Earlier today, ESPN's Buster Olney said we shouldn't be surprised if the Royals trade one of their core homegrown bats for starting pitching this offseason. Here's the latest on the club courtesy of The Kansas City Star's Bob Dutton…
- “I think it’s pretty safe to say he’s going to explore free agency,” said GM Dayton Moore, acknowledging that they're unlikely to agree to a new contract with Jeremy Guthrie during the exclusive negotiating period. “We’ll continue to monitor how that goes. He’s going to explore his options, and it’s important that we do as well.”
- Talks about a new contract with Joakim Soria are ongoing. The Royals are expected to buy the right-hander out of his $8MM option following his second Tommy John surgery. Moore described the discussions as "moving at (their) own pace."
- Geoff Baker of The Seattle Times notes that the Royals have been heavily scouting Mariners left-handed pitching prospect James Paxton in the Arizona Fall League. Dutton wonders if the two teams could work out a trade involving one of Kansas City's bats given Seattle's need for offense.
Haha…baseball-reference doesn’t believe that there is really a player named James Paxton
baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=paxton…
Just for the google challenged members here it looks like…
Did you think I didn’t know how to do that? When you click the above link it says “No Such Player”
Writers here have a rough enough job as it is without getting pasted for spell checks and missing something on a link.. All they needed was a nice post pointing out that the link was incorrect.
I’m not ripping the writers. I’m laughing at the funny outcome when you click the link. It’s not like I said “haha…the guy who linked this is a ****** and doesn’t know how to post a link!”.
wasn’t “pasting” the writer, simply stating that they didn’t link it correctly to baseball reference, something I’ve seen in a bit of the articles lately
i don’t think so, Mariners don’t need any more left handed bat
The Mariners need more everything.
Mariners need to hold on too there prospects and get there needs via Free Agengy.. BJ Upton and Nick Swisher …C Jaso 1B Smoak 2B Ackley SS Ryan 3B Seager LF Saunders CF Upton RF Swisher DH Montero
and yet they still need more..
not really offense would be set, add another SP and a bullpen arm ..got a solid team
What are you Smoaking?
Sorry, I just wanted to use that pun. In all seriousness, that lineup doesn’t scare me even a little.
Not sure why you forgot about Gutierrez and Wells but included Smoak instead? OBP isn’t the be-all, end-all. Swisher/Upton/Jaso/Montero/Ackley/Seager/Gutierrez/Saunders/Ryan is a lineup consisting entirely of 7 above average players and two top 5 prospects (Ackley, Montero). Potential to be not just good but great, though much of the value will come from defense.
That wasn’t my lineup idea, thats why Gutierrez is omitted. OBP is pretty important when you are talking about 7 guys, not 1 guy.
im telling you they add Upton Swisher and then a SP and RP, there not a bad team
maybe not, but they won’t be a good team either
i give them a 0 shot at winning the division, but hey if they get good pitching this team could compete for a wild card spot
But that lineup would still be riddled with OBP problems. Here are the career and 2012 OBP’s for your proposed lineup:
Nick Swisher – .361 career, .364 in 2012
John Jaso – .359, .394
BJ Upton – .336, .298
Kyle Seager – .315, .316
Dustin Ackley – .314, .294
Jesus Montero – .310, .298
Brendan Ryan – .306, .277
Justin Smoak – .306, .290
Michael Saunders -.283, .306
That’s 6 guys with a career OBP .315 or less and 7 guys with an OBP .316 or less in 2012.
i don’t like to look much at numbers, but Montero will continue to get better, Ackely had a awful season he ll bounce bat
im base what i say off of what i see
With numbers like that I can’t blame you for not wanting to look at them. Swisher on a 2 or 3 year deal is okay. Upton is a good player, but still needs to do more. Ackley, Montero, and Seager have bright futures. Ryan is going down the Rey Sanchez path. Jaso can’t throw baserunners out. Saunders and Smoak just don’t do anything for me at all.
My bad. I was thinking of Rey Ordonez, not Rey Sanchez.
we would be kidding ourselves to think we could put together a serviceable team with Saunders/Jaso/Ryan as all starters
Would we? All three can be league average at their positions. Saunders can improve his hitting and plays strong D. Ryan’s D makes him a legit SS. Jaso was a top 10 catcher. They aren’t the kind of guys you build around, but they are starting caliber players.
