Royals Rumblings - News for November 13, 2014

Royals Rumblings - News for November 13, 2014

The Royals met with Billy Butler's agent, and have not ruled out bringing back the slugger for 2015.

"We need to replace Billy Butler for sure," Moore said. "If not bring Billy back."...

The Royals would still consider a reunion with Butler, who posted the weakest offensive season of his career in 2014, and may even match his $8 million salary from last season. But they are wary of offering longer than a two-year contract, according to people familiar with the situation, and rumors flew Tuesday at the Arizona Biltmore about Butler receiving a three-year offer from an unnamed club.

McCullough also writes that the Royals will pursue injury-prone pitchers like Brett Anderson and Brandon McCarthy because of the confidence they have in their training staff.

Ned Yost isn't going anywhere, but the Royals aren't giving him a contract extension quite yet.

Yet, in a counterintuitive way, the success Yost experienced makes discussions about an extension a back-burner issue. Yost assured his future with the organization thanks to his success in October. He is still likely to receive a new contract, but Moore indicated the team had other priorities at the present.

"There’s a progression in the offseason," Moore said. "There’s a sequential way we’re doing things. Right now, we’re focused on other things."

Royals relievers Kelvin Herrera and Louis Coleman will be eligible for arbitration under "Super-Two" status, but catcher Erik Kratz will not.

Baseball Prospectus looks at some of next year's Bovada odds to win the World Series, and finds the Royals a worse bet than Vegas does.

This team isn't that good and is a terrible bet to win next year's World Series. Better than we gave them credit for? Yes. Better than I'm currently giving them credit for? Probably, yeah. They deserve every win they won, every extra dollar of playoff shares they got. But it's also a team that had a sub-.500 third-order winning percentage, which means they've got to do some improving if they want to be taken seriously as a threat again. Where might that improvement come? Well, the best bet is that the Royals' offensive core will finally make that jump forward together, that Moustakas and Hosmer and Perez will be the middle-of-the-order trio we once envisioned. Could happen! But is also the foundation of many Royals seasons in the past. Some of those seasons ended in World Series Game Sevens, but none ended with Moustakas and Hosmer and Perez as the middle-of-the-order trio we once envisioned.

I'd expect them to run, to defend, for one of the three I just named (Hosmer, probably) to add 30 points of TAv, and for a couple of other pleasant surprises to pop up. But these guys probably need to add eight to 10 wins of true talent to make the playoffs again, and that's without discounting the loss of James Shields, the loss of Nori Aoki, and the likely regression of the still-to-be-excellent HDH bullpen. I'm not saying the Royals definitely aren't making the playoffs. Fun team, good team, likable team. But I've been betting against the Royals my whole life. It's only burned me once. —Sam Miller

Our old friend Ervin Santana will pursue free agency this winter after a frustrating winter of rejection last year. Fangraph's Mike Petriello looks at whether Santana will fare better this year.

Santana may seem like the same pitcher he was a year ago, but there’s at least one thing working in his favor. Last year, he was coming off one good season and one of the worst seasons by a regular starter in the past 50 years. This year, he’s coming off of two consecutive good seasons. If the goal is to convince a team that his awful 2012 was an outlier, then that’s an easier sell this time.

The Royals add some depth for Omaha on minor league deals.

The Royals signed IF Ryan Roberts and LHP Joe Paterson to minor-league deals.

— Andy McCullough (@McCulloughStar) November 12, 2014

The 34-year old Roberts can play all over the field and has hit .243/.320/.388 in 1692 plate appearances. The 29-year old Paterson is a situational lefty who had a 2.91 ERA with the Diamondbacks as a Rule 5 pick in 2011, but has been stuck in the minors since then.

The Royals have also resigned P Noel Arguelles an 1B Matt Fields to minor leauge deals and released RHP Jon Fitzsimmons, RHP Shane Halley, RHP Zeb Sneed, LHP Antonio Cruz, 1B Jared Schlehuber, according to Baseball America.

The Tigers keep slugger Victor Martinez on a four-year deal. Next year the Tigers will pay $109 million for Justin Verlander, Miguel Cabrera, Anibal Sanchez, Victor Martinez, Ian Kinsler, and Joe Nathan alone.

Grant Brisbee argues the post-season should count when it comes to Manager of the Year voting, in case someone gets YOSTED.

Here's a nifty chart (h/t Shaun Newkirk) showing payroll obligations for next year in terms of guaranteed money and expected arbitration salaries.

Las Vegas has picked owners for the NHL team it does not yet have.

Cool piece on the main SB Nation site about the nomadic life of an assistant college basketball coach.

Was there an earthquake in Kansas yesterday? Or merely Billy Butler falling down? Because he is fat, you see.

Ten sci-fi TV episodes everyone pretends never happened.

Twitter let Dr. Oz have it on his psuedoscience.

How to kick a guy in the balls.

Your song of the day is the Violent Femmes with "American Music."