Kindof an eventful day for mid November. In case you missed it, Max had you covered:
MLBTR had stories about Lange and McArthur.
Anne Rogers also writes about Lange as she was the one who broke the news:
The Royals signed right-hander Alex Lange to a one-year deal on Thursday night, bringing in the reliever with Kansas City ties to add to their bullpen. Lange’s deal is worth $900,000 in 2026 with $100,000 in performance bonuses, a source told MLB.com.
She and Brian Murphy wrote about Bobby winning his second straight “Heart & Hustle Award”:
On Wednesday, it was announced that Witt is the Heart & Hustle Award winner for the second consecutive season. Created by the Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association in 2005, the Heart & Hustle Award is voted on by alumni and active Major League players and is presented annually to an active player “who demonstrates a passion for the game of baseball and best embodies the values, spirit and traditions of the game.”
…Witt has been Kansas City’s Heart & Hustle nominee in each of his first four Major League seasons. He’s the second player to win the award twice, joining Hall of Famer Craig Biggio, who was named the Heart & Hustle winner in 2006 and ‘07.
Jaylon Thompson has a blurb about the award for The Star.
Also at The Star, Pete Grathoff writes that former Kansas City Royal and current Kansas City Monarch, Jorge Bonifacio, just became a United States citizen:
The Monarchs on Wednesday shared happy news regarding Bonfiacio, who was born in the Dominican Republic.
“We would like to send the biggest congratulations to our guy, Jorge Bonifacio, who officially became a citizen of the United States this morning,” the team wrote on X. “Jorge studied tirelessly over the summer while he was playing for us and we are so proud.” “Hip hip Jorge!!”
Grathoff also wrote about Zack Greinke’s kids battling each other in Little League:
Griffin and Bode are the sons of former Royals pitcher Zack Greinke, and they met in a Little League game over the weekend. Greinke’s wife, Emily, shared video of 10-year-old Bode pitching to his 8-year-old brother, Griffin.
It’s nice when someone is searching for the “next” of someone on your team. At Fangraphs, Michael Baumann is trying to “[Find] the Next Maikel Garcia and/or Geraldo Perdomo”:
In 2024, when he had a wRC+ of 71, Garcia was in the 92nd percentile in both chase rate and whiff rate, according to Baseball Savant. Garcia turned into a star overnight, but the process was more gradual for Perdomo. The Diamondbacks shortstop spent two seasons (2023 and 2024) as about a league-average hitter overall, but with a specific shape to his production: decent average, lots of walks, zero power.
That’s instructive in and of itself, but even in 2022, when he hit .195/.285/.262 in 500 plate appearances as a rookie, Perdomo was in the 89th percentile for chase rate and the 84th for whiff rate. In other words, both of these guys knew how to hit before they broke out. It just took a minute for the quality of contact to catch up to the approach.
Blogs?
Last week I linked to David Lesky’s ($) list of 50 free agent targets. This week, he has 37 offseason trade targets:
The crazy thing is that I listed 37 players here, and when you consider that we often see surprises among relievers being traded that I’m probably missing another 15-20 possibilities. But these are 37 guys who I think the Royals should or will have interest in. Not all make a ton of sense because the trade fit may not be there, but a little creativity or sneaking in as a third time could make any of them work. My gut feeling is the Royals do their heavy lifting via trade this winter and they actually do some heavy lifting, so this list may be a little more important to keep in mind than the free agent one, but I can promise you they know their task this winter. I’m excited to see things starting to move, and hopefully we get a Royals move to break down soon.
Craig Brown wrote about his votes for Royals award winners:
The Royals Pitcher of the Year category always gets the most attention from me because it’s never as cut and dried as Witt for Player of the Year award. The winner for the Royals this year was rookie Noah Cameron. He had a fine season once he found his spot in the rotation when Cole Ragans landed on the IL in mid-May. Over 24 starts covering 138 innings, Cameron pitched to a 2.99 ERA with a 20.5 percent strikeout rate and 7.7 percent walk rate. He limited opposing hitters to a .214 batting average and a .279 OBP. It was a very solid rookie campaign from the kid from St. Joseph.
