Herrera
-
Good news aprox, your bullpen just got stronger!
Weak trade on the Royals end. Top end reliever for the 10th ranked prospect in their system. Sad.
-
I’m sick! Anyone other than him.
-
@Crimsonorblue22 Full on tear down and rebuild mode now. Watch the Royals become a AAAA farm team.
-
Herrera was gone at the end of the season either way. Would have liked to see them get a better return for him, though.
-
justanotherfan said:
Herrera was gone at the end of the season either way. Would have liked to see them get a better return for him, though.
I find it hard to believe they couldn’t get a better haul than that but oh well.
-
justanotherfan said:
Herrera was gone at the end of the season either way. Would have liked to see them get a better return for him, though.
Exactly my complaint. The Royals have no clue.
-
My nephew who lives in the Washington DC area, is studying journalism and wants to be a sports reporter and follow the Nationals tells me Gutierrez is a really good prospect and the pitcher, Morel, is very young (17 years old) and very promising. Could end up being a pretty good trade. Hopefully @approxinfinity can provide more details.
-
@JayHawkFanToo I’m not sure about Morel, but I’ve backed away from the superfan ledge this year…
-
Depends what Royals scouts saw. But I don’t like that we ended up with a 10th ranked prospect. Nor do I have any faith in Dayton or our scouting department anymore after an atrocious 10 year stretch of poor drafts, worse trades, and even worse FA signings.
However, I’m happy to see us sell off players. Hope they sell everyone and get some fresh blood in the system. Would like to see 10-15 new faces come into the organization through trades. Between that and the draft we should have about 30 new prospects in the system.
-
The deal works if one of these guys makes it to the majors and is a contributor. But the most advanced guy hasn’t really hit at the higher levels, and the guy with the most promise is a young pitcher that hasn’t even conquered A ball yet.
-
@justanotherfan Feels a lot like the early 2000s Royals type of a return…
Right now is exactly why selling out for the WS was not worth it. At least to me it wasn’t.
It looks like another long drought of 90+ loss seasons is coming, when, had we kept all of our own homegrown players, we would be a competitive group still.
Cardinals and Rays do it right. They don’t make deadline acquisitions. They don’t undervalue their own players in trades. And they put all their time and effort into the development of players so that when one leaves, someone is ready to take their place.
And, what’s worse, I just can’t stand the Glass family as the owners. They make it extremely hard to stay a Royals fan.
-
As a Nats fan, I like this deal. None of these guys are on my radar; our farm system has been depleted and these guys were still the 10th and 11th best guys. Hopefully the Royals have assessed them well and they help.
-
approxinfinity said:
As a Nats fan, I like this deal. None of these guys are on my radar; our farm system has been depleted and these guys were still the 10th and 11th best guys. Hopefully the Royals have assessed them well and they help.
The Royals got fleeced at their own request. Full on youth movement is great, but get good value for your guys. Sheesh
-
@dylans at least its arms for younger arms. the Nats traded arms for redundant position players (see Adam Eaton for Giolito and Lopez) or arms with expiring contracts (Mark Melancon for Filipe Rivero) and our bullpen is the elephant in the room.
-
I don’t know. The chance to win a title is precious. I think you have to maximize that opportunity when given the chance.
Look at the Dodgers from last year. They won 104 games.
The Indians won 102 games last year.
The Indians didn’t even make the World Series. The Dodgers lost in the World Series. This year, if the playoffs started today, LA would miss the playoffs, and Cleveland would not have home field advantage in the LDS round. If they could have improved their chances by 10% last year, I bet either of them does it.
That’s what the Royals did in 2015. They took a team that was locked into winning its division and made sure they not only won the Division, but had the best possible shot at winning it all.
The Nats have been good for the last several years, but have a bunch of playoff flameouts to show for it. They could lose Harper to FA at the end of the year. I bet their fans would take a lesser chance next year to have capitalized on some of the chances they have had over the last four or five years.
-
@justanotherfan we should have given up Giolito and Lopez for Andrew Miller. We didn’t then ended up giving them away anyway.
I like the rate we have traded off our prospects. I just don’t like what we have traded for. And our Papelbon and Soriano acquisitions were stupid. Just mindblowingly stupid. The Soriano trade was for a prospect the Yankees selected in the slot after Aaron Judge.
I wouldn’t trust our management to trade off more talented prospects. I’d rather we move on from Harper, Zimmerman and Murphy and let Turner, Michael A Taylor, Robles, Soto and Difo step up.
So, I disagree.
-
Also, if we had had a competent manager (other than Davey Johnson. Love Davey, but he was too old) we likely wouldn’t be talking about what might have been.
