Royals 2018 Thread

[Hawker007]

Just saw that the Royals signed Lucas Duda.....you have to be shitting me.

[Jhawkz5]

Just saw that the Royals signed Lucas Duda.....you have to be shitting me.

Why? He's a decent player and is on a one year deal. He's better than Moss.

Granted I would rather have LoMo since LoMo is better than Duda but for 1yr/3.5 million the Royals got an average+ hitter.

[Jhawkz5]

Shoot you should embrace it. Just hope and pray will all your might that Ned will make his first assignment on day 1 to be throws from first to home for the lulz.

[Jhawkz5]

But can you elaborate on "who he is and history against the Royals" - is it just that he made the bad throw in game 5? Or what, he said some mean things once? I honestly don't remember any big Lucas Duda controversy.

[Hawker007]

Just saying that he is basically the Bill Buckner for the Mets that gave us our Championship and now he's coming to play for us. I think that's pretty strange that he ended up with us.

[NoPantsChico]

Rustin's gone too.

[Jhawkz5]

Rustin's gone too.

Waiting for Rustin's "I'm excited to announce that I'm heading up the staff at The Athletic - Kansas City starting May 23" tweet

[ono]

Yeah I assume he's going to the Athletic. It was their goal to have a MLB writer for all 30 teams by the season.

Side note, I subscribed last week to that site. I am really, really underwhelmed. The content is decent, I guess, but not quite as good as I expected. But the amount of content is pathetic. I know they are still growing, but the top stories on their home page are currently dated 2/21, 2/20, 2/19, 2/18, 2/17. High on the page is a Saturday ATS pick column from 2/17. If Rustin doesn't end up there, I'll be canceling after the basketball season is over. Even if he goes there I will still probably cancel.

[Jhawkz5]

Yeah I assume he's going to the Athletic. It was their goal to have a MLB writer for all 30 teams by the season.

Side note, I subscribed last week to that site. I am really, really underwhelmed. The content is decent, I guess, but not quite as good as I expected. But the amount of content is pathetic. I know they are still growing, but the top stories on their home page are currently dated 2/21, 2/20, 2/19, 2/18, 2/17. High on the page is a Saturday ATS pick column from 2/17. If Rustin doesn't end up there, I'll be canceling after the basketball season is over. Even if he goes there I will still probably cancel.

I think part of that is their shitty algo for the front page. I believe it curates based on "your teams" and since KC doesn't have a specific athletic site there's not much new to show about "your" teams. I find it far better to just go to the CBB portion of the site, there's new articles almost every day.

[ono]

I think part of that is their shitty algo for the front page. I believe it curates based on "your teams" and since KC doesn't have a specific athletic site there's not much new to show about "your" teams. I find it far better to just go to the CBB portion of the site, there's new articles almost every day.

That's true, and they do send newsletters directly to your inbox. I still don't think there is enough fresh content to keep me signed up for $8/month for a full year. I can get plenty of MLB, NFL, NBA stuff elsewhere. But now that the Ringer is basically NBA only, I figured it would be worth it to sign up at least for a month to get some NCAA takes.

[NoPantsChico]

Yeah, I pretty much only subscribe for stuff from KenPom, CJ Moore and one or two of the other contributors.

[ono]

aaaaand just like that, they get me to extend my subscription: https://theathletic.com/kc/

[Jhawkz5]

For those that don't have it..

[beakumhawks]

Duda is basically Brandon Moss. Here are the 2017 stats

Moss

.207 BA
.279 OBP
362 AB
37 BB
128 SO
22 HR

Duda

.217 BA
.322 OBP
423 AB
60 BB
135 SO
30 HR

Duda is 32 years old and his 2017 numbers are pretty much what I would expect from a player on the downside of his career. His lifetime batting average is .246. The only good thing about the Duda signing is that it was only a 1 year deal.

The Royals are going to be gawd awful this year. It would not surprise me if they lost 120 games.

BA

[ono]

The Royals are going to be gawd awful this year. It would not surprise me if they lost 120 games.

The Royals will be bad, but not anywhere near 120 loss bad. I don't even think they will lose 100.

[Jhawkz5]

Bovada has the O/U wins set at 71.5 I think PECOTA had them at 58 wins. I took the under but think they'll be closer to 65ish wins instead of 60ish.

[KUGDI]

“Will the Royals go winless next year? Probably” - Our football fans.

[swidman]

Saw Moustakas's agent has spoken with Whitesox. Makes sense since he would provide stability at 3B for this year and show some leadership to the younger guys. If he's playing really well they can trade him for more prospects. Win-Win, IMO. Hope it happens.

[WhiteJak]

Yeah, I hope he finds a good situation. He and his agent showed little interest in exploring a contract with the Royals and most likely the feeling was mutual, but he's an important part of Royals history. At 29 years old, he's still a useful player in the right situation. I wish him the best.

[ono]

Moose's situation is a perfect storm. Few teams need a 3B, and the ones who are willing to spend on a multi year deal are waiting for next year when Machado and Donaldson will be available.

[WhiteJak]

Does Duda get a pass on spring training or is he walking in from Madagascar? I haven't seen any stats at all on him yet.