That's the issue. I love Cutty's potential, but the Royals have tried to slot him at several positions to make something "work", and it hasn't. Dozier's emergence pretty much spelled the end for Cutty getting regular time last year.

I still think he has good potential, but finding a place in the field for him continues to be a challenge.

“Dumb” is all relative. A FA will cost you $9M/war now. Montgomery avg 1.3 the prior 3 seasons and Steamer predicts 1.2 in 2020. Do the math.

When did I say it looked dumb? I like Mike Montgomery. I was a fan of Montgomery when you fellas made the trade and said he was a good gamble.

That said, you really need me to tell you why teams were more excited by the potential of Pomeranz than Montgomery? Dude was throwing 96 mph in relief and was punching out dudes like crazy; struck out 50 of 106 total batters faced in relief - that's unreal. And it's not as though his K rate was bad as a starter.

Teams love strikeout stuff and Pomeranz has it. Montgomery doesn't. Teams pay for potential all the time - often to their detriment - but it doesn't stop them from doing it.

I wouldn't have given Pomeranz the deal he got, but I don't think it's a real tough answer as to why he had the kind of demand on the market he had. He made that transition to lock-down lefty reliever seamlessly. And with baseball getting away from LOOGYs due to the new rules on pitcher substituions, having a lefty that can attack righties is more valuable than ever.

As a reliever Pomeranz struck out 32 of the 68 right-handed batters he faced.

Thats some seriously tasty shit to GMs looking to find a new way to attack lefties in late innings when they can't just match up LOOGYs anymore.

The Cardinals (foolishly) gave Andrew Miller $11 million/year on the hopes that he could get back to the guy he was 3 seasons ago. That's just the market for lefty relievers that throw hard and can punch guys out. Montgomery isn't that guy. Pomeranz demonstrated that his fastball will play WAY up in relief and his curve is a true hammer - something that Montgomery will need to rediscover to rebuild his market.

If Montgomery gets his hammer curve back and proceeds to strike out the world, you'll see him get paid. If he continues to feel for his curve and rely on a mediocre fastball to generate grounders, he'll have to hope he can routinely eat innings and develop the sort of journeyman career Jason Vargas has developed.

Not saying you argued Montgomery sucked.


I see two big LH who are 30ish with identical career stats. One has a 4.33fip the other 4.20. Babip .292 vs .297, LOB% 75.1 vs 75.2. Dinger rate on FB 13.8 vs 13.2. fastball velocity (career) 92.3 vs 92.1.


I mean that’s the same damn guy. We could quibble about whether one found new life or something the last 2 months of an otherwise-dreadful season but the sample sizes are so large we can safely conclude they are perfect comps.

But you can't hand-waive the last 2 months.

Pomeranz, when he was Mongtomery as a starter, was traded for effectively nothing (even though he'd already started a successful relief conversion).

He was worth roughly 1/2 of Mauricio Dubon. That's how valued he was in league circles BEFORE he had those last 2 months.

Those last 2 months are the ONLY reason the guy got paid. So you can't just say "well yeah, they're the same guy" when one of them showed a completely new skill-set in relief. The guy turned into peak Andrew Miller for 2 months and it got him paid.

If he DOESN'T turn into that guy for 2 months, he's out there kicking over cans trying to find a 1 year deal for $5-6 million.

Career fastball velocity means precisely dick here when we've seen Montgomery's in relief (around 92) and we've seen Pomeranz's in relief (around 96). FIP doesn't even mean much when the K rate for Pomeranz spiked to levels well beyond Mongtomery's best seasons even as a reliever.

You're Yada Yadaing the only reason he got paid. I just don't see how that makes any sense at all.

He is the type of player we should have used as trade bait in 2015. I said that back then as well.

So Travis Shaw and Taijuan Walker got non tendered also...Royals might wanna give that a look.

Kind of interesting:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Sources: <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Royals?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Royals</a> first base coach Mitch Maier is being promoted to the front office as a director of baseball operations. An announcement could be coming today.</p>&mdash; Jeffrey Flanagan (@FlannyMLB) <a href="https://twitter.com/FlannyMLB/status/1201946794621636608?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 3, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

In the days of the Royals sucking Mitch Maier and John Buck where my dads favorite players........he affectionately referred to them as Bitch Maier and Buck ****.

I really wish Brian Bannister was the former Royal quickly ascending our FO, but, eh, okay.

