Royals Rumblings - News for February 21, 2025

SPRING TRAINING GAMES START TODAY! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!

Royals have their first Spring Training game today! The squad faces off against the Rangers at 2:05 PM Royals time. No TV today, but can listen on the radio.

Speaking of ways to watch games (with more info here):

Spring Training is fun:

Speaking of Spring, minor transactions around pitching for the first couple of games:

Not ideal:

Max already covered the Ross Stripling deal here. But so did Anne:

“This always felt like a good spot,” Stripling said. “Love what they did last year, I’ve always loved competing against a lot of guys in this locker room, and kind of lo and behold, finally were able to sync up and make it happen. Within three hours, I was on a plane with my two little kids. And here we are.

“This feels right. Definitely excited about the opportunity. I know a lot of things have to go well, but I’m ready physically.”

And Jaylon Thompson over at The Star:

“It was a frustrating year,” he said of his 2024 campaign. “When you look at my baseball-card stats, I don’t have anything that I can say I’m proud of, really.

“But if you look at some of the underlying stats — you know, some of the analytical stuff — I threw the ball as well as I’ve ever thrown. And that was what was frustrating.”

Thompson also compiled praise for manager Matt Quatraro from a number of folks around baseball:

“I love him,” Francona said at Cactus League media days in Phoenix. “He’s smart and respects the game. Great guy. Unless we play him, I’m pulling for him.”

Francona still keeps in touch with Quatraro. They share a bond and see baseball in a similar light. Francona always felt Quatraro had managerial instincts and is proud of the success he has found with the Royals.

One quick, but interesting league-wide story: MLB and ESPN are both agreeing to end their TV contract early.

According to The Athletic, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred wrote in a memo to owners that MLB has “not been pleased with the minimal coverage that MLB has received on ESPN’s platforms over the past several years.”

Usually, one side thinks they’re getting a better deal and opts out. But, in this case, both are. Hm...

Listicle? MLB.com (no author that I could find) lists the top “difference-making acquisition in each division”:

AL Central: Jonathan India, IF/OF, Royals

You can’t help but feel like the Tigers — the team that took all of baseball by storm down the stretch and were this close to making the ALCS — missed an opportunity by not bringing in Bregman. (Still, bringing in Gleyber Torres and bringing back Jack Flaherty will certainly help). But the Royals, the other surprise team in this division in 2024, very much needed a leadoff man, and they may have found the perfect one in India.

True, he hasn’t repeated the numbers he posted in his NL Rookie of the Year season in 2021, and his addition will lead to a defensive shakeup in Kansas City. But most importantly to the Royals, India can get on base from the top of the lineup, a serious problem for the team for a while now and certainly last year, when it finished dead last in the Majors in OBP out of the leadoff spot (.270). The Royals aren’t sitting still after last year’s dramatic turnaround, and India is proof.

Blog Time!

David Lesky does an Inside the Crown ($) mailbag:

I think Joey Wiemer might be getting overlooked by fans for a couple of reasons. One, he was the secondary part of that trade. And two, that trade was made months ago. I remember when the trade went down, there were plenty of people who thought he may end up being the prize of the deal. I thought that as a bit of a silly sentiment, but the best time to dream on a guy who has all sorts of tools and hasn’t put it together is the offseason. Time will tell if he can put those tools to good use, but everything points to him at least having a chance to play an important role on this team.

Yes, there is always potential for more, but it feels like he can play the Garrett Hampson role in a different, and probably better, way. The Royals love Kyle Isbel in center field, but he just struggles too much against lefties to leave him in there without a bunch more in the lineup ahead of him. So platooning him with someone who can actually reasonably hit lefties is a big deal. And that’s where Wiemer could fit in. He has a 107 wRC+ in his short career against lefties. That’s only in 139 plate appearances, so there’s a very small sample size alert, but that .218 ISO is pretty tasty at the bottom of a lineup against a lefty.

Craig Brown does a number of quick hits at Into the Fountains:

To me, in the videos from Surprise that I’ve seen, Melendez looks comfortable at the plate. It is an economy of movement, so that’s not surprising. He has taken something that was unnecessarily complex and distilled it into something simple. I’ll remind you that Royals outfielders hit a collective .223/.281/.367 last season with an 81 OPS+. They also were unable to upgrade the position. They absolutely need Melendez to figure this hitting thing out.

At Farm to Fountains, Jackson Wilks asks “How does the Royals outfield shape up?” Let’s go with the most positive one, I guess:

Centerfield

Locks: Kyle Isbel

Competition: Joey Wiemer, Drew Waters

This feels like the least competitive position out of camp. Defensively, Kyle Isbel is easily the best player in the outfield. His arm isn’t great, but he ranked in the 94th percentile in outs above average with nine in 2024. It is well-documented that his jump and reaction on batted balls are amongst the best in the MLB. Isbel’s defense is his true strength and continues to solidify his place with the big-league squad even after another centerfield talent emerges. Entering 2025, his offensive ceiling is pretty established with his only strengths being his 80th percentile whiff-rate and 69th percentile squared-up percentage. Paired with solid baserunning, Isbel is an eighth or ninth hitter for this squad. A fun number found while researching, Isbel’s 2024 93.5% Z-Contact rate was solidly better than Bobby Witt Jr.’s 88%. He’ll make contact when you need it.

