Ask and ye shall receive

Wow, the day after I griped about the Royals being irrelevant this off-season, they do a 180 and have generated some buzz over the past 48 hours. First, the signing of Gil Meche to a 5-year, $55 million deal. Meche has had stints in which he's been solid and others where he has been rocked in the last couple seasons coming back from arm surgery. My first impression is, that's a lot of money to risk on a ho-hum pitcher, but he's better than anything the Royals trotted out there last season and before the ink is dry on his contract he's the best pitcher on the staff going into '07. The money goes along with the market, and I honestly think he won't pitch horribly enough the Royals can't trade him down the stretch to a contender or in the off-season one of the next few years. Here's a link to his Baseball Reference page. Fairly average ERAs for the league, not so good WHIPs, but a good K rate. Comparable to guys like Adam Eaton and Jason Marquis, who aren't superstars but have had their share of good starts. I'd give this deal a B to B-.

Octavio Dotel also inked a 1-year, $5 million deal to bring him in over other teams that wouldn't guarantee the money. That's a risk the Royals are gonna have to take to get some players to KC at this point. Dotel can add another $2 million in incentives. Again, if he shows his good stuff coming off arm surgery this year, the Royals can flip him to a contender for something or maybe he'll re-sign for some kind of small discount since the Royals gave him a shot this season. The team also signed NPB reliever John Bale, who posted good numbers the last two seasons in Japan for the Hiroshima Carp. They got him over the Yankees. He's a low-risk pitcher that, if he's improved from his past MLB experience while in Japan, could be a high-reward guy in terms of holds and, possibly, saves, if Dotel can't cut it. I give both signings a B to B+.

Now if only we can somehow get rid of Berroa, Sweeney, Emil Brown and Sanders....Runelvys is gone, so that's a start.