Trade deadline on everyone’s mind
Trade talk dominating Royals news.
Anne Rogers talks about it on MLB:
Despite interest in hitters like Vinnie Pasquantino and Maikel Garcia from front offices looking to upgrade their own offenses, it doesn’t seem likely the Royals will deal from their core players — because they still believe in that core for ‘26. Plus, the Royals can’t really spare any offense unless the return far outweighs what they’re giving up.
The Royals’ strength, though, is pitching, and teams are always looking for pitching at the Deadline. Right-hander Seth Lugo will be the most-watched Royal as the Deadline nears. He has a 2.95 ERA in 19 starts and has proven himself to be one of the best starters in baseball over the last two-plus seasons, including last year’s runner-up finish in AL Cy Young voting.
Lugo, 35, will likely turn down his $15 million player option for 2026 to become a free agent. That means teams would likely view him as a rental player, but even rental starters could net a solid package from contending teams eager to add to their rotation for a playoff run.
Patrick Mooney and Will Sammon also wrote about it at The Athletic ($):
Amid all this uncertainty, Kansas City Royals pitcher Seth Lugo did his job in Wednesday’s 8-4 win over the Cubs, beating a team that already had him on their radar as an intriguing trade candidate. On a 92-degree afternoon, Lugo contained an explosive offense for six innings (two runs) as the Royals earned a much-needed series victory.
With a 50-53 record, Kansas City is one of several bubble teams that are still on the buy-or-sell fence but also within striking distance of a playoff spot.
“This is our team, and I’m part of it,” said Lugo, whose contract contains a player option worth $15 million for next season. “I want to be here, through thick and thin. It’s a good clubhouse. It’s a good team. We just got to be more consistent, and keep playing like we can, and we’ll be all right.”
Pete Grathoff also writes about it at The Star:
“We’ve said all along, sustainability is what our goal is,” Picollo said in the visitors’ dugout at Wrigley Field. “We had a nice year last year, making the playoffs.
“We want to compete and get in the playoffs this year, but we also want to have a competitive team. So I think this team’s very capable of staying in this race, and we’re playing a lot of the opponents that are right there with us…”
“These games are all meaningful,” he said. “And I think when you look at the core of our team, pitchers that are going to be back, position players that are back, we have a pretty good core. So how can we add to that core and make ourselves more competitive? You know, whether it’s ‘25 or ‘26.
Grathoff also talked about the MJ Melendez call-up:
“I went through some low lows, and had some sleepless nights for sure,” Melendez said. “Stayed up, just pondering baseball, obviously, my swing, trying to find something that I thought would work. Having baseball bats in my room, trying to fix my swing really early in the morning.”
Melendez hit 41 home runs in 2021, most across the minor leagues. He believed he was capable of being that player once again.
But how? For starters, Melendez ditched the changes he’d made during the offseason. In the wee hours of the morning, following the Storm Chasers’ games, he’d watch videos of his past successes at the plate, then take swings while looking in the mirror.
And he noted a little bit of Salvy history:
Perez has 301 hits in his career against National League opponents and is the sixth player in American League history to reach that milestone in interleague play.
The others are all baseball legends: Derek Jeter (364), Jose Altuve (337), Miguel Cabrera (333), Alex Rodriguez (325) and Ichiro Suzuki (322).
Barring a Zack Greinke comeback (c’mon, he just needed 21 Ks to get to 3000), the last member of the 2010 Royals retired yesterday. If you guessed Jesse Chavez (I did not), you were right! He was also on the 2011 Royals, but that was Salvy’s rookie year.
Blogs?
At Into the Fountains, Craig Brown wrote about Wednesday’s game:
Home Run #2
Salvador Perez
95.1 MPH, 384 feet
This one is kind of funny when you look at the Statcast metrics behind it. Salvador Perez’s home run had an expected batting average of just .080. But! It was going to be a home run in 26 of 30 yards. No, I don’t know how all that adds up.
Same with David Lesky at Inside the Crown ($):
To go back to the point of [Pasquantino’s] approach being different because of the runner on third, I don’t think he swings at that pitch if it’s not the exact situation. He was pretty clearly trying to lift the ball to the outfield to drive the run home. He does like that pitch there, but he came into the game having swung at just 130 of 423 first pitches. And to further the point, he had swung at just 53 of 202 first pitches with nobody on. And to even further the point, he had swung at just 19 of 72 first pitches with nobody on and two outs. Okay, the last one was about the same as the one before that, percentage-wise, but I just wanted to keep it going.
Kevin O’Brien, the Royals Reporter, argues “The Royals Should Let MJ Melendez Prove Himself For Remainder of 2025”:
Royals fans can see that Melendez hit a slump from roughly his 170th PA to his 220th. However, he ended up adjusting and finished with a wOBA that crossed league average around his 250th plate appearance and only went up from there. That’s a sign of Melendez maturing as a hitter, even if it is only Triple-A. It also demonstrates that he can bounce back from cold stretches in the Majors.
If the Royals see a turnaround with Melendez, they can either give him a modest extension after this year (something in the $1-2 million per year range). They could also trade him to a team that is desperate for left-handed power.
If he absolutely tanks, they can non-tender him, which means his roster spot becomes open. The Royals can add a prospect they need to protect this offseason, like Carter Jensen, who’s raking in Triple-A Omaha right now, as demonstrated by his rolling wOBA chart.
Blog Roundup:
- Royals Data Dugout ($): Royal Scrolls: Charging Toward Cooperstown
- Darin Watson at U.L.’s Toothpick: This Date In Royals History—1985 Edition: July 24 – Two home runs from Frank White lift the Royals to a win over the Yankees, completing a sweep of New York
- Patrick Glancy at Powder Blue Nostalgia: 1998 – Did anything happen that summer?