Yet, when it came time to cast my vote, I opted for Kris Bubic. Yes, I realize he didn’t pitch in August or September, but he threw only 22 innings fewer than Cameron. And when Bubic was healthy, I felt he was much more dominant than Cameron, routinely pitching deeper into games and with a 2.55 ERA and a 24.4 percent strikeout rate to go along with an 8.2 percent walk rate. Bubic’s average Game Score was 58 compared to Cameron’s 56 average Game Score.
At his new digs at Royals Keep, Kevin O’Brien continues counting down Royals prospects with #6-#10:
8th: Ramon Ramirez, C (Highest Level: Low-A)
Going into the 2025 season, one could argue that Ramirez was every bit as elite a catching prospect as Carter Jensen and Blake Mitchell. After Jensen’s sensational season, that comparison has faded a bit today, but that shouldn’t diminish the upside the 20-year-old Venezuelan catcher possesses.
In 70 games and 307 plate appearances with the Fireflies, Ramirez slashed .244/.339/.442 with a .781 OPS. Unlike Mitchell, who struck out in bunches in Low-A and High-A ball over the past two years, Ramirez only struck out 21.7% of the time and posted a BB/K ratio of 0.55. He also showcased excellent pop in the Carolina League with a 13.9% HR/FB rate.
The Blog Roundup is all KOK:
- Caleb Moody: Royals make first bullpen splash by taking chance on former rival closer
- Also, Caleb Moody: Royals surprisingly commit to injury plagued arm ahead of non-tender deadline
- Still, Caleb Moody: 3 non-tender deadline decisions that could define Royals’ entire offseason
- Mike Gillespie: 3 unprotected prospects the Royals are in jeopardy of losing in 2025 Rule 5 Draft
Time to finish off Asian baseball for another year. Last week was KBO and the week before was CPBL. Today we make our way to the NPB of Japan. Also, to have them all in one place, here are the previous articles this year: (CPBL Preview) (KBO Preview) (NPB Preview) (Mid-Season Update).
Let’s start with the teams that didn’t make the playoffs. In the Pacific League, that included the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, Saitama Seibu Lions, and Chiba Lotte Marines. For the Eagles, you have to go back to 2013 to find a time they finished higher than 3rd. The Lions have only made the playoffs once in the last five years. We’ve written quite a bit about the Marines in the playoffs over the past few seasons, but they haven’t won a pennant since 2010 and ace Roki Sasaki joined the Dodgers in the offseason. The playoff misses in the Central include the Chunichi Dragons, Hiroshima Toyo Carp, and our Tokyo Yakult Swallows bringing up the rear. The Dragons haven’t made the playoffs since 2012 and the Carp only once since 2018.
If you recall, our rooting interest has been the Swallows, but I posted this in the preview:
There are 7 former Royals in the league but none on the Swallows. It feels just fine in the KBO for us to root for the hapless Hanwha Eagles. But without a former Royal on the Swallows, it feels odd with them having been in back-to-back Japan Series in 2021 and 2022 and winning it all in ‘21. Munetaka Murakami hasn’t been as good as he was in his MVP season of 2021, but he’s still a force and will be posted to MLB after this season. Maybe we’ll go shopping for a new team next season?
Well, they finished in last place with Murakami only playing in 56 games. And he’s already posted to MLB. If they can finish in last place with a guy who is likely going to make 9 figures, they should be bad enough to continue as our rooting interest going forward. Would it hurt them to sign a former Royal? Speaking of which, if you’re wondering where Cam Devanney ended up after his trade to the Pirates at the deadline? The answer is: the Hanshin Tigers.
Speaking of the Tigers, they were one of 3 elite teams in the league this year. They ran away with the Central League title with 85 wins. The Yokohama DeNA BayStars and Tokyo Yomiuri Giants finished 13 and 15 games back of the Tigers. In the “first stage” of the Central League Climax Series, the BayStars won the first game 6-2. The second game was much more interesting. The Giants scored 5 in the top of the 1st but gave up 5 in the bottom of the 1st, each team getting a 3-run homer. But then the zeroes. The score remained 5-5 through 9 and they went to extra innings. In the 11th, the Giants broke through to take a 6-5 lead. But in the bottom half, the BayStars scored a pair to move onto the next round.
