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Friday, January 09, 2009
Royals sign Willie Bloomquist
The Royals find their cleanup hitter.
The Royals and infielder Willie Bloomquist have reached an agreement on a two-year contract, MLB.com learned on Friday.
Bloomquist is expected to compete for the Royals’ second base job with Alberto Callaspo, who finished last season as the regular at that spot.
A right-handed batter, Bloomquist, 31, played seven seasons with the Seattle Mariners. He had a .263 average in 540 games and played every position in the infield and outfield.
RoyalsRetro (AG#1F)
Posted: January 09, 2009 at 06:21 PM | 62 comment(s)
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1. Shooty would run in but these bone spurs hurt!I think DM ultimately has this organization headed in the right direction with the draft and player development, but I'm not at all convinced once he gets us back to respectability he can get us anywhere near contention. His trades are underwhelming, his free agent acquisitions are plain baffling and his roster management is pretty lousy.
Mike Jacobs at $3.5 million
Horacio Ramirez at $1.9 million
Willie Bloomquist at $1.5 million
=$11.4 million
Probably coulda signed an impact free agent (not a guy like Jose Guillen) for that kinda money. This is Allard Baird redux.
Mike Jacobs at $3.5 million
Horacio Ramirez at $1.9 million
Willie Bloomquist at $1.5 million
=$11.4 million
Yup. Pat Burrell, or Adam Dunn and 3 AAAA castoffs look like a much better use of the $$.
If you're going to spend the money, why not offer Dunn 3/35 and see if he's desparate.
Yikes. You could have had Furcal for something close to that and moved Aviles to second with Callaspo as the back up.
Who?
EDIT: So a couple of posts have now made some suggestions. Why would Burrell or Furcal have signed for that? They got more money from contenders.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
WOO!
[gasps for breath]
AHAHAHAHA.
- signed, a Mariners fan.
Egads, I am sure glad I am not a fan of this team.
Pat Burrell just signed for $16M over 2 years.
Giambi signed for peanuts.
Abreu and Dunn are still out there and have extremely limited suitors.
Furcal got 3/30 and Burrell 2/16. Sould Furcal have taken say, 3/36 to play for the Royals? I have to think he might have.
Well, if I were Pat Burrell, I'd prefer $16M per year from the Rays to $11.4M per year from the Royals.
Giambi I'll give you, but 1B/DH is rather clogged for the Royals already.
It remains to be seen what Abreu and Dunn will get, so we'll see...
Maybe. Given what actually did happen with Furcal, I have no idea what he would do. Maybe he'd have taken a 3/36 offer from the Royals, crossed out "Kansas City Royals," and written "Los Angeles Dodgers" in with orange crayon, and called it a day.
Burrell is getting $8M per in TB, 2/16.
Actually, it was $8 million / year for 2 years.
I haven't gotten around to shooting Brian Sabean yet, so no.
Probably not, but he does seem to be adopting the Dave Littlefield approach to FA signings.
Sabes has been surprisingly OK this offseason.
If you evaluate him just by free agents, he'd be near the bottom (Ned Coletti is still worse, and perhaps Sabean as well), but in overall terms, I don't think he is. He took a miserable franchise and took them to 75 wins. His drafts have been well received. He should get some credit for that.
He does seem to be better suited to be "VP of player development" or something.
But as for this offseason, I would have preferred just signing Fuentes rather than Affeldt and Howry (about the same amount of money). Not a fan of the Renteria signing either (would have preferred signing Hudson, with Burriss at SS rather than 2B). Can't believe that we lost Denker to waivers while keeping a half dozen lesser players on the 40 man roster.
Also not happy that he's apparently still interested in Crede.
There's no Zito-level type screwups--yet--but I wouldn't call Sabean's work in the 2008/09 offseason "OK."
EDIT: for clarity
I don't think anyone has.
I don't think Fuentes would have ever signed with the Giants, apparently he preferred the Angels from day one. I actually love the Affeldt/Howry deals, both short-term and pretty good value. Affeldt could be the best reliever on the team by the end of 2009.
Renteria was a good deal, he's probably around a +2 win player and the Giants were 2nd to last among all teams in OPS last season for shortstop. If you look at the players who got major time at the position for the Giants: Vizquel, Bocock, Ochoa, Burriss, it's a bad group of players. I'm not big on Hudson, I'd rather just play Burriss at 2B and hope he can defend like Mark Ellis. Losing Denker was pretty stupid.
OK, I'll stop rambling about the Giants in a Willie Hustle thread.
Give him some more time. He still doesn't have a huge budget to work with, and he's also having to make trades using the depleted system which was left for him by his predecessor - you have to remember what he was starting from. He's also got to do at least something to create the impression of progress and action, in order to help keep people buying tickets. In terms of his recent trades and free agent signings, a lot of them haven't exactly been blockbuster moves, but they've filled small needs here and there for small costs. Even this one (as wasteful as it may be) isn't going to cripple the franchise (unlike the Guillen overpay).
Basically, the organization is making progress under him, even if it's not in the exact manner most of us would like to see.
I kinda agree with this, but are people going to come out to see Farnsworth, Bloomquist, and Jacobs?
Since the advent of the modern pitcher's distance, he has the most hits in a season (46) with only one extra base hit.
Play-Index link
I wonder what happened to him?
