty different against the Royals than they had been this year. I haven't noticed that much, but I'm going to keep an eye on that.
And yeah, I don't know about Brown. I tried to find anything on him maybe getting skipped or pushed back and couldn't, so I'm not quite sure what was going on there. The series preview game is a tough one. Sometimes you just sort of have to guess, and I guessed it'll be him, but I haven't seen or heard anything about why he's not listed as a probable.
Also, I promised everyone on social media that, based on his performance and usage, I expected Zerpa to get demoted for Sisk before Sunday's game. That didn't happen, and I don't understand it.
I think, whether we like it or not, the Royals don't generally dump guys as quickly as anyone wants. Zerpa is clearly not right (or maybe he is and he's just not that good, which is kind of my thought), but even as they've improved so much of their process, they're still always slower than we hope/expect.
Yesterday in the eighth inning when they had Lynch put Devers on and then brought in Schreiber to pitch to Bregman, I would like to had Lynch drill Devers in the rear end instead. He showboated a little much on his home run earlier in the game for me. After all, they put him on anyway. I think it's time to send Massey down to Omaha and bring up Devanney, DFA Renfroe and bring Rave, and DFA Biggio and bring up Loftin and see if any or all can improve the hitting on this team. Thank you for the good weekend in review.
My response to being frustrated/annoyed by Devers is don't give up the home run. No need to hit a guy who did his job and celebrated it.
They can make all those moves, but I'll tell you that Rave continues to be underwhelming with how hard he hits the ball and Loftin is a right-handed Biggio to me. But sure, give something different a shot, I guess.
All of that may be true, but anything they try cannot be any worse. You or I neither thought Waters would work, but he has at least got on base a little bit.
Waters is hitting 0.270 on the Royals and is making plays in the outfield! He still strikes out too much but hitting 70 points higher than Massey and 120 points higher than Renfroe is a big improvement!!!
Is it just me or was devers getting the cold shoulder by his team? - that probably stings more than a shot in the rump. Devers is just nasty, always hate seeing that guy come to the plate
Had the game on last night, but only caught glimpses. Saw them get robbed a couple times so I Ill find some solace in that, but annoyed they couldn't do more against Giolito.
Even though I had higher hopes for Zerpa and expecting Stratton to get a white flag stitched to his cap, I am really impressed with the bullpen and usage. Cole looked pretty good the first 4. I hope he keeps concentrating on strikeouts, with the way the rest of the rotation is pitching, royals can spare a couple extra bullpen innings on Ragans day occasionally (especially if they call up anyone to replace stratton- comon royals, I know he is a good guy in the clubhouse, but time to pull the bandaid off).
Kind of weird to see India at 2nd after they just said they wanted him to be concentrating on left side of field.
I wondered a bit about India at second yesterday, but I also can kind of see that maybe they wanted to get him some time there just to see and didn't to move multiple guys around? I don't know. Thought that was odd too.
David, do you have any thoughts about KC's feeling of Jensen or Blake Mitchell as the catcher of the future? Mitchell was a top ten DP so my sense is that he is the guy. Jensen was 3rd rounder and has skills. Still so young at 21 - same age as college kids drafted in this year. Nice problem to have - catchers always make good trade chips.
I honestly don't. I need to ask around and see what any thoughts are, but they have a few options. They can either shift one to a different position, trade one or see about a timeshare situation. Salvy complicates the matter, of course, but the Q Royals seem to understand the value of not running catchers into the ground. Where it gets tricky is there are A LOT of lefty bats. At this point, you'd prefer to not worry about that and just have bats that are functional, but that's also something to consider.
Ultimately, I think one gets traded, maybe at the deadline this year, though.
While your point is WELL taken about the Chiefs jerseys, I'm willing to give a little leeway to a Mahomes jersey since he's in the ownership group.
Nope. Not giving anything there. Get a Mahomes Royals jersey if you have to wear it. There are 78 home dates that the Cardinals are not here (other teams have a primary color of red, but it's especially annoying with the Cardinals) to wear a Mahomes Chiefs jersey. Just wear blue.
What about my Jalen Royals Chiefs jersey???
No means no, Darin!
It’s just an interesting debate for me. I know the offense “should” get better. But we are over a quarter of the way now and they aren’t. So maybe they just are not a good offense.
But then I ask myself, does it even matter? No, it probably doesn’t, because they can pitch and pitch well. Can they still win a playoff series with this offense? Yes.
So I don’t even really know how to take it. Lol. I’m just waiting for a bat at the deadline I guess.
Are they not getting better or did they have a bad series? I don't know the answer, but I can tell you that they had a 62 wRC+ for the first 19 games and now a 99 wRC+ for the last 23. Look, you are what you are and what they are is in the middle of that, but they've been "fine" for a bit. They're not scoring runs, but I still think that follows actually hitting. Again, though, this weekend felt like the first 19 games. I guess we'll see how they respond.
The crazy part is though, I don’t think it matters that much. Now, it matters some, but as long as the starting pitching stays healthy. 3 runs as game isn’t really all that much to ask for. They look a lot like Tampa to me. Which is a good thing.
It matters in that they need to score four more often than they have. But, again, they have generally had the runners on. I can't imagine they'll continue to struggle with runners on the way they have, though there are some legitimate reasons behind it. Something will give. I just hope it gives in the way of getting to four runs regularly.
Is it as simple as the regression from the hitting with RISP from last year back to the mean?
Yes and no? I mean that was unsustainable but they’ve also been unsustainably bad as well. Forget those first three or so weeks. Since they’ve been hitting in general, that part hasn’t gotten much better. I think there are still too many holes in the lineup, so it becomes a struggle to sequence hits. But it’s the lack of power, which is kind of weird for a team that has guys with power. It’s just a lot of things. And bad baserunning doesn’t help. Actually Jared Koller just sent me a new video that’ll go up on the YouTube channel a little later that gets into it some.
I still don't think I'm that concerned about Cole. If injury was hampering him I would've expected to see more of a downturn in his velo/pitch shape and that didn't seem to be the case on Saturday. Mostly I think, like you said, he's just that little bit off and it's causing him to miss his location; it seemed like he was in the middle of the zone a bit too much and his offspeed/breaking pitches tended to hang. I think he'll turn it around, he's too good not to. Like you said the strand rate is unsustainably low and (like I mentioned the other week) the BABIP is unsustainably high!
I'm not concerned about him at all, honestly. I would, however, like to see a solid six innings against the Cardinals this weekend. That would make me feel better.
Let's hope Cole gets his rhythm back and become their "ace" again. Right now I think I prefer Lugo, Wacha or Bubic as their number 1 starter. However, with the kind of pitching the Royals can put on the mound, they have a chance to win every game IF they can score a few runs.
Yeah I mean the designation really is irrelevant at this point. It becomes relevant again at the break if they want to reset the rotation. And then again in the postseason. The fact that Cole Ragans is the starter giving the Royals the least says a ton about the other guys.
Pretty tough to watch the Royals “offense” score all of four runs in the Boston series. Glad to see that you believe Jac is ready for Omaha as you well know if I was the general manager he would be in Houston tonight starting in right field! I still believe that Renfroe needs to go and Massey still looks lost at the plate as his swing looks awful (back problems again?). India is not hitting either. Vinnie started to look good and then did nothing in the Boston series! I am also pleased that Waters is improving and is hitting 0.270 and can play the outfield. Hitting 0.270 makes him a star on this Royals team! The Royals have one of the best starting pitching staffs in the American League and if we had a consistent offense the Royals could win the Central Division!!!
Right on! The Royals need to cut ties with Stratton and Renfroe. They signed them to two bad contracts and time to acknowledge that. As a sidelight MJ is now hitting a robust .159 in AAA with 1 home run in 69 at bats. I sure did like him, but unfortunately he appears lost even in the minors.
If I’m Melendez’s team, I’m begging the Royals to throw him into a deal as a lottery ticket. The guy works hard, I’ll give him that. But now give the guy a chance somewhere else. It clearly isn’t going to work here, and nobody can blame the Royals for not trying. Sometimes these things just don’t work. I’m all for him getting a chance with another organization. A different message may help him.
Joel, you are so right! I really like MJ, I saw him at his best here in Omaha. I feel sorry for him because he works so hard at what he is doing. He is not a quitter, I pray that he finds himself again even if it is with another organization.
Obviously only scoring four runs (one earned) in a three game series is concerning, but you're not kidding about Dobbins being more responsible for the lack of offense on Friday night than the Royals. He was nailing his spots with his fastball and then making them look silly with breaking stuff. I don't think any team would have looked good against him that night.
And then the next two starters were Garrett Crochet and Lucas Giolito, and those guys got paid for a reason. They're very, very good. You would have liked to see Ragans in particular do better, but even Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson had bad games sometimes.
Your series preview has Hunter Brown starting Wednesday, and that's how their rotation lines up, but the Astros still have TBD listed. Any thoughts about that?
I do think it was a particularly tough series to hit against, though I still say Giolito just didn't look that good and the Royals helped him a lot, but I found it really interesting that all three pitchers were pretty different against the Royals than they had been this year. I haven't noticed that much, but I'm going to keep an eye on that.
And yeah, I don't know about Brown. I tried to find anything on him maybe getting skipped or pushed back and couldn't, so I'm not quite sure what was going on there. The series preview game is a tough one. Sometimes you just sort of have to guess, and I guessed it'll be him, but I haven't seen or heard anything about why he's not listed as a probable.
TBD = Today's Brown's Day
Also, I promised everyone on social media that, based on his performance and usage, I expected Zerpa to get demoted for Sisk before Sunday's game. That didn't happen, and I don't understand it.
I think, whether we like it or not, the Royals don't generally dump guys as quickly as anyone wants. Zerpa is clearly not right (or maybe he is and he's just not that good, which is kind of my thought), but even as they've improved so much of their process, they're still always slower than we hope/expect.
Yesterday in the eighth inning when they had Lynch put Devers on and then brought in Schreiber to pitch to Bregman, I would like to had Lynch drill Devers in the rear end instead. He showboated a little much on his home run earlier in the game for me. After all, they put him on anyway. I think it's time to send Massey down to Omaha and bring up Devanney, DFA Renfroe and bring Rave, and DFA Biggio and bring up Loftin and see if any or all can improve the hitting on this team. Thank you for the good weekend in review.
My response to being frustrated/annoyed by Devers is don't give up the home run. No need to hit a guy who did his job and celebrated it.
They can make all those moves, but I'll tell you that Rave continues to be underwhelming with how hard he hits the ball and Loftin is a right-handed Biggio to me. But sure, give something different a shot, I guess.
All of that may be true, but anything they try cannot be any worse. You or I neither thought Waters would work, but he has at least got on base a little bit.
I'm not saying they shouldn't, but the reality is that true improvement isn't likely coming from anyone at AAA.
Waters is hitting 0.270 on the Royals and is making plays in the outfield! He still strikes out too much but hitting 70 points higher than Massey and 120 points higher than Renfroe is a big improvement!!!
Is it just me or was devers getting the cold shoulder by his team? - that probably stings more than a shot in the rump. Devers is just nasty, always hate seeing that guy come to the plate
I hope they are giving him the cold shoulder, I didn't really see it, just watching on tv
Had the game on last night, but only caught glimpses. Saw them get robbed a couple times so I Ill find some solace in that, but annoyed they couldn't do more against Giolito.
Even though I had higher hopes for Zerpa and expecting Stratton to get a white flag stitched to his cap, I am really impressed with the bullpen and usage. Cole looked pretty good the first 4. I hope he keeps concentrating on strikeouts, with the way the rest of the rotation is pitching, royals can spare a couple extra bullpen innings on Ragans day occasionally (especially if they call up anyone to replace stratton- comon royals, I know he is a good guy in the clubhouse, but time to pull the bandaid off).
Kind of weird to see India at 2nd after they just said they wanted him to be concentrating on left side of field.
I wondered a bit about India at second yesterday, but I also can kind of see that maybe they wanted to get him some time there just to see and didn't to move multiple guys around? I don't know. Thought that was odd too.
David, do you have any thoughts about KC's feeling of Jensen or Blake Mitchell as the catcher of the future? Mitchell was a top ten DP so my sense is that he is the guy. Jensen was 3rd rounder and has skills. Still so young at 21 - same age as college kids drafted in this year. Nice problem to have - catchers always make good trade chips.
I honestly don't. I need to ask around and see what any thoughts are, but they have a few options. They can either shift one to a different position, trade one or see about a timeshare situation. Salvy complicates the matter, of course, but the Q Royals seem to understand the value of not running catchers into the ground. Where it gets tricky is there are A LOT of lefty bats. At this point, you'd prefer to not worry about that and just have bats that are functional, but that's also something to consider.
Ultimately, I think one gets traded, maybe at the deadline this year, though.
Ugh. Framber Valdez.
Why do I feel like he's been the ultimate Royals stopper in recent seasons? So frustrating to face
He had a great start against them last year and was very good in a loss earlier this year, but the Royals have actually hit him okay here and there.