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| Circle the Wagons... |
| 05.02.04 (6:14 pm) [edit] |
Because I think they are moving in for the kill. The royals dropped to 7-16 today after Tony Pena both guaranteed a victory and claimed that we'd win the AL Central. This speech inspired Curtis Leskanic to reveal that he isn't pitching horribly on purpose( 14.73 ERA and 3 losses directly attributable to him). In fact he has been working through a rotator cuff injury for the sake of the team. Thanks, Curtis, now you can go under the knife with your net contribution to the team being three losses.
We have won 3 of our last 17 games. We continue to underperform our pythagorean record by a couple of W's. Our pen has proven completely unreliable while our starters have been shaky when they are at their best. The hitting has tapered off and injuries have decimated the lineup. We've been swamped by errors and have been hitting like Neifi Perez with the bases juiced. Our star player, Carlos Beltran, is killing the ball with his eyes on free agency and most likely pinstripes. This is rockbottom. This is where royals fans spent a decade after being robbed of contention during the strike year. We are quickly getting to the point where we are going to have to decide between revamping the youth movement and trying to resurrect a pennant run.
Option 1: We believe- The Royals have been unlucky. Things haven't gone our way and we can expect a lot better performance from our relievers. As our offense gets back to full strength we still have the potential to put 850 runs on the board. Believe it or not a team with average starters, a good pen, and a very good offense could win the Central. The Twins didn't have that good an offense last year and they did it. If you go down this road then you have to get the lineup going and revitalize the bench. Adjusting the lineup would work too.
1. Aaron Guiel: He has struggled, but he draws walks and should be more patient if actually given protection in the lineup as opposed to his 7-8-9 usual spot.
2. Carlos Beltran: Keep him here, tell him to keep drawing walks and put faith in Mike Sweeney
3. Mike Sweeney: Walk more, stop swinging for the fences
4. Juan Gonzalez: He needs to hit for more power, if he stays healthy then he will
5. Joe Randa: Keep drawing the BB's
6. Angel Berroa: Till he starts posting a better OBP, we should stay here.
7. Matt Stairs
8. Benito
9. Relaford
Bench: Dump Lopez, go with 11 pitchers like a normal team and 5 bench players: Graffanino, Stinnett, Dejesus, Pickering, and Gookie Dawkins. This will give us 2 guys that can draw a walk: Dejesus and Cal, one pure hitter: Graffy, backstop backup, a homerun threat: Cal, and a defensive sub in Dawkins.
Staff: If you want to win NOW, than you should probably bring up Grienke
1. Affeldt
2. Gobble
3. Grienke
4. Anderson
5. May
Bullpen:
Macdougal
Huisman
Camp
Field
Grimsley
Sullivan
Option 2: Throw up the white flag and hope you don't get scalped
Transactions: Prepare to trade Grimsley and Sullivan at the all-star break. Though if you can get something good for them now, then do it. Waive/Release Kelly Stinnett and bring up Mike Tonis: see what we have. Begin fielding offers for Beltran: however keep in mind that we get 2 draft pix for him if he bolts. So if it doesn't involve at least one stud prospect than pass. The best offer we will get would be from NY. Dioner Navarro and a B prospect. We'll see. Ideally you want to get Brian Bass healthy and up here as quickly as possible. If there is any market for Brian Anderson, than dump him. If May doesn't get it going in the rotation than move him to the pen. Dismantling this team is going to be a bitch. The good news is that there aren't any albatrosses on the docket.
Ultimately it probably looks as though Option 2 is where we are headed. However, other than Dejesus nobody is being forcefully blocked in our minor league system. Leaving Grienke at AAA isn't going to hurt him or our future prospects. After next season, every contract we handed out to compete this season expires. We could try to dump salaries but there isn't a whole lot of purpose to that. There isn't any purpose to a forceful rebuilding process. After next year Lubanski, Maier, Costa, Aviles, Powell, Gotay, Murphy, Blanco, Bass, Grienke, Burgos and the pitching class of last year's draft will be in the upper minors/ major league roster. That team will need a catcher, and another elite pitching prospect or two. If you believe that Dioner Navarro is that catcher than you deal Beltran, if you don't than you look elsewhere and take the draft picks.
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