The Royals would still like to add help in either the rotation or the bullpen, tweets USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, but their payroll is elevated to the point where they have very little room for further additions. As such, a reunion with still-lingering free agent Greg Holland seems “extremely remote,” Nightengale adds. Over the past couple of weeks, the Royals have signed Lucas Duda ($3.5MM), Jon Jay ($3MM) and Mike Moustakas ($6.5MM) in a late trio of additions, pushing their payroll up into the $122MM range.
More from the central divisions…
- Francisco Liriano has been vying for a job in either the Tigers’ bullpen or rotation, and Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press writes that it seems like he’s set to open the year as the team’s fifth starter. Manager Ron Gardenhire spoke confidently of Liriano’s ability to hold down one of those five spots. “As a veteran, experienced arm, I fully expect him to be in our rotation if he’s healthy and doing what he can do,” said Gardenhire. With Michael Fulmer, Jordan Zimmermann, Mike Fiers, and the out-of-options Matt Boyd all seeming likely to hold down rotation spots as well, that could very well be a signal that southpaw Daniel Norris is ticketed for Triple-A Toledo to open the season.
- Right-hander Alex Cobb is the last of the top free-agent starters who remains unsigned, and the Brewers have long been considered a fit for the righty. But Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel tweets that he doesn’t expect Milwaukee to make a play for Cobb unless his asking price drops further. Milwaukee has been cited all winter long as a team that needs starters, but to date has only given guaranteed money to Jhoulys Chacin (two-years, $15.5MM) while also picking up Wade Miley and Yovani Gallardo on minor-league deals.
- Given their stance on Cobb, it seems the Brewers will see how things shake out with their current rotation mix while hoping that the anticipated mid-season return of Jimmy Nelson provides a boost. That strategy will require good health for the existing starters. Fortunately, right-hander Zach Davies looks to have moved past the minor oblique strain which was plaguing him. MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy tweets that Davies pitched three innings in an intrasquad game, seemingly setting him up to ramp up in time to open the season at full strength.
Its a mistake not to sign Cobb
He’s sitting right there too. Pull the trigger
He is not that good
he’s not bad enough to pass on 2/25 either
He’s better than Davies, Guerra, chacin, Suter, woodruff, Miley.
6 years, $72M. Buy out after year 3 ($2M) and year 4 ($4M). Cobb can opt out after year 2.
Done. Write it up, David
You’re joking, right?
More like 1 year 7 million or find somebody else to sign with.
6 years would be a terrible idea
I agree he might be worth that, but with the market like it is 2 for 25 is the most id offer
Still don’t get Stearns thinking. Cobb could most likely be had at 3/45-50M. Adding Cobb would also theoretically allow you to cut Miley and Yo saving the 4M they would make. So you’d be adding a starter at a net of 10M for this season. Hoping Nelson returns to a solid rotation piece this year is also not logical thinking.
You don’t want to cut Miley who is an innings eater and costs next to nothing AND has been the best SP this Spring.
They could cut one of their 4 catchers on the 40-man.
Miley has been great. Sitter to the long relief and Yo/Drake could go. Or Bandy, Bettancourt is our #2 catcher.
Spring stats are fools gold; but Cobb isn’t getting anything close to what he was asking. Lynn is a comp.
15M per for Cobb isn’t an overpay. In this market it might look like one but Lynn got 12-14M for one season. If you want to lock up Cobb for over a season he will get 13-15M per. Sorry is 3/39M better?
Cobb will not command more than the 3/42 offer he got from the Cubs. The Brewers could get him on a steal, either a pillow contract, like what Lance Lynn earned, or something slightly larger, like 2/20. Combine that with the logic you mentioned of being skeptical of Nelson’s performance after his return or the current state of their depth pieces, and it seems stupid for Milwaukee not to sign Cobb. This all sounds like PR garbage from MIL trying to drive down Cobb’s price.
Have you not been awake the last week? 3/45 is bidding against yourself. He will get less than that. What team has money left? What team is willing to forfeit draft picks?
3/45-50 for Cobb? He turned that deal from the Cubs you don’t offer him and drive up the price against yourself lol
The same people that spent four years criticizing the Brewers for overpaying for Suppan want them to overpay for Cobb.
We knew we were overpaying Suppan when we signed him. Crew partially signed him so the Cardinals couldn’t. Results were worse than expected.
The difference is that now our payroll affords us the option of overpaying someone.
But why overpay for mediocrity? I trust Stearns to make the right move at the right opportunity.
Even if the Daniel Norris doesn’t make the tigers rotation I think it would be stupid of the tigers to put him back in AAA and not in the bullpen. There bullpen projects to be one of the worst in the MLB and I would think Norris could only help it
I agree. He hasnt stayed healthy as a starter. His stuff is filthy. And he could likely provide 2 innings when needed.
I love “the Daniel Morris.”
I’m making that my thing, hope it’s ok.
Any relation to Chuck Norris? Haha
I think it’s kind of stupid for him not be throwing major league innings. This season isn’t about the W/L record anyway. It’s more valuable to see him than liriano or honestly Boyd in the rotation. See what he’s got.
I think signing Cobb is a necessity. Since the offseason started I saw him as the highest risk but high reward starter available, but now that he’s (likely) cheaper, and we’ve already pushed this far, so why not pick him up. We have the payroll space…
I’m starting to think Stearns has no money to work with. Lynn getting 14M for one year at most? Cobb still sitting out there? My guess is Stearns backed himself into a corner assuming he could move an OFer and couldn’t. That makes the Cain singing a lot more questionable.
I agree with you brewcrew, I think he may have overplayed his hand. I get why he may not have signed Neil Walker early on, but for what he got I’m not sure why he’s not back. Too many 2B now, but he was solid in Milwaukee. Now Braun will be playing out of position half the time instead on Walker getting a few game at 1st and 2nd. Good luck this year, they should still contend.
The Cain signing was stupid. Esp with all the OF. Should have saved that 80 million and got a few pitchers. This will come back to haunt the Brewers this year. Brewer fans who think otherwise are in denial.
1 of 2 things happened Re: Cain. 1. Stearns was not anticipating both the Cain signing AND the Yelich trade to go down, certainly not on the same day (my guess is he wasn’t counting on Yelich, as Cain himself said the brewers were on him from the start), and even if he was certain both would go down, he was counting on being able to sell high on Santana (plus prospects) for a starter.
Since everyone is convinced that Cobb would only marginally improve the rotation at best, and same with Lynn, you’d most likely be bashing Stearns for that too. Not to mention the only people who think anything of Arrietta right now are Phil’s fans, and he alone would have cost as much as Cain and Yelich combined..THEN you’d be barking that the OF is trash bc Braun is always hurt, Santana is a bad defender/due to regress offensively, and the duo of Broxton and Phillips K’s way too much.
So long story short, no matter what you’d be on here boasting that you’re smarter than an actual mlb GM, so…carry on Sir.
I think Stearns failed to anticipate how the market would develop. He thought Santana would have trade value to get a solid starter, but he didnt. If Stearns understood Santana’s value better he might have used the prospects given up for Yelich to trade for an ace instead
In fairness, this was a historically difficult market to predict.
I don’t think anyone would’ve complained about an OF of yelich Santana and Braun withbroxton and Phillips as backups as being weak. That’s not as weak as their 2b game is right now. Cain is a massive upgrade over Broxton in center but is he a massive upgrade over playing yelich in center and having Santana and Braun in the corner? He’s definitely an upgrade but I don’t Think that margin is larger than the margin of having say Jake Arrieta over a Wade Miley. Hindsight is 20/20 though we’ll see how it all plays out.
A rebuilding team giving starts to Frankie Liriano instead of Daniel Norris is an odd move.
I completely agree
They’re rebuilding but still need a sp that can get past the 3rd inning.
Clearly you haven’t watched liriano pitch cause he is usually at 80 pitches by the 3rd
Liriano is actually a player who could get something back at the deadline if he does well. Daniel Norris hasnt been healthy, or consistant. Lots of starters coming. I doubt Norris will be around after the rebuild.
Or Frankie has an equal chance of being DFA’d by the deadline as well. He was horrible as a starter since he was with Pittsburgh. He should be in the pen if he is on a major league roster
Liriano with his slider is one average pitch away from being a great LH specialist. The sinker or whatever he tries to throw is not a good pitch. He should literally throw 50% sliders
He was good in Toronto in 2015. And for some reason the Astros gave up Teoscar Hernandez for him. Teams still see value in him.
Daniel Norris is still 24 years old and has less than 2 full mlb seasons under his belt. If you’re writing him off already that’s a shame. He’s the kind of guy who should be playing.
KC Needs to sign Holland for one year. A solid player and could be a better year for them.
Losing a qualified pick like that makes no sense for them at this point, not when they are retooling.
Lol at KC needing Holland. They need to lose as many games as possible that’s what they need to do if you want to see another championship within the next 5-7 years.
Chacin and Lynn are essentially the same pitcher. I don’t have the analysis in front of me but Enos tweeted about it yesterday. Metrics were all the same. My point is, Chacin is younger and cheaper per year for the same outcome (obviously anything can happen; injuries etc.) as Lynn. Maybe we can get Cobb for 8-10 mil for one year or something? Stearns knows what he’s doing…hopefully it works out.
Mark Twain said there are “lies, damn lies, and statistics” In that way, someone may come up with some number that makes Chacin and Lynn appear the same, but their results career wise are drastically different
Here’s last year:
Chacin on left, Lynn on the right
BBs- 72/78
PAs (pitches attempted) – 765/776
SOs – 153/153
BB% – 11.2 / 11.3
K% – 20.0 / 19.7
BiP (balls in play) – 526/535
Most of the other categories are a little more in depth for this post but I disagree with you and Mark Twain…stats measure what’s happening…it’s non-biased and all encompassing.
From a pitcher production standpoint, they had the same year.
Milwaukee needs way more than Cobb. Currently it’s the worst rotation in the NL.
What? After reading post over the last 2 weeks the comment about brewers fan being bipolar is dead on.
Lot of trolls posting as Brewer fans. Mostly from Chicago but the Cards have their fair share too. Funny how the Brewers, Pirates and Cincy fans can all get along though as we’re used to being at the bottom of the barrel.
Have cub fans forgot how they ruled the bottom of the barrel for years. The cards have been the only consistent team for almost 2 decades.
When you say “years,” I believe you mean “a century” of crap teams in Chicago.
That was yesterday, and yesterday’s gone.
Keep telling yourself that, but those people were Brewers fans and you know it.
It’s funny how people say a century of crap teams in Chicago. Nothing could be further from the truth. But people think they know it all and run their mouths and look more stupid then ever.
I suppose if you base 3 WS titles as crap. There is a whole lot more.
Sure the Cubs have 3 WS.
They also have been to the WS 11 times.
They have 17 Nationl league pennants that’s 4th over all in the National league. Only 2 behind StL
They still own the best record ever in baseball with winning percentage.
They have MLB records that will never be broken.
They have had Best over all record in MLB over the last 3 years.
Been to the Championship 3 straight years. You have to go back 2 decades to find a team that has done that.
They still own the over all record against StL lifetime.
They are only one of very few teams to ever repeat.
That’s a lot better than nearly all the teams with NY the exception.
So crap over 100 years. Not even close. If your base on the WS wait on crap then I can come up with about 26 more teams a lot worse.
You people really should get your facts straight. At least if your going to hate and be a troll know what your talking about. 17 NL pennants is far from crap. What’s your team again?
Really. Your not very smart.
Although many not considered them one, but the Marlins are still a team.
Marlins?
Watch out for the Phillies on this one, they have the money and Cobb would make them a possible playoff team.
Lol omg just no
I’m a bit biased but I agree. They’re still sitting below their opening day payroll from 2017 even after signing Arrieta and they have the richest owners in all of baseball.
The only thing see standing in their way of signing Cobb is that they already know what a lot of these young guys can do in AAA, and the only way to know what they can do in the bigs is to let them pitch.
Ehh… I don’t know about that. Alex Cobb isn’t necessarily the piece to put a last-place finisher into the playoffs.
With no pitching and the Cubs and Cards getting better… the Brewers can just look ahead to next season.
How’d the Cards get better?
I mean, they didn’t get A LOT better, but they did get Ozuna.
The Cubs still improved the most, and they’re the ones who needed to improve the least.
Ozuna, Luke weaver and Flaherty will be awesome this year weren’t there or were still developing last year. Matt Carpenter seems better full year of dejong the new ss,dexter Fowler only got 400 abs hopefully gets 600 this year…come on i thought this was a site of baseball fans!!! You guys suck at your hobby…i really mean that
Not to mention a full year of tommy Pham. He should get 550 to 600 at bats too.
Pham had one of the flukiest years of all time last year at age 29, he spent 10 years in the minors and never put up numbers like that. He’s probably the single most likely player in the majors to regress significantly this season.
Flaherty and Weaver have promise but to say that they will be “awesome” this year is a major stretch, Flaherty in particular looked terrible last year.
They look slightly better than the Brewers on paper at this point but I can’t see either team challenging the Cubs for the division.
KC pays Gordon $20 million and Ian Kennedy $16 million this year. Two serious roster killers. 36 million wrapped up in those two. What a waste of their payroll.
Another 8 on hammel.. eating 3.5 mil on moss? It adds up quick when you’re a small market team. That kind of salary space could’ve brought in a whole lot of talent this offseason. Could’ve grabbed an actual corner outfielder and 2 mid level SP’s with cash left in hand.
The Yelich move was great, I’d do it again for sure. Cain only makes sense if you’re in it to win it. Sign Cobb, and even Lackey. Cheap short term innings eater…..let’s get er done…..
Didn’t Lackey give up like 40 HR last year? That is about the worst possible fit in Miller Park. And I don’t think it will work to only let him pitch on the road.
Cobb needs to just accept a one year deal – he won’t get much more than Lynn (if at all). Next year he can get a ‘raise’ if offered arbitration or if not offered it, he’d be easier to sign with no attached compensation.
….and where are the Red Sox on Cobb. That rotation is leaking oil
Ya know, I never thought about it, but that would make a bit of sense.
Mean Sale, hopefully bounceback price and porcello (for their sake) isn’t bad, and Eduardo Rodríguez has proven himself to be pretty good (at least he was on my fantasy team) but Steven Wright is out and iirc they don’t have that much of a number 4, maybe I’m just forgetting someone.
Oh wait pomeranz. That changes things quite a bit lol. But he’ll be a free agent soon so it could still work.
Makes no sense for the Sox to do that unless they don’t think E-rod can pitch 75% of the season. They have Brian Johnson to cover while those 2 are out. Cobb would slot in as the 5th starter and probably not crack the postseason rotation. Probably a better way for them to use that money and equivalent picks/international cash around the trade deadline if the need arises.
If people are wondering why Stearns doesn’t pull the trigger on Cobb, it could simply be because he values his draft pick more. We can’t buy our way to a championship like some larger market teams can so we need to rely on the Jimmy Nelson types to grow and then pull the trigger when we are ready. I don’t think Stearns is sitting in his office thinking that Cobb puts them over the top. And if that’s true (which it most likely is), why forfeit a pick when you might get that boost from Nelson and a potential mid-summer trade.
Makes sense to me
Plus the Brewers have two decent starter prospects in the minors who are almost ready to come up. One of them will probably end up being serviceable..
They have enough “serviceable” 3/4 pitchers already, they need a guy who can step in and be a #1 or at least a #2. I like Woodruff and Burnes but neither one seems like a potential ace. I agree Cobb doesn’t put them over the top either. Surprised they didn’t go harder after Arrieta.
Rymer lyriano just can’t seem to catch a break. I wish him the best in his future endeavors.
This post has nothing to do with him?
The Brewers need a pitcher early. Waiting (and hoping) for Nelson could be a mistake. They have 14 games vs the Cubs and Cards in April.
Wait it out. Brewers are fine. Believe Believe. Sign Lacky if you need a SP lol. Just wait till July. Believe. Lol.
Cobb represents Stearns’ last chance to improve the rotation. He obviously won’t/can’t trade Santana or a Broxton package for a real SP (otherwise, he would have already done it), and Cobb’s got to be getting desperate. Do it now, David. Don’t be so damned cheap. The difference between getting a decent SP like Cobb or not, may be a million or 2, which can mean a lost shot at a playoff berth.
Brewers had a top 10 pitching staff last year … everyone just settle down with the ‘they need Cobb’ talk
Believe Believe Milw fans. Lol