The Royals are “getting close” to a one-year agreement with outfielder Alex Gordon, according to Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com. The financial details of said agreement are yet unknown. Nothing has been finalized yet, but Flanagan expects that an announcement might come in the next couple of days upon the completion of Gordon’s physical.
It’s long been expected that Gordon and the Royals would work out a deal to keep the 35-year-old in the organization with which he’s spent his entire career; Gordon has made it clear that he would opt for retirement if a return to Kansas City wasn’t possible. However, it looks as if the franchise icon will stick around for at least one more year.
Don’t expect Gordon’s earnings in 2020 to drive the Royals’ payroll through the roof. It’s clear he’s no longer the player he was when he was awarded with a contract that would’ve paid him $23MM this year had the Royals exercised his option. So, speculatively, $5MM or so seems like an agreeable price point for the two sides.
Either way, Gordon showed some signs of revitalization at the plate in 2019, especially early in the season. Overall, he managed his best offensive season since 2015 while remaining a reliable defensive presence in his native left field. He collected his seventh career Gold Glove Award for his efforts, and the Royals will surely expect more of the same next year, even at his advanced age.
Before confirmation that Gordon would be returning, the Royals were looking at a projected outfield trio of Whit Merrifield, Hunter Dozier (who will shift to right field with the signing of third baseman Maikel Franco), and Brett Phillips, the latter of whom is himself a defensive virtuoso but one who has mustered just a .620 OPS in his first three big league seasons.
Good choice by the royals
My guess it’s 1 year $10M+/-.
Definitely -. Remember the Royals are already paying him a $4MM buyout. My guess is that the contract will be worth 4MM.
Isn’t the buyout part of his old contract?
I would guess around that or five million for the current season. He’s already banked four million on the buyout. So yes, Bjoe, that technically is part of his old contract.
Why that much?
The ball is the royals court
Much like the ball is in the nats court for Zimmerman
They only want to play for the only team they have ever played for.
Probably could be had for last than 4 mil
Less than 4 mil *
No way he gets paid $10M on top of the $4M he is already getting paid from his previous contract.
$10 mil would be less ridiculous than his less contract
*last
Please don’t resign Alex, even to a minor league deal.
TheKingRoyal Why not? It’s not really about winning for the Royals right now anyway. He’s a fan favorite. An Alex Gordon farewell season gives fans a extra small reason to show up this year. The product being put on the field certainly won’t fill many seats.
There are other players in the organisation that need a hard look at to see if they’re part of the future. Yes he’s a fan favorite but another year of him doesn’t allow for the team to look at someone like Brett Phillips. He won’t help the team win now, and he’s not going to be a piece of the puzzle in 2022 or so when they compete again.
I also don’t want to watch him struggle for another year. Let me have my 2014 2015 season memories.
That team still lacks within the organization*. They are still in the early stages of a rebuild.
The widespread popularity of chalupas across Mexico has also influenced Mexican-style restaurant fare in the neighboring United States. Among notable examples in that country is the Taco Bell version, which unlike its Mexican version, is a thick, fried tortilla shell filled with ground beef, sour cream, cheese, tomatoes, and shredded lettuce.
Uh, yea, ok.
I think you
are on the
wrong web
page…..
LOL.
@ dynamite drop Monty … here’s your downvote.
Alex Gordon playing Gold Glove defense for 120-130 games in LF will cost Brett Phillips zero playing time. Phillips plays center, and the only thing that will cost him playing time is his bat.
How exactly does a LF with 1 DRS earn himself a Gold Glove award? That is a joke. Gore played less than 60 innings with the Royals in left and had two.
I for one have seen enough of Brett Phillips to see he is just another in the long line of guys like him that are fast, play good defense, but can’t hit. Why does Dayton Moore keep picking these guys up? Quite honestly, I don’t see him making the team out of camp anyway since it sounds like Merrifield is going to play CF primarily and Dozier moving to RF.
Exactly Rocket32! GM Moore knows they are selling “entertainment”
and the fans want to
cheer for their WS hero
one more time…..
We don’t want Alex back. Don’t assume that we, Royals fans, are willing to entirely punt a season of evaluating talent just because we have the feels for a player. I’m all for trading Sal and Whit, letting Alex go, and moving towards another winning season.
We do want Alex back. As shown by literally every “should the royals bring Gordon back?” poll conducted on this site and every other baseball related site. Ticket sales will also show that. People vote with dollars and the Royals have few other draws.
And trading Salvy is the dumbest idea in sports. He is worth more to the Royals organization than he is to any other team. You will never get back a package worth his value. So why would you ever trade him?