Of course you can. We have years of datapoints from both. 2 hot months won’t be worth a fraction of what the body is. I mean, guys do that all the time. I pulled the 8/1 - 9/30 war data. Tops was Alex Bergman 4.2. 5th was some dude named Tommy Edman 2.6.



That’s a lot! Dunno who he is. Just pulled his FG page, 25 year old middle IF with a proj Steamer of 1.0 next year. Cost controlled for more years after. That’s some surplus value there.


Reminds me of Danny Duffy. Dude had two dominant months in 2016 and turned it into 60M. But don’t be fooled - even without it he was looking at 30-35M.


Velo only relevant to assess current health really. Few guys pull a Charlie Morton and spike their velo, only need to watch it go the wrong way (Steamwr heavily weights this btw as it’s a harbinger of future problems)

Is a "baseball operations" front office gig a scene setter for moving up the org chart or nah?

3B Travis Shaw - His 2017 31 HRs and 2018 32 HRs looks good, but the Brewers gave up on him as a 29 year old that slumped to .157/.281/.270 in 230 ABs in 2019. I prefer to see what Hunter Dozier and maybe Kelvin Gutierrez can do.

SP Taijuan Walker - Would be a possibility for the Royals. Still only 27 years old and maybe ready to return from 2018 Tommy John surgery. He is the kind of player KC could make a small investment in and see if it works out.

If Pomeranz had even a single season as dominant as those 2 months, he'd have been paid twice that. The short sample size is already being considered.

When the '2 hot months' demonstrates a new skill set in a new role, it's absolutely more relevant than several previous years in a different role. Especially when there's a LOUD historic tie between bullpen work and increased velocity. Yes, there's every reason to believe that his velo will hold at that level. And when there's an almost equally loud relationship between velocity and K rates, that's an excellent sign that he'll be able to maintain that kind of stuff in that role.

Now where you're absolutely right is the injury concern. We don't know how his body will hold up over a full season of having to go on back to back nights on occcasion. Or how he'll look in August when he has 50+ appearances under his belt and needs to pitch for the 3rd time in 4 days.

I think that's absolutely a worthwhile concern. But man - you pro-rate what he did as a reliever over 65 appearances and the guy's essentially a slightly better version of who Will Smith has been the last two years. Will Smith got 3/$40 and he doesn't have stuff with nearly the raw electricity that Pomeranz has.

So like I said, the arbitrage on the unknown with Pomeranz is already built into his 4/$34 million deal. He demonstrated a skill level for 2 months that is BEYOND what Will Smith demonstrated and also presents a 'stuff' premium that Smith doesn't. The reason Smith got more money over a shorter term is nothing but an acknowledgment that we aren't positive how Pomeranz will hold up in a relief role.

Pomeranz was worth .8 of a win in 2 months as a reliever in Milwaukee. If that's a new normal, he's a 2-2.5 win player. At 4/$34 he ISN'T being paid as though he's a 2-2.5 win reliever. He's being paid as though he's about half that and the whole discrepancy is based on little more than the risk.

It's already been factored into his deal.

I saw a suggestion the other day that lots of teams are in the market for a 3rd baseman without much available and maybe the Royals should considering putting Dozier on the block.

It would obviously hurt the team this year but they aren't winning anything anyway and if you could get a haul it would be worth it.

Blake Treinen was historic in 2018. Below replacement in 2019. DFA. Teams are well aware how volatile bullpens (and relievers) are. They know two hot months are just another datapoint - not a new player.

Treinen **will** get a multi year deal and people **will** gasp “Gow is this possible??” And this because teams don’t overweight these recent results.

They just wanted to see if he’s healthy. That’s what his last two months did - convinced teams he was more like 2017 than the broken down one. That’s bigger than whatever he did with his K rate.

So now we are getting to my argument all along - there’s a shitload of excess cash and nowhere to go. $150m avg payrolls with 25 slots, half of whom make the minimum. I mean shit, ANY vet worth an oz of salt will make millions. That’ll happen for Montgomery too if he stays healthy.

You’re way overthinking this. They know he’s not the new Josh Hader. If folks actually thought that he’d make more money. He’s a guy who can get you 1-2 wins as either a starter or reliever or swing guy, when healthy. These days that’s a man literally holding a winning lottery ticket.

The Athletics signed RP Jake Diekman to a two year $7.5M contract.

I thought he might be a player that the KC Royals might try to bring back.

