Can this season just get under way?

My thoughts exactly.

Didn't fit the team culture.

According to Rosenthal, if Bonifacio clears release waivers (deadline for a claim is tomorrow 1pm central), we'll have to pay him $575K. Although several teams are interested in him, a claim is unlikely, probably because they think they can get him for less than what he negotiated from us in arbitration.

Someone will pick him up at a reduced rate.

Didn't fit the part of the "Right 53"? Wait......wrong thread and year..........

I suppose you could just edit that to "Right 25" or something like that.

Any news regarding Santana today?

He was spotted house hunting in Leawood.

I've seen some chatter that Cleveland is strongly considered signing him.

His agent was quoted yesterday as saying they had their rotation set and had moved on, basically.

Santana's agent via Twitter:

Follow

Jay Alou
‏@JAloujr
@Koreanfan_KC if Glass wanted him he would be a Royal by now. I Know DM, Ned, and the fans want him...#payroll #tradesomeone #makeithappen

DM says that he still believes Bubba Starling can become a good player, he just needs more time. It should probably surprise no one that he'd say it though, teams never express disappointment in prospects, they just quietly cut or trade them when its time to give up.

He talked a LOT about Torii Hunter taking 6 years to make it to the bigs when I saw Moore speak on the issue of Bubba Starling.

The common themes are that the D and speed and baserunning abilities are all there. Just needs to put the hit tool together. There also didn't seem to be any worry Starling would go play college football if he hadn't made the majors by age 24, as some have hysterically suggested (Kevin Kietzman, cough, cough)

I haven't listened to Kietzman in years, and that's one of the reasons. He just LOVES hearing himself talk about stupid crap.

He just loves hearing himself talk,period.

610 said this AM that Holland signed a 1 year deal to avoid arbitration. Somewhere between 4 and 5 mill. Last year he made just over $500,000, so he got a big raise.

Good for him. He deserves it.

CBS picks the all time Royals team, by how well the player did in an individual season. Interesting stuff:

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-...as-city-royals

DM's perfect streak of never going to an arbitrator remains intact.

Royals offered 4.1MM, Holland wanted 5.1MM, they settled at $4.675MM, slightly higher than the midpoint. There's also a $50,000 incentive available for making it onto the all-star team.

Here's the Royals Press Release on Holland:
http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/new...c&ymd=20140212

Cool article. Pretty rough at SS. Hochevar would make the bullpen!

If Bubba Starling played college football in a downtown baseball stadium - I think KiKi's head might explode.

AJ Burnett signs a 1 year, $16 million deal with the Phillies.

Hopefully, RA Mondesi (tired of typing Raul Adalberto) changes that by 2017 or so.

Bonifacio is now a free agent, no one claimed him so the $3.5MM contract he got in arbitration is gone. We have to pay him $575K for releasing him, but now he'll be able to sign anywhere for whatever he can negotiate, since the new team will be under no obligation to agree to $3.5MM.

..Still would like to know the real reason why we released him.

Sounds like Santanas agent is a dumbass....Parkins apparently spoke with him today anyone catch that?

$$$$$$

Today's Dayton double-speak of the day:

"We can't afford to give long-term deals to 31-year-old pitchers." (talking about Santana)

Jason Vargas's age: 31 years old.

Pretty cool.

:facepalm:


Just say what you're thinking, GMDM - "We can't afford to give long term deals to 31 year old pitchers unless they cut us a deal."

LOL

Royals, Holland Have Mutual Interest In Extension
By Mark Polishuk [February 12 at 7:43pm CST]

The Royals avoided going to arbitration with Greg Holland when the two sides agreed to a one-year, $4.675MM contract earlier today, and that deal could be a harbinger for a multiyear commitment. There is mutual interest between Holland and the Royals on a long-term deal, Andy McCullough of the Kansas City Star reports, though their most recent talks focused only on settling Holland's 2014 contract.

Holland has been one of baseball's top relief arms over the last three seasons, posting a 1.99 ERA and 268 strikeouts (against only 71 walks) in 194 innings out of the K.C. bullpen in 2011-13. Since taking over as the Royals' closer in August 2012, Holland has racked up 63 saves, 47 of which came last season as part of a sterling campaign that saw Holland make the All-Star team and finish ninth in AL Cy Young Award voting.

Holland, a client of Turner Gary Sports, is under team control through 2016. As McCullough notes, Holland will only get more expensive if he keeps up his form over his final two years of arbitration eligibility. A multiyear deal could help Kansas City keep Holland's salary in check, though there's a limit to what a mid-market team like the Royals can reasonably spend on a closer, even an elite one. There's no immediate rush to lock Holland up, but if an extension can't be worked out over the next season or two, K.C. could look to trade the righty and install one of their other top bullpen arms (such as Kelvin Herrera, Aaron Crow, Tim Collins or Luke Hochevar) as closer.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/

Would the Royals owe Emilio Bonifacio the $575K if they had not settled before arbitration (January 17th)? If so then at that time KC must have thought they wanted him on the team. The Royals signed Omar Infante on December 13th so that should not have factored in.

