The Royal Decade
Posted: January 2nd, 2010 | Filed under: Baseball | 90 Comments »
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The following is a 9000-plus word opus on the Royals Decade. I don’t know why I did it, and I don’t know why I’m publishing it. Some things are probably better left alone. And so I would say to you, if for whatever reason you plan to start reading this, to remember: This is a 9000-plus word opus on the Kansas City Royals. There is no false advertising involved. And you will have only yourself to blame.
“What (Earl) Weaver NEVER used were the guy who didn’t do anything specific, but looked good in the uniform, the .260 hitters with 10 to 15 homers, a little speed and so-so defense.”
– Bill James, The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers.
When the decade began, the Kansas City Royals were coming off a dreadful 97-loss season. But there were several things that happened in 1999 that might have led even a moderately optimistic person to believe that something really good was about to happen for Kansas City baseball.
1. Carlos Beltran, a 22-year-old centerfielder bursting with power, speed and defensive skills had just won the American League rookie of the year.
2. Carlos Febles, a 23-year-old second baseman, was a rookie in 1999 too. He had not made the splash of Beltran, but he did finish second in the league in triples, and he had made several dazzling defensive plays, and he was a bundle of energy. Around town, the two of them were being called “Dos Carlos” and there was good reason to believe Febles was going to be a very good player.
3. Johnny Damon, a 25-year-old left fielder who the Royals had been waiting to become a star for years, hit .307/.379/.477, scored 100 runs and stole 36 bases.
4. Mike Sweeney, a 25-year-old former catcher who was in the (rather painful) process of being converted to first base, was given an everyday place in the lineup for the first time, and he hit .322/.387/.520 with 101 runs scored, 102 RBIs. He was second in the league with 44 doubles. He also proved to be that rare power hitter who rarely strikes out — he and Nomar were the only two every day players to slug .500 and strike out fewer than 50 times. He was also a great guy who looked to be a perfect face for the new Royals.
5. Jermaine Dye, a 25-year-old right fielder who had been injury prone for two years, played every day and hit 27 homers, drove in 119 RBIs, and gunned down 17 base-runners.
6. Joe Randa, a 29-year-old third baseman who had bounced from Kansas City to Pittsburgh to Detroit and back again, hit .314 with a bit of power — he was sixth in the league in hits.
7. The Royals had other young hitters who looked hugely promising. A 25-year-old Mark Quinn — who had hit .329 in his minor league career and had just hit .360/.409/.598 in Class AAA — came up and banged two home runs in his first game, and six homers in 60 at-bats. Dermal Brown was one of the top prospects in baseball. Jeremy Giambi had been an on-base machine in the minors and showed signs of being a good hitter in the big leagues.
8. Jeff Suppan and Jose Rosado, a couple of 24-year-old pitchers, threw 208 innings with above league average ERAs, and there was a whole series of young pitchers — Chad Durbin, Glendon Rusch, Dan Reichert, Mac Suzuki, Chris George, Jeff Austin, Kyle Snyder, Orber Moreno — who seemed to have potential. Pitching was clearly a problem (the Royals 5.35 ERA in 1999 was the worst in the league, and the whole league hit .303 against the bullpen) but the problem did not seem insurmountable.
I guess that’s the key word. Things did not seem insurmountable. In 2000, it was not a stretch to boldly predict that the Royals had a chance to be the young team of the decade. They had five players in their lineup who were 25 or younger, and all looked like potential stars. As it turns out, four of them would become big stars. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
The amazing thing is that the Royals were so loaded with young talent even though they seemed rudderless throughout the late ‘90s. They had no owner — literally, no owner. Ewing Kauffman had died early in the decade, and the team was being run out of a trust. The team’s general manager, Herk Robinson, was generally viewed as a nice enough guy who, as the old joke goes, was in the wrong field. And despite all that, they had gathered all this talent — I still say that Damon-Beltran-Dye outfield is one of the best young outfields in baseball history. Then David Glass, the respected CEO of Wal-Mart, took over as owner. It is a difficult emotion to recreate now, knowing what we know now, but there was good reason to be optimistic and even giddy as the 2000s began in Kansas City.
So, how did it go so wrong? How did THAT TEAM lose more games in the decade than any other team in baseball? How did that team collapse so thoroughly that the few easily-accessible memories from the decade are comical ones — Kerry Robinson climbing the wall on a ground-rule double, cutoff man Ken Harvey getting hit in the back with a throw from the outfield, Desi Relaford falling off first base, a complete stranger named Eduardo Villacis walking into the clubhouse (“Who’s this bleeping guy?”) and starting a game at Yankee Stadium, Tony Pena Sr. quitting in the middle of the season just as he was about to be called as a witness to a divorce trial, Tony Pena Jr. losing a ball in the sun and then saying his sunglasses had not arrived, Albie Lopez being released in the middle of a game, two outfielders jogging toward the dugout and allowing a fly ball to fall behind them, the team rather pathetically pulling credentials and attempting to bully analysts they disagree with, the Royals making the No. 1 pick in the draft without a general manager and so on and so on and so on …
How does something like this happen? That’s our story, I guess. At NASA they will do five-year investigations into disasters of this level. How does it happen? We KNOW that the people running things have been trying very hard. I can tell you from first hand experience that Tony Muser, Tony Pena, Buddy Bell, Trey Hillman, Allard Baird, Dayton Moore — these are devoted baseball people. They are men who have spent their lives around the game. They are not, as is so easy to say as sports fans, idiots and morons. Not at all. Dayton Moore ran the Atlanta Braves minor league system, and he was more or less unanimously chosen as the brightest young GM candidate in the game when the Royals hired him. Allard Baird was one of the game’s great scouts and he is, even now, one of the more influential people in the rather successful Boston Red Sox organization. Buddy Bell was one of the smartest players of his generation, and so was Tony Pena. And smart — Tony Muser is an extremely smart guy who learned baseball from Earl Weaver and DIck Williams and Chuck Tanner (there are a few World Series championships in that group).
No, I cannot buy that it was just incompetence or arrogance or a lack of imagination that drove the Royals from that promising peak on Jan. 1, 2000 to the depressing valley where they sleep on Jan. 1, 2010. Then again, I cannot buy it was bad luck or the basic unfairness of baseball that brought them here. Were all these part of it? Sure. Mistakes were made. Gambles flopped. Bad breaks broke. Money ran out.
But at some point, when it gets this bad, I think maybe something infects a team and an organization. I think about the Cleveland Browns in the 1980s. Those Browns had three of the most gut-wrenching playoff losses in NFL history. Brian Sipe threw an interception in one. John Elway drove the Broncos 98 yards in one. Ernest Byner fumbled in one. Now, you could argue — persuasively, in fact — that the losses had nothing to do with each other. The Sipe team was almost entirely different from The Drive team. Still, it seems to me from a fan’s perspective that something happened to the Browns. The first loss was totally unexpected — we had no idea that the interception was coming. The second loss was only sort of unexpected — as Elway drove we had come to wonder if maybe the Browns and Cleveland sports in general were jinxed. The third loss was just part of the pattern. Anyway, that’s how I remember it as a fan. The Browns became the bad-luck Browns … and there was no turning back.
Same thing with Marty Schottenheimer — coach of those last two losses. Do you think Marty knew while John Elway drove the Broncos that the name “Marty Schottenheimer” would become synonymous with playoff failure, that he would be destined to be one of the best regular season coaches in NFL history but his playoff life would be nothing but pain. I often think about a day in January 1998 — shortly after Marty’s 13-3 Chiefs lost a heart-wrenching home playoff game to Denver — and Marty looked at us and said: “Men, what am I doing wrong?”
So it goes with the Royals — when the decade began, nobody in Kansas City knew the Royals were the worst organization in baseball. That’s because they weren’t. They were on a bit of a bad run — they had lost 89 or more games three years in a row. But up to that point, the Royals had never lost 100 games in a season. They were on pace to win 90 games during the strike season of ‘94, which wasn’t that long before. They still were above .500 as an organization, and even a 20-year-old fan had memories of the days when the Royals were one of the classiest and best organizations in baseball. As 2000 began, it just seemed the Royals were in a lull. And with so much young talent on the team, the lull looked to be about over.