If the Royals fail to sign Soria I think some team will get a really good deal in the offseason by bringing him in. He was for a while one of the games best closers and at 28 years old should be good to go in the bullpen now that he’s healthy again.
Royals should try to keep The Mexicutioner. His stats are filthy from 2007-2010
and that team will be the Rays, always get good deals when it comes to bullpen arms
With Rodney as a Free Agent, it wouldn’t surprise me to see them sign Soria. They have so much success with relief pitching. Good point.
I think they hold a 3M option on Rodney, he’s not going anywhere.
Don’t forget about Rafael Soriano. They still owe ATL for Soriano surprisingly accepting an arb offer – leading ATL to having to unload him (for next to nothing: Jesse Chavez) for financial reasons.
That’s not his nickname anymore, and hasn’t been for a while. Soria expressed a desire almost two years ago to ditch that name, and it would be nice to respect his wishes. Just Google “Joakim Soria wants to drop nickname” and you’ll see the stories from February 2011 where he talks about the drug violence in Mexico and how he thinks it’s important to change people’s mindsets.
Why commit all that money to a closer coming off major surgery? Give him an incentive-laden deal and allow him the opportunity to boost his value, thereby KC could trade him before the end of the contract and get something for him. KC would most likely give him another shot at the closer’s role, though they have multiple young arms that could easily be the closer of the future in Greg Holland (closed games in ’12), Tim Collins, Aarow Crow, Herrera, Louis Coleman.
So the Royals claim Volstad then expect to let Guthrie walk. Good to see Glass and Co. “doing what it takes” to shore up that rotation problem.
They didn’t say they were going to “let Guthrie walk.” They said, “it’s pretty safe to say he’s going to explore free agency.” In fact, the Royals have publicly proclaimed that they would like to re-sign him and would make an offer to his agent. I would imagine, based on Moore’s comments, that he’s already heard from the agent that Guthrie intends to see what the market has to offer before deciding where to go. They can’t force the dude to put pen to paper.
I know the Royals said they were going to make Guthrie an offer. I also know Glass said he would “do whatever it takes” to improve the rotation. In order to “do whatever it takes” you make sure he has everything he wants and doesn’t need to go explore free angency. Does that mean overpay? Yeah it does. Its the Royals, they will have to overpay for anyone they intend to sign. To me, it looks like they probably gave him a low ball offer and hoped he would just happen to say yes because they took a shot on him and allowed him to bounce back. Which is also something the Royals like to do.
Fair enough, but if you’re going to overpay for someone in order to “do whatever it takes,” wouldn’t it be smarter to overpay for someone who isn’t about to turn 34 at the beginning of next season? He was very good for them during the latter part of the season, but he’s a known quantity, and I think we all know he’s not as good as his numbers with the Royals suggest. If they’re going to make sure a guy “has everything he wants,” it seems more prudent to do that for a guy who isn’t on the tail end of his career.
Regardless, I doubt they’ve made any offer yet, as the exclusive negotiating period has not yet opened. At most, they’ve had conversations with his agent to discuss Guthrie’s interest level.
BTW…wouldn’t you think a trade would make more sense for a team like the Royals? I think we agree that they have to overpay for free agents, and any difference-maker is likely to take up a large percentage of their payroll. Pitchers are riskier, injury-wise, than position players. I’d rather they trade for a younger, inexpensive pitcher using some of their prospect wealth than committing tens of millions of dollars to a guy who may blow his elbow out next April.
They should definately do a trade. I, personally, would not want to see them trade any of the young guys on the big league team (exception Hosmer and Butler). I would rather they trade Myers and others in the minors. Keep the core group together as mich as possible. Tampa Bay has a couple pitchers I wouldn’t mind seeing in a Royals uniform next season.
Would this be a bad year to try Soria as a starter? KC should try to figure out if he and Aaron Crow can start because they still have some studs in the back of their bullpen.
I don’t think putting a guy who has started less than 10 games (majors and minors combined) in 7 or so years and has had two TJ surgeries, while still recovering from his second, in the rotation is going to work. He’ll either blow his arm out again or never be a dominant pitcher again.
There have been rumors in KC about them doing just that. He’s got four good pitches, and a lot of people in the organization have expressed a belief that he’s wasted as a closer. He’s starting from scratch, as it is, so they can design his rehab and conditioning plan to stress endurance. If he or the organization don’t think it’s working, they can always shift him back to the bullpen during the season. No less an authority than John Smoltz has said he thinks it is easier on a pitcher’s arm to be a starter than a closer.