GORDON STAYS IN KANSAS CITY

Alex Gordon signed a 4-year, $72 million deal to stay with the only team he’s ever been on, the Royals. "My desire was probably a 10 to come back here. Coming back here and being in the locker room put a smile on my face because I didn't know if that was going to happen." It happened.

The 31 year old outfielder, who will be 32 in a month, missed a couple months last year with a groin injury, the first time in five years he failed to appear in 151 games. A solid all-around performer, the only part of his game that dipped significantly last season was his ability to steal bases (after 4-straight years of at least 10 thefts he fell to two last season). Pretty hard to steal bases when your groin is hurt though, right (spoken by someone who had a dog bash his nards over the weekend… it’s hard to do anything when your struggling in the man parts area)? He hasn’t hit .275 in three years, but he did post a .377 OBP last season, a career best, and his .432 SLG was only three points off his career mark. He won’t display growth in 2016, but a run to his 2014 numbers is totally doable (.266-19-74-87-12). That’s a solid performer, even if it doesn’t stand out in any way.

Let me ask you this… why did he get half the month of Jason Heyward? Let’s compare the two players.

Alex Gordon: 4-years, $72 million
Jason Heyward: 8-years, $184 million

Ummm…

Alex Gordon: 32 in February
Jason Heyward: 27 in August

Yeah, that’s a five year difference, but is that worth more than twice as much money? Let’s look at the performance data. Let’s look at the average for each guy the past four seasons (2012-15).

Alex Gordon:.276/.354/.436 in 577 games
Jason Heyward: .273/.348/.433 in 565 games

Well, they are exactly the same player in these three measure. Remarkable really how close they were.

Alex Gordon: 17 homers, 69 RBIs, 78 runs, 9 steals
Jason Heyward: 16 homers, 60 RBIs, 78 runs, 17 steals

Ok, Heyward runs more. Other than that… exactly the same yet again.

So the Cubs paid twice as much for the same player. I assume they think the soon to be 27 year old Heyward has growth potential whereas the soon to be 32 year old is on the downside of his career. In terms of fantasy outlook Heyward is a better target for the speed element, but Gordon isn’t exactly a bad fall back option.

CARTER SIGNS WITH BREWERS

Chris Carter signed a 1-year deal with the Brewers for $2.5 million to play first base for the team who dealt away Adam Lind to the Mariners in December.

Carter can blast. He’s hit 90 homers the last three seasons. That’s the 8th most in baseball. Love that. He’s also averaged 78 runs batted in the past three seasons. Solid. The rest of the game… not so good.

The last three years he’s averaged 61 runs scored.

He’s averaged three steals a season.

He’s hit, brace yourselves, .218 the past three seasons (his career mark is .217). That’s a high price to pay for the power, so be very careful if you roster the slugger who is going to murder you in the average category.

 

HOF VOTE

I wrote about it yesterday, so in case you missed it, and how dare you if you did, here is a link to 2016 HOF: Griffey & Piazza.  

Oh, and Griffey can rap. Sort of.