It’s a slow news day.
Jaylon Thompson wondered if Carson Roccaforte will push onto the 2027 roster after a 30 HR-30 SB season across AA and AAA.
Roccaforte took a massive leap in his fourth professional season with the club. Now, he has a real opportunity to make his MLB debut in 2027.
“Carson Roccaforte is a very good center fielder,” Royals general manager J.J. Picollo said. “He will be in the mix to help our club, whether that’s opening day or sometime during the season. I don’t know when it’s going
to be, but he’s certainly played himself into gaining that opportunity. And we look forward to seeing him in spring training.”
The Royals are focused on rebuilding their pitching staff this offseason. The club needs to overhaul the bullpen and find another frontline starter. And offensively, there could be an open competition for the final roster spots.
Roccaforte will have a chance to push Kyle Isbel in center field. Isbel is entering his final year of team control in 2027. He will also enter his age-30 season and is coming off an inconsistent campaign. Isbel hit .224 with six home runs and 24 RBIs. He also posted a .591 OPS and finished with a negative-0.4 WAR — according to Baseball Reference.
The Royals are hoping to get more outfield production. Isbel is still in the mix, but Picollo specifically referenced both center field and left field as needing better results.
David Lesky took the hit for us and wrote about what went wrong during the 2026 season ($).
I will eventually stop saying the 2026 season was a disaster for the Royals, but today isn’t that day. It was awful. The first game was brutal. The second game was worse. Even though they were bouncing back from a terrible 7-16 start before Cole Ragans’s second injury blow of the season, you rarely felt good about this squad last season. At some point, I’m going to look at what the organization discussed that may have contributed to the slow start, but it’s safe to say almost everything that could go wrong did.
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The Bullpen…Duh
In some ways, I wonder if this edition will be shorter than what went right. Does anyone need an explanation of what happened here? I mean, I’m going to give it to you, so whatever, but this is the single biggest culprit of the Royals being as bad as they were.
The city used a half-baked metaphor and tortured it to try to explain the benefit of a new stadium.
When staffers with the Kansas City manager’s office explained to City Council members last week how future revenue increases in a so-called “stadium impact area” could be used to pay off the city’s share of the new Royals stadium, they included a graphic of two racks of ribs.
On the left rack, 10 ribs are supposed to represent tax money that’s currently funding city services like trash and snow removal, road resurfacing and dozens of other things.
On the right is the same 10 ribs in 2031, the year after Royals leadership hopes the downtown stadium opens, with an extra one and a half ribs added to represent new money generated within the stadium impact area.
That rib-and-a-half, the argument holds, will go toward paying down what the city owes on $615.2 million in bonds it approved Thursday to help fund the project. That leaves the rest of the ribs to fund city services, same as before.
But economic and public policy experts who spoke to KCUR are dubious of the financing plan — and the metaphor.
“You’re taking ribs from other parts of the city,” said J.C. Bradbury, an economist at Kennesaw State University who studies sports economics.
In case you hadn’t noticed, UMKC soccer is really, really good.
When Ryan Pore went from being an assistant coach at Tulsa to head coach of the Kansas City Roos in 2020, it was the second time he’d gone from Tulsa to Kansas City. After starring for the Golden Hurricane as a player, Pore was drafted by the Kansas City Wizards in 2005. He retired in 2011 after stops in Portland and Montreal, and he jumped into coaching at his alma mater.
Seven years later, he took his first head-coaching job in Kansas City. Pore knew enough about KC and its love for sports — soccer, specifically — to view the program as a sleeping giant.
“This should be a soccer school,” Pore told The Star. “I don’t have any Division I teams around me, so I have the pick of the litter here in Kansas City.”
Nearly a third of the Roos’ roster is from the Kansas City metro. As much as Pore has guided the program to embrace its identity in the KC soccer scene, he has embraced the work ethic and family focus that’s ingrained in this Midwestern city. Not to mention a bit of brazen belief.
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think I could win a national title here,” Pore said. “I think that goal and objective is right there.”
Matthew Swigonski at Kings of Kauffman thinks L.P. Langevin could factor into the bullpen plans sooner rather than later.
McCownGordon would like more stadium business after getting the Royals stadium business ($).
How the Rays turned Bryan Baker into a top closer.
Teams are challenging pitches using ABS system more often in the postseason.
Jackson Chourio is becoming a superstar.
Some scouting notes on pitchers in the Arizona Fall League.
The Marlins named a new hitting coach.
With the injury to Tyquan Thornton, the Chiefs are bringing back old friend Justin Watson.
Dan Quinn talks about the, frankly, hilarious ending to the Commanders-Giants game.
How the WNBA finals-bound Atlanta Dream was built.
RJ Mitte, who played Walter White Jr in Breaking Bad, died at 34 years old.
A candle man, a girl unsatisfied with provincial life, a baseball player, and others performed a song about food at a baseball game.
Your song of the day is from Donkey Kong Country 2. It’s Stickerbrush Symphony restored by Jammin’ Sam Miller. Because why not.