There's incentive in the Dodgers contract that boosts Furcal's contract to 3/36 if he reaches it. A million per year if he stays with this back strengthening program, and another million per year if he stays healthy. And then there's the option year tacked on. Furcal wasn't going to make that much more with the Royals.
Jacobs probably will, as casual fans tend to like to watch players who hit home runs.
Besides, fans are more likely to come out to see a team which increases from 75 to 78 wins than a team which drops from 75 to 72 wins. Jacobs (and some of the other bit parts that they've added) probably increase the likelihood of that improvement when compared to the guys that they're replacing.
Anyway, Affeldt's interesting, but $4M/yr guaranteed for 2 years seems a bit steep for a guy who isn't that far removed from being waiver wire fodder.
As for Howry, hopefully he's a buy-low proposition and he bounces back in 2009. But he looked pretty hittable last year, with a huge rise in HR rate along with a drop in K's. At least it's just a one year contract. It's a good gamble, but I'm not counting on him to be a force in the bullpen.
Change the details and that could easily describe Bavasi's tenure in Seattle.
Unfair - Bloomquist hit a bonafide gapper, but since it was the game-winner he didn't bother rounding first to pick up the XBH.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SEA/SEA200807010.shtml
Furcal got 3/30 and Burrell 2/16. Sould Furcal have taken say, 3/36 to play for the Royals? I have to think he might have.
IIRC, the A's offered him around 3/36 and he declined. If Oakland didn't excite him, I can't imagine Kansas City would have either.
As a couple others have pointed out, that Renteria contract is basically unjustifiable. I want to know what the second-place bid for Renteria was (if there was one): 1/$5m?
(edit: oops, missed a word)
Hey now, the Royals haven't yet sign a pitcher like Carlos Silva to a 4 year/45 million contract yet.
From what I've gathered, the A's offered around 4/36 to 4/40. Furcal's side claims it wassn't even that much. I'm fairly confident the AAV of the A's offer was never more than 10 million a year.
Hmm...
Edit: Silva's wikipedia article includes
That doesn't make the Bloomquist signing too great, though.
Ha. I have little doubt someone from Lookout Landing added that.
Don't insult Nick Punto like that.
From what I've gathered, the A's offered around 4/36 to 4/40. Furcal's side claims it wassn't even that much. I'm fairly confident the AAV of the A's offer was never more than 10 million a year.
Oops, you're right. My bad.
Yeah, but if Burrell and Dunn are getting 2/16 offers, KC can easily offer them 3/30 or 3/35 without overpaying. That's a lot more than a couple of million.
So he's essentially (post-2000 or so) Chuck Lamar with a bigger budget. Under Lamar the foundation was laid for a good team in the future but he wouldn't have had the slightest clue of how to put it together himself.
Between Lamar, Moore, Wren so far, and Taylor the John Schuerholz GM tree is bearing some lousy fruit, though Wren was a crappy GM for the Orioles before becoming a Braves AGM for a while.
You have a gift for understatement. Howry was flat-out atrocious last year.
I'm not sure that Burrell or Dunn takes that deal. I think Burrell wanted a two-year deal, so he can hit the market again when he's relatively young and the situation may look better for him.
Now, if the Royals wanted to offer 2/25 or 2/30, then they're talking.
I agree. But wouldn't his numbers have looked better if he spent two years teeing off against AL Central pitching rather than having to face Boston and New York (plus Halladay in Toronto) so often?
Also, how did Kauffman become a pitchers' park? Did they tweak the fences or something? A few years ago it was one of the more hitter friendly stadiums in the AL.
Mike Jacobs at $3.5 million
Horacio Ramirez at $1.9 million
Willie Bloomquist at $1.5 million
=$11.4 million
Probably coulda signed an impact free agent (not a guy like Jose Guillen) for that kinda money.
You aren't looking at this logically. What's more? 4 or 1?
You aren't looking at this logically. What's more? 4 or 1?
I'm saying you could fill the other roster spots with freely available talent. Jacobs is the best example. The Royals already have a couple of 1B they could take a look at in Shealy and Kaaihue and Butler at DH. Farnsworth and Ramirez are relievers - Dayton has been pretty shrewd at finding decent relievers pretty cheaply. The Royals already have two utility infielder types in Pena and German. You could also fill that role with a Rule 5 guy or a minor league FA and probably get about the same production as Bloomquist.
Just seems like they spent $11.4 million without upgrading the team.
I know. It was a (bad) joke.
Bloomquist is slightly more "worth it" if Dayton dumps Pena Jr., Bloomquist is an overpaid utility guy in that case. But if TPJ and Bloomquist make the roster, than Moore is nuts.
You know, after I posted it, I thought "he's probably kidding", but I just came back from a Royals board where people were defending this move, so my mind was not thinking straight.
And then he fired the scouting director.
A Royal Dump
WFB will look good in a clean white-and-blue uni, no doubt.
But... But... Ross Gload has a Hall of Famer on his through-age-32 comps list!
I haven't gotten around to shooting Brian Sabean yet, so no.
I'd rather have Sabean than Moore. Sabean has his faults but Sabean's Giants have a better farm system stocked with young pitching and at least Sabean spunks up his money on real baseball players and not Willie Bloomquist and Horacio Ramirez. Forget the problems with playing for a derelict franchise, the $11 million he's blown could have signed Adam Dunn, a great player who would sell more tickets than these clowns and for a team that hit 120 home runs last year could really give them some pop.
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