Year Two of the Matt Quatraro tenure. Time to take a step up this year. Active in free agency and trades this offseason. A new look pitching rotation and bullpen. Will the young players take the leap up offensively? Bobby Witt extension? New stadium? Will Vinny recover from injury? Salvy taking aim at the Royals record book? Will Cole Ragans turn into the best Royals starting pitcher since Greinke 1.0?
Free Agents/Trades Acquisitions
Seth Lugo, SP
Michael Wacha, SP
Kyle Wright, SP
Hunter Renfroe, OF/DH
Will Smith, RP
Chris Stratton, RP
Nick Anderson, RP
Adam Frazier, 2B
Garrett Hampson, INF/OF
Matt Sauer, RP [Reply]
Can't believe we traded the one guy that could have been great in the bullpen. Traded him for half a season of a finesse dude that walks way too many batters and can't strike guys out.
Forget everything I said about not fucking up the farm system with trading guys. Piccolo will definitely do that. [Reply]
Originally Posted by dlphg9:
Can't believe we traded the one guy that could have been great in the bullpen. Traded him for half a season of a finesse dude that walks way too many batters and can't strike guys out.
Forget everything I said about not ****ing up the farm system with trading guys. Piccolo will definitely do that.
Originally Posted by duncan_idaho:
Twins are the same story. Also 9-1 against the ChiSox and .500 against everyone else.
Cleveland, weirdly, is .500 against Chicago.
So if you put the Royals record against every team they've played at the inverse of that teams winning percentage (i.e. if the team has played .600 ball and the Royals have played 10 games against them, they'd be 4-6 under this experiment) the Royals have actually out-performed their opponents season record by a little bit.
The Royals record is 57-49. Just giving them the inverse of their opponents winning percentage has them at 55-51. So they're two games better than the 'baseline' quality of their opposition.
I have no earthly idea what that means, but I find it somewhat interesting nonetheless. Kinda curious to do it for the Cardinals but honestly, it'll take like 5 minutes to enter the data and that's more time than I want to put into those assholes. [Reply]
This has me "concerned". Hopefully they're up to the task, because we're going to need them.
Originally Posted by :
Seth Lugo is about to hit a career-high in innings pitched, Cole Ragans has never pitched this many innings in a pro season, and Michael Wacha hasn’t pitched as many as 135 innings in a season since 2017.
Skubal, Crochet and Ragans are legit breakouts. Singer is WAR via bulk in a lot of ways, but maybe a breakout in his own right.
The only 'expected' guy in that entire group is Burnes and maybe Gilbert (though I think most would've had him 3rd on his own squad behind Kirby and Castillo). Fedde and Anderson are journeymen. Blanco was an organizational afterthought by the Astros who got shoved into the rotation because nobody was left as a 30 yr old with 60 career innings. He doesn't even qualify as a journeyman.
I mean anybody with a strong finishing kick seems capable of winning the CY. Skubal's clearly in the driver's seat but damn man, Lugo could really win that thing.
(But Taj Bradley's comin' in hot; don't think he can win it with only about 135 IP by seasons end likely, but man he's been good this year...) [Reply]
Originally Posted by duncan_idaho:
Maybe we're all reading this wrong. Maybe they're going to a 6-man rotation.
That's been mentioned in an article I read earlier (maybe in this one, I don't remember), after the Lorenzen trade, but mostly speculation, I think. Just in an emergency, the way I remember reading it. [Reply]
Was hoping the Royals would find a way to get Lane Thomas but it wasn't meant to be. Guardians give up a top 10 prospect but he's still an A-ball pitcher. 2 more guys as well.
The Cleveland Guardians are finalizing a deal to acquire outfielder Lane Thomas from the Washington Nationals, sources tell ESPN. Left-handed pitching prospect Alex Clemmey and two other prospects are headed back to Washington.
Today the #Guardians reportedly acquired OF Lane Thomas ($5.7M surplus trade value) from the #Nationals in exchange for LHP Alex Clemmey ($10.6M) and IFs Rafael Ramirez Jr. ($3.3M) and José Tena ($1.7M).
The deal is rejected by our model as an overpay by Cleveland.
— Baseball Trade Values (@BaseballValues) July 29, 2024