Re-signing Gordon also will in no way stop Phillips from getting a chance. The only thing that is going to stop Phillips from getting PT this year will be his own bat and the fact that he strikes out +4/10 times he walks to the plate. Phillips isn’t a piece of the future either.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. So don’t use “we royals fans” in your comments. Because you sure don’t speak for any of us with common sense.
espn.com/mlb/attendance
Do they vote with dollars? If so, it appears that they vote, NO to this lousy Royals team!
No. They only come to the games when they win and claim to be life-long fans.
He slugged .396 and 96 OPS+ last year and he’s one year removed from three abysmal years of .692, .608, .694 OPS. Hope they don’t overpay like they did with his extension. If they can re-sign him for a reasonable deal ($6MM-$8MM for 1 yr??) they should because he’s a fan favorite. I just hope they don’t overpay because his numbers trended up last year (.741 OPS).
I doubt they give him a lot. He’ll probably be given a one year sendoff contract.
Probably four million.
Maybe five…..
Need to sell tickets somehow
Lincoln Nebraska’s best
One of the all time great Royals IMO
Not much competition
I can’t believe you would throw shade at the great Steve Balboni like that lol
Balboni throws his own shade.
Top shelf material here.
Badda Bing!
George Brett says hello.
Secondbiggest prospect to go through the ranks from 1990 to 2010. Mediocre at best. Solid 7 out of 10. Never lived up to the prospect hype. Has had long loyal career he deserves a participation trophy.
You are a genius.
You can save the participation trophy.. I’m sure Gordon prefers his Gold Gloves and WS ring.
Gold Gloves are perhaps one of the few accolades even worth less than participation trophies.
I’m betting you’ve earned one and not the other…
Yep…solid 3/10 comment. Not harsh enough to be trollish; not insightful enough to be interesting.
Explains why the letter Z
is the last one in the alphabet…..
I guess gold gloves and championship trophies do not count in the Zzodikoff world
Hater alert !
Syndergaard burner confirmed
4y/$40mm?
I am thinking more like a one year deal
Sarcasm alert!
His career total for walks is Satanic and evil.
That’s another reason
he needs to come back
for another season
and change that number…..
Yep, he’s currently at 666 walks.
He’s washed up
Really, folks….guy’s been a good soldier all these years, even if he cruised a bit with the fat check already in the bank…..the fans love him, he’s still league-average offensively, and better defensively….especially if Whit’s the CF, who no one will mistake for Jackie Bradley Jr. out there…..
No reason not to sign him for ,like, 4M , or so……
Exactly!
My guess $6mm. That would put him at $10mm this year including the $4mm buy out. Seems like a fair number.
All that glitters is gold
He really only had 4 good years and that’s being generous. Last year was decent.. I would give him maybe 5mil with incentives to get up to 7mil. He is very overrated by KC.
Hello George,
I’m trying to read according to Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com regarding Alex Gordon, instead I got mlbtraderumors.com/2020/01/cardinals-to-re-sign-ma….
Can you please fix it? That would be great.
Thanks!
Mr. George,
Here is the proper website regarding Royals & Alex Gordon “Getting Close” to Deal. the website is mlb.com/news/alex-gordon-royals-deal. Can you add this please?
Thanks!
The people who write for this app/website need grammar and spell check. I mean at least proof read before you post lol.
Demand your money back!
I feel ya. I can’t believe how much we pay each month for this service. I can only imagine how much these writers make!?!?
Oh wait…I thought I was reading The Athletic..so these writers arent making money, we aren’t paying them anything so if you don’t like it that much, maybe you can go find another free fan site?
Are you new to this site? All the writers are paid, this is not a fan site.
My guess is 1 Year 2 mil + the 4 mil buyout he so undeservedly received.
I didn’t really follow AL left fielders last year. Did he actually deserve the gold glove or was it more base on reputation a la a few of Jeter’s gold gloves.
Not sure why this is such a big deal. Gordon hasn’t been a good player for a few years, and there’s not much to suggest he can make it back to 2WAR, but if the Royals want him, it’s just a question of how much of their resources they want to allocate to him.
Doubling up for some reason.
Yawn. The royals aren’t trying to win and neither is he..oh hold on excuse me….yawn
Depending on the contract I don’t know why a Royals fan would be opposed to Gordon returning. The money isnt going to be significant. The Royals aren’t competing in 2020 so they don’t need his roster spot.
Gordon has been through a championship era with the Royals and is a product of the Royals culture. Why wouldn’t Royals fans want that for the young talent to learn from?
You know I get that some people like using stats and multivariate regression etc.. blah blah to figure out $/WAR. If you just took Revenue/(30*162) you’d get 2.2M/game. So if you said Gordon was worth 1.4 WAR last year, that would equal 3.08M, if you did the fangraphs 5.7M/WAR you end up with 7.8M value. Averaged, 5.53M. If you think he can produce around the same amount of WAR. Almost like filing arbitration numbers.
Time to move on. He’s as over as disco. In fact, his contract hindered the team from spending more when they had the window.