Do you think they have planned to change strategy due to the changes in the international signing rules?

I’m sure that the changes in signing International FA’s and the amateur draft cap changes their spending strategy going forward. But with regard to international FA’s, they really don’t spend too much. Usually I’m sure it is less than $5M a year (and I’m talking about the signing bonuses, not the scouts, academies, etc.).

Who knows what they are thinking, but I hoped saved money in 2011 and 2012 gets spent, or at least leads to greater spending in 2013 and beyond. With the low MLB payroll, the Royals cleared a pretty big profit in 2011. While the payroll is up this year, it’s still under $60M, so there should be another nice profit. Glass needs to maintain his practice of reinvesting more than 90% of revenues into the organization.

But would that spending necessarily be at the expense of major league payroll? Is it a zero sum proposition?

I think all spending comes at the expense of other things. I think owner/ownership group/president come up with a general number for the GM to work with and the GM decides how he’s going to spend it. He can spend more of it on one thing than the other, but the money has to come from somewhere. Even if Moore is given a more detailed, budget, I’m sure there’s some flexibility to alter spending priorities. But still, money added to one line item must be taken from another.*

• - That being said, I’m sure there are some opportunities that come up where the GM can go to the owner and ask for more money to acquire a given player.