It's the end of the world as we know it... and we feel... fine?
2018 is a season of transition for the Royals, or at least it is at this point. Dayton Moore is back. Will he swing full into THE PROCESS 2.0? Or will he try to load up again and make some reload magic happen?
Pending Free Agents:
1B | Eric Hosmer | San Diego Padres, 8 years, $144 million ($5 million signing bonus; $20 million/year in Yrs 1-5; $13 million/year in Yrs 6-8 wth player opt out)
Spoiler!
(DI's Guess: Texas Rangers, 6, $118 million)
3B | Mike Moustaskas | Kansas City Royas, 1, $6.5 million
Spoiler!
(DI's Guess: Los Angeles Angels, 5, $98 million)
CF | Lorenzo Cain | Milwaukee Brewers, 5 years, $80 million
Spoiler!
(DI's Guess: San Francisco Giants, 4, $68 million)
RP | Mike Minor | Texas Rangers, 3, $28 million
Spoiler!
(DI's Guess: Los Angeles Angels, 3, $35 million+ $12 million team option
SP | Jason Vargas | New York Mets, 2, $16 million
Spoiler!
(DI's Guess: Baltimore Orioles, 2, $29 million)
SS | Alcides Escobar | Kansas City Royals, 1, $2.5 million
In case I, picks would be #32, 33, and 34, if Alex Cobb of Rays signs for $50 million guaranteed.
Kansas City will likely have 5 of the top 40-45 picks in the draft, and the bonus pool money should rival that of the teams drafting 1-3 in the 2017 draft. This should give KC tremendous flexibility in acquiring talent that otherwise might slip or not be "signable."
2018 Draft Names to Watch
RHP Kumar Rocker, N Oconnee HS, Georgia.
Spoiler!
Possibly goes top 10 but is a big, physical SP with ace potential. Moore and co. will be all over him if he slips a bit and could offer top 10 money at No. 16
OF Jarred Kelenic, Waukasha West HS, WI
Spoiler!
Kelenic is the top prep bat, toolsy OF. Royals would be ecstatic to have shot at him.
1B Triston Casas, American Heritage HS (FL).
Spoiler!
Tremendous raw power, best in HS bats. Royals typically like HS arms or HS bats with "special" tools. He qualifies.
RHP Carter Stewart, Eau de Gallie HS (Ga).
Spoiler!
Another big, physical specimen with huge upside. More likely to be available mid-first than Rocker.
ANY Any, Any (Any). Any current top projected pick who slides for injury concerns. Includes current top prospect prospect SP Brady Singer, U of Florida. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Prison Bitch:
Edinson Volq released by Miami the other day. Hilarious, after giving us 23 wins& 400IP of 4 fWAR ball over two seasons (on a 2/22 deal), he gets another 2/22 from Miami and farts out 92 IP before blowing out his elbow
Lesson: let Cain go, so he can do that to SF or Wash
Cain/Esky are the 2 no brainers. 1 sucks and 1 looks like the wheels might come off at any moment. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Prison Bitch:
Edinson Volq released by Miami the other day. Hilarious, after giving us 23 wins& 400IP of 4 fWAR ball over two seasons (on a 2/22 deal), he gets another 2/22 from Miami and farts out 92 IP before blowing out his elbow
Lesson: let Cain go, so he can do that to SF or Wash
Originally Posted by fahrenheit:
Yep, it'd be different per team\schedule. Good on the person that wants to tackle that shitache. But to keep it simple, could just compare the 81 home games difference.
Probably fair to do it over about 100 games.
Because the Royals have zero divisional opponents in California. The Padres have the Giants and Dodgers as well as a few 'rivalry' games in California via Interleague play.
The Padres probably play about 100 more games in California than the Royals do when all is said and done.
But I don't think money is going to ultimately drive this. It might have if Boras could've gotten the bidding war off the ground he was trying to get going but it appears that nobody bought into his bullshit. So instead he's trying to find a 'mystery team' to push a price that I think everyone knows has gone stagnant.
The question is how badly Hosmer wants to go back to Southern California. Given the high odds of most of his teammates going elsewhere, I'm not sure how much appeal the Royals would still hold as 'family', but there will be some inertia there.
The Royals can probably hang with what the Padres will ultimately draw the line at, but if he wants to go back to SoCal, there's just not a lot that KC can do about it. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
Probably fair to do it over about 100 games.
Because the Royals have zero divisional opponents in California. The Padres have the Giants and Dodgers as well as a few 'rivalry' games in California via Interleague play.
The Padres probably play about 100 more games in California than the Royals do when all is said and done.
But I don't think money is going to ultimately drive this. It might have if Boras could've gotten the bidding war off the ground he was trying to get going but it appears that nobody bought into his bullshit. So instead he's trying to find a 'mystery team' to push a price that I think everyone knows has gone stagnant.
The question is how badly Hosmer wants to go back to Southern California. Given the high odds of most of his teammates going elsewhere, I'm not sure how much appeal the Royals would still hold as 'family', but there will be some inertia there.
The Royals can probably hang with what the Padres will ultimately draw the line at, but if he wants to go back to SoCal, there's just not a lot that KC can do about it.
Well I'll be damned. Why all the scuttle about him being such a perfect fit for the Padres, then? My Royals fan buddy was telling me it's because he's from there.
Well yeah, just ignore all that shit then. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
Well I'll be damned. Why all the scuttle about him being such a perfect fit for the Padres, then? My Royals fan buddy was telling me it's because he's from there.
Well yeah, just ignore all that shit then.
That would be Boras trying to drive the price up. [Reply]
The talk of Hosmer coming back will die down after the end of December when the push for season ticket sales and 18 game packages dwindles. They've been doing alot of advertising for them the past month. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Titty Meat: The talk of Hosmer coming back will die down after the end of December when the push for season ticket sales and 18 game packages dwindles. They've been doing alot of advertising for them the past month.
The talk from who? The team? If anything, they've done the opposite. Story last week was how every player on the team is available...Duffy was sending out tweets about how he didn't want to be traded.
WTF are you talking about? [Reply]
Originally Posted by cosmo20002:
The talk from who? The team? If anything, they've done the opposite. Story last week was how every player on the team is available...Duffy was sending out tweets about how he didn't want to be traded.
WTF are you talking about?
Billy just needs to be banned from Royals threads. [Reply]
Originally Posted by cosmo20002:
The talk from who? The team? If anything, they've done the opposite. Story last week was how every player on the team is available...Duffy was sending out tweets about how he didn't want to be traded.
WTF are you talking about?
Since Boston moved away from Hos and now the Padres are the only suitor, there's a lot of talk about this. Twitter, sports radio, etc.
Originally Posted by Dartgod:
Since Boston moved away from Hos and now the Padres are the only suitor, there's a lot of talk about this. Twitter, sports radio, etc.
Pay attention.
His post more than implied the talk of Hosmer coming back was coming from the team--he tied it to the push for season ticket sales. Are you telling me that you've heard the team saying things that make it sound like he's coming back?
Sports radio is not the team. Pay attention. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Dartgod:
Since Boston moved away from Hos and now the Padres are the only suitor, there's a lot of talk about this. Twitter, sports radio, etc.
Pay attention.
Right. In November Moore even made it sound like if there wasn't alot of competition for Hosmer he could be re-signed. I believe he even specifically mentioned Boston during the conversation. [Reply]