The Royals have selected the contract of righty Homer Bailey, who’ll slide into the club’s rotation. To create roster space, righty Chris Ellis was designated for assignment.
Bailey, who’s a month from his 33rd birthday, will try to resurrect his career in Kansas City. He earned the chance after turning in 13 1/3 innings of 4.05 ERA ball in camp, with 7.4 K/9 and 2.0 BB/9. Once a quality rotation piece with the Reds, Bailey has struggled to a 6.25 ERA in just 231 2/3 innings over the past four seasons while dealing with significant arm issues.
As for Ellis, the 26-year-old just made his first MLB appearance after winning a spot out of camp as a Rule 5 pick. He’ll be offered back to the Cardinals if he isn’t claimed. Ellis has spent most of his time in the minors as a starter. Last year, he pitched to a 3.93 ERA with 8.4 K/9 and 2.5 BB/9 over 132 2/3 innings with the Cards’ top two affiliates.
On the face of things, this transaction isn’t a terribly significant one. Rule 5 picks are dropped with quite some frequency, after all, and veteran starters such as Bailey are often tapped for innings. But the Royals evidently found something to like in Ellis, with skipper Ned Yost saying that the club wanted to “give it a full look” because they liked his stuff. (Via Lynn Worthy of the Kansas City Star, on Twitter.) If that’s truly the case, it’s a bit odd that the organization couldn’t find room for Ellis on a roster that includes several low-upside veteran pitchers and a bizarre bench mix featuring two first basemen/designated hitters (Lucas Duda and Frank Schwindel, who supplement Ryan O’Hearn and Jorge Soler) and an outfielder who’s known almost exclusively as a pinch runner and defensive replacement (Terrance Gore).
Isn’t Ellis a Rule 5 pick? I thought that class of player had to be offered back to his original club rather than DFA?
That was my thought too. He should be going back to the Cardinals now.
They have to designate him where anyone can claim him first if I recall. If he’s claimed by another team the same Rule 5 rules apply and if nobody claims him he’s offered back to his original team.
Here is the rule…..original team can decline….then he is put on waivers.
What happens when a player is selected in the Rule 5 Draft?
A team that selects a player in the Rule 5 Draft pays $50,000 to the team from which he was selected. The receiving team must then keep the player on the Major League 25-man roster for the entirety of the next season, and the selected player must remain active (not on the disabled list) for a minimum of 90 days. If the player does not remain on the Major League roster, he is offered back to the team from which he was selected for $25,000. If his original team declines, the receiving team may waive the player.
Once a player is selected, he is automatically assigned to his new organization’s 40-man roster.
he could provide some more solid depth should CMart or Reyes go down long term again.
what was the purpose of carrying Ellis on the roster if they were going to get rid of him anyway?
That was the purpose…..
They probably wanted to see how he would do. Obviously he didn’t do great
he also only made one appearance
Poor Royals, I didn’t know they were in that desperate mode
Dodgers are paying Homer’s salary, KC = Keeping Cheep.
There is no evidence – none – of the Royals being cheap. The Dodgers are paying Homer Bailey’s salary this season, but it’s not like anyone outpitched him in camp. He won the spot, which may speak more to the state of our pitching staff than to Homer’s abilities at this stage of his career, but it’s not a money thing. We extended Merrifield before the big rash of extensions, we gave Salvy a raise when we already had him under control, we were serious players to re-sign Hosmer. Those moves can be debated too, but you can’t call Moore and Glass cheap any more. Yes they’re small market, but the Royals of Allard Baird who traded Jermaine Dye for Neifi Perez straight up because he was under an ultmatium not to bring back prospects and who used to draft based on who would be cheapest to sign are over.
I am a Royals fan, and there is actually a LOT of evidence of David Glass being cheap. Not over the last three years, but before 2015 he regularly pocketed huge profits while spending very little on players.
I hated seeing Cain and Hosmer leave. I get it that paying either $20M/yr would have been very difficult for this club, but Glass sure has enough in his bank account to have signed either of them. He has probably made more than $500M profit since buying the team. Glass maybe has not been cheap recently, but he sure has been greedy and negligent as an owner long term.
You should be glad you aren’t saddled with the Hosmer albatross of a contract.
Nah, I wish he were stll in powder blue. It’s not my money. I like Hosmer and pretty well hate Glass.
wish Bailey was still on the Reds. Going to a Brewer game when he’s pitching is always homerun derby
Bailey? WHY?
Because the Royals have a track record of getting value out of so-so veteran pitchers, and taking them to new levels. It’s a combination of a large home park, top drawer defense, excellent coaching, and a pure baseball/teaching atmosphere where players and front office people don’t walk around scared for their jobs each day as they do with most teams.
James Shields and Wade Davis are probably the 2 best examples. Neither did much before they played for the Royals. Then they had exceptional years Neither did as well after they left. Might want to keep an eye on Ian Kennedy in the bullpen this year……
Shields’ career was about the same from Tampa to KC. He had several good years for the rays and stayed pretty consistent with the royals. Wade Davis definitely was a better pitcher with the royals but that was partially because he just switched to the bullpen. That alone can change a pitchers career around, just like guys like Andrew Miller
As was pointed out, Wade Davis was much better once he moved to the bullpen. That’s a pretty common occurrence – Mariano was a failed starter – but the trick is identifying which pitchers will pan out. The Royals seem to have a good system in place; Kennedy feels like a guy who still has enough velocity and pitch mix to contribute in short bursts. The WS-winning team was full of league-average starters but an excellent bullpen made up mostly of homegrown relievers like Herrera and then a bunch of castoffs or failed starters (Davis, Morales, Finnegan, Jason Frasor, Hochevar, I vaguely remember them getting value out of Kris Medlen too, of all people.). And that Royals team also got a tremendous season from Ryan Madson, who had been out of the majors for like 5 years. They seem to have a knack for developing a good bullpen that makes up for their poor starting rotations. That WS-winning team’s best starter was Edinson Volquez, and some of those starters were really bad.
The Padres, of course, have been fantastic at identifying guys they could turn into excellent relievers – Brad Hand is probably the biggest name. He was a below-average starter but SD acquired him for, basically nothing – I think it was a waiver claim. They immediately made him a reliever and told him to dump half his pitches. He became an incredibly valuable bullpen piece who eventually netted the Padres one of the top prospects in baseball in a trade. They’re doing the same thing now with Kirby Yates, who wasn’t ever a starter but the other teams that had him didn’t know how to utilize his stuff.
The Royals approach to roster construction this season is, indeed pretty curious. They have four 1B/DH on the roster. But this is a team that lost 103 games last season; I don’t think the bench pieces matter too much.
Top drawer defense, excellent coaching, pure teaching atmosphere where players don’t walk around scared for their jobs??? Sounds like just what Loria and the Marlins never gave to Chris Volstad and it affected his career from then on. He would certainly benefit from this also.
Ellis would be more likely to contribute to Royals in the future than Duda. Pitching is the currency of baseball, according to Moore. He may not amount to anything in the long run, but you know right now what you have in Duda. And if you really want to keep Duda, how much is Gore going to contribute when Royals already have several other speed guys on the team.
This is great news for the rest of the AL East.
I mean Central.
Did the Cards go ahead and take Ellis back? Haven’t seen anything on this.