The Sunday Ramble

The Royals closed out Cactus League play for 2026, storming to a come-from-behind walkoff 6-5 win over the Colorado Rockies on Saturday. Despite the win, they could not escape the ignominy of having the most losses of any team in Spring Training this year with 19. Fine…ignominy is a rather strong word when discussing defeats in exhibition games. Especially when the core lineup was absent for most of the slate, away at the World Baseball Classic.

But I need a lede, so lede with the spring record I must.

However, I will note that Saturday’s victory by the margin of a single run was just their second one-run win of the spring. Overall, the Royals were 2-7 in one-run Cactus League games. Unlucky!

Welcome to what I call the Sunday Ramble. It’s a collection of baseball thoughts that have been taking up space in my brain over the last week or so. I started writing this as a way to kind of empty out the virtual notebook. It has run sporadically in the past, but these tend to get a solid response, so I’d really like to keep it going throughout the upcoming season. Kind of a fun way to close out the weekend.

Away we go…

After annointing Cole Ragans the Opening Day starter for the third consecutive season, the Royals fleshed out the remainder of their rotation.

3/27 at Atlanta: Cole Ragans
3/28 at Atlanta: Michael Wacha
3/29 at Atlanta: Seth Lugo
3/30 vs Twins: Kris Bubic
4/1 vs Twins: Noah Cameron

It may be a little odd that the Royals will ultimately be throwing three lefties in a row when the rotation flips over, but I tend not to get too hung up on that. As the schedule unfolds, this rotation will shuffle a bit (there remains the option to throw in a spot start here or there from Bailey Falter) and although the season starts with three lefties against the Twins (presumably with Ragans starting the series finale), rarely will a series stack up like that during the season.

The bullpen took shape on Friday as the Royals announced they optioned Luinder Avila and Steven Cruz to Omaha. Disappointing they got sent down, but given the makeup of this roster, and as mentioned in my last roster projection, wholly understandable.

The Royals made a point to pick up both Alex Lange and Nick Mears this winter and both are out of options. Same, too, for Falter. As discussed, the only relievers with options are Lucas Erceg and Daniel Lynch IV. Erceg isn’t going anywhere and Lynch provides some balance in that he’s the lefty who will take some middle innings. Lynch could be an option candidate at some point if the bullpen becomes over-taxed, but is seems the most likely path for any reliever from Omaha to make it to Kansas City at this point is injury.

After not getting a lot of work in Spring Training and throwing just four innings for Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic, I think it’s safe to assume Avila will join the rotation for the Storm Chasers. That will allow him to build up and besides, the Royals continue to see him a starter. It would not be surprising to see him in the rotation in Kansas City at some point this summer.

From Anne Rogers, here’s manager Matt Quatraro on sending down Cruz:

“He pitched well. He was throwing hard. But acquiring Lange and Mears, both out of options, and Falter being out of options – it’s a crappy message for [Cruz], but we do know that he’s going to be up sometime this year, and he’s going to pitch important innings for us.”

Last season, the Royals used 26 pitchers. (No, I’m not counting Luke Maile. Sorry.) There will be plenty of opportunity for both Avila and Cruz and a host of others to stake their claim to the major league staff.

As for the position players, the final roster depends largely on the health of Michael Massey, who has missed games with a left calf strain. He's been playing minor league games on the backfields, but last appeared in an "official" exhibition game on March 8.

From Rogers, here's general manager J.J. Picollo:

“If Massey’s ready, he’ll be on the team. It may affect which way we go if he’s not on the team. We’ve got Drew Waters, we’ve got Nick Loftin. Trying to figure out how they fit. The good thing is we’re confident in anybody. We’d like to have Michael on the team. But it’s a deeper roster, and that’s a good thing. We’re in a good spot either way.”

Picollo makes it sound as if Massey cannot go, the spot comes down to Waters and Loftin. I continue to think Loftin has a spot on this roster. It may come down to Waters and Tyler Tolbert. Like on the pitching side, it's probably important to remember that Waters is out of options.

If you had a bet on Polymarket that Major League Baseball would join forces with…Polymarket, please step forward to collect your earnings.

From the official release:

Major League Baseball (MLB) announced today two new agreements in the rapidly growing prediction market space.  The league named Polymarket MLB’s Official Prediction Market Exchange.
In addition, Baseball Commissioner Robert D. Manfred, Jr. signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Michael S. Selig, Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), one year after MLB wrote a letter to the CFTC calling for strong integrity protections in the rapidly evolving prediction market space. MLB pursued this agreement with the CFTC to further protect the integrity of baseball by ensuring swift response to incidents and anticipating emerging trends more strongly.

Coming on the heels of MLB’s shitshow of partnerships with crypto markets like FTX, there is absolutely no way this ends well. These “prediction markets” are simply gambling parlors that are rife with corruption. It’s a massive opportunity for what amounts to insider trading. Say you work for a corporation, let’s call it Najor Meague Caseball, and NMC is in negotiations with the union that represents it’s employees. As someone on the inside, you have it on good authority that NMC is going to lock out the union and decides to back that extremely well-informed "hunch" on one of these prediction markets. Maybe you’re the person who actually decides on whether or not to lockout the employees. Wild!

That’s just one pitfall in a partnership like this. Never mind the league already has an issue where one of it’s best relief pitchers is currently suspended for his role in a betting scheme where he was bouncing first-pitch cutters.

