Comments on: Mythbusting the Royals

By: Michael Engel

Michael Engel — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 02:40:55 +0000

Yeah, I can never get to a point where I can tell someone who doesn’t know the CBA/draft setup that even if they don’t resign someone, they get those sandwich picks. I’m sure there will be a few players who pass through like that. I’m sure the Rays are comfortable with their 2011 draft after losing all those free agents.

By: Kevin Scobee

Kevin Scobee — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 16:21:05 +0000

But, uh, they talk about getting rid of all our good players on the radio, that means it’s true!

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 16:18:40 +0000

This comes up all the time from casual fans and annoys me to no end. My response to that comment is always the same:

“the last time they traded a young, highly talented home-grown player for salary reasons was 2004, now seven years ago.”

They’ve locked in Butler and Soria (even though the very casual fan doesn’t even know that they’re good players) and even with Greinke, he was locked in to a good contract, was offered market-rate extensions, but demanded to be traded. It’s an indictment of Baird and the bare cupboard he left that those three are the only opportunities to disprove the myth, but the fact is, when they’ve had the opportunity to lock in young, home-grown talent with upside, they’ve done it, when the player was willing. 2004 was a long time ago.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 15:20:03 +0000

I, too, get frustrated with this prevailing theme and I’ve spent far too much time and energy trying to ‘correct’ everyone I see propagating it. But you know what? I realized that even though I’m capable of seeing the ‘big picture’ and understand what it is the Royals are trying to build, not everyone does. They just see ‘good team’ or ‘bad team’.

The Royals have certainly done nothing to assuage anyone’s skepticism. Some people will just have to wake up one day and come to the realization on their own that their assumed ‘bad team’ has suddenly become a ‘good team’.

By: Seth

Seth — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 15:02:19 +0000

The bigger problem with your friends comment is the implied idea that a player’s best performance is likely to occur after he has left the Royals via a trade (or free agency). This is a misunderstanding of how baseball player’s age. Player’s, especially pitchers, often have their best seasons before they reach free agency. Does anyone think Greinke will ever top 2009? He’s almost certainly had his career year.

The Royals should continue to be aggressive in trading players and letting players, even good players, go to Free Agency if they won’t sign a team friendly contract (so long as the current draft pick compensation remains in place). The prospects and players they get in return will have their best years ahead of them, while the players they let go will likely have had their best years behind them.

By: Michael Engel

Michael Engel — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 07:03:13 +0000

I’m glad you pointed that out. I had that in mind, but didn’t want to stop and fill it in since it’s more the idea around the upcoming payroll (low and prime for extensions if they go there) than the numbers. Lot of conditional scenarios involved that I thought made the big idea cloudy. And they’ll still be within a “normal” payroll even with all that going on.

And if people aren’t already going there, check out Corey’s site…does some good work and A LOT of it.

By: Corey Ettinger

Corey Ettinger — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 06:54:54 +0000

First of all, thanks for the links, both within this post and on the sidebar. Hopefully the payroll data link can become a nice staple of the posts here .

Anyways, what I really wanted to say, or rather clarify, is that the MLB payroll for 2012 will be higher than 18m. The team will probably have 3-4 spots to fill even once you factor in the arrival of a bevy of youngsters. Specifically at catcher, a bench spot, a bullpen spot, and maybe even a rotation spot.

They also have four arb. cases scheduled. So payroll prior o any free agent additions or extensions looks to be in the 28-30m range depending on how the arb. cases shake out.

Not that any of this changes the thesis. I jut want to make sure that no one is under the assumption that the Royals payroll will start at 18m as that’s not exactly accurate.