Zack Wheeler heads to the Phillies 5 years 118 mill, apparently the White Sox offered more but his wife is from Jersey and being close to home mattered.

Cole Hamels takes a 1 year deal with the Braves.

Wow.

Like I said, the league love gambling on raw stuff, man.

$24 million/season for a guy with a whole slew of arm troubles and a developing reputation for having "results that don't match up with his peripherals...."

Those kinds of high octane, injury prone arms w/ disconnects between performance and results have gotten a LOT of people fired.

sad what has happened to the MLB off season... used to more flashy and fun, now the owners sit on the money till spring.

And boy... I use to get up for the winter meetings... but now with the royals... its just some trash in the Rule V and head home to talk up shitty prospects.

Everyone has the same information now. And about 80% of the league puts roughly equal weight on the same stuff.

So when everyone's working from the same playbook, you just don't see as much movement because nobody's willing to 'lose' a trade even if it might make a lot of baseball sense.

Cards have too many RH hitting OFers w/ holes in their swing but plus raw power. They should be willing to move a guy like Tyler O'Neill for someone who isn't strictly as valuable but perhaps brings a lefty bat you can bring off the bench with some line drive power and contact skills. They may 'lose' that trade but make themselves better on the field.

But GM's just won't do that anymore. It's all so data-driven that baseball trades are getting harder and harder to come by.

There are a few teams that take chances...for example the Padres moved Urias who had made a ton of top 20 lists after 300 MLB at bats because well he hadn't been good. And they moved him for Grisham a left handed bat they need for their lineup.

Most people think they lost that trade but they are deep in the middle infield and had a desperate need for a left handed bat.

Yeah, I mentioned above that I really like Grisham.

He'd help a lot of teams. Kudos to the Padres for recognizing how his skills fit their lineup and their ballpark and their organizational depth and not just how his minor league numbers play on strat-o-matic.

And ultimately they may end up coming out on the lower side of the WAR calculus when all is said and done, but as you noted - sometimes losing a trade is a win if it works better on your roster.

The Mets’ atrocious defense victimized him a lot this year.

I suspect his performance will tick up playing with a better squad behind him in Philly.

Am I reading right that the Royals got the 33rd pick of next year’s draft via competitive balance?

That reminds me of the Dozier/Manaea draft. GMDM needs to hit on both like he did then.

Phils are nuts.

Symborski posted the Zips on his deal. War goes from 3.0 to 2.0 reducing by .25 per year. Putting aside the unlikelihood he stays healthy enough for that it still only gets you to 108M. So either

1) they expect serious salary inflation, unlikely as that is or
2) they expect 4 wins the first couple years. He was 4.7 last year so they’re banking on a Corbin type debut

Yep. He does nothing above avg.

Me too. After 2016 I wanted to make him 3B and move Moose to DH. But he went backwards as a hitter and can’t run or field. Other than that he’s sweet

My impression this year was he swung and missed all the time, and can’t carch up to anything 93+. I just looked st his swing data and couldn’t prove that, his K rate is only 20%. He is 4th/278 hitters (with 300+ PA) in first pitch strikes and all the leaders can’t hit. So either pitchers groove it to him quickly and or he can’t do anything with it.

MLB 2020 Competitive Balance Draft
So KC Royals will have the 4th and the 33rd pick in the 2020 MLB Draft

Fire Dayton.

Hire Rusty Kuntz!

His hair is all I needed to convince me.

Blockbuster ideas for each team, espn schoenfield



Kansas City Royals trade OF Jorge Soler to the Atlanta Braves for OF Ender Inciarte, RHP Kyle Wright and C Alex Jackson

We know Liberty Media is too cheap to re-sign Josh Donaldson, so let's think outside the box for a way the Braves can replace his bat. Whit Merrifield is the player everyone keeps trying to have the Royals trade, but maybe we should look at AL home run champ Soler, who is eligible for free agency after 2021. Are the Royals going to be a playoff team in the next two years?

The Braves deal from their arsenal of pitching prospects. Wright was the fifth overall pick in 2017 out of Vanderbilt and made four starts for the Braves in 2019, but his stuff has backed up a little and he looks more mid-rotation starter than potential ace. Jackson hit 26 home runs at Triple-A, although that came with a .229 average and a lot of strikeouts. Inciarte is included to offset most of Soler's salary -- remember, Liberty Media and the Braves may be maxed out on payroll after signing Will Smith and Travis d'Arnaud -- and the Royals can keep him or flip him to a team looking for a center fielder.

