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Some are building monuments,
Others, jotting down notes,
Ev'ry Royals fan's in despair,
Ev'ry girl and boy
But when Gil the Eskimo gets here,
Ev'rybody's gonna jump for joy.
Come all without, come all within,
You'll not see nothing like the mighty Gil."
Seriously, we'll be hearing about this one for a real long time. Awful. Desperate, and awful.
It seemed to me like Moore was doing a good job before this...
You'll not see nothing like the mighty Gil.
Whatever happened to Mark Quinn, anyway?
Christ, $11 million for FIVE YEARS! The Mike Mussina signing looks friekin awesome now.
Meche? $11M per year?
This boggles the mind on many levels. Meche hasn't broken a 100 ERA+ in any of the last 4 years, nor has he ever pitched 200 innings, and he gets 11M per. <speechless>
What, you don't remember his eight at-bats in the Sox organization last year?
Something like $114M/6
Mike Mussina: 11.25 million
Gil Meche: 11 million
Wow. The smart thing to do this season was to sign all your targets as quickly as possible before everything went haywire.
"We were proud to be a part of the process and delighted that Gil Meche made the decision to join the Royals," general manager Dayton Moore said. "He is an impact pitching talent who fits in with our plan for long term success. At 28, he is entering the prime of his career."
Taveras: .333 OBP
Podsednik: .330 OBP
Sigh.
*arm thrust*
I would be very surprised if the Astros traded Jason Hirsh. I am all for trading Willy Taveras and (even more so) Taylor Buchholz, especially if it gets them Jon Garland. But Hirsh just won't be part of the deal.
It's worse than that. The Dodgers could at least afford to absorb the Dreifort contract better. This is, what, the Royals biggest free agent acquisition since the Joe Carter/David Cone year? Gil Meche? Really? Are Royals fans pumped or what!
And this is the biggest free agent signing since the offseason where Allard got all doped up and signed a Zombie Catcher and Juan Gonzalez.
I had seen recently (maybe here), some stuff about the new CBA putting in some stuff to not allow teams to so easily sit back and collect revenue sharing. Could it be that the Royals just needed to spend a little more in order to keep collecting? I don't think anyone really knows the details of that provision, if it exists.
Podsednik: .330 OBP
Yeah, but Willy doesn't have Podsednik's power.
This is a franchise that has been the laughingstock of baseball for the last decade or so. They aren't going to be able to sign anyone decent at market value. What this signing does is at least give the Royals SOME credibility on the free agent market that they are not the cheap Wal Mart franchise that they were portrayed as under Allard Baird.
Gil Meche is awfully mediocre. That's a huge upgrade for the Royals pitching staff. Does this help them long term? Probably not a whole lot. But they still have to field a team for this year, and losing 90 games instead of 100 could be a big difference when you're trying to develop young players and eliminate a cloud of hopelessness hanging over the franchise.
I also can't see this crippling the franchise economically, even if he does turn into a huge bust. They have $18 million coming off the books next year with Sweeney, Sanders, and Elarton. They have $18 million coming off the books after 2008 with Berroa, Grudzielanek and Perez. They will have no young free agents. The only arb eligible players will be Mark Teahen, John Buck and possibly Zack Greinke. By the time they have to dish out big time money to their young players, Gil Meche will be on his way out.
Also factor their revenue streams under the new CBA, their renovated stadium, and their new deal with FOX Sports Midwest.
I know there is a feeling that they should "invest the money into scouting." Well they're doing that too.
Anyway, I agree that isn't a great signing if you look at in a vacuum. It probably would be a terrible deal for the Blue Jays or Cubs. But for the Royals, it makes sense to me. And maybe I'm not being objective and I'm just thrilled the Royals outbid other teams for a sought-after free agent for the first time since David Cone came home. But I cautiously approve.
>Rest.
How long?
>Five days.
Resting . . . resting . . . resting . . . resting . . . resting . . .
Continue?
>Yes.
You wake up in the morning to find that Gil Meche has stolen 400 pounds of food and two oxen. What would you like to do?
>Hunt.
You were unable to find any food. You have died of starvation.
You are correct. It was just Cone in 1992. I'm thinking of Cone's teaming up with Carter in Toronto, but that was the result of a trade. Still, is Meche the biggest since 1992, not counting guys they retained, of course?
Technically, I think Calvin Pickering was the biggest free agent the Royals have signed since 1992.
