Daily Clips
March 6, 2018
LOCAL
Inbox: How will Royals' roster shake out?
Beat reporter Jeffrey Flanagan answers fans' questions
March 5, 2018By Jeffrey Flanagan/MLB.com
Influx of youth makes this Royals spring training more fun for manager Ned Yost
March 5, 2018By Maria Torres/KC Star
Rob Riggle met Bo Jackson at Royals' camp. Guess who was star-struck.
March 5, 2018By Pete Grathoff/KC Star
Royals stories that entertain, inform and connect are just the beginning
March 5, 2018By Rustin Dodd/The Athletic KC
MINORS
Extended Safety Netting Installed at Frawley Stadium
Screens Now Protect Fans to the Edge of Each Dugout
March 5, 2018By Matt Janus/Wilmington Blue Rocks
NATIONAL
Rising star DeJong, Cards agree to record deal
Shortstop was second in '17 NL Rookie of Year voting
March 5, 2018By Joe Trezza/MLB.com
Putting Whit Merrifield's late breakout in context
March 5, 2018By Eno Sarris/The Athletic
Eric Hosmer says lots of 'red flags' during grim offseason: 'Something is wrong with it'
March 5, 2018By Bob Nightengale/USA Today Sports
After Reviving the Royals, Hosmer and Cain Try to Spark Other Teams
March 5, 2018By Tyler Kepner/New York Times
MLB TRANSACTIONS
March 6, 2018 •.CBSSports.com
LOCAL
Inbox: How will Royals' roster shake out?
Beat reporter Jeffrey Flanagan answers fans' questions
March 5, 2018By Jeffrey Flanagan/MLB.com
As the Royals enter into the final three weeks of camp, there are numerous lineup and roster decisions to be made as the team undergoes a significant rebuild.
With that in mind, let's take your questions for the latest Royals Inbox:
@lcfeyh: Who will win the utility infielder job?
Ramon Torres held that spot in the second half last year, and he played in 33 games. The coaching staff is still very high on him. Ryan Goins, who played in 143 games for Toronto last season, gives Kansas City a veteran presence in that role, and he probably has the edge going into the final weeks of camp. Goins, though, is a non-roster guy, so the Royals will have to make room on the 40-man roster -- expect a lot of juggling the last week of spring.
@ronn76: Is it do or die for Bubba this year?
It's not. The club is determined to give Bubba Starling a taste of the big leagues later in the season. The outfielder is having a solid camp. I see a more confident player this time around. Starling won't have to be Mike Trout at Triple-A -- if he hits .260 or .270, that will be perceived as growth. He's already a big league defender.
@DLester164: Have the Royals lost hope that Hunter Dozier is still a potential long-term solution at 1B/3B, and if so, is it because of his glove, bat or health?
Not at all. The Royals still consider Hunter Dozier a big part of their future. Keep in mind that he hardly played at all in 2017 because of three major injuries. The signing of Lucas Duda to play first base simply gives Dozier another year to develop in the Minors. Duda's one-year deal doesn't block anyone.
@LG_RoyalsBlue: What pieces are on the trading block?
General manager Dayton Moore has made it clear that there are no untouchables on this roster, though he has suggested that they'd probably never get a strong enough return for Salvador Perez to consider dealing him. Kansas City clearly is hitting the reset button and needs to restock its farm system -- to do that, you have to give up quality talent to get a quality return.
@davehamiltonpbw: which Royals OF prospect has higher upside : Seuly Matias or Khalil Lee ?
That's a tough one. Khalil Lee is the No. 1 Royals prospect per MLB Pipeline, and Seuly Matias is No. 3, so the gap isn't big. They're both five-tool guys, according to scouts, with enormous ceilings. Matias, I'm told, probably is the better defender with a big arm. Both should be fun to watch develop.
@RonPaulDisciple: Am I crazy thinking that if the starting 9 & the 5 in the rotation just perform to previous standards or just a little above, they can be competitive (wildcard) till at least September?
Not crazy at all. In fact, many of the players (Whit Merrifield, Alex Gordon, Danny Duffy, etc.) I've talked to this spring are a bit offended at the notion Kansas City automatically will lose 90-plus games. The starting nine and the rotation should be competitive. But the big question mark is the bullpen, which has so many new faces and uncertainty. What was once the hallmark strength of the Royals could be a liability now.
@UttBrian: Which young/new guy stands out most to you in the early going?
Left-hander Tim Hill. That sidearm delivery could be a unique weapon in the bullpen. The coaching staff really is intrigued by him.
@CaptVideoSCHS: What are thoughts on bringing Moustakas and Holland back on one year deals? Some would say this goes against the rebuilding process but isn't being on a competitive team important for the young players?
As much as the Royals respect Greg Holland and admire what he did for them, he's not coming back. Kansas City is basically at its payroll cap ($110 million), which also all but rules out Mike Moustakas, unless Moose would be willing to take a Duda-type deal (one-year, $3.5 million). Never say never, but a Moose reunion seems highly unlikely.
Influx of youth makes this Royals spring training more fun for manager Ned Yost
March 5, 2018By Maria Torres/KC Star
It’s not easy for Royals manager Ned Yost to wear down the concrete sidewalks of the team’s sprawling spring-training facility in Arizona these days.
He has spent the last three weeks zipping through the campus in a golf cart, playfully screeching to a halt on the gravel whenever he’s needed near the main building and gleefully accepting passengers on the Yostmobile’s journeys to and from the four outer fields.
By all appearances, Yost has enjoyed the vehicle he told reporters he didn’t want when pitchers and catchers held their first workout on Feb. 14.
“They gave me a cart,” Yost said then. “I’m gonna send it back. I think we’re wasting money.”
And alongside that change of heart, Yost has drawn a similar joy out of roaming the Royals’ grounds to watch young players take advantage of their time in big-league camp.
Having young players around is no new phenomenon, of course.
But for the first time since Yost began his first full season as manager in 2011, the Royals entered the spring with question marks riddling their depth chart. Who would take up the mantle at first base? What about the opposite infield corner? And center field?
One of those questions was answered by last week’s acquisition of veteran Lucas Duda, who signed a one-year contract to help the Royals bridge the gap at first base and give their prospects more time to develop.
Still, the lack of clarity during the first two weeks of camp gave Yost more liberty to evaluate the organization’s up-and-comers and to consider what, exactly, the Eric Hosmer-and-Mike Moustakas-less Royals of the future might look like.
Seventh-ranked prospect Nicky Lopez, for instance, has shown flair with his glove work up the middle in the five spring-training games he’s appeared in. Hunter Dozier, who was told to focus this spring on first base before Duda joined the Royals, has flaunted a new versatility, which he previously did when he began to play in the outfield in an effort to speed up his major-league arrival. And Erick Mejia, a gifted, switch-hitting infielder acquired from the Dodgers in the Scott Alexander trade, has further deepened the Royals’ infield stock.
In most cases, these players are at least a year away from playing in the major leagues. But unlike in years past, there might actually be an opening for them in Kansas City when the time comes.
There is, again, hope that these prospects will take center stage in the organization’s efforts to win a third World Series trophy.
And the opportunity to watch them grow under the tutelage of his coaching staff has left Yost feeling re-energized.
“It’s fun to watch them compete,” Yost said after a 3-2 win over the Reds in Surprise last week.
It’s not that Yost is bounding around the clubhouse — he can’t. Despite declaring at FanFest that he could do 500 daily push-ups relatively soon in his recovery from a November fall from a tree stand on his property in Georgia, Yost’s pelvis, which fractured in the incident, wasn’t prepared to take on the burden of spring-training camp.
But even when relegated to a chair for days at a time, he never once considered leaving the Royals in the dust.
“We’ve been through this before, we understand how to do it, and it’s easier for me to take heat, if you will, than some new guy having to come in and go through all that,” Yost told The Star in January.
A while before the free-agent departures decimated his roster, Yost knew he would have to transition the major-league club, introduce young talents into the fold and guide wide-eyed prospects through a rebuilding process.
He didn’t want to miss it.
Yost’s new normal is managing a clubhouse infused with youth. No amount of time spent on a golf cart will deter him from wanting to be part of the new landscape.
“The things that all these kids are learning right now, I think, if you asked them, it might be a little mind blowing with all the information that they’re getting,” Yost said in his office last week. “But the cool thing about it is you see them really taking to it and really retaining it, which is important.
“These kids are some kind of fired up to be here.”
Rob Riggle met Bo Jackson at Royals' camp. Guess who was star-struck.
March 5, 2018By Pete Grathoff/KC Star
On his first day as the Royals' spring-training guest instructor, Bo Jackson made sure one kid got the message he was trying to deliver:
Don't miss school.
Jackson wasn't talking with a Royals minor-league player, of course. He was chatting with George Riggle, the 8-year-old son of actor/Big Slick star Rob Riggle.
Riggle, a Shawnee Mission South graduate who also attended Kansas, makes an annual trip to Surprise, Ariz., with his wife, Tiffany, and their son and daughter, Abby.
On Sunday, the trip to camp meant meeting Jackson, who is back with the Royals for the first time since he electrified fans in Kansas City during his playing days in the late 80s.
Jackson made sure George Riggle was heading back to school Monday despite spending part of Sunday at Royals camp. George's dad, who has starred in movies ("The Hangover," "12 Strong") and television ("The Daily Show," "Modern Family") was the one who seemed star-struck.
