There's no reason to start their clock too early. I think they're aiming for that 2020 mark. You'd have to imagine guys like Lopez and Lee will be brought up around then. Not sure about the younger guys like Pratto and Melendez.

People still watching this shit?

Holy shit.

I’d rather have the first pick than anything the Angels would give us for Moose.

Definitely

Neither are related.

If Lopez continues to dominate in AAA it makes zero sense and it's not fair to leave him there for 1.5 seasons. He should be up by midseason next year at the latest.

I think his point is that beating the Mariners over the weekend would've possibly led to the Angels potentiality thinking they are in the race and therefore would still trade for Moose. Instead, he would rather have had the Royals get swept(spoiler alert: they did)to help in the race for the number one pick

I think that's very likely. If Whit is traded you could see Lopez in the starting lineup early next year. At least until they give Escobar a 5 year extension.

If Lee does well I could see him coming up at some point next year too.

Calling all reeruns! If you argued during our run that advanced analytics are stupid and always underestimate us, come here now and explain if you still hold that idiotic view

Wow, you need to get on base to score? DMs eternal plan to get toosly guys who can't ever take a f----ing walk seems to be reverting back to its inevitable result: no runs and no wins.

There is no bullpen to bail out this strategy. There is no temp suppression in HR either.

Aren’t we leading the Carolina league in walks this year?

This team has nothing to do with the '14 and '15 teams.

I think advanced metrics are useful, but obviously incomplete if they can't take into account different approaches.

Which affiliate is in the Carolina League? If it's the team with Seuly Matias, I can only assume they're leading the league in strikeouts and lowest batting average.

*** Official 2018 Royals Repository ***
 

Your weird hatred of Seuly Matias as a prospect is weird.

Player A - 19 | 22 HR, .805 OPS, 9 % walk rate
Player B - 19 | 5 HR, .734 OPs, 14% walk rate
Player C - 19 | 52 HR, .908 OPS, 9 % walk rate

Matias is one of those three players, and it probably is pretty obvious (stats for him are pace stats). The other 2 were also royals prospects at full season A ball at age 19. He needs to work on cutting strikeouts down, for sure. But there’s no reason to call him out as a sign of problems with the Royals system. Plenty of other targets for that...

@RoyalsFarm: According to @BaseballAmerica, the Royals have signed SS prospects Wilmin Candelario and Omar Florentino to international free agent deals. Both are switch hitters. Candelario is as smooth a defender as I’ve seen at his age. Omar Florentino was BA’s #18 overall int’l FA Prospect.

Real prize internationally is victor victor Mesa (Not to be confused with his bro victor Mesa jr), a Cuban defector who probably is a day 1 top 50 prospect.

Royals might have enough in their pool for him... orioles have the most and are best positioned... but never spend internationally.

I was going to ask you about him.

He’s a really top end prospect and probably ready for assignment to High A or AA.

Profile sounds similar to Victor Robles. From what I’ve read, he’d be top 50 on most lists immediately and could be top 20 by year end if he hits the ground running.

If you are not, then why are you here?

I wonder what Kyle Zimmer is up to these days.

I rail on Moore for bad drafting, but stuff like Zimmer is just bad luck. Hopefully we're about to have some things start going our way again.

Brad Keller has taken over for Jake Junis as the 2018 “only reason I’m still watching” recipient. We have control of him until 2024 which is super nice. Let’s just hope he doesn’t pull an Andy Sisco (great rookie year on a historically bad Royals team who then proceeded to do nothing).

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">We have agreed to terms with RHP Jackson Kowar, the club’s Round 1 Compensation selection (33rd overall) in the 2018 First-Year Player Draft. Welcome to the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Royals?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Royals</a>! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RaisedRoyal?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#RaisedRoyal</a> <a href="https://t.co/iW4LZT30Pk">pic.twitter.com/iW4LZT30Pk</a></p>&mdash; Kansas City Royals (@Royals) <a href="https://twitter.com/Royals/status/1013945512574246913?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 3, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Junis loading the bases for Lindor is ... suboptimal.

Junis looked pretty good in April and May and has looked like a bucket of shit in June and now July.

He just gave up a grand slam. He suxks

Saw that coming like the dawn in the east.

Has he given up 30 home runs yet? Is that a record before the all-star break?

Welp, decided to check-out the game to see how the season was progressing.

in all things holy and not, you would think that the royals would stop pitching to francisco lindor. and im not kidding.
sparky anderson hates george brett type of old school baseball here.

And...Gordon grounds out to 2nd....and Gordon grounds out to 2nd...and Gordon grounds out to second. He is just awful. Just freaking awful.

You guys need to get on the bandwagon & starting rooting for the O’s & against the Royals.

This is quite a battle for #1.

Yup. That’s where most of my post count comes from.

Sad days.

Why is Cleve always good and never bottoming out?

Umm, what?

Yeah it's not like Cleveland was world beaters for most of the 2000s. They had one or two good years, but these last 3 years have been their best run since the 90s, and that was 20 years ago.