The Braves can then slide Austin Riley to his natural position at third base, play Soler in left field and run with a Nick Markakis/Adam Duvall platoon in right. And Ronald Acuna Jr. permanently settles into center field for the next nine years.

I saw that yesterday I don't think that deal makes a lot of sense for either team.

Dylan Bundy was dealt to the Angels for 4 minor league players. With moves like this happening does this begin to solidify that Gerrit Cole is going to be a Yankee?

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Source: <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SFGiants?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SFGiants</a> hire Brian Bannister, former <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RedSox?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#RedSox</a> vice president of pitching development. <a href="https://twitter.com/MLB?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MLB</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/MLBNetwork?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MLBNetwork</a></p>&mdash; Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) <a href="https://twitter.com/jonmorosi/status/1202367612711325698?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 4, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

So some pretty serious stuff on twitter right now that the MLBPA is going to go apeshit in the next labor negotiation.

In that you see things like Cohen is going to buy the Wilpon met share for 2.6 billion dollars...that would make the total team value 3.25 billion, in 2002 the Wilpons paid 135 million for it. That means the teams value increased 170 million per year.

The Angels are using baseball money to spend 325 million dollars to own their new stadium and the area around it.

The Indians last Forbes value piece, had $282M in revenue and were worth $1.2B. They have quadrupled in value in the last 19 years. They certainly can afford Lindor, but they certainly have suckered into thinking they can’t.

Lots of this stuff everywhere that all of these teams are worth a crap ton of money and they're turning huge profits while crying poor. That they're spending big money on non baseball shit and players are getting pissed, mid level vets can't seem to get paid anymore so it appears the union is going to try to go to war over a lot of this stuff.

The problem in hammering the 'worth' equation is that there's not a good way to differentiate between legacy teams and teams that have new ownership.

What a franchise is 'worth' doesn't help Cohen when he's trying to cover that debt service, for instance. Now if you're the Yankees and you're owned free and clear and could be sold for probably $5+ billion, yeah - that's a different story.

But then you're talking about vastly uneven playing fields. MLB's goal ISN'T to extract every thin red dime from every owner, it's to put the richest owner in a position that's not so substantially better than the poorest owner so as to maintain competitive balance as best they can.

MLB doesn't care that the Yankees could spend $600 million/yr on player salaries for the next 50 years and never got broke. They care that the Pirates can't do anything approaching that and they'd prefer not end up back where they were in the late 90s when 4 teams could buy up everything.

Look, the MLBPA can piss and moan about this all they want, but the bottom line is that ALL of this comes from a refusal to consider a salary cap. And the amount of negotiating leverage they would get if they would do so is IMMENSE. They could then start talking about a floor. They could then start talking about a direct ratio between Leaguewide revenue and leaguewide spending. They could look into a system that gets guys into FA sooner.

But they've been so antagonistic and so dogmatic when it comes to discussing a cap that they don't have a willing participant in the negotiation on the other side of the aisle. All they've been willing to do for years is take their ball and go home - they're not offering any concessions in return for all the things they're going to 'demand' from MLB. In an era where they're ALL wealthy, some just more wealthy than others. The closest thing they've done is the drug testing policy and even THAT was pulling teeth.

They mostly just say "You'll do this or we won't play" without putting anything on the table apart from that. If they're going to make these demands, they're going to have to start discussing a cap.

That’s a trade I could get behind, though I would rather just ask for Kyle Mueller and Inciarte.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Rusty Kuntz is back! Kuntz will join Matheny&#39;s staff, replacing Mitch Maier as 1B coach. Vance Wilson is new 3B coach: Mike Jirschele to be reassigned. Larry Carter takes over in bullpen. John Mabry is added -- no surprise. Grifol is bench coach. Eldred, Bradshaw return. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Royals?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Royals</a></p>&mdash; Jeffrey Flanagan (@FlannyMLB) <a href="https://twitter.com/FlannyMLB/status/1202688172938928129?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 5, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

KUNTZ IS BACK!!

You knew Matheny needed his woobie.

Have fun with Mabry, gents...

Though some may claim bias, gimme da scoop on Mabry.

Biased against non Christians

The Matheny experiment may not last a season. Hope Sherman ends it quick.

He isn’t the hitting coach, so he can’t do as much damage. Not sure what his actual duties are. I guess they can make up a bullshit job for him like they did with Grifol (who was the catching coordinator for five years).

