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Looking to resuscitate his career after a disastrous 2015 season, right-handed pitcher Mat Latos signed a one-year, $3 million contract with the Chicago White Sox, the team announced.

Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com first reported the agreement.

Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times provided a statement from GM Rick Hahn:

After waiting for the top-tier free agents to sign this winter, Latos’ market slowly picked up steam. Crasnick reported Dec. 22 that five teams had checked in on the veteran pitcher, who was “probably” seeking a short deal to rebuild his value.

It’s certainly not a bad plan for Latos, who had the worst season of his seven-year MLB career in 2015. He posted a 4.95 ERA with 120 hits and 13 home runs allowed in 116.1 innings with the Miami Marlins, Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Angels, though there are some reasons for optimism.

For instance, Latos did strike out 100 with a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 3.13. His ability to stay healthy is one of the big question marks, as he’s only tallied 218.2 innings the past two years after throwing at least 184.2 innings each season from 2010-13.

Health might also help Latos rediscover some of the velocity he has lost, with FanGraphs showing his fastball has dipped from an average of 92.6 mph in 2013 to 90.7 mph and 91.5 mph the past two years.

ESPN.com’s Keith Law did give Latos a moderately optimistic outlook when ranking the 28-year-old No. 25 on his list of top 50 free agents:

Latos pitches like a No. 2 starter when healthy, with four straight years of that kind of performance until injuries to his knee and throwing elbow cut both his 2014 and 2015 seasons in half. He was still effective when on the mound, at least until the Dodgers acquired him in July, working with a mostly-average fastball that would touch 95 mph, a plus splitter and an above-average or better slider.

Law did note that Latos has a tendency to burn bridges when he leaves a team. He memorably called out some of the younger players during his time with the Cincinnati Reds in an interview with Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports last February, saying the “dugout looked like a ghost town.”

If Latos brings his best attitude and remains healthy this season for the White Sox, he will be one of the biggest offseason bargains. He hit free agency very young, and there are enough reasons to be optimistic about what will happen in 2016.

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The Detroit Tigers agreed to terms on a new two-year, $18.5 million deal with All-Star outfielder J.D. Martinez on Monday to avoid arbitration, according to Chris McCosky of the Detroit News.

Martinez was an All-Star for the first time in 2015, his second year with the Tigers after spending the first three seasons of his big league career with the Houston Astros. He played in a career-high 158 games and hit a career-high 38 home runs while batting .282.

After hitting 24 homers combined in three seasons with the Astros, Martinez has developed into one of the game’s best hitters with the Tigers, hitting 61 home runs and driving in 178 runs.

Jennifer Hammond of Fox 2 noted that Martinez was seeking a deal in the ballpark of $8 million per year last month, but he will be getting $9.25 million per season instead.

Detroit needed every bit of Martinez’s production at the plate in a lackluster year for the team. One year after finishing second in the league in runs scored, Detroit finished 15th while falling to last place in the American League Central.

Two-time MVP Miguel Cabrera hit only 18 home runs last year, his lowest output since his rookie year. Yoenis Cespedes also hit 18 home runs for Detroit before the team traded him to the New York Mets at the trade deadline.

“I want to be a Tiger for life,” Martinez said Jan. 31, per McCosky. “This team gave me my opportunity, so I would love to stay here as long as I can and finish my career next to Miggy (Cabrera) and Victor (Martinez). That would be awesome.”

Martinez’s deal means the Tigers have their outfield set for 2016. Detroit signed Justin Upton to a six-year, $132.5 million contract in January and also acquired Cameron Maybin in a trade with the Atlanta Braves on Nov. 20.

The Tigers will be looking for redemption in 2016, and locking up their best offensive player for the next two years is a step in the right direction.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and ESPN.com.

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With arbitration looming, Kansas City Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas still does not have a new contract. 

Continue for updates.

Moustakas and Royals Have Had Dialogue 

Friday, Jan. 29

Moustakas told MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan that he and the Royals have discussed a two-year contract.

This is nothing new for Moustakas and the Royals. Both parties avoided arbitration last season when he signed a one-year, $2.6 million deal per Spotrac.com.

It was quite a last season for him, too. Moustakas was selected to his first All-Star game in his five-year career after achieving career highs with a .282 batting average, 22 home runs and 82 RBI.

In seasons in which he played over 100 games, the 27-year-old had never batted over .242 until 2015.

