The Royals officially signed outfielder Rick Ankiel to a one-year, $3.25MM deal today. The contract has a second-year mutual option worth $6MM, and Ankiel can earn up to $500K in incentives this year. Yahoo's Tim Brown first tweeted news of the agreement Thursday night, with Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports following the next day with the incentives.
Back on December 10th, ESPN's Jerry Crasnick tweeted that Scott Boras wanted three years and "big money" for Ankiel, but ultimately he settled for an unsurprising contract. Ankiel also drew interest from the Cubs, Pirates, and Red Sox this winter.
Ankiel will try to rebuild value in Kansas City after slipping to a .231/.285/.387 line for the Cardinals in 2009. The 30-year-old's maladies included a sore Achilles tendon, a deep shoulder bruise, and a groin strain. The shoulder injury, suffered in May, came from a headfirst collision with a wall and lingered most of the season.
A converted pitcher, Ankiel has experience at all three outfield positions but predominantly played center field. He'll join Scott Podsednik, David DeJesus, and possibly Brian Anderson in the Royals' outfield, with Jose Guillen presumably serving as designated hitter.
Players are still getting money. Makes it more interesting for Nady and Damon.
dude has talent. he just needs to get his batting average up.
Good lord… how many OFers do they have?
That option is pretty hefty.
It’s mutual, it means nothing except for its buyout. If Ankiel likes it the Royals will decline, and vice versa.
Yeah, I know. I just always get so wow’ed by big-figure options.
still impressive of boras to get that kind of money for ank.
Royals sign another guy who doesn’t get on base, what a shock
Typical Royals move. In what universe is Ankiel worth that contract? He was hurt and fairly awful in 2009.
Nobody ever accused the Royals of being a smart franchise I guess.
Boras settles low. Could Damon he aroud the corner? Gotta think 4.5 million sounds reasonable for him now if he can find a team.
Damon going back to NY..,to be annouce the week for 6 mil…
Now all they need is to sign Duncan and bring back wellemeyer and they will have all the cardinals throw-a-ways.
LOL… They already got the Braves throw aways lol
Seriously, how does Moore have a job?
If the Royals sign Wellemeyer, Duncan, and Encarnacion then they will have a true AAA team!
You do remember that Wellemeyer was a Royal reject that St. Louis signed a few years back, right?
actually..he’s a cubs reject, just sayin
Yes I do, but then in 2008 he had a 3.71 ERA for StL. He made 7.1 million last year from arbitration because he had such a good year, but last year he was dreadful.
shows how bad the NL sux
More prima facie evidence of how bad the NL is
It is sad that his tenure with the Cardinals organization had to come to an end, but I believe it was time for a new beginning for Rick. I wish him the best of luck and hope he rebounds strongly in 2010. I’ll still never forget those 2 throws in Colorado.
I think this is a good pick up for the Royals and I think he will flourish next year there.
The minimum is to much for Ankiel. Love the comeback story but, man way to many k’s
So right field.
I won’t say this is money spent as well as it could have been, but it should still help out the Royals (not like that would take a lot to do). Guillen posted a -16.0 UZR last season, so I’m assuming it was a priority to get him out of RF. Maybe giving him the DH job will make him focus on improving his plate performance and start hitting like a top-half of the lineup hitter should. Ankiel’s been a +WAR guy since he converted to OF, so if he can overcome the injuries it’s certainly an upgrade for the Royals.
Podsednik CF
DeJesus LF
Guillen DH
Butler 1B
Gordon 3B
Callaspo 2B
Betancourt SS
Ankiel RF
Kendall C
kinda ugly…
That’s an impressive lineup. I love the outfield/dh particularly.Podsednik CFDeJesus LFAnkiel RFGuillen DHClearly, the OF is not pumping there so it’s a good thing they’re defensively aweso-… wait? Not so much? Doh! Oh well for the Royals. I thought they might turn the corner by having a youth movement, but this seems to be some sort of “scrubs movement.” Nobody is downright awful (well… except for maybe Guillen) but nobody seems to really excel at much either…
Does anyone have hope that we will see Aviles at SS. He will be healthy.
Will Ankiel really bat 8th in that lineup? He seems better suited for 6th IMO, but then again, my opinion doesn’t really matter.
there are many way to arrange chairs on the Titanic…
never heard that one before
My above comment is not sarcasm.
it was a good call to clarify this: i wasn’t sure you were clever enough to use sarcasm before you did.
I wish Ankiel all the best, but his poor plate discipline and bad OBP skills are really the last thing Kansas City needs (Dayton Moore is really unrepentant on this issue). I also find hard to believe that another team would have paid him even this much money coming off his dismal season last year. But I do wish him well.
Another veteran to help the offense. World Series people! World Series! Now Guillen will be the DH, meaning Ka’aihue has no shot at making the team.
At least the Royals are spending some money and trying to improve unlike that sad franchise known as the Pittsburgh Pirates, what a pathetic team.
LOL!
I don’t think signing Ankiel really improves the team all that much. In fact, this is more like a sideways move by Moore… Again.
