Royals Links: Baseball America Award, Trade Values, Gordon, & More

Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Tonight is the deadline for teams to tender contracts to their arbitration-eligible players, and now that Aaron Crow has been traded, the only possible non-tender candidate is Tim Collins. He’s set to make roughly $1.5 million next season, and even though he’s coming off a poor year, Collins is only 25, he has options remaining, and has a solid track record. At the very least, the Royals could tender him an offer, while also considering trade offers for him. There’s no real risk involved, so they might as well keep their options open. Let’s get to some more Royals news and notes from around the internet.

– Baseball America named the Royals as their Organization of the Year, and J.J. Cooper wrote a bit about Dayton Moore’s path to get here. He inherited a disaster of a farm system, but displayed patience in developing the talent we saw in the World Series this season. While his plan took longer to reach this point than it probably needed to, the 2014 season can be looked at as nothing short of a rousing success for the entire Royals’ organization.

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– At FanGraphs, Carson Cistulli presented a few relatively low-cost options that teams, such as the Royals, could consider to fill a need for right-handed power. Players are being paid a premium for having some pop from the right side, especially in free agency, but there are a few players available who could provide that power on the cheap. Some are buy-low free agents, and others are blocked players in other organizations, who could be acquired without giving up too much.

– Max Rieper of Royals Review ranked each player on the team’s 40-man roster by trade value. Omar Infante and his contract are at the bottom of the list, and rightly so. At the other end of the spectrum, you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that Salvador Perez has the most trade value of any Royal. Considering the Blue Jays just handed Russell Martin $82 million, I’d say the Royals could demand a king’s ransom, and then some, in a trade for Perez. It’s never happening, but it’s a fun hypothetical nonetheless.

– Alex Gordon has been asked time and time again whether or not he thinks he could have scored in the 9th inning of Game 7, and as Dick Kaegel writes for MLB.com, Gordon thinks his third base coach probably made the right call. It likely would’ve been an exciting play, but only because World Series don’t tend to end on a play at the plate.

– Jeff Zimmerman wrote a piece for The Hardball Times that looks at how players perform as the season wears on, and whether it may indicate some fatigue. He actually found that younger players become more productive hitters in the second half of the season, while older guys get worse. Perhaps more surprisingly, the data suggests players perform worse in the first half of a season than they did in the second half of the previous season. It’s not an exhaustive study, but the research does bring up more questions to look into.