Daily Clips
February 8, 2017
LOCAL
Prospect Staumont has tools to surprise this spring
Hard-throwing righty struck out 167 batters in 123 1/3 innings across two levels in '16
February 7, 2017By Jeffrey Flanagan/MLB.com
KC brings back Pena for catching depth
Veteran to return to Royals on Minor League deal with spring invite
February 7, 2017By Jeffrey Flanagan/MLB.com
Royals forecast to finish last in AL Central in 2017 by PECOTA projections
February 7, 2017By Pete Grathoff/KC Star
Royals set to reunite with catcher Brayan Peña on a minor-league deal
February 7, 2017By Rustin Dodd/KC Star
Mellinger Minutes: Royals lineup
February 7, 2017By Sam Mellinger/KC Star
Do the Kansas City Royals need to hit more home runs?
February 7, 2017By Lee Judge/KC Star
Dayton Moore tells crowd how to reach the top of your game, as he did in building the Royals' world
February 7, 2017The Hutchinson News
NATIONAL
MLB Roundup: Why Jason Hammel didn't have a deal until February
February 7, 2017By Buster Olney/ESPN.com
Source: Yanks, Carter close to 1-year deal
February 7, 2017By Bryan Hoch/MLB.com
D-backs sign infielder Descalso
Gosselin designated for assignment
February 7, 2017By Chad Thornburg/MLB.com
Sources: Rangers, Napoli agree to 1-year deal
February 7, 2017By T.R. Sullivan/MLB.com
Nats add electric arm in trade for lefty Romero
February 7, 2017By Jamal Collier/MLB.com
The Market was stacked against Jason Hammel
February 6, 2017By Jeff Sullivan/FanGraphs.com
MLB TRANSACTIONS
February 8, 2017 •.CBSSports.com
LOCAL
Prospect Staumont has tools to surprise this spring
Hard-throwing righty struck out 167 batters in 123 1/3 innings across two levels in '16
February 7, 2017By Jeffrey Flanagan/MLB.com
With Spring Training fast approaching, MLB.com will take a look at a different aspect of this year's Royals squad each day this week. Today's topic: Who might surprise?
Josh Staumont.
Royals fans may want to get familiar with that name.
Staumont, a hard-throwing 23-year-old, could be the next young fireballer to emerge in the Royals' pipeline of bullpen arms, perhaps following in the footsteps of Greg Holland, Kelvin Herrera and last year's sensation, Matt Strahm.
Royals general manager Dayton Moore has indicated Staumont, who can hit 101 mph on the radar gun, will get an extended look this Spring Training for a possible bullpen spot.
That's bold, considering Staumont isn't even on the 40-man roster.
"We've certainly showed in the past that we're not afraid to go with young arms in the bullpen," Moore said. "If you have the talent, you can pitch at any level."
Staumont, a second-round pick in the 2015 Draft out of Azusa Pacific University -- the same school that produced former Chiefs great Christian Okoye -- always has had a big arm. He could hit 100 mph in college.
But it wasn't until the second half of 2016 when Staumont proved he could harness that blazing fastball.
After being promoted to Double-A Northwest Arkansas, everything began to click for Staumont, the Royals' No. 10 prospect, according to MLB Pipeline. In 11 starts there, he posted a 3.04 ERA with 73 strikeouts in 50 1/3 innings.
In Staumont's last three starts covering 17 innings, he struck out 30 and walked six. His last start of the season was the most memorable as he threw six shutout innings, struck out 12 and walked two.
"There's nobody in our system that throws the ball as easy and as hard as he does," Royals assistant general manager/player personnel J.J. Picollo said. "Even when he's throwing 98 [mph], it looks like he's just playing catch.
"He's got a really good curveball that is from 80-88. And there are nights he adds and subtracts [from his velocity] the way Zack Greinke did for us. I'm not saying he's going to be the next Zack, but there are similarities."