How's Salvy doing?

Interesting trade came down.

The Padres acquire Tommy Pham and Jake Cronenworth for Hunter Renfroe and Xavier Edwards.

So with that the Pads have completely changed their OF approach, pretty sure they'd like to dump Wil Myers...matter of fact if you're the Royals you should give them a call they'd probably give you a legit prospect or 2 to take that contract since they have a butt ton of them.

I wouldn't mind getting prospects from Padres but don't see Dayton taking on the salary, $22.5 M for each of the next 3 years, and don't see William Bradford Myers value to the Kansas City team. He hit .239 last year with 168 strike outs. With a really good year, you might see Wil hit .250 and over 25 Home Runs.

It's about the Royals being shitty right now and being willing to take on his salary to be given a couple of solid prospects, the 10th prospect in their organization would be borderline top 5 here.

Not to mention there is a gaping hole a 1st base you could plug him into. The Royals should be willing to eat some money to get better for the future.

These are good points. If he can hit 250-25-89 then I’d do this. We need prospects badly. If we can’t deaft them let’s be creative.

So apparently Blake Snell lost his shit on twitch and got pissed off about this trade...said they traded Tommy for a "slapdick prospect" and called his team management stupid.

Good luck waiting for Dayton Moore to actually come out ahead with a trade that helps the team. The mother ****er is so gun shy he'll just sit there and do nothing other than the minimum of drafting with our allotted picks, taking someone in rule 5, and signing a few nobodies in FA who won't last the year on the roster.

https://www.mlb.com/royals/news/roya...etings-preview


By*Jeffrey Flanagan**@FlannyMLB

December 5, 2019


What to expect from Royals at Winter Meetings

KANSAS CITY -- It has been a whirlwind offseason for the rebuilding Royals: New owner, new manager, coaching-staff changes,*front-office changes, a pending new TV deal.
But there hasn’t been a ton of roster movement, and there probably won’t be. The Royals did avoid arbitration with left-hander*Mike Montgomery,*signing him to a one-year, $3.1 million deal*earlier this week.
And the Royals are waiting on perennial Gold Glove winner*Alex Gordon, who officially is a free agent, as he contemplates returning for one more season.
Still, as the Royals prepare to embark for the*Winter Meetings*starting Monday in San Diego, they will have some*under-the-radar work to do*as they try to shore up a pitching staff that was the primary culprit in dragging them to 103 losses in 2019.
Here’s a look at what’s ahead for the Royals:
Club needs
Priority No. 1 will be finding some cost-efficient bullpen help. The Royals had some interest in bringing back left-hander Jake Diekman, whom they signed last offseason before dealing him to Oakland at the Trade Deadline. But Diekman landed a two-year deal with the A's this week. Expect general manager Dayton Moore to scour the market for bargains, not only for the bullpen, but perhaps for the rotation, which right now has four set starters in*Brad Keller,*Danny Duffy,*Jakob Junis*and Montgomery. Moore and his staff have a knack for finding reclamation projects -- last year’s was*Homer Bailey*-- and expect that approach to be their focus again this offseason, starting at the Winter Meetings. Moore feels comfortable with his position players, so that area is not a huge need.
Whom might they trade?
Expect all kinds of trade rumors involving*Whit Merrifield, Duffy and*Ian Kennedy. Merrifield is an affordable option for any team ($14.5 million over the next three years), and while the Royals will listen to offers on anyone, it remains unlikely they trade him unless overwhelmed. And the same goes for Duffy, who is owed just under $31 million over the next two seasons. The Royals wouldn’t mind that money coming off the books, but as with Merrifield, a trade could be a notable public-relations hit. Kennedy has one year left at $16.5 million, and the Royals would have to eat much of that salary to move him now -- they might have a better chance at the Trade Deadline.
Prospects to know
While*Bobby Witt Jr.*is the*Royals’ No. 1 prospect, per MLB Pipeline, all eyes are on the club's wave of pitching prospects, starting with right-handers*Brady Singer*(No. 2) and*Jackson Kowar*(No. 5), and left-handers*Daniel Lynch*(No. 3) and*Kris Bubic*(No. 6). The Royals won’t be dealing any of them, and they'll be hoping to stockpile even more pitching prospects, if possible, over the next year. It seems plausible that some of those pitching prospects get promoted to the big leagues this season.
Rule 5 Draft
With the No. 4 pick in the*Rule 5 Draft, the Royals will be active next Thursday. They have cleared up four roster spots, and it wouldn’t be surprising if they grabbed at least two Rule 5 picks, hoping to land another Keller like they did two years ago. The Royals did not protect power-hitting prospect*Seuly Matias*from the Rule 5 Draft, but it seems unlikely he gets taken, as he has been injured the last two seasons and hasn’t risen above Class A.
Payroll summary
Including*Jorge Soler’s potential arbitration case (or more likely, long-term deal), the Royals’ payroll for 2020 would sit around $75-80 million. The budget under new owner John Sherman hasn’t been finalized, but all signs point to him not making a big free-agent splash this offseason -- that wouldn’t make sense for a rebuilding team at least a season or two from being competitive. The Royals also need to plan on $4-6 million for Gordon if he returns. What this means is that the Royals will be searching for starting pitching or relievers who come in under $4 million. The Royals are waiting on finalization of a*new TV deal, which MLB.com has reported could bring in about $48-52 million per year, up about $25 million from 2019. But that money can’t be counted on until the deal is complete.
One question
When will the Royals be good again? Best guess is they could be able to compete for the playoffs in 2022. This season will be a struggle, simply because they won’t have the horses on the pitching staff to win consistently. The Royals are content with their positional lineup that features Soler, Merrifield,*Hunter Dozier,*Adalberto Mondesi,*Nicky Lopez*and*Salvador Perez, whose return from Tommy John surgery will be like adding a big-time free agent. But until the wave of pitching prospects makes an impact at the big league level, the Royals will not be able to compete for the American League Central title. Those prospects will begin to elevate to the Majors this season, and even more so in 2021.

