Royals Notes: Guthrie, Pitching, Trades

The Royals took another step towards solidifying their 2013 rotation when they re-signed Jeremy Guthrie today.  Here are some notes about both the Guthrie signing and the club's offseason search for starting pitching…

• The Royals overpaid for Guthrie, opines Fangraphs' Dave Cameron, and Kansas City hasn't made the most of its limited payroll space by committing $17MM to Guthrie and Ervin Santana next season.  "Guthrie makes the Royals a little bit better, but they didn’t need to get a little bit better this winter," Cameron writes. "They needed to get a lot better, and now they’re running low on ways to make real significant improvements. For $17 million, plus the $20 million in future commitments to Guthrie, they should have been able to do better."
• Conversely, Sam Mellinger of the Kansas City Star likes the Guthrie signing since the right-hander can eat innings and he pitched well outside of Coors Field over the last three seasons.  With Guthrie and Santana now in the fold, Mellinger argues that GM Dayton Moore or owner David Glass must be comfortable in trading prospects or raising payroll if it means acquiring even more quality arms to solidify the rotation.
• The Royals aren't done shopping for pitching and ESPN's Buster Olney says the club's plan is to acquire another veteran by trading prospects.  ESPN's Jayson Stark, however, says that teams who have spoken to the Royals say Kansas City is "now more likely to go young than [for] another vet" in their pitching search (both links are to Twitter).
• In other Royals news from earlier today, the team agreed to a new contract with catcher Brett Hayes and designated eight players for assignment.