Royals non-tender four...

Bob Dutton reports that the Royals have non-tendered John Bale, Joey Gathright, Jason Smith and Jairo Cueva.  The Royals also resigned Esteban German to a one year deal.  The Royals did not release the terms of the German deal, but he made 1 million last year so I would assume that German will make, at least, that amount this year.

Of course, the Royals did not non-tender Buck or Teahen.  This means that, unless we make some more trades, our bench this year will, at least, include Buck (who made 2.2 million last year), Teahen (who made 2.3 million), Gload (1.3 million) and German (1 million).  Buck and Teahen are eligible for arbitration and will most likely receive some sort of raise.  So the Royals will spend, at least, 6.8 million dollars on these four bench players.   

The Royals won 75 games last year.  There is no reason for a 75 win team with a 70 million dollar payroll to spend approximately 10% of its payroll on its bench. This is just a waste of money.  Of course, individually, a person can make a case for each of these four players to remain on the team.  On the whole though, the Royals would be better off having four replacement type players on the bench making the league minimum and using the rest of the money to sign a high level free agent.

Of course, I am bound by the laws of logic and reason.  The Royals apparently are not.