I have no idea what that title is supposed to mean, but I like it. And now, despite the pain of using a horrible Mac-keyboard, the Tuesday Burn...
Bob Dutton reports from Florida that the Royals are "among the finalists" for Gil Meche and Miguel Batista.
Meche and Batista are the club's top offseason targets in their stated priority to bolster a rotation that posted a league-high 5.85 earned-run average in 2006. They also talked Monday with representatives for right-hander Ryan Franklin and remain interested in retaining lefty Mark Redman.Well, Redman's an All-Star, so I'll kill myself if we don't bring him back. His magical appearance at the (corp sponsored) festivities created a generation of Redman fans in Kansas City.
Meanwhile, the Brazelton deal is done. No word on if a signing bonus was involved, but it sure looks like he was signed for next to nothing (i.e. a minor league contract and a NRI to Spring Training).
Other random names were also signed:
(former Brave) Wayne Franklin
catcher Jared Price
Damaso Espino
Roberto Giron
Graham Koonce
Price and Espino are veterans of the Royals system, while Giron spent last season with the Astros AAA affiliate in suburban Austin (ok, ok, in "Round Rock"). And theres also last month's favorite, Matt Wright. (Kcroyals.com link here)
ESPN.com has an updating semi-blog of rumors from the meetings. Absolutely no Royals news recently, aside from reports that the Mets are also interested in Batista. Interestingly, someone named Amy Nelson filed an entry at 2:39 AM. [insert sexist innuendo here]
In that vein (those veins actually) Will Carroll continues to file dispatches at BP. "JQ" did you see this quip regarding your boy Krivsky
So far, Wayne Krivsky's not making friends. "He's signing guys no one wants and pushing the bar up." I can't print the rest of the quote from an NL official.
For even more gisspi, beloved blogger gone mainstream Aaron Gleeman is also on the ground in Orlando.
Flying under the radar a bit is that the Rule V Draft (I believe Neyer once had a rant about it being dumb to be always Roman-Numeraled, and that the actual rules aren't formatted that way...) is on Thursday. As "greggagne4hof" points out, the Royals have the second pick in the draft. You can expect Royals Review to be all over the annual dumpster dive. Who will be the next Andy Sisco? Or at least, the good version of Andy Sisco.
Lastly, "daveyork" continues a new Royals tradition of dreaming up ways to get Reggie Sanders off the roster.