Royals Rumblings - News for April 19, 2024

Early season winning makes for a busy off day

No game yesterday, but there was a roster move:

At MLBTR, Darragh McDonald asks “Which Hot Or Cold Starts Are For Real?”

Royals

The Royals entered the season with playoff odds of just 13.1% but they have gone 12-7 so far, bumping themselves up to 33.2%, a difference of 20.1%.

An improved rotation gets a lot of the credit. Between last year’s trade for Cole Ragans, the offseason signings of Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha, as well as the emergence of Alec Marsh, it’s a whole new look alongside Brady Singer. None of those five have an ERA higher than 4.32 so far this year. On the position player side of things, Bobby Witt Jr. is further proving himself to be a superstar, while Salvador Perez and Vinnie Pasquantino are healthy and productive.

They have faced the Twins, Orioles, White Sox, Astros and Mets thus far.

In the same vein, at The Star, Jaylon Thompson asks “What’s fueling this Kansas City Royals turnaround? And can they really keep it up?”

The Royals are off to a great start this season. They’ve shown major improvement in their starting rotation. This year’s group of five has posted 12 quality starts in 19 games.

The Royals’ lineup has also been lethal. The’ve scored 92 runs and hit 23 home runs and have a .408 team slugging percentage. Those numbers rank inside the top five in the American League. The Royals have scored 10 or more runs five times while piling up 257 total bases.

Meanwhile Pete Grathoff catches up with the most famous Royal: George Brett shares thoughts on Royals’ future in KC after stadium tax failure

“I think it’s time the Royals and the Chiefs kind of separate a little bit,” Brett said on Russo’s show. “We’ve always shared the same parking lot, and obviously with their success ... they want to do a lot of things to the stadium. And our (stadium) is, you know, kind of falling apart, too.

“I retired in ‘93 and it was the last day of Arlington Stadium. And the next year, they (Texas Rangers) moved into that brand new stadium, and they’ve already torn that one down and built a new one.”

“...We have a beautiful arena downtown, but we don’t have a basketball team or a hockey team and the only time it’s used is for concerts and truck pulls and things like that,” Brett said. “So to put a tenant downtown I thought would be a great move. Unfortunately, the taxpayers of Jackson County did not think it was that great of a move. And I don’t know what Mr. Sherman’s plan is.”

At the Kansas City Business Journal, Thomas Friestad (keep having articles from him around the stadium issue) took a look at some of the public documents from the Royals negotiations with Clay County and North Kansas City:

The public documents detailing discussions between the Royals and Clay County officials were obtained by a private citizen through Sunshine Law requests. The documents were shared with multiple parties. One party, the Show-Me Institute, a libertarian think tank, recently posted them to its website...

The Royals indicated in a September proposal they would pledge $527 million for the stadium. A November update revised this figure to a $617 million “team/partner contribution.” By comparison, the team most recently said it would contribute at least $300 million for stadium costs in Jackson County...

The Royals pegged the cost of a new North Kansas City stadium around $1.3 billion — including the $993.8 million venue, $35 million in land costs and $293.4 million in soft and financing costs. Not included in that total was $484.8 million in new infrastructure for the stadium and surrounding 90-acre ballpark district, covering 6,000 surface and garage parking spaces, public plazas, and Missouri Department of Transportation network changes...

In a private presentation to Clay County, the Royals in November estimated a larger North Kansas City district would cost more, at $1.4 billion, to be fully funded by team and partner contributions. Factoring in the $1.3 billion stadium and $484.8 million infrastructure numbers, the Royals’ full Clay County plan would have been a $3.2 billion undertaking — about two-thirds, or $2 billion, of which the team said would be funded privately.

In her daily newsletter, Anne Rogers talks about the Royals minor league depth:

The Royals are playing well enough — and they have been healthy enough — that the depth hasn’t been needed yet. So the message to the players in Omaha is about continuing to force their way into conversations about the big league roster. And when the opportunity comes, take advantage of it.

“It depends on how much opportunity you really have here,” Picollo said. “A guy is swinging the bat really well, but you’re only going to get him on the field twice a week — is that really what’s best for him? Over the course of six months, the opportunities arise that you need to bring someone up. You’ll know the right time.”

