Greg Holland and Arbitration

              With the Royals signing Greg Holland to a contract, Dayton Moore’s perfect record of never going to arbitration remains. There is a fun Twitter account dedicated to finding Facebook posts by Royals fans and re-tweeting them; posts are chosen for various reasons, but they usually relate to ignorance about some generally accepted or known baseball practice or ignorance about baseball statistics and value. After Holland’s signing, many posts were related to how giving Holland a 1 year contract is completely unfair to him. For those who may not know, I’d like to explain a little bit about baseball’s compensation structure to give more context around Holland’s signing.

Bronson Arroyo, Royals a Fit

                As we get closer to the beginning of Spring Training, Bronson Arroyo still doesn’t have a current employer. In each of the past two years, Arroyo has thrown over 200 innings and has had an ERA under 4.00 despite poorer peripherals. Given his durability, why hasn’t he found a home? Maybe it’s because the Royals haven’t jumped on the opportunity yet.

Luke Hochevar: Starter? (Again)

With the departure of Ervin Santana and Bruce Chen, and the ineffectiveness of Wade Davis, the Royals are looking for some starting pitching depth. To replace Santana, the Royals signed Jason Vargas. The rotation is Shields, Guthrie, and Vargas at the top; while that isn’t that bad, it doesn’t scream playoffs. The Royals have a multitude of players for the other two rotation spots, including Danny Duffy, Yordano Ventura, Wade Davis, and Luke Hochevar. Wait, Hochevar? Again? Yes, again. The Royals are aiming to give him another shot. What can we expect? 

No Mo #YoLough

                Dayton Moore strikes again. Another trade, this one an exchange of David Lough for Danny Valencia. Lough, despite accruing 2.4 fWAR in 96 games, was not likely to factor in to the Royals 2014 plans after they acquired Norichika Aoki. With Aoki, Gordon, Cain, Maxwell, Dyson, and Lough, someone had to go. Like the Will Smith-Aoki trade, the Royals have traded from a position of surplus to fill a position of need. I support this line of thinking. Lough’s value came from defense; he was merely average-ish at the plate but has poor plate discipline. Since Aoki offers good defense with better offense, Lough wasn’t going to play much, so it makes sense to trade him.

Optimism for 2014 and Caution for 2015 and Beyond

                The Royals continued their “spending spree” this offseason by signing 2b Omar Infante to a four year contract worth $30.25M with a team option for a 5^th year at $10M with a $2M buyout. Infante is coming off a season in which he batted .318/.345/.450 and accrued 3.1 fWAR, which if you were watching last year, would have been a massive improvement over what the Royals had at 2b. Infante is a solid player who has a fairly good chance of outperforming his contract over the first two years and underperforming the contract in the last two years to produce something like fair value over the life of the contract. The Royals managed to secure a good player to a good contract despite the current condition of the free agent market and competition from the Yankees for his services, and Dayton Moore deserves some credit for this. The team option seems like a waste of $2M, but the Royals somehow believe he will still be effective in 2018.