A couple of weeks ago I read a hilarious and brilliant piece on Substack comparing each major league franchise to a bird. The story is called: Thirty teams. Thirty birds. It was written by someone who goes by the name of 9inningnomad and if you can find it, I highly recommend it.
The descriptions were spot on. Some teams obviously already have their birds, namely the Blue Jays, Cardinals and Orioles.
The Yankees got tagged with the Canadian Goose. From the story: “Loud. Territorial. Fully convinced that every public space belongs to it by birthright and prior history. Blocks traffic. Ruins the mood. Wins the argument by existing and does not care if you like it.”
Philadelphia Phillies – American Crow – “Smart. Loud. Social in the way that a bar fight is social. Travels with backup, always, because the crow understood early that the yard is more fun when everyone is involved in the confrontation.” Boom!
Chicago Cubs – Black Capped Chickadee – “Everybody knows this bird. Everybody likes this bird. Has somehow convinced an entire region that it’s the most important bird at the feeder. Half the neighborhood has a chickadee flag on their porch.” W!
Cleveland Guardians – White Breasted Nuthatch – “Does everything upside down and still makes it work.”
The Royals got tagged with the Hummingbird – “Tiny engine. Fast twitch everything. Shows up in bursts, flashes something beautiful, and is gone before you can fully process what you saw.”
I loved all of them. On the Royals, I would suggest another bird. No offense to the Hummingbird, which is one of nature’s great inhabitants, but I think the Royals should have been the Bobwhite Quail. The Bobwhite is a pure midwestern bird. They go through prodigious booms and busts. The busts are so extreme that you wonder if they’ve gone extinct. Then suddenly, for a couple of years, you see quail everywhere. The booms never last long, one or two seasons, while the busts seem like they last forever. Twenty-year downturns are normal for this handsome little bird with the distinctive call.
The Quail is a humble bird with an enormous midwestern inferiority complex, especially when compared to their peacocking brethren, the Ringneck pheasant and Tom Turkey, two birds who always announce their presence by strutting around the countryside.
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As this cursed season wears on, it’s apparent to all that the Royals need to change the direction of the franchise. That change needs to start at the top and end with a thorough cleansing of the current regime. Will they do it? If I had to wager a guess, I would say that nothing is going to happen until after the season ends.
The draft is coming up and the last time the Royals did a housecleaning was right before the 2006 draft, a draft in which they held the #1 pick. Of course, the Royals blew that draft in the most Royal of ways, selecting Luke Hochever while passing on such notables as Clayton Kershaw, Tim Lincecum, Evan Longoria and Max Scherzer. Kershaw and Scherzer will someday soon be enshrined in the Hall of Fame. No fault of Hochever. He had a couple of excellent years late in his career out of the bullpen. Had he been a 4th or 5th round pick, we’d have raved about him. Expectations are much higher for the number one selection and the Royals, operating without a General Manager, blew it. Even had they picked say Kershaw or Lincecum, do you have any confidence that they wouldn’t have screwed those guys up too? I can envision the team spending years trying to get either pitcher to adjust their awkward windups and leave them in A ball until they’re 25 years old. Suffice to say, I don’t have much confidence in our developmental process.
So don’t expect any changes to the front office until after the draft.
Once this wretched season ends, we head into the lockout. If John Sherman is going to make a change, this may be the time he does it. The problem is, who do you hire as the new GM? And even if they do, will the Royals get it right? Sherman most certainly still has some Cleveland connections. Maybe he can raid their staff for some competent replacements?
Speaking of the looming lockout, Jay Mariotti recently had an interesting take. In a recent story he suggested that the players should take the lead and strike on August 12th. Screw the remainder of the season. Screw the playoffs and the World Series. Take the power away from the owners and leave them hanging.
The bottom line is, there will be no winners in this labor fight. The last time this happened, baseball took a hit and only a steroid fueled home run boom brought the game back to the mainstream.
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I have a confession to make. The Royals have played almost 90 games this season and I’ve only seen them play three times. Based on how the season has unfolded, you might say, lucky you. You’ve missed a lot of anguish. In a normal summer I watch upwards of 100 Royal games but thanks to the wonderful world of streaming, I’ve lost my access to Royals baseball and I miss it. I’ve been following most games on the ESPN app, but it’s not remotely close to seeing a live game. I do have Peacock, which allowed me to watch Sunday’s win, but that game wasn’t available on the MLB package. Strange times in TV land.
In past years, I’d leave the game on while working around the house, checking in now and then to see who’s at the plate or what the score is.
My wife has always been good at keeping me up to date when the game is on. It usually goes something like this:
“Hey hon, Salvy just hit a home run!”.
“Hey hon, is Country Buffet still playing?”
“Hey hon, the Leprechaun guy (Kyle Isbel) made a good play in the field”.
“Hey Hon, the guy who looks like the Geico Cave Man is pitching”.
You get the idea. She doesn’t always get the players’ names right, but close enough for me to follow from the other room.
Back to the streaming problem. I know I can probably buy a package to pick up games, but I’m a bit of a self-imposed technology luddite. Short of packing up and moving to a community that has a cable system, do any of you have any recommendations?
Are any of you using Royals.TV and if so, what’s your opinion of that?
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Over the past decade many saber metricians have fallen in love with the lowly walk. I’ve been rolling this around in my mind for the last month and have concluded that not all walks are created equal.
I’ve come to the conclusion that if you’re the #1, 2, 7, 8 or 9 hitter, a walk is almost always good thing. If you’re the 3, 4, 5 or 6 hitter and come up with men on base, with no outs, a walk is fine. If there are men in scoring position, and the pitcher doesn’t give you anything good to hit, take the walk. If the pitcher is behind 2-0 or 3-1 and pipes a fastball down the middle, you better be swinging and not looking for a walk. A base hit, even a measly single will score at least one and maybe two. A walk just puts the pressure on the next batter to deliver.
If you’re batting 3 through 6, your job is to drive in runs. This is one reason (and granted, there are many) why the 2026 Royals have struggled so badly.
The middle of the order hitters, namely Vinnie and Sal, have not driven in the runs. Salvy has averaged 96 RBI per season over the past five summers. Vinnie has average 105 over the last two. They might get 100 combined this summer and that’s a big if.
That’s a lot of missing runs in the middle of the order.
Injuries have hurt them badly of course, with Vinnie, Bobby, Kyle Isbel and Maikel Garcia all missing time. Father Time has caught up with Salvy and neutered him. Carter Jensen has stepped up and that’s about it. Bobby probably won’t make it to 100 RBI this summer, since no one is getting on base in front of him, and Jac Caglianone, though improving rapidly, is still a work in progress.
Bottom line: I’m still old school. I’d rather have my guys swinging the bat, trying to do some damage, instead of waiting out a walk. Hitting is contagious. You see your teammates getting a rap and you want to get to the plate and take your cuts. And don’t get me started on bunting, my blood pressure is bad enough as it is.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.royalsreview.com ’
