The Kansas City Royals made a strong case last year that Salvador Perez was worthy of a long term contract extension.  After sustaining an injury in the spring, Perez returned to action during the season and seemingly proved that the organization was right.  A rebuilt pitching staff puts a larger focus on Perez’s ability behind the plate in 2013.  As the season looms in the horizon, Perez is preparing to leave the team to play for the Venezuela World Baseball Classic team.

Perez will be counted on to provide the Royals with two key components to the 2013 season.  He will provide an offensive threat in the lower part of the lineup, a consistent bat that can provide some pop and some run production beyond the middle of the order.  Secondly, and probably most importantly, Perez will be a field general and a leader on the defensive side of the field.

Perez has proven his presence on the field commands respect.  He has shown a strong work ethic and an ability to handle a major league pitching staff at a high level.  He did this last year while working with, primarily, players that he had a strong relationship with prior to the season.  The pitching staff and the young catcher seemed to be on the same page and working very well together.

This season, however, the team has taken drastic moves to improve the starting staff.  Early projections figure that the opening day rotation for the Royals will feature at least four players that were not on the opening day roster last season.  One of those pitchers, Jeremy Guthrie, pitched for the Royals in the last half of the season.  James Shields, Wade Davis and Ervin Santana have joined the team during the offseason and will be looking to Spring Training to get better acquainted with their new surroundings.

To paraphrase Stan Lee, with new pitchers comes great responsibility.  In essence, that is what Spring Training is about for most catchers.  Getting to know the pitching staff, their habits and tendencies as well as learning to watch the player to ensure that you know when he is struggling or cruising along is a key component to a successful battery.  Perez is highly regarded for his work in this area but for the first time in his career, he is faced with a challenge of working with players that he does not know and have vastly more experience then he does.

In the midst of this important Spring Training exercise, Salvador will head out to play for the honor of his country in the World Baseball Classic.  One can hardly fault the young man for taking this opportunity to play for national pride on such a large stage.  Many of the other players that will participate, however, have publicly stated that they felt it was a good time to do so based on their current role with their team and the familiarity with the current makeup surrounding them.

Perez will serve his country well.  The question is, does it serve his role with the Royals well to choose to participate in this exhibition?

Bill Ivie is the editor here at I-70 Baseball
Follow him on Twitter here.

Farewell to Mitch Maier.

Frankly, I’m surprised it took this long.

The Royals designated Maier for assignment Thursday, stocking up on pitchers during the dog-days leading up to the All Star Game. It looks like this is the end of the road for Maier, who has spent most of the past six seasons with the big league team.

I actually thought this might happen a couple of years earlier, but Maier just kept hanging around. He played good defense, was a positive presence, and even pitched a few times when the team was in a pinch.

But he just wasn’t good enough. Not for a team that wants to contend.

I take this as a positive sign.

The fact that Maier was on the team at all the last several years told me that the Royals just weren’t any good. But Maier kept working his way onto the roster because the old guys who were supposed to start got hurt, or the young guys weren’t quite ready.

Something must be different now, because the Royals finally deem Maier expendable.

“We’ve got so many young outfielders we want to look at,” said manager Ned Yost about the decision to let Maier go. “He was a great guy to have on your team as your fourth or fifth outfielder. But being mostly left-handed in the outfield, we needed a right-handed bat in [Jason] Bourgeois and we’ve got [Jarrod] Dyson, [Lorenzo] Cain’s coming back soon and we’ve got [Wil] Myers on the horizon.”

The Royals carried just four outfielders into Thursday’s game in Toronto. But Bourgeois can play all three outfield spots, so they seem to be comfortable with a lighter bench. Bourgeois has a much higher ceiling than does Maier, and apparently Cain and Myers could be coming to KC shortly.

To improve as a team, you need to have a roster full of good players. Cain and Myers have more talent in their pinky than Maier has on his best day. To get better, the team has no room for someone like Maier.

I know that sounds harsh. I’ve talked to Mitch Maier, and he seems like a good guy. By all accounts he’s a great teammate. But when someone is described as “the consummate professional,” it’s like saying that a girl has a great personality. Maier was doing all he could with his limited skills, but that girl isn’t someone you invite to the prom.