I wanted to say “Hanshin made quick work of DeNA” but that’s not entirely accurate. By virtue of having the better regular season record, the Tigers started with a 1-0 advantage. They won the first game 2-0 and the second game 5-3 in 11 innings. Both were close, dramatic games. Haruto Takahashi and Teruaki Sato took most of the drama out of the third game. Sato hit a 3-run homer in the 1st and Takahashi took a no-hitter in the 8th, leading the Tigers to their 7th Central League pennant.
How about the Central League? Back at midseason, I said “the Pacific League boasts 3 teams that look playoff-ready and 3 teams that are below .500”. That’s what ended up happening. The Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks tracked down the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters to lead the league in wins while the Orix Buffaloes finished “comfortably over .500 and in 3rd”. In the first stage, the Fighters of Ham (yes, I know they don’t actually fight ham – Nippon-Ham is the sponsor) buffaloed the Buffaloes. In Game 1, starting pitcher Hiromi Itoh threw 7 shutout innings, en route to a 2-0 win. In Game 2, Orix held a 4-3 lead in the 8th until former Royal Franmil Reyes hit what would be the game-winning RBI single. Reyes had a phenomenal season, leading the Pacific League in home runs (32), RBI (86), and OPS (.884).
The Fighters fell behind 3-0 in heartbreaking fashion. The Hawks started with a 1-0 lead, got a Hotaka Yamakawa walkoff RBI single in the 11th of Game 1, and an 8th-inning Yuki Yanagita 3-run homer that broke up a scoreless game. However, the Fighters still had, ahem, fight in them. They won the next three games: 6-0, 9-3, and 7-1. Reyes had 4 home runs in the series. Per wiki: “The Fighters were the first team in NPB playoff history to force a winner-take-all game after falling behind 0–3 in the series”. However, series MVP Liván Moinelo was just too much for them. He scattered 3 hits and 1 run across 7 innings and the Hawks won 2-1 to advance to the Japan Series for a league-leading 22nd time. Oh, and there was this nugget:
SoftBank sprayed champagne, wine, cola, and sake on each other to celebrate the win. Traditionally they would have sprayed beer, however, due to a cyberattack to Asahi Group Holdings that caused a beer shortage, they were forced to use alternatives.
For those who don’t remember, the Hanshin Tigers broke the “Curse of the Colonel” back in 2023, winning their first title in 38 years. For a reminder, here’s the April season preview talking about Randy Bass and the curse while this is the December recap after they won. The Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks were the dominant team of the 2010s, winning 7 Japan Series between 2011 and 2020.
Shoki Murakami pitched seven innings and only gave up a first-inning run. The Tigers pushed across two runs in the 6th for the winning margin. But that was their only win. The Hawks ambushed the Tigers with 3 in the 1st and 6 in the 2nd and won Game 2 handily. The aforementioned Yamakawa homered in games 2, 3, and 4 and was named series MVP. The other three games were close: 2-1, 3-2, and 3-2 in 11 innings. But all were won by the Hawks. Teruaki Sato won the Fighting Spirit Award (think: MVP for losing team) and became the first player in Japan Series history to drive in a run in all games. Also, if you think American baseball streaming rights are bad (they are), check out this chart of broadcasters for the Japan Series. The most games any network had the rights for was three games?!?
Last, but not least, here are a couple of articles about potential players joining to the Dodgers MLB from the KBO and NPB.
This one is from Eric Longehage and James Fegan at Fangraphs.
This one is from Jon Paul Morosi at MLB.
Obviously, Munetaka Murakami is featured prominently. But there are a number of other players on their way. Other players to keep an eye on include Kazuma Okamoto (NPB’s Yomiuri Giants), Tatsuya Imai (NPB’s Seibu Lions), and Cody Ponce (KBO’s Hanwha Eagles). Former Royal farmhand Foster Griffin even gets some mentions (NPB’s Yomiuri Giants).
I was randomly thinking about this song today, so you get it now. I previously mentioned “Every Country Has a Monster” from the MST3K reboot. This is the “hit song” from season 2. There’s something delicious about intentionally making a bad song with lyrics like “Dancing like pirates in a Punxsutawney hoedown” and “We built a deck with Alex Trebek”. Here’s “Get in your Mech”:
