Comments on: No Doubt

By: thelaundry

thelaundry — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 01:01:26 +0000

tbr has it right. With Boras clients you can’t be surprised when they are counting the days until they can cash in as a free agent. But Boras is perfectly willing to convince a player’s current team to overpay (see Holliday, Matt).

I am glad the Royals had the stones to start drafting Boras clients. Moose and Hoz may be gone at the first opportunity, but this whole discussion assumes they will be mashing in the majors for the next few years, and I will definitely take that.

By: Corey Ettinger

Corey Ettinger — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 22:47:09 +0000

Kyle, odds are that Moose and The Hoz will get their feet wet (at least) in 2011. Still, both players have areas of their game they can improve on in AAA. They still have important lessons they can learn from AAA pitchers who are more adept at pitching backwards, have better breaking stuff and command.

They’ll both be very good, but every care should be taken to not rush these guys and lose valuable service time.

By: tbr

tbr — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 21:42:32 +0000

Previously, I was 100% certain that the Royals would not be able to get Moose and Hos to sign long term simply because they are Boras clients. But the fact that Carlos Gonzalez – another Boras client – signed a long term contract this winter made me feel a whole lot better about things. All Gonzalez had to do was simply tell Boras that he wanted to sign. So if these guys want to sign they’ll do it.

(Just don’t expect a Longoria-type contract. Boras may be a lot of things, but dumb isn’t one of them.)

By: Michael Engel

Michael Engel — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 20:20:04 +0000

It’s mostly just manipulating service time for arbitration purposes. The more I read comments, quotes and the like, the more I get the feeling Hosmer will be in KC this summer. If they hold off until about mid-July, they can fend off Super Two status for him…and ideally just offer him an extension to buy out his arbitration years and maybe tack on two or three helpful option years on top of it to keep him around until about 2020 or so…

But Moose will be up. I have a hunch Crow and Duffy will be up this year. Montgomery might be a second half guy. It’s really just a matter of trying to time it so they don’t have 12 top-notch guys all needing new contracts at once. They have salary flexibility but they can’t work miracles.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 15:47:25 +0000

I’m just curious, why keep pushing them back? The team the Royals might put on the field, might not compete this year. But they might not compete in 2012, if they keep pushing the prospects back to AA and AAA. Pretty much every player is going to take some lumps right when they get to the ML. Why not let Moustakas and Hosmer take those lumps in 2011? Especially if they are ready! Let Monty, Lamb, Duffy, Dwyer, Crow, etc take their lumps next year.

There is no need to rush them, but if they are showing that they are ready, why not get them up?

By: Corey Ettinger

Corey Ettinger — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 03:58:22 +0000

The Hoz has looked phenomenal so far. I think the big thing for Royals fans, and more importantly, the Royals front office – is to be very deliberate with these guys.

A) The team isn’t going to win the Central this year. They aren’t there yet. In fact, they’re probably going to lose a ton of games.

B) In light of that, there is absolutely no need to rush anyone. Take your time. If you can hold off on bringing them up at all until 2012 – do it. Not only are you pushing back the arb. clock, you’re saving a potentially very valuable option year if you can keep them off the 40-man.

That extra option year likely won’t mean anything for guys like Moose and The Hoz – but it might mean everything for some of the bullpen and rotation arms.