The Royals have been told by Alex Gordon’s camp that they have “no chance” to re-sign their franchise cornerstone as things currently stand, reports Jon Heyman of CBS Sports. Gordon’s camp is seeking a contract that will pay him upwards of $20MM per season, and Heyman hears that Kansas City has only offered four years, noting that Jim Bowden reported at ESPN that the annual value of said offer is believed to be in the $12-13MM range.
With their chances of retaining Gordon looking slim, the Royals have begun to explore the market for alternatives, writes Heyman, including Denard Span, Gerardo Parra, Austin Jackson and another player who was with Kansas City in 2015 — Alex Rios. Each of those players, with the exception of Parra, is a client of agent Scott Boras, with whom the Royals have negotiated a number of deals in recent seasons. Span, coming off hip surgery, is said to be hosting a showcase for interested on teams on Jan. 8 next month, while Parra reportedly already has three-year offers in hand but hopes to land a fourth year. Jackson and Rios have both been largely absent from the rumor circuit this offseason. Each is coming off a relatively disappointing year, though Jackson was more productive than Rios both at the plate and in the field.
Heyman also discusses Kansas City’s ongoing search for rotation help, noting that while lefty Wei-Yin Chen sits atop the team’s wish list, but they won’t go to six years for him or offer the five-year, $100MM contract that Chen is reportedly seeking. (I’d personally expect Chen and Gordon to ultimately command relatively similar contracts, so it stands to reason that both would be out of the Royals’ price range.) Heyman also mentions Scott Kazmir and Yovani Gallardo, each of whom has previously been linked to Kansas City. He also, however, adds Ian Kennedy’s name to the list of players the Royals like.
The 31-year-old Kennedy hasn’t seen his name come up in many rumors this winter. He got off to a dreadful start in 2015, logging a 7.15 ERA through his first eight starts of the season. However, from June 1 moving forward, Kennedy righted the ship and recorded a 3.41 ERA with a 137-to-38 K/BB ratio in 129 1/3 innings across 22 starts. Though many were surprised to see Kennedy reject a qualifying offer — and that factor does figure to impact his market somewhat — he’s made at least 30 starts each season dating back to 2010, averaging 196 innings of 3.88 ERA with 8.4 K/9 against 2.9 BB/9 in that time. As a fly-ball pitcher that is susceptible to home runs, Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium would seem, on paper, to be an excellent fit for Kennedy. Not only does the stadium have spacious dimensions, Kansas City’s incumbent center fielder, Lorenzo Cain, is among the game’s premier outfield defenders. And Jarrod Dyson, who could see a more regular role in the outfield corners next season, has registered outstanding defensive ratings in his limited role in previous seasons.
Well, what teams are willing to offer Gordon 20 million a year?
Look, I like him a lot too, but he wants a lot of money.
Also, I hear Gordon does not want to play on the East Coast, so my Orioles be out of luck for Gordon’s services and they might play Kim there.
Anyway, why do all these players want to much money? I am telling you at some points fans are going to revolt because we are so tired of paying all this money for tickets and our cable bill is sky high because of these outrageous contracts!!!
Lol, if teams refused to pay players a lot of money, you wouldn’t get it back in lower ticket prices, the owners would just pocket it.
Pretty much as Joe McMahon put it, don’t be naive.
Players “want” so much money because there’s a huge amount of money in the game and they can get that much money.
Don’t go! As long as fans go these contracts are gonna get crazier every year!
Yeeeeeeah, fans are going to keep going no matter what you do.
Not true. Attendance is not the primary factor in player payrolls. It’s all about media contracts.
true, still amazed by some of the tv contracts being signed for baseball; how many people are actually watching entire baseball games anymore?
as far as the royals, they have certainly pocketed alot of revenue from all those home playoff games the last 2 years.
i cant believe they even bothered with an offer that low for Gordon- if he’s going to give a hometown discount it would be more in the 15-17 per year range i would think
No one goes to a MLB game to see the owners count their cash. They go to see talent play the game in ways they could only dream of. I’ll get upset about players salaries when the owners stop sticking their hands in the taxpayer’s pockets for free stadiums, when they plough money back into the communities that support them, when they make a real effort at family-friendly ticket sales. Until then, I see this as a game I really enjoy watching, and understand there’s a price for it. I happen to like opera as well–and guess what, there’s a hefty price for that too.
Once Cain and co leave the royals are gonna be a joke again.
not really, they do have to start trading players after this year though. hosmer, mouse, cain, dyson, davis are all free agents after 2017, so if they trade them after next year they can get major league ready talent in return. still have yordana ventura, sal perez, kelvin herrera, and mondesi jr to build around, and im sure they will hit on some other minor leaguer. davis and cain alone can fetch 3 premium prospects. if the central wasn’t so weak this year i could easily see them and the cubs matching up on a cain deal.
KC’s best chance of getting much for any of them is now or at the trade deadline. You won’t get close to Pederson for 1 to 1 1/2 years of any of them.
pederson had a good half, but really stuggled when the league adjusted. it really is fair value for one of the top 3 CF in the game.
Yeah, but the Royals are trying to win again this year. They’ll gladly take a smaller haul for these players if it means another chance at another flag.
Assuming the Royals don’t randomly (or due to losing Gordon) start to blow, they’re not blowing anything up. It would be a slap in the face to their fans to start trading away their stars after like 2.5 years of having a good team just to orchestrate some type of rebuild with other lesser players with a couple more years of control.
The will most likely let Cain, Hosmer, Moustakis, and Davis go two years from now and collect compensatory picks for them, as they are likely to do with Gordon this year and possibly with Morales next year. They didn’t put together a champion just to blow it up. If the guys leave for 9 figure contracts, that’s a different story.
The team has a farm system with multiple top-100 prospects. They’ve been spending aggressively on international players. They will continue to collect picks. They will try to extend who they can, probably Herrera and maybe they can get a free agent year out of Moustakis or Cain. That is their model. They aren’t blowing up a great team, that would be an utter slap in the face to their fans. and not be ultimately effective. The rebuild might be quicker but would be less likely to lead to a great team.
hardly a slap in the face, maybe for an illogical fan that doesn’t seem to realize they can’t afford to keep them, but to a smart fan it is just retooling and not blowing anything up. also they have 1 very good prospect in mondesi and some solid ones. draft picks and international spending take years and years to develop and that would be blowing up the team, getting close to major league ready talent really only creates a bad team one or 2 years max if you do it right, banking on 16 year olds from foreign countries to come through 6 years later is not what they can afford to do. they have to restock when they can. they did win you a world series, now they have to position themselves to win more.
Cain isn’t young, his metrics can only go down.
after this year, or if they play bad up to the break, i could see a cain for joc pederson and grant holmes or jose de leon deal, then every team wants a wade davis for a season and a half. that alone is enough to get a real rebuild started, hosmer, moose, and dyson would fetch less but u can still get some real talent for them.
Why are people talking about a potential Royals rebuild soon. They sucked too long to let their window of contention be 2 or 3 yrs
because this time they positioned themselves to rebuild on the fly. they might be under .500 one year if they do it right this time.
Their low budget prevents them from being playoff competitive for multiple consecutive years (like the Yankees, Red Sox, Giants, etc. Even though those teams struggle some seasons, they have the financial flexibility to sign a big name or two to instantly put them back into being competitive). The Royals are forced to sell some, if not all of their stars just to get good prospects in order to remain competitive. Otherwise they would have to rebuild completely again.
Cain for pederson and holmes or de leon? Ahahahaha! You must be a royals fan!
uhm no, you are talking about a 5 win player in a premium postion.
uhm yes, you are talking only 2 years of control now with Cain vs. 5 years for pederson
Cain is a far superior player to Pederson at this point and probably for the long haul. It would certainly take Joc+ for a guy who is arguably a top 10 position player.
lol, and by that logic everyone should trade for dallas beeler because he comes with 6 years of control, cain is the better player, which mitigates the amount of control. if pederson stays the same hes an average regular which are readily available on the free agent market. see colby rasmus, dexter fowler, denard span. a player of cain’s caliber playing a premium position are much harder to acquire.
Why does everyone want Pederson in a trade? He absolutely sucked in the second half this past season. He needs to show everyone what his true talent level is before teams should consider trading for him.
Can’t beat the ol’ buy high strategy, huh?
if Peterson had a great year, the Dodgers would never consider trading a low salaried young star and unless they were offered a high ranking pitching prospect in return, I don’t know why they would trade him now!
Sign Chen, grab a Latos and then trade for Corey Dickerson and a low tier outfielder to possibly platoon with him or give him days off. He’s a heck of a player and young. Would fit right it with the Royals. And there colors match his High School teams, just makes it that much better hahah
As a Tigers fan, its nice to see KC checking into the availability of Rios, again. Thanks KC!
Yeah, since the Royals did pretty lousy last year with him on their roster.
When you are compared to Austin jackson and the numbers are said to be worse? There should be an avoid at all costs stamp all over. That is truly the bottom of the barrel.
Maybe Trade Duffy for an OF.
Arte Moreno needs to open up his wallet and sign alex gordon
Arte Moreno’s wallet is already open and paying Josh Hamilton to play on the Rangers. I wouldn’t hold my breath that the Angels add any major money until he’s no longer owed anything.
He said he was willing to go over the luxury tax for the right player but now he’s not, In shock but maybe it’s the right thing to do till money comes off the payroll.
Okay, I can justify $20M or so a year for Heyward with the sheer variety of things he does well in addition to his age and his elite defense, but Gordon?! He’s just an older, poor man’s version of Heyward, so the “poor man’s” part of that comparison should apply. Sure, he’ll still be quite a rich man in actuality, but in comparison to Heyward he should come at a deep discount.
No way I’m paying gordon 20MM a year.
Even though you have been a #8 hitter during your prime, please come to SD for 4 yrs 70 million and hit 2nd in the lineup
…so Preller can trade you to the Nationals in the offseason to get Trea Turner back.