At the time of the Zack Greinke trade (as well as the last post on this blog), Billy Butler was the best player on the Royals to not be on a long term contract.  Because of the unexpected retirement of Gil Meche -- a shock to the front office which certainly planned on having Greinke and Meche in the budget for 2011 -- that's $25 million in salary that just suddenly came off the books.

It would have made no sense to not immediately re-invest some of that cash into the 2011 team, and so the Royals spent $2 million of that $25 million on a signing bonus for 1B Billy Butler, who agreed to extend his contract through 2014 with a club option for 2015.  The total cost of the deal to the club is an astoundingly cheap $30 million of future committed salary.

It's also worth pointing out that the only future guaranteed contribution towards future payroll that the Royals had on the books was the Joakim Soria option buyout ($750k).  In practicality, Butler becomes the only Royals player on the payroll beyond this season.  That's significant, because Butler is now the first (and only) piece of this team who has locked down a spot on the next contending Royals team.

Soria's future is very much up in the air.  While the Royals hold three consecutive club options on his contract, it's at least somewhat likely that Soria will be exercising those options elsewhere.  At some point, the Royals will decide that they can get more return for Soria than the help he's bringing to the team.  And then this team will officially and unquestionably belong to Billy Butler.

The question today is whether the Royals can build a winner around Butler, or whether they need to bring in outside help in order to contend.  First, we'll start with the obvious: Billy Butler is one of the better hitters in the American League.

This is a list of the best hitters in the AL (by wOBA), with the 1st-10th best omitted.

• Nick Swisher, NYY .377
• Evan Longoria, TBR .376
• Joe Mauer, MIN .373
• Billy Butler, KC .372
• Mark Teixiera, NYY .367
• Victor Martinez, BOS .364
• Alex Rodriguez, NYY .363
• Vernon Wells, TOR .362

After all the great hitters having career years (the top ten, which included Jose Bautista, Miguel Cabrera, Josh Hamilton, and Adrian Beltre), that's really a who's who list of the best hitters in the AL.

Now before you get really excited, Butler is probably the least valuable of all those players.  Butler plays first base, and though he does an okay job defensively all things considered, he doesn't play it as well as Mark Teixiera does it for the Yankees.  Butler also has a really poor showing in terms of baserunning value, which contributes to hitting into a lot of double plays when combined with his propensity to hit the ball on the ground.  What Butler is, a lot of the time, is the toughest out in the Royals lineup.  When he's on, he's the most difficult player to get out.

With all of that said, I think that even despite Butler's favorable age, his .372 wOBA from last season represents more or less a high water mark of how good he will be in the majors.  I think he can maintain this level for the entirety of his shiny new contract -- and that alone makes him a really good deal for the money he will be paid -- but ultimately, I see Butler as a table setter for the future middle of the Royals lineup.  He's clearly the three hitter (or wherever you want to hit your best batter based on optimal lineup construction) on this team, but to me, Butler is a no. 2 hitter in the body of a number four or five guy.

I fully understand that baseball managers are men of wisdom as opposed to brilliant decision makers, and that who Butler looks like and what position he plays will have more to do with where he hits than how he hits, but Butler need to have at least THREE power hitters with home run power batting directly behind him to play in a winning lineup.  And sure, the Royals have three prospects with "light-tower power" in the system, and maybe someday I can get to see a lineup where Lorenzo Cain leads off ahead of Butler, both of whom set the table for Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer, and Wil Myers.  That'd be fantastic.

But its also asking a lot of both the player development system of the Royals to develop three different prospects to their best possible projection, and then to see that Butler doesn't have the natural homerun power of the upcoming prospects, and put him ahead of them where they can hit with runners on base.  More likely, I think Butler could find himself in competition to stay in the middle of the order while the Royals choose to set the table with vastly inferior offensive players who are primarily in the lineup for defensive value.

In that sense, the Royals would be missing an opportunity to build around a gifted, established hitter in Billy Butler, and would instead be building despite his presence.  And in that case, you could probably find a better use for $30 million between now and 2014.

None of this is the fault of Billy Butler, the best, and most established hitter on the Royals.  It's more an indictment of the organization he plays for.  The real question is not whether Butler is a good value.  He's a great value.  It's whether Butler will be the first investment by the Dayton Moore Royals that involves money being spent on a playoff team.  That will be the ultimate judge of the contract; to see if the Royals are spending towards specific goals, or whether they are just spending because they unexpectedly had a lot of money available, and a player who deserved a raise and the security that comes with being the franchise player of the Kansas City Royals.