On Saturday night the news broke that the Royals had signed Joakim Soria had signed a contract keeping him in Kansas City possibly through 2014. According to Bob Dutton, Soria will earn eight million dollars through 2011, then a series of escalators and options begin to come into play, potentially raising the value of the contract to over $30 million. Last night, Royals Review discussed the contract with site contributors NyRoyal and NHZ over pork chops and cheddar mashed potatoes at the site headquarters (Eastern Region) in Wilmington Delaware.

Royals Review: What are your overall, initial, reactions?

NYRoyal: I'm very happy with this contract extension. The two guys I'd most like for the Royals to extend this year are Soria and Greinke. One is out of the way. It is a good, long contract which eats up some free agency years. And the risk to the Royals is pretty small because of the club options. I think it is a fair deal. It guarantees some good money for Soria and it keeps him on the team long-term. The deal shares both benefits and risk between Soria and the team. If Soria is a good pitcher throughout the contract term, it gives him a little less money than he'd otherwise get. If Soria busts, then he gets much more. In short, it is a fair, smart deal.

NHZ: Well, GMDM just successfully locked up one the best relief pitchers in baseball to a thoroughly reasonable guaranteed deal, and at the same time set what we all hope is a new precedent for the way the Royals will deal with the good young players that come up through the organization. In their recent history, the Royals have had trouble hanging onto this type of player. Carlos Beltran is the best example of this, the one that pops into everyone's heads. Also, when they finally did lock up one of their homegrown stars...it was Mike Sweeney. Now Mike Sweeney is an awesome guy, but we are know how that ended up playing out. Also, I think it generally creates some friction between players and the FO when a player has to go all the way thorough to arbitration to decide his contract figure. Moore has completely eliminated any problem he could have potentially had with Soria in that respect.

For my money, it is very encouraging that we've finally seen one of the new guard of the Royals locked long term. It really is one of the measures of a how well run small-to-middle market team. It's one thing to produce a good young player, but it's another step entirely to lock said players up at a reasonable level financially that will give the Royals enough flexibility to have the money to put into other needy areas. With the low guaranteed price tag here of 8.75 million over three years, the Royals have bought out arbitration years without having to worry about being hamstrung by a large contract.

Continue reading this post »