My crazy plan for the Royals

But this plan has no chance of working.
1. If we sign Fielder, where does the money come from to sign an elite pitcher next year? The royals already have about $45mil on the books, fielder makes that $60+. And the royals won’t she’ll out the extra $15+ to get a starter on top of that.
2. Why would the Rangers part with one if the best 2B in the game when they are in competition mode? And double why would they want an increasingly expensive average hitting DH who can’t run?

I don’t think the Kinsler trade idea makes much sense. If anything, I’d rather see them trade Butler and all the other guys you mentioned (maybe a couple more) for James Shields and Ben Zobrist.

Put James Shields at the top of the rotation. If he replaced Jeff Francis last year, our team ERA would have been 4.18 instead of 4.55 last year. This does not include improvement from any of our pitchers next year.

Our middle infield D would still improve by a ton with Zobrist, as well as the offense at that position.

Sign Fielder. Don’t sign Jackson. Trade Butler, Myers (Yes, I am advocating trading Myers. I’d rather see them keep Montgomery over Myers), Giavotella, Clint Robinson, Ben Theriot, Blake Wood, and Derrick Robinson (Or a similar package) for James Shields and Ben Zobrist (Yes, it’s going to take a big package). Offer Chen arbitration, sign Gordon to an extension. That is pretty much my ideal off-season.

@ Dadunca- I had not been on the site for a week, so I had not read that, but it is an interesting coincidence. I thought of this stuff while beginning to write my post season summary.

@RoyalPug- The (admittedly thin) premise for the entire idea was the hope that Glass would bump the payroll to $85 million or so (We went above $70 million only two years ago) for a short term run at glory, while we still followed the same scouting strategy to continue to supply fresh young talent t the pipeline. Also, Kinsler has had a .357 or higher wOBA in every year he has played, he has just gotten to it differently each year. He is also an elite fielder and base runner.

@Jack Marsh- The Shields/Zobrist idea is interesting.

@kcdc1 & Royals Retro- I think the entire point of this plan was to make our team an attractive option to elite starting pitching. Right now, we would have to severely overpay to get a quality pitcher to come here. We might have to pay ace money and # of years to a second tier pitcher, or trade alot of prospects for the same. Also, Retro, Kinsler has averaged 4+ WAR over the last six years (in both bWAR and fWAR), including his rookie season. He has more WAR the last six years (using an average of the two) than the sum of the Royals best non pitcher each year. Since when is 4+ WAR not worth $17 million over two years? There are exactly zero free agent pitchers who have averaged 4+ WAR (again, using an average) over the last 3 years, not counting CC, who may not be one. CJ Wilson is higher than 4 in fWAR, but we are not getting him, and he will be alot more than $8.5 million per year.

Butler, Gia and a good prospect may be a fair trade for Kinsler, but why would the Rangers be interested in it? How does it make their team better? They would be without a good second baseman. And they don’t have a particular need at DH. And they are obviously contenders now, so they’re not looking to trade for prospects.

And I don’t think it makes sense from the Royals perspective either. Kinsler has only two years of team control remaining. It doesn’t make sense for a team like the Royals to trade 4 years of team control of Butler, 6+ years of team control from the prospect, plus Gia for 2 years of any player.

i wouldnt really want to trade for a guy with only two years left on his contract though. i dont know if its the right move, but i could see going after brandon phillips on a front loaded contract if the reds dont pick up his option.