Is Eric Hosmer going to end up back with the Royals?

Eric Hosmer

The hot stove has been cold this winter, with not much happening over the first two months of the offseason.

But we are starting to hear more rumors about a potential landing spot for free agent first baseman Eric Hosmer, and he may be back with the Kansas City Royals.

According to a USA Today report, the Royals have offered Hosmer a seven-year, $147 million contract to stay in Kansas City, where he won a World Series (2015) and has been the face of the franchise for most of this decade.

Early speculation this offseason linked Hosmer to the Boston Red Sox, but those rumors died down after the Red Sox gave Mitch Moreland a two-year deal. The only other team involved with Hosmer, strangely, seems to be the San Diego Padres.

The same USA Today report says that San Diego has offered Hosmer a seven-year deal for $140 million. That would be $1 million less a year than Kansas City's offer.

I've never quite understood why the Padres are looking to open the pocketbook for Hosmer. San Diego's most productive hitter last season was its first baseman, Wil Myers, who totaled 30 home runs, 29 doubles and 74 RBIs.

Myers played outfield earlier in his career, and reports indicate he would be willing to move back to the outfield in order to make room for Hosmer. That's good. That's great. But isn't there a reason Myers was moved to first base in the first place? Yes, there was. He's not a good defensive outfielder, so why put him back at a position where he will hurt his team? Shouldn't San Diego be keeping Myers right where he is?

Don't get me wrong: I'd rather have Hosmer at first base than Myers. Hosmer hit .318 last season, while Myers hit only .243. And I'll take Hosmer's 25 home runs and 90-plus RBIs with good defense at first base over what Myers has to offer.

However, the Padres went 71-91 in 2017, and they have much bigger holes on their roster than first base. Shouldn't they be addressing those? And is San Diego really in a position to win next year even if it adds Hosmer. I say no, and against that backdrop, why would Hosmer want to sign there?

Hosmer reportedly wants an eight- or nine-year deal, but there has to be at least some appeal for him to go back to Kansas City on a seven-year deal and be considered a local hero.

If not the Royals, then who is going to sign Hosmer? He can't possibly pick the Padres over the Royals, can he?

A Jose Abreu trade? Never say never, but it's unlikely

Jose Abreu

White Sox general manager Rick Hahn has been asked about the possibility of making another big-splash trade this offseason, which would involve dealing either Jose Abreu or Avisail Garcia.

Predictably, Hahn didn't rule out anything:

“It has to be in play,” Hahn said to reporters. “Everything is in play. Even a couple of years ago when we come to these meetings, there would be all these Chris Sale rumors. The reason for that was we had to keep our options open. There are simply no untouchables. We have to fully vet and understand our players and make an appropriate decision about what is best for the long-term health of the organization.”

Indeed, the Sox are the organization that traded Chris Sale, and if Sale can be dealt, then anyone can be dealt.

But there a few reasons why I think Abreu is likely to remain with the Sox. First and foremost, if a team needs a first baseman, that's one position where there are some reasonable free agent options: Eric Hosmer, Carlos Santana, Logan Morrison, Yonder Alonso.

Wouldn't a club rather sign one of those guys than deal elite prospects to the Sox in exchange for Abreu? I'm thinking yes.

Also, Abreu will be 31 years old when spring training opens. He hasn't shown signs of slowing down, but the free agent first basemen are either younger than him, or in the same age range. Not sure how many clubs in the current marketplace are going to be willing to give up top-50 prospects for a slugger who plays a corner position.

And from Hahn's perspective, if the market doesn't yield top-50 prospects for Abreu, there isn't any incentive to move.

And then there's this:

“His leadership, his role in the clubhouse, the way he plays the game, the example he sets for everyone is important,” Hahn said of Abreu. “It's something that quite frankly may well tilt it so that we value him more than anyone else in the game because we've had the privilege of having him in our clubhouse and know the value that he adds and others are just speculating on that part. Every team in baseball is able to put a value on him based on what he does between the lines. We increase that value to us based on what he does in the clubhouse.”

