Royals Rumblings - News for July 1, 2024

Very nice series over the weekend!

Ed note: I was mistaken on Friday. I guess I will be doing one day of Rumblings this month as Max is out for a few days. That said, I’m leaving on vacation this week so we’re not getting the full Friday Rumblings experience.

Also, I wonder how this goes. I figure there aren’t a lot of stories on the weekend as people are taking breaks but maybe I’m wrong. Also, I’m claiming anything that was posted on Saturday or Sunday that wasn’t in the Weekend Rumblings to bulk things up.

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The Star had a couple of stories about this past Hall of Fame weekend.

Blair Kerkhoff wrote about Cedric Tallis and John Schuerholz:

Two of the men largely responsible for assembling the talent for those teams, general managers Cedric Tallis and John Schuerholz, entered the Royals Hall of Fame in a ceremony on Friday at Kauffman Stadium.

...Tallis, who died in 1991 at 76, was the Royals’ first GM. He was with the California Angels when prospective team owner Ewing Kauffman visited Anaheim in 1966. The Angels, born in expansion five years earlier, were moving into a new stadium, and when Kauffman won the rights to the Royals the next year, he made Tallis the team’s first club-specific executive.

...Through the 1970s, Schuerholz worked his way up the organization and became general manager in 1981. The Royals remained competitive, and the organization’s decision to go with a young pitching staff, led by Bret Saberhagen, Mark Gubicza and Danny Jackson, became a key piece.

Jaylon Thompson was on Bo Jackson duty:

On Saturday, Jackson was back in the spotlight, inducted into the Royals Hall of Fame as the 30th member of the exclusive club.

“This is where my professional career started,” Jackson said. “This is where I became a man in the sports world. And coming back here today for this honor, what it means to me is that my family has welcomed me back home.”

Jackson was honored with an on-field ceremony on Saturday before the game against the Cleveland Guardians. He celebrated alongside several former teammates and Royals Hall of Famers. There was a special highlight reel of his most iconic plays, too.

Thompson also wrote about the late Orlando Cepeda:

Cepeda began his career with the San Francisco Giants and went on to play with the St. Louis Cardinals, Atlanta Braves, Oakland Athletics and Boston Red Sox.

The Royals signed Cepeda in 1974, his final season in the major leagues. He batted .215 with 23 hits and 18 RBIs in 33 games.

In Kansas City, Cepeda played alongside such Royals Hall of Famers as George Brett, Amos Otis and Freddie Patek. He was signed by KC general manager Cedric Tallis, who was inducted into the Royals Hall of Fame on Friday.

He also wrote a story entitled “Why KC Royals pitcher Seth Lugo deserves chance to start 2024 MLB All-Star Game”:

“For me, it’s about putting in the work, trusting myself and trusting my process,” he said. “You know, it’s a little satisfaction that I’m doing some good things.”

As for earning the starting nod …

“That would be awesome,” Lugo said. “Something I didn’t ever dream of, so it would be a really cool surprise.”

The Star also has a couple of stories from Matt Guzman (?). One was about Michael Massey’s return from injury:

“I’m trying to stay ready,” the third-year veteran said. “Keeping my legs moving in between at-bats, and really trying to not treat it any differently (than) if I was playing second base. Once I’m in the box, I’m in the box. … My whole routine stays the same. I’m just trying to buy into it.”

Massey and the Royals will get another shot at Cleveland Sunday afternoon, as the two teams will meet for the fourth day in a row. Again, he won’t be fielding, but he’ll certainly look to have a similar impact to the one he did in third game of the series.

The other was about Bo’s and his family:

And Jackson, 61, couldn’t have been happier. “This is where I became a man,” he said. “This is where my professional career started … My family has welcomed me back home.”

If Jackson’s family-man status wasn’t already widely known, it became clear at a glance Saturday. Sitting next to him for the duration of his Royals Hall of Fame news conference was his 3-year-old grandson, Aidan.