The Royals have been guilty forever of overvaluing their own prospects, even when they were good they did that a lot.

I'm going to be very honest about this, if they were savvy there are some interesting moves to be had out there this year.

Taking on Myers contract to gain some prospects is the first kind of off the wall move I see.

But what about throwing Dozier and Soler out for trades? Tons of teams are looking for 3rd base help right now and with him being cheap and controllable you might get a nice haul for him that would be worth it.

Why is this team so interested in bringing Gordon back? Do they think if they keep running him, Duffy and Whit out there fans will forget how much they suck?

I could easily argue they should be interested in getting rid of all those guys.

This. He rarely pushes to accelerate the rebuild... he is so secure in his job that he seems content to let the process unfold over 10 years. I get frustrated with the notion they put out often of "when we are ready to contend in 2021/22," in that it punts away years at a time. I know we can't make signings (spoiler: we can), but christ let's be proactive...

There is a difference in feeling pressure in not obviously...

San Diego is making moves because their GM has basically been told if they don't contend this year he's toast.

Lot of 10-year-old kids in the stands wearing their jerseys. Can't break their little hearts.

I'm going to go ballistic if Moore is signed to an extension in the process of probably heading towards our 3rd straight 100 loss season. How long of a leash can a guy get?

I sure hope the Chiefs win something because also being a Royals and Mizzou fan is depressing.

I’d jump at a trade for Wil Myers as a way to buy some prospects. Whether Moore can clear it with Sherman remains to be seen.

But yeah, if you can add a few of the Padres prospects in the 10-20 range, it’s well worth the hefty price, IMO.

Gabriel Arias (a SS who went .302/.339/.470 at high a last year) and Buddy Reed (exceptional athlete who struggled with the bat at AAA last year but has Lorenzo Cain qualities) would be a nice combo.

The Royals could give Myers consistent everyday ABs at 1b and probably get the maximum value out of him, too.

If they played him at 1B everyday, you could dream on getting something like what he produced in 2016 and 2017 - when he slashed .251/.335/.462 across 1200 ABs with 58 HR and 48 SB in a horrible hitters park.

He was roughly a 10 percent above average hitter and stayed healthy. That’s not worth 22 million a year, but you can get some value out of it.

Reed is available in the rule 5 draft, they didn't protect.

And if you added Myers, that would make for an interesting-ish offense.

Merrifield (RF)
Dozier (3B)
Mondesi (SS)
Soler (DH)
Myers (1B)
Perez (C)
Gordon (LF)
Phillips/Starling (CF)
Lopez (2B)

It’s a very RH-heavy lineup, but it’s pretty athletic and Myers would be an OK placeholder at 1B for a few years if you can’t move him.

duncan agrees with my idea lol, I'm kinda surprised honestly.

The Dodgers (unsurprisingly) have been clever enough to do some stuff like that for the last several years.

