THREAD: So I've been doing a deep dive on the Royals and their surprising success, and I think I may have hit upon something that sparked their turnaround, a catalyst that has until now been overlooked. 1/ The insight I had was that their turnaround did *not*, in fact, start this season.

For nearly 4 months last year, the Royals were on pace to be one of the worst teams in major league history. They began the 2023 season 29-75, which projects to 117 losses. 2/

I try to make an honest, good faith effort to understand opposing points of view. I don't always succeed, but I try. Which is why I find it so galling when fuckwads operate in utterly bad faith like this. 1/

https://twitter.com/TheHamilton33/status/1732957448774787278

It is obvious to anyone not operating in bad faith that Alareer was not mocking a baby being burnt alive, he was mocking the *claim* that a baby was burnt alive. Because this is one of many allegations that Hamas committed truly barbaric-but completely unsubstantiated-crimes. 2/

Taylor has a 79 wRC+, both this year and for his career...but he's also a +20 DRS defender in CF this season. If he's even a +10 defender in each of the next two years, he'll earn his contract. $4.5 million a year just isn't that much money.

https://twitter.com/alec_lewis/status/1443305729092431872

The key point: the money the Royals are giving Michael A. Taylor is actually *less* of a resource than the playing time. He's actually *more* likely to earn his money as a guy who starts 90 games and comes off the bench the rest of the time than as a guy who starts every day.

I was fully expecting "Foundation" to be a disappointment. The trailers were too dark and dreary, the reviews have been lackluster. I sat down to watch the first 2 episodes with no expectations.

But so far-I almost can't believe I'm saying this-it's good. Maybe even really good. The Foundation book plots are vast and intricate, and yet relatively action-free, which is why it was considered unfilmable for decades. They needed a LOT of revisions and additions to bring it to the screen, without ruining the core ideas. It required an incredibly deft hand.

Since returning from Tommy John surgery last year, Salvador Perez has played exactly 162 games, and here's what he's done:

.287/.319/.550, 31 2B, 45 HR, 114 RBIs
Just 11 GIDPs (had hit into 12+ GIDPs every year from 2012-18)
Thrown out 16 of 43 steal attempts (37%)
6.0 bWAR Salvy has played in 140 of the Royals' last 141 games, missing one game with flu-like symptoms out of an abundance of caution. 13 months ago, I would have said his Hall of Fame chances were remote at best - he was 30 years old, hadn't played in two years, had just 22.2 bWAR. Now?

Bobby Witt Jr. went 3-for-5 with 2 doubles and a HR tonight. He's hitting .297/.364/.591 with 27 HR and 21 SB in just 93 games in his first full pro season, as a plus defensive SS who is barely 21, and it's time we ask: is he, right now, the best Royals prospect ever? Eric Hosmer hit .338/.406/.571 at age 20, but he was one level lower than Witt (A/AA vs. AA/AAA), and as a 1B the offensive expectation was much higher. (Although when he was called up the following May-after hitting .439 in 26 games in AAA-he might have briefly eclipsed Witt.)

A little thread for you looking back at the Royals first half:

After starting the year 16-9, the Royals have gone 20-44. I don't think we fully appreciate how remarkable that is.

The Cardinals haven't had a stretch of 20-44 or worse since *1919*. The Yankees haven't since 1913. Even if we just look within the AL Central:

The White Sox have had one season with a 20-44 stretch (2013) in the last 25 years. The Indians have one (2012). The Twins have two (2011, 2016).

The Royals have one in 2021...and had one in 2019...and had one in 2018.

It's exactly 10 days until Patrick Mahomes Season begins! In his honor, each day I will tweet out an incredible statistic from his career to date. Here we go: 10. Patrick Mahomes has completed more than half of his passes in every one of his 36 career games (regular season and playoffs). This is *already* the longest streak of >50% completion rate to start a career in NFL history.

On Hall of Fame Day, congratulations to Jim Thome, my favorite non-Royal of all time. We’ve been intertwined in strange ways for over a quarter-century now. He debuted in the majors literally the week I began college, when my baseball fandom went supernova. 1/ I drafted him on my first keeper fantasy team the following spring, and rooted for him ever after.

A decade before Sabermetrics took over and made the Three True Outcomes cool, Thome was its prophet. He holds the all-time career record for most combined HR, BB, & K (4907). 2/

Thank you, Moose.

mlb.com/video/mooses-t… Thank you, Moose.