Royals - Signed Meche, Acquired Bannister
Kansas City Royals - Signed P Gil Meche to a 5-year contract; acquired P Brian Bannister from the New York Mets for P Ambiorix Burgos.
The Meche signing is being reported as between $55 and $60 million. That is a lot of money. On the plus side, the Royals are absolutely desperate for starting pitchers, and by not dividing the money up among mediocre free agents, they’ll be fiscally unable to block some of their better young prospects. Starving the beast never works for government, unfortunately, but Moore seems like he’s got some brains in that skull. Still, $11-$12 million a year for Gil Meche? I’m simply out of ways to say “sort of useful player, way overvalued.”
Burgos-for-Bannister is more likely than not a nothing trade. The Royals are simply taking a flier on a guy who might help the rotation one day, a definite need, while the Mets are talented enough that they can afford to stash a guy who has bullpen upside. One thing that still bugs me - why have there been 5 hispanic professional baseball players named Ambiorix born in the late 70s-mid 80s? Was there a Schoolhouse Rock featuring the History of the Belgic Gauls that I missed?
2007 ZiPS Projections
——————————————————————————————-
Player W L G GS IP H ER HR BB SO ERA
——————————————————————————————-
Bannister 4 7 17 16 94 108 61 14 35 52 5.84
Burgos 4 5 69 0 74 67 38 13 38 81 4.62
2007 ZiPS Projection - Gil Meche
——————————————————————————————-
W L G GS IP H ER HR BB SO ERA
——————————————————————————————-
Projection 8 10 30 29 167 171 91 24 75 125 4.90
2008 8 10 29 28 162 168 89 23 73 118 4.94
2009 8 10 28 27 158 165 89 22 72 110 5.07
2010 7 10 28 27 156 165 89 23 70 106 5.13
2011 6 10 26 25 146 157 85 22 64 94 5.24
——————————————————————————————-
Opt. (15%) 11 9 33 32 190 179 83 21 74 146 3.93
Pes. (15%) 5 10 25 24 135 147 68 24 71 99 5.87
———————————————————————————————
Dan Szymborski
Posted: December 07, 2006 at 09:33 PM |
63 comment(s)
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1. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Griffin (Vlad) Posted: December 07, 2006 at 10:09 PM (#2254656)Bah on Garcia. I want to see a Piazza zips, and an Embree and Goleski, too!
--Chad
Oh yeah, Meche is just not good.
Classical names for children had a vogue in Spain in the 17th century, when the Spaniards were fancying themselves as the great defenders of European civilization. And then the Spanish colonizers of places like the Dominican Republic began habitually gave classical and semi-classical names to their slaves (slave owners everywhere did this; see the endless Catos in the Antebellum South). After emancipation and independence some of the less obvious of these survived as family names, hence the occasional middle infielder named Adsrubal.
I'm not that clever. I think Rob Neyer wrote it in a column a long time ago.
--Brian Bannister
--Gil Meche
--Joakim Soria
Total Royals losses:
--Runelvys Hernandez (Addition by subtraction?)
--Ambiorix Burgos
--$11-12 million/year for the next half-decade
With the exception of money (and who needs that when you're the Royals?), I think I like Dayton Moore's work for today. Of course, I still haven't had the time to look into numbers and reports and stuff, but the superficial stuff looks nice.
Also, Buck O'Neil (And Riley B. King!) will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Dec. 15.
They must be taking them from the White Sox because I don't see a slide from the Tigers, Twins or Indians.
Or, to be on team, Danny Tartabull? Mark Davis?
Meche could have been a smart under the radar acquisition a lot of years with Carpenter upside at a discount price. Ohka this year alone looks like one like that. You try a few of those, and maybe you strike it rich. Likely you don't. What you don't do is pay them as if they've already come up bigtime with little provocation, especially on a team with a fixed income.
Where did I read that this was like a family on social assitance buying a plasma TV that doesn't work? That might have been BP. I just keep picturing Joy and Darnell watching TV outside as bikers drive through their "living room." Mercy!
what good is it to have Gordon and Butler coming up if they are throwing knuckleballs by the 8th inning?
This is not tying their hands up, and who knows, they might even be able to trade him in 2-3 yrs..
Their job is to find arms, so they don't have another Burgos like situation in the near future.
This is the equivalent of the Red Sox signing Pedro Martinex for the Royals.
Soviet aid to poor Latin American nations during the 1970s.
I think I read that there were a lot of Soviet medical doctors who practiced in Latin America around this time & children were named after specific Russians who provided aid to destitute families.
Maybe the one where Meche starts out as an above-average player, unlike Meares? Or the one where Meche hasn't already suffered a career-ending injury before signing his big deal, unlike Meares?
Sweeney will stay healthy, Brown will stay consistent, and Berroa will stay?
This is not tying their hands up, and who knows, they might even be able to trade him in 2-3 yrs..
