Cactus League Eve

The signings keep coming at a furious pace. One Wednesday, the Royals announced 12 more were placed under contract.

Greg Holland - $539,500
Tim Collins - $534,500
Eric Hosmer - $528,250
Mike Moustakas - $524,500
Elliot Johnson - $520,500
Kelvin Herrera - $508,175
Danny Duffy - $505,125
Lorenzo Cain - $503,175
Will Smith - $496,500
Johnny Giavotella - $494,000
David Lough - $491,625
John Lamb - $490,000

Remember, these are major league salaries. Players in this group will make significantly less if they are in the minors.

There are now just five players on the 40-man roster without contracts for the 2013 season:

Francisley Bueno
Aaron Crow
Louis Coleman
Luis Mendoza
Guillermo Moscoso

-- The Royals intersquad tilt continued with the same USA versus the World format employed on Tuesday. After that game ended in a 5-5 tie, Wednesday's contest was a pitcher's duel as ten pitchers limited the hitters to a single run. The lone tally was a David Lough home run to give the USA the victory. Take that, World.

-- With an extended spring training slate of games because of the insipid World Baseball Classic, the Royals are holding their "Big Four" of the rotation out of action in these intersquad games and will do the same for the first few Cactus League games.

The Royals first "true" spring training game is on Friday against the Rangers.

-- With intersquad games out of the way, and the real exhibition games starting on Friday, the Royals will enjoy a day of light workouts on Thursday. Included in the plans for the morning is "Photo Day."

After picture obligations are out of the way, most of the team will head for the golf course and a team building exercise in a tournament organized by Jeff Francoeur. I'm not going to make a snarky comment about this. I'll just say watch out for cactus needles. Those bastards hurt if you get them stuck in your big toe.

-- If gambling is your thing, Bovada released their latest odds for the winning the World Series. To save questions, I'll just publish the whole list:

Toronto Blue Jays 7/1
Detroit Tigers 8/1
Los Angeles Dodgers 17/2
Washington Nationals 17/2
Los Angeles Angels 9/1
Atlanta Braves 14/1
Cincinnati Reds 14/1
New York Yankees 14/1
San Francisco Giants 14/1
Texas Rangers 14/1
Philadelphia Phillies 18/1
St. Louis Cardinals 20/1
Tampa Bay Rays 25/1
Boston Red Sox 30/1
Oakland Athletics 33/1
Baltimore Orioles 40/1
Chicago White Sox 40/1
Milwaukee Brewers 40/1
Arizona Diamondbacks 50/1
Kansas City Royals 50/1
Pittsburgh Pirates 50/1
Chicago Cubs 75/1
Cleveland Indians 75/1
San Diego Padres 75/1
Seattle Mariners 75/1
Colorado Rockies 100/1
Miami Marlins 100/1
Minnesota Twins 100/1
New York Mets 100/1
Houston Astros 200/1

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if your preseason odds are the same as the Diamondbacks and Pirates, the oddsmakers are not impressed with your off season.

Meanwhile, they set the Royals over/under for wins at 78.5. I'm impressed. I wouldn't touch that number with Ned Yost's gall bladder.