He was one of the centerpieces of a Royals team that won its first World Series in 29 years, beating the New York Mets in five games.  

While he and the Royals are flying high this offseason, they have had a lot of work to do in order to find him a new deal, per Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Passan on Jan. 15:

Moustakas is just one of the pieces that embodies what the Royals are all about. He possesses a blue collar mentality and doesn’t bring anything flashy to his play at the hot corner. 

The Royals are not a team of superstars. They’re just a unit of solid players who know how to give their all for one another and find ways to win games.

So far, the Royals have done well this offseason to hold onto their core after their championship. While they lost Ben Zobrist to the Cubs, they managed to retain long-time Royal Alex Gordon with a four-year, $72 million deal. 

They also avoided arbitration with outfielder Lorenzo Cain with a two-year, $17.5 million contract earlier in January. 

After the year the Royals had and what Moustakas brings to the chemistry of this team, Kansas City should make it a priority to get on the same page with their third baseman. He is right in the prime of his career and looks like he is only getting better so they should lock him up for the foreseeable future. 

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com

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All-Star catcher Salvador Perez is signed through the 2019 season, but the Kansas City Royals may be looking to hammer out the details on a new contract this offseason. MLB Network’s Jon Heyman reported Monday the Royals are in discussions with Perez on a long-term extension.

Continue for updates.

Perez May No Longer Be 1 of MLB’s Biggest Bargains

Monday, Jan. 25

In 2012, the Royals signed Perez to what became one of the most team-friendly contracts in baseball. He’ll earn $7 million through the first five years, and after that, he has three club-option years worth a combined $14.75 million, per Baseball-Reference.com.

According to Spotrac, Buster Posey earns the highest annual base salary for a catcher at $20 million, just to put into perspective how great a deal the Royals are getting for a three-time All-Star and World Series MVP.

The Royals were still basking in their World Series glory when general manager Dayton Moore was asked about Perez’s future with the team and whether the team would reward him for his work on the field.

“That’s a decision we’d have to discuss as an organization,” said Moore last November, per MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan. “I don’t know when the right time is to do that. I don’t know if there have been examples of [restructuring long-term deals]. But if a player doesn’t perform, the club is usually often wishing it didn’t [do a long-term deal]. But you know, we love Salvy. He’s family. We’ll see.”

Few players have been more integral to Kansas City’s success than Perez. Over the last three years, he batted .270 with 51 home runs and 219 runs batted in. According to FanGraphs, he was also the second-best defensive catcher in the league during that stretch.

Since he’s still under contract for the next few years, the Royals don’t necessarily need to give Perez a new deal, but doing so would be a gesture of good faith, and nobody will argue he hasn’t done enough to warrant a pay raise.

Kansas City was regarded as one of the more frugal franchises in baseball for years, but as the team has become more successful, ownership has shown a strong commitment to providing the necessary finances to keep the team competitive.

The Royals just handed outfielder Alex Gordon $68 million over four years earlier this offseason, and a new deal for Perez may happen sooner rather than later.

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Like a college student who crams for a test he knows he will fail, the Chicago White Sox have created some artificial hope this offseason with a few creative moves.

The team was almost obligated to double down on a disappointing 2015 season in which the organization thought itself equipped to make a World Series run. It finished the 2015 campaign with a paltry 76-86 record.

This season?

Well, that’s likely to look much the same. Only this time, the White Sox—who elected to push for the playoffs past the 2015 trade deadline—will act in an entirely different manner. Expect them to dump inventory like a department store gone out of business come this July.

Use any term you want. Fire sale. Rebuild. Tweak. Makeover.

That’s all semantics. But this team, as currently constituted, isn’t a playoff team. The White Sox are stuck in baseball purgatory—better than those rebuilding yet a distance behind those contending.

To understand why, we must first go back in time. Not too far. But just to the 2015 offseason, when the White Sox became paper champions with a slew of moves that made the team a sexy pick to win the American League Central.

Prior to the 2015 campaign, the White Sox addressed a big need on the left side of the plate by signing switch-hitter Melky Cabrera and the left-handed bat of Adam LaRoche, who had hit at least 20 home runs in each of the three previous seasons.

They also signed reliever Zach Duke and traded for Jeff Samardzija—an acquisition that, along with incumbent ace Chris Sale, appeared to give the team one of the best one-two pitching duos in baseball.