Somebody has to be the veteran clubhouse presence during the rebuild. That guy is Abreu. In addition to being a good hitter, Abreu brings intangible value, and he's the sort who just might be more valuable to the Sox on the roster than he would be in a trade.

This year's free agent class is not real strong

Eric Hosmer

The games are over and baseball withdrawal is setting in, so it's time to start talking about free agency.

This year's crop of free agents, honestly, is uninspiring. Most fans are looking ahead to next fall, when big names such as Bryce Harper, Manny Machado and Dallas Keuchel are scheduled to hit the open market. Some teams, in fact, might not be active in free agency this year because they intend to save money to get involved in next offseason's bonanza.

But in the meantime, we have this offseason to talk about, and a good chunk of the key free agents come from the Kansas City Royals. First baseman Eric Hosmer, outfielder Lorenzo Cain, third baseman Mike Moustakas and shortstop Alcides Escobar all are available.

Need pitching? The best starting pitchers available include World Series goat Yu Darvish, Jake Arrieta, Alex Cobb and CC Sabathia. Wade Davis is the top closer on the market. The next-best reliever after that probably is Los Angeles Dodgers setup man Brandon Morrow.

Other hitters on the market include outfielders J.D. Martinez and Jay Bruce and catcher Jonathan Lucroy.

The other intrigue this winter involves Miami Marlins outfielder Giancarlo Stanton. The slugger is owed $275 million over the final 10 years of his contract, and it's unclear at this point whether new ownership in Miami will seek to trade him.

If Stanton is traded, that likely will be a bigger impact move than any free agent signing this offseason.

David Robertson costs Chris Sale another win; White Sox recover to beat Royals

David Robertson

Kauffman Stadium has been a chamber of horrors for the White Sox, who have repeatedly endured unspeakable losses at the hands of the Kansas City Royals over the past four or five years.

With that mind, there's no way we can be dismayed over the outcome of Tuesday night's game.

Todd Frazier hit a three-run homer -- his 31st of the season -- in the 10th inning to snap a 4-4 tie and lift the Sox to a 7-5 victory over their nemesis from Kansas City.

We'll rejoice in the win, but at the same time, we'll point out that the Sox shouldn't have needed extra innings. Closer David Robertson is struggling. Three of his five blown saves this season have come since the All-Star break, and for the second time in about three weeks, he hurt Chris Sale's Cy Young candidacy by costing the Sox ace a win.

Sale labored early in this game, but he settled down to retire 14 of the final 15 hitters he faced. He went seven innings, allowing three runs on seven hits. He struck out seven and walked one.

The Sox were up, 4-3, heading to the bottom of the ninth inning, and Sale was positioned to pick up his 15th victory of the season.

Alas, Robertson couldn't get it done.

He was in position to work around a leadoff single. He had two outs, although the Royals had the tying run at second base (pinch runner Jarrod Dyson). But for some reason, despite playing Kansas City 19 times a year, the Sox still have not figured out that Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar is a first-ball, fastball hitter.

Robertson threw a fastball right down the pipe on the first pitch, and predictably, Escobar lined it into left field for an RBI single that plated Dyson and tied the game.

Baseball stupid. Typical White Sox nonsense. (I should make that a hashtag.)

Robertson (3-2) got out of the inning without losing the game, but that's about the only positive we can take from that. There's no way to sugarcoat it; that was horrible pitch selection with the game on the line from a veteran who should know better.

The silver lining? Frazier and the Sox were able to hang a loss on Kelvin Herrera, a hated and despised Kansas City reliever who has had the Sox's number in the past.

Herrera (1-4) entered Tuesday night's game with a 1.63 ERA. He had allowed only one hit and one walk over five scoreless innings previously against the Sox this season. In fact, he had allowed only three runs total at Kauffman Stadium all year. He allowed three more runs with one swing of Frazier's bat in Tuesday's 10th inning.

