Royals Sign Four

I like the addition of Scott Elarton to our starting rotation. Unfortunately, in this market, it really does cost $4 million per year for a career .500 pitcher with an ERA slightly over 5.00. He'll be in Kansas City for the next two seasons and maybe we'll finally have a couple of guys in the rotation who can pitch 200+ innings (Redman being the other). We still don't have a number one or two guy, but we finally have a couple of number threes. Runelvys Hernandez, Jeremy Affeldt, and Zach Greinke appear to be the other three starters. This is the best rotation we've had in many years. Still not good—but at least it won't be embarrassingly bad.

I'm not as high on the signing of Mark Grudzielanek. He's a 35 year-old, good fielding second baseman with an average bat (.294, 8 HR, 59 RBI last season) and a hefty price tag ($4 million). He's not a bad signing, but I think Tony Graffanino could produce at least the same offensive numbers (.309, 7 HR, 38 RBI last season) if not better if he started at second base all season. It's hard to argue with Grudzielanek's gold glove, but is a gold glove worth $4 million? I don't think so.

I really don't understand the Doug Mientkiewicz signing. We just agreed to pay $1.85 million to a light hitting (.240, 11 HR, 29 RBI last season) first baseman with a very good glove when we already have Mike Sweeney, Matt Stairs, Justin Huber, Ken Harvey, and maybe even Alex Gordon lined up to play first base. Harvey is hurt and Sweeney is injury prone, but Stairs is durable (and cheaper), Huber is an up-and-comer, and if Gordon is really worth all the money we paid him, then we ought to be set at first base without adding Mientkiewicz.

And why sign Paul Bako? Experience is the answer I guess, but his career numbers are poor. He has a .239 career batting average with 14 HR and 133 RBI. Why not bring back Paul Phillips? He hit .269 with 1 HR and 9 RBI in 23 games with KC last season. He's only 27 years old and wouldn't cost as much. I know that Bako caught Maddux in Atlanta, but I'm not sure that it matters in Kansas City.

According to Jeff Passan's article in the Star this morning, the Royals are still in the market for a power hitting corner outfielder, including guys like Jacque Jones, Juan Encarnacion, and Preston Wilson. I'm not a big Jacque Jones fan, and both Encarnacion and Wilson are free swingers—which seems to me the last thing we need on this roster, but if I had to pick between the two, I'd take Preston Wilson.

With the payroll already approaching $50 million, Baird knows that this team better win considerably more games in 2006 than we did in 2005 or he won't be around KC for 2007. We've certainly improved our team, while not taking away positions from our younger guys, but that doesn't always equate to more wins. Let's hope in this case though that it does.