Aidan had donned a blue Royals cap and the white jersey of his “Papa.” The pair were best friends — Aidan said so himself. In fact, he even introduced himself as the older Jackson. “I’m Bo Jackson,” Aidan declared, garnering a laugh from Jackson before correctly identifying himself.

At The Athletic ($), Rustin Dodd wrote about Bo, too:

Everyone remembers the bale of hay. It sat on one end of a tunnel just outside the Kansas City Royals clubhouse, not far from a portable batting cage, a short walk from the dugout. On the bale was a target, and if you happened to walk by in the summer of 1989, you might have seen one of the greatest athletes who ever lived aiming a bow from across the tunnel.

Bo Jackson was at the height of his powers then, an All-Star outfielder for the Royals, a supernova running back for the Los Angeles Raiders on the side, and a cultural phenomenon at the center of a Nike advertising campaign. But when it came to his daily pregame routine, he preferred to relax with a bow and arrow. Jackson had come across archery at Auburn University when he stumbled upon a football teammate shooting a bow outside a dorm. He brought his own compound bow to Kansas City, where teammates would gather around to watch him do his “William Tell thing.”

Jackson would set an apple by the target. Once, a teammate held it in his hand. Those in charge could only pray that nothing went wrong. “I was hesitant to go back there,” recalls John Wathan, the Royals manager at the time. “I just stayed in my office.”

The funny thing about the archery is that didn’t seem that weird. If Jackson’s teammates knew anything about Bo, it was that he really could do it all. “Guys were almost blowing out their rotator cuffs trying to pull that damn thing back to cock the bow,” says Mike Macfarlane, a former Royals catcher. “And he’s doing it with one finger.”

Mark Inabinett at Al.com (Alabama website) had a Bo story:

“I was privileged to play two decades in Kansas City, and in that time, I saw so many memorable players,” said George Brett, the National Baseball Hall of Fame third baseman who presented Jackson for induction on Saturday, “all these guys here and some that couldn’t be here today. But without hesitation I never saw anyone quite like Bo, and I doubt I ever will again. He is the greatest athlete I have ever seen. He is and remains a cultural icon.”

At MLB.com, Jackson Stone also wrote about Bo’s induction

“... What it means to me is that my family is welcoming me back home. Coming back home, thinking about the time that I spent here is almost surreal to the point where, you know how they say it takes a community to raise a child? Well, the city of Kansas City molded me to where I am now.

“So I can’t do anything but give thanks, not only to the city, but to the people of the Royals who believed in me .. to ask if I was serious about playing baseball.”

ICYMI, he also wrote about Schuerholz and Tallis’s HOF induction (Max linked to this Saturday).

Stone also made the case for Seth Lugo to start the All-Star Game:

After Lugo’s latest gem, he now leads the Major Leagues in ERA (2.17), innings pitched (116), wins and quality starts (14). He’s also up to seventh in the AL in strikeouts (105) after three consecutive outings of eight-plus punchouts.

“This is one of the best pitchers in the American League, if not in baseball this year, and he had everything working today,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said. “It was kind of like a push button, whatever he wanted, he could’ve gone any direction any time and he did.”

MLB Stats added this:

#VoteOmar... I mean, Salvy and Witt. It’s 1 vote per day now, not 5. And it’s only through Wednesday. Get it done.

At Kansas City’s local NPR station, KCUR, Steve Kraske checks in with Anne Rogers about how the season is going (audio recording, no transcript).

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Blogs are a little lighter than Friday. How about some Tweets from David and Craig, instead:

Kevin O’Brien was dealing this weekend, though. He had one story for The Royals Reporter: Four Intriguing (And Maybe Tradeable) Royals Prospects to Watch in July. There’s one for each level: Murdock, Wallace, Mozzicato, and Pena. Here’s a sample:

Mozzicato’s breaking stuff remains some of the best in the Royals organization, especially at High-A, even with Ben Kudrna on the Quad Cities pitching staff. Furthermore, despite the high walk numbers, he seems to hit the right spots more often than not with his pitches. If Mozzicato can add more life to his fastball, he could generate even more chases and become more dominant in High-A than he already is.

