Royals Rumblings - News for October 15, 2024

How Cole Ragans became a dude.

Jaylon Thompson writes about J.J. Picollo’s end-of-the-year press conference.

The Royals are content with their current coaching staff. Quatraro will retain his entire staff and will not look to make any changes. The stability helps the organization chart an offseason course aimed at building upon a competitive roster.

“There are less questions to answer,” Picollo said. “Two years ago, we were looking at manager, pitching coach and all those things. Last year, there were a lot of holes. This year, we had less holes. Now, it’s about: How do we refine this team and become a better team?”

Anne Rogers has more.

The offseason to-do list is noticeably shorter than last winter’s, but there are still holes to address.

“We went from an area where there were a lot of things we needed to improve on, and now it’s marginal improvements and continuing to play at a high level consistently,” Quatraro said. “Some of that is mental, some of that is physical. But overall, it’s just continuing to push forward and not be satisfied with where we got this year.”

She also writes about how Michael Wacha’s player option impacts the rotation.

“There’s no question we’d like to have him back,” Picollo said. “How we go about that, I’m not sure just yet. … There are reasons to be optimistic. But he pitched very well this year. And he’s going to have opportunities with other clubs. So we’ll work on that.”

How Wacha’s situation plays out will largely dictate the Royals’ pitching plans this offseason. If Wacha moves on, the Royals would be looking externally for rotation help.

David Lesky recaps a remarkable season.

Teams aren’t supposed to go from 50 games under .500 to winning a postseason series. It’s why it hadn’t happened before the Royals did it. Teams aren’t supposed to improve by 30 wins. It’s why it only happened for the sixth time ever this year. But this group did both of those things and gave us one of the more magical runs we’ve seen in Kansas City. Granted, the bar is pretty low given the lack of postseason action, but that doesn’t change how amazing this year was. A lot of people might tell you that 2014 was more special because of how far they got. I won’t argue with you because that’s your opinion, but I’ll take 2024 over that one because of what came before it. In 2014, the Royals had just won 86 games and gave us our first taste of scoreboard watching in a long time. They were supposed to win. That they went as far as they did and the way they did it was amazing, but they were supposed to win a lot of games. This team just wasn’t.

Mark Polishuk at MLB Trade Rumors writes about how Cole Ragans built on his breakout season.

After now a full season of success for Ragans, that Royals/Rangers trade is looking like one of the more impactful win-win deadline deals in recent memory. Calling it a “deadline deal” is perhaps a misnomer since it came a month before the trade deadline, as the Royals were already in sell mode and the Rangers were desperate to shore up their badly struggling relief corps. Teams tend to have higher asking prices in trade talks further in advance of the deadline, yet moving Ragans was a price the Rangers were willing to pay in order to achieve bullpen help as quickly as possible.

Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas praise the 2024 Royals and say this is just the beginning for them.

Juan Soto and Giancarlo Stanton homer in a Game 1 victory for the Yankees over the Guardians.

Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift attended the Yankees ALCS game.

Mark Vientos hits a grand slam to propel the Mets to a win over the Dodgers to tie the NLCS.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts admits he used the Manny Machado drama as a diversion.

New York mayor Eric Adams manages to offend Yankees and Mets fans with his hat.

Clayton Kershaw intends to return next year.

The Tigers are looking for a right-handed bat and pitching this winter.

MLB’s playoff TV ratings are significantly up this year.

Jay Jaffe looks back on the life of pitcher Luis Tiant.

MLB donates $1 million to hurricane relief efforts.

The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum is offering a new exhibit featuring the history of the Monarchs.

Eagles coach Nick Sirianni is accused of using his kid as a shield in his post-game press conference to avoid tough questions.

Kansas tops the AP preseason men’s college basketball poll.

Should pet-owners train their dogs for more service activities?

Dreamworks already had a sequel in development for The Wild Robot.

We are about to get some weird biopics.

Your song of the day is Joe Walsh with Life’s Been Good.