Then the team unexpectedly flatlined in 2015.

So it’s understandable that it would want to approach the 2016 season with similar hope. The White Sox added All-Star third baseman Todd Frazier and infielder Brett Lawrie this offseason, trying to put a Band-Aid on what ailed them in 2015.

There’s also the “Chris Sale effect” too, which is to say that having one of the best left-handed power arms in baseball has motivated the team to try to compete this season.

The White Sox’s front office has been in angst while the team wastes Sale’s prime years as it continually misses the playoffs. The thought is that if the team were to make the playoffs, Sale, 26, is so dominant that it could ride him to another World Series.

That’s true. But it has to get there first. In another division, that might be likely. But in the American League Central in 2016, it seems unfathomable.

The reigning World Series champion Kansas City Royals were able to keep their core intact by re-signing outfielder Alex Gordon. The Twins nearly made the playoffs last season with a young, less experienced group of players that will only get better.

Both are better candidates to win the division.

With the Red Sox much improved this offseason, the Astros returning a young playoff roster from 2015 and the Yankees prime to compete, the wild-card race will also be too competitive.

And when the White Sox finally realize that the team can’t ride this collection of players to October, it will surely reboot and attempt to reinvigorate its minor league system.

Consider some of the team’s assets to potentially trade this July (for White Sox contract figures, click here):

• Jose Quintana, SP—At only 26 years old, the lefty has seen his innings load increase in each of his four major league seasons. His strikeout-to-walk ratio continually gets better—it was 4.02 in 2015—and every contending team can always use left-handed pitching. He is signed through 2019 and will make an affordable $5.4 million in 2016, making him appealing to small-market teams that may compete this season.
• Avisail Garcia, OF—Shockingly, Garcia seems to have fallen out of favor in Chicago. When he came to Chicago in a three-team trade in 2013, Garcia was thought to be a building block for the future. He suffered a season-ending injury in 2014 and hit only .257 in 2015. Could the 24-year-old still be in the White Sox’s future plans? Sure, but another subpar season could cause the team to shop him to a team that still values his vast potential.
• Todd Frazier, 3B—If the White Sox do find themselves out of contention by July, there’ll be no need for the proven Frazier. Any contending team could use Frazier, who has been an All-Star in the past two seasons and has two years of team control left on his deal.

By trading any or all of the aforementioned, the White Sox would still retain Sale (signed through 2019), first baseman Jose Abreu (signed through 2019) and center fielder Adam Eaton (signed through 2020)—all young players who would still be around even if the organization took a couple of seasons to restructure.

However, it should be noted that any player—even Sale—could be thrust into trade talks depending on how drastic a restructure the organization wants to undergo.

Would it be parting with young players? Certainly. But the value of players like Quintana and Garcia could net the White Sox a haul of prospects that would outweigh trying to compete for yet another season with this group.

The team’s issues are too great for a quick fix. We saw it in 2015. It’s difficult to believe 2016 will be any different.

And for a team in a hurry to compete, a fire sale might be the fastest way to get there.

Statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs. All contract figures courtesy of Baseball Prospectus.

Seth Gruen covers baseball for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @SethGruen.

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The Detroit Tigers and Justin Upton made their partnership official on Wednesday, as the 28-year-old outfielder officially signed his six-year contract and met with the media for his introductory press conference. 

First things first, per MLB GIFs, Upton had to show off what he looked like in his new Tigers threads:

One topic addressed by Upton’s agent, Larry Reynolds, was the opt-out clause after 2017, per Matthew B. Mowery of the Oakland Press:   

Before Upton had an opportunity to discuss his new home, Tigers general manager Al Avila praised team owner Mike Ilitch for pushing the deal, per the Tigers’ official media relations department:

Avila added that the Tigers had Upton very high on their wish list if they opted to make another move this offseason, per Mowery:

Sticking with Ilitch, Upton also gave praise to the Tigers owner for being aggressive, per the Tigers’ official media relations department:

Ilitch, who is 86 years old, has been happy to spend money in hopes of bringing Detroit its first World Series victory since 1984. According to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, the Tigers are spending a franchise-record $184.6 million on talent this season after signing Upton. 

Regarding the fact the Tigers are nearing MLB’s luxury-tax threshold of $189 million, per Mowery, Avila said it’s “a good question for Mr. I(litch). He’s comfortable with it, and that’s what counts.”

