Kansas City Royals

[Ksyrup]

...may be playing some of the worst baseball in the history of the game. They're on a 10-game losing streak, and their last 3 games (including tonight) have been 16-1 and 11-0 losses to Oakland, followed by tonight's game, which is still going but has been unbelievable to watch.

It was 7-2 KC to start the 9th inning. It's now 13-7 Cleveland, marked by 3 KC errors, including a dropped pop-up to SS (more like completely missed), a dropped fly ball to LF on a pretty routine play that would have ended the game, and a knee-kick of a single by the RF that allowed 2 more runs to score. And then to top it off, someone just hit a 3-run HR. An 11-run 9th, and it ain't over yet.

Just pathetic. I'm thinking that Bell has lost the momentum he got from the Yankees sweep, huh?

[Rizon]

I vote for contraction.

I remember a couple years ago when they had that hot streak. The media had them going 176-14 that year, and possibily winning 14-15 straight World Series titles. Everyone knew they'd come back down to earth at some point. Except now it looks like they're going all the way to China.

[sterlingice]

ugh.

SI

[Ragone]

Bud selig will never contract his buddy david glass..

[kcchief19]

Obviously I'm sensitive to this because it's my home town team, but a lot of franchises go through stretches like this. It's silly to talk about contracting the Royals because this is a great baseball town. You put a winning team here and it will draw like crazy. All this team has to do is show a flicker of greatness and they'll pack the place. There are good teams in other cities who don't draw the crowds the Royals would if they were playing well. Granted, what we'll never have is the TV money that will allow our team to wallow in its own crapulence like some big market teams.

I also don't blame the Glass family for the financial picture. They are an easy target because they are the owners, but what do we want them to do? It's a catch-22 -- they are willing to spend some money, but stars don't want to play here, or in many cases their agents won't let them. But the incredible gesture that Ewing Kauffman made to donate the team to charity upon his death also put the team behind the eight-ball. They were run by committee and had no long-term plan at a time when they needed strong leadership and a plan. We're paying right now or the mistakes of the mid- and late '90s.

Who I do blame is Allard Baird. He's made poor manager choices, both in not firing Muser and Pena fast enough and with hiring Pena and Bell in the first place. Buck Showalter wanted this job when Pena was hired and Baird passed him over. Art Howe wanted this job and Baird goes for Pena.

He also completely mismanages young talent. He changes pitching coaches on average once per season. He professes to want to emulate Oakland and Minnesota, but he doesn't do anything of the things those teams did to be successful. He traded budding stars like Damon, Beltran and Dye for below market value and holds onto Mike Sweeney like grim death when Sweeney is one of the most overrated hitters in the league. He could have traded Sweeney at any point in the last couple of years to a contender for high value and I guarantee Sweeney would have folded like a cheap suit because he has historically only put up numbers once the pressure was off. When the Royals were in the midst of their 16-3 start in '03, Sweeney was in a massive slump. It wasn't until they fell out of first place after the all-star break that he began to put up numbers.

Baird may be a good judge of talent, but he sure can't manage talent and he can't deal with other GMs.

[dixieflatline]

He traded budding stars like Damon, Beltran and Dye for below market value and holds onto Mike Sweeney like grim death when Sweeney is one of the most overrated hitters in the league. He could have traded Sweeney at any point in the last couple of years to a contender for high value

This, I think, is much worse than how the team is playing on the field. I'm willing to follow a bad baseball team as long as it's a team with a plan. Few small market teams will be good every year. They should PLAN on being bad a few years out of every 10 to rebuild and then take another shot. We may suck right now but we are trading our old expensive players for younger players and developing them. Baird got burned in the Damon and Beltran deal so instead of getting burned again he choose to do nothing. Sweeney won't be a part of the next good royals team. Neither will Affelt. These players needed to be traded. He actually still has time on Sweeney as he might make it far enough through waivers to get to someone who is willing to deal. Affelt though won't and his stock was sky high around the trade deadline.

[Toddiec]

But can you imagine the backlash if they had traded Sweeney? I still believe he is one of the top 10 AL hitters when healthy (.308 avg, .553 slugging with Matt Stairs batting behind him….freaking MATT STAIRS!!). This makes Sweeney the only borderline elite player in KC. Heck, I will say that he is the only good player in KC, with the possible exception of a budding Dejesus. Sweeney is the face of the franchise. I can personally remember saying to myself two years ago that if they ever traded Sweeney, then I would stop being a Royals fan because they are letting the only home grown talented player who would actually entertain staying in KC get away!