And even this year, they're pretty much winning the division by default. Plus, they're the Indians.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Heard interest in Mike Moustakas picked up a bit. Could philly be a fit? Maikel Franco’s name has been bandied about in other talks.</p>&mdash; Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) <a href="https://twitter.com/JonHeyman/status/1014000362834071552?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 3, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

His hitting has been a huge improvement from the last 2 years which while isn’t saying much, has been a pleasant surprise at times. His fielding has been platinum glove level quality which we have come to expect.

Went to the game tonite.

WHeeeeeeeew. That was a terrible pitching outing.

Um, they've avg 85 wins this decade.

82 the decade prior.

92 the decade prior to that after moving to a new ballpark 1994.


10 playoff appearances in 24 years. We have 2. But yeah, very similar!

Pratto has 91k already at A ball. 281 AB. Wow.

He fits right in.

I don't think anyone said anything about the Royals and Indians being 'similar'.

But you know what the Royals DO have in those 24 years that the Indians don't?

The Indians play well when the division is weak. If they played in any other division they wouldn’t win as many games. They are gutless and soft when it matters.

And Cleveland has as many championships as the Chiefs in that timespan

The Indians want what we have. 2 World Series titles since 1985. I hope the Indian fans enjoy all those playoff appearances though...

*** Official 2018 Royals Repository ***
 

There is a lot of swing and miss going on at Lexington. Pratto especially is a little surprising in that regard, since his rep was as such a polished bat.

Definitely the biggest cause for pause and something to watch as those guys progress up the latter.

Matias especially. He has special power, and should be an above average base runner and fielder, too. If he can make better quality contact, he can be a real star.

Do you think it's a coaching issue there, and similar to the league wide trend of free swinging players? I know you question my concern about Matias, but I see someone like him as looking an awful lot like Joey Gallo. It appears Pratto isn't much better, but without the power. By my calculation Melendez also has a 32% SO rate. They all appear to have horrible plate discipline. So what's the deal? Is that just to be expected with 19 year olds in A ball? And should we expect to see them to repeat the same level next year until they can mature and learn some plate discipline?

Yeah, well.... he's hitting around .245 which definitely is an improvement. I think "Huge Improvement" is a stretch. He's on pace to have less than 30 RBIs this year. He's got five dingers, but only seven extra base hits, and he's struck out 57 times. And of course, his contract....his contract....his freaking contract.

How many ground outs to second?

Combination of factors.

Age. Approach. Maybe coaching - or what they’re having them focus on.

It’s not just about plate discipline. You can have good plate discipline and still K a lot.

Melendez has a double digit walk rate if I’m remembering correctly. Pratto and Matias have average-ish walk rates.

The hard thing about stat scouting the minors is you don’t know what they’re having them work on day-to-day. Just like teams sometimes take a pitch away from a pitcher to develop other offerings, they sometimes will tell a hitter to do certain things with their approach to help develop other parts of their game.

Example: tell a guy he can’t swing at
Any first-pitch fastballs.

It’s something KC hasn’t been aggressive with on its hitting development in the past. Not sure of the organizational approach there now.

I really hope we can find some talent in the IFA market, because we seem to have struck out on a lot of our signings there. Looking at the signings tracker on Baseball America nearly every other team has been a lot more active than us so far. I really hope we come through with some decent talent, because we obviously were limited the past 2 years due to signing Matias to such a large contract.

You should know better than to play this game. I can see right through you when you manipulate statistics. Yeah they have like 10 playoff appearances, and about six of them were right in a row at the beginning of that stretch as part of one of the best teams in recent baseball history. Then two of them were the last two years. There's about a 13 or 14 year stretch in there where they had two playoff appearances and one of those was a wild card game loss.

On top of that, they went 5 straight years without a winning record before Francona got there. And three of those were 90 loss seasons. No one would argue they've had more consistent success than the Royals but your argument was that they've never had a down cycle.

And World Series aside, the Royals have actually still won more playoff series in the last 20 years than the Indians. Even if you add in their World Series teams before that, they barely eek us out.

Cleveland's window is probably about to close in the next couple of years, and they simply aren't getting through Houston/Boston/NY in the AL. Their best chance was a couple of years ago, they aren't winning a championship.

All Time Playoff Apperances
Indians 13, Royals 9

All Time Pennants
Indians 6, Royals 4

World Series Champions
Indians 2, Royals 2

And the Royals have done all of that since 1969 while the Indians started in 1901.

Well, by what I can see we've screwed the pooch in the international signings. Most of the top picks are spoken for and we have maybe a single top 30 signing, despite having one of the largest pools. This is extremely disappointing after doing absolutely nothing in IFA the last 2 years.

https://www.baseballamerica.com/stor...greed-to-sign/

https://www.mlb.com/news/july-2-inte...er/c-283495622

Yeah, they sucked for like 50 years prior to 1994 new stadium. They played at the mistake by te lake where no olayers ever wanted to play. No $, fan support, and stranded in the AL BEAST to boot.



