FanPost

Offseason in Review: November 25th

Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

sFUFc60_puvxljRXqMxN11g.0.png Happy belated Thanksgiving, Royals fans. Hope you all enjoyed your turkey and pumpkin pie, and had meaningful conversations with your family that didn't involve the election. I did.

Tony Cruz and Tim Collins become FAs:

A disappointment that we got nothing out of either this year, but what else was there to expect. The Royals could have traded Tony Cruz for another catcher, but instead, they let him go and got nothing back. So now, we need a new major league ready catcher that can be promoted from Omaha, should we need another catcher and Butera isn't available. Only problem is that I can't really find many names that I think could actually work. Maybe we could try Bobby Wilson or Juan Centeno, but I don't think they'd like it. And unfortunately, our thin farm system doesn't have any catching prospects that are ready yet. So I'll make a radical proposal: send Butera to the minors to fill in this role and then sign Rene Rivera. Butera is in the minors in MLB 16: The Show, so maybe they know something that we don't? As for Tim Collins, I'd reserve his spot in the roster for a minor league deal rebuilding project like Kevin Jepsen, Charlie Furbush, Matt Albers, or even Tommy Milone. It's glaringly obvious that we need pitching, and now that we have an open spot in the roster, we can pick a pitcher we want to sign to a minor league deal. Getting a tough reliever or a long reliever for a dime would be extremely helpful to our cause.

Labor talks delay Royals FA signings:

Oh boy, here we go with the labor crap. If you haven't heard, there's talks of a new deal that they're trying to propose. Managers are meeting to discuss their grievances with the commissioner of baseball, and some are threatening lockout. The main issues at hand are the compensatory round at the draft, and an international draft. If a team signs a big free agent like Aroldis Chapman, or makes a blockbuster trade with a big name like we did with Johnny Cueto, then the team has to give up a first round draft pick as a price for it. To make up for this lost pick, a compensatory round is held for the teams that had to give up their first round pick. But this is causing smaller market teams with strained farm systems to cry foul, in which the Royals meet this criteria. They also want to create an international draft for teams to pick and choose elite talent from places around the world like Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela. I think an international draft would be interesting to think about, but it may not come to fruition. Regardless, stronger measures to prevent teams like the Yankees, Dodgers, and Red Sox from hoarding all the talent from Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican is a good topic to think about. As for the elimination of the compensatory round, I can see it backfiring as big market teams would no longer have anything stopping them from snatching up the best names. But I digress, I just want the talks to finish up and end smoothly, because lockout talks begin on December 1st, and a lockout would be devastating to the Royals in 2017.

A trade opportunity opens up with Arizona:

If you want a trade for young, controllable, reliable starters, then you may want to look into a trade with the Diamondbacks. Recently, they were involved in a trade with the Mariners that gave them starter Taijuan Walker. So now, here are all the starters that have a chance to be in the rotation of the team for 2017: Zack Greinke, Robbie Ray, Archie Bradley, Taijuan Walker, Rubby de la Rosa, Braden Shipley, Shelby Miller, and Patrick Corbin. This equals 56 different combinations for a rotation, which means that the team is overflowing with depth in this position. The Royals should take advantage of this, as they are rather strained in this area. I doubt we could afford Zack Greinke, and they're not letting go of Archie Bradley, Braden Shipley, or Taijuan Walker, so this leaves us with the options of Robbie Ray, Rubby de la Rosa, Shelby Miller, and Patrick Corbin. I'll leave the discussion up to you guys in the comments.

This FanPost was written by a member of the Royals Review community. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the editors and writers of this site.