Ping: Kansas City Sports Fans

[Scarecrow]

In case you haven't read this, please do - Jo Po just summed up everything in one article.


JOE POSNANSKI ON BUDDY BELL
Bell’s legacy is of playing not to lose

By JOE POSNANSKI
The Kansas City Star


This Royals season sure looked a whole lot better before September started.

They really were playing better baseball. Really. They jumped out of last place. They seemed destined to win 75 games, which isn’t exactly a downtown-parade season but would have marked real improvement over last season. They seemed young, energized; they had played winning baseball for more than three months. It all looked promising.

Well, don’t look now. The Royals have had a horrendous month. Since Aug. 24, they are 11-21. They have played terrible baseball. They are buried in last place again. They are set to get the second pick in the draft — this would mark the fourth straight season they picked first or second. That’s awful. The young players fade. The promising signs are suddenly a lot tougher to see.

And Buddy Bell, for the last time as Royals manager, looks miserable.

People often ask why Buddy Bell has lost so many games through the years as a manager. His record, 519-723, is one of the worst in baseball history. Why? It’s a reasonable question. Bell is a good baseball man. He relates well to his players. He knows the game and loves the game, players play hard for him, he is loyal and committed. Why all the losing?

There are those obvious reasons. The biggest is that Bell has inherited bad teams. No manager was going to win big with the 1996 Tigers or 2006 Royals. Beyond that, well, you could question his game management, his handling of pitchers, his karma. Or you could just blame the whole thing on Jason LaRue, who is now hitting .148 — this makes him either a super welterweight or a junior middleweight depending on your boxing organization of choice.

Well, my theory about Buddy’s losing actually involves LaRue. It also involves Chiefs president Carl Peterson. It really covers just about everything we’ve seen in Kansas City sports the last decade or more. It has something to do with the way losing affects people.

Buddy Bell, of course, cannot stand losing. That’s obvious. More, though, Bell cannot stand stupidity. The wide variety of stupid plays in baseball (someone kicks the ball in the field, overthrows a cutoff man, fails to get the bunt down, walks a weak batter when the Royals lead, etc.) gives Bell ulcers. He can’t eat. He sits in his office staring at walls.

My theory is that Bell despises stupidity so much he has come to believe that the way to win games is to eliminate stupid plays. This is a bit like believing that the way to create art is to color inside the lines.

Here’s the problem with that line of thinking: It isn’t true.

This brings us back to Peterson. For almost 20 years, Peterson has tried to win a Super Bowl by avoiding mistakes. Every single year, the Chiefs have gone into the season with some creaky veteran quarterback who supposedly can “manage the game” and “won’t turn the ball over.” Every offseason, they have added a jumble of older players — a mixed bag of successes and failures, Chester McGlockton to Ty Law, Marcus Allen to Priest Holmes, James Hasty to Shawn Barber to Willie Roaf to Kendrell Bell — all to “push the Chiefs over the edge.”

This has given us the familiar and depressing pattern — the Chiefs rarely stink. They have only had four losing records in the Peterson era, and only once won fewer than seven games in a season. But, of course, they have not been to the Super Bowl, and they have not won a playoff game since Jan. 16, 1994. We should make Jan. 16 a city holiday. I’m going to petition the mayor’s office.

The most popular theory is that Peterson doesn’t want to win, he just wants to fill up the stadium. But I think the opposite is true: He absolutely doesn’t want to lose. He has built an entire philosophy based on his fear and loathing of losing. He has been unwilling to take those dare-to-be-great chances that Super Bowl teams almost always have to take.

Look: The New England Patriots played a sixth-round untested quarterback, Tom Brady. The Indianapolis Colts let go of their start running back, Edgerrin James, rather than blow the salary cap. The Pittsburgh Steelers constantly let go of big names and move young players into their defense, then rely on their energy.

Peterson has not wanted to take those sorts of chances. He has played it safe, and the Chiefs have been a safe, winning and ultimately unsuccessful team for two decades.

Well, you can triple that formula for Buddy Bell. Peterson has taken at least a few shots at greatness (hiring Marty Schottenheimer, trading for Joe Montana, bringing back Dick Vermeil, drafting Larry Johnson). Bell is so determined to prevent bad things from happening that he’s all too willing to give up good things.

That brings us back to LaRue. He’s a perfectly adequate defensive catcher. He’s been around. He’s tough. And — yes, this phrase will be repeated — he “knows how to play the game.” So he plays. A lot. Since they banned the spitball in 1920, only a handful of players have had 150 at-bats and hit less than .150. LaRue, barring a last-second hot streak, will become one of those guys.

And when you consider LaRue hit .194 in 2006, you could argue that it’s no fluke.

An American League manager cannot play anybody who is hitting .148. No exceptions. But Bell never even blinked. Why? LaRue will not do stupid things (unless you consider striking out stupid). He knows how to play the game.

Here’s another example: When September began, Bell said he would play Billy Butler at first base every day. It made sense. Butler is 21 years old. He looks like he’s going to be one heck of a hitter. The only real question about him is whether he can handle the strain and challenges of playing first base. The Royals need to find out.

So, you can guess what happened. The Royals have played 27 games in September. Butler has played first base in eight of them. Fewer than one-third. The rest of the time, the Royals play Ross Gload there. Now, this is no knock on Gload — he’s an excellent guy to have on any team. He can be a scrappy and tough out. He plays a nice first base. He (yep) knows how to play the game.

But does anybody get the logic of this move? Gload will be 32 years old in April. He’s been a part-time player his whole career. Why in the world would you play him at first base in September of a lost season when you have a 21-year-old hitting machine that needs the experience?

You know why. Bell cannot tolerate the goofy mistakes Butler would inevitably make. This goes for everybody. Outfielder Emil Brown has his flaws, sure, but he’s durable, he can do some things well, and he led the team in RBIs the last two seasons. Heck he leads the team in RBIs this season even though he’s only played half the season. The other half he has been on the bench because Bell doesn’t like the way he plays the game.

And so on. It’s strange, the more the Royals have lost, the more desperately Bell has gone into a shell and turned to those limited know-how-to-play-the-game guys. This might help explain why Bell’s teams have had so many long losing streaks.

Bell, as mentioned in this space before, has done a lot of good in Kansas City. He never had a real chance. He took over a mess, and he did make things better. The Royals will get better over the next couple of years, and I think Bell will have played a role in that.

In the end, though, I think Bell — like Peterson — did not try to win. They both have tried not to lose. And it’s not the same thing.

[sterlingice]

I kindof miss Posnanski's "older" articles. This is another good column but he doesn't touch great like he used to. I think splitting time between the book and blog takes a toll on his columns. That said, it's one of several good things I've read about Buddy in the past week.

It was pretty fun at the game Saturday as about 25K were chanting his name after he got thrown out in the 8th. It's kindof a cool sendoff for a manager.

SI

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

I don't mind the swoon. You never like to see it, but the team this year is obviously vastly improved this season with a young core. Getting the 2nd pick wouldn't kill us. We still need a few more pieces. We've got $25 million in freed up salary and a new manager to come. Things are definitely looking up.