Royals Rumblings - News for September 19, 2018

Speed kills.

Royals Rumblings - News for September 19, 2018

In his Mellinger Minutes, Sam heaps praise on Adalberto Mondesi.

Mondesi is a comet. The thing I hear baseball people say about him the most often — and baseball people are talking a lot about him right now — is that he can change or even dominate a game in so many ways.

He can help win a game with a diving catch, or by throwing someone out from the hole. He can turn a cleanly fielded ball by the pitcher into a single. He can win by scoring from first on a double. He can also win in the obvious ways, like home runs into the fountains or stealing so many bases the opposing pitcher loses his mind.

The same as I’ve always been partial to basketball players who could win without scoring, I’ve always loved baseball players who can win without big offensive numbers. If guys can win a game for you with their glove, with their arm, with their speed, those types of things show up far more often than 3-for-4 with two home runs.

Craig Brown at Baseball Prospectus Kansas City points to Mondesi’s speed as a key to their second half success.

Mondesi is running as if his career depended upon it, lapping the field by 15 percentage points in taking advantage of his opportunities to steal. Fifteen percentage points! It’s an astonishing rate, even if his sample size is decidedly smaller than most of the group represented above. He’s stealing almost half the time he’s on base with the next bag open....

In the first half of the season, the Royals scored an average of 3.5 runs per game. In the second half, they’ve upped their offense and their running game, plating 4.3 R/G. The Process 2.0 is still just getting started, but it’s easy to feel better about what we’ve seen since the All-Star Break. It’s not a coincidence that this run of moderate late season success has come as the team jettisoned some veterans and turned their attention to youth. And speed.

Lee Judge writes that Ryan O’Hearn has always had power despite the statistics.

Look at the numbers Ryan O’Hearn put up while playing college ball and you won’t see a ton of home runs. But the Royals thought O’Hearn had more power than he’d shown at Sam Houston State University, and when he got to Idaho Falls — his first stop in the minor leagues — O’Hearn was given a simple goal:

Hit the house.

The house in question sat beyond the right-field wall of the Idaho Falls Chukars’ home stadium, Melaleuca Field. Telling O’Hearn to hit it was the Royals way of getting him to cut loose at the plate.

Travis Sawchick at FiveThirtyEight writes that the Royals could still probably beat a AAA team.

Drew Osborne at Royals Farm Report profiles minor league pitcher Tad Ratliff.

Christian Yelich’s second cycle of the year may have given him the MVP award.

The MLBPA met with four teams to discuss a grievance on spending.

The Washington Nationals get stuck with Fresno in the AAA affiliate shuffle.

Trevor Story may have major UCL damage in his elbow.

The Orioles might finish more games back out of first than any team ever.

Next year, Triple-A leagues will use baseballs with the same specs as MLB balls.

How baseball can improve its product without changing a single rule on the field.

Protective nets have made it harder for players to toss balls into the stands, but players don’t mind.

The Los Angeles Clippers hire a Sports Illustrated writer for a front office role.

The Steelers’ frustrations are boiling over.

The FDA says teen vaping is reaching epidemic levels.

A look at Ticketmaster’s tricks to hike prices.

The Captain Marvel trailer is here, what did we learn from it?

Your song of the day is Supertramp with The Logical Song.