[duncan_idaho]

I’m still not nuts about this deal. Thoughts after gleaning some more and checking with a few guys:

I think the Royals are higher on both Gutierrez and Perkins than the current consensus on those players.

I get why they love Perkins. He’s very fast and an excellent defender. The bat will determine if he’s a 4th OF type or a legit starter. He does have a nice walk rate... so if he can continue to develop he hit tool, there’s a high ceiling there.

Best case for Perkins would be something like Dyson ... except without the platoon split. If he could provide that defense and 90 percent of the baserunning with the offensive profile Dyson has against RHP, that’s a star, and I think that’s what they’re banking on.

Gutierrez is also a Royals player. He’s a plus defender at 3B (and I have to wonder how he’d hold up at 2B, where his offensive profile would play up quite a bit). He can run. Good contact profile. Lots of tools.

Ultimately, the Royals kind of returned to their tools-driven focus. We’ll see if it works.

The lotto ticket pitcher is, like Elvis Luciano, pretty interesting. 17 and bumping up to 95, with room for more? Interesting.

I’d still rather have Kieboom or Antunes and think they might have been able to make that work straight up, but that’s me.