Royals Links: Prospect Rankings, Lineup Questions, Career Milestones, & More

Mandatory Credit: Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports

The big news stories around baseball yesterday were Jeremy Guthrie restructuring his deal, the Orioles signing Delmon Young to a minor league contract, and the Cubs unveiling a creepy, pantless mascot named Clark. Needless to say, spring training cannot get here soon enough. Here are some Royals-related stories from the past several days:

– KC Kingdom’s Aaron Reese discussed the influx of strikeout pitchers who could be a part of the Royals rotation this season. In years past, Royals starters have not had the ability to miss many bats, but with Danny Duffy, Yordano Ventura, and Kyle Zimmer, that trend may be changing.

– MLBPipeline.com released their shortstop prospect rankings, and they have the Royals’ Raul Mondesi as the 7th best shortstop in the minor leagues. If you’ll look at all of the players in that list, you’ll notice that there is an insane amount of talent at the shortstop position. It should be really fun to start seeing some of those guys debut in the next few years.

– Speaking of Mondesi, Josh Duggan at Royals Review broke down his season at Low A Lexington, and compared his numbers to other players in recent history who were young for their level. It’s very interesting research, and should leave you with a pretty optimistic outlook for the 18 year old.

– David Lesky of Pine Tar Press went over some statistical milestones several Royals will be approaching in 2014. Obviously Billy Butler and Alex Gordon have the most opportunities, but other players could still make some movement in their career numbers.

– At Royals Review, poster JeremyTinker did some research on what the optimal lineup for the 2014 Royals might be, and the results were quite surprising, at least partially. I’ve mentioned that I think Omar Infante shouldn’t be hitting ahead of better hitters, but the simulations used for the post show the Royals could be best served by using a couple of unconventional lineups.

– Jeff Sullivan wrote an article on a fun thought experiment: How could you perform if you never swung the bat? Yes, you. He used data from the last 6 years to come up with a hypothetical batting line for a random, slightly-more-athletic-looking-than-Bartolo Colon person, if he or she never swung the bat. I really enjoyed reading it, and it shows that without real baseball news to report on, coming up with weird and unrealistic questions to answer can help to pass the time until the snow melts.