Looking at how the money is being spent, Upton made an astute observation about Detroit’s hitters, per MLB on Twitter:

With the addition of Upton, the Tigers are boasting a lineup that features Ian Kinsler, Miguel Cabrera, J.D. Martinez and Victor Martinez. That’s an old core, as J.D. Martinez (age 28) and Upton are the only players under the age of 32, but if they play close to their potential, it will be a scary group. 

Another aspect of Detroit’s lineup that’s drawn some criticism lately is the platoon splits against right-handed hitters, something Upton addressed, per the Tigers’ official media relations department:

Avila also touched on the platoon question around his lineup, making a great point that isn’t mentioned much, per Mowery:

According to FanGraphs‘ ZiPS projections by Carson Cistulli, the Tigers project to have nine players hit at least 15 home runs and have six hitters with an above-average (100) OPS+. 

Upton is at an age where his skills can reasonably be expected to get better. At least, he can be expected to maintain his 25-homer production from the past three seasons and increase his batting average (.251) and on-base percentage (.336) from last year now that he’s out of the vast wasteland of San Diego‘s Petco Park. 

The Tigers have no reason to think that Upton will be anything less than a solid hitter in the middle of their lineup. He’s been a three-time All-Star and a two-time Silver Slugger winner, so this is a great marriage between a player who wants to win and a team built to win now. 

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The Detroit Tigers entered the offseason with a handful of expensive long-term contracts already in hand, and they have since added two more amid a flurry of offseason moves that has overhauled their roster.

As such, it’s a little strange we can only look at them as a team with a fighting chance rather than as, you know, a favorite.

But first, the news! Roughly a month-and-a-half after Detroit added star right-hander Jordan Zimmermann on a $110 million contract, the word Monday night was that the club added star left fielder Justin Upton on a $132.75 million contract. Bob Nightengale of USA Today had the scoop:

With Upton aboard, Detroit’s Opening Day payroll for 2016 figures to be roughly $200 million. In a time like this, one recalls what Tigers owner Mike Ilitch said after he signed Zimmermann, via Drew Sharp of the Detroit Free Press: “It might sound silly, but I don’t care about spending money.”

But as is usually the case these days, there’s a wrinkle in Upton’s deal. According to Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports, the former Arizona Diamondback, Atlanta Brave and San Diego Padre can opt out of his contract after his second year—in 2017.

So, rather than a six-year contract, think of this as a two-year pact with a four-year player option. And that’s just one reason to like the move for the Tigers.

Another is the simple fact that a deal worth a little over $22 million per year isn’t outrageous for a player like Upton. The 28-year-old is more youthful than your typical free agent, and he offers a solid mix of patience, power and speed. 

While we’re noting positives, we can also grant that Upton gives Detroit a lineup that looks pretty sweet on paper.

Upton is joining a Tigers offense that finished just 10th in the American League in runs scored in 2015 but was a much more impressive third in OPS. The only notable absence now is Yoenis Cespedes, who was shipped to the New York Mets at last year’s trade deadline.

As it happens, Upton is a good candidate to replace the .829 OPS and 18 homers Cespedes gave Detroit in his four months with the team. Upton owns a career .825 OPS and has averaged about 25 home runs per season since 2009. 

According to FanGraphs, the Steamer projection system sees much the same in store for Upton in 2016, pegging him for an .811 OPS and 27 home runs. He should also give the Tigers more steals than they got from Cespedes, as he’s pegged for 12 stolen bases after swiping 19 in 2015.

In short, Detroit is adding a good offensive player to its 2016 lineup. Count Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports among those who like how the rest of said lineup looks:

Indeed. Upton does what he does. Miguel Cabrera is still an elite hitter when healthy. Victor Martinez is only a year removed from being arguably the best hitter in baseball. J.D. Martinez built on his 2014 breakout by slugging 38 homers in 2015. Ian Kinsler is one of the league’s better top-of-the-order hitters. Jose Iglesias showed in 2015 that he can be an outstanding bottom-of-the-order hitter.

The rest of Detroit’s roster doesn’t sound too shabby on paper either. The Tigers finally have some bullpen depth after acquiring Francisco Rodriguez, Mark Lowe and Justin Wilson. And with Zimmermann leading Justin Verlander and Anibal Sanchez, Detroit also has a rotation that could be pretty good. If these pieces click alongside the Tigers’ lineup, the AL Central could be theirs once again.