This has nothing of course to do with my point about the last 25 years. It's perfectly fair to ask why we collapsed so soon and why they dont

Unless they are signing Mesa it looks like they ****ed up hard.

Yep. Mesa hasn't even been cleared to sign anywhere from what I've read, so it's doubtful he's an option unless the Royals have some inside info that he'll be cleared soon.

The two guys we did get don't seem to have gotten incredibly large contracts. It really seems like we're just planning on taking the remaining $4+ million in pool money and just going to let it go to waste. This is extremely disheartening. Every other AL Central team has been active, while the team with the worst farm system in the group does almost nothing.

They spent about a million of their pool this year on the two guys released from their Braves contracts for various picadillos (OF Juan Carlos Negret and SP Yefri del Rosario). Even though that money was spent last year, it was counted towards this bonus pool.

That still leaves around $3 million unaccounted for. They may be planning to spread that around more than in the past, or they may be squatting on one of the Mesa brothers.

Strategy is hard to figure otherwise. Latin America is tough. Really have to build relationships with the kids early. Vladito signed with the Blue Jays because they had the best relations with him, not because of money.

$30 on a ticket for the lower 200 level tomorrow.

At least there is some silver lining to the suck.

All aboard the Mesa train.

Can't bonus pool money be traded as well? If we're going to sit on our hands I'd at least hope we trade some of our pool away and get something in return.

Maybe ownership isn't thrilled having a 130 million dollar payroll that looks like an Allard Baird team?

Also, Latin America being tough isn't a valid excuse. If the leadership and scouts in place can't do their job they need to be relieved of their positions. Clearly we haven't done nearly enough in recent years to find talent in IFA. We blew our load in 2015 on Matias and some other guy who hasn't done anything. Hopefully Matias proves to be worth it, because signing him has resulted in us being shut out of any significant talent the last 2 years. We finally have room to sign guys and we mostly do nothing. As a small market team we can't afford to go the better part of a decade without finding any real talent on the international market.

Wasn’t offering it as an excuse, just as context. You have to work hard to build relations and really develop a track record. The Royals have done that, especially compared to where they were when Moore took over. Sometime the guys you think you’ll spend big money on when they’re 14 are guys that aren’t worth it at 16.

The Royals big money signings in Latin America haven’t been great (and the success rate is not great across Baseball, either). They’ve found some nice lesser-hyped talent there but need to step it up.

I’m hoping they’re sitting back on the Mesa kid. If they’re not in that, they should move some of the money to one of the teams who is and get some prospect value out of it.

Not accusing you of offering it as an excuse, just speaking in general. I appreciate your input you give on here, it's nice to have a knowledgeable person giving some good insight.

Assume Singer is about to sign.

@JoshVernier610: The Royals have put out a press release stating they will "make a baseball related announcement at 5:15." Stay tuned. #Royals

Hoping it’s at slot or just a little over. If it is, they should be able to throw big money at Ty Madden or Milan Walla, big talents who slipped past the first 10 rounds due to signability concerns.

The darkest timeline would be Heimlich.

Didnt Glass veto that idea?

During the draft, yes. But GMDM’s recent comments indicate the Royals are still “doing their homework on him”. Which is horseshit, barring either a complete 180 to a remorseful apology from Heimlich or a retraction from the victim, neither of which we have reason to believe will happen.

@JonathanMayo: 1st rder Brady Singer will get $4.25 mil from @Royals. (pick 18 value = $3,349,300). @GatorsBaseball ace dominated SEC for 3 years with combination of stuff and command.

Welp. So much for that idea.

@jimcallisMLB: 4th-rder Eric Cole signs w/@Royals for $500k (pick 122 value = $451,200). Arkansas OF, switch-hitter with pop, could be average tools across the board. @MLBDraft

*** Official 2018 Royals Repository ***
 

That’s going to do it for their bonus pool, I think. May have 220k to play with, but I don’t expect that to be enough to land Madden or Walla.

And that’s fine. They landed top 5 and top 20 talents with their first two picks.

The royals signed an insane number of their picks, though.

Yeah. I just tend to get greedy. Really like Walla. Near-Bubba Starling level size and athleticism (less arm) with more advanced baseball skills. I think he could be a real steal if they can make it happen.

I guess we have to hope that other teams busted their nut in the IFA market and will be less active next year. Perhaps then we'll finally get off our ass and attempt to add some talent. Either that, or maybe they'll finally institute an international player draft. That might be our only hope to find any talent. When the Yankees of the world load up on talent in IFA and still have every other advantage in the world it's really hard to imagine small market teams being able to compete, especially when they don't actually use every venue possible to gain talented baseball players.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">We’ve placed RHP Ian Kennedy on the 10-day disabled list (left oblique strain). His DL stint is retroactive to June 30, making him eligible to return on July 10.</p>&mdash; Kansas City Royals (@Royals) <a href="https://twitter.com/Royals/status/1014305677098078211?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 4, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

BTW it is very clear these players don't give a shit about winning this year.