Seems like a waste of $575K of the Glass Family Fortune.

Yes, we would. If not $575K, then we would have owed him 1/6 of whatever the arbitrator ruled.

As soon as we offered him arbitration, we guaranteed that we'd have to pay him something, assuming no one else claimed him and assuming no trade. There's a deadline last year late Nov I think where we could either cut him or offer arbitration. So, obviously back last year we probably thought he was going to be on the team, but then after we offered arbitration we then signed Infante, signed Chen, and plans changed. If we had known that we were going to cut him, then we would have cut him last year and saved the $575K.

Thanks for the information. Looking at this year's MLB calendar, that date might be December 2nd. If it was close to that same date for 2013, KC did not sign Infante until mid December, so Emilio would certainly still be in the Royal's plans.

Royals only signed Holland to a one year deal so they can trade him at the all star break.

35 year plan... :facepalm:

And so another baseball season begins today. One of my favorite songs and artists ever:
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/04KQydlJ-qc?feature=player_detailpage" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

He's an arbitration-eligible player with less than 6 years of service. Those guys almost NEVER get deals more than 1 year at a time unless they agree to sell us some free agent years.

Hosmer got a 1-year deal, too. So did Moose, etc. When Zimmer comes up, he'll be signed to 6 consecutive 1-year deals unless he agrees to give up free agency. There is no reason to give those young guys more than 1 year before they are eligible for free agency unless they agree to give up some free agent years. If any of those guys suffer some kind of career-ending injury or inexplicably began to suck really badly, we won't be on the hook more than just 2014. Salvy Perez on the other hand would be owed a lot of money if his knees suddenly blew up, because he agreed to give us some free agent years.

Thats one of the minor benefits of taking a Longoria-type deal as a young brand-new player, you know that if something horrible happens, you'll still get money for a while. If you want to go the Boras route of reaching free agency ASAP, then you gotta roll the dice 1 year at a time until your first 6 years are up.

I understand being a cynical Royals fan... but this is just not anywhere close to reality.

The Royals are exploring a longer extension with Holland and might even get that done before the season starts. He also has two full years of control left before he'd be a FA, even if they don't.

If they can't work out an extension, they MIGHT trade him after the 2015 season. Maybe.

But considering he's a reliever, there's really no guarantee he's still good, let alone great, at that point. Short shelf lives on most of these guys.

The only way I'd ever support giving a long-term deal to a reliever is if its a few years followed by a whole bunch of team options. A few closers can make it a career, but most of them just flame out with no warning.

Come on. Those 2011 and 2012 years of Soria were totally worth it!

The Soria deal was actually fantastic. We had 3 team option years tacked onto that thing, we exercised the first option, then when he got hurt we said "no thanks" to the last two options, gave him his buyout, and cut him loose. I'd love it if Holland agreed to a Soria contract, there'd be some risk for a couple years since we'd have to guarantee him something, then its all upside for the Royals.

Or if the guy could potentially be kicked into the starting rotation in a year or two.

Agreed. That deal fit right in with the sweetheart deals for Jamaal Charles and Salvy Perez.

Opening day needs to hurry up and get here.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Ned Yost does not expect any players to be delayed from tomorrow&#39;s report date by either weather or visa issues.</p>&mdash; Andy McCullough (@McCulloughStar) <a href="https://twitter.com/McCulloughStar/statuses/434031383619457024">February 13, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Just heard on 610 that some Vegas odds maker that the over/under is set at 85.5 wins for the Royals.

wow, that's actually pretty impressive that Vegas would set the number that high.

Yeah, especially considering that most random gamblers in Vegas would go in presuming "the Royals always suck", so to have to set it that high is encouraging.

That's pretty impressive. I'd have thought 78 would have been the number...somewhere in there.

It was 79 last year. It would be really strange to set it the same after proving they can win last season with only one significant loss but a few big upgrades.

Exactly. Greg Holland ain't converting 47/50 this year. He has to come a bit back down to earth, even doing 40/50 would be an amazing year and that's 3-4 more losses we'd have to make up elsewhere. We do lose Frency & Getz but that's partially offset by losing Santana. I also don't see Chen pitching anywhere near like he did. Plus we were really healthy last season.

I'm guessing 79 is where we finish.

I'm more optimistic than you. Hopefully he doesn't have 50 save opportunities again to begin with. It'd be nice to win a couple more games comfortably with a less anemic offense this year. Because it is true that our overall pitching will likely be a little down from last year.

10 blown saves would be absolutely horrendous for any closer.

Yeah, 80% loses you your job most of the time. Hell, most fans wanted to throw Holland away after his first blown save against Philly last year. Can you imagine if he had 5 or 6 by the break??