Blog Roundup:

• Mike Gillespie at KOK: 3 KC Royals who will be better in 2025, 2 who will be worse (slideshow warning)
• Joe Summers at KC Kingdom: Injury-Prone Royal Dealing With New Issue to Begin Spring Training
• Patrick Glancy at Powder Blue Nostalgia: I Hardly Recognized You; A change of uniform can make a big difference

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Disney Plus ran a $2 a month promo back in the fall so we caught up with some movies on there. Some of these movies we used to have on VHS and I wanted to revisit them. Also, I snuck a non-Disney movie in here.

Pete’s Dragon (1977) - I know this was a movie my family had on tape. Rewatching it for the first time in more than 30 years, I remembered very little of the plot but I remembered most of the songs. If I wanted to be unkind, I would suggest that the 1970s were a slow, boring time where kids played with sticks and rocks so dry musicals with generally mediocre acting felt like an improvement. But that’s too harsh. The movie mixes live-action and animation well, ala Mary Poppins, and the plot feels original-ish: Oliver Twist meets The Music Man in Maine with a dragon. Helen Reddy holds the stage and is playing off Hollywood veterans like Mickey Rooney, Jim Dale, Red Buttons, and Shelley Winters. Still, it’s a lot to sit through: a movie that moves at 70s speed and weighs in at 128 minutes(!).

Pete’s Dragon (2016) - This reboot? Sequel? Soft reboot? ...well, whatever - it has a dragon and an orphan named Pete, but that’s where the similarities end. We’ve traded out 1900s Maine for 1980s Pacific Northwest, removed the musical aspect, and shoehorned in an environmental message that steals away a lot of heart from the movie. The dragon CGI is good but feels more soulless than the hand-drawn original. The acting is generally mediocre, even by Disney family movie standards: Bryce Dallas Howard is her usual “meh”, Wes Bentley exists, Karl Urban is fine-ish with a bad script, and Robert Redford is... why... well, man’s got to eat, I guess. Is it easier to watch than the original? Probably, because of modern moviemaking styles and sensibilities. But there’s so little substance.

The Sword in the Stone (1963) - This is one of Disney’s less popular films, though it was the last one produced in Walt’s lifetime. It feels a bit older Disney with the storybook introduction and an attempt to feel grand. It has that whole 60s/70s thing where you smash some sketches together and pretend it’s a bigger plot. Said large plot basically boils down to 3 slow misadventures with Arthur and Merlin leading into a tournament that is interrupted by Arthur pulling the sword from the stone. The end. The fish and squirrel plots have their charming moments, but I also found myself tuning out during parts of the movie. The animation is good enough, but not top notch Disney. Though I guess I could have just used those few words to cover most things concerning this film.

The Black Cauldron (1985) - This one has a complicated history as it’s the first Disney movie with computer animation and the first Disney PG. It was also stuck in development hell a long time, a box office loser, and is now a cult classic. It has high highs and low lows. The movie can feel really original and the animation brilliant, at times. But during those same times, the character development and plot can come off as very thin. I really struggled with this review as there were things I really liked about the movie but also a lot I disliked, even after all these years. If you’ve never seen it, it’s probably worth a watch, but with the expectation that some people love it but a lot of people don’t like it at all.

The Emperor’s New Groove (2000) - This movie was originally supposed to be a grand, musical epic called Kingdom of the Sun. However, after production delays and difficulties, it was reimagined as a comedy and we’re left with the eminently quotable and memable movie with comedy that mostly holds up 25 years later. The trade off is that the movie feels light when compared to the funnier movies of the Disney Renaissance like Aladdin or Hercules. This feels more like an airy odd couple sitcom with the lesson of “don’t be a jerk”. That said, the pre-Columbian South American setting is unique in animation and the voice cast is very good with David Spade, John Goodman, Eartha Kitt, and Patrick Warburton perfectly cast. It was worth a watch for its place in pop culture history, even if it lacks heft.

Jungle Cruise (2021) - This is one of those “Rock in his jungle shirt” movies. On the one hand, it’s goofy fun with a cast that can mostly pull that off and was exactly what I wanted for the tired night I watched it. It tries to capture the dad joke feel of the ride, especially for the first act. On the other hand, it’s really generic and you can see the bits of other movies showing like Pirates of the Caribbean bad guy ideas, some generically bad MCU CGI, and a half-baked Jumanji plot. There are times when it feels more like the made-for-TV The Librarian franchise than a movie with a $200M budget. Two reviews on wikipedia really nail this movie while also reminding me that, while I have fun with these movie reviews, there are professional wordsmiths out there: (David Fear, Rolling Stone) “Blunt’s tart apple crisp of a comic performance pairs nicely with Johnson’s beefcake served with a side of ham” and (Peter Travers, ABC) “made up of spare parts from better movies”.

The Wild Robot (2024) - The previews mostly tell you what this is and where it’s going but it’s an interesting road to get there. I haven’t read the YA book this is based on, but the movie’s first act is much more comfortable with nature and death than the average children’s film. The movie loses a little of its sophistication as it moves on, but this Dreamworks film is buoyed by having a heart much closer to Pixar than Illumination. About this time last year, we looked at a similarly themed Migration (2023) and this is so much more expertly executed. Kids are often much smarter than we give them credit for so I’m always heartened when movies don’t dumb things down. Of all the movies posted this week, it’s easily the best.

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Since Opening Day is on a Thursday and I’m not going to get a chance to run this clip, you’re getting it today for the first day of Spring Training. Also, Craig Calcaterra is so horribly wrong.