Holiday Leftovers

The smoke has finally cleared from the Greinke deal and the Royals are left with a payroll resembling that of Tampa Bay, but of course Dayton and his notoriously itchy trigger finger can't just let things be. No, our GM needs to sift through the leftover pile of free agent pitchers and see if he can't take some of that money we saved by shipping off Greinke and lay a golden egg with free agent signings like...Jeff Francis. Yes Dayton! That is exactly the kind of thing that will make myself and legions of Royals fans forget about Zach Grienke, Jeff F-ing Francis, really???

Okay so I'm not going to get myself worked up too much over throwing some spare change at Jeff Francis, and saving the money for David Glass' grandchildren's trust funds doesn't really excite me either, but NO ONE cares. Granted, the fact that our current rotation features Luke Hochevar, Kyle Davies, Sean O'Sullivan, Vin Mazaro and a big fat question mark needs to be addressed.  However, it needs to be addressed in Spring Training NOT via free agent scrap piles! The fact that there is a question mark is actually exciting and interesting and is one of the few things that makes me want to pay attention in early 2011. Tell everyone good luck in Spring Training and whomever surfaces as our fifth starter in February and March gets the job.  If however, it is apparent that not one of our minor league pitchers is even close to ready for the job, then I'm sure there will still be an unsigned free agent or a trade that can be made. We've already got the message loud-and-clear, 2011 will be a long year, don't try to tell us that we need a veteran fifth starter in order to compete this year because we don't.  We will not compete this year, it's obvious, and if we were to compete it wouldn't be by signing the likes of Jeff Francis or Kevin Milwood, it would be because Aaron Crow emerged as the staff ace and Alex Gordon turned in a Ryan Braun-like year and because Lorenzo Cain turned into Mike Cameron (early Mike) and Kila hit 30 HRs and Billy Butler hit .350, but not because Kevin Milwood cheated father time.          

Which brings us to the most puzzling rumor...ever. The KC Royals are interested in Carl Pavano??? Carl is the expensive long-term version of Milwood or Francis, it would take all of the money saved in the Greinke trade and probably a little icing on the cake to get him to come to KC. Since this is still in the rumor stage, I'm going to bite my tongue somewhat. However, if Dayton were to put his blinders on and look only at the moderately successful year-and-a-half that Carl spent in Minnesota and completely forget about those Yankee years where Carl made Jose Guillen's time in KC look like a bargain, it might be the worst contract Dayton has ever signed. The deal is a no-win for the Royals of Texas-sized proportions, lets just say it's three years and $25 mil, and Carl earns that money in 2011 by going 10-10 with 180 innings and a 3.90 ERA, but naturally the Royals finish 72-90. Great, good Job Carl, starting in 2012 he will be spending two years blocking tryouts for pitchers the Royals are counting on to be superstars for the next 5 years and paying him $8 mil for this valuable service. Enough said, I'll continue to bite my tongue until this becomes a nightmarish reality.

If you want to see a good indication of just how badly the Royals did in the free agent market during the last few years, you have to look no further than who is still available on the market about a month before Spring Training gets underway. Surprisingly, Willie Bloomquist, Kyle Farnsworth, Jose Guillen and Scott Posednik have not yet been made serious offers and Bruce Chen is still waiting for that multi-year deal.  Juan Cruz didn't make the list, but that is because he is no longer considered a baseball player and any reputable magazine listing him as a free agent would be laughed at. Brain Bannister recently took his name off the list by signing to play in Japan, Sayonara Banny, we'll miss you this year (especially if Carl Pavano takes your place). So far one of the biggest winners is Rick Ankiel, who will be taking his classy sportsmanship to D.C. this year where outfielders get a 50% premium to play.  By far and away the biggest winners were John Buck and Miguel Olivo, both of whom signed multi-year deals after putting up solid seasons when the Royals chose not to sign either of them in favor of Jason Kendall, who won't be joining our team until later this year (good thing we gave him that extra year).  And for a further walk down memory lane take a look at some of the other names on the list:  Johnny Damon, Octavio Dotel, Chad Durbin, Mike MacDougal, Ron Mahay, Jeff Suppan, Mike Sweeny, and I believe that Jermaine Dye is still considered a free agent just to round it out. It's been awhile since we've had a premier free agent leave in a KC jersey, I guess Raul Ibanez probably has signed the biggest deal after ending the season in a KC uniform and without being traded first, someone help me if I'm wrong.

Please tell me if you would tune into just one more game this season if we signed Carl Pavano, Jeff Francis, Kevin Milwood or any pitcher left on the fee agent market??? Dayton, take a vacation, we don't need anything else this year, your job is done until the trade deadline when, hopefully, you can trade Melky Cabrera for a box of cracker jacks and start bringing up a slew of minor league talent.