I've read the insurance for Vargas covers 75 percent of his deal, so $6 million. That would drop their committed salaries down to about $78 million once Gordon declines his player option, with about $25-30 million for arbitration guys (assuming Holland is allowed to walk, which would be a big arb figure).

That puts KC around $110 million, with about 9-10 players to go get. Those would be:

Starting LF
Starting RF (if you don't go with Dyson/Orlando/etc.)
UTIL IF (Likely filled with Colon)
5th OF (filled internally)
Reserve C (could be filed internally with Francisco Pena, potentially, or by keeping Butera)

SP
BP (long reliever)
BP (middle)
BP (middle)
BP (lefty)

I could see Young returning because I still don't think his free market value will be that high, and even if he is at $3-4 million, that's a pretty valuable swing guy to have on a staff.

Guys like Louis Coleman, Brian Flynn, and perhaps Michael Mariot could fill the other bullpen slots.

So really, the number of guys KC needs to "pay" for is pretty limited.

FG crowdsource has Gordon #9 FA and Leake #12, him getting 4/56. That's a lotta dough. Doesn't 18/yr buy you more than that????


Duncan you like Dex Fowler in the past. 4/56 also, and he's 29. Might be a good fit here.

$14 million a year for Leake is not bad and seems about right.

Dexter Fowler would be a decent consolation prize for Alex Gordon, if they don't get a deal done there.

He's a good power/speed guy and should play a good LF, if that was the plan. I like that he's a switch hitter, and I like that he's a good career OBP player (.367 career OBP, nearly 100 points higher than his BA).

I think he'd likely be someone who can hit 10-15 HR with 40 2B and about 30 SB for KC, which would be pretty valuable.

He's also better historically vs. LHP than RHP, which is a bonus.

Love it. Read every word^^^

Another point, it's in the Glass family's best interest to keep this team very competitive until the next TV deal can be negotiated. The current success will carry for a bit, but if in 2 to 3 years we're back to a .500 team, they'd lose some leverage in the market. Part of our analysis should probably be assessing the likelihood that paying an additional $10-20/year in payroll now could reap many millions more in benefit on the next TV deal.

Looking at that Fangraphs Crowd Sourcing is a good start.

Let's start with Alex Gordon. Say he does get offers of 5/100. I think KC could get him with a competitive offer of 5/80-85. I don't think KC could turn down that type of deal... if you look at it from a WAR standpoint, he'd need to produce about 9 WAR over 5 years to make the contract work, and I think he does that, easily.

Now, looking at SP, I think Samardzija is really low. He'll get more because he's a name guy and overrated. Leake seems about right, though, and would be a nice stabilizing factor to add to KC's rotation for the next several years (which figure to be his prime years).

Zobrist is the one that really surprises me. I think the projections there are running behind his current market value, which apparently is around $15 million/year. That's going to be a tough sign, but if he IS signed for the figure Fangraphs suggests there, it makes alot of sense for KC.

Remember, too, that family and faith matter more to the Zobrists than anything else. Julianna is not a typical baseball wife, in that she is a breadwinner as well (very successful Christian musician, as I understand it. ) I don't think "highest bidder" is the No. 1 criterion for them.

I'd almost prefer to go cheap in RF so that we can go get a 2nd tier SP. I'd feel really good if we could get Zo and Gordon back, but I only expect 1 to resign. I hope I'm wrong!

Starting pitching has become so expensive. I wouldn't be surprised if Leake got that much money. You're paying over 10-12 million for any kind of established starter anymore. I think we need to do something to have insurance against our young guys not working out next year or one of our 4 current starters getting hurt. We don't know how Duffy is going to perform and we don't know what Medlen will give us over a whole season.

Given the success DM had this year, I'm sure he'll continue to look for under the radar moves we aren't even thinking about right now. But even though Cueto was all over the place, he gave us two huge ace performances in the playoffs. We've gotten by with less from our starters but you need somebody to step up there. Especially when you consider Herrera and Davis have pitched a ton of innings the last two years because of the playoffs. Ned will probably be very vigilant about getting them rest next season.

Is Rusty Kuntz done? I'm gonna miss that guy if so.

I'm also amazed that I'm writing about our 1B coach, though to be fair he does MUCH more than that.

He is contemplating retirement. Rumor has it that he has been contemplating it for the last 15 years.

I loved Rusty's exchange with Colon after the game winner.

"Yeah, Player!" "That's right!" "Gimme some!" "Let's Go!"

HELL YEAH!

From what I've read, he's talked about retirement after every season for so long, that no one is going to believe it until he does retire.

On their chat, there seems to be agreement that this is the year where the elites fall back some and the middle-range guys get the difference. Price, Greinke and Heyward are the elites at 150-200M. Then you have the almost-elites Cespedes, Cueto + Upton between 125-150M.

Do you have want to commit 125M to Justin Upton or do you want to buy Mike Leake, Ben Zobrist, Ryan Madson and a flier on say Mike Pelfrey? For a team that's middling, doesn't option (B) seem way more logical?


Now the Cubs or Dodgers are almost playoff locks (at least major contenders) for 2016. Buying quantity isn't important for them so they WILL get an elite player. But if you're AZ or Washington or Texas or......don't you bid up quantity?


Net: hard to see what that does to Alex. He's either a cheap option to Cespedes and he gets bid up from 80 to 100. Or else he's deemed an expensive option to Colby Rasmus and goes 85 to 75. Past years suggests any top-20 guy gets max dollars and more than crowd sourcing expec. Royals success 2015 with savvy mid level signings is the counterpoint.

So they think more money gets to the second and third tier guys? Interesting. If his top offer is $100 million or less, I think KC can keep him long-term if it wants to keep him.

Completely random thought, but Daniel Murphy might be a cheap LF backup option. Not sure what his D would look like - I'd guess "bad," but his offensive profile is interesting (even without the HR surge).

Glass just won the WS and nearly went back to back. He doesn't have to worry about PR right now. People trust Dayton to do what's best.