2009: A Royals Odyssey

I feel like I owe everybody a few posts this weekend to make up for the terrible lack of content that you wonderful patrons are paying $57.23 a week for. This is free? Well crap. Oh well, I guess I'll indulge you anyway. I still think the Royals will finish with 77 wins this year. As I've said before, I'll stand by that until I see loss 86. At this rate, it'll be around early August. But since the Royals are no longer in the race and are firmly entrenched in last place, here's what I'd like to see happen with this team as they transform into contenders. David Glass, if you're reading this, I'm spending your money and I'm spending it wisely, so step off.

Cut ties with:
Tony Pena, Jr. - release
Mark Grudzielanek - free agent
Ross Gload - trade (value depends entirely on if he improves)

That's the start.

In the free agent market, the Royals need to be looking for two bats. I'd prefer big power bats, but a shortstop is a key need as well. Mike Moustakas is not going to be a shortstop in the majors and even if they do draft Tim Beckham, he won't be ready soon enough to be influencing major league decisions. Anyway, in order to get those two bats, the Royals are left with two choices: free agent or trade because nobody in the farm system can help (unless you now count Butler as part of the farm system -- that's another post for this afternoon, though).

So who's available? The three biggest power bats on the market will be Adam Dunn, Mark Teixeira and Pat Burrell. All three can play first base. Two of them can play left field, although some people may offer dissenting opinions about that.

Here's what I think they will cost for the Royals:
Adam Dunn - 5 yrs./$85 million
Mark Teixeira - 6 yrs./$126 million
Pat Burrell - 3 yrs./$50 million

Well, clearly two of them are not an option. But based on what was offered to Torii Hunter this offseason, one certainly is. For the price and length, I'd almost certainly go with Pat Burrell on this one. Of course, I may be wrong and he may be out for a 7 year mega-deal, but that's what I see right now and who's the expert here anyway? Other cheaper options include: Frank Thomas, Carlos Delgado, Jeff Kent, Joe Crede and Juan Rivera. Of those, I'd give Rivera a 1 year deal because I assume that's all he'd take.

Ok, so lets say the Royals settled on Burrell and Rivera. What does our lineup look like now?

C Buck/Olivo
1B Butler/Burrell
2B Callaspo
SS
3B Gordon
LF Guillen/Burrell
CF DeJesus
RF Rivera/Teahen platoon?
DH Butler/Burrell/Guillen

Ok, so now there's a hole at shortstop left to fill...

Let's go to the big board!
Orlando Cabrera
Rafael Furcal
Christian Guzman
Juan Uribe

Lets go ahead and scratch out Guzman and Uribe right now because I said so. We're left with Cabrera and Furcal. DM knows Furcal well, but he'll be expensive. DM may or may not know Cabrera, but he's slick defensively and he's pretty decent with the bat.

Cabrera - 3 yrs./$21 million
Furcal - 4 yrs./$60 million

For those dollar amounts, it seems like Cabrera would be the runaway winner here, so lets go ahead and plug him in and make a lineup.

1. DeJesus
2. Cabrera
3. Gordon
4. Burrell
5. Guillen
6. Butler
7. Rivera/Teahen
8. Buck/Olivo
9. Callaspo

Now that's better than this 2008 team, no? Lets see how the salaries add up to see if it works (I'll go ahead and estimate arb totals).

1. 3.6M
2. 7M
3. 1M (long term deal starts)
4. 16.6M
5. 12M
6. 500K
7. 4M total
8. 5M Total
9. 400K
Total: 50.1M

I'll tackle pitching in my next post. I mean, I won't actually tackle them, although I do want to some time. I don't know, we'll see.

Don't forget your free week at The Royal Tower!