Royals Willing To Pay Up For Guillen

It’s always dangerous to commit to acquiring one specific player, because then he has all the leverage.  Kind of like buying a house I guess.  The Royals are dead-set on signing Jose Guillen, who wants a four-year contract despite his steroid issues.

Bob Dutton believes Guillen is just posturing, as the Mets are the only other interested club.  It still seems like Guillen can’t get more than three years, but you never know.  Dutton notes that the Mariners accurately judged the interest in Guillen to be weak, and preferred to abandon a sandwich pick rather than risk getting stuck with him for one more year.

Dutton says the Royals plan to spend the $70MM they tried to give Torii Hunter on Guillen and Hiroki Kuroda.  That could almost work – $30MM and three years for Guillen, $40MM and four years for Kuroda.  It would be a little light for Kuroda, who wants to play on the West Coast and reportedly has a four-year, $44MM offer in hand from the Mariners.