His twitter feed says Hyvee, Pricechopper, Apple Market and Sunfresh as well.

That may be the best picture ever.

Thread starter for the Red Sox series'

fo' sho!

Cool thanks.

How many years is Stanton under control?

Seems he will get a huge contract when he hits free agency. If its in the next year or two, no reason for the Royals to trade the farm for a guy they have no chance of re-signing.

2016 IIRC

If we're close at the trading deadline, I'd be in favor of pushing in all our chips. Its not the fact that we traded Wil Myers that was awful, its that the trade did not seem balanced.

Prospects are nice, but flags fly forever.

Stanton is not a free agent until 2017, but if the Marlins DO make him available, the Rangers are in much better shape to land him than pretty much anyone.

They can offer Profar, Olt and a solid No. 2/3 starter type (Scheppers, Perez, Grimm). Three guys that could be paired with Jose Fernandez in typical Marlins fashion (keep them together for 4-5 years, then sell them off).

The Royals have things to offer, but those things are farther from the bigs than what other teams can offer.

Fun side note: A guy I work with is a big Orioles fan (basically my twin). He sent me a thread link from their Scout.com board talking about trading for Stanton.

Suggested offer:
Bundy, Jonathan Schoop, Jake Arrieta and Brian Matusz for Stanton. And there are Orioles fans who think that is too much.

I am still laughing to myself.

Those guys really think Arrieta and Matusz (think Hochevar and Crow) ADD to trades.

:)

Without Wil Myers, I don't think you'll have the chips to push in.

The Royals prospects appear to have been intelligently staggered, but that means there aren't a lot of them that are presently major league ready. That's the kind of prospects the Marlins are going to be looking for.

Let's say Dylan Bundy had fallen to KC and they took him instead of Starling - that's a potential centerpiece guy. Or lets say they'd have taken Baez or Fernandez; while Baez is still a ways away, he's such a darling in the scouting community that he could be a centerpiece guy. Lindor is probably close enough that he could be the guy a trade is built around, but you'd need quite a bit more as well.

The Marlins are going to be looking for either young roster players, top 25 guys that are a year or so away or top 10 guys that are a little further off. They're not going to be looking for prospects in the 40-50 range that are still 3-5 years away from the bigs, not as the primary returns in a trade.

Starling would probably need to be the 3rd or 4th piece to any offer the Marlins would accept for Mike Stanton. At this point, the Royals don't have 2 or 3 guys that are clearly better trade chips to offer. Will Myers, Ventura, Zimmer and Starling probably does it, but without Myers, I don't think you get there.

Again, I think the only shot the Royals would have is if the Rangers absolutely refused to deal Profar, Starling broke out in a big way this year and forced himself into a late-season callup to AA and nobody else was willing to offer young roster players.

In 2 years the calculus could change entirely with Ventura, Calixte, Mondesi and a slew of other low-minors prospects the Royals have potentially emerging, but I suspect Stanton will have long since been traded by then.

I don't remember which thread it was, maybe it was the Cardinals thread or the other Royals thread, but we've had a few chuckles in here about the trade offers from Orioles fans.

Their answer to everything is to just throw the bottom 6 guys on their 25-man into a trade offer, along with a couple prospects from the 8-15 range in their system and some pitcher that's 25 who was once a former prospect but still can't develop a 3rd offering and has now lost 4 mph off his fastball.

They're uncanny in their insanity.

When do Paulino and Duffy project to be back in KC? They would give us two more outstanding options in the rotation, if healthy.

July/August.

I could see Duffy being used out of the pen this season, as long as Davis/Mendoza hold up in the rotation. With him sliding back into the rotaton (probably right into the spot of Ervin Santana) next year.

Paulino would need to be in the rotation, as he sucks out of the bullpen, historically.

That's why I was actually amenable to DJ's questions regarding trading Herrera and Collins for Allen Craig. Coleman, Ventura, Joseph and eventually Duffy would all be good options for the Royals out of the pen to make up for the loss of those two.

If Paulino gets an uptick in velocity he would be our 2nd best starter for sure, maybe even pushing Shields some.

OH, also... Bubba Starling-related...

GREAT scouting report on him from Jason Parks over at Baseball Prospectus today.

Cliffs:

Identifies pitches late and starts his swing late a lot of the time. Swing/trigger is out of snyc. Has trouble adjusting his swing plane for breaking pitches.

Still has superstar (Matt Kemp) potential, but could stall out at AA if his hit tool doesn't improve as he continues to focus solely on baseball.