Jury out on Martinez. But Riggleman, Williams, and Dusty were awful.
-
@justanotherfan It is a personal preference for sure. I’d rather watch good baseball year in and year out than be a 90+ loss team a majority of the time, with only brief moments of a good team.
There is something about KC in the summer when the Royals are good, or even mediocre honestly. The town is painted blue. Everywhere you go, people are dressed head to toe in Royals gear. The stadium has a real roar to it. Everyone has a sense of pride about themselves. That was the fun part about baseball to me. I loved watching us win the WS. But, I loved watching the entire city have a sense of pride for an entire Summer, much, much more.
-
Absolutely agree that KC is more fun in the summertime when the Royals are good. Watching bad baseball is pretty lousy.
The problem for the Royals is that I think it would be difficult for them to have an 82-88 win team year in and year out with their financial situation. They simply can’t bid on their core players to keep them all in place long term, and if they are finishing in the middle of the pack every year, it is more difficult to find future stars to replace those guys through the draft.
I’m okay with the cycles (personal preference, like you said), so long as there are clear upticks rather than just long dry periods. I am okay with the Royals struggling the next couple of years if, come 2021, they have a competitive team based around the guys they drafted this year (and next year), plus what they already had in the minors.
But I can certainly understand those that want to see a more competitive team on a yearly basis - this year is UGLY.
-
@justanotherfan understatement!
-
@justanotherfan I just can’t buy those arguments. Not since revenue sharing started in 1999 and the draft changed to allow teams to actually sign the best players. Small-Market clubs have seen more success than ever since those rules were put in place.
-
It is the equivalent of the KU-UConn basketball conundrum that has been discussed before. Do you rather have a team like UConn that wins a national championship every few years and the rest of the time sucks and misses the dance altogether or a team like KU that wins consistently including the conference title but not a national championship nearly as often?
I know a couple that both went to UConn and would take KU’s record in a heartbeat but there are KU fans that would prefer the UConn record.
-
@Crimsonorblue22 Kinda stupid huh? That would be like the Chiefs trading Alex Smith or something…
-
I enjoy watching the young guys try out for their spots. Sometimes the big market teams find success in starting over. See Boston’s sell off of Gonzalez, Crawford and Beckett to LA.
This allowed them to promote and retain Jackie Bradley Jr., Mookie Betts, Christian Vazquez, Xander Bogaerts and Andrew Benintendi, along with affording Chris Sale, Craig Kimbrell, . I remember watching that team of youngsters trying out for their spots. It was fun. Also, for Boston fans, it was fun going a World Series the next year after the firesale. That kind of success has to be unexpected, but long term sustainability was the goal I’m sure.
To @Kcmatt7 's point, I don’t think the size of the club matters as much as savvy draft picks and a commitment to not selling the bulk of your prospects. There will be more volatility if you’re a seller at the deadline, and that kind of sucks, but I don’t think you can commit to finishing out contracts on movable assets if you don’t have a realistic chance to win it all. If you move assets at the deadline, and keep the farm system loaded, all it takes is a couple of kids to come up and be studs for you to be in really good shape, and then maybe deal a prospect for a missing piece.
-
Should’ve traded him for a 30 pack, I realize he probably wouldn’t have been resigned after the season and the royals are going nowhere fast but would’ve been smart to try and get something decent for him.
-
Too bad he didn’t pitch for some east coast team, he’d be a nationally known superstar. From Sox perspective he won’t be missed in our division but what a great pitcher he’s been.
-
@approxinfinity Bingo. Sure, big market teams can buy an extra guy or two. But, the best Yankee squads came from in house prospects. The Royals just won the WS with “home grown” players. The Cardinals almost exclusively and consistently win with guys they develop themselves.
Now that every team has the ability to have a payroll over $100M, there is no reason for a team to not be able to compete besides cheapo ownership or poor building of the organization from the GM.
I just can’t look at what the Cardinals do, in a marginally larger market, and believe that small market teams “can’t afford to be consistently good.” It’s baloney. Cardinals have won 80 games in 18 of the last 20 seasons and been to the playoffs 12 times. You just have to have the commitment to the farm system and not the Major League ball club. That has to be priority one. Priority two is keeping your own players that do break through to the majors, providing that contract won’t turn into a burden on the team.
The Cardinals may spend $170M on payroll, but at the same time, they don’t waste any of it. They only have $6M in “dead” salary. That is only 3% of their payroll. So they are effectively using the other 97%. The Royals have $26.5M in “dead” salary and that is 19% of their $139M payroll.
