He was notably atrocious in his first couple of games, but I attribute this to the fact that he never played.

Once he played more regularly than once every two months, he was fine. The number here don't lie; he's an ok defensive catcher.

That is good to hear, I think he is decent enough with the bat (especially for a team that lacks power). He better get a good long look this year, last year was ridiculous.

Apparently, Gil Meche has decided to retire...

Our payroll is going to be laughably low. Not saying this as a criticism, yet. Just saying...

Is he paying back money?

Such pride in Gil. He just refused $12 million because pitching in relief for a few months before going on the 60-Day DL again is too demoralizing.

Every starter in the Dodgers rotation just said a prayer that Mattingly never gets tossed from a game.

Good for him. :clap:

Really?

That.. Is.... Awesome.
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Freaking awesome. My opinion of Meche's contribution to the Royals vs his cost just went up from a bit disappointed, to ambivalent. We were on the hook, and he gave us a gift. He just saved us one hell of a lot of money.

I expect us to bank this unexpected found money for the future.

Yep, I agree. This is like the scholarship player who can't get on the court deciding to "transfer" just as there is a 5 star recruit who wants to commit.

I agree. But let's remember this monetary gift and revisit this expectation in about 12 months.

Here's the link:

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/20...is-retirement/



This is kind of a shocker: Royals starter Gil Meche has announced his retirement. This despite the fact that he has about $12 million left on his contract.

Of course Meche has had chronic shoulder trouble since 2009. Much of it due, one presumes, to Trey Hillman absolutely grinding him into dust. Rany Jazayerli has chronicled this, the most notorious example of which was Hillman sending Meche out for 121 pitches in a game in 2009 as Meche was suffering from dead arm and trying to overcome various ailments. Maybe Meche goes down anyway, but it was pretty inexcusable all the same.

That aside, Meche gave Kansas City their money’s worth for the first two years of the deal, putting up an ERA+ of 125 and 110, respectively, while pitching over 200 innings. In the past two seasons Meche only made 43 appearances, 32 of which were starts. He had certainly lost effectiveness and velocity. He apparently believes that it’s not coming back. Sad to see it end for Gil Meche, but it’s good to see someone comfortable enough with himself and his place in the game to where he can walk away like this.

Ask yourself, though: would you leave $12 million on the table like this? When you could simply hang around the team, sit in the dugout and collect the checks? Most of us would probably say that we couldn’t do that if we knew we couldn’t pitch anymore, but most of us would probably be lying.

Enjoy retirement, Gil.

dude, lets not downplay what he's doing, this is an incredibly classy departure, just an outright gift. My opinion of him as a good honest man has just shot up.

He could have easily just gutted it out, thrown in relief for a couple months until his arm gave out again, sat his butt on the DL for most of the season, and cashed his $12MM check. He's said earlier last year that he felt guilty about taking a lot of money without delivering a good performance, well he basically proved that he was serious by walking away from a huge free pile of money.

Who does that? I'm not sure I would have.

This is absolutely correct. And I'm pretty confident I would have played out the contract.