Mellinger Minutes: Mondesi’s future, KC Chiefs training camp teases, Big 12’s options
We are 1,150 days since the last time Whit Merrifield sat out a Royals game. The next day he had two hits.
He is working on 424 consecutive games now, a remarkable achievement, not just a Royals record but the longest in baseball since Hunter Pence’s 468 consecutive games played streak ended more than six years ago. This time next year, he could have the longest in baseball since Miguel Tejada’s ended at 1,152 games in 2007.
Playing even one major league baseball game is a minor miracle, but playing hundreds consecutively is a minor miracle boosted by a combination of next level toughness, preparation, discipline, and at least a little luck.
The deserved celebration of Merrifield’s reliability is hard not to juxtapose with Adalberto Mondesi, who once beat out Merrifield for the opening day job at second base in 2017.
Mondesi’s rehab assignment at Class AAA Omaha was interrupted over the weekend with oblique tightness, another in a line of brutal setbacks for the Royals’ most physically gifted player. Mondesi has played just 171 of the Royals’ 339 games the last three seasons, including just 10 in 2021.
His 2021 season is essentially ruined, a year the club was hopeful could be a breakout instead turned into one in which is future is uncertain.
The questions are endless. Is there something in his preparation or training or diet that could help? Would a change in position keep him healthy? Is he worn down mentally and emotionally? Is this all a waste of time?
I don’t know the answers. I know that he had an .804 OPS and 2.2 bWAR in 75 games in 2017, stole 43 bases and led baseball with 10 triples in 102 games in 2018, and could have been the best player in baseball the last month of 2020.*
* When he missed just one of 60 games.
That’s too much talent to give up on, and too much uncertainty to count on.
My guess is that the most productive way forward is something club officials have hinted at for months, which is to subtly transition Mondesi’s place in the organization away from cornerstone and closer to that friend who doesn’t return a lot of texts but when he shows up he’s the funniest guy at the party.
This is a different future than the one the Royals envisioned even a year ago, but the good news is they are relatively well positioned to absorb the setback. Nicky Lopez has started 96 games at shortstop, and been the Royals’ best player after Salvador Perez. After a rough first month or so, his defense has gone back and forth between solid and excellent.
Bobby Witt Jr. will be in Kansas City soon. Royals general manager Dayton Moore has said Witt Jr. has been the best player in the minor leagues. Most of his starts have been at shortstop, where scouts believe he can be an above-average major-league defender.
The farm system is full of hitters who’ve made significant strides the last year or two, which eases the pressure on any particular player to carry the load.
So the calculus has changed. Mondesi’s development is not make or break for organization. The judgments have changed, too. It’s no longer a question whether he can be a star. The question is whether he can be healthy.
There are Royals fans who are just tired of the whole thing, and want to move on. That’s understandable, and we’ll talk below about whether the Royals should move away from Mondesi as SS1.
For now, it’s just sad. He’s so good when he’s healthy. But as long as he’s not healthy it doesn’t matter how good he can be.
This week’s eating recommendation is the ice cream cookie at Tavern, and the reading recommendation is Zach Buchanan on the almost literally unbelievable story of former electrician Tyler Gilbert throwing a no-hitter in his first big league start.
Thanks to everyone who’s listened to our Mellinger Minutes For Your Ears podcast, and here is a big warm invitation to start if you haven’t already. We’re out from behind the paywall and free on Apple or Spotify or Stitcher or wherever you get your shows.
If you’re already with us, many thanks! And if you haven’t already, please consider rating and reviewing us. It helps us get the word out.
Reminder: If you’d like to participate in the show — and I’d love for you to do that — please call 816-234-4365 and leave your first name, where you’re calling from, and almost literally any question.
Please give me a follow on Twitter and Facebook and, as always, thanks for your help and thanks for reading.
Let’s just watch that snap again:
Edwards-Helaire is 8 yards beyond the line of scrimmage before he’s touched. See how deep Lucas Niang gets there?
And, while we’re here, would you be interested in a third and 2 converted in a boring way?
See Orlando Brown getting to the second and third level? See Thuney and Humphrey moving grown men? This simply did not happen last year, and the Chiefs knew it, which is why they ran all those gimmicks.
We can and should talk a lot about how the new offensive line will protect the NFL’s most important asset. Pass protection is at a premium in the modern NFL, and it is at a particular premium with a team coached by Andy Reid and quarterbacked by Patrick Mahomes.
And, yes, that part of it should be better this year, assuming the communication and cohesion part of this comes along.
But ever since the Chiefs fired Kareem Hunt for lying, Mahomes and the passing game have been climbing uphill. Granted, they’ve been climbing very fast, but still. Opposing defenses are mostly refusing to play the Chiefs honestly.
And why should they? It makes no sense to have an extra linebacker on the field when the Chiefs don’t present a credible threat to run. This chart here is a bit nerdy, but the gist is that it is a measurement of how well quarterbacks perform based on how defenses present themselves.
As you can see, Mahomes is on a whole different level compared to his peers based on snaps with the same number of defenders in the box. If the Chiefs can present an effective enough run game to drag even one more defender into the box we could see Mahomes break the league.