Damon and Beltran were not going to sign in KC no matter what they said. Their agents made that perfectly clear. The Royals were held over a barrel on both of them because everyone knew we had to trade them. Dye is debatable. He may have stayed in KC, but would we have wanted him? He wanted big money and he is not playing up to expectations right now (I know the ankle injury skews the argument, but I can only go off what we see right now).

Now, I agree on the fact that Baird has to go for the reason that even if we don’t take into account the trades, the fact is that this franchise has gone nowhere (except for one fluke season) under his watch. We are still rebuilding with young players just like we were when he came aboard. I agree on the manager comments. We should have hired Showalter instead of Tony “But if you hire me I can bring all the Latin players in even though I will alienate all of the American players” Pena. The long term deal that we signed for Berroa looked great at the time, but it looks like crap right now. Baird’s does have a defense on that because how was he to know that Berroa would stop caring about the game after he got paid.

Ugh..this is a long rant. Let me sum up. Baird has 2006 and if there is no light at the end of the tunnel, he has to go. We have to give him at least one year with his new manager. We can’t fire the players and we have already fired a few managers, so he is next in the progression.

I listened to the game last night and it made me physically sick to listen to little leaguers masquerading as Major League players in that 4 error 9th. Now, I am going to fire up OOTP 6 so I can start a solo KC career just so I can cut Berroa and laugh.

[sterlingice]

But can you imagine the backlash if they had traded Sweeney? I still believe he is one of the top 10 AL hitters when healthy (.308 avg, .553 slugging with Matt Stairs batting behind him….freaking MATT STAIRS!!). This makes Sweeney the only borderline elite player in KC. Heck, I will say that he is the only good player in KC, with the possible exception of a budding Dejesus. Sweeney is the face of the franchise. I can personally remember saying to myself two years ago that if they ever traded Sweeney, then I would stop being a Royals fan because they are letting the only home grown talented player who would actually entertain staying in KC get away!
I love it, in a sick-to-my-stomach-way, because this is the impossible situation that the team is in, media-wise. They get blasted for not keeping any talent and not spending money at the beginning of every season and how no one wants to stay but if they don't trade away every last thing for spare parts, then they're not trying hard enough to build the system.

SI

[WSUCougar]

How about relegation? Send the Royals to AAA and bring up, I dunno, the Buffalo Bison.

[dixieflatline]

I can personally remember saying to myself two years ago that if they ever traded Sweeney, then I would stop being a Royals fan because they are letting the only home grown talented player who would actually entertain staying in KC get away!

I hear statements like this all the time but I don't buy it for a second. Trading away the face of the team doesn't drive attendance down losing does. Sweeney's contract is huge and the prospects they could get in a trade would be valueable. What good does it do to keep Sweeney and maybe win 4 more games than without him? This year is lost it is time to start planning for next year and the year after when the royals might actually contend.

[Karlifornia]

I had totally forgotten about the Kansas City Royals. I really forgot they existed. That's so weird. I couldn't even have named one Royals player until somebody mentioned Sweeney. When was the last time they made the playoffs?

[sterlingice]

I hear statements like this all the time but I don't buy it for a second. Trading away the face of the team doesn't drive attendance down losing does. Sweeney's contract is huge and the prospects they could get in a trade would be valueable. What good does it do to keep Sweeney and maybe win 4 more games than without him? This year is lost it is time to start planning for next year and the year after when the royals might actually contend.
See- this is the problem. No one wanted to take his contract because the contract is huge. The offers out there were marginal prospects at best unless the Royals were willing to eat a huge portion of the contract and David Glass will not do that on principle.

SI

[dixieflatline]

See- this is the problem. No one wanted to take his contract because the contract is huge. The offers out there were marginal prospects at best unless the Royals were willing to eat a huge portion of the contract and David Glass will not do that on principle.

SI

Sure I agree it's probably an either or thing. Either get rid of his contract or get some prospects. If they had traded Stairs and Affelt for prospects earlier then this would have been a no brainer and just dump the contract. Now I'm not sure which is better but I am sure that either option is better than not trading him.

Again, if I am a royal's fan(and I'm not) this is what would really upset me not how bad the team is today.