I can agree with many of your statements, but only if "their revenue streams under the new CBA, their renovated stadium, and their new deal with FOX Sports Midwest." truly makes a difference. Otherwise, this will be a contract that ownership points to as "tying their hands" or whatever.
Plus, I think when you sign someone to a multi-year deal you have to look at him and say, "I hope he can perform even better in the past than the level that made him so attractive to us, but if he performs a little worse, he will still benefit the club." But in Meche's case, he HAS to perform better to earn his contract, and if he's ANY worse than he's been, he'll be Mac Suzuki at $11 million per year.
Well played!
That should read, "I hope he can perform even better in the future than the past level that made him so attractive to us, but if he performs a little worse, he will still benefit the club."
Which is good news for Ethiopia.
I think there needs to be more baseball players nicknamed 'Hoss'.
Anyway, as a Jay fan who was hoping they signed Meche over Lilly, I'm a tad disappointed. I think this makes it clear that Wells resigning for just-under-insane money is a priority.
The rotation is now:
Meche
Hudson
Greinke
Odalis Perez
Jorge De La Rosa
I don't mind the signing; it is expensive, but like AG said, it isn't like the Royals hands are now tied. They will still have a lot of money to throw around over the next few years. With Teahen, Gordan and Butler lurking, a few good pitchers can make the team better awfully quick.
I'm also simply trusting Moore's judgment. He comes from a background that rarely missed on pitching; I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for now.
They signed Tim Belcher away from the Mariners after the 1995 season; I think he was a bigger name then than Meche is now. Still, that was only a 3-year, $6 million deal.
Seriously, WTF??? They couldn't afford Carlos Beltran two years ago, and suddenly they find $55M to piss away on a crappy, below-average starting pitcher? With some health issues a few years ago no less, IIRC.
Meche is going to get absolutely killed in KC. There's no way that he finishes this contract up in KC; he'll be released, traded (with KC taking a major hit on the salary), or his career will end from an injury. The last time I thought that about a contract was with Russ Ortiz in Arizona, and before that Park in Texas and Dreifort in LA. I have absolutely no doubt that Meche will join the group of highly overpaid mediocre starters.
And he got a nice write-up in the Neyer/James pitching book. Some durability issues, IIRC, though.
Batista's better than Meche, isn't he? This is the worst deal ever given to an MLB player. Wow. This is really bad. Like Ryan Leaf bad, except more money.
I think baseball would be a lot more interesting if teams like the Royals basically stayed out of the FA market and really threw all this money into scouting, the draft and international signings. You can't win by allocating your resources exactly the way the Yankees do if you only have 20% of the resources the Yankees do. If the Royals went whole hog into player development and used this money to give 6 supposedly unsignable prospects a $2 mil bonus and did this for a few years, things might get really interesting in five years or so. As it is, it's a really problem when you can look at a $55 mil expenditure and say that it enhances the Royals ability to make the playoffs only marginally.
Maybe, but he's 36. I don't think they're really still pursuing Batista. I'd like to see them deal Emil Brown and/or Reggie Sanders for some pitching slop. Rodrigo Lopez wouldn't be a terrible return.
Also, this, on the heels of the Lilly deal, makes J-P's Clayton signing (and overall winter so far) look pretty piss-poor.
Whuh-ooh
And that's pitching against the KC offense. What happens when Cleveland or Chicago come to town?
In this market, Jose Lima should get at least $700K
Gil GUH Meche has a smidgen of upside...his stuff is very good, but his head has been inconsistent. In the right hands he could be a #2 for a .500 team. If the pitching coach reaches him and gets his head in a major league pitchers' frame of mind, his mediocrity might turn into better-than-adequacy.
I agree w/Alex Gordon's #1 Fan, it's gotta be about more than this deal as a unqiue event unrelated to other business considerations -- OTOH, I agree with the one and only billyshears, and that Meche's stats are more likely to be awful than they are better-than-adequate and for that kind of money, they'd probably get better yield in scouting and development.
I can't believe I never noticed that.
1. Sign Gil Meche, 5/$55 million.
2. ????
3. Profit!!!
Suckers!
I appreciate the trend being bucked and all, but the phrase "Meche is worth having" kinda sticks out like a huge flaming turd in your thinking Vlad, imho.