And that, above, is the difference between a long-term approach and a short-term approach. That is how you consistently win 80 or more games and make the playoffs consistently. That is how you win 19 pennants and 11 World Series.
-
KC is the # 29 market and St Louis the #29 and 47% larger.
The Royals current TV contract is for 12 years (2008-2019) and is worth $240M. The St Louis current TV contracts is 15 years (2018-2032) and is worth $1B.
The royals payroll is #20 at 129.9M and St Louis Payroll is the #10 at $161M or 24% bigger.
Not exactly apples to apples, wouldn’t you agree?
-
Absolutely apples to apples.
Old CBA ranked STL and KC as the 26th and 27th markets based on their own formula. But besides that, the Cardinals don’t have a top 10 MLB market, size wise. The highest I’ve seen them ranked is 19th. So, in theory, they shouldn’t have the 10th highest payroll year in and year out. Yet they do…
They don’t have a top 10 market share, yet they have a top 3 attendance number and a top 3 TV ratings number.
They are 19th in market size, but they just got a $1B TV deal… Certainly not the 19th worst TV deal.
You’ve proved my point. Cardinals are able to outperform their market size by investing in their own players and maximizing the money they do spend. They have the Warren Buffett of Payrolls. They do not waste a dime and are able to compete with the big boys year in and year out because of it.
The Royals could absolutely outperform their market size with a similar approach.
-
@JayHawkFanToo Total aside, but Glass bought the Royals for $96 million. The franchise is now worth over $1 billion. I’ve always argued that Glass has so increased his investment that quibbling over $25 million in a calendar year has no merit from Glass’ end. The idea that he should break even in any year misses the point in my opinion – which I’ve heard Dayton Moore say a few times.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/193637/franchise-value-of-major-league-baseball-teams-in-2010/
-
The Cardinals are one of the oldest MLB teams, and as a result, have a lot of history. That helps them outperform market size.
The Cincinnati Reds also tend to outperform their market size. That long history certainly helps. Same story with the Detroit Tigers, and to some degree, the Cleveland Indians.
Of the oldest MLB teams, the only ones that don’t tend to outperform their market are the Pittsburgh Pirates and Oakland A’s (caveat being that the A’s have moved multiple times, so their history in Oakland is very short compared to the other historic clubs.
I think that makes a difference.
-
@justanotherfan I don’t that has anything to do with it.
Ownership is what makes that difference. Commitment to winning. Under Kauffman, the Royals averaged 83.7 wins. Even as an expansion team they almost immediately became successful. After his death, that number fell to 72 wins. (excluding all shortened seasons). Of course this had everything to do with the fact that Glass would have fought you for a penny from 1995-2007.
The Cardinals have had owners that cared about St. Louis and winning it’s entire lifetime. Yankees have too. When the Royals were good, Kauffman would do anything to win. Period…
-
I’ve been to both parks. I love the Royals, but the Cards have a much better organization. The stadium is nicer. The owners are more savvy. The GM makes smarter moves. The payroll is larger. The crowd is better and I love a packed Kauffman. The Cards have the second most ws titles also, so that’s a rough comp.
Milwaukee would be a better comp. They suck too.
-
@dylans Not sure why you say Milwaukee sucks. They’ve had a decent run the last few years and draw pretty well.
-
@justanotherfan I love talking about this stuff and I would add the Sox to your performing compared to market size and make them an underperforming to market size.
Although we won a world series, and were competitive for two straight decades, attendance is a struggle. The park isn’t that hard to get to, but the stadium sucks. The owners are kind of cheap, and of course, the Cubs attract a lot of attention. It’s partially a class thing because the south side is working class and has a reputation of being dangerous, while the north side is yuppie town.
-
I get that but the value of a franchise and the revenue it produces are two different things. Look at the revenue they produce and the operating income; the Cardinals generate $74M more revenue and operate in the black while the Royals are in the red. Also, the Cardinals don’t have a football franchise in town to compete for entertainment dollars while the Royals have the very successful Chiefs.
-
wissox said:
@dylans Not sure why you say Milwaukee sucks. They’ve had a decent run the last few years and draw pretty well.
Perennial cellar dweller. Only 2 division titles and only one World Series appearance. I thought they had a better past than that. The Robin Yount years weren’t as productive as I thought.
Might’ve been a step too far down actually.
-
@dylans I see, it was the overall trend. This year in particular they’ve been very good having the best record in the NL for a while.
-
@wissox AND they have been around for forever. Current owners are big cheapos for sure.
While I do admit it is hard to compete with the Cubs, the owners seem to care less about trying to change any persona or reach a new audience at all.
-
@JayHawkFanToo the Cardinals, up until two years ago, had a football team AND they have a hockey team competing for dollars.
