Zobrist is such a catalyst for our offense. I LOVE him. Let's be a big market team and bring 'em both back. Lose a few bucks in the next few years in advance of the new TV contract.

If Zobrist is the primary RF in 2016, that would be a salary wash with Rios's departure.

If Gordon is retained, you have young guys that will NOT be able to break into the starting lineup; Orlando, Colon, Cuthbert, and Mondesi.

Let's pump the brakes on signing a bunch of guys to huge contracts through their mid to late 30s. This isn't the steroid era. Players break down earlier than they did the last 2 decades. We don't need to wrap up $30,000,000 a year in guys entering the twilights of their careers.

Love this article from MLB.com. Especially this part:

Well the way I look at is we can go for broke or go back to being the Royals we know for the last couple years. IF we sign Gordon and Zobrist, AND they don't decline too much - we can almost be World Series favorites until 2017. If we don't sign them then we have to hope that a) their replacements don't suck too bad, b) their replacements don't lay an egg in the post-season vs. known post-season performers, c) losing Gordon especially doesn't take away some of the magic/locker-room/pixie dust/whatever.

My philosophy is let's sell out for 2016-7, since we're almost certainly going to lose Hos after that to some kind of Texiera deal.

I've been thinking about this PECOTA bashing.

Look how many things had to go amazingly right for us to win 95:
Volquez - career year
Morales - career year
Young - comeback candidate
Madson - comeback candidate
Moose - massive upswing
Hosmer - avoided previous slumpy periods
Cain - took a big step forward offensively, MVP candidate
Added Cueto and Zobrist, although Cueto's regular season was about a wash

Now let's look at what went about as expected:
Sal, Esky, Ventura, Guthrie, Herrera, Davis (although PECOTA would have predicted regression - it doesn't understand cyborgs), Dyson, Hoch, Duffy, Holland (results-wise anyway - he got really lucky to get out of so many Jams)

And what went worse:
Infante regressed big time
Gordon missed 2 months
Rios was subpar/injury
Vargas injury

So many things went really well for us and GMDM. I'd like to see what PECOTA would show if you could somehow fudge it to predict all our pickups except Rios having career years or big comeback years and 3 of our carryover guys making big leaps offensively.

What I'm getting at is I bet it would be close to our true outcome - not some fundamental flaw where PECOTA can't figure out contact hitters. We just ran insanely well with our pickups, lack of injuries, guys making leaps vs. regressions, etc.

Now maybe there's some secret sauce in our clubhouse/coaching/Yosting that creates an environment where all those guys could get the most out of their talents. You can't ever quantify any of that, but it doesn't mean it's not real to some degree. If PECOTA has a big blind spot I'd predict it's more in those factors vs. the Royals hitting style.

Zobrist's OF skills are quickly declining. If you resign Zobrist, I think it would be a huge mistake to play him in the OF rather than everyday 2B. Just eat Omar's contract and move on. Zobrists value is at it's absolute highest when he plays 2B. Omar is/was the biggest hole in our lineup, as long as we have a semi-compentant RF (Orlando, Dyson, anybody from AAA), I would place Zobrist in the OF very little.

I think Zobrist would be as good or better than Rios in RF.

He definitely would, but his greatest value is at 2B. Especially at this point of his career. If we played in a bandbox with no OF ground to cover, I may feel differently.

I wonder if we can bring Rios back at a reduced rate? Probably not the way he's performed in the playoffs. Someone will pay him.

One year contract, 4 million. That's it. Actually, over an entire year, Orlando/Dyson or any AAA option is going to AT LEAST be equal in production to Rios. So I let him walk, even though he does have a pleasant string of games that happened to come in the playoffs.

PECOTA's big miss can't be fully explained by individual players all overperforming expectations. It seems to undervalue defense and young players.

Rios cost $11M - $12M this year. I'd rather play Orlando for a lot less money. Zobrist would be worth $12M in my opinion.

He'll be 35 to start Spring Training, and he's injury prone. Thanks, but no thanks. He's still going to get a 1-yr deal from some club at +$10MM/

They apparently dont care about bullpens, either.