2009: A Royals Odyssey Part Deux

I'm back and this time lets talk about the pitching side of the equation. Pitching is actually a strength of this team even though they're ranked 11th in the AL in ERA as we speak. That could actually be wrong as I'll admit I'm too lazy to even open up a new tab and look. Without further adieu...

Cut ties with:
Brett Tomko (free agent)
John Bale (free agent)
Joel Peralta (DFA)

And away we go...

One idea that I was reluctant to bring up in the previous post was about trading for an outfielder, like a Jason Bay or a Matt Holliday. In order to get one of these two guys, it would almost certainly take one of the starting pitchers, probably a Meche or even a, gasp, Greinke. I'm going to work off the assumption that Greinke, Meche, Bannister and Hochevar are all in the rotation at the start of the year next year.

That means that the need in the starting rotation is for that of a fifth member. Notice I said fifth member, not fifth starter. I really think this starter should be a lefty and should be able to slot nicely into the #2 spot behind Greinke and in front of Meche. Lets take a look at who the FA lefty starters are:

Tom Glavine
Mike Hampton
Randy Johnson
Jamie Moyer
Mark Mulder
Odalis Perez
Oliver Perez
Andy Pettitte
C.C. Sabathia
Randy Wolf

Our top four can be found explaining just what happened when the dinosaur came by their house on the history channel, so we'll knock them out. Mulder has an option and is really an unknown at this point, so we'll knock him out too. Odalis Perez doesn't need us to knock him out, its the opposing offense that does that. Pettitte wouldn't com here and Wolf doesn't really fit the need although I'd love to have him, so we'll leave him on the least, which is now made up of Oliver Perez, C.C. Sabathia and Randy Wolf...

Oliver Perez - 5 yrs./$65 million
Randy Wolf - 1 yr./$10 million
C.C. Sabathia - 6 yrs./$120 million

Randy Wolf is surprisingly my top choice of the three when looking at it financially and when comparing bang for buck, but I also tend to fear that he'd struggle in the American League. If the Royals could somehow trade Gil Meche and get back some cheap offense, thus negating the need for Burrell or Cabrera, then I'd jump on the CC bandwagon and offer him $10 million more than the closest competitor, but lets play with the assumption that doesn't happen. It looks like I'm going after Oliver Perez and plugging him into the second spot in my rotation. I'd be extremely curious to see what kind of work Bob McClure could do with him.

Greinke
Perez
Meche
Hochevar
Bannister

Looks pretty decent to me...

Bullpen time

Soria, Nunez, Ramirez, Mahay and Yabuta are locks. Before you laugh, Yabuta's been good ever since taking a line drive off the shin against the Angels in the game the Royals won in that series at the K. Gobble's a candidate to stay or go, I'd vote for him to stay, which leaves one long relief spot. I doubt its really worth bringing a long reliever in, so I'd stick Kyle Davies in that role and maybe he ends up thriving and becomes a great 8th inning guy who could take over when Soria transitions to a starting role or maybe he sucks so bad the Hoover is embarrassed, but either way its time to see with him. I think we'll have a better idea of Davies in about two months now that he's up and starting.

Its that time, payroll!

Greinke - $5M (long term deal estimate)
Perez - $11M (bonuses and backloaded deal)
Meche - $11M
Hochevar - $500K
Bannister -$600K
Total: $28.1M

Soria - $1M
Nunez - $500K
Ramirez - $500K
Mahay - $4M
Yabuta - $3M
Gobble - $1.5M
Davies - $500K
Total: $11M

Pitching staff total: $39.1M, which brings the team total to about $90 million. That's a significant increase in payroll, but that team looks to be significantly better than the 2008 version has been, especially recently. I'll keep tabs on these posts and see how far off I was when the winter rolls around.