$60 million is a heck of a lot of money for a guy with a career 4.46 ERA.

Royals Baseball: Serious Bidness

Best 2 of the bunch. What are we going with?

I'm still a big fan of it is finally next year.

Difference being Meche's 5 years didn't tie up any resources that might be needed to resign someone because we didn't have anyone worth resigning.

Things have changed now, I hope.

I hate that we, as fans, have been so trained to worry exceedingly about the economic aspect of baseball.

Glass has the money, via revenue sharing, income (personal and team related), and it's time to ****ing spend it.

No excuses. Our payroll needs to be around $80M and looking to get to $100M quickly. If not, this is all pissing into the wind in the first place.

He's averaged a 3.7 WAR the last three seasons while throwing over 200 IP per year. I'm not sure but it doesn't look like he has missed a start the last 5 seasons, and he will only be 28 this coming season.

Go look and see what pitchers have performed similarly over the last three seasons and are also reasonably young. I think you will be surprised at how small the list is.

No he's not Verlander but he would definitely be a huge upgrade and is a legit #2/#3 starter, which we could sorely use if we really want to compete in the coming years. I'd rather not put all my eggs in the Montgomery bucket.

I would be willing to give Jackson pretty big money over a long-term stretch. Not sure 5 years/$60 million is required, since everyone is laughing at that request.

A lucrative 4-year deal with heavy incentives (possibly a vesting fifth year?) could get the job done, though.

He's a good pitcher. Solid No. 2/No. 3. Very similar to John Danks in terms of results, and Danks got a similar deal.

Chewing up a shit ton of innings with decent results is worth a good amount of money, particularly with (we hope) a bunch of young arms in the rotation. So...Jackson's worth might be greater to a team like the Royals than it would be to a more seasoned staff.

Okay I went and looked and this is the list of pitchers that have 1) averaged 3.7 WAR or better the last three seasons; 2) have averaged at least 200 IP the last three seasons; and 3) are still reasonably young (i.e. around 30 or younger).

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="156"><colgroup><col style="mso-width-source:userset;mso-width-alt:5705;width:117pt" width="156"> </colgroup><tbody><tr style="height:12.75pt" height="17"> <td style="height:12.75pt;width:117pt" height="17" width="156">Justin Verlander</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.75pt" height="17"> <td style="height:12.75pt" height="17">CC Sabathia</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.75pt" height="17"> <td style="height:12.75pt" height="17">Felix Hernandez</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.75pt" height="17"> <td style="height:12.75pt" height="17">Zack Greinke</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.75pt" height="17"> <td style="height:12.75pt" height="17">Tim Lincecum</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.75pt" height="17"> <td style="height:12.75pt" height="17">Dan Haren</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.75pt" height="17"> <td style="height:12.75pt" height="17">Ubaldo Jimenez</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.75pt" height="17"> <td style="height:12.75pt" height="17">Jon Lester</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.75pt" height="17"> <td style="height:12.75pt" height="17">Clayton Kershaw</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.75pt" height="17"> <td style="height:12.75pt" height="17">Jered Weaver</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.75pt" height="17"> <td style="height:12.75pt" height="17">Matt Cain</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.75pt" height="17"> <td style="height:12.75pt" height="17">Cole Hamels</td> </tr> <tr style="height:12.75pt" height="17"> <td style="height:12.75pt" height="17">Edwin Jackson</td> </tr> </tbody></table>

I would be happy to have Mr.Jackson on this team but not 60 Mill for 5 years maybe around the 40+

I most definitely would give him 60 mil over 5 years. Would he come to KC for that much though?

The worst thing KC could do right now is throw Duffy\Crow\Random young arm out there for 150+ innings each so early in their careers... We might as well go ahead and hire a team surgeon for all the arm and shoulder surgeries we'll be performing in the next 2 to 3 years.

Jackson is durable, has experience and has shown he can perform at a high level. He's your prototypical #3 pitcher on a contending baseball team.

Very true, but if you are talking about 4-6 years down the road trying to resign most/all of our young players then you are going to need every $ of a 80-100 mil payroll. Jackson's 12 or whatever it would end up being could cause problems, especially if he is hurt/not effective.

The smart play would be to overpay for players now (next 2-3 years) and try to avoid overpaying tying up that money for when the time comes.

Who knows if Hosmer, Moose, etc will even be willing to re-sign with KC? Odds are they may not since they are Boras clients, and then we're sitting on this money for nothing. But what we absolutely do know is that they are under our control for a relatively cheap cost through 2017 - that is our window to compete.

I totally agree with Deez. It sucks that KC fans and other small-market teams have become obsessed with worrying over every little penny spent by the owners. This is pro baseball and it costs money. If one $12MM/year contract is too much to risk then Glass seriously needs to sell the team and move on with his life.

Also: The players many are worrying about are under team control for at least five more years, in some cases six.

Right when Jackson's deal would be coming off the books, worst-case scenario.