It's penbrook vs BWillie bet. Tread carefully on that one.

I am undefeated in CP bets.

:D

White Sox and Orioles again this week.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Just talked to Salvador Perez. MRI this morning revealed a grade one groin strain. He says there’s no pain. Just a little tightness/pinch. He hopes to play tomorrow. He went straight to Matt Quatraro’s office when he arrived and lobbied to play tonight. He lost that battle.</p>&mdash; Joel Goldberg (@goldbergkc) <a href="https://twitter.com/goldbergkc/status/1779983395050643578?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 15, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

WELL WAKE HIS ASS UP! WE GOTTA WIN TOMORROW!

it's the chisox. Like resting Mahomes against the Donks and rolling with Wentz and still expecting to win.

Nice. That's good news knowing Salvy won't be out long.

Hopefully he won't be out long.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">James McArthur was acquired by the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Royals?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Royals</a> on May 8th, 2023 for Junior Marin.<br><br>He was 26 years old with a 7.31 ERA in AAA. <br><br>Now he’s Kansas City’s closer and Marin has played a total of 5 games in the Phillies organization.</p>&mdash; Jack Johnson (@JohnyJ_15) <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnyJ_15/status/1780054670842400777?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 16, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I’d rest Salvy through the White Sox series

Well apparently Dayton Moore's bible study didn't help this guy.

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/f...sh-in-florida/

The trades the Royals pulled off in 2023 have worked out pretty spectacularly in the Royals favor.

McArthur, Ragans, Velazquez...

Boy, Boston shit the bed late against the Tribe, and are now on their way to an ugly loss, while Cleveland just keeps winning. Stuck for at least another day in second place.

I don't understand how McArthur became good. I mean he's never been good at any level.

That's less about a fantastic trade and more about really good player development I guess. And of course good ol' reliever volatility - we'll see how long he can keep this up.

It's not like he's Mason Miller out there throwing fire on the black with hellish breaking stuff. He just...throws. And they get out. There's nothing amazing that I see and that usually yields regression over any meaningful timeline.

It's either random variance, or the Royals made some tweaks to his pitch usage/mechanics when he was brought in that helped him out.

His MLB walk rate has been miniscule, which seems to be the main difference. He also just doesn't throw his four-seamer or cutter at the MLB level (though they have been sprinkled in enough to show up on his Fangraphs page).

He's huge (6-7) and has a pair of pretty good breakers to go with a good sinker. I'm not sure he's a closer long-term, but that's a good bullpen arsenal.

Looks like some moves may be coming.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I am absolutely 100% not implying anything, but Gavin Cross, Drew Waters, and Michael Massey were all pulled from their respective games this evening. That is at least mildly curious and/or concerning at a number of levels.</p>&mdash; Alex Duvall (@aduvall013) <a href="https://twitter.com/aduvall013/status/1780774183577809064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 18, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

trade comin?

Would guess more like Waters and Massey coming up, and Cross was hurt.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Methinks Michael Massey will be back with the Royals tomorrow. <a href="https://t.co/OmyOAIXjYb">https://t.co/OmyOAIXjYb</a></p>&mdash; Pete Grathoff (@pgrathoff) <a href="https://twitter.com/pgrathoff/status/1780989657129291923?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 18, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Loftin with daily bats in Omaha is a good thing. Frazier and Hamson are fine for the bench utility role.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Need to clarify this. The “it” would be whatever Waters did to get pulled from the game. Picollo was not talking about Jirschele’s decision when saying he hopes it doesn’t happen again.<br><br>Should have made that clearer in the original post, apologies.</p>&mdash; Anne Rogers (@anne__rogers) <a href="https://twitter.com/anne__rogers/status/1781432390071562283?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 19, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

God dammit. Im really hoping that Waters will get pulled up and Isbel will get sent down. He's atrocious at the plate.

Why would she feel like she has to clear up what the "it" is. I think the sentence saying "we support our managers when they make decisions like that" right before the "it" makes it pretty clear he's not talking about the manager's decision.

It was an ambiguous pronoun so she cleared it up just in case there was any confusion.

Because she woke.

*****Official 2024 Royals Season Repository Thread*****
 

Some positivity from the minors early on…

Blake Mitchell drawing walks, hitting and hitting for power.

Ben Kudrna pitching well

Isbel is so good in the OF Im ok with it. I think he deserves some more time. Plus we are only expecting him to OPS mid 600s so his slumps will appear worse.

Some negativity from the minors early...

