Royals Rumblings - News for November 8, 2024

Asia Baseball recaps begin today with the CPBL!

Slow news day. At least we got Spring Training game schedules:

At The Star, Jaylon Thompson asked recent re-signee (we can use that as a word, right?) Michael Wacha about his Kansas City bucket list:

“Definitely looking forward to getting out and trying everything,” Wacha said. “I can tell you where the best parks are and the best slides and swings for a two-year-old, I guess. With another year older with her, I think we will start getting out and around town and checking everything out.”

Wacha crossed one item off his Kansas City to-do list Monday: He attended a Chiefs game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium.

At Fangraphs, Davy Andrews pens a hyper-scientific article about “Which Catcher is the Best at Scrunching Himself into a Tiny Ball” and ranks them in a playoff-style bracket. Salvador Perez... made the bracket. But Freddy Fermin had quite the showing:

That brings us to the Final Four, where Stallings’ charmed run finally ended at the hands of J.T. Realmuto. On the other side of the bracket, Fermin passed Ryan Jeffers to make it into the final. Jeffers is 6-foot-4, very tall for a catcher (and a human), but he really did manage to get very tiny. There he is on the right doing his best impression of a guy who isn’t the same height as Anthony Edwards. Still, it’s not just enough to compete with Fermin on the left. Fermin is maybe the best framer in baseball at the bottom of the zone, and when he really gets down there, he looks like he’s trying to hide his whole body behind his catcher’s mitt:

Sure, it’s a listicle, but let’s add Jim Bowden’s offseason needs list from The Athletic ($):

Kansas City Royals

Top-of-the-lineup on-base player, a middle-of-the-order bat and bullpen depth

The Royals’ offseason got off to an auspicious start with the signing of Michael Wacha to a three-year, $51 million deal that allows them to run back the same starting rotation they rode to the playoffs this past season. They have made it clear they’re looking for a leadoff hitter who is an on-base machine and can create traffic for Bobby Witt Jr., Vinnie Pasquantino and Salvador Perez in the middle of their lineup. They also want to lengthen that part of the lineup by adding another bat. GM J.J. Picollo will look to add more bullpen depth as well.

While this is about the St. Louis (yuck), it impacts Kansas City. The Cardinals reached an agreement with Diamond Sports to continue airing their games. Not entirely sure how that works, considering Diamond is going through bankruptcy and it would be nice if MLB could just start pulling as many teams as possible under their umbrella.

As part of its reorganization plan, Diamond voided the contracts of the Detroit Tigers and Tampa Bay Rays and will attempt to rework the deals of the other four franchises that are part owners of their RSNs — the Cincinnati Reds, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels and Miami Marlins.

Former Royals catcher Logan Porter signed a minor league deal with the Giants.

Blogs?

David Lesky makes free agent predictions despite his better judgement:

And since that’s going to change, I wanted to do something I do every year and make my predictions on where the top free agents go. I’ll provide who they sign with and how much. I actually did get six of the 25 right last season, so I’ve got that going for me. It might have been the best I’ve done in my whole writing life in predicting these things. I will not do as well this season. In fact, this season, it felt more like throwing darts than ever before.

Kevin O’Brien, the Royals Reporter, “[breaks] down Witt and Salvy’s Silver Slugger Candidacy”:

Of qualified AL shortstops, Witt ranked first in runs scored (125), RBI (109), SB (31), ISO (.256), average (.332), wOBA (.410), and xwOBA (.413). That’s not just dominance from Bobby at his position but pretty much a “Roman Triumph” (as Bill Tweed eloquently put it in the movie “Gangs of New York”).

Blog Roundup:

• Preston Farr at Farm to Fountains: 13 Royals Minor Leaguers become free agents
• Eric Treuden at Kings of Kauffman: 3 big names the KC Royals need to avoid at all cost this offseason
• Jacob Milham at Kings of Kauffman: KC Royals dodged a bullet by not trading Vinnie Pasquantino last offseason

Now that it’s November, it’s time to revisit Asian baseball and close out the seasons. This week, we’re starting with Taiwan’s CPBL. Next week will be South Korea’s KBO. And then we’ll finish with Japan’s NPB. Here are the links to our season preview and midseason check for the league.

