Royals Rumblings - News for December 6, 2024

Have the Royals signed Juan Soto yet?

I know we’ve already talked about it, but at The Star, Jaylon Thompson wrote about the “golden at-bat” idea:

“The player side of it is really difficult for the union,” Manfred said. “Obviously, you want consensus, and we need agreement, or would like agreement, with the union. The reason it’s so hard for them is that if you think about it, almost every change, the pitchers line up one way, and the hitters line up another, and they represent them both.

Yeah, the union is the real problem with this idea...

Royals Rally is back:

Former Royals pitching coach (2000-2001*), Brent Strom, is headed to Pittsburgh after his tenure in Arizona ended poorly.

*yikes!

On the blog side, Preston Farr at Farm to Fountains talks about yesterday’s news of the Royals snagging a Competitive Balance pick:

It was expected, but the Royals have officially received their Competitive Balance pick for the upcoming 2025 MLB Amateur Draft. The draft will be held in Atlanta as part of next season’s All-Star Break. News on Thursday broke that Competitive Balance rounds have now been set for the draft. The Royals are set to receive the fourth pick in Competitive Balance Round B. Round B comes after the draft’s second round. In 2024, that encompassed selections 66-73, including some interesting names like Gage Jump from LSU...

With the additional pick, the Royals will now have four picks in the draft’s first 70 selections. Kansas City will own their traditional first and second-round selections. They’ll also have a pick after the first round that was awarded as a Prospect Incentive bonus due to Bobby Witt Jr.’s Top-3 MVP finish. This latest pick in Comp Round B will make the fourth pick in the Day One portion of next year’s draft.

Also at FTF (F2F?), Matthew Robison writes about Maikel Garcia’s surgery:

On Monday December 2nd, Royals third basemen Maikel Garcia posted on twitter to say he was headed back to Kansas City with a bad connotation. With more info on that press HERE. Garcia was getting ready to start the Venezuelan Winter League, but instead headed to KC to get an x-ray done for an undisclosed injury. It seems like we finally got those results. We were awaiting the news of what Garcia’s injury would be, what was wrong, or how this would affect the Royals in 2025.

We got the official news on Thursday (12/5) that Maikel had been suffering from some bone spurs in his right elbow. Thankfully the surgery was a success, they removed the bone spurs and Maikel himself, posted on Instagram to let everyone know that he had just gotten out of surgery.

At Inside the Crown ($), David Lesky ponders Kris Bubic’s role for 2025:

I do believe that he faces an uphill battle because of the lack of velocity, but I also believe he’s the type of pitcher who can overcome that because of the depth of his arsenal. Of course, if you tell me that the Royals are talking him up as a starter because he’s mentioned in trade rumors, I also wouldn’t be too surprised at that, so that’s worth keeping an eye on. But if he’s a Royal in 2025 (and I hope he is, though he might be able to fetch a solid enough return in a trade), I’m a lot more comfortable with him getting first crack at one of the open rotation spots than I expected to be when I started writing this.

Finally, we get a pair of articles from Kings of Kauffman. The first is a slideshow by Rachael Millanta about “4 KC Royals players most likely to be traded at this year’s Winter Meetings”. Spoiler: Witt was not on the list.

The second, by Eric Treuden, (not a slideshow) listed the “5 most successful Rule 5 Draft picks in KC Royals history”. Anyone who has been around a little more than a decade can guess the best player, one of my all-time favorite Royals.

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It was a deceptively busy day across the league.

A’s ownership moved through another milestone in their bid to steal the team from Oakland and place them foolishly in Vegas.

The Las Vegas Stadium Authority approved lease, non-relocation and development documents Thursday to clear the last major hurdles for the Athletics to construct a $1.75 billion stadium on the Strip and bring Major League Baseball to the expanding sports market. The lease and non-relocation agreements each cover 30 years.

The St. Petersburg City Council approved bonds for the Rays new stadium, inching them closer to staying. However, major hurdles remain:

This is only part of the deal. The Pinellas County Commission also must decide whether to approve its share, with a vote set later in December. Meanwhile, the Rays will play this season in the New York Yankees’ spring training site, Steinbrenner Field in Tampa because of hurricane damage to Tropicana Field.

The Rays have said it’s impossible to play at the Trop next year and maybe not until 2026. The vote Thursday was to issue bonds that could finance a new stadium, perhaps by the 2028 season. It came after the county hedged on the financing deal, while the overall plan was approved by the city and county last summer.

The ballpark is part of a larger $6,5 billion project called the Historic Gas Plant District, which is an urban restoration effort aimed at righting a wrong when Black people were moved out so that Tropicana Field and a highway could be built on prime land in downtown St. Petersburg.

Noah Furtado at The Athletic ($) wrote about how college NIL dollars are competing with the pittance that MLB gives their minor leaguers:

Multiple front-office executives for MLB teams said they had envisioned a world in which college baseball could compete for top talent, after the pay-for-play model took effect in the summer of 2021. It wasn’t until this past summer, three years removed, that this hypothesis proved true.

“This was the first year that we felt the real impact in the actual draft of guys just saying no to seven-figure bonuses,” New York Yankees assistant amateur scouting director Mitch Colahan said. “And you’re just kind of like, ‘That’s pretty crazy.’”

Last week we talked about the NPB. The start of our adopted team, the Yakult Swallows, Munetaka Murakami, has announced that 2025 is his last season in NPB and he will be posted to MLB next offseason.

Murakami, 24, made global headlines in 2022, when he shattered Sadaharu Oh’s single-season home-run record for a Japanese-born player, launching 56 home runs in 141 games. He hasn’t enjoyed that same degree of success since, posting OPS of .875 and .851 in the subsequent two seasons.

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We’re into December and I’m coasting into the end of the year here for Friday Rumblings. The last two years, at the end of June (2023) (2024), I had a little recap of the first half of the year and a sneak peak into the rest of the year. However, I forgot to do my recap for the second half of 2023 so I’m going to do that now because the lack of consistency is bothering me. This way, next year I can start off fresh. We have 4 weeks in December. This week will be the 2023 year end review, next week will be the 2024 year end review, and then I’m out of town for the last two weeks and I’ll see you all in 2025.

As before, links are to the date while songs of the day are in parentheses.

2023.07.07 Masthead Inbox follies (“Capital” - SimCity)

2023.07.14 CPBL Midseason 2023 (“New Game” - Nitro Fun from Just Shapes & Beats)

2023.07.21 KBO Midseason 2023 (“Mute City: Twist Road” - F-Zero GX)

2023.07.29 (Weekend) NPB Midseason 2023 (“Oros Phlox” - Project X Zone)

2023.08.04 OUT

2023.08.11 Old and new Scifi movie review pairs; (“The Game Has Changed” - Daft Punk, from Tron: Legacy soundtrack)

2023.08.18 OUT

2023.08.25 National Video Game Museum (Doom II playthrough)

2023.09.01 Metallica/Pantera/Mammoth WVH concert (“Another Celebration at the End of the World” - Mammoth)

2023.09.08 “Recent” (2022/2023) movie reviews (“Big Blue” - Mario Kart 8)

2023.09.15 Royals story rabbit hole with network of fake news sites (“Detective” compilation - Phoenix Wright series)

2023.09.22 OUT

2023.09.29 Weather tool websites (“Only Happens When it Rains” - Garbage from Guitar Hero 5)

2023.10.06 Help Build “Royals Review Visits Stadiums” (“Hello, Maxwell” - Scribblenauts)

2023.10.13 Scream franchise movie reviews (“Spooks of Halloween Town” - Kingdom Hearts)

2023.10.20, 2023.10.27 OUT

2023.11.03 Disney Ride Rankings (“It’s a Small World”)

2023.11.10 Ghostbusters franchise movie reviews (“Ghostbusters” - Ray Parker Jr.)

2023.11.17, 2023.11.24 OUT

2023.12.01 CPBL Season Wrap 2023; (“Boss Battle 1” - Chrono Trigger)

2023.12.08 KBO Season Wrap 2023; (“O Come All Ye Faithful/O Holy Night” - Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO) from Rocksmith)

2023.12.15 NPB Season Wrap 2023 (“10am” - Animal Crossing)

2023.12.22 Minor OT (“You’re the Inspiration” - Elite Beat Agents)

2023.12.29 No OT <— today’s post should have been here; (“Twelve Pains of Christmas” - Bob Rivers, from the album Twisted Christmas)

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Want something a little more OT’y? I know this whole end of the year stuff gets a little light. How about a little half section?

