Triple Play Podcast: Royals’ Roster, Javier Baez, Cole Hamels

On this week’s episode of the Triple Play Podcast, Matt was out of town, so Reese and I had to drive the bus. We start things off talking about the debut of Cubs’ prospect Javier Baez, who may have the best bat speed in the majors right now. The Cubs also claimed Cole Hamels on waivers, even though they weren’t able to agree to a trade with the Phillies. Don’t be surprised if negotiations for Hamels open back up in the offseason, though. We kept the Cubs discussion going by talking about their acquisition of Jacob Turner from the Marlins, which seems to fit their M.O. lately.

From there, we take a look back at the careers of Bobby Abreu, who was designated for assignment by the Mets, and Josh Beckett, who is out for the rest of the season due to injury.

More from KC Royals News

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• Grading the 2022 KC Royals: The $25 million man
• KC Royals Winter Meetings Tracker: Expectations met
• KC Royals Winter Meetings Tracker: Day 3 update

We then kicked off our Royals segment by covering the awesomeness that was Sung Woo Lee’s trip to Kansas City. Words can’t describe how proud I am of everyone involved with this past week, and the fact that the Royals were so dominant during his stay just made the story even better.

Then we broke down the week for the Royals on the field, where they have been very impressive. Billy Butler has been hitting very well lately, so of course we had to mention that, and how much of an impact his bat is having on the rest of the team. But it wouldn’t be a Triple Play Podcast without a little criticizing, so we talked about the perplexing roster construction the team was using, with 8 relievers and 3 bench players. Obviously Dayton Moore was listening to us record, because just a couple of days later, he traded for Josh Willingham. It was a smart move.

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Feel free to listen to the podcast with the player above, or at this link. To get in contact with the show, send us an email at KCTriplePlay@gmail.com. You can also follow us on Twitter here:

Aaron Reese
Matt Vernon
Hunter Samuels

Thanks for listening!