Daily Clips
February 20, 2017
LOCAL
Staumont will have Royals' attention in camp
Hard-throwing prospect could become a bullpen candidate
February 19, 2017By Jeffrey Flanagan/MLB.com
Minor will make transition to Royals' bullpen
February 19, 2017By Jeffrey Flanagan/MLB.com
As extension talks continue, Eric Hosmer understands Royals’ core can’t stay together
February 19, 2017By Rustin Dodd/KC Star
George Brett, the sage of spring training, intrigued by 2017 Royals
February 19, 2017By Rustin Dodd/KC Star
Royals’ Mike Minor seeks to reinvent himself as reliever after shoulder issues
February 19, 2017By Rustin Dodd/KC Star
MINORS
Longtime Legends coach Taylor passes away
February 19, 2017Lexington Legends
NATIONAL
Hosmer talking extension, but prepared for breakup of Royals’ core
February 19, 2017By Ken Rosenthal/FOXSports.com
MLB TRANSACTIONS
February 20, 2017 •.CBSSports.com
LOCAL
Staumont will have Royals' attention in camp
Hard-throwing prospect could become a bullpen candidate
February 19, 2017By Jeffrey Flanagan/MLB.com
One of the intriguing young arms in camp will be right-hander Josh Staumont, who has been clocked at 100 mph.
Staumont has been a starter during his Minor League career, but the Royals wouldn't be afraid to try him in the bullpen to start the season. Staumont isn't on the 40-man roster, though.
"It's too early to tell with him," manager Ned Yost said on Sunday. "We just had our first live BP [Sunday]. We really like his stuff. We like his makeup. He's a guy we definitely will keep our eye on.
"But we won't know how he fits in until we get through some games."
Staumont, the club's No. 9 prospect, according to MLBPipeline.com, said he believes he's suited for a bullpen role.
"Personally, I think my MO is going as hard as I can and getting as many outs as I can as quickly as I can," Staumont said. "I did some longer relieving in rookie ball. I haven't had the get up and go relieving like this, but it's not something I'm scared of."
No starters announced
The Royals will open the Cactus League season on Saturday against the Rangers and although Yost said he has his schedule of pitchers mapped out for the next few weeks, he's not ready to reveal who will pitch on Saturday.
"This early, we'll give everyone one inning probably," Yost said. "We can look at eight or nine guys in one game."
Minor will make transition to Royals' bullpen
February 19, 2017By Jeffrey Flanagan/MLB.com
Left-hander Mike Minor had high hopes of cracking the rotation last year when the Royals signed him to a two-year, $7.25 million deal.
Now, Minor simply wants to contribute any way he can.
Minor's 2016 season was spent entirely rehabbing from labrum surgery in '15. Each time he got close to possibly being activated to the 25-man roster, another setback kept him on the shelf.
"There were a lot of good days, but it just didn't work out," Minor said. "I kept getting shut down with shoulder fatigue. ...
"I'd feel great for two or three innings, and then I'd get to four innings and I'd get fatigued. The ball wasn't coming out right and I was feeling sore there. Then afterward, I'd get achy in that area. It was frustrating."
This time around, Minor, 29, will make the transition to the bullpen. From 2010-14, Minor made exactly one appearance out of the bullpen. He knows it will be an adjustment.
"I'm pretty anxious to see how it responds in terms of the bullpen when you're not throwing as many pitches at one time," Minor said. "I don't think you truly recover when you're in the bullpen because you're throwing all the time. But hopefully it will help me build strength."
Minor said he was pain free all offseason as he went through his throwing and conditioning program.
"It's been good," Minor said. "I feel great right now. Everything has gone smoothly. It's been a good Spring Training so far compared to the last two years. I had the surgery in 2015 right after Spring Training. Last year, I was off doing my own thing still recovering and not really with the guys."
Royals manager Ned Yost said he hopes Minor's velocity, normally around 91-93 mph, might tick upward working out of the bullpen, as it did for other converted starters such as Wade Davis and Luke Hochevar.
"I've never been a bullpen guy so I don't know if that will happen," Minor said. "But I do remember even last year my velocity would be higher the first two innings or so. I don't know if it will be consistently like that but we're hopeful."
Losing his shot at the rotation isn't a big concern, Minor said.
"Not really," he said. "I just want to pitch. I just want to get back to the big leagues and pitch. I'm excited about it."
As extension talks continue, Eric Hosmer understands Royals’ core can’t stay together
February 19, 2017By Rustin Dodd/KC Star
The Royals and representatives for first baseman Eric Hosmer continue to discuss a possible long-term contract extension, according to a report from Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal, though any potential deal would likely have to be struck before opening day.
In an interview on Sunday, Hosmer told Rosenthal that the two sides had continued to talk in the early days of spring training. Hosmer is set to become a free agent after the 2017 season, and while it’s rare for a player this close to the open market to agree to an extension, the Royals do have a history of completing deals closer to the season.
Royals general manager Dayton Moore declined to comment on the nature of the talks in an interview Sunday evening, instead repeating the organization’s long-held goal of extending as many homegrown players as possible.
“We’re always engaging and willing to listen and explore, but there’s nothing that I’m going to talk about,” Moore told The Star. “We’re always exploring opportunities at different times during the year. Historically, when we’ve done those deals with our players, it’s been closer to when the season starts.”
Hosmer is one of four key Royals who will reach free agency after the season, a group that includes third baseman Mike Moustakas, center fielder Lorenzo Cain and shortstop Alcides Escobar. Hosmer and Moustakas are both represented by agent Scott Boras, a hard-line negotiator who often prefers to take his players to free agency.
In an interview with The Star, Hosmer said that players in the Royals clubhouse understood that the organization would not be able to keep every member of the team’s core. But Hosmer expressed a willingness to remain with the club.
“There’s nothing we can do,” Hosmer told The Star. “There’s nothing we can control. If it was up to all of us, and we know if it was even up to Dayton, he would keep everybody here and try to keep this group together as long as possible. But we know the reality of it. It’s not going to happen.”
On Sunday, Hosmer said he would continue listening on potential extensions until opening day. Yet he does not appear interested in continuing negotiations into the season.
“I don’t know if it’s going to heat up now in spring training,” Hosmer told Rosenthal. “But during the season, I don’t like being bothered with that stuff. If something doesn’t happen here, I don’t see anything during the season really happening.”
In addition, Hosmer appears intrigued by the possibility of reaching the open market.
“It’s hard to make it to free agency,” Hosmer told Rosenthal. “It’s a right that every player earns if they make it that far. We are talking about certain extensions, stuff like that. But the way I see it right now, I just want to make it that far. And if I do make it that far without signing anything, I feel like I deserve that right to see what’s out on the market.”
Hosmer, 28, batted .266 with a .328 on-base percentage and a career-high 25 homers in 2016, earning his first All-Star appearance and winning MVP honors in the midsummer classic in San Diego. In six seasons in the big leagues, he has helped the Royals to two World Series appearances, including a world championship in 2015, and emerged as an unquestioned leader inside the Royals clubhouse.
Yet his overall value has been the subject of some debate in recent years. In six seasons, Hosmer has batted .277 while posting a career OPS-plus of 107, just seven percent better than league average. He has hit 20 homers and driven in 100 runs just once. Since debuting in 2011, he has been worth just 11.5 Wins Above Replacement, according to the Baseball Reference version of the stat.
In an interview with Rosenthal, Boras called Hosmer’s future in Kansas City an “ownership question”.
“We all know that Hos is a franchise player, a world champion,” Boras told Rosenthal. “He’s done all this at a very young age. And I don’t know how many people have told me that if a guy hits 25 home runs in Kansas City, he’s going to hit 35 somewhere else.”
As the 2017 season approached, the Royals’ front office began to prepare for the upcoming free-agent puzzle. In a preemptive strike against a possible exodus, they traded closer Wade Davis to the Chicago Cubs for outfielder Jorge Soler and sent outfielder Jarrod Dyson to the Seattle Mariners for right-handed pitcher Nathan Karns. They also completed a contract extension with left-hander Danny Duffy, who was set to become a free agent after the year.
But four possible free agents remain, and Hosmer is positioned to be the most coveted first baseman on the market next winter. For now, Hosmer is believed to be interested in an extension that could approach 10 years in length. The Royals, constrained by small-market realities and a meager television contract that runs through 2019, would likely be uneasy about such a long-term financial commitment. Yet Hosmer offers the rare combination of talent, leadership and a marketable personality.
“I think every baseball person (in the Royals organization) wants to commit to Hos for a long time,” Boras told Rosenthal. “He’s earned every bit of respect through his performance and his leadership. I think it’s really about the owners trying to place a franchise player in Kansas City.”
For now, Hosmer is content to wait. But the idea of signing a long-term extension and following in the footsteps of Salvador Perez, Alex Gordon and Duffy is alluring.
“Everybody’s dream is to play for one team, to have one jersey in your career and just be linked to that organization,” Hosmer told Rosenthal. “Especially when you look at not only on the field but character-wise off the field. It means you’ve done everything right.”
George Brett, the sage of spring training, intrigued by 2017 Royals
February 19, 2017By Rustin Dodd/KC Star
George Brett has the same questions you do. He wonders about the looming free agents and the new acquisitions and how better health might help the 2017 Royals. He thinks about the future of Eric Hosmer, and the tragedy of Yordano Ventura, and what the clubhouse might look like in August if the Royals are not in contention at the trade deadline.