I’ve done Christmas specials before, back in 2018, revisited in 2020, and then revised yet again earlier this year. But my wife and I are trying to decide if there are any holiday movies worth watching that we haven’t seen in the last few years.

We covered some of them here, but I think I’ll try to break then up into categories, mention what we’re looking at, and ask for any other suggestions.

Christmas specials don’t count.

Old Classics

• It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) - Indeed a classic, reviewed last year (link above)
• Miracle on 34th Street (1947) - Also a classic, also reviewed last year
• Miracle on 34th Street (1994) - Yes, it’s modern; no, it’s not as good; but this feels like the right category for it
• Holiday Inn (1942) - Haven’t seen this since I was young enough to not remember much and really should; near the top of the short list for this year
• White Christmas (1954) - If we’re going to do one Irving Berlin Christmas musical, why not two?

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80s Gritty Christmas

• Gremlins (1984) - Christmas horror is everywhere now, but I think many are the offspring of this movie
• A Christmas Story (1983) - Despite TBS’s best efforts, I don’t really care for A Christmas Story; it was my dad’s favorite, though
• Christmas Vacation (1989) - Even moreso than the above, an eminently quotable Christmas classic
• Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) - Watched this a few years ago; Martin and Candy are brilliant
• Scrooged (1988) - One of a number of Christmas Carol interpretations; I know Scrooge is supposed to be a bad guy but notice how the last few movies (and much of 80s cinema) is just populated with jerks? Probably doesn’t belong on the list with these other movies
• Die Hard (1988) - A Christmas classic that we watch ever year; also, no Die Hard 3 is not better than 1 and anyone claiming that is just being a contrarian or has poor judgement; we touched on these briefly back in 2018

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90s Christmas:

• Home Alone (1990) and Home Alone 2 (1992) - watched and reviewed last year
• The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) - We talked Muppets back in 2021
• Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) - We watch this every year; there aren’t a lot of movies that can be watched anytime from Halloween to Christmas

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“Modern” Classics

Elf (2003) - As I said before, I should have watched this sooner; it’s so much better that I thought it would be

Polar Express (2004) - I really want to like this movie more but the animation hangs out in the creepiest of uncanny valleys and the movie just drags in parts

Frozen (2013) and Frozen 2 (2019) - Do these count as Christmas movies? My son wants to watch them every Christmas; covered in 2022

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Under Consideration

Along with the two musicals above, these are some movies we’re considering this holiday season. We’re not really into horror though there are a number of movies that fit into that category. Also, no to the 671 Hallmark movies that share 27 actors, 3 settings, 2 writers, and 1 plot.

• Klaus (2019) - Recent animated movie with lots of critical acclaim that I haven’t seen yet
• Bad Santa (2003) - I’m not really big on mixing dark humor with Christmas but this is supposed to be one of the best at it
• Trading Places (1983) - Haven’t seen in years; didn’t even think of it as a Christmas movie because I don’t remember
• Jingle All the Way (1996) - this looks awful but also so very 90s; I remember Conan constantly making fun of it
• The Santa Clause (1994) - speaking of 90s, Disney+ really, REALLY wants me to watch this
• I’ve watched the longer versions of the Grinch (2000 and 2018), thought not recently, and they’re mediocre; there’s just not enough story so they get bogged down in boring sublplots that pull away from the core store (see also: Polar Express); EDIT: I watched the 2018 version back in 2022 and wrote about it here
• Maybe there’s some particular flavor of A Christmas Carol that stands above the rest?
• Add your favorite movie I missed in the comments...

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We ended up watching the Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas special again. It featured one of my favorite Christmas songs from the 90s, the Smashing Pumpkins cover of Christmastime: