Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com tweets that the Royals have elected to release outfielder Michael Saunders and right-hander Ricky Nolasco from their respective minor-league contracts.
The Royals will become the second team to release the 31-year-old Saunders this offseason, as the Pirates did so earlier in the winter after acquiring Corey Dickerson from the Rays. Saunders hit just .202/.256/.344 last season across 234 plate appearances between the Phillies and Blue Jays. He was in camp competing with some other non-roster invitees a chance to play some outfield for the Royals, but even a .356 on-base percentage during spring training apparently wasn’t enough wipe injury and production concerns from the minds of the club’s front office.
As for Nolasco, he allowed eight earned runs in just 3 2/3 innings this spring, and has long been an average starter at best. Though he’s managed to throw at least 180 innings in each of the past two seasons (which would seem to present some appeal to a rebuilding Royals club), he sports a 4.66 ERA during that span with just 6.82 strikeouts per nine. Entering his age-35 season, Kansas City evidently didn’t see enough upside to pay Nolasco the $1.5MM he was promised if he made the major league roster.
Goodnight sweet princes. Could be good pick ups for the Tigers. Opening day starter and starting CF.
Good
Giant. Like his ERA..
Nolasco is toast.
Saunders refused assignment to AAA. Does he really think he can make an MLB roster? He needs to get ABs to show he might have value.
Offensively, Saunders can’t be worse than Alex Gordon
He’s also not guaranteed 18 million or something like that his year.
So glad they didn’t keep Nolasco around. I would rather trot out the pretzel vendor.
Maybe Nolasco can be the pretzel vendor.
Nolasco led the league in hits allowed in 2008.