Royals Rumblings - News for August 28, 2024

The Royals are in first place, flying high!

Jaylon Thompson writes about the Royals’ new home run celebration.

So where did this phenomenon come from? Well, after a thorough clubhouse investigation by The Star, you might be surprised to know this home run celebration comes from ... the bullpen.

“It’s kind of funny because me and (Angel) Zerpa started it and everyone liked it,” Royals bullpen catcher Juan Graterol said. “The guys hit a homer and I’m like, ‘Let a bird fly!’ It’s great and I think it’s funny. It’s having fun with those guys.”

Anne Rogers has an update on lefty Josh Taylor.

But now, Taylor is on a normal progression to ramp up back into pitching shape, getting ready to begin live bullpen sessions. It will still be a good amount of time before he is ready for a big league return after that long of a layoff, but the Royals hope to get Taylor on the mound by the end of the season.

David Lesky writes about the doubleheader sweep but has concerns about Cole Ragans.

With his four innings yesterday, he’s thrown 156.1, tied for 12th in all of baseball. We can review this again, but his career high before this season was 134.2 in 2022 across three levels, including the majors. That’s not an inherently crazy jump season-to-season, but Ragans presumably has six more starts this season, and they’ve all been big starts for a few weeks. The Royals wouldn’t trade the circumstance they’re in, being in this race, but I believe they’d have handled Ragans differently if they were under .500 and out of the race. It’s a good problem to have, but it’s still a problem.

Craig Brown writes the bullpen is still an issue.

Back to the bullpen for a moment. No matter how you feel about this team, and I remain optimistic they are playoff-bound, the bullpen is serious nightmare fuel at this point. The good news: Quatraro has only used his pen for 410 innings this year, the least in the majors. The bad news: They’re just not very good with a collective 7.6 SO/9 (29th in the majors) and a 4.47 ERA (26th). Zerpa makes me twitchy and Smith is just not a guy who can be trusted to pitch in any kind of, let’s say medium-low leverage situation. If the Royals are going to be serious about getting to October and hanging around as long as possible, this needs to be addressed. Zerpa will have some time to get right in Omaha. As for Smith, maybe he is hurting and needs some time. I don’t know. I do know that when he returns, he will need to prove himself all over again. Given how he’s performed of late, the Royals cannot even entertain the notion of putting him on a postseason roster at this point.

Shanthi Sepe-Chepuru at MLB.com writes about players exceeding preseason expectations.

Witt overshot his projected fWAR by two wins in 2023 — which is why he’s making this list for the second straight season — but he actually had a negative run value on pitches in the heart of the zone, because while his expected batting average against those middle-middle pitches was .342, his BABIP was almost 100 points lower (.249.)

The only tried and true method for overcoming bad luck is to wait it out, but if you really want a ball to land, you might try hitting it through people. Witt’s average exit velocity against middle-middle pitches is now 98.7 mph, firmly in the territory occupied only by the biggest of boppers, trailing Shohei Ohtani (100.9 mph), Aaron Judge (100.5 mph) and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (99.7 mph) among players with at least 150 batted balls. The result, among other things, has been his absurd .611 slugging percentage.

Kevin O’Brien at Royals Reporter writes that this team feels like Matt Quatraro’s team.

The Red Sox add 44-year-old pitcher Rich Hill.

The Astros sign veteran outfielder Jason Heyward.

The Orioles sign former Royals reliever Nick Anderson.

The Red Sox designate former Royals pitcher Brad Keller for assignment.

At ESPN Insider, Jeff Passan takes an early view at free agency.

Where do Aaron Judge and Juan Soto rank in best hitter duos in history?

Rustin Dodd in The Athletic writes that more MLB veterans - like Alcides Escobar - are playing in the Mexican League.

Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery talk about their relationship with agent Scott Boras.

What to know about Roki Sasaki’s free agency.

NFL owners approved up to ten percent of a team to be owned by private equity.

The Kelce brothers sign a $100 million deal with Amazon for their podcast.

How heavy rain can make you sick.

The number of adults who smoke cigarettes hits a new low.

A judge orders Martin Shkreli to turn over all copies of the unreleased Wu-Tang Clan album.

Your song of the day is Billy Idol with Dancing with Myself.