Interesting, listened to the pod this morning and Rany was adamant Cubs would take a straight Bellinger/Bubic swap. I guess they’re asking for SP and his contract is pretty bloated so they want to offload.
A nothing burger from Rosenthal here: The Kansas City Royals expect their payroll to be in the same $120 million range it was last season, according to sources briefed on their plans. FanGraphs estimates the team’s current payroll is $116 million, leaving little flexibility for the front office to acquire the additional hitter it is seeking. The Royals’ preference is for a left-handed hitter. Jurickson Profar, a switch-hitter, likely will be out of their price range. A more likely target is Josh Rojas, who was non-tendered by the Seattle Mariners. The return of free agent Adam Frazier is a possibility as well, and a trade for Mets third baseman Brett Baty also would make sense. Michael Massey currently is the Royals’ only left-handed hitting infielder. He and Jonathan India will see time at second base, and both also are willing to play left field, sources said. Rojas is a strong defensive infielder who mostly has played third — Maikel Garcia’s position — and second. But he also has 60 games of experience in left and 43 in right. Rojas’ versatility obviously is appealing. The question is whether he would provide enough offense. He batted .318 with a .938 OPS through April 30 last season, but only .285 with a .585 OPS the rest of the way. In six major-league seasons, his OPS+ is 8 percent below league average. Baty, if the Royals acquired him, would be an upside play similar to outfielder Joey Weimer, who arrived with India from the Cincinnati Reds for right-hander Brady Singer. Weimer looms as a right-handed hitting option in center whom the Royals can pair with Kyle Isbel. To this point, the Royals and Mets have not seriously engaged on Baty, sources said.
Bob got hitched this weekend. This town and our superstars from Texas marrying the only girl they’ve ever dated. Weirdos.
From an MLB.com article. How many times is he thrown out if he’s 2 feet closer? Or look at Witt, the fastest player in baseball in 2024 with an average sprint speed of 30.5 ft/sec. The Royals star had an average lead distance gained of just 9.4 feet on his steal attempts. And over Witt's three big league seasons, during which he's stolen 110 bases, his average lead distance gained on his steal attempts is only 9.6 feet, two feet below Major League average. But Witt makes his MLB-best sprint speed (30.4 ft/sec for his career) work for him no matter what he's doing -- going for a triple, scoring all the way from first or stealing a base.
Cool, so Bubic would have been an overpay. Mr Sherman not backing up his “I’ll pay whatever to save prospects” line.
Maybe Bellinger is washed? I'm not going to get up in arms about payroll yet, the off-season is stilll going on
Vinnie was on Rany&Petro’s podcast this week. Nothing earth shattering but funny. He had a nice rant about advanced metrics not respecting him.
“ThEy DoNt WiN tHe Ws WiThOuT cC!!!” Can’t believe he’s still going to bat for all those awful Dayton picks.
Haha, they got completely blasted and then tweeted this out after the show. In their defense the studio guys had BWJ as the clear #1.
What in the world is a Blatmerquezco? Did they combine Velazquez and Cavan Biggio into a super AAAA player? They need some OF help and I don’t think Blatmerquezco is the answer. Rany did say MJ changed his swing and actually looks like an MLB hitter now though.
A 30% drop in BWJ WAR seems a bit excessive considering his age, but ZiPS hates the Royals so it's not surprising. I also have a hard time envisioning our 1B platoon being only 2 WAR but what do I know. Also that bullpen is still scary to me. Also NFW Isbel sniffs 2.5.
Rany/Petro talked about this. There really isn’t much help for the lineup with FA so might as well try to add as much pitching as possible.
Perfectly fine with not offering them longer-term deals. Santander’s contract will likely age like milk the final two years. Last year was a career year and I’m good with not giving big dollars to 30-year-olds that aren’t rentals.
Also went to the Rally on Saturday. Never been to one before, but getting to wander around through the stadium was pretty sweet. I've never been in the Crown Club before. I never had any desire to go to one back when they were at Bartle Hall or whatever but the K was too good to pass up. They had the '15 WS trophy out on a table in the visitors clubhouse - was wild getting so close to it. The kids got to take some hacks in the visitor's batting cage, which was awesome. It was $10 beer night. Got Isbel, Fermin, Erceg, Wright autographs.
Vern interviewed India and asked him where he’d play. He said they haven’t talked seriously about it yet but 2B/3B is what he expects. Said he tried LF last spring training and it didn’t go well. I’ve seen a lot of people talking about him in LF but Massey/Garcia might do that instead.
Rany and Petro's podcast was discussing this w/ India and I guess his arm is in like the 20th percentile or something... not sure that will play at 3B or OF.
A quick glance at Baseball Reference makes me think India is just going to be a below average defender no matter where he plays. 1. BWJ - SS 2. India - 2B 3. Vinnie - 1B 4. Salvy - DH 5. Massey - 3B 6. Renfroe - RF 7. Fermin - C 8. MJ - LF 9. Maikel - CF This would be my ideal lineup. No clue if Maikel could actually handle CF so it'll likely be Isbel at CF and Maikel moving around. I still think Maikel has more upside as a hitter in general. Advanced metrics make it seem like he was pretty unlucky last year.
BA released their farm rankings. 2 Detroit 4 ChiSox 7 Cleveland 8 Minn 27 KC Keith Law’s isn’t as bad. 5 Cleveland 7 Detroit 12 ChiSox 19 Minn 22 KC
We have what, Caglione and the catchers and.... that's it. I'm not surprised at those rankings, TBH. I hate Dayton Moore so much.