Compare and Contrast

During the Winter Meetings, former Timber Rattler Gil Meche signed with the Kansas City Royals as a free agent.

Meche was 0-2 with a 3.00ERA in two starts with the Rattlers in 1997. He returned to the Rattlers in 1998 and went 8-7 with a 3.44 ERA in 26 starts. Meche also struck out 168 batters in 149 innings that season.

Just wanted to share thoughts from a pair of the blogs that follow each team. First the folks at Royal Review react to their new starting pitcher:

The claim is that a) the Royals had to do something ricky/bold/manly and that actually b) Gil Meche was their man all along and that he may be the next Chris Carpenter or Jason Schmidt.

Lets hope so, because the Royals are basically paying that rate already for Meche. Yesterday an unnamed BP'er claimed, "This is like a family on welfare buying a plasma TV that doesn’t work". The simile I prefer is, the Meche signing is like paying double for a beachhouse in an area no one has discovered yet, because they're still waiting for the local taffy factory to be torn down. Once that taffy factory is gone, the area will really improve, and pretty sure, values in the neighborhood will, umm, double.

Make no mistake, there is no bargain here. The Royals are paying Meche Carpenter-money now, before he's actually made the leap to that level. This is unlike, you know, the original model.

Well, we've got five years to further discuss this.

Additional thoughts at this post. Just scroll down to the words Meche-a-palooza.

Now for a counter-point, Lookout Landing:

Some career move. It's hard to blame Gil for chasing every last penny he could get - it's not like bank robbers ever demonstrate a sense of moderation - but at least the Cubs and Blue Jays have an outside shot of winning something in the next few years. Given their awesome division, the Royals, in the slightly modified words of my favorite hockey blogger, are "the fat friend that rolls with the four 10s Saturday night at the bar." If Seattle's window of opportunity is slim, Kansas City's doesn't exist, which makes me think Gil is taking this contract for entirely selfish reasons. Where else could he masquerade as a staff ace? It worked for Mark Redman.

I thought Dayton Moore was supposed to be smart.

Update: holy crap, FIVE years? Gil's agent is about to get a ton of new client applications.

They make you laugh; they make you cry; they are Lookout Landing.