KC Royals Make Alex Gordon Qualifying Offer

The Kansas City Royals have offered veteran Alex Gordon a 1-year, $15.8 million deal.

Just two days ago Kansas City Royals left fielder Alex Gordon turned down a player option on the final year of his contract with the Royals for $13.75 million. General manager Dayton Moore didn’t wait long to respond, as today the Royals offered Gordon a 1-year, $15.8 million deal (according to USA Today) to keep Gordon in KC for at least one more year.

Gordon has been the face of the Royals for many years since being drafted by the Royals in 2007 in the first round. On this year’s World Series championship team, he was the longest tenured Royal at nine years, his entire professional career.

A lot of Royals fans around the country have been pretty upset with Gordon because most assumed that he wanted to be a Royal for life, and that he should have automatically accepted his player option for the last year on his former contract. I am here to tell you that just because he turned that contract down, doesn’t mean he won’t sign another with Kansas City.

If you look at recent history in all of the major sports, there are plenty of examples of players doing this. There are many reasons that testing the open market can benefit a player, even if he doesn’t end up leaving the current team he is on.

For example, in the NBA just this last summer, superstar LeBron James became a free agent after leading the Cleveland Cavaliers to the NBA Finals (which they lost). James became a free agent after the season, and many were afraid that he might again leave Cleveland. He ended up waiting until the Cavs signed back a lot of his teammates that he wanted on the team, and then re-signed back with the team.

That’s just the sports world we live in today unfortunately.

Gordon could be doing a similar thing with the Royals. He also could just want to see what his value is on the open market in order to gauge what he wants from the Royals, who can’t offer him as much as most teams can because they are the second smallest market in MLB baseball.

“There’s no doubt in any of our minds that we want Alex, and Alex wants to be here.”

So, fellow Royals fans, don’t get all up in arms with Gordon’s decision to test the free agent market. Just wait and see if he decides to leave town before cursing his name. Then if he leaves town, by all means, go ahead! But just remember he helped win us a title here in Kansas City.

“There’s no doubt in any of our minds that we want Alex, and Alex wants to be here,” Dayton Moore said about Gordon. “But again, we’re not going to take advantage of any relationship. Alex has done everything for us each and every day, and we’ve given him everything we possibly could.”

Next: Fantasy Football Start 'Em/Sit 'Em Week Nine

Alex has until November 13 at 4 P.M. to accept the offer.