Free agent prediction: James Shields

Here’s a premise so strange it almost reads like a Zen koan: If Jon Lester threw two more clean innings in the AL Wild Card Game in October, James Shields would have made a lot more money.

Out of context, that looks like a silly non sequitur. The two pitchers don’t have much to do with each other, apart from competing directly for the same finite dollars. But it’s true. If Lester protects a four-run lead, Shields doesn’t get hit hard in the ALCS. He doesn’t get hit hard twice in the World Series. We can’t help but bow to our dark lord, recency bias, and the last time we all watched Shields, he wasn’t impressive at all. The people signing the checks might have a tricky time getting over it.

Last month, I helped with the Royals Review offseason simulation. It was entertaining, fun, and completely unrealistic. It was like a greenie-fueled Winter Meetings on fast-forward, so it’s not like it gave us myriad lessons to apply to the real world. All I know is that 30 ostensibly smart baseball nerds got together and pretended to have an offseason, and about 29 of them forgot about James Shields. He ended up with the fake Cubs for something close to what Matt Garza got, and us fake GMs all gathered at the fake bar and groused in our fake cocktails about how we would have made more of a play on him.

Seems unlikely that would happen in real life for a few reasons, but it’s been a week since the last legitimate Shields rumors, and those involved the Diamondbacks and Marlins, who traditionally shop at the outlet stores, waiting for deals on irregular cashmere sweaters. There wasn’t a rumor on Shields for a week prior to that, and that was to note that the Yankees are probably out.

If Shields has a Secret Service code name, it’s Option C: teams aren’t interested in him unless everything else falls through. If that strategy has a code name, it’s The Sad Tale of My Senior Prom. And it doesn’t feel good. No sir, no how. There have to be a few teams, though, who are still looking at Shields like he’s still in the same tier as Lester and Max Scherzer, right?

Perhaps. But the lack of Shields-related rumors is stunning. Take a few moments to remember his bonafides:

The gloss is off that last one. The other four still apply. If you grade him like an Olympic diving routine and throw out his low and high scores, he grades out even better. His ghastly 2010 was one of the more puzzling pitching anomalies of the decade, and it drags his overall numbers down a bit. Shields hasn’t pitched in the World Series for a highly visible franchise (Lester) or won a Cy Young (Scherzer), but he’s not like ending up at a Green Burrito because your favorite taqueria is closed. He’s the taqueria down the street, and his al pastor is pretty comparable. Give him a chance.

There haven’t been a lot of Shields rumors, but the Royals have been linked to pitchers like Ervin Santana and Francisco Liriano, both of whom would cost less than Shields, but both of whom would cost a draft pick, too. The Royals would get that back (albeit a few spots lower) when Shields goes somewhere else, but why not eliminate the middle man? The Royals weren’t willing to dive into the nine-figure booby trap, but if he won’t cost as much as expected, Shields isn’t an outlandish solution. He knows where they keep the snacks in the break room and everything.

Keeping the band together appeals to a certain faction of Royals fans, certainly, but I remember when the Giants traded Russ Ortiz and Livan Hernandez after 2002. Good riddance to bad memories, I groused. It could be like that with a significant swath of the Royals faithful, too. Except Ortiz had two more solid seasons left in him, and Hernandez had two great seasons immediately after. And those two didn’t add up to one Shields, not when it came to pitching consistently well. Shields would be a great story if he returned to the Royals, and he would likely remain a very good pitcher.

Unless he completely failed for a lot of money that the Royals don’t usually spend. Then it would still be a great story, but in a more familiar, Royals-of-three-years-ago kind of way.

The correct answer is probably “Whichever of the Cubs, Red Sox, or Dodgers miss out on Lester and Scherzer.” Heck, throw the Yankees on there, too. And the Giants. Okay, mostly everyone. But I’ll guess the Dodgers are creeping around the most, looking for a way to keep Clayton Kershaw from another three-day-rest postseason start, without getting into the goofy bidding that Lester and Shields will draw.

The Dodgers signing Shields would be an obnoxiously rich person buying an E-Class Mercedes because they just needed something for around town. That is, it would be very, very Dodgers.

The Red Sox are the Hungry Hungry Hippos of this offseason, and I think the Cubs or Mystery Team will spook them away from the exorbitant Lester, pushing them to the second tier. That would be Shields, alone, wondering why the ceiling is slow low in the second tier.

Considering they’ve already lost two of their picks, the Red Sox are all out of bothers to give about that part. I’ll guess five years, $95 million, which is something of a theme for them this offseason. And that’s when they’ll pull the trigger on the Cole Hamels deal.