Anne Rogers writes that the Royals are putting the finishing touches on their roster.
Massey will stay back in Arizona as the team heads to Texas, allowing him to get more at-bats in Minor League Spring Training games and fully test his running. He played second base on Saturday and is scheduled to play the outfield on Sunday. By Tuesday, the Royals hope to have a better idea of whether they can have him on the roster, which has to be set by Wednesday because of the Yankees and Giants beginning the 2026
season that night.
“If Massey’s ready, he’ll be on the team,” general manager J.J. Picollo said. “It may affect which way we go if he’s not on the team. We’ve got Drew Waters, we’ve got Nick Loftin. Trying to figure out how they fit. The good thing is we’re confident in anybody. We’d like to have Michael on the team. But it’s a deeper roster, and that’s a good thing. We’re in a good spot either way.”
David Lesky raises the alarm on Carlos Estévez.
He did throw a scoreless inning, but it was ugly. He threw 28 pitches but literally seven were in the zone. That’s brutal. He got just two chases on the 21 pitches outside the zone. His average velocity was 89.0, which was better than we’d seen when he was last in camp, but not good enough. And he maxed out at 90.7 MPH. I was concerned, but when it was going up somewhat steadily, I figured it was just something to monitor. We’re a week from Opening Day and he has two more outings to get this figured out. Look, maybe he does and we look back on this the same way we looked back on spring last year. But this is also worse than last year. Not every game had Statcast last year, but he pitched on March 17, March 20, March 22 and March 25 that was tracked. His average velocities were 92.8, 92.5, 93.9 and 93.2. He hasn’t touched any of those numbers on any pitch this spring.
Eno Sarris at The Athletic has ten bold predictions about the season.
Royals offense is top-10
In 2024, my bold prediction was the Kansas City Royals to make the playoffs on the strength of their emerging young offense. Bold Predictions HQ took a win on that one despite the fact that their playoff berth was more due to pitching than anything else. But we’re going back to the well and being more specific this time. The offense. It’s ready to bust out.
Pitchers List ranks Noah Cameron as having one of the top cutters in baseball.
Cameron’s cutter is key to his success—the pitch comes in fairly slow at just 88 mph on average, but it’s got loads of induced horizontal break to it and it works beautifully, posting a 33% chase rate (78th percentile among cutters) a 34.5% ICR (71st percentile), and a 47.1% groundball rate (76th percentile).
Craig Brown looks at how the pitching staff may shape up to begin the season.
The Phillies sign pitcher Cristopher Sanchez to a six-year contract worth over $100 million.
The Pirates send top prospect Konnor Griffin to Triple-A.
Former All-Star reliever Craig Kimbrel won’t make the Mets roster.
Randy Arozarena and Cal Raleigh have buried the hatchet after their World Baseball Classic spat.
Mets outfielder Mike Tauchman suffers a torn meniscus and will need surgery.
Angels pitcher Grayson Rodriguez will begin the season on the Injured List.
The Yankees go with a four-man rotation, leaving Luis Gil out.
Sometimes, hitters peak in spring training with their power.
A hot mic catches an umpire saying, “please be a strike” during an ABS challenge.
A look at the oldest minor league franchises in baseball.
How Kevin Harlan became one of the most well-traveled broadcasters.
Syracuse hires Gerry McNamara as its head men’s basketball coach.
Meta backtracks on its decision to end Horizon Worlds VR.
The U.S. government registers the website aliens.gov.
With Banksy unmasked, is anonymity valauble in the art world?
Your song of the day is Operation Ivy with Sound System.
