I don't get the desire for Kazmir. Just go look up his August through October splits the last three seasons. They are not good and represent a pretty consistent trend.

Well ok.....

2013, he was actually better in he second half than the first. It also was is first year back to a starter's workload.

2014, he definitely had a rough August.

2015, he was pitching home games in a park that's a pretty bad fit for him (Mickey Mouse park is pretty awful for lefty flyball pitchers). This tracks with him having the highest HR/FB rate in his career in the second half.

Outside of 3 starts against RH-dominated lineups at MM, he had a 2.61 ERA over the rest of the second half.

I posted this earlier, but thank you for bringing it up again in light of his name being discussed again.

Unless the organization has a pretty good idea on how to keep the bottom from falling out on his numbers after the ASB, I fear signing him.

He's exactly the kind of guy who they keep in the rotation and let him "pitch through it."

That gets more and more costly as we inch closer to Fall and down the stretch.

See my post. I think if you dig more deeply, the picture doesn't look quite as described.

As far as lightening his load/keeping him fresh, he did seem to have August slides in 13 and 14. I'd suggest lightening the workload early as a way to keep him fresher there.

The other room for improvement may be in convincing him to throw his slider more frequently to lefties. He has become more FB/change past few years, and lefties have hit him better than they did when he used the slider more.

I think Ned will essentially have a 6 man rotation to work with next season. I don't expect Kazmir, if signed, will have a rough stretch at the end. He also has a curveball and cutter that he rarely worked on, but if signed, the royals would have no problem working on those two pitches exclusively through spring training. No matter how hard he gets hit.

I think the slider is what damn near barbecued him in Tampa Bay.

I believe he's gotten away from it for self-preservation as much as anything. He just never learned to throw it in a way that doesn't put too much torque on the elbow so he appears to use it as a show-me pitch these days.

Can't argue too loudly against that given how close he was to out of baseball not too terribly long ago.

Oh boy.. http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2015/12/23/...o-re-sign-him/

4 years for $50 mil? I don't care if we have no chance to sign him, but don't insult the guy during the process. Jeesh.

I don't trust Jim Bowden. He could be right, but so far he's the only guy reporting that and it's been a couple weeks now. He's not a Buster Olney or Rosenthal.

I just don't see that they'd offer him Zobrist money. Hard to believe.

Yeah, I still don't buy the offer Bowden reported.

I wouldn't want him to use it heavily, but a slider or curve or cutter would seem to help him a bit against lefties.

He actually has started to develop platoon splits the past few years because he has the best separation between fastball and changeup amongst starters in baseball (like 14-15 mph).

That would play well against the RH-dominant teams in KC's division (as long as he isn't pitching in a bad box that turns lazy warning track fly balls in any other park into 4-rows deep HRs to LF).

I'm probably in the minority but as much as I like and have appreciated Gordon's play, I think it would be foolish to give him a 5/80+ contract.

He's had significant injuries the past two seasons and at his age, future injuries are likely.

I don't think we're going to sign him either. I just kind of want to get it over with so it's done.

I think it's all on Dayton... no way he wants to be paying someone $20M per when they're 34, 35, 36. Moore CAN afford him, but he won't want to. It was either Mellinger or McCullough that wrote earlier that Royals scouts think he's already lost a step in the field. They've spent the whole offseason trying to soften the blow because it will be a major PR hit.

That's flat out bullshit. I don't buy that number or this jack off for a second.