Cayden Wallace and Gavin Cross are sucking ass.

Wallace .614 OPS in AA
Cross .745 in AA but showing no power

Yeah, I don't have any positivity on cross. Moore and company got hornswoggled on that one.

Who knew drafting a dude because of his religion and your longtime friendship with his heavily religious dad over actual evaluation would end poorly.

Not that it’s a status change or anything, but I see Isbel is not in the lineup today. Is this a direct result of his boneheaded play in the 8th inning last night? Maybe it’s cause he couldn’t jump 20 feet up the cf wall in the 9th? I don’t know. But I do miss Michael A. Taylor.

/beating dead horse.

Well, the guy did bring two AL championships and 2 WS winning one.

You, on the other hand bring... exactly what?

Original thought? No.

You're a plagiarizing pete%gz with long hair, an ego the size of a blimp and the emptiest suit on this board.

Oh look a Mecca siting! Wonder what his post is about?! Is it about how good we've looked or how we're going for the series win against the best team in the AL right now?

Oh none of those things! What a surprise!

He's bitching about a GM that's no longer here. Who would have thought negativity would bring him into the Royals thread

I don't wanna see any positive posts about that mother****er either. I don't want to see anything about him.

Cross was chosen right where he was suppose to as well. He was always in the 8-10 range on all the prospect lists.

A lot of mock drafts had either Cross or Justin Crawford and the difference was whether the Royals would want a college or high school bat.

Crawford is the son of Carl Crawford and, as you might guess, has a ton of speed.

Can we call up Waters yet? If I have to suffer through much more Isbel...

Welp turns our lobbing it over the middle and praying only works for so long for Lugo

Isbel just isn't good. He's an automatic out and a stupid base runner. He's got great defense, but holy shit he's so bad at hitting that its not even close to being enough.

He's just not a ML hitter.

I want a series win against Toronto. A split would be acceptable.

I just want h this team to keep winning and competing.

That’s difficult to imagine.

This. I can't stand Isbel. He's reminding me of my hate level for a guy like Chris Getz!

Dude was diagnosed with melanoma at the beginning of spring training and now he's back.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Tyler Duffey being promoted to Royals today</p>&mdash; Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) <a href="https://twitter.com/JonHeyman/status/1782404378483433518?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 22, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Vinne Pasquantino is the next Victor Martinez.

Ahh, yes.

The fan of the 'most talented young' team in baseball since 2020. All those playoff appearances, averaging 90 wins a season, and STILL haven't achieved more playoff success than the Royals in that same time span. That must hurt.

You should take a lesson from the Royals on how to win when you manage to land the 'most talented elite prospect group' in baseball.

But, alas, you're a Blue Jays fan . . . . . .

Royals' pick in Baseball America's just released mock draft.

6. Royals — Hagen Smith, LHP, Arkansas

In terms of strikeout rate and batting average against, no pitcher in the country has been as dominant as Hagen Smith this spring. His 48.3% strikeout rate is tops among qualified D-I arms and so the .136 opponent average he’s posted. Smith allowed three earned runs in his first outing of the year (just one inning against James Madison) and since then he has allowed just six earned runs in 40 innings.

He’s currently generating a 47% miss rate on all of his pitches, sitting 94-96 with his fastball from the left side and batters are hitting just .087/.125/.152 against his slider. He’s a nightmare matchup at the moment.

Potential critiques include the Tommy John survey on his resume, a walk rate that is higher than you’d like for a top-10 pitcher (10.6% this season and 12.7% for his career) and perhaps some questions about what his third pitch is going to be beyond the fastball/slider combo. Even with those, he fits as a tier-one arm in the class. It wouldn’t be shocking if he were the first pitcher off the board.

https://www.baseballamerica.com/stor...or-every-team/

I really don't understand why he's part of this team. His Defense is fine, everything else is complete shit. And he runs bases like I imagine a MMA dude would.

Because CF is a bit of a hole in the entire system. They are basically hoping he can be a Kiermayer type, but you do need the rest of the lineup to basically pick him up.

Ideally he should be a 4th OF late game defensive replacement type but there really isn't anyone else ready to play CF either.

Make no mistake, I have no love for this iteration of the Jays. Sadly for you, though, even a mediocre Jays team will annihilate the fraud Royals this series.

It turns out that even if you're in the joke division that is the AL Central you can't play the White Sox every single week.

though we swept the astros, while the blue jays scored a grand total of 2 runs in their three game set with the stros (winning 1 of 3).

so we will see

'mediocre Jays team'

You could have just stopped here.