I don’t know if that will happen. The offensive line has promise and talent and youth and strength. But if you stacked together what the group has proven so far and compared it to what the group still has to prove, well, it would not be a fair fight.
Eric Fisher and Mitchell Schwartz will be missed, and should be remembered fondly. But left to right, position by position, this has the chance to be the best offensive line Mahomes has played behind.
We will continue to discuss that primarily in terms of pass protection.
But if they can prove to be consistently effective in the run game, well, that won’t be a fair fight, either.
Look, every year in every training camp we can find examples of too much being made out of depth charts or positional groupings or preseason playing time.
So we should keep that in mind, but I would admit some surprise here with Thornhill. He clearly struggled at times last season after the ACL tear late in 2019, but the AFC Championship Game looked like a point of demarcation — he played 75 percent of the snaps, most of them terrifically.
He looked fast, quick, and perhaps most notably: decisive.
My assumption was that a man could not do that without two fully healthy knees, but the way Thornhill explains it, the progress was more about learning to play through the injury than being able to play free from injury.
I’m sure that’s an oversimplification, but either way, it does seem weird to still be talking about a knee injury from 2019. But he had a snap or two from last Saturday that looked awkward.
I don’t think this is about a doghouse. Thornhill is a good player, and a good teammate. If he’s at full strength, the Chiefs have one of the best safety tandems in the league.
But that’s clearly not the case right now, for whatever reason. We’ve already given the disclaimers about making too much out of training camp depth chart and snap distribution, but it was strange seeing Thornhill on the sideline while Tyrann Mathieu, Daniel Sorensen and Armani Watts were on the field for three-safety looks.
I don’t know how this will work out. But I do know the best version of the Chiefs defense includes Thornhill at full strength.
There’s nothing to agree or disagree with. Holding calls were down. And down by a lot.
The league wants it this way. That’s why holding calls are down, and that’s why holding calls will continue to be down, at least until the pendulum goes too far and offensive linemen are out here giving edge rushers the DDT.
This is the NFL manipulating the game to make for a more popular product. Nobody wants to the see the referees, and casual fans do not like exciting plays called back on penalties. There’s also the idea that as officials allow linemen to get away with more, quarterbacks are better protected and the chances of exciting plays downfield increase.
As an added bonus, the games are a little quicker and the public NFL discussion is less about officials.
This is the NFL’s version of juicing the ball.
Your guess is as good as mine about how far this goes before we see the NFL’s version of banning sticky stuff.
It’s important to note here that the requirement is coming from the mayor, not the Saints. As it stands right now, fans need proof of vaccination or a negative PCR test within 72 hours to watch the Saints or Tulane. The requirement also applies to indoor spots like restaurants and bars.
That’s an important distinction because it’s hard for me to imagine the Chiefs volunteering to make it harder for fans to get in, but it’s less hard to imagine case numbers getting to the point where the CDC makes a decision.
I’m not going to pretend to know what would have to happen to get there and, to be honest, I’m thoroughly uninterested in the back-and-forth that would come if I did.
I’m just so tired of all of this. Please get vaccinated if you haven’t. If you have questions, call your doctor. Study the numbers, and know that vaccines have never been 100 percent effective. But the only way out of this is for us to stop with the posturing and follow the facts.
I don’t want to have to show a vaccination card to eat nachos. I don’t want that for you, either.
I haven’t asked this question specifically, and the truth is there is no decision to make at the moment, but yeah. I would expect Witt Jr. to make his debut playing shortstop.
A few weeks ago, Dayton Moore said publicly what club officials have felt for months — that the Royals can’t count on Mondesi to be the everyday shortstop.
I haven’t seen enough of Witt Jr. at shortstop to have an opinion you should respect, but those who have generally believe he’ll be an above average shortstop — but something less than Mondesi’s defense.
Honestly, I’ve now typed and deleted the next paragraph of this answer three times. Each one said something different, which means I should probably stop right here because there are too many hypotheticals to say anything else.
The short version is this: if the Royals’ future includes Witt Jr. and Mondesi healthy at the same time, that’s one of them good problems, because they’re both terrific athletes who can play other positions.
The Royals would LOVE to someday be deciding between Witt Jr. and Mondesi as their big-league shortstop. If they get to that point, they cannot screw up the decision.
Kyle Davies is the GOAT for me on September baseball. That will be a tough bar to clear.
This might be recency bias, but in 2019 I was pretty sure Darwin Thompson was going to rush for 1,000 yards.
He had a strong camp, and this jump cut that he used against both teammates and opponents that I thought was going to be a little like the Great Value version of Barry Sanders.
As it turns out, Thompson is also very small, and has not shown he can pass protect. And if you can’t protect the quarterback you are unqualified for any job with the Chiefs, from club president to toilet cleaner.
The best example the opposite way might actually be that quarterback. And maybe I’m exaggerating it in my mind, but I remember him throwing some interceptions during training camp before the 2018 season and people losing their everlasting brains.
The SEO headline on an ESPN story from that summer reads “Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes plagued by mistakes.”