That gave the Sox a 7-4 lead. The Royals scored an unearned run off Jacob Turner in the bottom of the 10th, but Dan Jennings struck out Eric Hosmer to end the game and earn his first career save.

Given the Sox's record in Kansas City, it's a wonder they didn't mob each other on the field in celebration after this victory.

Alex Gordon agrees to four-year deal with Kansas City Royals

The defending champion Kansas City Royals moved Wednesday to retain a piece of their title-winning core, signing left fielder Alex Gordon to a four-year deal worth $72 million.

Gordon, 32, has spent his entire career with the Kansas City organization after being drafted No. 2 overall in 2005. Since his breakout campaign in 2011, he's posted a .281/.359/.450 slash line, won four Gold Gloves and been credited with 94 defensive runs saved -- second most among major league outfielders (Jason Heyward) during that time.

The White Sox reportedly were interested in Gordon, but according to a tweet from Ken Rosenthal, the South Siders were not willing to give Gordon a fourth year on a contract.

It's unclear at this point whether Gordon was the Sox's "Plan A" in the outfield, or if he was a "Plan B" option. The team has been linked to free agent outfielder Yoenis Cespedes. It remains to be seen whether the Sox would be willing to give Cespedes, who is two years younger than Gordon, a four- or five-year deal.

As for the Royals, this move solidifies their status as favorites to defend their World Series title in 2016. Kansas City had four key free agents going into this offseason -- Gordon, Johnny Cueto, Ben Zobrist and Ryan Madson. The Royals retained only one of the four, but they kept the most important one in Gordon.

Kansas City has already replaced Madson with the earlier signing of Joakim Soria, and while Cueto and Zobrist are key losses, people have to remember those guys were nothing more than midseason acquisitions in 2015. The Royals were in first place and had the best record in the league long before they traded for Cueto and Zobrist. Those two were never core members of the team. Gordon was and is a key piece to their puzzle.

With Gordon making $18 million a year, it will be harder for the Royals to keep long-term other key players such as Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain and Wade Davis, all four of whom will hit free agency after the 2017 season.

But that's a problem for two years from now. With this move, the Royals are acting to keep their core together for as long as possible, and there is every reason to believe they will continue to be in the championship discussion for the next two years.

That's an issue for the White Sox and the rest of the AL Central.

White Sox finally beat Royals -- twice in a day

It was anything but business as usual Sunday at U.S. Cellular Field. First off, the White Sox beat the Kansas City Royals not once, but twice -- a rare sight indeed. Secondly, relief pitcher David Robertson threw both the first pitch of the afternoon and the last.

The closer became the first White Sox pitcher to earn both a win and a save on the same day since Bob Howry accomplished the feat in a doubleheader on Aug. 21, 1999.

After Saturday's rainout, the two clubs had to complete Friday's suspended contest, which was tied at 2-2 after eight innings when the showers came.

John Danks got his first win of the season Sunday.

The game resumed in the top of the ninth inning Sunday, and that put Robertson in the unusual position of "starting" the game on the mound. He worked a scoreless inning, pitching over an error by first baseman Jose Abreu, and earned a 3-2 win when the Sox scored a run in the bottom of the inning on a single by Avisail Garcia.

The Sox took the regularly scheduled game, 5-3, as John Danks (1-2) improved his career record against Kansas City to 8-1. Danks walked off the mound in the sixth inning trailing 3-0, but his teammates rallied for five runs in the bottom of the sixth to give him the lead.

The combination of relievers Jake Petricka, Zach Duke and Robertson made it stand up, as the trio combined for three scoreless innings. Melky Cabrera made one of the best catches of the season in the eighth inning for the Sox, robbing Eric Hosmer of a game-tying home run for the final out of the inning.

Robertson wasn't as dominant in his second outing of the day. He gave up two singles, but also fanned two batters to earn his third save of the season.

When these two teams meet, typically it's the Royals who capitalize on mistakes by the Sox to win close games. That script was flipped on Sunday, as it was Kansas City that made the costly miscues.