Question: Who do you think will win more playoff series this year? Jays or Royals??

Neither one is likely to win a playoff series, but only one is actually likely to play a playoff series. I think you know which one that is.

Ahh, so already admitting both will have the same amount of success in the playoffs this year. Thanks for the honesty.

What a waste, huh?

That would be how I would describe what Jays management has done, yes.

He's truly an excellent defender. He only played 90 games last year and was a 2 WAR player. But last year he was hitting about .240 and playing at a 10 HR/10 SB pace. Those offensive numbers will fly if he can play that defense at the K because it's a giant ballpark. He's got to be better than a .467 OPS guy though.

It does matter though. The pitching staff is 28th in strikeouts and they're 5th in ERA. The defense has been very good.

I'm sure a birthday party at Chuck E Chesse will appear

can someone with some positive mojo start today's GDT and get us back on track please? :(

That would leave me out, they said last night that 7 of the next 10 games are against the Maple Leafs, er....I mean Blue Jays. They better get the bats heated up to break this mini slump, losing 4 of 5.

I went 1-2 over the weekend so that's not me.

I know there was some talk about Isbel but if he starts in center last night we might have won. Game was decided on that missed ball in center.

god dammit youre right........

Or maybe if Drew Waters was up and Kyle Isbel was playing his back up, then Waters might have made that play.

I'll take the blame. I was beginning to let myself feel optimistic about the team this year I'll go back to lowering my expectations.

You and a lot of folks. The reality is, three weeks is far too small of a sample size for the baseball regular season. No way this team was ever 12-6 clip for 162 games good. If they can land somewhere in the mid/high 70's for a win total, that's a tremendous turnaround and can give us something to build on for next season. Anything above that is gravy and beyond for the 2024 season.

Kyle Isbel is not the only problem with the Royals offense. Only four batters in today's lineup are batting over .200. Which means five are batting below .200. How can anyone be optimistic about scoring enough runs to win?

What in the actual **** is the point in being a fan of you can't get excited about a good start?

There isn't any issues with our offense? We've been shut out only 1 time and are top 10 in runs per game. The issue recently has been some bad starts.

There’s nothing wrong with being excited. It’s a fun team to watch this season. But I think working in a dash of reality or at least an understanding of “hey this is cool but there’s a long way to go” is not a bad idea either.

Who wasn't doing that?

Well there was one guy here who said he thought we were looking at 90 wins. And I heard that type of talk from several others as well. Which would be great, obviously. Hope it happens. Again, I think it should be considered a very successful season if these guys can win 75 or so games.

I dunno man. Competing against some good teams is a pretty good sign for a team you're projecting to go below .500. the meat of the order is strong. The royals power Numbers seem likely to tick up as weather warms up.

Lugo does seem destined to get bounced to the Pen to me after weather warms up simply because of the warning track balls he's already giving up.
Ragans, Singer have exceeded expectations, but seem like candidates to continue to do so. Wacha could be a good three. I love Schreiber and McArthur for the pen, but we need more arms there.

Offensively though, Garcia is finally turning the corner, Witt looks like an MVP discussion candidate, Vinnie is back, Salvy miraculously looks Even better than years prior. Melendez looks like someone we can hold out some hope on, and Velasquez was a steal. Can Massey and Loftin be dudes this year? Can Waters come up?

I feel optimistic that this team ends up closer to the 90 than the 75.

Garcia has also suffered severe bad luck btw. Check out his baseball savant page

Hope you’re right. I think a 30 game turnaround is a tall order but certainly won’t complain if that ends up being the case.

Great Expectations better show up again

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Dominican twins brothers OF Luis Ramon King and SS Luis Steven King are expected to sign with the Kansas City Royals and Houston Astros when a new international signing period opens January 15, 2025, per sources. <br><br>They are two highly rated prospects from Sanamá City. <br><br>Estimated… <a href="https://t.co/2SoUTiMZbv">pic.twitter.com/2SoUTiMZbv</a></p>&mdash; Francys Romero (@francysromeroFR) <a href="https://twitter.com/francysromeroFR/status/1783231451716096302?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 24, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I can't find anything about either one of these kids.

These posts are aging well. :clap: :clap:

James McArthur is HIM!! Dude is so ****ing nasty, best closer since Wade Davis!

4 more games to go over the next week and the Jays probably aren't going to give away every single one of them with awful defense like the last two. Don't count your chickens quite yet...