An overflow thread is deemed necessary AND ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAS EVEN HAPPENED YET. I can’t imagine how many threads will be needed if and when Moore actually pulls the trigger on a signing or trade.

God, I love this website. Is it even possible there are a bigger group of Royals’ dorks somewhere out there on the Interwebs?

Kerry Wood has apparently accepted a 2 year, $20M offer. He’s heading to Cleveland for a physical. Are the Indians checking to make sure he’s really injured? What else would they expect to find in a Kerry Wood physical?

For all the talk about how sabermetric and statistically advanced the Indians front office is, they are still following the market’s biggest inefficiency: overpaying for a pitcher with a closer tag. I think they could have done better by signing two good $5M free agents, or anything more creative than throwing $20M at Kerry Wood.

I can’t believe I’m that excited for something so lame.

It’s an early Christmas! :)

Not great, but genuinely good. He’s overexposed as a starter, but pretty good as a reliever. As a reliever, he went mostly fastball-slider-cutter and pretty much did away with his weak curve and change. That’s what going to the bullpen does for a pitcher. You can afford to just throw your best pitches. He did, and the results (both old school and advanced metrics) were positive.

hmm I wonder how Aaron Crow feels about that.

Would they really go into the season with a bullpen with 3-4 lefties (Mahay, Bale, Gobble, and Ramirez), with Musser on deck as one of the guys who could get called up from Omaha and maybe Veal as a Rule 5 selection?

Or, maybe they plan to non-tender both Bale and Gobble and not select Veal.

But I do find it highly ironic that the day after NYRoyal and I engage in a vigorous debate about the whereabouts of ex-Braves joining our beloved Royals, Moore acquires another ex-Brave for a second time…..twice.

Here is a story about the Phils wanting to dump Eaton for nothing… they’ll eat $8 Mil of the $9 Mil remaining on his contract, and want nothing in return.

Should we give him a shot?

….but I love the Justin Huber tag. Viva La Huber! Also, where did the Glass tag come from? Or is he relevant because of his promised payroll contributions that have enabled us to be associated with F.A.’s like Furcal?

Source
And then there’s this little nugget:

Meantime, Moore indicated the Royals are close to a deal in their quest for a right-handed setup man. But it’s not likely to come immediately.
‘I wouldn’t anticipate anything there until over the weekend or Monday, I would think,’ Moore said.

There was a lot of talk about that in the MLB.com article that minda linked to above. But it was almost all from the writer and not from Moore’s quotes. Last year, the Royal’s craving for a lefty starter led to the overexposure of John Bale. I hope it doesn’t lead to a similar mistake in 2009. Having a lefty starter simply isn’t important.

Kevin Youkilis proved that pretty well I think.

That Dayton is a throw-back, old school baseball guy. He likes his pipsqueaks in the leadoff spot (“fleas” Earl Weaver used to call them), and he lives by the rule that you must have at least one left hander in the rotation.

I’m surprised he fired to Buddy Bell, to be honest.

And losing half of my study time to Royals Review winter meetings threads. (Because if it weren’t for these winter meetings, I’d be sailing right along!)

just fun to see national people talking about the Royals.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;ylt=Aptt1X0lWJd8GQwySzOVmcRvLYF?slug=jp-furcalroyals121008&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

You can find it here.

It says the Royals are trying to free up payroll room to sign Furcal. Trading Guillen is the key to that but interest in him has been “nearly nonexistent.” Further payroll could be cleared by trading Teahen, Buck and/or German.

The article says that KC believes it will take 4/44 to get Furcal. This implies that the Royals are willing to go that high. It also says that O-Cab is the backup plan and speculates that he would cost about 3/27.

who will be super excited if we land Furcal.

And I’m going to have to scold him and say “now don’t complain if we can’t sign Greinke”

that Shortstops are actually the currency of baseball. We should be stockpiling shortstops and catchers in the minor league system. If I’m JJ Piccollo, I’m using six of my top fifteen picks on shortshops and catchers.

And I don’t mean because Guillen can’t be traded. While it is difficult, I think that he and 3/4 of his contract could well be tradable. But it won’t happen until all of the better corner OFers are signed. And I doubt Furcal is going to stay on the market that long.

Doesn’t mean we are no longer interested in gritty Craig Counsel