Late Innings

Per mlb.com:

The Royals made their fair share of additions this offseason, but arguably their biggest priority remained: Make sure Zack Greinke stays in Kansas City for the long-term. On Monday, they got their guy.

By signing Greinke to a four-year contract, Kansas City has a critical member of its young core in Royal blue through 2012. And Greinke’s emergence as one of baseball’s solid young pitchers is complete after trying times just a couple years ago.

Dayton Moore did something very good today, and this should make peace with his fans after he foolishly gave a two year, 9.25MM deal to reliever Kyle Farnsworth earlier this offseason.

Greinke is the team’s ace, racks up strike outs, and does something that very few Royals’ pitchers have done recently: won games. He’ll get 38MM over the four years (the last two being free agency years.) It’s clear that Cole Hamels‘ contract was used as a basis for the negotiations. In either case, to echo similar sentiment, Royals fans should be happy that Moore didn’t package their ace to Atlanta for Jeff Francoeur.