Let’s start out with a little inter-league nuts and bolts. In August, former Royal and CTBC Brother Eric Stout exercised his “escape clause” and signed with the KIA Tigers of the KBO. Per the linked article, his contract in the KBO was 4 weeks for $45K, similar to what he was getting paid in the CPBL, but in an attempt to get a full season contract for 2025. Spoiler for next week: the step up in leagues didn’t go so well. In the CPBL, he was ranked 7th in ERA and 4th in Ks when he left. In the KBO, he started 4 games and had a 5.06 ERA and didn’t pitch in the playoffs.

In September, Bryan Woodall attained “domestic status”. What does that mean? The CPBL, like many other leagues, limits the number of foreign players who can play on any team. The last rules I can find were put in place for 2020 and limited franchises to 4 total players, 3 on the CPBL team (1 on the minor league team), and 2 on the field at any given time. Since he reached 9 years of service in the CPBL, Woodall now counts as a domestic player and doesn’t take up one of those slots. Cool!

Onto the playoffs:

The Brothers would get the bye and were the only team with a winning record in both the first and second half of the season. That meant the Monkeys and Uni-Lions would face off in a best of 3 playoff to advance to the Taiwan Series.

The first game was uncharacteristically low scoring for the CPBL with the Uni-Lions winning a pitchers duel 2-1. The Monkeys mauled game 2 with round numbers aplenty: 5 in the 3rd, 4 in the 4th, 4 in the 7th, and 4 in the 8th. There was even some drama in the stands as “the Rakuten Monkeys’ team owner, Hiroshi Mikitani, attended Game 2 of the Playoff Series, and when asked by CNA, he denied rumours that Rakuten was planning to sell their CPBL team”. The Uni-Lions looked poised to coast to victory in the rubber match, opening up a 7-0 lead after 4. However, the Monkey rallied for 5 in the 8th to cut the lead to 8-5. They loaded the bases in the 9th but Chen Yun-Wen put out the fire and preserved the win.

This set up a Taiwan series between the two most decorated franchises in CPBL history. In game 1, the Lions took a 3-0 lead in the 1st and were coasting behind ace Gu Lin Ruei-Yang. But he left with back issues and the Brothers pummeled the bullpen en route to a 10-4 win. Undaunted, the Lions won game 2 by the score of 10-3. Scoring double digits continued to be the key (ya think?) in game 3 as the Brothers took back the series lead with a 10-0 win. In that game, Lu Yen-Ching became the first pitcher to record an SP win, a hold, and a save in the Taiwan Series.

Also at game 3:

The Lions had early leads in both game 4 and 5, but the Brother prevailed. They won 6-4 in game 4 and 4-1 in game 5 to win the series. The MVP was Tseng Song-En: “The 24-year-old outfielder posted an insane video game-like slash line of .524/.545/.857 over five games and 22 plate appearances.” With the win, the Brothers tied the Lions with 10 titles apiece.

The aforementioned Lions ace, Gu Lin Ruei-Yang, won MVP. He’s the first Taiwanese pitcher to win the award since 2006. Last week, he declared himself a free agent and is able to sign in any international league. There’s speculation he will jump from the CPBL to the NPB.

Finally, the new Taipei dome was a huge success this season!

Playing at the Taipei Dome, Chen added, provides a comfortable environment for players and fans and helps avoid rain delays. “It’s a blessing to be able to compete here,” he said.

The CPBL reported a record attendance of 2,766,386 fans for the 2023 regular season, averaging 7,684 spectators across 360 games. The 38 games at the Taipei Dome drew 786,189 fans.

Back before Trent Reznor (and Atticus Ross) was winning Oscars and Emmys for soundtracks, he had a little industrial band that racked up 13 Grammy nominations and two wins. Somehow, despite the truckload of awards and 20 million albums sold, we’ve never featured Nine Inch Nails for a song of the day on RR. For many fans, “Head Like a Hole” was their introduction to the band. Released in 1989, the production quality and sound are far ahead of their time and portend the band’s success in the 90s: