Comments on: Royals leading Santana Race?

By: Noel

Noel — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:18:15 +0000

Alas, Joe! It appears those sneaky Mets have come and taken Santana from the Royals! No truth to the rumor that they’ll just give him Rafael Santana’s old jersey.

By: chuckbo

chuckbo — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 03:23:41 +0000

When did the Royals become a downhill team? To me, it happened when Bo was injured playing football. (And it was for Oakland, of course — doesn’t ever matter if it’s the A’s or the Raiders; we know that Oakland teams always play dirty to thwart us!) After we lost Superman, it’s like we’ve just been clutching at air ever since then, like Wile E Coyote when the dust around his feet clears and he discovers he’s actually several feet over the edge of the cliff.

By: Royals Fan

Royals Fan — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 16:32:07 +0000

do you have bi-polar disorder? Dayton signs Santana and I’ll buy season tickets…

By: Pete Townshend

Pete Townshend — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 23:24:29 +0000

Great job. Santana = Santa? Satan?

Indeed.

By: Nate Hays

Nate Hays — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:30:43 +0000

Nice! At least you can’t blame Peter Angelos for shooting down every possible trade. Not that my Orioles have ever even been mentioned in the same sentence as Johan Santana, except this sentence: “Johan Santana’s scoreless innings streak increased to 30 after striking out 14 Orioles batters .”

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:23:17 +0000

I think Max is right, the first round picks are a poor barometer of the overall picture of the draft/minor league system, but I thought it was the quickest way to highlight the overall lack of success the Royals have exhbited in developing their own talent. When you consider where the Royals have drafted the last 10 years, its embarassing that Beltran is the last home grown talent that is considered to be a true All Star. Hopefully by adding a few additional scouting directors and bolstering international signings, this is a trend that will change.

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:06:27 +0000

This is of course true, but I feel like there must be some kind of creative solution to problems like this in the case of someone like Santana for small teams. They have to assume there is a way to get Santana and then figure out what it is. The royals can’t just add $20 mill to their payroll for 6 years, or whatever it is Santana would want, but they can pay $12 mill for Guillen and whatever Meche’s ridiculous deal was? Ok, maybe they really can’t. So maybe they trade players for money. Maybe the can make a trade offer that’s so wonderful, Minnesota will agree to pay Santana’s 2008 salary.

Small market teams should be getting awesome draft talent, and using their minor league players to get money.

By: Drew

Drew — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:23:53 +0000

Regarding the draft, also consider that there are top players the Royals and other small market teams DONT draft to begin with because of money expectations. It is not uncommon for the ‘best’ player in a baseball draft to fall to the 10 or 15th pick for this reason. Money is not everything in sports but it impacts everything.

By: YF

YF — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:08:12 +0000

“The other day, Bud Selig was talking about how on September 1 of last year, fans could look at the standings and see that 19 out of 30 teams were in contention for a playoff spot of some kind. It should be noted that the claim is pretty suspect â€” the 19 counts Cincinnati, Houston and Minnesota who were sort of, vaguely, mathematically clinging for dear life in the Wildcard Race, even though the teams themselves were quite aware than they were dead. ”

Do you count the Rockies in with those “dead” teams as of September 1?

By: SANTANASaMET

SANTANASaMET — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:04:33 +0000

has it really come to this..?

the only good thing about this blog is that Bill Smith may read it, see how ridiculous it is and instantly send him to the Mets