With the absence of Wade Davis and Luke Hochevar this season, the Royals are counting on one or two prospects to seize a bullpen role. All eyes will be on Staumont this spring.
"We really don't have anyone quite like him," Picollo said.
KC brings back Pena for catching depth
Veteran to return to Royals on Minor League deal with spring invite
February 7, 2017By Jeffrey Flanagan/MLB.com
Old friend alert.
The Royals on Tuesday signed catcher Brayan Pena to a Minor League contract with an invitation to Spring Training camp.
Pena, 35, likely will provide organizational depth at Triple-A Omaha. Last year's catcher at the affiliate, Tony Cruz, was designated for assignment earlier this offseason and subsequently released.
Pena played four seasons for the Royals from 2009-12, with his best season coming in '09, when he hit .273 with six homers and 18 RBIs.
Pena was one of the more popular players in the Royals' clubhouse during that stretch.
Pena is a .259/.299/.351 career hitter in 12 Major League seasons.
Pena was a regular with the Reds in 2014 and '15, and he played nine games for the Cardinals last season.
Royals forecast to finish last in AL Central in 2017 by PECOTA projections
February 7, 2017By Pete Grathoff/KC Star
We’ve come to expect a few things in early February.
The groundhog. The Super Bowl. The dismal prediction for the Royals season from PECOTA, the baseball projection system.
Well, the numbers aren’t kind to the Royals again.
Baseball Prospectus forecasts a 71-win season* for the Royals in 2017 and a last-place finish in the American League Central. That’s the fewest victories in the American League, second in all of baseball to the San Diego Padres (68). And it’s a distant fifth-place finish in the Central, six games behind the rebuilding Chicago White Sox.
UPDATE: This is an increase of 69 from hours earlier on Tuesday, because of what was described as a bug in how runs scored and runs allowed calculated team wins. The overall win-loss total for all Major League Baseball teams went from 2386-2474 to 2431-2429, an increase of 45 wins overall.
A year ago, the PECOTA projection was right about one thing in the American League Central: The Indians were picked to win the division and that they did. However, the Royals exceeded their projection of a 76-86 record and a last-place finish in the Central.
Instead, the Royals were 81-81 and third in the division. That continued a trend of (depending on your view) overachieving Royals seasons or wrong predictions.
In 2015, the PECOTA system forecast the then-defending American League champion Royals to win 72 games. Instead, the Royals rolled to a 95-67 record and, of course, won the World Series that season.
In 2014, the Royals were projected to finish 79-83. The won 89 games, were a wild-card team and advanced to the World Series.
In 2013, PECOTA projected a 76-win season for the Royals, but they beat that by 10 games (86-76).
PECOTA was the brainchild of Nate Silver, who is well-known for his work at FiveThirtyEight.com. It was created in 2003 and named after former Royals infielder Bill Pecota.
UPDATE: USA Today also released its predictions for the 2017, and they were much kinder to the Royals: An 83-79 record and third-place finish in the AL Central (behind the Indians and Tigers).
Part of the what they wrote about the Royals: “... they’re playing to keep together a team loaded with pending free agents.”
Royals set to reunite with catcher Brayan Peña on a minor-league deal
February 7, 2017By Rustin Dodd/KC Star
Seeking more depth at catcher, the Royals have tapped an old friend, signing free agent Brayan Peña to a minor-league deal, the club confirmed on Tuesday.
Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal first reported the deal, which includes an invite to major-league spring training.
The Royals will enter the season with catchers Salvador Perez and Drew Butera on the 25-man roster. But the organization desired more insurance at the position after letting backup Tony Cruz go this offseason. Cruz spent most of last season at Class AAA Omaha.
Peña, 35, spent parts of four seasons with the Royals from 2009 to 2012. Known for his gregarious demeanor and inspiring back story — Peña defected from Cuba in dramatic fashion when he was 16 years old — the switch-hitting catcher batted .251 with a .291 on-base percentage and 12 homers in 264 games for the Royals.