Nonetheless, the high walk and low strikeout numbers are alarming, and one has to wonder if Mozzicato just may be a long-term project too risky to hold onto. That could make him a likely piece in a trade as an organization with a better track record and improving pitcher velocity could perhaps better tap into Mozzicato’s skill set.

Mozzicato is still young at 21, so he hopefully has a long career ahead of him. Thus, the Royals may be better off cashing in on his value now, especially with how volatile pitching prospects can be (i.e., Asa Lacy).

Over at Farm to Fountains, he also asked “Can Kris Bubic Boost the Royals Bullpen?”

It wasn’t as if Bubic’s pitch mix was terrible in 2022; it was just mediocre and predictable. That said, it seemed like manager Mike Matheny and pitching coach Cal Eldred discouraged the usage of a slider during the 2022 season, even though Bubic utilized it in Spring Training.

Under Matt Quatraro and Sweeney, Bubic was allowed to utilize the slider in 2023, and more positive results followed. His strong early start to the 2023 season, particularly following a 6-inning, 9-strikeout performance against the Giants on April 9th, got the attention of the national baseball media.

Speaking of Cayden Wallace (Kevin’s first story), at Kings of Kauffman, Jacob Milham writes KC Royals prospect surges into MLB’s top-10 at third base

The Royals’ second-best prospect moved into the top-10 at his position this weekend, thanks to the Cincinnati Reds’ Noelvi Marte moving on from his prospect status. Wallace, A Kansas City second-round pick in 2022, benefited from the opening, showing off more of his defensive tools and offensive ceiling at the hot corner.

Finally, Darin Watson continues his sojourn through the 1984 season: This Date In Royals History—1984 Edition: June 30 - The Royals score four times in the fourth for a win over the Yankees.

The Royals improved to 33-40 with the win. They ended June in sixth place in the AL West, 5.5 games behind California.

Spoiler: They would heat up in the second half of the season, winning 17 games each of the last 3 months.

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A couple MLB stories?

Rangers rookie OF Wyatt Langford recorded the first cycle of the season. Who was the last Royal to hit for the Cycle? George Brett, 1990

There’s a couple of minor tweaks to the home run derby this year. Rather than having the first round matches be head-to-head, the top 4 finishers will advance to round 2 and that’s where the head-to-head matchups begin. Also, there will be a pitch limit as well as time limit to rounds. Finally, the bonus period is not timed, but it’s based on the number of outs. That last change may up the drama, but it also will get iffy as players are tired and they stop swinging as pitches, leading to slow rounds like in the old days.

On the one hand, I wish they would just leave it alone so we could compare between different eras. On the other hand, the switch to a timer a few years ago was necessary and maybe these tweaks are all part of getting us to a steady format for the long term.

Gunnar Henderson, Orioles, is the first player announced in the derby field.

Sadly, the longest hitting streak in the majors is over as Bryan Reynolds went hitless yesterday. His streak ends at 25 straight and was the longest for the franchise since Kenny Lofton has a 26-game streak in 2003. That franchise was, of course, the Cleveland Indians Guardians... Pittsburgh Pirates? I didn’t even remember Lofton there. Then, again, looking at his wikipedia page, he went to 9 teams in his final 6 years so I think I can be forgiven for forgetting that.

Over the weekend, the Orioles became just the third team in MLB history to hit 60 homers in a month.

The only other MLB teams to ever clear the 60-homer threshold in a single month were the 2023 Atlanta Braves (61 in June) and the 2019 New York Yankees (74 in August). Those Braves went on to tie the 2019 Minnesota Twins for the most home runs hit in a season (307); those Yankees, meanwhile, hit what’s now the third-most home runs by a team in a season, at 306.

Wait? The Twins? They had 8(!) players hit 20 or more home runs. How many can you name without looking it up?

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If Google is accurate, Soundgarden has been featured on SotD a total of five times. Three of the times were for Black Hole Sun, including twice related to eclipses. The two other times were for The Day I Tried to Live. I was going to come in here and use My Wave, which most people don’t remember. But, somehow we haven’t done the best song on the Superunknown: