Meh. That's pretty much how things work. You lowball the young talent because you get them for 6 years...and then you have to overpay the vets when they start getting to their 2nd and 3rd contracts.

Smart organizations, and we do this, just extend the youngsters right away and buy their first two or three years of free agency for a huge discount.

If you're 1 year of service in and know you won't get paid diddly for 2-5 years...you might as well take $6M per year up front in case you start to suck or you get drilled in the face by an Arodlis Champman fastball.

Maybe we can trade Frenchy, Hoch and Chen for 1/2 of the Pittsburgh Pirates?
Seems like a fair deal.

yeah, and aside from the injury or failure risk, some kids who make it want the nice house and fancy cars right away. Boras might preach to his clients to be patient, but sometimes they don't want to wait and they'll give something up later to get paid more now.

at least those contracts are one way for the "little guy" to compete.

From Bob Dutton today:

#Royals list Johnny Giavotella as 2B at Class AAA Omaha but classify Christian Colon and Irving Falu as 2B/SS...

RHPs Yordano Ventura and Jason Adam will open at AA Northwest Arkansas along with SS Orlando Calixte and CF Brett Eibner...

John Lamb will begin first full season back from TJ surgery at Hi-A Wilmington.

Joins Kyle Zimmer, Sam Selman and Kyle Smith in rotation. Wilmington roster also includes 3B Cheslor Cuthbert and RF Jorge Bonifacio...

Lo-A Lexington gets three of #Royals' top young prospects: CF Bubba Starling, SS Adalberto Mondesi and RHP Miguel Almonte.

Spring training is over. Time to get excited.

The best way is to not horribly miss on our draft picks for over a decade.

Baseball's economics are unfair, but its not quite as catastrophic as some Royals fans believe. What we went though in the 90's and 2000's is not normal. We are given the right to have every player we ever draft through his likely peak year. Any free agent that the large markets gobble up are on the decline. The large markets can still win because even though they are buying declining players, if they are all declining superstars, you'll still win plenty of games before they get too old.

If we keep drafting well and early-extend any good player we can who wants to be paid sooner, we should be able to at least generally be mediocre most years with some periods of crap and some periods of glory. Two decades of crap takes some supremely un-talented GM's.

Mendoza will be made available on Monday as a long reliever. If we don't use him, he'll pitch on Saturday.

Not sure what we do on April 6th if for some bizarre reason we use Mendoza on opening day, hopefully we'd just skip #5 and let Shields pitch since there's a day off mixed in there.

that'd sure be nice for those of us coming from out of town, and tired of the hoch treatment!!!

goooooooooooo royals!!!!!
:)

Well, Shields wont pitch the home opener. That'll be either Santana or Guthrie, depending on whether we skip the #5 start.

There is also the time value of money to consider.

Yeah baby!

Hey, I've got a new drinking game. Every time James Shields gets inverviewed, you have to slam your beer every time he says "I tell you what...."

welp, that sucked. (KU's loss to Michigan)

Oh, well. 2013 was always going to be the year of the Royals, it is destiny. If you are a casual, kinda sorta Royals fan, you should get on the bandwagon now because for the first time in over 20 fricken' years, this baseball team looks really, really good.

The lineup is powerful, the rotation is.... well, its not going to be the best but its the best we've had in a long time, and our bullpen this year is going to be absolutely rock-solid. I honestly don't think any team in the entire AL has a better bullpen than the Royals. Hopefully they can actually give them leads to hold.

Royals season!

Hells yeah.....bring on those greasy Chisox!

And... it's officially Royals season.

Welp,

go Royals.

The one and only time KU/MU fans can half-assedly get along.

Yes, we no longer have to force ourselves to avoid referencing that sport and giving this wonderful thread AIDS.

Weights lifted.

Unless we're referring to Francouer, of course.

I can't wait for the season. Literally I can't remember a time where I've anticipated a season as much as I have this one...or at least since I was a kid and we were competitive every year.

Gordon is going to beast. MVP-type beast.

Perez is going to emerge and make himself known to the whole league.

Butler will hit like Butler.

Hosmer will show why he's hyped.

Moose will own.

And our pitching staff is ready to roll. Let's do this.

Ah, spring in KC.

Late March: Can't wait for the season!
Late April: **** this shit. Thank goodness for OTAs.

Let's break the cycle.

:thumb: Here's to a great season. Can't wait till 3:00 Monday. Shields with a complete game to start the season would set it off right.

My God will it ever be fun to care again. I hope the preseason wasn't a fluke.

I like Gordon to be an All-Star but Sal Perez is going to be Johnny Bench with game genie code.

Just bought my mlb.tv subscription for the season. booyah!

I thought this was pretty cool. Link to photos of all the mascots in MLB:
http://www.kshb.com/gallery/news/new...ue-mlb-mascots

Gordon with 8 homers leads basball and Getz and Cain have the top averages- Wow!!

If Hos and Moose keep hitting like that- they will look like the steal of baseball with their contracts. Moose is at a half a mil- and will put up better numbers than Arod who will make 29 million more than him-lol Oh and play better defense as well. He might win a Gold Glove this year.