[Toddiec]

I can see the merit behind all the points being made. My opinion is that everyone that was going to stop coming to games because the team sucks stopped coming in June. The people that are going now are unlucky season ticket holders, people that go to see the other team play, and a few people that go to see select Royals players play. I think that Sweeney is still the one player that draws the most fans to the ballpark on a regular basis. If we traded Sweeney, who would the fans come to watch? Greinke? Personally I would view them trading Sweeney away as the big statement that we will never be able to keep a talented player in KC for any extended period of time. There are some diehards out there like me who still hope we can find some other talent to hold on to in addition to Sweeney.

SI, I completely agree with you. I was psyched up when they signed Juan Gonzalez and resigned those pitchers (Brian Anderson) a couple of years ago. They signed Santiago and I thought that maybe he could bring some veteren leadership to the younger pitchers. I was one of the many that were singing Bairds praises. Then the free agents go out and stink up the joint. Is that Bairds fault? That is a point of debate. But what really got me was that people were ripping him up and down because he signed the very same players he was being praised for just two months earlier!

Baird may be the unluckiest manager in baseball. But, I believe that when you are a MLB manager, being consistently unlucky is suitable grounds for dismissal.

[Ksyrup]

My point was just that this team is playing some historically bad baseball right now. Last night would have embarrassed a little league team.

[dixieflatline]

SI, I completely agree with you. I was psyched up when they signed Juan Gonzalez and resigned those pitchers (Brian Anderson) a couple of years ago. They signed Santiago and I thought that maybe he could bring some veteren leadership to the younger pitchers. I was one of the many that were singing Bairds praises. Then the free agents go out and stink up the joint. Is that Bairds fault? That is a point of debate. But what really got me was that people were ripping him up and down because he signed the very same players he was being praised for just two months earlier!

This is completely the wrong way to go when you have a small market team. You should basically never sign one aging vet because those are exactly the type of players that tend to either fall off a cliff or get injuried. You just can't afford a high priced player going south or you will be in trouble because they will represent such a high percentage of your team salary(see griffey, ken jr.). The players that you should be trying to sign are your younger players before they become really good like what the twins and the indians are doing(Santana, Hafner, Martinez).

You can say well Beltran wasn't going to resign with the royals and that might be true but in each of Beltran's arbitration years he and the team couldn't come to an agreement and they had to let the arbitrator decide. If they would have offered him a decent sized contract in his first arbitration year buying out those two years and two more beyond that he might have gone for that.

Even if he wouldn't have that is how they should be building the team.

[Young Drachma]

How about relegation? Send the Royals to AAA and bring up, I dunno, the Buffalo Bison.

I really, really think this is the answer to a lot of our problems. Unfortunately, the structure of our leagues makes it pretty well impossible.

[tdydynasty]

The Mets record of 120 losses is in danger. The Royals may not win until May 2007. The Cubs will not win another game before I go back to school.

[Toddiec]

Dixie, normally I would absolutely agree with you that signing aging veterans is not the way to run a small market team. But that was the year we were going to make our move! We were coming off our first year over .500 since the strike year!! We were playing well and all we needed was a power bat and to keep our pitchers that were free agents to compete for the division title! Baird went out and signed players to meet our needs. In fact, Baird should be thanked for only giving most of those guys two year deals instead of three or four year deals that vets were usually getting. Imagine how screwed we would be with a four year Juan Gone contract hovering over our heads.

The Royals had to make a move because the fans were screaming for it. Baird did, and the move just didn't work out. I remember the absolute madness of KC fans as they were buying season tickets and all the talk was about the Royals contending going into that season. That little taste of how Royals fans are dying to cheer for a competitive team should end any talk of contraction or relocation.

[sterlingice]

This is completely the wrong way to go when you have a small market team. You should basically never sign one aging vet because those are exactly the type of players that tend to either fall off a cliff or get injuried. You just can't afford a high priced player going south or you will be in trouble because they will represent such a high percentage of your team salary(see griffey, ken jr.). The players that you should be trying to sign are your younger players before they become really good like what the twins and the indians are doing(Santana, Hafner, Martinez). You mean like Angel Berroa after a ROY year? Or a 28yo Mike Sweeney to a long term deal after 4 straight .300-20-85 seasons, all with OPS over .900?

You can say well Beltran wasn't going to resign with the royals and that might be true but in each of Beltran's arbitration years he and the team couldn't come to an agreement and they had to let the arbitrator decide. If they would have offered him a decent sized contract in his first arbitration year buying out those two years and two more beyond that he might have gone for that. Never in a million years. There have been countless Scott Boras agents who have been in this position and NEVER ONCE has one done it. He won't let them because it doesn't line his pockets.

SI