Shopping trip? Wish I was in the area :(

I don’t usually link to Power Rankings, but they look fun right now so we’ll count this as a listicle (from ESPN):

13. Kansas City Royals

Record: 12-7

Previous ranking: 21

After some early upheaval in the Royals’ bullpen, it looks like James McArthur has moved to the top of the leverage index hierarchy. McArthur’s pro career has been a slow burn. A 12th-round pick by the Phillies in 2018, he was developed primarily as a starter, but after struggling in his first exposure to Triple-A early last season, Philadelphia designated him for assignment to free up a 40-man roster slot. The Royals leaped at the opportunity, acquiring him in a trade, and his trajectory has been one of rapid ascension ever since. Not a traditional-style closer, McArthur mixes a sinker/slider combo with a quality curveball and leans heavily on the command he improved after joining Kansas City. As a minor leaguer, he walked four batters per nine innings; as a Royal, he has issued just 0.8 walks per nine innings. — Doolittle

I don’t really have a place to put this so I’m just going to just drop it in here. At Fangraphs, Davy Andrews asks How Many Times Have MLB Players Heard “Centerfield” by John Fogerty? After a bunch of math, we get to:

Well, there’s our answer. According to these estimates, the average major league player has heard “Centerfield” 354.2 times. If we just limit ourselves to American-born players, that number grows to 418.3.

I suspect that number will feel way too low for many people. If you grew up hearing this song at every single little league, high school, or big league game, your guess was probably closer to the 600 or 1,000 that Eric and JJ went with. I’m sure there are some big leaguers who have heard it that many times (not to mention Andrew Chafin, whose number might well be in the millions). But we also need to balance them out with the American-born players who rarely heard it and the international players who might not have heard it at all until they arrived in the United States.

It’s after midnight, so we’re going with bullet points for our Royals bloggers tonight. You guys all know I love you and you all really showed out on the off day. I just ran out of time, but at least I can use full blog names today and not abbreviations. Friday Rumblings readers know who they want to read out of these authors: all of them, of course! Particular kudos go to Kevin O’Brien and his giant article breaking down Seth Lugo, Preston Farr’s MLB Draft preview, and Patrick Glancy’s article about fathers and sons:

• Kevin O’Brien at The Royals Reporter: Seth Lugo Is Succeeding With the Royals…But How Long Will It Last?
• Preston Farr at Farm to Fountains: 2024 MLB Draft Prospect Rankings
• Patrick Glancy at Powder Blue Nostalgia: Fathers and...
• Craig Brown at Into The Fountains: Royals split the doubleheader with the Woeful White Sox
• David Lesky at Inside the Crown: Split Decision
• Darin Watson at U.L.’s Toothpick: This Date In Royals History—1984 Edition: April 18
• Hunter Samuels at Swinging Bunts: Win - Lose - Rain: Salvy, Travel, and Spring
• Mike Gillespie at Kings of Kauffman: While other KC Royals struggle, Salvador Perez keeps grinding away
• Jacob Milham at Kings of Kauffman: 3 struggling KC Royals players who need to find their groove fast

We’ve talked about cartons quite a bit in the past. Today, we’re looking at the popular 1980s Transformers (Generation 1).

I mentioned it last year when we were talking about G.I. Joe:

This past summer, after he spotted the DVDs on my shelf, we went back and watched selected episodes from G1 Transformers and GI Joe. While I was always a Transformers kid growing up - the toys were so much better - I have to admit that GI Joe has held up as a better cartoon. Of course, both are loaded down with 80s cartoon “buy this toy” episodes. You know the ones - the main character is super powered and goes on a mission perfectly suited for him/her only to never really appear again.

*BTW - that link goes to tfwiki, which is absolutely an amazing internet hole to fall into; just a wonderful nostalgia time sink with equal parts good writing and good snark (ED NOTE: I cannot stress this enough - tfwiki is amazing, both in completeness of information and level of snark - it’s brilliant)

We’re going to try something different today. This time I’m taking a stab at an “Essential Episode List”. As it mentioned above, there are a lot of filler episodes. But I’m going to try to just pick out the most notable ones, be they best or just important to the overall continuity. There are 98 episodes total, so let’s see if we can get that down to just the highlights. (Ed note: we get it down to about half)

A couple of quick notes before we start:

• We’re using the episode numbers from Wikipedia. The episode number is the order in which they were aired, while the production code is the order in which they were made. There are conflicts here that can lead to continuity errors.
• Hasbro’s official Youtube channel, Hasbro Pulse, has playlists of almost all of the episodes. Episodes 1-4 are not available currently, probably because they are coming to theaters in May as part of a 40th anniversary event.