"This was one of the coolest things," Riggle told The Star's John Sleezer. "Every time I come to spring training, something cool happens. Whether it's Hall of Famer George Brett teaching my son, giving him some batting tips. Or Mike Sweeney, playing with my son, giving him some hitting tips or fielding tips from (Alex) Gordon.
"Well, today, got to meet Bo Jackson, legendary Royal. I think he was voted greatest athlete of the 20th century, so that's pretty cool and that happened today, which is amazing. So, yeah, great day."
Royals stories that entertain, inform and connect are just the beginning
March 5, 2018By Rustin Dodd/The Athletic KC
One morning in the late 1990s, I sat at my family’s kitchen table and peered down at the morning newspaper. I do not recall the year, though the detail is unimportant. It could have been 1998 or 1999 or most any year in the next decade. In those days, they all seemed the same.
It was spring. The Royals were not expected to be good.
They were rebuilding, of course. They had prospects. They had good young hitters and they had hope. What they did not have was a team that could win, or a hitter that could hit 36 homers, or a bullpen. Yet there it was on the front of the sports page, a piece from long-time Kansas City columnist Joe Posnanski: The Royals were going to make the playoffs, he wrote. And here was how they’d do it.
I remember this story because I was a sports-obsessed kid from the suburbs, and because Posnanski wrote the same column every year. And I remember this because in those moments I realized what I wanted to do for a living.
I wanted to be a sports writer. I wanted to tell stories that connect. I wanted to write things that were memorable and meaningful and left readers thinking: I’m glad I read that.
Today is my first day as the Royals beat writer at The Athletic, and this is what you can expect here. You can expect insight and reporting. You can expect a peek behind the curtain of a Major League Baseball team. Mostly, we will strive to write and produce stories that entertain, inform and connect.
For the last nine years, I have worked at The Kansas City Star. I am here because The Athletic is investing in the kinds of stories and work I grew up reading. As the Royals embark on another rebuilding process, we will be here to chronicle the path forward. As the organization moves into a new era, we will seek to cover every corner.
There are reporters who will tell you they’d rather cover a World Series contender. Who wouldn’t? The mood in the clubhouse is lighter. The stories of success are richer. The audience usually grows as the wins increase.
But then again, I feel like I’ve been groomed my entire life to cover a Royals youth movement. I was born in Kansas City in 1986, seven months after a World Series parade. I spent my childhood watching the franchise wander through the wilderness.
I remember the 14-game winning streak in 1994 and the dismantling of a contender. I remember the debuts and departures of Damon, Dye and Beltran. I remember hoarding Krispy Kreme donuts and listening to Mendy Lopez’s Opening Day homer in 2004 on a radio at high school baseball practice. I remember once seeing Mike Sweeney hit a walk-off single on a Sunday afternoon and then spotting him at evening mass later that day.
I grew up here, and I made a career here, and I understand the rhythms of this city and its fans. Yet these memories and my Kansas City roots are not why you should join me here.
You should subscribe for the stories, the reporting and the clean reading experience. You should subscribe because it will give you access to the essential work of Ken Rosenthal and Jayson Stark — and a team of talented writers, on the baseball beat and off. You should subscribe because this is just the beginning.
In my time at the Star, I helped cover the Royals for seven years, including the last two as the primary beat writer. I have written about Danny Duffy’s breakout, and Whit Merrifield’s unlikely rise, and the grief that overwhelmed a clubhouse in 2017. I have written about the night Wade Davis became immortal in Kansas City, and explained why the defensive metrics hated Eric Hosmer. I once called former utility man Bill Pecota to see why he hated the Royals (he didn’t) and asked rapper Archie Eversole if he knew the Royals were inspired by “We Ready” (he wanted to hop on a plane for Kansas City.). In 2014, on the eve of the first playoff appearance in 29 years, I wrote about that lost generation of Royals fans.
These are the stories you will read here, and I hope you will stick around. But first, one more story: A few weeks ago, I arrived at spring training in Surprise, Ariz., and I walked into a clubhouse that looked completely different. So many stars are gone, the window is seemingly closed, and another rebuilding period is here. But later that day, I thought about those old Posnanski columns from two decades ago.
It is spring. The Royals are not expected to be good. Yet this is the thing about baseball. The season starts in just more than three weeks. And for now, they still have hope.
MINORS
Extended Safety Netting Installed at Frawley Stadium
Screens Now Protect Fans to the Edge of Each Dugout
March 5, 2018By Matt Janus/Wilmington Blue Rocks
With the start of the 2018 season exactly one month away, the Wilmington Blue Rocks have expanded the safety netting at Frawley Stadium. The protective netting now extends to the end of the first and third base dugouts. Installation was completed last week.
The Blue Rocks employed Empire Netting to spearhead the project. They in turn used dyneema netting technology, which is Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene, known in the industry as the ultimate in reliability and visibility. The fiber is used in many applications from bullet-proof vests and military applications to fishing lines, marine ropes and sports products.