Not pitching Nomo

(I'm pretty sure I stole that headline from Poz, who I'm pretty sure isn't the only one to think of it.)

So Hideo Nomo is officially no longer a Royal. I see where some Royals fans are celebrating and wondering why in the heck the Royals bothered in the first place, and understandably so.

There are a couple things I might remember about the Royals' Nomo experiment. One might be how most people's spring training stats don't matter, but others do. Another might be how much Japan loves its baseball, because good gosh there were a lot of Japanese media all through spring training wanting to know things like how many pitches Nomo threw in a bullpen session.

But you can also take this as a reminder where the Royals are. They need to make moves like this, take chances on guys like Nomo and Brian Lawrence and Mike Maroth and, hell, to a much lesser extent, Brett Tomko and John Bale.

There's a lot of talk about the difference between true small-market franchises like the Royals and big stick swingers like the Yankees and Red Sox. But how about the Mariners? According to USA Today, the Mariners rank ninth in payroll this year and signed Carlos Silva to four years and $48 million (that's more per year than Meche) to be the No. 3 starter.

Their third, fourth, and fifth -- or fif if you're like me and missing Dave Chappelle -- starters are making $12 million, $9.85 million, and $9 million this year. For the Royals, that would be basically half their payroll.

The Royals are paying their 2-5 starters and closer a total of roughly $6.5 million ($7.5 if you want to use Bale instead of Hochevar). The Indians, who I picked because they're a terrific model for what the Royals are trying to be and because USA Today has them 16th this year in payroll, are paying those spots $26 million.

So Kansas City is doing an excellent job in some spots of having guys outperforming their salaries, but they could always use more.

Obviously, nobody's shocked the Royals are being outspent. But the point here (if there is one) is that no matter how much you expect the resources to increase (and I do expect the Royals to soon be closer to the middle of the pack in payroll than the bottom) Dayton Moore will always need to find steals, always need guys outperforming their salary.

He'll need to take an extra look at a guy like Nomo who can't get anyone else to return a phone call.

"We’ve gotta be aggressive," Moore told me in a conversation about Nomo. "We’re not going to just make safe moves all the time. We gotta be aggressive and think outside the box."

Nomo was a low-risk option. Best case scenario he regains his old magic and the Royals have the story of the season. Worst case, he helps Yabuta a little bit and if he retires now, maybe the Royals have first contact on seeing if he wants to scout or coach or something.