{"id":621647,"date":"2026-03-13T12:19:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T12:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/621647\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T12:19:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T12:19:14","slug":"kansas-city-royals-news-the-latest-in-vinnie-and-bobbys-bromance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/621647\/","title":{"rendered":"Kansas City Royals news: The latest in Vinnie and Bobby\u2019s bromance"},"content":{"rendered":"

At The Star, Jaylon Thompson writes that we shouldn\u2019t sleep on<\/a> Nick Mears, the other player acquired in the Angel Zerpa trade:<\/p>\n

Mears has great analytical numbers. Per Statcast, he recorded a 33.5% chase rate \u2014 ranking in the 93rd percentile among qualified major-league pitchers. He also demonstrated good command, with just 2.1 walks allowed per nine innings.<\/p>\n

Mears is effective with his fastball and slider. The heater averaged 95.4 mph while the slider\u2014 which registered a 38.4% whiff rate last year \u2014 is his put-away pitch.<\/p>\n

Pete Grathoff collected some Sopranos memes<\/a> concerning Vinnie\u2019s three-homer game at the WBC.<\/p>\n

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Need more Vinnie (and Bobby) goofiness? Dino nuggets? Mac-n-cheese? Vinnie wearing the apron for cooking that? Shut the box?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the whole video<\/a>. About 6 minutes in is the clip they released a couple of weeks ago where Vinnie tries to guess the type of pitch. He\u2019s wrong almost every time. For being a student of hitting and a really enjoyable one to listen to, he\u2019s awful at guessing them.<\/p>\n

Dillon Seckington at Fox 4 KC tracks how well the Royals are doing<\/a> at the WBC.<\/p>\n

AT MLB.com, Brian Murphy and Thomas Harrigan make a (dubious) list of their Top 10 WBC moments (so far)<\/a>. Somehow an Aaron Judge groundout is on the list, but nothing from the Netherlands v Nicaragua list is on it. If you didn\u2019t see it, NIC led NED 3-1 with 2 outs in the 9th when Ozzie Albies hit the first walkoff homer in WBC history.<\/p>\n

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We don\u2019t have a lot of feature stories. Aside from the reliable Jaylon Thompson, you can probably tell I was reaching a bit. How about some listicles?<\/p>\n

Matt Synder at CBS Sports lists two Royals in his ace tiers<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Looking to return to ace form \u2013 Cole Ragans, Royals \u2013 After a 3.14 ERA and 223 strikeouts in 186 \u2153 innings in 2024, I threw Ragans all the way up to the top tier. He was ravaged by injury and poor fortune last season. He also struck out 98 in just 61 \u2154 innings.<\/p>\n

Possibly an ace, possibly not \u2013 Kris Bubic, Royals \u2013 He looked every bit an ace last season with a 2.55 ERA and essentially a strikeout per inning. A shoulder injury ended his season in July, though. He only made 20 starts.<\/p>\n

At MLB.com, Bradford Doolittle looks at what teams has busy winters and which had more boring ones and what it says about the team<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Tier 2: Middle of the pack teams \u2013<\/p>\n

Passive offseason with no major splashes<\/p>\n

Description: We believe in our squad, based either on a longer-term track record or the progress of a young group that\u2019s maturing. Despite a so-so season, we\u2019re riding with these guys.<\/p>\n

2026 teams: Arizona Diamondbacks, Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Guardians, Cincinnati Reds, Houston Astros, Kansas City Royals<\/p>\n

What it means: The most successful teams from this group have been clubs that have knocked on the door for several seasons before breaking through. This includes the 1979 Pirates, 1980 Phillies, 1985 Royals and, to a lesser extent, the 2010 Giants\u2026<\/p>\n

At Fangraphs, Michael Baumann looks at \u201cWhen Chases and Whiffs Don\u2019t Lead to Outs<\/a>\u201d and a 2025 Royal made the list:<\/p>\n

What was wrong with Ragans might be even more simple; he tweaked his groin early in 2025, then strained his rotator cuff in his first start after coming back from the first injury. That shoulder issue kept him out until mid-September, leaving the Royals\u2019 presumptive no. 1 starter with a highly disjointed and injury-plagued record. Assuming his shoulder and groin remain in working order, he should be just fine in 2026.<\/p>\n

Blog time!<\/p>\n

At Inside the Crown ($), David Lesky mailbags<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Do you have any concerns about the outfield given the lackluster performances of Lane Thomas and Isaac Collins this Spring? -Hokius<\/p>\n