As strong as Detroit’s roster sounds on paper, however, there is the inconvenient reality that the games aren’t played on paper. They’re played in reality, which has been known to be less forgiving.

Let’s remember that this is a team that’s coming off a 74-87 record that put it in last place in its division in 2015. And though Upton is part of a larger trend of upgrades, there are lingering questions that are still, well, lingering.

For one, there’s the question of whether Detroit’s lineup will be done in by its same-sidedness. With the exception of the switch-hitting Victor Martinez, the Tigers’ projected lineup is entirely right-handed. Perhaps that would be a wise move in a division filled with left-handed starters, but the only team in the AL Central that has more than one of those is the Chicago White Sox.

For two, there’s the question of how much some veteran hitters can be counted on. Cabrera and Victor Martinez are coming off a year in which injuries limited them to 119 and 120 games, respectively, and both will be another year into their 30s in 2016. The same goes for Kinsler, who may be due for some regression after his 2015 season outpaced his recent track record.

For three, there’s also some uncertainty in the Tigers’ starting rotation. Zimmermann should be his usual reliable self at the top, but health and effectiveness have eluded Verlander and Sanchez the last two years. After them, Daniel Norris is an unproven youngster, and Mike Pelfrey is a merchant of “meh.”

Where did the Tigers fit in the AL Central before they signed Upton? Had you asked Richard Justice of MLB.com, he would have told you fourth behind the Cleveland Indians, the White Sox and the reigning World Series champion Kansas City Royals. This happens to be the same opinion of FanGraphs’ WAR projections for the 2016 season.

Neither Justice’s appraisal nor FanGraphs’ math sound out of whack. Detroit is better with Upton, but not to an extent that it’s now clearly the AL Central’s top dog. It’s a crowded division, and the only way the Tigers will end up on top of it in 2016 is if they get Lady Luck and Father Time to cooperate with the expensive, high-risk, high-reward roster they’ve constructed.

This is not, however, to say Detroit is wasting its time. It went into this offseason with the choice to either let an aging roster decay into nothing or to prop it up as best it could. Door No. 2 was the easy call, and it’s hard to say the Tigers could have done any better than they have. They’ve taken a roster that was pretty bad and made it respectable.

Given that, arranging for a fighting chance is a turn for the better.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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Ian Kennedy may not be the ace he once projected to become, but the Kansas City Royals felt he’s good enough to upgrade their rotation, signing him to a five-year, $70 million deal Saturday.

Jon Heyman of MLB Network passed along word the sides had reached an agreement, and Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal confirmed the report.

Kennedy had been solid if unspectacular for the Padres, finishing the 2014 season 13-13 with a 3.63 ERA, 1.29 WHIP and 207 strikeouts in 201 innings pitched. Last year, he regressed, going 9-15 with a 4.28 ERA, 1.30 WHIP and 174 strikeouts in 168.1 innings.

Though he didn’t pitch much in his first three seasons with the Yankees, he’s been a steady performer over the past six years, finishing every season with at least 165 innings pitched and 160 strikeouts.

In 2011, he was one of the finest pitchers in baseball for the Arizona Diamondbacks, going 21-4 with a 2.88 ERA, 1.09 WHIP and 198 strikeouts in 222 innings pitched while finishing fourth in the NL Cy Young Award voting.

While that season proved to be an outlier, at the age of 31, he is still capable of being a solid third or fourth option.

Kennedy should slot into the rotation behind Yordano Ventura and Edinson Volquez, at least at the outset. It gives the staff more depth as Kansas City turns its attention toward a repeat World Series bid.

The Royals will need Kennedy more than ever after losing Johnny Cueto in free agency.

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Following his most successful season in the big leagues and a World Series title, the Kansas City Royals have rewarded outfielder Lorenzo Cain with a two-year contract extension to avoid arbitration. 

Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports first reported Cain and the Royals were nearing an agreement on a deal that will pay the All-Star $17.5 million through 2017. ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick confirmed the agreement. 

Cain’s deal covers his final two years of arbitration, so the center fielder is still on track to become a free agent when he is 31 years old.

Passan added that Cain had been seeking a six-year deal, but Kansas City officials “balked” at the proposal, noting the Royals likely couldn’t have sustained their success with two outfielders signed into their late 30s—Alex Gordon will play the final year of his new four-year deal at 36 years old.

While Cain’s long-term future is unclear, the Royals should be thrilled to get one of the American League‘s best players under contract without having to worry about arbitration. He had a breakout season in 2014 and followed it up by finishing third in AL MVP voting last year.

Defense has always been Cain’s calling card, but his offensive surge last season, with a career-high 16 home runs, helped bolster a lineup that finished seventh in Major League Baseball in runs scored. He’s still in his prime years, so his rising performance should continue over the next two years. 

Despite their World Series victory in October, the Royals still have to be smart about spending money. They are a small-market franchise that doesn’t have the luxury of an open pocketbook, and Cain’s extension is a reflection of how they are still operating.

Cain may have wanted a deal with more long-term security, but given how his career has gone to this point, he’s still going to be in line for a payday in two years. The Royals will happily accept that trade-off if he helps them continue to make deep runs in October, as he has over the past two seasons.

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Free agency is great when it works, and it doesn’t only work when a player signs a record contract or when your favorite team grabs the biggest star in the game.

Free agency works when a player gets to play where he wants the most and the team gets to keep the player it wants the most. It works when a small-market club can energize a region, win a World Series and still have a chance to go after another one.

The Kansas City Royals were never going to be able to keep every player who took them to the top, but they’ve kept the one they really wanted this winter. And by signing left fielder Alex Gordon to a four-year, $72 million deal, which Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com first reported, the Royals proved free agency can work for everyone.

OK, so maybe the process is not working all that well right now for the St. Louis Cardinals, but no Royals fan is going to feel sorry for the Missouri team that so often gets what it wants.

The Royals were an ugly mess for so many years, but they got to the top by doing almost everything right. They got the right management team and the right players, and they put together an organization that no one wants to leave.

They targeted this window to win, knowing some things had fallen into place and that they couldn’t keep this group together forever. Soon enough, the bill would come due, with Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain and Wade Davis all eligible for free agency after the 2017 season.

So the Royals threw everything they had at winning now. They went all out after Johnny Cueto and Ben Zobrist at the July 31 non-waiver trading deadline, giving up prospects even though they knew both players would almost certainly be half-season rentals.

The Royals weren’t going to keep Cueto or Zobrist, and there was plenty of doubt whether they could keep Gordon. Just a few days ago, one club official expressed hope but also caution, saying the Royals would have a good chance unless the bidding got to $100 million.

Apparently, it didn’t get there—perhaps because of the number of outfielders on the market (Yoenis Cespedes and Justin Upton remain unsigned) or because Gordon will turn 32 in February.

He still gets a contract that easily breaks the club record (Mike Sweeney and Gil Meche held the old record at $55 million). He gets $18 million per year (only 10 outfielders in the game make more, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts).

And he gets to live where he wants and play where he wants. Gordon grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, and has homes both there and in Kansas City. He went to school in Lincoln at the University of Nebraska, signed with the Royals as the second overall pick in the 2005 draft and has never gone anywhere else.

He first showed up as the third baseman who was going to be the next George Brett, and then he became an outfielder who was loved by scouts and analytics folks alike. He’s superb defensively, and offensively he fits perfectly in the Royals lineup.

When he suffered a serious groin strain early last July, some worried the loss might ruin the already promising Royals season. I wrote the next day they were strong enough to get by without him, and sure enough they went 31-18 in the 49 games he missed.

Losing him now would have been much more costly.

The Royals have more young talent on the way, but they have no one like Gordon to step in after a winter where they will likely let their other starting corner outfielder, Alex Rios, leave via free agency. In an American League Central that is looking increasingly competitive after winter moves by the Chicago White Sox and Detroit Tigers, the Royals will be challenged to stay on top.

Retaining Gordon reinforces the idea they’re willing to try. By keeping the contract reasonable and short enough, they may even have a better chance of retaining some of those post-2017 free agents, too.

There’s no guarantee any of them will want to stay as much as Gordon did or that free agency will work out as well for the Royals then as it has now.

But that’s two years down the line. First, the Royals get more chances to win with this group—chances to extend a window that easily could have closed soon after those hundreds of thousands of fans showed up for the World Series parade.

That day, not knowing whether he was saying goodbye, Gordon picked up the microphone and thanked “the best fans in the world.”

Two months later, there’s no need for goodbyes.

This time, free agency worked.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

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