To put this in perspective, Jim Johnson, the man we (and Orioles fans) trashed throughout 2013, converted 50 of 59 save opportunities last year.

80% would be phenomenal, given the league-wide conversion rate the past few years has been only 68%. If Holland drops to league average that's 34/50, or 16 blown.

Closing out games at this level is damn hard.
http://rotosynthesis.rotowire.com/Bu...rs-BBD3904.htm

TRADE FOR JIM JOHNSON

79 games? Do you really believe that? We'll win over 80 and it won't even be close unless Shields and Hosmer have season ending injuries.

Yeah, that's atrociously misleading, as it counts EVERY blown save recorded by every reliever in a bullpen.

Case in Point: That chart is factoring in Aaron Crow's billion blown saves against Holland's save total over last year.

So, I repeat, for an individual closer to rack up 10 blown saves would be an absolute atrocity of a season.

Go troll some objective Detroit fans. There's not an honest fan that believes they aren't losing more games this year than last. Ditto with the Indians who maxed out in the most ridiculous fashion. They played WAY above their heads. We'll win at least the same, if not more due to divisional gains. My only concern is how many more wins the Twins will take this year. They won't be great, but they won't be nearly as bad as last season. Sox will be about the same, IMO.

We're the Royals. Anything could happen. We could have both those guys playing and we could underachieve to a new underachieving level. It's called, "Royaling it up." I think we've all seen it before.

Anything new on the Santana front?

Yeah, a lot of those blown saves are going to be situations like where a reliever comes in during the 6th inning, (so there's no way in hell they are going to finish the game), and they blow the lead. They get a blown save, even though they were never going to get the save for that game.

You have to look at only closers for an acceptable save conversion rate.

Dayton's pretty much confirmed that we're done spending and the rotation is set for the year. However, each day he remains unsigned leaves some 1 in a billion like chance that he'll somehow make it back here.

The odds are incredibly slim, however.

Battered wife syndrome has to end. If we tank, we tank. But stop letting previous seasons and experiences dictate your optimism/pessimism. It's weak.

The odds are 1 in 250 billion, I already estimated it a few pages back.

LMAO

Yeah, when you start getting in the double digit category you likely no longer have a 9th inning job. In fact, in MLB history the record is 14 BS in a year. And it was a lot tougher back in the day when guys threw more than one inning. Definitely misleading.

I mean, I know it would be a real drag to have Santana make his way back here again, just to have Chen go back to the bench.....

What I will say is that Santana (unless some team still finds a way to overspend) should look for a new agent next year. His agent ridiculously overpriced him heading into the offseason, and it caused teams to immediately look toward other options before considering Santana. His list of suitors is narrowing by the day. With Arroyo, Burnett and Yoon going to the Diamondbacks, Phillies, and Orioles last week, it looks like the Blue Jays, Mariners, Rockies, Yankees and Indians may be the teams left standing.

This is problematic for Ervin, as all of these teams aren't in a huge need of a starting pitcher and have professed that they're not looking to spend a lot more through FA (with the Rockies and Blue Jays previously refusing to negotiate with Ervin's reduced target of 4/60).

Sure, it's possible that Ervin will still catch lightning in a bottle, but it's much more likely that's he's going to make much less than he could have with a different agent. Add in the fact that his agent OPENLY bashed David Glass over twitter, and it's unmistakably clear that his agent was in over his head with handling Ervin's demands this offseason.


TLDR: Ervin's agent sucks, caused Ervin to lose out on potential suitors and openly trashed David Glass over twitter.

Agreed, Santana's agent is an idiot.

Santana aside, I'm just hoping that Duffy and Ventura have the type of spring where it's embarrassingly negligent on Ned's part to put Chen in the rotation. I like him coming out of the pen and being the spot starter for when those young guys need a week off or when they get dead arm.

Well hopefully David Glass doesn't get all puffy chested and drop a decree of NO SANTANA, PERIOD if the opportunity arises to get him back.

Chen is a perfect situational guy. I'm not interested in how well he performed as a started when Mendoza flamed out last year (and he did).

Chen's strength is out of the bullpen at this point in his career.

As others have said, it's HIGHLY doubtful that Santana's agent is doing anything more than posturing...and doing it desperately, I might add. He's a bad agent. None of this has to do with Glass. He's a bad enough on his own merits...but this has nothing to do with him, I'm guessing.

It's all I know. I've been beaten so badly. :huh:

The Indians announced yesterday that they've agreed to a minor league deal with former big leaguer Kyle Davies. The right-hander did not receive an invite to Major League Spring Training, however. Davies, still just 30 years old, spent the 2013 season pitching with the Twins' minor league system as he recovered from shoulder surgery. Davies posted a 3.41 ERA with 7.3 K/9 and 2.5 BB/9 across three levels, though he didn't pitch at Triple-A. He has a 5.59 ERA in 768 Major League innings between the Braves and Royals.



The greatest day ever.

Happy Pitchers and Catchers Report Day!