The Royals are among the teams with “strong interest” in free agent starter Ian Kennedy, according to Jon Heyman (Twitter links). Kansas City is expected to try to “make [a] push” to land the righty now that Alex Gordon is under contract to return, per the report.
Of course, it’s not immediately clear whether Kennedy sits atop K.C.’s wish list. The club is also looking at Wei-Yin Chen and Yovani Gallardo, Heyman adds.
All of those pitchers declined qualifying offers at the outset of the offseason. Signing any one of them, then, would require the Royals to part with the club’s first overall selection after already giving up the chance to add an extra pick by bringing back Gordon. Of course, fresh off a World Series victory, the choice will not end up being near the top of the first round.
The Royals may also spend some time exploring the possibility of a re-worked deal with backstop Salvador Perez, Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports adds on Twitter. We’ve heard chatter before that this could be considered, but the enormously team-friendly deal that he’s bound by also doesn’t leave much motivation for a deal. The large-framed, heavily-used backstop can already be controlled through 2019 (his age-29 season) via a series of options. That makes it seem unlikely, at least from an outside perspective, that he’ll be able to achieve much more than a few guaranteed years — likely at the price of surrendering yet more options at the back end.
Totally unrelated, but how does this Mad Dog Russo guy have a television show? I want to puncture my ear drums.
Amen to that.
An extension of Salvador Perez would scare me if I’m a Royals fan.
His stats have gotten worse each year for the past three years (the three years in which he has been a starter and caught more than 100 games in a season).
2013: 3.7 fWAR, 105 OPS+, 106 wRC+, 12.8 K%, 6.2 Swing Strike%
2014: 3.1 fWAR, 91 OPS+, 92 wRC+, 14.0 K%, 8.0 Swing Strike%
2015: 1.6 fWAR, 89 OPS+, 87 wRC+, 14.8 K%, 9.0 Swing Strike%
Even defensively, he’s taken a hit each year (11, 8, & 5 DRS in same pattern)
I cannot see any reason why a team like the Royals would want to extend Salvador Perez at this point.
For what it’s worth, Perez also has the worst walk rate (by far) of any full-time catcher.
Another stat that has gotten worse for Salvador Perez as the years go by. Whadda ya know?
Yeah and he’s making $6M at age 29, that’s not like, comedically unfair or anything either.
There’s also a great chance that last option won’t even get picked up, if he keeps trending south or gets injured.
Not to mention, by the time his deal is up he’ll be 29 and will have made 20+ million dollars which is the same as Molina got through age 29.
He didn’t say “extension”, he said “reworked deal”. Perez has been publicly asking for this since mid last season, because his deal basically sucks. He signed a 5/7 deal, as in 5 years and $7 million TOTAL for the whole thing. He does have club options at the end of the contract that are worth more, but they’re club options, not player options. He may be declining, but he’s certainly worth more than $1.4 million per year.
I assume a reworked deal may take away the club options and give him more money now. Or maybe keep the club options at a lower AAV, with more money now. The latter would basically just guarantee him more now, at the risk (for him) of paying him less per year later. If they didn’t pick up his options, it would work out great for him, because he would receive more now and the option value wouldn’t matter. If they picked up the options, he’d be making the same amount overall, so it wouldn’t make a difference to the team.
Just my thoughts.
Just search for “Salvador Perez contract” on Google, you’ll find plenty of articles about it.
Extending/reworking… that’s semantics. The point is: there is no reason for the Royals to do anything with that contract. None.
His stats decline every season, and he’s on an incredibly team friendly deal that, mind you, was risky contract in 2012 and HE and his agent agreed to.
The Royals are by no means obligated to feel bad that he makes way less than market price and just give him more money.
“The Royals are by no means obligated to feel bad that he makes way less than market price and just give him more money.”
…obviously. But if they have any interest in keeping him in the organization past the length of his current contract, they may want to work something out now so that he is not disgruntled. There’s no question that they’re not required to, I don’t think anyone said that. But in the interest of relations, they might want to. Even if it’s only slightly more, it might give him a sense of cooperation.
I may have inferred the idea that you felt the Royals were obligated, mostly based on the notion of saying his contract sucks and he’s worth more than $1.4M. If that’s not the case, my apologies.
However, Salvador Perez has zero right to be disgruntled. Zero. HE signed the contract. So if he’s disgruntled, that’s between him and his agent.
And as for the Royals wanting to have a chance at keeping Perez long-term, you’re right, appeasing Perez would likely be a good idea if that’s their goal. However, I can’t see why the Royals would be so desperate for that if they can simply look at the trend his stats are going.
My guess: if he has a great 2016, he’ll get his contract re-worked, likely to the tune you’ve suggested. But as of now, I see no reason why the Royals would do such a thing.
Fair enough. When I mentioned the idea of them having an interest in keeping him in the organization, I actually was more thinking of him as a potential future coach (hitting coach, 1B/3B coach, etc.) Granted, we’re talking about years down the line, but from what I read, it sounds like he’s a great mentor to younger players and he’s only 25. If he has that talent now, he might have the potential to be a great coach. Even if he ultimately plays for other teams, he might have a sense of loyalty to the team that brought him over, if he feels like it was a good environment and they didn’t take advantage of him.
I am just a fan and don’t know much about this stuff, so I’m just totally speculating.
I think Moore just wants to keep him happy. He’s arguably the favorite of locals in KC, and probably the most recognizable. Those declining stats you brought up kind of surprise me, because local sports talk has not broached that aspect. I think Perez is a Royals lifer. Yost needs to quit running him into the ground though. Those declining numbers are a result of being over played. I don’t know how much they plan to use Cruz as the backup this year but clearly we need a competent backup.
A signing of Kennedy would scare me more if I were a Royals fan.
You are terribly misguided in your idea of catcher value. Perez is considered one of the top game callers in MLB. That is his main job as a catcher and something that function of a catcher is not even considered in WAR. All the other stats you posted are secondary in value to the team winning. Even if you go with a 1.6 fWAR as his true value and believe that at the age of 25 that he absolutely cannot improve on offense from that level, then that pegs his value at $12.9 million per season or 7+ times his $1.75 million salary for 2015 and at the minimum 6+ times his $2 million salary for 2016.
I didn’t say he couldn’t improve, I simply showed that over the past three seasons, nearly every one of his stats has declined each year.
If you’re looking at giving a guy a raise, are you really going to consider giving one to someone who has declined in production over the years? A smart business person would not. They would likely want to see the increase in production again.
Even Perez’s catching stats have trended downwards. StatCorner’s catcher report has him as much worse now than he was in 2013 (with a very slight up-tick from ’14 to ’15).
He’s a great catcher, but his numbers aren’t helping his case in getting any sort of a reworking of his contract, not until he can stop his numbers from declining.
Ian Kennedy, Yovani Gallardo, and Wei-Yin Chen: all incredibly mediocre pitchers.
Steamer has Kennedy at 2.2 fWAR next year, Gallardo 1.7, Chen at 2.6. Mike Leake is at 2.2 and got paid. 2.6 fWAR puts you in the top 50 pitchers in baseball in 2015. You really need to scale down what you think “incredibly mediocre” means, because its currently way off. Tommy Milone is incredibly mediocre. Guys who steamer has at less than 1 fWAR could be called that. Chen especially, is a very solid higher-end rotation option.
People have gotten into this meme that Ian Kennedy stinks and nothing will jar them out of it. He doesn’t. He’s actually really intriguing if you look at his peripherals, and Steamer apparently sees the same thing.
Just out of curiosity, which peripherals are you referring to? Just so we can know what you’re referencing.
Count me on that. Something about inconsistent mediocre success in the most pitcher friendly park in the league as they are entering their mid thirties makes me want to stay away.
for flyball pitchers, it isn’t what it once was. Petco moved in the fences and HR’s have been easier to hit. Shields and Kennedy gave up career highs last year. But Kaufmann supresses HR’s and they have a world class OF so Kennedy could improve there. SD’s outfield was garbage on D. The draft pick loss sucks though. But if the window is now, they gotta do what they gotta do.
Snark Warning!
Every team should have a guy like Kennedy that has been below league average in ERA+ for the past 3 seasons but turned down $15.8 million for 2016. I mean who doesn’t want a guy with an ERA of 4.25, a FIP of 4.06, and an average rWAR of -0.1 or fWAR of 1.2 from 2013-2015? The highest HR/9 rate in baseball while playing his home games in one of the hardest parks to hit a HR in certainly makes him even more attractive. Combine that with a 38.5% GB rate and you have a winner. His cumulative fWAR and FIP over the past 3 season puts him 87th of the 132 qualified of starters. Bottom third. Every small market team wants to pay the $15-16 million he is asking for the right to have that type of performance don’t you think? Kennedy is a 4th starter on most teams.
Mediocre – ordinary, average, middling, middle-of-the-road,
Kennedy doesn’t fit that description.
An ERA of 4.25, a FIP of 4.06, and an average rWAR of -0.1 or fWAR of 1.2 from 2013-2015 sets his performance as well below average. An ERA+ of 84 is 16% below average. A cumulative fWAR of 1.2 over those 3 seasons also qualifies as below average.
Just curious, but what exactly is your definition of mediocre? Mine is average. Kennedy is well below mediocre.
Also, Volquez is kinda mediocre too and he has a ring now. Having a bunch of aces in your rotation isn’t necessarily the path to sure-fire success anymore, the Royals were leading the AL before they ever got Cueto with a rotation of guys who were mostly at best 4th and 5th starter profiles. If any pitching staff, defense and park can make Ian Kennedy look even better that his peripherals suggest he’s capable of, it’s the Royals.
Royals GM: “F it!! Were going back on the grid”
He is an inning eater, a good middle rotation pitcher, not a bad move for the right price.
If the Royals wanna give up the draft pick then San Diego will gladly take it.