Transformers (G1) Essentials

Season 1 (16 episodes) - You could really watch all 16. There’s at least a hint of continuity to the first season. There’s a three-parter, another three-parter, the Dinobots intro episode, another three-parter, another Dinobots episode, and an episode that continues from the previous three-parter. You could cut off the last 4 episodes, but you’d miss the introductions of the Constructicons and Insecticons and two episodes of one of the most popular Autobots, Skyfire. So we’re just going to include them all.

Essentials:

• All 16 episodes

Season 2 (49 episodes) - When a lot of people think G1, I think it’s a lot of these episodes that people remember. There were some really good episodes but there was also a ton of filler. Also, the continuity is really messy. In season one, only a couple of episodes are really out of order (curse you, Skyfire, and your questionable Macross rights). Here, many of the episodes were shown out of production order so there are a lot of inconsistencies. Plus, it is so terribly toyetic. I’m sure you have your favorite throwaway, be it A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur’s Court, Cosmic Rust, The Core, or B.O.T. Ok, I lied: no one likes B.O.T.

Essentials:

• Dinobot Island (Parts 1-2) – It’s a two-parter and it features the Dinobots; ‘nuf said
• Megatron’s Master Plan (Parts 1-2) – This is one of my favorites as Megatron uses a foolish politician to trick humans into sending the Autobots into the sun
• Desertion of the Dinobots (Parts 1-2) - as above, only better
• The Secret of Omega Supreme – One of the many Transformer history episodes/origin stories
• The Search for Alpha Trion – Another origin/history episode that nicely leads into the next
• The Key to Vector Sigma (Parts 1-2) – This is one of the best in the entire series and a personal favorite: more Cybertron history, more Omega Supreme, the start of the gestalts(!!), enough time to give some personality to some of the new robots, and one of the best battles in G1 with a great soundtrack
• Masquerade – Not really essential but a perfect encapsulation of how season 2 goes with an unbeatable bot in an origin “buy my toy” episode (Menasor in The Key to Vector Sigma) gets totally depowered in future episodes before being eventually forgotten
• War Dawn – less Essential than the previous two, this Cybertron history episode still introduces a lot of Transformers lore
• Starscream’s Brigade/The Revenge of Bruticus – This quasi-2-parter serves as Bruticus’s origin story and is centered around Starscream; sadly, his Autobot counterpart Defensor never really gets an origin story… or much screen time at all

Transformers: The Movie - The movie takes place between seasons 2 and 3. Of course the movie is essential. It features Hollywood legend Orson Welles’s last role before he died (seriously - look it up), massive plots, tons of major lore, and the most famous scene in Transformers history, complete with childhood trauma to the tune of Stan Bush. You’ll be forgiven if you use the above clip of “The Touch” for Song of the Day.

Essentials:

• Transformers: The Movie

Season 3 (30 episodes) - I think season 3 is terribly underrated. Gone are the iconic Optimus Prime and Megatron, replaced by Rodimus Prime and Galvatron. But a decent number of the plots and characters are just better developed than season 2, while the continuity is better. There’s more of a science fiction bent as it’s in the near future (2005). But that doesn’t stop us from having a number of toyetic episodes.

