A thought provoking article from THT for anyone interested in the total value of players and the relative value of offense and defense.

MLBTR citing Crasnick and Knobler

He thinks that Moore and Grudz have a gentleman's agreement that Grudz won't accept arbitration, so he can look for work elsewhere. But Rany thinks this is a good mini-gamble, regardless for some pretty compelling financial reasons involving the value of a supplementary round draft pick and the value of an old second baseman.

Given all that we know about the numbers and what Grudz has said about his likelihood of accepting arbitration, Rany concludes that, "This is a low-risk, high-reward move."

(The above link is for baseballanalyst.com. Currently their top article is a good review of the position players available in the Rule 5 Draft. If you scroll down a couple articles, you'll find their piece on the available pitchers.

The Rule 5 Draft will be held at the end of the winter meetings on Dec. 11.

My personal draft board for the Royals would be:

1. Eduardo Morlan, RHP, Tampa Bay
2. Donald Veal, LHP, Chicago Cubs
3. James Skelton, C, Detroit

Morlan has good stuff, and good results. He's young and looks like he could be a pretty good reliever. And the Royals could handle carrying a young guy with upside in their 7th bullpen spot, even if he isn't quite ready to contribute yet.

Veal is talented and fairly young. He's been overexposed as a starter, but looks like he would make a good LOOGY.

Skelton is a good, young catcher who knows how to get on base. His defense is suspect and he really isn't quite major league ready yet, but who cares? He could be a good, cheap catcher for years to come, and the Royals could afford to deal with his growing pains for one season. Yes, the Royals have something of a logjam at catcher, but it is a logjam of mediocrity. Pick up Skelton and trade Buck or Olivo. If they lose Pena to waivers, so be it. Skelton will be better.

The reviews are largely positive. But clearly no blockbuster trades here.

He said some of these things on 810 yesterday. He says more on his blog. Some highlights:

In some ways, trading Ramon Ramirez for Coco Crisp is similar to trading Leo Nunez for Mike Jacobs...The difference is that Nunez for Jacobs didn’t help the Royals all that much, relative to a stand-pat move. Trading Ramirez for Crisp does.

Make no mistake: the defensive upgrade is the only reason to think this trade makes the Royals better, and it is reason enough to make the trade.

My sometimes colleague at BP, Dayn Perry, wrote a book a while back ("Winners") in which he broke down many of the championship teams of the last generation to see what they had in common. I think his most interesting point was that he found a preponderance of teams that went to the playoffs had essentially two centerfielders: one of their corner outfielders (generally the leftfielder) was a former centerfielder who still had good range at the position.

I think there’s a potential synergy in play here, between a DeJesus-Crisp outfield and a rotation that has four fly-ball pitchers in Greinke, Bannister, Meche, and Davies. Even Soria has a low G/F ratio

I think that the sum of Crisp’s offensive contributions will approximate those of the man he is replacing, likely Mark Teahen. So it’s a wash on offense, and a pickup of maybe 20 runs on defense.

So I don’t know about you, but if Moore wants to trade another reliever – a reliever he had just acquired for a failed starter eight months ago – for an everyday centerfielder, I have faith he’s going to be able to replenish the well.

The addition of Jacobs and Crisp is worth on the order of 5 wins over the course of a year, more if the Royals can turn Teahen into something with present value. Is that enough to make the Royals a contender? No. Even if Gordon or Butler has a breakout season, probably not. If they both have breakout seasons, it’s still a maybe. But if the Royals add one more bat to the lineup, the calculus changes.

This is not a risk-free trade, but for the Royals, the upside trumps the downside. I think that the Red Sox are more likely to win this trade by a little. But I think that the Royals are more likely to win this trade by a lot.

d_f, I asked a Mark Ellis question to Christina Kahrl at BP for you. Basically, she was underwhelmed by the signing. Here's the Q&A in case you missed it:

Scott the Stathead (NY, NY): I've been dying to read what you have to say about the Mark Ellis signing. Good deal for the A's? Is he worth the risk? What is his value given his hitting, defense, age and injury history?

Christina Kahrl: Lamentably, the A's were one of two teams I didn't get to in the article that's about to be published, but I expect to comment on their moves (Joe Dillon is free!) and the Blue Jays' after we wrap up here. But to be terse (by my standards), the word that sums up my feelings on keeping Ellis is 'resigned' (as opposed to 're-signed'). OK, we kept him, and in the long and unhappy history of second base in A's history, Ellis is sort of our generation's Dick Green, a nifty player, but not a great one. For that money, it's not a great deal, and given that it's spread out evenly, this isn't even a situation like Terrence Long's contract, where we can always hope Billy gets somebody else to pick up the heavy back end of the tab.

She wrote a longer piece about the Ellis signing shortly thereafter which expanded on this, but the bottom line was essentially the same. Not a bad deal, but not a particularly good deal either.