this scenario had a much better chance of playing out. Adding Jacobs costs the team about $3M in additional salary, and with Dunn, Butler, Shealy, Jacobs, Guillen and German the Royals are way overloaded on guys who cannot play any defensive postion even to an average level outside of 1B.

Just the same, I’d love to see the Royals do something gutsy here. This crazy off-season presents the Royals with an unexpected opportunity to upgrade provided they are willing to remain active while most other teams are afraid to make commitments.

Is this a big issue with Dunn? Is he insisting on being given a LF slot?

All the other parts just lessen the financial burden of the proposed Dunn contract. Glass has the money in his account and he could sign Adam Dunn today and then let Moore work on how best to fit Dunn into the roster by future moves.

Even if signing Dunn meant unloading Jacobs and Gload for almost no return I would be fine with that. If I understand it correctly Gload could be cut before April 1st and since this is the last year of his contract he would only be owed 25% of his salary. (Do I understand this rule correctly?) That saves about $1.5M. And I think Jacobs could be given away for a marginal prospect. That would save another $3.5M.

Anyway, signing Dunn doesn’t require a lot of other moves. It really only requires Glass to be willing to spend the money.

I think the Royals have a chance to sign Dunn to a multiyear contract at a buyers price. I’d much rather sign Dunn to a three year deal than for only 2009. I just don’t see this team as ready to make a serious run at the AL Crown in 2009 with or without Dunn.

Baseball isn’t like that. If you can get better, you do.

Typically a good player of his age wouldn’t do this, but for him it might make sense. Sign a one year deal, have a good season and then go back on the FA market at an age which is still young for a free agent and hopefully in a better market. And next year’s FA class really sucks.

And I really think that if he doesn’t sign a one-year contract, he’ll sign a two-year contract. Any 3-year deal that he’d get would likely be for very little money per year, so I doubt he’d go that way.

If he IS signed for that low, I hope we take a flier on him, but I’ll not be saddened AT ALL if we don’t.

If he signs a one-year deal, it will likely be for $8-11M. If he signs a 2-year deal, it will likely be for $14-20M total. At least that’s my prediction at this point. We’ll see if it comes true.

There is a difference between signing Dunn and signing Teixeira. Dunn looks like he is going to sign for a surprisingly low figure. The deal Teixeira got was more or less what everyone expected this time last year. Dunn would be a “bargin” so to speak.

Can’t afford Hudson anymore than Dunn. I’d rather develop and evaluate Callaspo (or even Teahen) at 2B than sign Cabrera as a place filler even at a bargain price. The Royals won’t be contending in 2009, so it doesn’t make sense to sign a space filler at a position where you’ve got a decent, young player with upside potential. And Cabrera would cost the Royals a second round draft pick.

And the rest of the remaining middle IF FA options are worse.