- Jacob Milham at KOK: Royals breakout starter named MLB.com’s darkhorse for AL Rookie of the Year (hint: it’s Cameron)
- Caleb Moody at KOK: 1 recent roster casualty the Royals should pursue, 1 they should avoid at all costs
I know I promised back in March to limit myself to only two Asian baseball check-ins this year. But as the season has progressed, I realized that if I waited until the end of the season, we’d miss too many interesting stories. That said, rather than doing a full check-in for each league, I’m going to split the difference and do a single midseason check of all three leagues. We good?
CPBL (season preview)
- In the first half, familiar teams ended atop the standings as the Uni-Lions were 2 games clear of the Brothers and clinch a playoff spot. Our Monkeys finished 3rd, tied with the Hawks and 1 game ahead of the Dragons. The Guardians were in the cellar, well behind everyone else.
- In former Royal news, we mentioned how Daniel Mengden and his magnificent mustache was out of the CPBL as he allegedly failed a marijuana test. He landed with Tecolotes de los Dos Laredos of the Mexican League, a team we covered last year! The league was not Royal-less for long as, former farmhand Nolan Watson has signed with the CTBC Brothers. However, he does not appear to have pitched for them yet.
- The All-Star Game drew 80K fans. However, the biggest story may have been former Detroit Tiger and current Hawks slugger Steven Moya. He is leading the league in HR with 20, but his wife tragically died earlier this month. He spoke to fans about it this week.
KBO (season preview)
- Um… what? Our rooting interest in the league has been the Hanwha Eagles, the perennial cellar dweller. In our 5 seasons following the league, they have finished 10th, 10th, 10th, 9th, and 8th. Today, I pop open the trusty MyKBOStats standings page to see our beloved Eagles in… 1st?!? And not just barely. They’re 4 games clear of everyone else in the league, the only team with a winning percentage over .600.
- Let’s see what’s going on here. Hanwha is middle of the pack in runs scored, but leading the league in runs allowed. Former Pittsburgh Pirate Cody Ponce is 12-0 with a 1.85 ERA and 169 K (!) in 121.2 IP. Their second best starter? Former Royals farmhand Ryan Weiss, who si 10-3 with a 3.40 and 131 K in 111.1 IP! Veteran Hyun-jin Ryu, who pitched 10 years in MLB, is also on the staff and will be facing another veteran KBO legend, Kim Kwang-hyun, this weekend.
- In more tragic news, Opening weekend was delayed back in March when a fan was killed and several others were injured when part of the stadium structure at Changwon NC Park collapsed. The NC Dinos are now threatening to move.
- Finally, some other news bits. The KBO is on pace to shatter its attendance record. All-Star Game jerseys are awful all around the world. Earlier this month, Mel Rojas Jr. took over the foreign player HR crown for the KBO with his 175th HR in his 731st KBO game.
NPB (season preview)
- The Hanshin Tigers are running away with the Central League. They have a 9.5 game lead on their closest competitors, last year’s Japan Series winner, Yokohama DeNA BayStars. However, the Yomiuri Giants, Hiroshima Toyo Carp, and Chunichi Dragons are all in the hunt with 4 teams for the remaining 2 playoff spots. The Tokyo Yakult Swallows are in last as former MVP Munetaka Murakami has been injured and only played in 1 game all season. He is still expecting to post to MLB this offseason.
- We’re still a long way from the end of the season, but the Pacific League boasts 3 teams that look playoff-ready and 3 teams that are below .500. The Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters lead the league but the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks are just 2 games behind them. Former Royal Franmil Reyes leads the PL with 20 HR. The Orix Buffaloes are comfortably over .500 and in 3rd.
- Some news about NPB greats. Ichiro is, of course, going into the Hall of Fame this weekend. Of course, that’s making headlines in Japan as well as over here. As is Shohei Ohtani’s continuing greatness. But Japan and the world lost a baseball legend last month. Shigeo Nagashima, “nicknamed ‘Mr. Pro Baseball’ of Japan and ‘Mr. Giants’”, passed away at age 89. His former teammate, Sahaharu Oh, is still alive at 85.
After last week, we’ve now covered the big three Square RPGs released in the USA. But what about the missing Final Fantasy? Unfortunately, I don’t have much to write about Final Fantasy V as it never made it to the United States during the 16-bit era:
The official English translation of Final Fantasy V began shortly after the release of the Japanese version. The game was to be titled “Final Fantasy III” in North America, but the project was abandoned. Square then announced that due to its differing tone and much higher difficulty from the rest of the series, they would be releasing it in North America as a standalone game with a yet-to-be-determined title, rather than part of the Final Fantasy series. This plan was quickly aborted. Translator Ted Woolsey explained in a 1994 interview, “[Final Fantasy V is] just not accessible enough to the average gamer”.Rumors circulated that a second attempt at localization would be made and that the game would be titled Final Fantasy Extreme, but this attempt was also canceled. A third attempt was made to port the game to Windows-based personal computers for North American release by developer Top Dog Software, but this was canceled. Another attempt to port the game to Windows for North America was “handled by Eidos Interactive” circa 1998, but it is unclear whether this is the same version Top Dog Software was working on or an actual fourth attempt. The continual canceling of the localization angered fans and led to Final Fantasy V becoming one of the first games to receive a complete fan translation.
I first played it on an emulator around 20 years ago. However, I never beat the game, as emulators are imperfect, and I got stuck on a level with a layer of fog that the emulator couldn’t handle, which prevented me from progressing through the dungeon. I did eventually beat it on one of the remakes but that was many years later.
One of the more notable songs for the game is The Death Battle in the Big Bridge:
(In theory, this is the version used in the Pixel Remaster – it’s even better with some guitars thrown in. Of course, they didn’t have the SNES hardware limitations so it should sound better.)