AND they still put up crazy revenue, ticket sales, and had a top 10 payroll back then.
-
@Kcmatt7 they are trying to win. Their minor league is loaded and will be very competitive in 2 years or so.
-
…and St Louis had the NFL Cardinals as well and lost it. It is a baseball first city and the Cardinals have been there for well over 100 years and are one of the most successful franchises in sports.
The Cardinals are the top team in a market that is over 40% larger than KC with no football competition and derive $75M more income per year where the Royals run a distant second to the Chiefs in KC which is football first town. Think about it, with an extra $75M, the Royals could take 5 players with $5M salaries and replace them with 5 players with $20M salaries…a huge talent differential. While both teams are in the same state, the market size, fan preference and revenue are quite different and this is why the franchise is worth twice as much as the Royals. Apples and oranges comparison.
-
@wissox We will see. I don’t know that I buy it quite yet. Abreu is getting older and the rest of your infield is very average. Giolito was supposed to be an important piece of all of this and he has struggled.
If you can’t get your rotation in better shape, I just don’t think you have a playoff team. The Royals WS team had 6 guys with an OPS over .800. White Sox project to have only 3-4 barring drastic improvement or career years from some guys currently on the roster.
-
@JayHawkFanToo You are acting like I’m trying to say the Royals can be exactly as successful as the Cardinals. That’s really not what I’m trying to say.
I’m simply stating how they are able to outperform their market through smart investing and maximizing their own roster and farm system. I’m comparing how they are able to win against the big boys year in and year out despite not being one of them.
I’m not stating that I think the Royals can BE the Cardinals and win 88 games on average during the same time period that Glass has owned the Royals.
I’m stating that the Royals could average 80 wins. That is slightly below a winning record, but good enough to be interesting through July a majority of the time. I’m stating that I believe they can have seasons in the high 70s and seasons in the 80s, consistently. That is not unattainable.
As far as seeing another team outperform their market, it absolutely is apples to apples. The Rays do it too, averaging 83 wins for a 10 year stretch now, with a Hockey and Football team in the same town, no fan support, no history, a teeny tiny payroll, and playing in a stadium that everyone hates. But, but but but but but but but…
Enough. Quit making excuses for the Royals ownership and executives and ask yourself two very easy questions.
- Do the Royals maximize their own payroll every single year?
- Are the Royals developing quality MLB players a rate similar to their peers?
Those are the only two questions that matter.
-
@Kcmatt7 The White Sox just had 20 guys play in minor league all star games. And the White Sox have a very low payroll with a ton of money to spend on next years stellar free agent class. I’m still optimistic the rebuild is going to be successful. I am tired of the losing for sure.
-
The Royals are the 3rd lowest valued baseball franchise and while the owners have equity the revenue is not high, in fact one of the lower one, baseball is still a business and the Royals are currently operating in the red which is not a sustainable business model. What do you suggest the owners do? Continue pumping and losing their own money? Borrow money to increase payroll? If they cannot meet the current payroll how are they going maintain a higher payroll and service the debt?
The Royals have the 19th highest payroll at $115M (St Louis is 13th at $247M) and yet the went to back to back World Series with many players developed by the team minor league affiliates which made the players that much more valuable to the point the team could not keep them; it is a catch 22 situation.
So yes, the Royals have developed good players and the back to back World Series appearances would indicate they maximized payroll. However, this is a situation thst will continue to repeat, the team will develop prospects, became very good until the success makes the player too expensive and the team goes back to rebuild mode.
-
@JayHawkFanToo It is bad business to use all of your cash and assets to have one good year. It is stupid to do it and not expect to lose money later. And, you have a false narrative that “we can’t afford to keep our own players.” It’s 100% false. FAKE NEWS.
If the Royals make no trade after the Greinke trade, they are a competitive bunch right now.
Starting Pitchers:
- Duffy
- Odorizzi
- Montgomery
- Lamb
- Manaea
Pen:
- Junis
- Herrera
- Finnegan
Lineup:
- C Salvy
- 1B Hos
- 2B Whit
- 3B Moose
- SS - Esky
- LF - Gordo
- CF - Cain
- RF - Myers
- DH - Bonifacio/Dozier
- 4OF - Dyson
All of that could be had for $110M. That would be a team ERA under 4.00, 6 players with an OPS above .750 and a significantly better defensive team. This is with several players having career down years and, not hitting on our top draft pick in 8 straight years. 4 of which were top 10- picks. If we hit on any of those drafts, we are talking a legit division contender with a real shot at a pennant.