“It’s something that they can use,” Brett says, “knowing that if they’re not competitive, who knows what’s going to happen at the trading deadline.”
It is just before 9:30 on Sunday morning, and the greatest player in Royals history is standing inside the clubhouse here in Arizona, sipping on a cup of coffee, waiting out a morning rainstorm, pondering the pivotal questions of this 2017 season.
He is 63 years old now, his hair a little grayer, his build a little thinner, but his presence remains unmistakable. He is here at spring training because this is where he wants to be. Brett likes to say that he will do this forever, and maybe someday, he’ll be the old man cruising the grounds in a golf cart.
Here, he can slip on a baseball uniform and patrol the fields at the club’s complex — one of which bears his name — imparting knowledge and sharing stories, telling tales about one of his 3,154 career hits. Here, he can enjoy the warmth of the desert sun and throw some batting practice and feel young once again. Here, he can wonder, just like thousands back in Kansas City, about the future of this franchise — like, say, that upcoming free-agent puzzle.
So let’s sort through this. There is Hosmer, of course, the franchise first baseman who will be a free agent at year’s end. The same for third baseman Mike Moustakas and outfielder Lorenzo Cain. There is also shortstop Alcides Escobar, but in this moment, Brett is thinking about three players in particular.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen with them,” Brett says. “I would be surprised if all three of them sign. But I don’t know. If we win it all again, (owner) David Glass might say: ‘What the heck, let’s go out and win another one.’ ”
These are the kind of things you can say when it is spring training. And these are the kind of things you can say when you are George Brett, a franchise icon and Hall of Famer, one of the greatest hitters in the history of baseball.
So Brett decides to offer another story. In his first days in Surprise, he was in the clubhouse to listen to manager Ned Yost deliver his first speech of the spring. He took in the scene as a room of players listened, ready to move forward after a frustrating 81-81 finish last season. He thought about all that went wrong.
“You look back at the 2014 and the 2015 (seasons), they basically went injury free,” Brett says. “They had a lot of guys that had great years and good years, and as a result, they were very,very successful.
“Last year, they got hit with the injury bug big time, and we had guys that didn’t perform, and they ended up .500.”
As Brett spoke on Sunday morning, the Royals’ workout was minutes away from being pushed inside for the second straight day because of rainy weather. But all around him, a familiar rhythm has taken root in the opening days of camp.
The club’s championship core remains largely intact, a group intimately familiar with each other and the realities of free agency. The Royals are not ready to declare 2017 as their last chance to contend for a championship — far from it. But there are only so many opportunities to do something special. Brett knows this as much as anyone.
“We were in the playoffs seven times in 10 years,” Brett says, recalling the franchise’s run from 1976 to 1985. “And so when we didn’t make the World Series in 1986, we go: ‘OK, we’ll just get there next year.’
“We just thought it was a bad year. Unfortunately, it was the start of a long drought there in Kansas City, which we didn’t realize at the time. … Maybe we took it for granted.”
This Royals team will not do that, not after a .500 finish in 2016, and not after watching the Cleveland Indians dethrone them in the American League Central. Inside the clubhouse, players are still stung by an injury-riddled season that did not meet expectations. The feeling of motivation permeates the room.
Yost would agree with that sentiment, though his marketing skills perhaps need a little refinement. On Sunday morning, Yost sat inside his office during his morning session with the media. When one reporter asked if he had cast a theme or motto for this season, Yost responded in plain terms:
“Look, we got a really, really good team,” he said.
Nearly 30 minutes later, Brett stood inside the clubhouse and echoed the thought. This can be a really, really good team. Will it? We’ll see.
There is no telling what will happen over the next eight or nine months. Baseball is funny that way. In more than 20 years since his last game, Brett has watched so many different teams in Kansas City. They have been good and bad, and awful and surprising, and every so often a team offers the ability to transcend. For the moment, there are so many questions about 2017. But once again, Brett is ready to watch.
“Hopefully they get off to a fast start,” Brett said. “Hopefully they can compete, and they’ll be together at the end of the year. That’s what we’re hoping for.”
Royals’ Mike Minor seeks to reinvent himself as reliever after shoulder issues
February 19, 2017By Rustin Dodd/KC Star
A balky shoulder has kept Mike Minor away from big-league competition for two seasons. He’s hoping that a new role in the Royals’ bullpen could help put his career back on track.
“I’m pretty anxious to get this thing going — to see how it reacts,” Minor said. “See if maybe the bullpen thing will work out.”
Minor, a 29-year-old left-hander, is entering his second season in the Royals organization after signing a two-year, $7.25 million contract during spring training last February. At the time, club officials were hopeful that Minor, who was coming off shoulder surgery in 2015, would return for the second half of 2016 and possibly compete for a rotation spot in 2017. But his left shoulder did not cooperate.