The Royals

[MacAdoo]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I do find Elias' reticence when it comes to long term contracts most vexing.

I can’t fault Elias for not signing any free agents long term or giving out any off-season extensions given that JA owned the team essentially until the season began. And other than Gunnar, who would you be comfortable giving an in-season long term extension to?  
 

Will be very new and interesting to watch Elias’ approach with the new ownership. Personally, my priority one would be extending Gunnar. Give this team an identity for next decade. 

[clapdiddy]

I honestly think this team is passing it's "window".  I thought Burnes was the right move for this team and the time was ripe for a solid playoff/WS run.  

I still think there's a solid core with Henderson/Westburg/Cowser and hopefully Adley.   But, where is that ace going to come from?   Will the money be available to make the appropriate moves?   

 

[LookitsPuck]

8 hours ago, Baseball fandom said:

The Royals lost 106 games and 97 games in 2023 and 22 meanwhile those same years the Orioles have found success  but here we are the  Royals are already celebrating more playoff success then Baltimore has. It's  frustrating, pathetic and sad how bad this team has been in the playoffs. 10 straight loses is choking at its finest especially when you can make a case the Orioles were the more talented team during this stretch. Well maybe the Blue Jays were better the year they beat the Orioles. Maybe

I said it before, and I'll say it again. This Royals team is entirely a function of their starting pitching (Ragans, Lugo, Wacha, Singer) and their recent BP arm pickups/conversions (Erceg, Bubic, Lynch, etc.).

Their offense is basically Witt, Pasq, and Perez. I was pretty confident that the O's could shut them down going into this series, and they did. They only scored 3 runs. And none of their run scoring hits were all that amazing...if at all.

The issue, of course, was the offense. Was that because of the pitching? Personally I thought Ragans looked hittable. He pitched better than Lugo, but the O's came up tiny in RISP situations. Same as yesterday. Ragans and Lugo mostly pitched out of the zone, and the O's just were aggressive. So, in this regard, give the credit to the Royals scouts and analytics teams. They knew exactly how to pitch to Santander: up, up, up. They knew exactly how to pitch to Cowser: low changeups. They knew exactly how to pitch to everybody not named Cedric Mullins.

This Royals club is half decent, and if this O's club was the 2023 team, they shellack them. Alas, here we are.

Think the Yankees are going to railroad these guys if they aren't rusty. 

[glenn__davis]

Great SI article here:

https://www.si.com/mlb/baltimore-orioles-golden-generation-loses-luster-loss-kansas-city-royals

Quote

When it was over and the Baltimore Orioles were swept out of the playoffs for the second year in a row, their unofficial captain was not interested in litigating how it had happened. 

In the fifth inning of Wednesday’s Game 2 of the American League wild-card series, with the bases loaded, two outs and the score tied, the Orioles sent their franchise catcher to the plate. Adley Rutschman took two sinkers for balls. He watched a third down the middle. The next pitch was almost identical, and he swung, but late. Finally he bounced a meatball of a slider to shortstop to end the inning. 

Sums it up for me.  Royals didn't even pitch all that well.  We just royally (pardon the pun) sucked.

[Emory Eagle]

Another annoying piece is that most of these games vs the Royals in the postseason going back to 2014 were essentially coin flips. And they just keep winning the coin flip.

[Otter]

1 hour ago, MacAdoo said:

I can’t fault Elias for not signing any free agents long term or giving out any off-season extensions given that JA owned the team essentially until the season began. And other than Gunnar, who would you be comfortable giving an in-season long term extension to?  
 

Will be very new and interesting to watch Elias’ approach with the new ownership. Personally, my priority one would be extending Gunnar. Give this team an identity for next decade. 

I wonder if the ability to sign Gunnar to an extension has passed by this point.  Personally, I'd love them to sign Westburg to an extension.  I think his injury was the most impactful to team, and we can see he's one of the few players (if not the only one) who puts together professional at bats, cuts down his swing with two strikes, and appears to be cognizant of situational hitting.  He's a good athlete who should age well, and can play multiple positions competently.  He's a guy with a high floor but a high ceiling as well.  

[MacAdoo]

7 minutes ago, Otter said:

I wonder if the ability to sign Gunnar to an extension has passed by this point.  Personally, I'd love them to sign Westburg to an extension.  I think his injury was the most impactful to team, and we can see he's one of the few players (if not the only one) who puts together professional at bats, cuts down his swing with two strikes, and appears to be cognizant of situational hitting.  He's a good athlete who should age well, and can play multiple positions competently.  He's a guy with a high floor but a high ceiling as well.  

Totally agree. I’d have zero issue with signing Westburg long term. 

[MacAdoo]

10 minutes ago, Emory Eagle said:

Another annoying piece is that most of these games vs the Royals in the postseason going back to 2014 were essentially coin flips. And they just keep winning the coin flip.

Because little things like advancing runners and simply making contact with the baseball are way more often than not the difference between winning and losing in playoff baseball. So little separates the teams when you typically have elite and TOR starters on the mound along with high-leverage relievers for all 27 outs. There typically are few chances to score runs. The 2024 Orioles were simply abysmal at this.