The Royals jettisoned Peña after the 2012 season. He spent 2013 with the Detroit Tigers and then played in 223 games for the Cincinnati Reds in 2014 to 2015. He played last season in the St. Louis Cardinals organization, playing in just nine games while battling a nagging knee injury.
In 12 major-league seasons, Peña is a career .259 hitter with a .299 on-base percentage and 23 homers in 638 games.
Mellinger Minutes: Royals lineup
February 7, 2017By Sam Mellinger/KC Star
@gingerylocks: I've actually moved on to Jason Hammel.
This was sent after the Super Bowl, but I’m using it here to replace a question about whether the Royals were OK with filling the last two spots of the rotation in-house.
Spoiler alert: they weren’t.
I expected them to sign someone, but am mildly surprised it was Hammel, mostly because of cost and a few conversations I had with some folks. But the deal isn’t enormous — two years, $16 million, and the omnipresent mutual option for a third year that essentially serves as a way for the club to further backload the money — and Hammel provides a level of dependability.
He was, probably, the best starting pitcher still on the market and the Royals got him for a price far less than he or anyone else expected him to make at the beginning of the offseason.
He’s more of a placeholder than difference maker. He’s 34, and while he’s made 27 or more starts six times in the last eight years, he’s never thrown 180 innings in a season and his production has hovered around the league average.
There’s a lot of value in that, particularly for the Royals, who can now avoid a hint of desperation as they fill in the last spot of the rotation.
Danny Duffy, Ian Kennedy, Jason Vargas and Hammel make for a representative first four. After that, the Royals are probably choosing from a group headlined by Nate Karns, Chris Young and Matt Strahm.
You could do worse, and a week ago, it looked like the Royals were going to try.
We’ll get more into this as the week goes on, but this mostly completes a terrific offseason under brutal circumstances for Dayton Moore and the men who work for him.
But this is a team that expects to win this year, and has a chance, with health and the right breaks, to get back into the postseason after last year’s disappointing 81-81.
The rotation is solid, if unspectacular. The bullpen could be strong, maybe not like the 2014-15 laser show, but again strong depending on how well they’re able to fill the innings between the starters and Kelvin Herrera.
The offense has to be better, and there are plenty of logical reasons to believe it will. Alex Gordon was terrible last year. I believe his wrist hurt more than he’ll ever admit, and that he’ll be much better in 2017, if he can stay healthy. They essentially add Mike Moustakas, who is in the prime of his career. Eric Hosmer should be ready for the best season of his professional life. Jorge Soler and Brandon Moss add power.
One man’s guess on the lineup:
Alcides Escobar, SS
Mike Moustakas, 3B
Lorenzo Cain, CF
Eric Hosmer, 1B
Sal Perez, C
Alex Gordon, LF
Jorge Soler, RF
Brandon Moss, DH
Raul Mondesi, 2B
One man’s suggestion for the lineup:
Alex Gordon, LF
Lorenzo Cain, CF
Eric Hosmer, 1B
Jorge Soler, RF
Mike Moustakas, 3B
Sal Perez, C
Brandon Moss, DH
Alcides Escobar, SS
Raul Mondesi, 2B
Either way, that’s a group that could be closer to the middle of the league in runs scored (like they were in 2015) than the bottom (like they were in 2016).
There’s enough here to hope, at least, which is what the current leadership is going for.
@Bart41CPA: isn't this "competitive cliff" more a product of 4 poor drafts from 2009-2012 than a lack of spending?
If I understand the term correctly, I actually don’t think there’s a competitive cliff. The Royals have enough to expect another winning season, and they’ve built themselves in a way to keep that going — even if they’re sacrificing a bit of high-end in the name of consistency.
But, yes, absolutely, the Royals haven’t been as good in the draft as they need to be or that most believe they’ve been.
An incomplete but somewhat informative point can be made by looking at the firstround picks from those seasons: Aaron Crow, Christian Colon, Bubba Starling and Kyle Zimmer. Crow went 12th overall. The others were all in the top five.