Those 2000 Royals set pretty much every team offensive record. Even now, if you look in the Royals media guide, you will see that the 2000 Royals still have the team record for most runs scored (879), most hits (1,644), highest batting average (.288) and highest team on-base percentage (.348). They led the league in batting average for the fourth time in team history … first time since 1982, when Willie Wilson led the league in hitting.
That year:
– Johnny Damon had his breakout season (he led the league with 136 runs scored and 46 stolen bases).
– Mike Sweeney hit .333/.407/.523 and was second in the league with 144 RBIs.
– Jermaine Dye hit .321/.390/.561 with 33 homers and 117 RBIs, started in the All-Star Game*, and won a Gold Glove**.
*The complete list of Royals players who have started in the All-Star Game the last 20 seasons:
2000: Jermaine Dye.
**The complete list of Royals players who have won a Gold Glove the last 20 seasons:
2006: Mark Grudzielanek
2000: Jermaine Dye
Yes, it seemed good. The Royals finished 77-85, which ain’t much, but it was a 12 1/2-game improvement. It was a frustrating year in many ways — more on that in a second — but in many ways it seemed promising. Heck, the Royals led the league in hitting even though Carlos Beltran was hurt and had his one bad season as a Royals player.
Trouble is: That year was an illusion in so many ways. It was Kansas City’s first Indian Summer of the decade. For one thing, even with all the records, the Royals in retrospect were not an especially good offensive team that year. They finished fifth in the league in runs scored — and were closer to eighth place than fourth. That, you will recall, was a crazy offensive season, plus Kauffman Stadium at the time was a ridiculous bandbox (they would push the fences back in a couple of years). The Royals pulled off a rather remarkable feat in 2000, something I did not realize in the time:
They led the league in hitting but had a below league-average on-base percentage.
I bolded and italicized that little factoid because it had not happened in the league since 1961*, and in many ways I think that sentence perfectly reflects the Kansas City Royals of the 2000s. They were always aiming for the wrong thing. The 2000s decade in baseball may be remembered for our emerging sense of performance enhancing drugs and also for the statistical revolution that, in many ways, changed the way the game was observed, scouted and played. The Royals throughout the decade always would seem one step behind the times. And so, it’s appropriate that the Royals entered their decade of doom leading the league in a category that SEEMED important — batting average — but eighth in the catgory that WAS important, on-base percentage.They had those young hitting stars, but they were last in the league in walks, fifth in runs scored, 13th in homers and eighth in on-base percentage.
*Who do you think led the American League in batting average in 1961? The Mantle-Maris Yankees, right? No. The Norm Cash Tigers? No. The Roy Sievers-Nellie Fox White Sox? No. It was the 1961 Cleveland Indians, led by Jimmy Piersall’s .322. I had no idea.
Still, the Royals WERE a better than average offense in 2000, so how did they finish eight game under .500? Oh yeah: That was an amazingly bad pitching staff. That year, the Royals gave up 239 home runs, two short of the major league record. It was absurd — they had one game against Minnesota where they gave up six homers, and 10 other games where they gave up four homers, and 68 total games where they gave up two or more.
I remember hosting an event featuring Bob Costas and David Glass that year, and I asked each of them what they thought created the absurd rise in home runs. And someone in the crowd shouted “Ricky Botallico,” the Royals closer at the time. It was a good answer. An even better (if more obscure) answer would have been Botallico’s bullpen mate Chris Fussell, who gave up an amazing 18 homers in 70 innings. That would have set an obscure and made-up record (most homers allowed in 70 innings or fewer) but another Royals pitcher, Miguel Batista joined the team in late April and gave up 17 homers in just 57 innings — add the two homers Batista had already given up, voila, he allowed 19 in 65 1/3 innings*.
*The record — if you want to call it that — would be crushed in 2006 by Glendon Rusch, who gave up 21 homers in 66 1/3 innings in Chicago. Rusch, of course, was developed by the Kansas City Royals.