Perhaps they can trade him away, but this has the potential to absolutely explode on them. Perhaps I'm still feeling just too burned by the Berroa (and Sweeney, sort of) signing(s), but this guy is going to immediately be paid more than Mike Sweeney, a team leader and city landmark, who was the runner-up batting champion the year he signed his deal. He cannot flop or this deal becomes a very painful ball and chain -- the type of contract a small-market team can't really afford to just eat.
Undoubtedly I'm overreacting a bit, but the length and depth of this deal really scares me.
This is the equivalent of the Red Sox signing Pedro Martinex for the Royals.
Except that if the Pedro deal became a bomb, it would certainly hurt, but they could eat the deal and move on. KC has an incredibly small margin for error. If this thing explodes, there's a pretty big financial burden on a small market team who would, in theory, be making a run for the playoffs.
Well with inflation maybe Meche will become as good as Dreifort.
I can't fathom a scenario under which this is any better for the Royals than was Pat Meares for the Pirates.
I think Meche can play SS better than Mears can pitch, so with PIT being an NL town and the DH not taking up a spot the additional flexibilty afforded by having Meares on the DL at all times would be an advantage. For one of them. I think...
Chris "It's a Long Way to Beat" Terreri is far and away the best.
I'm not that clever. I think Rob Neyer wrote it in a column a long time ago.
Philip Roth wrote it in a book an even longer time ago. "Gil Gamesh" was the star pitcher in "The Great American Novel," and if I remember the ending correctly, once was in the process of throwing a perfect game consisting of 27 strikeouts on 81 pitches when the 81st pitch killed the umpire. I could be wrong, though.
Which is a diplomatic way of saying "the mothers named the kids after their real fathers"
Hey JP, maybe Meche just wanted to play in a stadium that isn't a crappy dome.
I'm so tired of Roth stealing from Chris Berman, like the time the young Berman violated his own family's dinner.
Worse than Juan Pierre?
Hyperbolize much?
Too bad you got hit between the eyes with the A.J. Burnett bullet, you sorry sack of crap.
Could someone explain this to me? I know they were involved in the "Malice at the Palace" incident but don't get that.
Artest told Wallace he could blank his blank. It's not what you think, though. Take what you are thinking and insert lick in the first spot. In the second part, insert balls..
but yeah, JP does blow.
Having never read Phillip Roth I may be out of whack on thsi; but it's funny how often you hear how great he is, then someone tells you the plot to one f his books and you wither think "wow that sounds stupid", or it sounds like an elaborate, bad joke that old people with no sense of humor find funny.
I don't get it.
Of Terreri's, not Berman's.
How did you know I thought Artest told Wallace that he could accept his apology?
God, he's never been healthy nor impressive. Drayton Moore and Xanax=Gil Meche's new contract.
And don't try jedi-sabr mindtricks on me; this guy is a burger . . .
Burnett got the same deal as Meche, just a year earlier. The last 3 years, he's averaged 155 innings per season with an ERA+ of 112 or better.
Meche is barely projected to beat those IP numbers and his ERA is not projected to be better than league average in any season of this contract. To put it another way, Meche has probably never had a season as good as Burnett's 2006, despite the fact the latter was injured for much of the year.
Maybe JP overpaid a bit for Burnett, but at least he got a player with significant upside and moderate value even on the downside.
Having never read Phillip Roth I may be out of whack on thsi; but it's funny how often you hear how great he is, then someone tells you the plot to one f his books and you wither think "wow that sounds stupid", or it sounds like an elaborate, bad joke that old people with no sense of humor find funny.
The plot of American Pastoral was neither stupid nor particularly remarkable, but (IMO) the characters were great and the book was really well written. Operation Shylock was pretty much as you describe.
"Chris 'It's a Long Way to Beat' Terreri is far and away the best."
I don't get it.
Me neither.
Vladimir Guerrero is Russian?
One that I'm surprised Berman never came up is Amani "It's Not a" Toomer, which lets you do your Bad Schwarzenegger Impression.
If by plot, you mean the background story of American Pastoral -- basically, it's about how a Jewish business owner makes it big into goyim society, only to see his daughter turn into a terrorist -- I thought it was kind of brilliant as a way of portraying how America developed throughout the 20th century only to run headfirst into the 1960s.
On the other hand, you don't read Philip Roth for the plots, really. This is not John Grisham we're talking about.
Yeah, I guess I didn't phrase it properly. I didn't think the plot was that remarkable in an "I really care what happens next" kind of way. It wasn't a page turner for me, but when I was done I was definitely glad I had read it.
It tells me that the Kansas City Royals are on their way to a World Series ring in approximately five years, lead by the dominant pitching of Gil Meche, a clutch start by the recently exiled Jared Weaver, and Alex Gordon getting screwed out of winning his second consecutive MVP by late bloomer Dallas Mcpherson.
But manager Whitey Herzog will get all the credit.
"I like Haruki Murakami a lot more."
I was into A Wild Sheep Chase. Very cool stuff. Haven't read anything else he's written.
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