Skip to main content
A few suggestions, if I may, for the troubled but proud Kansas City Royals baseball team:

1. Trade Mike Sweeney. This in no way impugns Sweeney, but he makes too much for this team. Even if the trade value is low due to his injuries and age, the money saved will be worth it.
2. Re-acquire Jeff Suppan. He's the kind of pitcher the Royals need: always keeps his team in the game. And since his stats aren't that impressive, he won't break the bank.
3. Hire a great pitching coach. Dave Ricketts or Leo Mazzone (masterminded all those Braves division titles) can't be that attached to their new jobs.
4. Keep Reggie Sanders. The guy wins wherever he goes. It's clubhouse chemistry. That is the beginning of winning: a clubhouse full of guys who like each other.
5. Don't trade any minor-league prospects, ever. Even if St. Louis offers Pujols, don't do it. Most especially not pitchers, ever.
6. Stop making excuses. Oakland and Minnesota are consistently good with similar financial constraints. And a little winning will help revenues!
7. Be willing to tilt most of the payroll toward the starting pitchers, once good ones are found. This is why KC is bad: no starting pitching.
8. Ask San Diego what they want for Tim Stauffer. Unless they say, 'prospects' or 'cash,' give them what they ask for. This kid is going to be a star starting pitcher.

The ideal but plausible KC starting rotation looks like this:
Zack Grienke
Jeff Suppan
Tim Stauffer
Sidney Ponson
Mark Redman (he's not as bad as his stats suggest)

Do indeed thank STL for their generous contributions to future Royals success (Both Ponson and Jeff Suppan pitch for the Cardinals now). I think this rotation could be very good, if a bit unnoticed. But unnoticed is how one wants its starting pitchers when one shares a league with the Yankees.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Thoughts On The Harrison Butker Commencement Speech

Update: I read the whole thing. I’m sorry, but what a weirdo. I thought you [Tom Darrow, of Denver, CO] made a trenchant case for why lockdowns are bad, and I definitely appreciated it. But a graduation speech is *not* the place for that. Secondly, this is an august event. It always is. I would never address the President of the United States in this manner. Never. Even the previous president, though he deserves it, if anyone does. Thirdly, the affirmations of Catholic identity should be more general. He has no authority to propound with specificity on all matters of great consequence. It has all the hallmarks of a culture war broadside, and again, a layman shouldn’t speak like this. The respect and reverence due the clergy is *always due,* even if they are weak, and outright wrong. We just don’t brush them aside like corrupt Mafia dons, to make a point. Fourthly, I don’t know where anyone gets the idea that the TLM is how God demands to be worshipped. The Church doesn’t teach that. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dear Alyse

 Today, you’re 35. Or at least you would be, in this place. You probably know this, but we’re OK. Not great, but OK. We know you wouldn’t want us moping around and weeping all the time. We try not to. Actually, I guess part of the problem is that you didn’t know how much we loved you. And that you didn’t know how to love yourself. I hope you have gotten to Love by now. Not a place, but fills everything in every way. I’m not Him, but he probably said, “Dear daughter/sister, you have been terribly hard on yourself. Rest now, and be at peace.” Anyway, teaching is going well, and I tell the kids all about you. They all say you are pretty. I usually can keep the boys from saying something gross for a few seconds. Mom and I are going to the game tonight. And like 6 more times, before I go back to South Carolina. I have seen Nicky twice, but I myself haven’t seen your younger kids. Bob took pictures of the day we said goodbye, and we did a family picture at the Abbey. I literally almost a...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Friend I Once Had, And The Dogmatic Principle

 I once had a friend, a dear friend, who helped me with personal care needs in college. Reformed Presbyterian to the core. When I was a Reformed Presbyterian, I visited their church many times. We were close. I still consider his siblings my friends. (And siblings in the Lord.) Nevertheless, when I began to consider the claims of the Catholic Church to be the Church Christ founded, he took me out to breakfast. He implied--but never quite stated--that we would not be brothers, if I sought full communion with the Catholic Church. That came true; a couple years later, I called him on his birthday, as I'd done every year for close to ten of them. He didn't recognize my number, and it was the most strained, awkward phone call I have ever had. We haven't spoken since. We were close enough that I attended the rehearsal dinner for his wedding. His wife's uncle is a Catholic priest. I remember reading a blog post of theirs, that early in their relationship, she told him of the p...
Post a Comment
Read more