Not a terrible deal, although the second year is troubling. Its just pointless. I’d much rather they took a chance on someone younger on the small chance that catcher ends up having a spike in performance a la Olivo in 2009. There is about a zero chance Kendall posts anywhere near a 100 OPS+ in 2010.

The critics of the critics just don’t get it

“Gload sucks, but it’s only 2/3”

“Bloomquist sucks, but it’s only 2/3”

And so on. If you don’t get it, fine. I’d get suck of arguing with Carl Everett or Sarah Palin, too.

just like he got his evaluation of the GUillen signing as “great” in the middle of guillen one hot streak right?

“Once again?” I like Mellinger, but when has he ever been right when going against real analysts?

Because its yet another sign that Moore doesn’t properly value the right thing in assembling a major league roster—current production—and overvalues other “intangible” things—veteran presence, playing the game “the right way”—that are only valued by teams that aren’t any good in the first place. I was actually pretty complacent about the possibility of signing Kendall in principle—I figured we were going to get someone pretty poor at catcher this year, and while Kendall was worse than others, the difference for this team this year was negligible. But this is when I thought he’d get a one year deal at about $2 million. As Poz put it, its just depressing when the general manager grossly overpays—in both dollars and years (which will then be used as an excuse for not signing better players for more money in later years) when better production could have been had for a lot less.

In short, this deal erases any hope that Moore really learned from the terrible deals he made last season. And, as the rest of league learns more and more how to make the right deals, it also erodes hope that the Royals will ever be competitive under Moore. And that is worth getting upset about.

It would be great if we were getting him to be a backup.

Too bad he won’t be. There was nothing to get in an “uproar” about when the Royals overpaid Willie Bloomquist either, until he collected 400+ AB, started almost the entire season and hit at the very top of the lineup.

Are we not obligated by MLB, in relation to revenue sharing, to spend some portion of money on free agents, regardless of their worth and desire to be in KC? I’ve been wondering about “invisible imperatives” for about 2-3 months. I mean, no GM could be so stupid as to keep spending money yet have ownership retain him. That incongruity makes me think that Glass has some sort of an arrangement with other owners about spending some set amount of money on free agents. – TL

PS: This might be worthy of a whole new fan post.

… how can it possibly be when they overhaul it and rebuild it every six months.