The Kansas City Braves

I've been made aware that there has been "Bigger News" out of Kansas City recently than the signings of Melky Cabrera and Jeff Francouer, and I will certainly expound on that subject soon. But with Alex Gordon likely to spend his first full season in the outfield in 2010, and long-time outfield David DeJesus having been traded away, the Royals were in need of some help in the outfield.

They could've done better. Or maybe I should say, they couldn't have done much worse. It's moves like these by General Manager Dayton Moore that I just don't get.

It's not that the price tags of either Francouer (2.5m) or Cabrera (1.25m with another 250k in incentives) are exorbitant - it's that the signings are essentially pointless. Neither Cabrera, who was worth a stunningly bad -1.2 WAR (which is astonishingly hard to pull off) nor Francouer, who was worth 0.7 WAR are going to add anything of value to the Royals. Francouer hasn't posted an OPS over .740 since 2007, and Cabrera has a career OPS of just .707 and was in the .670 range last year.

Why, pray tell, would a team that will be entering it's 20th or so straight rebuilding year waste two roster spots on that pair? Is there something that Cabrera is going to give you in center that Mitch Maier or Jarrod Dyson wont?

Is there something that Jeff Francouer is going to do for a franchise that Andrew Jones couldn't do? Word is he wants a full-time job, and heavens knows he isn't going to get one with a playoff caliber squad. He still looks like he has at least a little something to give.

I understand that the outfield situation for the Royals was a bit more unsettled prior to the "Bigger News" of this week, but still, these signings made little sense. It just seems such a needless waste of 3.75m perfectly good dollars.

That might not seem like much to most, but properly invested, that money could've been used to bring in a player who at least had a chance, with a good year, of qualifying as a Type-B free agent and potentially helping the Royals in 2011, and more importantly, providing the franchise with another valuable draft pick.

Given a chance to do something useful, it's disappointing to see Moore make moves with essentially zero chance of helping the Royals either now or in the future.