In the completion of the suspended game, Royals reliever Kelvin Herrera walked Cabrera with two outs and then uncorked a wild pitch to move the runner into scoring position. Herrera's wildness came back to bite him when Garcia's bloop to left-center field fell in and Cabrera came home to plate the winning run.

Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas booted a grounder off Abreu's bat in the sixth inning of the second game, allowing the Sox to score their first run. From there, the South Siders strung together four more singles to surge ahead -- the biggest hit was a two-out, two-run single by Conor Gillaspie that put the Sox ahead 4-3 and sent Kansas City starter Edinson Volquez (2-2) to the showers.

It's been a long time coming for the Sox to win a series against the Royals. Coming into Sunday, they had lost 15 of the last 18 head-to-head meetings. Will this be the day that marks the end of Kansas City's domination of the Sox? We'll find out later in the season. The two teams have 13 more games to play, but they don't meet again until a doubleheader on July 17 in Chicago.

Madison Bumgarner cools off Royals in World Series Game 1

The Game 1 winner has won 15 of the last 17 World Series, including 10 out of the last 11.

That fact bodes well for the San Francisco Giants, who cruised to a 7-1 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Tuesday in the opening game of the 2014 Fall Classic.

How did the Giants cool off the red-hot Royals, who had won nine consecutive games dating back to the regular season? They did it by scoring early and allowing their ace left-hander, Madison Bumgarner, to do his job.

Bumgarner fired seven innings of one-run, three-hit ball. He fanned five and walked just one. His only mistake was a two-out homer by Kansas City catcher Salvador Perez in the bottom of the seventh inning, and by that point it didn't matter because the Royals were hopelessly behind.

San Francisco jumped out to a 3-0 lead in top of the first inning. Hunter Pence's two-run homer off Kansas City ace James Shields highlighted the rally.

You wouldn't have expected Pence to be the guy to haunt Shields. Coming into Tuesday's play, Pence was 0-for-11 with three strikeouts in his career against Shields. However, his home run was the biggest hit of the game, and he also had a double to start a two-run rally in the fourth inning that increased San Francisco's lead to 5-0.

It's no secret San Francisco has the edge in postseason experience in this series. The Giants won the World Series in 2010 and again in 2012. For many of these Kansas City players, this is their first time in the playoffs.

That difference in experience showed up in this game, particularly in the bottom of the third inning when the Royals had their best chance to get to Bumgarner. Down 3-0, Kansas City placed runners on second and third with nobody out after Omar Infante reached on a Brandon Crawford error and Mike Moustakas doubled.

It's the kind of situation the Royals have taken advantage of throughout the postseason, but it didn't happen this time. Bumgarner escaped the jam unscathed by getting overanxious Kansas City hitters to swing at bad pitches. Perhaps the combination of being on the big stage and facing an early deficit caused the Royals to press.

It sure looked that way as Alcides Escobar struck out swinging on a fastball up and well out of the zone for the first out. Nori Aoki also fanned after he could not check his swing on an 0-2 breaking ball that bounced in front of the plate. Bumgarner tried a similar strategy against the next hitter, but to Lorenzo Cain's credit, he laid off those pitches and worked a walk to load the bases for Eric Hosmer.

The Kansas City first baseman swung at the first pitch and grounded out to second base to end what would be the Royals' last and best chance to get back in the game.

I've heard some analysts criticize Hosmer for offering at that first pitch. I won't be among them. I believe in swinging at the first hittable strike in RBI situations. Sometimes, that's the best pitch you're going to get. Hosmer got an 86 mph cutter from Bumgarner that was middle to outer half. It was a hittable pitch. The only criticism I have of Hosmer is he may have tried to pull that pitch when he would have been better served to try to drive it to left field. But, I don't fault him for swinging.

The real disappointment for the Royals in this game was the poor performance of Shields, who was knocked out in the fourth inning and allowed five earned runs. The Giants went 4-for-4 with runners in scoring position against the Kansas City ace, who is now just 1-3 with an 8.26 ERA in his last six postseason starts.