Essentials:

• Five Faces of Darkness (Parts 1-5) – I love this set of episodes, even for all its horribly animated goodness. Writer Flint Dille deserves hazard pay for having to come up with a giant plot that both catches kids who missed the movie up to speed and gives something new to the ones who saw it. We get different versions of the Quintesson and Junkion stories from the movie while introducing a bunch of new lore. The last couple of minutes of Part 4 are wonderful buildup, leading to the introduction of Trypticon and Metroplex and a 5th part where all is not as it seems.
• Starscream’s Ghost/Thief in the Night/Ghost in the Machine – Not a true three-parter and with some continuity issues, this trio of episodes starts with Starscream’s Ghost and Octane, who is an interesting character, even if his role was originally supposed to go to Blitzwing. Thief in the Night follows Octane and has this and this, which, eep, not great and led to Casey Kasem quitting the show. Meanwhile, Ghost in the Machine follows Starscream as he tries to restore Unicron.
• Forever is a Long Time Coming- This is another Cybertron origin story, featuring the Quintessons, and written by Gerry Conway, of comic book fame
• Only Human – This is notable as a G.I. Joe crossover and should have been a two-parter as it’s a decent scifi concept. A human gangster works with Old Snake (Cobra Commander 20 years in the future in 2006) to capture Rodimus, Ultra Magnus, Springer, and Arcee and turn them human.
• Grimlock’s New Brain – Showing just how popular dinosaurs are with kids, Grimlock is one of the few season 1 Transformers still around and getting feature episodes. He gets Flowers-for-Algernon’d and creates Computron, but has to sacrifice that intelligence to help them defeat the Abominus and the Decepticons at Unicron’s head.
• Call of the Primitives – Regarded by many as one of the best season 3 episodes, mainly due to its art. This episode was farmed out to an animation studio other than AKOM and it has a very anime-ish style that often looks better than any other post-movie episode. The plot introduces some other Transformers lore, but a lot of it hasn’t been used since because it’s not very well done and the ending is terribly anticlimactic. But, hey, it’s pretty!
• The Burden Hardest to Bear – Rodimus is feeling the weight of his leadership and it leaves him vulnerable to Galvatron stealing the Matrix. However, he cannot use it and tries to destroy it. Scourge takes it and becomes a powerful but grotesque monster.
• Dark Awakening – I’d watch this episode out of order. If you watched it in order, it would slot right after FFOD, but fits better here. This episode is a lot of things. It’s a messy attempt to correct the issue of killing off Optimus Prime in the movie. It’s too much plot for a single episode so it throws you right into the action. It has these weird horror and Frankenstein elements with Quintessons in the background. And it’s just really sloppy, above all things. But it brings back a beloved character as a partial zombie and that mostly works. Then it finishes him off again… sort of. I still have my VHS copy from WGN back in 1987 where it says “But is this really the end of Optimus Prime? Find out on tomorrow’s exciting episode, ‘The Return of Optimus Prime’”. They didn’t believe in spoilers in the 80s.
• The Return of Optimus Prime (Parts 1-2) – This is one of the more memorable episodes in the series. The animation is done by Toei so it looks better than average. The return of Optimus is, of course, the headliner. The characterization is pretty good, too, with Rodimus still feeling inferior, plague Ultra Magnus a force to be reckoned with, helpers like Wreck Gar and Sky Lynx in character, and even Galvatron recognizing how crazy the spored robots are. Sure, it’s imperfect as the intro retcon from Dark Awakening is a mess, it’s one of a number of “plague” episodes as AIDS was in the national psyche, and yes, it is cured by caring enough, the Matrix, and Stan Bush. But it would have been a fitting finale if the series had ended there.

Season 4 (3 episodes) - That is not a typo. There are only 3 episodes in season 4 and it plays more like the introduction to a new season rather than a series finale. If you’re feeling all warm and fuzzy after “The Return of Optimus Prime”, maybe just skip this entirely. But there’s enough interesting stuff going on here like the odd dynamic between Hot Rod and Optimus Prime, the introductions of Scorponok and Fortress Maximus, and the end scene with Cybertron. But it also has a lot of fluff with the Hive and rebels, some ho-hum intros like Headmasters and Targetmasters, and the weird dynamic between Arcee and Daniel. It’s interesting enough to count as essential.

Essentials:

• Rebirth (Parts 1-3)

I mentioned this in yesterday’s Rumblings comments but figured I’d repost here.

I’ve been cautiously optimistic about Transformers One since it was announced. You could do a fairly complicated origin story for a new generation of viewers. I mean, there’s no “definitive” one right now - G1 alone had at least 3 or 4 different, conflicting ones. But, man, I’m, um, I’m not super optimistic here with it being an Optimus/Megatron buddy pic mostly played for laughs: