7:55pm: The Royals announced the signing.
USA Today’s Bob Nightengale provides a more in-depth breakdown of Nolasco’s incentive structure (Twitter link). The veteran righty would unlock a $25K bonus for making his 10th start of the season, and he’d earn an additional $25K for each start up through his 19th of the year. For a pitcher with Nolasco’s recent durability, that’s a highly attainable set of bonuses, though he’s obviously far from a lock to even make the big league roster.
5:15pm: The Royals and Nolasco are in agreement on a minor league contract, reports FanRag’s Jon Heyman (Twitter links). He’ll earn a $1.5MM base salary if he makes the Major League roster and has another $250K of incentives available to him. Nolasco’s deal also has a March 24th out clause.
3:54pm: The two sides are discussing a minor league contract, reports MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan (via Twitter), though he cautions that the deal is not yet complete.
3:32pm: The Royals are closing in on an agreement with free-agent right-hander Ricky Nolasco, reports ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick (on Twitter). Nolasco, a client of Sosnick, Cobbe & Karon, will provide some depth for a thin group of rotation candidates with the Royals, who recently lost righty Jesse Hahn to the 60-day DL due to a sprained ulnar collateral ligament.
Last season, the 35-year-old Nolasco wrapped up a four-year, $49MM deal initially signed with the Twins, though he played out the final season of that contract with the Angels after being flipped to them at the 2016 non-waiver trade deadline. Signed to serve as a durable innings eater in the middle of the Twins’ rotation, Nolasco lost much of his first two years of that deal to injury.
He bounced back to make 65 starts from 2016-17, though the results in that time weren’t what either the Twins or Halos would’ve hoped; over the past two seasons, Nolasco has soaked up 378 2/3 innings between the two clubs but struggled to a 4.66 ERA and averaged 1.4 homers per nine innings pitched.
To his credit, Nolasco has managed to keep his velocity steady, sitting in the 90-91 mph range into his mid-30s, and he posted a career-best 10.9 percent swinging-strike rate with the Angels in 2017. That said, he was still far too hittable — 205 hits in 181 innings — and yielded a 37.6 percent hard-contact rate that ranked as the fourth-highest among all qualified starters.
With the Royals, Nolasco will vie for a spot in a rotation that will include Danny Duffy, Ian Kennedy and Jason Hammel. Jake Junis and Nate Karns are both candidates for the final two spots, with Junis turning in a solid rookie effort in 2017 and Karns looking for a comeback following surgery to alleviate thoracic outlet syndrome. Wily Peralta, Eric Skoglund, Sam Gaviglio and Trevor Oaks are among the other rotation candidates on the 40-man roster.
Risky nolasco
Time to sign someone who might actually get fans in the seats.
lol like who? The fans should be going regardless. Small market team that went for it. You can’t have it both ways those fans better be happy with going to every game this season.
Is lance Lynn going to put fans in the seats? How about adding Carlos Gonzalez or bringing Moose back? If the team sucks nobody is going. And the royals will definitely suck. With or without that kind of addition. Might sell some more jerseys and see an attendance spike for the first Couple weeks until the fans realize that the team isn’t any good..
I’d like to know who these fans are who say “hey the lance Lynn is pitching tonight wanna go to the ball game” outside of his family I doubt that phrase has ever been said. Nobody in 2018 is going to watch Carlos Gonzalez play baseball either, he’s neither good nor a legend. These statements that any players make a margin difference in fans going to when the team is good are simply wrong. The Kershaws and Trouts barely make an impact on walk up sales Carlos Gonzalez 2018 isn’t going to sell a single ticket as if that matters anyway. Fans need to realize all the teams revenue come from tv not ticket sales.
Obviously cargo and lance Lynn don’t bring fans to the game. If their attendance is stronger the first few weeks it’s judt a drop in the bucket anyway. That should be common knowledge. People go when you win. People stay away when you lose. To say ticket sales aren’t important is just wrong though. conservatively 25% of your teams revenue is generated from ticket sales. Ticket sales matter.
You sir are 100% correct. Mr Iver
Also need to add sponsors which take up and pay a lot of the teams revenue. Ticket sales Pay the utility bills. Very very little ticket sales make an impact on any team it’s good but has no real baring. It for sure does not even play a part in players saleries.
25% of the revenue? What? Lol
Wow…digging deep. Jamie Moyer next?
How does one play for 10+ years in the show with a career 4.56 era.
By being a roughly league average pitcher that averaged around 180 innings a year until the injury bug bit 2 years ago
That ERA is really only slightly above the league average for ERA. A back-of-the-rotation starter whose ERA is generally only 10-15% above the league average mark who can eat up innings is pretty reasonable.
Don’tcha know? If you’re not a future Hall of Famer, you’re utter garbage and should just retire.
Because a 4.56 ERA is still better than replacement level.
There’s guys with identical numbers but 7 years younger and who throw harder that can’t find jobs because of signings like this.
Alright, I’ll bite….. What 28 year old inner eaters in unable to find a job while Nolasco is?
Send me that list or forward that list to Dan Duquette please.
Duquette would only look at that list if the prices are included. He works for Angelos, and as such he’s a price-shopper first and foremost. Performance and stats are only marginally relevant to BAL.
let’s see if it’s any more than a minor league deal with an invitation to camp.
As a Twins fan, I applaud this move.
Seconded.
Here’s to hoping he cracks the KC rotation haha
This guy sucks he cost the angels the wild card birth last year .
The Angels trotted Nolasco out as their opening day starter last year. I’d blame their lack of a wild-card berth on the front office and/or Garrett Richards much more than Nolasco.
Royals trying to convince Arreita to sign a minor-league deal with them also.
Does anyone fit the definition of a mediocre player better than Ricky Nolasco?
Early in his career I thought nolasco would carve out a solid career. He was originally a pretty decent strikeout pitcher but then that fell off. He’s managed to make a lot of money and hang around a long time though. Glad the orioles didn’t sign him but im mildly surprised.
He is 35 what can he really bring he is not an elite pitcher. Maybe he can pitch batting practice or throw in the cage so the Royals won’t have to run the machine. At 90-91 he is only a tick or two away from Weaver a couple of years age. Safe to say he won’t pick up velocity this year. Nice move Royals.
A minor league deal literally has no risk to it. You just lost Jessie Hahn for the year so I’m sure they need another arm.
Marlins all time wins leader
… though also the Marlins all time losses leader
Not saying too much players don’t stay there too long
Trade duffy already— for 1 MLB young starter and 1 minor league pitcher with good upside.
Phillies have lots of BOTH i am sure a deal could be reached
And that’s why your not a GM
Why would you want an MLB pitcher back? You’re going to suck for a long time. It makes sense to get as many quality prospects as possible
Royals are turning into the bad news bears. They had a World Series caliber team and have completely gutted it. The only thing worse than having to rebuild is doing it prematurely
There should really be some sort of IQ test to earn posting rights. You have no idea what you are talking about. How is half of your team earning free agency at the same time the same as gutting your team? This isn’t the Marlins we are talking about. This is the same team that everybody piles on for NOT trading guys off and starting the rebuild LAST year.
You make it sound like they had a choice, and they chose wrong. Multiple large cogs in their line-up became free agents, and they couldn’t resign them all.
You’re highly misinformed. Prematurely? Are you kidding? EVERYONE knew 2017 was Royals last chance to make a postseason run with their core group, and they made every attempt as a small market team to try and compete in 16′ and 17.
Royals did everything right up through the end of 2017. From a practical front office standpoint you can’t bring all those free agents back not only due to cost, but for the fact that you missed the playoffs last year with those guys in the fold. Even if they brought all of them back AND added another upper tier position player or two, the pitching staff would prevent them from reaching the post season.
I guarantee you that Nolasco would be ten times better than Wily Peralta.
Bartolo Colon could be the the number 1 starter on the Marlins. That dude bad &$$.
good luck to Ricky. he ate a lot of innings for the Angels and always seemed to give it his all when we needed SP stability. he’s obviously not a star, but he’s a low cost guy that can play the role.
Nolasco definitely outperformed my expectations with the Angels. Back when they acquired him from MIN for Hector Santiago, I thought LAA was insane for making that deal. But in 2018 Nolasco is still plugging away, and (as of last week) Santiago is unemployed.