The Braves of all teams kinda kicked it off in 2015 when they took on Bronson Arroyo (who had TJ surgery and had all but announced his retirement already) in a deal along with Touki Toussaint in exchange for an organizational arm.

They effectively bought the D-Backs 1st round pick from the previous season and did so without having to pay his $2.7 million signing bonus to boot.

As it turns out, the dude can't throw strikes so he may just never amount to anything, but he was a top 100 prospect when traded and I believe ended up working his way up to top 50 status because of his velocity. He was an awfully nice get for merely the burden of taken on a couple months of Arroyo's deal and paying his buyout.

I really don't understand how a team can sit on an $85 million payroll and NOT be looking to do some stuff like that. I get the whole "we'll be just as bad and far away from contention at $110 million than we will at $85, so why spend it just to spend it?" thing. But that doesn't sell here - you're spending it with the express purpose of getting better long-term.

That's exactly how rebuilding teams SHOULD be using payroll flexibility. Especially if it's a team like the Royals that can't claim to be holding onto 'dry powder' that they'll use for a FA splash in the future. No - they really won't be. Use it now to get some young assets.

It’s no different than eating all of Kennedy’s salary to pick up Joey Wentz last year.

Myers’ is a tough buy because of the size of the commitment, but there are ways to offset it. The Padres are going for it this year. I bet they’d take Kennedy back to strengthen their pen and pay all his salary this year, and kick in either some cash or sweeten the prospect return.

I like outside the box shit like that.

Going outside the box to acquire talent is how the Royals won their last World Series. It’s how they will have to win their next one, too.

It's NBA style of payroll management. But the MLB Players Union is too ****ing stupid to realize how much a salary cap would help them.

Said that yesterday, in this very thread I believe.

It blows my mind that the MLBPA continues to be so dogmatic about the cap that they can't understand how a cap can be offered and used to their long-term advantage.

I really think they've allowed agents like Boras to poison them. A cap WON'T help Boras and it won't help the top 10% of the players in the game. Those guys will be the ones that take the haircuts. Because if there were no cap, LeBron James would be making significantly more than he is. And frankly I suspect it would inure to the benefit of someone like Mahomes as well.

But when you trade the cap for a tied revenue% and hard floors, baseballs middle class benefits. And ESPECIALLY so if you can negotiate a restricted free agent sort of structure that allows guys to get to FA a little earlier, if only RFA status like in the NFL, NBA and NHL.

They just keep focusing on the wrong fights, IMO.

Royals sign Trevor Rosenthal to a minor league deal....apparently he hasn't had enough of Matheny destroying his arm.

There is yearly lotto ticket. Next a couple 4A pitchers in the Rule 5.

Wonder what all speed no hit outfielder Dayton will overpay for?

Stephen Strasburg re-signs with the Nationals, 7 years 245 million dollars.

Wow the players union is so dumb. They don’t know what they’re doing. Look how these guys are getting jobbed!

The high end elite guys are getting paid. It's the mid level vets that are finding a harder time getting paid.

Graduated from Lee's Summit West High School.

Only a minor league contract, so for low cost KC will see if he has anything left.

So? Who cares. The players don’t so why would anyone else.

DM might as well not even show up at the winter meetings.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Teams are being told to plan on the three-batter minimum for pitchers being in effect in 2020. There was discussion at the owners&#39; meetings to change it to a 2-batter minimum, but it was voted down, and pitchers will have to face at least 3 batters or finish the inning.</p>&mdash; Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) <a href="https://twitter.com/BNightengale/status/1204112681017307137?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 9, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

How does this go through while the NL still goes without a DH? Any purity of the game argument is ridiculous after this.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">One thing I’ve learned from a day of winter-meetings lobby hanging is that the Padres seem more motivated than ever to move Wil Myers. Even open to attaching prospects to him if it helps finish off a deal.</p>&mdash; Jayson Stark (@jaysonst) <a href="https://twitter.com/jaysonst/status/1204229791857008640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 10, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Boom knew this was coming, doubt the Royals have the nuts to do it though.

Zero chance... because it make too much sense.

Sounds like something the Mariners would do, seeing as Jerry Dipoto is the exact opposite of DM.

This is also a great opportunity for Sherman to set a new standard.

If we can find some pitching this year, we could be sneaky good. Not playoffs, but a nice step in the right direction. We have a nice offensive core and we have yet to see the best of Mondesi.