And you should really do some research before making comments like this. The Pirates just signed Dotel. And Carrasco. And Church. And Crosby. All of them so far this offseason. It really wouldn’t be too bright to say that they’re not spending money and trying to improve if they’re signing players. In fact, I think they’ve improved much more than the Royals have so far during this offseason.
That’s a good screenname for you bro, the consensus is that a storm is brewing in the Burgh, but a guy like you wouldn’t know that, since we didn’t overpay a FA that you saw on a game on ESPN, I’ll let you get back to your dream.
And I like this for KC, Ricky will bounce back, little more expensive than I would of thought though.
Wow! A Pirate fan. Haven’t they been rebuilding for almost 20 years now? A storm is brewing, but it will only effect the southern part of the NL central standings!! Go Cubs!! (It’s all in fun man, good luck to Pirates, may they finish one slot under the Cubbies!)
Lol, that was good. Yes we’ve been one of the worst run franchises in professional sports for the past 15 years, but historically we’re one of the greatest franchises. And it looks like we’re on the right track again, finally.
With the exception of having Grienke, I’d definitely take Pittsburgh’s team over the Royals. They’ve kept payroll down and are growing talent up. But maybe that’s just me. (Then again, I’d take Greinke on his own over either team almost.)
Observation Fail
Restocked farm system from trading medocre veterans and a slew of fine pieces like Iwamura, Church, Dotel, Donelley, and Carrasco all added at value prices.
No the Pirates didn’t overpay for Bay but they have been working hard to improve their team.
While it’s true he’s mostly played CF, he shouldn’t have. He’s not very good at it.
When he got replaced by Rasmus, the difference was so dramatic, it seemed like Rasmus teleported to balls.
Still, he’s an exciting player to watch. He can do amazing things at times.
Weird this move is Jacobs version 1.1. Very Lateral.
It turns out, Boras really does represent everyone. I found out yesterday that my vacuum, television, and both cats are represented by him…and that he’s still asking “big money” for my second cat Sox.
Thank goodness he’s not coming back to the Cards. NIGHTMARE!
Yeah I don’t have a huge problem with this deal either. The encouraging running theme is that both ankiel and podsedniks deals look to just end up being for one year. Then in 2011 maybe we’ll get to see parraz or lough in KC.
Here’s the thing I am a huge Royals fan. If Ankiel has a half way productive year the Royals can flip him for prospects towards the end of the season. Either way he is a better fielder than “I will give up on almost every fly ball” Guillen and still adds better (not much but better) power than Jacobs from the left side. I am not dillusional about the Royals chances next year, it won’t be pretty, but at least it will be more competitive than last year. At least the Royals got some hustlers (with the exception of Guillen), I would rather have a “Pete Rose” attitude player with average talent, than a bump on the log with average talent.
I still expect to see at the least Lough this season being called up. Hopefully after Ankiel has a productive season and after he gets traded for some prospects. Not Injured diving into a wall, again.
And I am mad still mad they traded Teahan, mostly because he was one of favorites and will be a good middle of the road player, but he wasn’t the All-Star the Royals tried to make him.
someone send Moore a copy of Moneyball immediately… he is at least aware of OBP, one would hope, but his moves seem to indicate otherwise.
oh, and as far as the Pittsburgh comparison above, Pittsburgh is making smart moves, as a Cards fan I feel more threatened by them than the Cubs for the first time ever.
[sorry, double post]
i was hoping the tigers would get in on this guy. they need a decent defensive Of and one with more pop than Guillen.
As always, Dayton Moore leaves me speechless
put it htis way you know your bad when you cant hit left or right handed pithers(even worse when you used to be a pitcher you would think he would be able to read the pitchers) and you know youre really bad when you have to use HGH to be mediocre…the only thing ankiel has is a cannon arm THATS IT…come on he uses PED’s and the cards still let him walk…they loves PED uses is st louis…….as a white sox fan this makes me very very happy..there are pleany of good out fielders out there and the royals pick up anderson, pods and ankiel….THOSE ARE SIGNS OF A GREAT FRANCHISE READY TO COMPETE…either rebuild completly and let rookies play or go balls to the wall and get good players not washed ups out fielders in pods and ankiel and never were good to begin with in anderson…there are only two players that even command attention on the royals and thats soria and the great greinke…other than that the royals are the worst team in the AL…your GM is boarder line the worst GM even along with hendry….
at least you have two cannons in the out field in ankiel and guillen and a cheetah in pods…too bad they are all horrible fielders and inconsistant hitters…yes pods is inconsistant he had one good year in the past 3….have fun with that…maybe in a super small market ankiel can get away with using HGH again or maybe he will be turned into a pitcher when greinke blows his arm out half way through the season from having to over compensate for a bad team behind him…
Atleast he chose a park were he has good numbers in.
Royals Reach Agreement With Rick Ankiel. It is great news that it is adding another support to their team.
I love how he stays in Missouri, yet he plays for the horrible team instead. This is the stupidest deal of the whole postseason after that two year Marlon Byrd deal