Good luck Mitch. I hope you land somewhere and continue your career. I’m surprised how many other Royals are able to find a place in the league.

But this move can only be seen as a sign of progress, and it was high time for you to go.

For many Cardinals fans, the thought of Albert Pujols wearing a Cub uniform is only okay as part of a bad Halloween gag. Could this nightmare actually come to pass?

Friday 18 Feb 2011 looms not as a happy day bringing the start of 2011 Spring Training activities, but as Armageddon. It is the deadline proposed by Albert Pujols for his reps and the Cardinal front office to conclude a new contract. If a deal is not done by that date, he has committed to not negotiating again until after the season. Free Agency for this generation’s greatest hitter looms ever larger on the horizon.

Many teams have been thrown about as potential suitors for Pujols should he reach the free agent market. The most prominent examples are the Yankees, Red Sox, and Angels. The Cubs are also mentioned, which beings varying levels of derision and apprehension to the Cardinal faithful.

• Fan 1: “Albert wouldn’t go to the CUBS, would he?”
• Fan 2: “No way he leaves St Louis. That’s just a negotiation tactic. He’s trying to scare the front office.”
• Fan 1: (not convinced) “I guess you’re right.”

Well, how about it – do the Cubs have the cash to make a run at Pujols?

Cot’s Baseball Contracts list the Cubs with a $126 million (M) payroll for 2011, and $65.6M already obligated for 2012. That 2012 money is owed to the following players.

• Alfonso Soriano $19M
• Carlos Zambrano $19M
• Aramis Ramirez $2M (buyout; if he comes back, it’s $16M)
• Ryan Dempster $14M
• Carlos Silva $2M (buyout; if he comes back, it’s $12M)
• Marlon Byrd $6.5M
• Sean Marshall $3.1M

I would expect the Cubs to buy out Silva; to make a run at Pujols, they’ll probably buy out Ramirez as well. Who would YOU rather pay $14M – 34 year old Ramirez or 32 year old Pujols?

There is still the majority of the roster to fill out. Starlin Castro (SS), Tyler Colvin (CF), Jeff Baker (2B), Blake DeWitt (3B), and either Koyie Hall or Geovany Soto (C) will hold down the rest of the everyday positions (for the sake of this discussion I’ve put DeWitt at third in place of Ramirez), and each of them is either not arbitration eligible (therefore making just above the ML minimum), or still in their arbitration years, so affordable for minimal cost.

Let’s assign some notional 2012 salaries to the arbitration players. Suppose Soto gets a $1M raise (from $3M to $4M), Baker gets a $1M raise (from $1.175 to $2.175), DeWitt gets a $600K bump (to $1.1M), and Hill $250K (from $850K to $1.1M). That takes the roter to $74M. With the modest increase for the non-arbitration eligible players, let’s further suppose the roster sits at $77M.

There will be three arbitration eligible pitchers on the 2011 Cub roster – Matt Garza, Randy Wells, and Carlos Marmol. Based on past performance they would all be due for a hefty raise during next winter’ s negotiations. So, let’s further suppose Garza makes $9M in 2012 (up from $5.9M), Wells $3.1M (up from $427K), and Marmol $7.5M (up from $5.5M in 2011, the high arbitration value submitted). Now the roster sits at $96.6M for 14 players.

Ten years, $300M has been bandied about informally as what Pujols is seeking. Truthfully we have no idea what his contract demands are, as both his negotiating team and the Cardinals agreed to a media blackout about the discussions and have stuck to it. But assuming he is really looking for $30M per, and the Cubs decide to pay him just that, it would push the Cub payroll to $126.6M with 10 more players needed to fill out the team. Note the Cubs spent $144M-plus on the 2010 team. If our final supposition is they will leave the roster at 2010 levels (like the federal government is currently doing with defense spending) at $126.6M they are still $18M short of that. And considering they could sign a couple of modest free-agents to fill out the bench or bullpen, and use their farm system to supply the rest, that’s an easily achievable for Chicago.

Not only have we shown the Cubs could sign Pujols, but do so and save money when compared to their 2010 payroll. Signing Carlos Pena to a one-year deal gave them the roster flexibility to try, and they clearly have the cash.

Could the Cubs make a run at Pujols? You bet they could.