What Makes Gavin Cross Such a Good Hitter?

Recently, a follower of the Royals Farm Report twitter account named “Ryan Heffernon” expressed concern after watching a clip of a Gavin Cross home run. He quote tweeted the clip with the comment “I cannot unsee Ryan O’Hearn’s in his swing and that terrifies me.” Understandable. Royals fans are conditioned to expect the worst. Years…

Marcus’ Personal Top-50 List

First, if you haven’t yet, check out the consensus midseason top-50, which is an aggregate of the rankings from a few different Royals prospect writers. Honorable Mentions 50-31 30-21 20-11 10-6 5-1 I was one of the people asked to contribute a top-50 of my own, and I must say, my thoughts differ significantly from…

Tucker Bradley: A Name to Know

Tucker Bradley isn’t a name a lot of Royals fans know but he is a player worth getting to know.  Bradley is currently in Northwest Arkansas hitting at the top of their lineup and playing left field every day.  I’ve compared Bradley to Andrew Benintendi a lot in my mind as of late.   Bradley was…

The Heart (and Shadow) of the Matter

Hear more from Marcus on the Royals Weekly Podcast and follow him on Twitter and Facebook @RoyalsWeekly The Royals offense looks like egg salad that’s been sitting in a flaming dumpster for 3 weeks … very bad. They have the lowest BB% in baseball and the second lowest wRC+.  There are plenty of simple explanations…

A photo of Kauffman Stadium

So you wanted to sell

The trading deadline of 2017 was a very trying time for Royals fans. Half of us wanted to sell, half of us wanted to go for a World Series title. The Royals were 55-48 on the morning of July 31 going into the trading deadline. They were 2.5 games ahead of Tampa Bay holding the…

Some thoughts on Asa Lacy’s last start

After striking out 9 batters in 4.1 IP on Friday night, Asa Lacy’s current season stats look like this: 23 IP (7 starts), 14.09 K/9 (34% K%), 7.43 BB/9 (17.9% BB%), 1.17 HR/9 (14.3% HR/FB), 6.65 ERA, 4.97 FIP If you remove the first two starts he made, his first two professional starts that totaled…

Film Study: Alec Marsh 5/8/21

Alec Marsh did some things over the extended break and offseason to make him a better pitcher. I want to check those out first hand but have been unable to get to a game in which he has started so far this season, so I’m using the film room. Marsh won the first ever Double-A…

A photo of Kauffman Stadium

Where did all the Center Fielders go?

Uh, we may have a problem. Recently, I was looking through this excellent draft rankings comparison from Alex Duvall and day dreaming about who I want the Royals to draft when it occurred to me that the Royals’ system might be light on outfielders … specifically center fielders. I thought I must be forgetting someone…

Cord-cutters vs. Sinclair is a lose-lose-lose

In the broad scope, this is as much a debate of old media ideas versus new ones. Traditionally, media companies maximized profits through vigorous and rigid control of access to their content, but young people grew up in a world of flexible and free media content. And they aren’t going back. Most of them will give up on baseball and find something else before they give up on cheap, flexible media.

The Curious Case of Kowar

To be clear, most people are wrong about Jackson Kowar.  They try to fit him into a well-worn narrative about pitcher development that contradicts every bit of information we have on him. As is the narrative for so many young pitchers, the conventional wisdom on Kowar holds that an underdeveloped breaking ball is all that…

Film Study: Ronald Bolanos MLB Debut

Last week, the Royals traded LHP Tim Hill to the Padres for RHP Ronald Bolanos and OF Franchy Cordero.  Bolanos was the Padres 13th ranked prospect and actually made his major league debut last season rising all the way from high-A ball to the majors. I saw Bolanos make a start in Northwest Arkansas last…