: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:
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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.