25 wins is not a fluke- they earned it. Some of their losses were slit squad games as well.

Getting off to a good start would be huge for this team. From the general good vibes that come with early success to attendance, quick start means a lot this season.

Just saw this today and didn't see it any where and didn't pay attention to the game yesterday.

Royals Experiment with Hosmer in Right Field
http://network.yardbarker.com/all_sp...in_rf/13262761

Curious what people's opinion of this is. If Hosmer is viable at RF and we move Billy to 1st, who would you want to DH? Should this even be considered?

Salvy to DH.

Looking at the early schedule, it is not going to be an easy start. White Sox, Phillies, Twins, BlueJays, Braves, Red Sox, Tigers, Indians in April. With the Twins, BlueJays, and Indians being the home series. Luckily, with the staff we have now, I just don't see long losing streaks. But that was the point of the trade wasn't it?

Gonna be important throughout the season to beat the teams we are "supposed" to beat. No more losing to the freaking Twins. People keep saying, "I just want meaningful games in August!" Well, if the Royals manage that, they play 17 games in August against sub .500 teams last season. 19 if you count the last two games (Twins) in July. Then a pretty brutal September, but that's where playoff teams are made.

So glad that opening day is Monday

I think it's mainly because interleague games are spread throughout the year now. I don't think they'll do it when they have the DH.

I think they are mainly doing it to have options for interleague. Our second series is at Philly so we need to know if Hosmer could play right. Would be nice to sit Frenchy instead of one of those two.

The Yankees almost had a mascot, but a bizarre angry confrontation between Yankee coach Lou Piniella and the Famous San Diego Chicken at a game in Seattle pissed off Steinbrenner so much that he declared to the media that mascots had no place in baseball. He apparently forgot that he approved a new mascot that was going to debut in 2 weeks. The new Yankee mascot was banished to the upper decks, they did nothing to promote him, and they got rid of him after 3 years.

Yeah, that makes sense, thanks for the responses.

If any of you are Game of Thrones fans, you might find this interesting.

http://extramustard.si.com/2013/03/2...1_a5&eref=sihp

Obligatory can't wait til Monday. Going to listen to the first couple innings until I'm off at 4:30 then head home to hopefully catch the rest of the game. Been a fan all my life & have never seen this team truly competitive. It's about damn time that changes.

No.

I agree, but then who?

no one. We can't have a DH at NL parks.

I hope the Royals ease the pain from my beloved Jayhawks.


C'mon you sons of bitches!

http://espn.go.com/mlb/preview13/sto...aseball-season

ESPN has posted playoff predictions from their massive list of analysts and writers. Seems like almost everyone is picking the Nationals over Tigers, or the Tigers over the Nationals, in the World Series.

Two guys do predict the Royals make it as a wild card. Aaron Boone and a writer from ESPN New York, of all places.

Am I the only one that think that the Blue Jays (edit, i was wrong.) will flop this year?

I am ready for baseball season

**** you man, I read that as Salvy to DL and almost had a heart attack.

Dude Salvy could potebtially be the best catcher ever. He is already compared to Yadier Molina in his 2nd season.

Let's get Salvy through a whole season before we start comparing him to any of the Molina brothers.

American league newcomers, Houston Astros open the regular season tonight with their cross-state rivals the Texas Rangers.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index...1&mode=preview

5 of the 10 interleague road games we'll play this year will be in April (3 in Philly, 2 in ATL).

Salivdor Perez is is not only the best catcher that have ever lived, he had a tryout with the LasorGuns from Basewars

:LOL:

Astros open season with payroll lower than ARod's salary.

Any objections to me starting the opening day game thread this year? (at 12:01 am, obviously. Rules are rules)

I'm in favor.

Me too
Posted via Mobile Device

Objections? I'd assumed that kickass game threads were part of your job description around here.

Damn I am excited now. Cannot wait for tomorrow.

Hell yes let's get this party started. I'm all for alnorth making the game threads too!

Without objection. Please Royals, make me wrong. Please?

Go for it, Al.

Bring on the ChiSox.

Don't make us ask you again.

I'm ready!

Sitting here watching the Rangers vs Astros just because I'm ready for baseball.

Cool! It's the Rangers/Astros game thread!

Altuve: Hey keep that ball down, Catch.

Houston's new/old unis are kind of boring.

RECORD WATCH: Matt Harrison's on pace for 612 strikeouts this year.

WOW at the Umps

HEY! It's my turn to spam the thread.

:)

I'd prefer someone who actually knows something about baseball, but I guess I won't bitch too much if you start it up. ;)

Enjoy!

http://msn.foxsports.com/topics/devi...n.htm?m_n=true

Astros gonna win 50 this year?

Rick Ankiel in the house. Astros rolling now.

Astros lead the league in home runs. on pace for 7 runs a game! and a sub 2 Era

graphs back me up that the royals will be good.

Astros are looking good

Amount of ass kicking in comparison to other ass kicking events in history.

But demonpenz...how long will the royals be kicking ass?