I would agree with this except I don't see how a Gil Meche is going to help turn the team around. Alex Gordon, Billy Butler and so on, might. But then, when those guys are starting to cook, you're stuck with Gil Meche. Patience would have been a virtue for the Royals this off season. Better to have taken a flyer on some low rent guys than to lock yourselves into this.
you ####### morons, this is a horrible deal for the royals, do you not realize dayton just tied up 1/6th of his payroll in a guy whose #1 comparable is adam eaton? hell, he's not even as good as adam eaton.
the royals could pick up guys like matt kinney who would put up the same numbers, but never given an organizational chance for whatever reason (hey you can't not ####### mess up ryan anderson AND gil meche, one of them has got to come through). teams can find 10 pitchers on the 6-yr free agent list comparable to meche, or even better.
iin order to stop the bleeding, you have to get GOOD pitchers. paying them tons of money doesn't mean their good.
1. Gil Meches is a mammal.
2. Gil Meches is hurt ALL the time.
3. The purpose of signing Gil Meches is to make BBTF flip out.
Only problem...he didn't sign a #3 starter. He signed Gil Meche.
And what does the Lilly deal have to do with signing Royce? That's a bad deal no matter what, but not a killer. And their offseason has been pretty good.
Gah, sometimes this board is baffling with half the people claiming they knew the results of every move, and the other half saying every other team's move are terrible. Perspective!
I was thinking the same thing, though with Meche's injury history, it's a HUGE gamble.
#4 and #5 on gil meche's comparables for his age 27 season on b-r.com are chris carpenter and jason schmidt!!!
seriously is this what dayton is thinking?
Bargain!
He's a #3 starter for the Royals!
Meche struck out 7.4 per 9 last year, and he's always had pretty good stuff. I think 2006 represented genuine progress for him, and if it did, he's going to be better than a lot of people think.
Even if he gives some of that progress back, a regression to the mean for his HR/F should help matters.
For your sake, I'm hoping this was a joke.
Meche had a 4.48 ERA last year. The last time Kinney put up a full-season ERA below 4.48 at any level or combination of levels, we were in the waning days of the Clinton administration.
Meche has been terrible outside of Safeco his whole career including his step forward in 2006. I have no idea what the Royals expect to get from Meche, but his splits are ugly and he's not pitching in Safeco anymore.
He's probably a #1 starter for the Royals...sob.
On the plus side, they released Fat Elvis today. Addition by subtraction there.
These baseball owners are either making more money than we thought, or are far more willing to piss away money than we could have imagined.
That's actually not a bad idea. They were having him start in winter ball. My worry would have been his failure to have a third pitch. He's all fastball (and a straight one at that) and splitter.
Throwing him into the rotation would have been incredibly stupid.
But then again, he was loved by some Royals fans since he threw hard. Despite not throwing in the strikezone and being unreliable.
Which is interesting, but not particularly significant unless you have an objective reason as to why it'd be so.
Average ERA+ for various slots in the rotation, <a >posted by Dag Nabbit</a>:
#1 slot - 118 ERA+
#2 slot - 104 ERA+
#3 slot - 97 ERA+
#4 slot - 90 ERA+
#5 slot - 78 ERA+
Meche's 2006 (97 ERA+) and career totals (96 ERA+) suggest that he's capable of pitching like an average or slightly below #3. A quick & dirty 3 year weighted average suggests he'd be a #4 (92). Meche might be worth a bit more to the Royals, since they're not exactly awash in SP options and the guy he'd be replacing (Runelvys?, not quite sure who) is probably below replacement level.
My brain hurts...
I want $150M over 6 years.
Sincerely,
William Barryman Zito
Pitcher, Free Agent"
Jesus...
I totally agree with that too.
It will be interesting to see Rob and Rany's take on this. I can hear their heads exploding from here.
Deal.
Deal.
That depends on which side of the trade I'm on.
Pitcher IP ERA+Redman 167 85
Elarton 115 91
Hernandez 110 75
Hudson 102 95
A guy who can throw 150 IP with a vaguely average ERA would be a huge upgrade for the Royals, several wins easily. He'll take pressure off the young pitchers and off the bullpen.
The Royals aren't going to get free agents by paying market value - the free agents can get that from a team that doesn't suck. They can only get talent by overpaying, and they're not going to develop pitching with the revolving door of suck they had last year.
I don't love this signing, but I understand the logic. I think Moore deserves the benefit of the doubt.
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