You must wear Tardigan sweaters.

Don't know that I'm that crazy about it ... although I'm glad we didn't trade DDJ to somewhere like Cincy or NYY where he'd probably hit 20 HR's next year and everyone would go nuts. Sucks that his injury probably hammered his trade value. And I guess there's no guarantee he'd make it through next year healthy. I also wonder how much it hurts his value that he doesn't hit for as much power as a lot of corner OF's.

I'm not overwhelmed with who we got but it's not that bad either I don't think. I certainly wouldn't get caught up in Royals Corners' usual hysteria. Mazzaro apparently throws low-90's, apparently has a good sinker. Sounds like our kinda guy. Everybody looks at the stats at face value, not that you shouldn't... but he actually pitched pretty well for most of last season and ran out of gas at the end. He had 3.61 ERA/72 K/107.1 IP as of August 26th, and then got destroyed by the Yankees and that was all she wrote.

12 of his 18 starts were 6 IP/3 ER or less, including 11 of his last 12 before that Yankee game. Who knows if he can repeat all that, and he walks too many guys. But at the same time he just turned 24. He's really not much older than Marks.

DM's thoughts

Reading between the lines, it almost seems like Moore is trying to be nice about it while hinting that he doesn't think DDJ is going to do well next year coming off the injury and he wants to get what he can now from a team desperate for hitting help.

Mazzaro is not a stud, but he wanted him so that we wouldn't be forced to rush one of our AA studs before they were ready, and Marks is a throw-in.

I don't know, if DDJ stumbles out of the gate with a sub-700 OPS then he'll look smart, and I can understand not wanting to play Aaron Crow, but you can always sign some other dude as your 5th starter. I would have kept DDJ, take the gamble that he'll give me what he's given his whole career, and try to sign him.

Problem is, his fastball fooled no one the last couple years. It went over 100 the opposite direction way too often for Oakland. Hopefully we see something we can fix that Oakland didn't.

Please YouTube, after securing a helmet so you don't die. We need your game threads.

Well, thank you for that. One of the first phrases is "cost effective," and that's when I threw the **** up.

couple Greinke notes from Jayson Stark

• Clubs that have spoken to the Royals say Kansas City would only accept a bunch of front-line players for Zack Greinke. One of those players must be a pitcher with a Greinke-like ceiling, so GM Dayton Moore expects a lot for his ace.

• Clubs that have checked in with the Royals believe Greinke would veto a deal to any major market East Coast team. However, one official says the pitcher “would at least think about the L.A. clubs.”

edit: actually, this is a more useful version from Stark

And this cannot change. If you trade a player like Greinke, you simply have to get a great return. If not, you must be fired. And I cannot stress "must" enough.

Sucks. I wish DDJ the best. Quality at bats for 100 Loss team in the heat is not easy.

I'm not saying the guy is going to light the world on fire. He looks like a 4.15 80 BB/150 K guy to me.

But he also would've led this team in quality start percentage last year at 23 years old. He did some okay things last year.

Mazzaro is an intriguing piece... Much more upside in terms of stuff than a Bannister/Sean O'Sullivan. As early as 09, he was considered a big piece of the A's future along with Cahill and Anderson.

I think Marks is just more depth... you've got to think that at some point, the lefty pitching prospects will be exchanged for some young hitters...

DeJesus getting hurt when he did really boned the Royals. He was a pretty hot trade piece at the time, and it killed that. It also killed his chance of being a Type A free agent. Type B free agents bring much less of a haul (less than this trade, even).

If DeJesus recovers and has a really good offensive season, this trade probably works out as a loss. But if he doesn't hit well enough to qualify for Type A FA status (which I'm sure is what Beane is looking for), this is about as good as you'd have gotten for him.

IMHO this trade SUCKS BIG-TIME!

When will the future actually arrive to the K? DDJ is a player who developed in the last few years within our club and is hitting (no pun intended) his prime years right now. He deserved to get a Gold Glove last year and was on his way to deserving one this year. He's an above-average hitter with some decent power and can run. But now DM's throwing him out because negotiation time's coming up? Pay the man! He's worth the risk. This is looking like the Carlos Beltran deal: Toss away a legitimate All Star and get players who have budding potential. This is EXACTLY what Zack Greinke was bitching about earlier this year. When will DM finally seal up the revolving door, hold onto his cards, and go all in? How many teams have reached the World Series with 22 of its 25 players under 30 years old? And yet we retain Billy Butler who, yeah, hits alot of doubles, but is a sub-par defensive player with limited range and below-average speed and is often the 2nd out of double plays? R U F'n kidding me? And that's just one Royals player who DM should have traded before offering DDJ to anyone. DM: You're doing it bass-ackwards -- keep the proven productive ones and get more by packaging up and trading prospects with (possible) up-side who are 2 or more years away from the bigs. If before today anyone out there doubted that the Royals were the farm system for the other MLB teams, then this is now your wake-up call: There is absolutely no way anyone can deny it.

First, DeJesus was not and is not an All-Star caliber player. What he is, however, is a very solid starting LF, who would start on most clubs in the league, including both who played in that World Series thing.

But, as much as I dislike DM, he has shown that he'll stop the revolving door. Evidence A: Greinke.

We'll see what happens with this trade. Could be a loss. Who knows? But placing too much importance in DDJ is misguided, IMO.

First, DeJesus was not and is not an All-Star caliber player. What he is, however, is a very solid starting LF, who would start on most clubs in the league, including both who played in that World Series thing.

But, as much as I dislike DM, he has shown that he'll stop the revolving door. Evidence A: Greinke.

We'll see what happens with this trade. Could be a loss. Who knows? But placing too much importance in DDJ is misguided, IMO.

A lot of it probably does have to do with age and potential. This isn't quite the Beltran deal, and he's not Butler. Beltran was 27 when we traded him. Butler is 24 years old.

Remember, when he hits free agency next offseason, DDJ will be 32 years old. I still think he has the potential to put up .330/15-20 HR seasons, no doubt. I think he can be a very underrated, valuable player for a winning team. But his next contract might take him to 35-36 years old. He might permanently be a corner OF'er at that point.