Royals Rumors: Alex Rios Agrees To Contract With KC Royals
By John Viril
Royals Rumors indicate 33-year-old OF Alex Rios has agreed to a contract with the Kansas City Royals. The deal is a 1-year, $11 million contract after Rios produced a disappointing .280/.311/.398 line with only 4 home runs and 17 stolen bases for Texas last season.
According to CBS Sports.com’s Jon Heyman, via Twitter:
alex rios agrees to one-year with royals. $11M.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 16, 2014
While it is nice to see the Royals sign some position players who have shown power in the past, the year isn’t 2013 (when Alex Rios hit 18 HR and Kendrys Morales, who agreed to a deal with the Royals on Thursday, hit 23). Kansas City looks like they only wish to afford players who are bounce-back candidates, rather than free agents coming off solid seasons.
To quote former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani: “Hope is not a strategy”.
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Yet, that’s exactly what it looks like the Royals are prepared to do next season.
For example, Fangraphs.com does not give rosy projections for either Morales or Rios in 2015. Steamer sees Rios producing no more than 0.7 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) in 2015 in 597 plate appearances, while it predicts 0.6 WAR for Morales.
Both players would be significantly over-priced if those projections are true, given Fangraphs’ market value estimate of $7 million per WAR this season.
Sigh.
Somehow, I expected better from general manager Dayton Moore, and owner David Glass, than just turning back the clock to the days of hoping Juan Gonzalez can recapture past glory.
Here we are in year 10 of Dayton Moore’s tenure in Kansas City, and the Royals will be relying on a 34-year old Alex Rios and a 32-year old Kendrys Morales to bounce back from poor seasons.
These moves don’t exactly make you believe the Royals will make up that extra 90 feet that they needed against the Giants–especially since the Royals rank 9th in projected team WAR in the American League. Now, that analysis came BEFORE signing Rios, yet another 0.7 WAR isn’t going to make much difference.
Who knows? Maybe Morales will revert back to the guy who hit 45 home runs in 2012-13 by signing early with Kansas City rather than trying to start playing in June (like he did in 2014). Perhaps Alex Rios can recapture the form that let him hit .304/.334/.516 with 25 home runs and 23 stolen bases for the White Sox in 2012.
Yet, I would have thought that we’d be past “maybe” and “perhaps” with the Royals returning most of a team that won the American League pennant last season.
Guess that would have been too much to expect.