- 2009 Draft: Royals Select Aaron Crow - No longer with team. Could have picked: Shelby Miller, Kyle Gibson, Mike Trout
- 2010 Draft: Royals Select Christian Colon - No longer with team. Could have picked: Drew Pomeranz, Mat Harvey, Yasmani Grandal, Chris Sale, Chris Yelich
- 2011 Draft: Royals Select Bubba Starling - Not made it to the pros yet. Could have picked: Archie Bradley, Anthony Rendon, Javy Bayez, Cory Spangenberg, Francisco Lindor, George Springer, Jose Fernandez, CJ Cron, Sonny Gray, Kolten Wong, Joe Panik, Jackie Bradley Jr., Michael Fulmer
- 2012 Draft: Royals Select Kyler Simmer - Not made it to the pros yet. Could have picked: Addison Russell, Corey Seager, Michael Wacha, Tyler Naquin, Lucas Giolito, Marcus Stroman, Lance McCullers Jr.
- 2013 Draft: Royals Select Hunter Dozier: Just made it to the pros. Could have picked: Austin Meadows, Dominic Smith, Hunter Renfroe, Tim Anderson, Marco Gonzalez, Aaron Judge, Corey Knebel, Cody Bellinger
- 2014 Draft: Royals Select Brandon Finnegan - No longer with team.
- 2015: Draft: Ashe Russell - No longer playing baseball.
- 2016 Draft: No first round pick due to signing Kennedy.
Imagine being able to let Hosmer walk because you have Bellinger coming behind. Or Gordon for Springer. Or Cain for a panned out Bubba. Or Replacing esky with Ashe Russel or Francisco Lindor or Corey Seager. Imagine having Baez at 2nd and being able to have a true utility guy in Whit. I mean, the possibilities are endless if we can hit on one or two of these picks in 8 years.
If you hit on just one of those guys, we are able to spend $20M in free agency, or $20M to keep one of our own players. But drafting and keeping your own players is absolutely affordable and sustainable. You just have to hit on them more consistently than we are.
The perfect storm that got us to the WS is NOT sustainable or even able to be replicated imo. Think about the things that had to go right to get there. First, Greinke had to become a potential HOFer after almost leaving baseball. The trade we made produced Cain, Esky and Odorizzi. We flipped Myers and Odorizzi to get Davis and Shields. Davis was a throw in piece who became an elite closer, not something that we planned. We were the first team to form the super bullpen, giving us a distinct competitive advantage. However, that pen was formed out of pure luck from failed starters. Add in the Morales had a career year with us, as did Volquez and I find it almost impossible for us to ever repeat a WS in that fashion.
It has to be through retention and development of our own players. And, as I pointed out above, that is actually affordable. It may even be the most profitable option than an up and down payroll combined with and up and down on field performance that makes attendance nearly impossible to predict. The Royals CAN be consistent.
-
The Royals simply cannot miss with high picks.
The Royals picked in the top 5 in back to back drafts and took Starling and Colon. They took the often injured Kyle Zimmer right after that. Those three drafts brought us here.
Zimmer didn’t have an injury history, but he hasn’t been able to stay healthy. Colon was thought of as having a highest floor of many of the potential picks. Starling was expected to at least be able to hold his own at the plate.
When three straight high draft picks miss, you end up here. If the Royals had Stroman, Springer and Sale, they are in a different place. Or maybe they get unlucky and Sale blows out his arm after the draft and Springer develops more slowly because he is buried in the minors with no MLB openings on a team ready to compete.
The Royals whiffed three times. When you are a small market team, you can’t miss more than maybe once every three or four years, and never when you have a top 5 pick.
-
@justanotherfan Bubba one is extra tough when you look at who we could have gotten. About half of the first round picks ended up panning out. Probably one of the deepest drafts in a very long time.
We clearly have a scouting or development problem. Probably both.I don’t see us being good for at least another 5 years unless the multiple pitchers that we got this year develop quickly. I really doubt we see Dayton as the GM the next time the Royals are competitive.
Sure, the Royals could have still had the same bad luck with other picks. But it is another level of ineptitude to whiff as badly as they did with the opportunities they were presented.
-
@Kcmatt7 great post. Thanks for spelling out the draft misses.
-
Every team misses players in the draft because they are basically selecting unknown players that may or may not work at the higher level. Same in every sport, sometimes you pick an Anrio Adams and sometimes you pick a Mason or Graham, sometimes you pick an Oden and sometimes you pick a Durant. OKC drafted back to back to back Durant, Westbrook and Harden that became back to back to back NBA MVPs and only Westbrook is still and did it with OKC which has not title to show for it.
You showed what the current line up would be, can you list the salaries for the players on it and the total payroll?