As someone who has spent a good deal of time posting baseball thoughts on the internet, I have been approached by potential advertisers of various repute. I’m not averse to accepting ad money, but it would have to be a product I really believed in and used myself. Like shampoo. For real…where is all the shampoo money? Needless to say, I’ve been hit up at various times by gambling sites. Those have always been an easy pass for me. I’m not morally opposed to gambling by any means. It’s your cash. (By the way, I do have a tip jar if you haven’t blown your mortgage betting on election futures.) Still, something always felt a bit off to me when it comes to partnering with gambling sites.

For a cool $300 million, MLB clearly has no such reservations.

Since we’re less than a week away from the first pitch of the season, I thought it would be a good time to share some preview-type articles and other assorted items that will help you prepare for the next six (maybe seven!) months of your life. I like to be of service whenever possible.

While I’m well aware Baseball Prospectus can get a little too deep for the casual fan, their Season Preview series is an outstanding way to catch up on teams across the league.

2026 Season Preview: Kansas City Royals

Garcia is the hitting equivalent of Framber Valdez, which is a weird thing to type, in the sense that he combines two skill sets that are ordinarily on separate circles of the Venn diagram. Most elite contact guys are free swingers, which makes sense, because they’re good at hitting, and don’t mind putting a little extra effort and reaching out of the zone to do it. Garcia, however, marries a 95th-percentile contact rate with a 93rd-percentile chase rate—and he doesn’t even have to slow his bat down to do it, ranking above-average in both swing speed and EV90. Oh, and he’s a shortstop playing third base. He’s a special, special player, somewhat hidden behind Witt’s greatness and Pasquantino’s charisma.

Continuing to hang out at BP for the moment, but veering from my season preview intro, Rob Mains just completed a series where he watched three broadcasts from every team and wrote about things like the scorebug, local advertising signage and naturally, the broadcasters themselves. As a certified baseball broadcast nerd, this was fantastic content.

Around the League in 90 Days: The Royals

Rob was…not impressed with the Royals broadcast booth:

As I write this I’m debating whether to watch three or four games per team. This booth, sorry, it’s making me lean towards three. Lefebvre is OK, and I realize Hudler is kind of a fan favorite in Kansas City, but, man. Find someone who loves you as much as Rex Hudler loves guys shortening their swing and putting the ball in play up the middle or to the opposite field. Of course he brought up the 2014-15 Royals. Yes, I know they didn’t hit a lot of home runs. Neither does this team—last in the AL—and they’re 34-38. He has some insights—he did a nice explanation of why A’s reliever T.J. McFarland’s delivery makes it hard to read the ball out of his hand—but this is rough.

Rob has inspired me to at least consider doing a comprehensive announcer ranking on radio and/or television.

Overall, FanGraphs is the site I visit most frequently. Of late, they have been running their Positional Power Ranking series, which is a breakdown, by position, of all 30 teams. I find it to be an extremely well-researched dive into each team. Coupled with the information they have at their fingertips with Roster Resource, it’s always indespensible.

Do you know who the best shortstop in the league is?

I think we can safely say that Bobby Witt Jr. has met his prospect hype. When your drop-off in play leads to “only” an 8.0-WAR season, you know you’re in quite rarefied air. If anything, he’s exceeded the early scouting reports. While the prevailing belief was that he would stay at shortstop, he didn’t just linger at the position; he became an elite defensive player.

That’s exciting. If you don’t want to lose that buzz, avoid reading their take on center field.

When you go to a game, do you keep score? This has long been a non-negotiable for me. If I’m at a game, I have a pencil and a scorecard. I use the Ephus League Halfliner, which is just a beautiful book that provides plenty of detail for me. I cannot recommend it enough.

If you’re just getting started and don’t want to invest in a bound scorebook, check out Lou Spirito’s THIRTY81 Project. He provides PDF scorecards customized for each team for free. Like the Halfliner, they’re beautiful and make keeping score a delight.

Circling back to baseball announcers, Howie Rose, the radio voice of the New York Mets for decades, announced this will be his final season behind the microphone. Rose is one of my favorite announcers to listen to, not just because he knows his stuff and is entertaining, but because, as a fan of the Mets as he was growing up, he has an absolute encyclopedic knowledge of the franchise. The way he dips into the past isn’t to talk about the glory days (ok, there is some of that), but when he does it, you can hear the smile as he delivers some random fact from a game in 1972 or whenever. Every announcer should have that kind of recall. He’s truly a gem.

Rose has had health issues the last few years and has cut back on his travel. Jake Eisenberg pinch-hit for Rose a couple of times when Eisenberg was still working in Omaha. Frankly, I was worried that if Jake didn’t get the Royals gig, he would be off to Queens once Rose stepped away. Yeah, he’s that talented. We’re lucky to have Jake in Kansas City. The Royals broadcasts have needed an infusion of his youth, irreverence and knowledge of random minutia for a long time. Jake, along with Denny, brings a great mix to the Royals radio broadcasts.

I love baseball on the radio. I’m the guy who had an AM radio preset in his car for KMOX while living in Kansas City just on the off-chance I could hear Jack Buck call an inning or two.

Listening to the Mets without Rose will be like listening to the Dodgers without Vin Scully.