Rosenthal says Miguel Batista will either be a Royal or a Cardinal. KC has apparently offered $24M over three years, which is doubtless much more than the Cardinals are offering. Then again, if you could sacrifice a few million bucks and play for the defending world champs, wouldn’t you?
If he pulls this off, Walt Jocketty will again be picking up a nice pitcher on the relative cheap: Batista isn’t going to win you 15 games, but he’ll give you lots of innings and be in the vicinity of league average. Or better: Batista has thrown at least 180 innings in four of his last five seasons, and the last time his ERA+ was below league average was 2000. Chase Field didn’t help his numbers last year, but he’ll be a decent pickup for whichever Missouri team ends up with him.
By Jeff Sackmann, Brew Crew Ball
