I wish they would just sign him now.

that could be Zack in KC… now he’ll just be another would-coulda-should… C’Mon, Zack, I don’t think they even have Chipolte on the coasts!

Will ZG forget what we’ve done for him? Stood by him through the whole season that he wasted away? Introduced him to Chipotle? All those good things?

ZG! Please don’t go!

We’re all familiar with GM-speak. This is player-speak. A player in his position isn’t going to say publicly, “I just want to stay in KC forever. I sure hope we can get a long-term deal signed. I don’t want to go anywhere…ever!” Some may think Greinke is stupid, but he’s not that stupid. He’s talked to his agent. He knows what time it is. His bargaining position is optimized by saying publicly that he’s in no hurry to sign a long-term deal and that he’d be happy to go to free agency.

So we really don’t know how much Greinke would like to stay in KC, or how much he’d like to test the FA waters. That being said, if significant progress in long-term deal negotiations were not made by March 1, I’d trade him by opening day.

I say trade him now. Ideal trading partner: a team that has multiple sliugging “first basemen” with defensive issues.

To Atlanta for Jeff Franceour!

bad for Royals

The question, then, is: are we going to compete in 2009? If we somehow do (Greinke will be a big reason why), signing long term with the Royals suddenly becomes attractive. If we don’t, as gopherballs so eloquently pointed out, it becomes a lose-lose situation for the Royals.

In short, if we don’t sign him this offseason (which, from the sound of that comment by Zack, is not likely going to happen), then not trading him becomes a risky move. You are gambling that the Royals are going to compete in ‘09. Dayton’s a gambler, though, so I can easily see him taking that chance.

If I were Dayton Moore (sounds like a high school English paper topic), I would set my sights high for impact players who might realistically allow the team to compete for a playoff spot in ‘09, but guys who are young enough to allow us to sustain competitivenes for a couple years. Free-agent-wise, I’m talking about Furcal and a pretty short list of others (Teixera is obviously out of reach, so you have find that middle ground player who won’t be asking for 20 million a year). Trade-wise, who knows. Delmon Young?

I wait until after the winter meetings to see if I can get something done in that regard.

But I put teams on alert (Texas Rangers, et al), however, that I’m going to deal Greinke if I can’t land an impact player or two. And if I can’t make the team significantly better in ‘09, then yes, I pull the plug on Greinke. I talk to the Cardinals. I talk to the Rangers. I talk to the Braves (gulp). Anyone who has the minor league ammo and lost out on Peavy. But if it doesn’t look like we can realistically shoot for the playoffs in ’09, or come close, then we have to move Greinke.

gopherballs said it all.

I think kcdc1 seems about right on. I’d hate to lose Greinke (Part 2). So, what is Part 1 you ask? Well, I’ve been losing faith in this off-season. GMDM signaled frustration and major changes and also OBP. It seems that something (Glass again) has changed and that none of this is going to happen and we’re going to go into the season with essentially the same cast of castaways. This will result in similar results as this year or last year which will be horrible and will be that nail in Greinke’s coffin.

Therefore, time to trade Greinke as that seems now to be the only way major changes will actually occur. We need a trade of Greinke to result in a much improved offense so that we can deal with the dropoff in pitching. Hopefully the dropoff in pitching can be short lived if some of our prospects begin to improve and come up to the club. Unfortunately, yes, I said it. Hope. I’m so tired of hope.

Glass, please, please sell this team. Can we convince Warren Buffett he needs a MLB team?

No, Greinke is not stupid enough, nor naive enough to just say whatever is on his mind without a filter at all times, in all situations, on all subjects. There’s no doubt that he and his agent have discussed this issue a lot this offseason. His agent has helped him with the kind of things he should say.

The bottom line is that we don’t know what Greinke’s priority is. Throughout this thread, various have posters have said that he “clearly” or “obviously” prioritizes 1) maximizing salary, 2) winning, 3) staying in KC. While I’m sure he’d like all of those three things, we have no idea how much he values each of them and what his #1 priority is. We don’t know. His version of agent-advised player-speak certainly doesn’t open a big window into what he’s really thinking.