Sports – Should the Royals Sign a Pitcher (or two)?

I’m over Greinke going away. Time to get excited about the Royals actual youth movement.

Here is a pretty chart showing the current players on the 40-man roster and their ages.

The key here is that those players in RED are in what should be considered the prime of their careers. A few guys are just past prime, cooling off, or in the case of Jason Kendall: dead.

Even the signings of Melky and Frenchy did not drive up the average of the Royals, as both are going to be 26 and 27 when the season starts.

Here’s my best guess at the 25-man roster, assuming no new acquisitions.

And here’s the lineup as I envision it on opening day, along with their Bill James projections for 2011. (thanks, Fan Graphs)

Using the Line Up Analysis tool from Baseball Musings, this lineup projects to score about 4.8 runs a game, which would not be historically bad. (Us Royal fans will take the small victories)

The projected starters do not inspire such confidence.

Yikes. I mean… yikes.

So, now that Greinke is gone, there’s got to be a little bit of money burning a hole in Dayton Moore’s pocket. And, at last check there were still a few starting pitchers left on the market.

So, I’m just saying… while I’m very excited to see the young guys get a chance to play, and I know there are more arms in the minor leagues that should be studs at the big league level, for 2011, to avoid 150 losses or so, maybe Dayton should take a flyer on one of these old guys.