\u2026But, honestly, to have watched a team have the worst outfield offense in baseball last year and then not bring in someone who was more of a sure thing had me concerned the whole time. The reality is what I wrote a few weeks ago. The outfield being anything more than fine depends on Jac Caglianone a whole lot more than it depends on any of their acquisitions. It\u2019s both a scary spot to be because relying on young players is risky and relying on a guy who looked so bad last year is scary, but also an exciting spot because of the upside Caglianone has. So yes, I\u2019d say concerns is the right word. I\u2019m not exactly worried, but I have concerns.<\/p>\n

Hokius, you say? Most of the questions are about the outfield. Then again, that could be the title of any Royals offensive preview this year: \u201cMost of the questions are about the outfield\u201d.<\/p>\n

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This was from a couple of days ago, but I didn\u2019t see a link to it. Craig Brown looks at a potential rotation battle<\/a>:<\/p>\n

With Noah Cameron\u2019s struggles this spring (7.2 IP, 10 H, 5 ER, 3 BB, 5 SO), there\u2019s an opportunity for Bergert to push his way into a conversation for the fifth starter role. There\u2019s obviously still some work to do on his part and if Cameron gets right over his next couple of outings it\u2019s a moot competition anyway, but there\u2019s a scenario that\u2019s not so far-fetched where a battle for that final rotation start gets hot.<\/p>\n

Royals Data Dugout with a new hitting model: Lumber+<\/a><\/p>\n

Lumber+ is my new Statcast-based hitter skill model that\u2019s free to use \u2014 just click the image above. Designed to measure talent rather than production, it\u2019s scaled so 100 = league average and each standard deviation roughly = 5.<\/p>\n

\u2026The big question you might (or should) ask \u2014 does it work and does it mean anything?<\/p>\n

The answer: Yes, or at least I believe so. In backtesting 2023 and 2024 data, Lumber+ proved to be quite predictive of next-season success, using wRC+ as the end target.<\/p>\n

At Royals Keep, Kevin O\u2019Brien looks at Pasquantino\u2019s big night at the WBC<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Pasquantino has traditionally been known to be a slow starter at the plate. Last season, he hit .177 with a 49 wRC+ in 124 plate appearances in March\/April, according to Fangraphs splits. That said, he was fine for the remainder of the year, as evidenced by his 116 wRC+ in 2025. It was the same story in 2024 to a degree. His 96 wRC+ in March\/April was the worst monthly wRC+ of the 2024 season (his overall wRC+ was 109).<\/p>\n

Perhaps the World Baseball Classic has allowed Pasquantino to knock off the rust earlier in the spring (he has more at-bats to go in the knockout round, as they play Puerto Rico in the first round). Hopefully, with this experience and historic surge at the plate, he will be more ready to produce in the first month of play for the Royals, which would be atypical of his career norms.<\/p>\n

Blog Roundup:<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, I\u2019m punting on OT this week. I looked at the calendar and realized I\u2019m just going to be watching basketball for 12 hours next Thursday. My current OT was still only about half done and there\u2019s going to be little time to work on a new one next week so it\u2019s just getting delayed. Here\u2019s our potential schedule for the next few weeks:<\/p>\n

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2026.03.27 Opening Day Recap around MLB<\/p>\n

2026.04.03 Asian Baseball I: CPBL<\/p>\n

2026.04.10 Asian Baseball I: KBO<\/p>\n

2026.04.17 Asian Baseball I: NPB<\/p>\n

2026.04.24 (working on a couple of ideas \u2013 I\u2019ve been wanting to do an art-themed one for a while, but it\u2019s nowhere near finished)<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s revisit Star Fox as we haven\u2019t in a while. We listed all previous levels used<\/a> back in 2024.<\/p>\n

How about Sector X?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At The Star, Jaylon Thompson writes that we shouldn\u2019t sleep on Nick Mears, the other player acquired in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[106,28235,22,46,5,20547,1351,50,51,230,54,4362,231,936,2123,55,2596,2595,309,3540,4,4363,1357,1132,252,69,2126],"class_list":["post-621647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kansas-city-royals","tag-aaron-judge","tag-angel-zerpa","tag-arizona-diamondbacks","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-baseball","tag-bergert","tag-bobby-witt-jr","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-cole-ragans","tag-houston-astros","tag-isaac-collins","tag-jac-caglianone","tag-kansas","tag-kansas-city","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-kansascity","tag-kansascityroyals","tag-kris-bubic","tag-lane-thomas","tag-mlb","tag-nick-mears","tag-noah-cameron","tag-ozzie-albies","tag-royals","tag-texas-rangers","tag-vinnie-pasquantino"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116221834975574418","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}