Mike Trout, Shelby Miller, Chris Sale, Matt Harvey, Francisco Lindor, Anthony Rendon, George Springer, Addison Russell and Corey Seager are just some of the guys the Royals left on the board when they picked.
Yes, I understand, we could play this game with every team, in every draft. But particularly now, with MLB rules prohibiting teams from overpaying picks (which is how the Royals got Wil Myers in the third round of 2009) the Royals have to be better than most.
Instead, from those four drafts, Colon is the best of the bunch.
Baseball’s draft is perhaps the biggest crapshoot in sports, but that’s not good enough.
John Hennessy Best spring training food near Surprise, AZ?
Scottsdale?
Look, I love spring training. I love it because it’s baseball, and I love it because it’s the best place to get work done, and I love it for all the corny reasons old baseball people talk about, with green grass and sunshine and spring and all of that.
But Surprise is, um, not awesome. Kyle Zimmer has spent more time in Surprise than most, and put it perfectly when asked if he’d grown to like it: “Not really. You can only go to Walmart so many times.”
Rosie’s is good, and has the added benefit that you’re 50-50 to run into Art Stewart there. You can find some decent hole-in-the-wall Mexican places. But the options are less than awesome. I’m all about that Chipotle and Jimmy Johns life in Surprise.
There are worse ways to live.
Do the Kansas City Royals need to hit more home runs?
February 7, 2017By Lee Judge/KC Star
Last season the Kansas City Royals were dead last in the American League when it came to hitting home runs. Dead last sounds pretty bad until you remember the 2014 Royals were also dead last in home runs and still managed to win the AL championship and make it to Game 7 of the World Series.
And in 2015 the Royals were second-to-last in home runs, but once again won the AL Championship and the World Series.
When the Royals were losing, some people blamed the lack of home-run power, but the 2014 and 2015 Royals showed that if they excelled at the other parts of the game the Royals could win without hitting a lot of home runs.
But now that the Royals have added Jorge Soler and Brandon Moss — two guys with pop — we’re once again talking about the Royals hitting more home runs.
The last time the Royals made a big deal out of hitting more home runs was in 2012, right after they fired hitting coach Kevin Seitzer; but changing hitting coaches didn’t change the dimensions of Kauffman Stadium.
In 2012 under Seitzer the Royals hit 131 home runs and scored 676 runs; after Seitzer was dumped, the 2013 Royals hit 112 home runs and scored 648 runs.
Jack Maloof — Seitzer’s replacement — said that trying to hit home runs in Kauffman Stadium doesn’t get rewarded; better to hit line drives, plug the gaps for doubles and run like hell.
Maloof lost his job the next day.
But replacing Maloof didn’t help; since 2012 the Royals have either finished last, tied-for-last or second-to-last in home runs in the American League.
So how come Kauffman Stadium doesn’t limit opponent’s home runs?
Actually, it does. Visiting teams out-homer the Royals when playing in Kauffman Stadium, but:
▪ In 2013 only one AL team allowed fewer home runs in its home park.
▪ In 2014 only one AL team allowed fewer home runs in its home park.
▪ In 2015 no AL team allowed fewer home runs in its home park.
▪ In 2016 — a year in which the Royals were ninth in team ERA — it was still hard for visiting teams to hit the ball out of the yard; only three AL teams allowed fewer home runs in their own ballpark.
Turns out it’s hard to hit home runs at the K no matter who you are, but visiting teams still have a home-run advantage when playing in Kansas City.
Why?
Because visiting teams that play their home games in smaller parks might find power hitters a good investment; paying a power hitter to play half his games in Kauffman Stadium is a risky bet.
Nevertheless, after the Royals signed Brandon Moss they assured everyone that the power Moss has displayed in the past will transfer to Kauffman Stadium. Maybe so, but if you see a whole bunch of Brandon Moss fly balls being caught on the Kauffman Stadium warning track, that’s a bad sign.