With the World Series now in the books, we’re on to the offseason and that means the Royals have some massaging to do in order to make the 40-man roster one with, well, 40 or fewer players. There are currently 44 players on that roster including players on the 60-day disabled list and two free […]
Category: Articles
Friday Notes
It’s been a pretty hectic last few weeks for me. I somehow convinced someone to both say ‘yes’ to marrying me and then to go through with it, so I’ve been out of commission for a bit. Now I’m back, a married man, and ready to get on with this offseason. Of course, if you’re […]
Tracking Yost’s tendencies
Baseball Reference unveiled a neat addition to their managerial stat pages with what they call managerial tendencies. The tendencies break down how often a manager calls for steals, intentional walks and substitutions. It also measures successful sacrifice bunt attempts. It breaks those numbers down into what they call Rate+, which is a metric that determines […]
Building a Non-Contender
The Royals are actually, from a practical standpoint, in good position heading into the offseason. For a team that blew past 100 losses, they have actual big-league caliber ballplayers in many spots. I know that probably sounds pretty snarky and mean-spirited, but it’s true: if the Royals took the team that finished the season, lock […]
Bargain Bullpen Bodies
It’s pretty clear that even though the Royals aren’t likely to spend much money that they’ll look to reinforce a bullpen that had way too many leaks in it. Actually that’s not a very fair characterization. A leak implies there were just some holes. It was way worse than that. And so, as the Royals […]
Open bidding for the Royals TV rights
With the focus on the World Series starting Tuesday, there’s little in the way of news for the teams other than the Dodgers and the Red Sox. Still, we have a job to do and darn it, we’re going to accomplish at least something today. — How about an update on the Royals and their […]
Don’t call it a rebuild
An October with no baseball means it’s time for Dayton Moore to hold his state of the franchise press conference. Things got off to a rollicking start as Moore insisted the rebuild took hold when they stopped talking about… the rebuild. You know, I think what jumpstarted the rebuild is we quit talking about the […]
Friday Notes
If you took my postseason predictions that I posted on Twitter and went to place bets, I sincerely hope you chose to completely ignore me and do the opposite. Otherwise, please don’t charge me for your losses because I’ve pretty much whiffed the playoffs. Which, of course, leads me back to the Royals and just […]
U.L.’s Toothpick: The Royals and the 1968 Expansion Draft
For an expansion team, there are so many important steps. Assembling a front office, building and staffing a scouting department, and determining which farm teams to affiliate with are all vital processes. That leads up to the team’s first amateur draft, the first real chance to stock that farm system. But the step that gets […]
How the Royals were built
One of my favorite spreadsheets I keep during the year is what I call “The Royals Family Tree.” Basically, it’s a list of the Royals 40-man roster, along with how they were acquired. In the past, it’s been a fun exercise. The most recent roster construction has rendered this mostly boring. That’s because the Royals, […]