kdog

34 year old Sal Perez had a crazy rebound season, Witt made his star turn. Those are the only two offensive players on their payroll with a contract beyond this season. The rest are UFA or under control. They signed Wacha to a Flaherty deal and Lugo to a Maeda deal. They haven't had debllitating injuries to their lineup and their best players have produced. I'm pretty sure the Tigers could have done that if Tork didn't implode and they didn't get decimated by injuries. https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/kansas-city-royals/yearly

Now we have to actually play games...the major league product which I think it still important to upper management.

Scott Boras had the batphone to Mike Ilitch; That won't be avaialble in our current situation.

Bradford Doolitle - ESPN

It's pretty clear that they aren't going to take risks with large free agent contracts. They will overpay on short team deals. But they don't want to even risk the potential of another Baez situation. If that is the case, he has to take risk elsewhere.

My annoyance with Harris' team building approach is clouding my objective judgement. He's a bit of a neophyte in the executive game. It's believable to me that he had outlandish value on Flaherty and then had to reduce his ask late in the day. And it's possible that he had the same approach with Skubal and didn't trade him. That might be a positive. I don't like unending wait for development approach. You're asking for a confluence of things to all work out at once.

Ok the return he got for Flaherty is process and results. We'll see how that goes. I don't like his approach overall of team building.

What kind of contigencies will we build in if young players don't progress? This is still about the major league roster at some point right? Well-laid development plans don't always work out to give you a ready made roster at the same time.

Mediocre gms lose deals on the margins over the long term. Harris strategy of over-asking and waiting till the end is an issue for me. And yes, I don't have all of the information. I'm passing judgement on what other people report and my own opinion. I still expect Harris to take a long term approach to this rebuild. They are going to make marginal improvements around the mlb roster and use internal development to increase their roster. I'm sure they are going to try and compete in the Skubal window but it will be without a lot of contract risk. He has not done anything risky to add talent to the major league team. They've done a lot of things to improve the minor league infrastructure. Those might bear fruit down the road. I don't have unending patience or hope. He seems to think that everything will work out eventually.

Bally put out a few clips

it's hit piece season:

The re-rebuild is going to be slow and incremental. Money will be spent on the margins within the risk parameters. All major improvement will mostly come from internal development. It's going to be awhile.

He's basically been mid.

In this case, it is likely just his normal post deadline presser.

Scott Harris will address the media at 7pm.

I just care about the hitters. The pitching attrition is baked into how I view the rest of the season.

Chafin traded to Texas.

August and September is going to be a nightmare on the sales department at Comerica if this continues. If you end 2024 with games like this, it's going to be rough on everyone. They need guys back as soon as possible.

This iteration of the offense has almost no chance.

I think they will finish off the trades during today's game.

I'll give Harris a 40% pass on Eduardo. He didn't sign the contract. But Flaherty is his signing and it's a sellers market. He has to trade him and extract some decent value.