Also, Cole Ragans is 25 with a 38.5% strikeout rate in Triple-A this year. Most likely he's just a mediocre lefty with command issues, but he's not a total lost cause. His outpitch is a changeup too, not the wipe out pitch in vogue these days.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Cayden Wallace hit a baseball through the Ferris Wheel for his 8th homer of the year. <a href="https://t.co/lrAtZ24WUk">pic.twitter.com/lrAtZ24WUk</a></p>&mdash; Preston Farr (@royalsminors) <a href="https://twitter.com/royalsminors/status/1674927505999024128?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 30, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

How are teams in Oklahoma City and Charlotte and New Orleans and Sacramento and Indianapolis and Salt Lake and Portland doing in the modern NBA landscape at retaining their own stars and building true championship caliber rosters?

It’s not enough to hit on a star and be able to keep them. You have to be able to do that and attract other stars around them.

College sports has nothing to do with my take and has little bearing here. kU’s success as a basketball program is great and all, but it’s not going to have any impact on players’ desire to come to the KC market.

My trepidation about the NBA in this market is just that the landscape is skewed so far in favor of big markets it is a really fine needle to thread to build a champion.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Here’s some footage of newly acquired OF Roni Cabrera, courtesy of JDB Baseball (<a href="https://t.co/24jOA7BZEj">https://t.co/24jOA7BZEj</a>)<br>6-1 frame, probably an average arm with good speed. He’s 5 for 5 on SB through 15 games so far. Looks more like line drive gap power than stuff that’ll clear fences, for now. <a href="https://t.co/RmxAG2mX7H">pic.twitter.com/RmxAG2mX7H</a></p>&mdash; Preston Farr (@royalsminors) <a href="https://twitter.com/royalsminors/status/1675170488266682369?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

OKC about to blow up. SGA did resign. I think the best way to make it so players don't jump ship is when their rookie contract is up, allow the team that drafted you to be able to offer you the MOST MONEY possible even if it's only 5-10M more.

To me, the biggest offender is MLB which doesn't have a true salary cap. It's virtually impossible to keep guys in MLB if they get good. NY teams spend 300-350M. Oakland spends 60M. If you have that big of a difference in spending you have already failed as a league. In the NBA everyone pretty much is spending 125M to 175M who is actually trying to compete regardless of market size.

You basically have to find someone like Giannis who you took a chance on long before they were great and even that's a bit of luck because Giannis has a Mahomes-like attitude about everything where he puts the team in front of his ego. Even though MLB is really unbalanced you still probably have more of a chance than you do in the NBA. There just aren't a lot of upsets and you have to have that kind of elite superstar or you have zero chance.

Baseball playoffs is getting hot at the right time, with mainly pitching.
NBA playoffs is superstar driven.
NFL playoffs in franchise QB driven.

I'm as big of a KU homer as you're going to find, but I agree the NBA market is a different beast. The fact the closest NBA team to Kentucky is pushing on 3 hours away, I just think you need a different calculus for the NBA that I'm not sure you can find in KC.

(But, KC's gonna be in the conversation now thanks to Patrick, so you never know).

Right. That helps you keep the ONE guy. But it is pretty hard to build to a championship level just through drafting and smart, second-tier FA pickups. You need that second and sometimes third big-ticket player to really have a chance.

All I'm saying. When similar markets in the middle of the country struggle so much, it makes me question the viability in KC.

Sure would be nice to see Lynch improve his strikeout rate

Clearly the Royals just need to play on national TV.

And Taylor Clarke blows

What's funny is that Fangraphs had Taylor Clarke listed as the closer in waiting earlier in the week once Scott Barlow and Aroldis Chapman were both traded.

Now they list Carlos Hernandez as next in line, followed by Amir Garrett.

Enhancing the slider is the key to this happening for Lynch.

I laughed entirely too loud at this. Thank you.