MLB Network analyst Dan Plesac and others need to stop with the obnoxious "Big Game James" references when discussing Shields, because he's obviously been struggling lately.

For an actual "Big Game" pitcher, look no further than Bumgarner. The San Francisco ace has started three World Series games in his career. He's 3-0 with a 0.41 ERA in those outings. That's clutch.

The Royals will try to even the series Wednesday in Game 2 behind youngster Yordano Ventura. Veteran Jake Peavy will be on the mound for the Giants.

Royals use running game to beat A's in AL wild-card game

Kansas City Royals fans have waited exactly 10,565 days for this night.

After 29 consecutive years of missing the playoffs, the Royals captured their first postseason victory since Game 7 of the 1985 World Series on Tuesday night, defeating the Oakland A's 9-8 in 12 innings in one of the craziest, most entertaining American League wild-card games you're ever going to see.

The Royals overcame three deficits and finally prevailed with a two-run rally in the bottom of the 12th inning, capped off by a two-out RBI single by catcher Salvador Perez off former Cubs right-hander Jason Hammel.

Credit the Royals for this: They stuck with their offensive identity in this game. They were going up against a tough pitcher in Oakland ace Jon Lester, who entered Tuesday's action with a 2.11 ERA in 11 career postseason starts. The A's went 2-5 against Kansas City during the regular season, but Lester was the starting pitcher in each of the two Oakland victories.

The A's had the right man on the mound, but the Royals prevailed thanks to their ability to manufacture runs with speed. Kansas City stole a league-best 153 bases during the regular season, and on this night, they tied a Major League record by swiping seven bases in a postseason game. They also successfully executed four sacrifice bunts.

Remarkably, the seven stolen bases came from seven different players: Nori Aoki, Lorenzo Cain, Christian Colon, Jarrod Dyson, Alcides Escobar, Alex Gordon and Terrance Gore.

Dyson had perhaps the biggest steal of them all in the ninth inning. The Royals trailed 7-3 after seven innings, but they scored three runs in the bottom of the eighth to get close at 7-6. In the ninth, pinch-hitter Josh Willingham led off with a bloop single and was lifted in favor of pinch-runner Dyson. After one of the aforementioned sacrifice bunts, Dyson found himself on second base with one out. Moments later, in a gutsy move with the season on the line, he stole third and put himself in position to score the tying run on Aoki's deep fly to right field. The stolen base allowed the Royals to tie the score, force extra innings and, ultimately, extend their season.

The stolen base also played a key part in the 12th-inning rally. Kansas City trailed 8-7 after allowing a run in the top of the inning, but erased the deficit when Eric Hosmer tripled and scored the tying run on an infield single by Colon. 

Colon then came through with the second-most important stolen base of the evening, getting himself in scoring position to set the table for Perez's game-winning hit. 

Defense is not a strong point for Oakland. In fact, the A's were the worst defensive club among the five AL playoff qualifiers. They have excellent starting pitching, but if an opponent can put some pressure on them and force them to execute defensively, they cannot. The Royals proved that with Tuesday's win. 

The loss finishes an epic collapse for the A's, who had a 66-41 record the first four months of the season. But they slumped to a 22-33 mark since Aug. 1, and they did not clinch a berth in the wild-card game until the last day of the regular season. 

The Oakland offense struggled mightily down the stretch of the season, but it was not their bats that caused them to lose to Kansas City. Designated hitter Brandon Moss clubbed two home runs and drove in five runs, and left fielder Sam Fuld reached base three times Tuesday, quieting critics who said before the game that Oakland manager Bob Melvin was making a mistake by not including late-season acquisition Adam Dunn in the lineup.

The A's scored plenty of runs, but they could not slow down Kansas City's small-ball attack. Oakland is going home, and the Royals are moving on to the American League Division Series, where they will face the Los Angeles Angels in a five-game set that starts Thursday night.