Wow, that's gotta hurt. Boras can't be pleased about this. Rarely if ever see him come out on the losing side of things. I don't love moose as a player but yeah he deserved more than that.
Unexpected but will take it. Moose has his flaws but he’s a good player who is loved in this city and it’s a dirt cheap deal.
If you squint hard enough, you can almost see the Royals not being dreadful this season. To be certain, they won’t likely be good but if Duffy stays healthy the rotation might be half decent and the late off season shopping at free agency’s TJ Maxx has resulted in some good cheap buys.
The real debate is whether a 75-80 win season is the right thing for this club to be doing at this juncture. It’s easy enough to say from an analytical standpoint that it’s stupid but this was a franchise that spent a generation in the wilderness and now has a new group of fans who want and need reasons to show up and tune in - and trust me when I say signing Moose, even if only for a year, suddenly has the casual fans here excited. It’s hard to sell “trust the process” when the last process took 30 years.
I don't get why the market cratered for Moustakas the way it did. He's 'only' 30, sure he wasn't going to get the 5-110 he and Bora$ were fantasizing about but he really couldn't get more than Zach Cozart, who's not even a 3B by trade? This makes Mous look foolish turning down the QO and the Royals look cheap giving him a $10 million cut off the QO.
This is where I'd start to wonder about collusion tbh. A guy coming off a career season still in his prime and he basically has to beg the Royals to fill out a blank check for his salary a la Andre Dawson and other guys in the collusion era. Unless Moustakas and Bora$ made it known they weren't fielding offers of less than 4-5 years and $100 million, something crazy like that that scared teams from even making on the cheap offers.
collusion is a really strong word to just toss around like boras has been.
the issue with moustakas was three-fold:
- he's 29 and feasibly has two years left in his prime. 2017 was a career year for homeruns for moustakas and just about every hitter like him. he has a .305 obp in over 3,300 pa in his career and is fine at best defensively.
- he was not only looking for a team to open the coffers for multiple years at tens of millions of dollars but he had draft-pick compensation tied to him where the team signing him not only got to sign a 29 year old to a big contract but would get to give up their first pick in the draft as well as the money tied to it.
- who needed help at third and was actually spending money?
baltimore: have machado and beckham.
boston: devers
yanks: went with a cheaper option
tampa: sold longoria and are retooling
toronto: donaldson
angels: got a great deal on cosart
a's: lol
astros: bregman
mariners: seager
rangers: beltre
braves: not spending
marl-i won't even finish that
mets: got a fantastic deal on frasier
phillies: weren't spending
nationals: rendon
cubs: some guy
cardinals: internal options
brewers: shaw
pirates: lol
reds: internal options/not spending
giants: had a need but went with longoria, said they weren't spending on anyone with dpc
dodgers: turner
padres: signed a different overrated royal
rockies: some guy
dbags: lamb
I definitely wouldn't be surprised if in twenty years we have evidence of collusion this winter, but so far I definitely feel like this is a result of the players getting their ass kicked last CBA and a few other factors.
While Moustakas was projected to get a much better contract, but after last season 0f 1.8bWAR/2.2fWAR there was really a case for him to accept the Royals' QO, which would have set him for life anyway and was quite close to the AAV of some optimistic projections. Almost every big-spending team was set at 3B for 2018. His case, together with Lynn's and probably Cobb's, might very well lead to future FAs considering a QO more positively.
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