These things are strange. There’s this tendency sometimes to set up straw men, just to knock them down, so I don’t want to say that people were rioting in the streets about what a mistake it was to draft Mahomes.
But there were some of us talking about this in real time, that those interceptions should not have been a major point of concern.
But, anyway, this is all just bringing me back to this: it was always possible that Mahomes was going to be every bit as good as he’s proven to be, but I don’t think anyone expected him to be the best player in the sport from literally his first game as QB1.
It is incredible to the point that it is almost literally unbelievable.
You can’t swing a dead cat in Wrigleyville without hitting a bar with a cool outdoor space.
I love Chicago, and love all kinds of different Chicago — beach Chicago, river Chicago, food Chicago, downtown Chicago, real Chicago, tourist Chicago, the whole bit.
But it sounds like you haven’t spent a ton of time in Chicago, here’s what I’d do:
Just go to Wrigleyville Friday afternoon and walk around until you find a bar with the look you’re going for. It won’t take long, no matter what you’re looking for. Stay downtown, and after breakfast go for a run or walk along the water. Get a delicious lunch somewhere, walk literally anywhere downtown and follow your heart. Maybe you want to shop, maybe you want to drink, maybe you want to walk through the Art Institute or something. Whatever it is, cool, do it and then take the red line to the game.
I know I’m giving you no specifics here, but I don’t think you need specifics. Just get out, and see what you see.
Look, I’m not being flippant here, just honest:
Lance Leipold was coaching Division III football seven years ago, and is now the head coach of a program that has fired five coaches and won six conference games in the last 12 years.
He’ll be paid well for the trouble, but that’s already plenty of pressure.
Maybe this is just me, but the only additional pressure would come from the administration going back on its word and trying to speed up a process that needs time to have even a small chance of success.
The Big 12 is the Big 8 again, but not the way any of us would have wanted, and I’m just being honest when I say those schools are all probably screwed.
If they stick together they have a chance, but what’s left of that league isn’t a convincing case to stick together.
This is just me talking here — I’m not basing this on any conversations I’ve had — but Kansas would seem to be the most attractive asset left simply because of the basketball program. Baylor has obviously had a significant amount of recent success, Oklahoma State has some money, and K-State has a wildly passionate fan base.
But if you’re a cold-hearted TV executive you’re probably more interested in KU basketball than anything else in what’s left of the Big 12, so the other schools would be wise to keep tabs on KU and — just being honest — KU would probably be wise to listen to any opportunities.
The football program is a bit of an anvil, but if the money works in a way that basketball provides more value than football takes away, maybe it makes sense.
Here I get to your question. I don’t think Leipold can significantly alter KU’s arc either way, and I definitely don’t think he can do it in 2021.
I need to make some phone calls on this stuff this week, and I hope I’ll learn a lot.
But, really, where I’m at right now is a belief that this is all short money. College sports are only going to be vaguely recognizable in five or 10 years. So anything that happens right now is relevant to the end game only as a domino in front of more dominos that are about to fall.
It seems to me that the most money for the biggest schools — and those are the ones with the power — would be in banding together.
That makes the SEC expansion a sort of opening shot, to position that league with as much power as possible when — and this is my hypothetical, so I’m saying when and not if — college football becomes a grouping of the top 25 or 40 or 50 or whatever programs instead of a loose association of leagues that all hate each other.
Something like that just makes a lot more sense than the current reality. It could work with basketball, too, and other sports. Let the NCAA stick around to run championships and stuff like that.
The money’s too big. The power too important. The train is gone.
I know I’ve written this before, but part of my takeaway from KC NWSL’s early days is that in terms of ownership and professionalism the club is light years ahead of the previous NWSL team that played here, and in terms of roster talent it’s significantly behind.
In year one, if you could choose just one, this is the way you’d want it. Credible ownership is much more likely to find good talent than good talent is to create credible ownership.
So I think this is legit.
I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that the first win came after some roster improvements. I also don’t think it should be taken for granted that the players have been this consistently focused. That doesn’t always happen when a season is going nowhere. Celebrations like the one after the win on Saturday don’t come from nowhere.
That stuff matters.
KC NWSL has 10 games remaining. I’m not here to tell you what their record will be in those games, though I’d expect at least some success.
What I’m confident in saying is that there’s enough here — ownership, energy, steady improvements — to believe this thing is trending the right way.
They still need to do it on the field. That’s what will matter in the end.
But they have a chance.
One banana, cup of frozen strawberries, scoop of peanut butter powder, a little less than a scoop of this sort of chocolate powder stuff that I’m not 100 percent sure what it is but is delicious, then some steel cut oats and maybe four or five ice cubes.
Blend the bejeezus out of it, and if the bananas are right the frozen strawberries, ice and oats will give it the right texture.
Enjoy.
This week I’m particularly grateful for our kids being back in school. This is the first year they’ve been at the same school, which we’ve looked forward to for years, but these days it feels like you need to be specifically appreciative that they’re in school at all. Continue to be in awe of the care and effort we see from the teachers and staff.
This story was originally published August 17, 2021 at 5:00 AM.