Royals release Mike Jacobs, John Bale

Prior to this morning’s Rule 5 draft the Royals cleared a pair of 40-man roster spots by releasing Mike Jacobs and John Bale. Kansas City gave up reliever Leo Nunez to get Jacobs from Florida last offseason and then paid him $3.3 million to hit .228/.297/.401 with terrible defense in 128 games. He certainly couldn’t have been expected to perform that horribly, but Jacobs came into the trade with a .318 career on-base percentage and his bad glove shouldn’t have surprised anyone. Nunez, incidentally, had a 4.06 ERA and 26 saves in 75 games for the Marlins while making $350,000. Dayton Moore has made plenty of questionable moves in his relatively short time as Royals general manager, but the Jacobs acquisition ranks as one of the more obvious blunders. Releasing him one season after misguidedly touting him as some sort of offensive force reinforces that, although the move is better than the alternative of actually keeping him around for another year.