2011 Arbitration Numbers Finalized!
With the Royals once again taking advantage of their youth movement, they had eleven players this year head to arbitration.
Heading the class to arbitration is CF Santiago Rao and SS Rudolph Shaeffer. A few attempts were made to sign these players to long term deals but nothing materialized from seasons end till today.
"I have no hard feelings about heading to arbitration," said Rao this morning, "I just want to play ball in Kansas City and win. I will let my agent take care of the rest."
And without further ado, here are the finalized arbitration numbers for next season.
CF Santiago Rao -
$6,345,000
SS Rudolph Shaeffer -
$6,072,400
LF Robert McElroy -
$5,184,000
SP Bobby Brownlie -
$3,724,000
2B Robinson Cano -
$1,950,000
MR Chris Hernandez -
$1,385,520
SP Vince Perkins -
$1,028,571
SP Ian Oquendo -
$876,300
MR Jorge De La Rosa -
$833,520
3B Edwin Encarnacion -
$310,500
MR Brian Bannister -
$300,000
So that currently puts the Royals just under $40 million dollars heading into the 2011 season. The budget set by the ownership group is right around $64 million dollars.
GM Christopher Torres had vowed this year to spend every last penny of that money. In the past he has stayed pat and left some room but it painfully obvious the last two seasons he needs to bring some prized talent into KC to compliment the young studs already here.
"We foremost will be looking for a front line starter this off season and some middle relief help. Our starting pitching was ok this past year but our pen was down right awful and it has to change now. Its sad to see us once again have one of the top offenses in the league and to have it be undone by our pen." stated the general manager.
Rumors are already flying around Kansas City that the target this off season will be Joe Blanton. An inside source has already verified he has flown into Kansas City to meet with team officials about possibly playing here.
Blanton won't be cheap and will be commanding anywhere from $14-16 million a season but that's well within the Kansas City budget. Only time will tell but lets see what happens. Lets go Royals!