i don’t totally see the point in trading meche, yet would trade soria in a heartbeat

anyone, even Greinke, should be available for the right price… of course, Greinke would command a ridiculously high price for me

I wonder if teams still overvalue closers? If so, Soria should be available — his contract is also attractive. In addition, if concerns about his mechanics are valid, then trading him before injuries snowball is smart. Again, it would have to be the right kind of player (or groups of plaeyrs) — young, cost-controlled, upside-ey and, if not in the majors already, at least one who is ready to be soon.

Meche is clearly more valuable than Soria, but also us older and with a bigger contract. Same sort of situation. I like Meche, and he’s been a good deal for the Royals, but he isn’t going to be better than he is now, and every game he pitches (like for all pitchers) makes it more and more likely that he will have “that” injury. No fire sale, of course, just see what can be had for him.

beginning to come around…

http://www.royalsreview.com/2009/5/23/884929/should-dm-blow-this-team-up

But I don’t see any way in hell Soria or Meche gets dealt

Soria yes (for the right deal), Meche no right now

before the deadline and see what he can get for one or both. There will definitely be takers for them. 3-5 quality-to-excellent prospects at the AA or AAA levels, with at least one or two being ready to step into a MLB starting role immediately, should be the target. Position players in this order: SS, CF, C. And a projected quality starter wouldn’t hurt either.

Which seems like trying to read tea leaves, anyway. I’m going on the assumption that his WAR outpaces his salary, and isn’t that the type of player that you want ON your team, not the player you want to trade away, rolling the dice on some prospects? (Of course everyone has a price, and if we started talking with Texas about their young catchers, then I might be interested….)

If it’s not until 2012, deal anyone of any value who doesn’t project to be adding value to the team in 2012. If it’s sooner, then don’t deal guys like Meche, or anyone else who’s good and locked in through 2011.

I’m waving the white flag on the season, but not on 2010 and 2011 and it’s difficult to imagine Moore doing that. What happens between now and the deadline will tell us what Moore thinks of the subject. Based on the off-season moves, he seemed (incorrectly) to think that we could compete this season. Everyone reading this blog still believed that in April. We’re in the depths of a historically bad stretch of baseball, but I don’t see Moore giving up (and thereby admitting that he sucks as a GM) on 2010 and 2011.

Nevertheless, the more lopsided losses we experience, the farther and farther away seem the chances of fielding a contender. And everyone’s got their price, so if the amount of ready-now prospects showed up at the door, and projected to equal more value than Meche in say 2011 and beyond, well…we do have tons of glaring holes.

That our #1 draft pick will be ready by 2011? He projects as high as a 1/2 starter, no? Thus, if we could get a good package of position players (CF, COF, C, 2B) for him, Crow might be ready to step in by then.

I also agree with Royals Revival, we have had a lot of bad luck. Everyone expected Aviles to regress, but not like this. Now we find out he’s injured, so we still don’t know what we have in him. Gordon will be above average if not stellar; I believe. I’m not a big Crisp fan, but his injury has been a big blow to us. Crisp>Maier, no question.

I still think Hochevar will be at least a 4, and either Bannister or Davies will be as good a 5 as most everyone else has. The pen situation can be resolved fairly easily; we saw GMDM do it once, and though he kind of made a hash of it this year, I think he can do it again.

It’s not as bad as it seems.

Our lower-tier payroll (even though it’s higher than the past, it’s still lower half to lower third of the league)/small-marketness, coupled with a decade of incompetent front office bungling, has left the organizational depth such that there is absolutely no margin for error, even with a new regime in office for a while now. We can’t have numerous key players on the DL and we absolutely have to have the majority of our high-upside prospects pan out, and pan out quickly. Right now, numerous key players are on the DL, and the majority of the prospects are either not panning out, or for those who still could do it, they’re taking a while to do it (Gordon/Butler).

This marks a huge fork in the road for the GM though. It might just make sense for the long-term to “blow it up” if we can get a huge haul for Meche and Soria, and whoever we can get for Guillen, Jacobs, etc., but I don’t think Moore is in the mindset to rebuild for 2012, even if it might look like the right thing to do roster-wise. Even if it makes perfect sense “on paper,” reverting back to rebuilding mode sends a horrible message to not only the players on the team (or what’s left of them) like Greinke, who signed a long-term deal just this off-season, or Soria, who would be traded after just signing a long-term deal also this off-season, or Meche who’d be halfway through a five-year deal, but it would send a terrible message to the league that KC’s a bush league operation again. We’ve had to overpay free agents just to get them to listen, and it feels like that tide is starting to turn in terms of perception (even if the onfield antics don’t show it recently). Nevertheless, Pittsburgh inked McLouth to a long-term deal in the off-season and just dumped him for three prospects. Maybe they know something about fielding a winning team that we don’t.

More personally, I don’t see Moore pulling the trigger on Meche or Soria b/c it will be admitting defeat, admitting that he hasn’t done the job. Meche and Soria are his most brilliant acquisitions. You move them off the roster and there’s very little evidence of his shrewdness as a GM on the team. There’d be Banny and Callaspo if they can stay consistent, plus holdovers from the previous regime (high-upside prospects like Gordon and Butler plus no-upside guys like Teahen, DeJesus, and Buck) plus whatever’s left of the current gang of hapless FA’s he’s signed, and then just more prospects that we’re all really pulling for to join Butler and Gordon.

Tough call…guess it depends on the prospects, and if GMDM can do better than the past trades for Gator, Shealy, etc. I just don’t see even the highest-payroll teams in the most win-now modes dumping prospects they perceive as franchise guys.

is the never ending parade of mental blunders this team always produces. How does Boston dig up young guys like Youkilis and Pedroia that seem to play like veterans from day one? Even our so called veteran guys make completely stupid baserunning and fielding errors all the time and don’t seem to ever learn anything from them.