The weird thing is I think the sheer horror of that pitching staff gave the Royals a weird sense of self-assurance. It was almost like they thought, “Well, our offense is terrific, all we need to do now is improve our comically bad pitching staff.” But their offense was not terrific either. And it was about to get significantly worse. At the end of the season, the Royals felt like they had to trade Johnny Damon. They could not afford him.
Of course, money had been an in issue for the Royals for years. Just after the strike in 1995, the Royals (for the second time) traded away hometown star and player association rep David Cone. In 1996, Tom Gordon signed with Boston as a free agent.* Later in the decade, they could not afford to keep a 37-year-old Tim Belcher or defensive wonder Jose Offerman or the ageless Chili Davis …
*Many years later, when it looked to many like Gordon was finished as a big league pitcher, Royals general manager Allard Baird would go to see Gordon work out for a few teams during spring training. He looked good, and Baird was excited about trying to sign Gordon back. The Royals, of course, were outbid.
I remember having a haunting conversation with Herk Robinson before the draft in 1998 when he explained to me that the Royals KNEW J.D. Drew as going to be the best available player with the fourth pick, but they plainly could not afford him. They instead took Stanford pitcher Jeff Austin, a different Scott Boras client, who sat out a year before signing. When Austin finally signed, he apparently had lost 47 miles per hour on his fastball.
But the Damon trade really took the Royals’ financial situation public. Damon had been the Royals matinee idol. The team had him do commercials with George Brett. They bought him a house in town — yes BOUGHT HIM A HOUSE — in a rather desperate “Home Makeover” emotional plea to make him part of the community. And then, Damon announced that he did not want to come back to Kansas City unless the Royals spent more money (he suggested the Royals might want to sign a few fellow Boras clients in the process). The Royals responded by trading him for an old closer, Roberto Hernandez, and a young (but not as young as they thought) shortstop, Angel Berroa.
The Royals tried to paint a pretty picture. They said Berroa was a can’t-miss prospect. And they said Hernandez would bring some asbestos to the flammable bullpen. Or something. A pretty clear message was sent, though. The Royals could not or would not afford players like Johnny Damon.
The next year, 2001, was miserable all the way around. The Royals lost 97 games. Manager Tony Muser, who had never been Captain Sunshine to begin with, walked around with the dark cloud over his head. Jermaine Dye got off to a miserable start, and the Royals realized they could not afford him either so they traded him to Colorado for shortstop Neifi Perez (Dye was immediately traded to Oakland … a semi three-team trade). The trade was an immediate disaster for Kansas City — the worst trade of Allard’s career — and people could not help but notice that the Royals had now traded two of their young star for shortstops. Things were beginning to teeter out of control.
The Royals still had Beltran and Sweeney — and both had very good years in 2001. A player Allard found in the discard pile, Raul Ibanez, turned out to be a solid left-handed hitter. But there was not much good news beyond that. The Royals finished last in the league in walks and on-base percentage and 10th in runs. The offense had tanked. A typical story was Mark Quinn, who had finished third in the Rookie of the Year voting in 2000. He went 60 games without drawing an unintentional walk, a streak so infuriating that they actually shot off fireworks on the day he finally earned it against the Angels. Quinn would play 23 more games in the big leagues the next year and no more.*
*Where does the talent of Royals prospects go? I imagine a man in Germany shouting “Why can I play baseball so well? WHY?”
I think that might have been the point when people began to think that maybe the organization was broken. The Royals rather inexplicably brought back Tony Muser to manage in 2002 — one of those sad moves where you THINK you are being loyal to someone but you are, in fact, just setting him up for more agony.
Muser came to spring training in 2002 determined to smile and be more positive — so much so that the players started a Muser Smiley Chart where they would mark their managers mood on a big poster at the end of the day. The Royals were turning into a vaudeville act. Come see the smiling manager! The walkless wonders! The Amazing Home Run Bullpen! The Royals started out 2002 by losing 15 of their first 22 games, and a 13-0 drubbing in Baltimore convinced the Royals brass to finally put Tony out of his misery. Muser found out he was fired from reporters.
Tony Pena was hired, and the team kept losing because … they were a bad baseball team. The Royals finished 11th in runs scored, 13th in ERA. Paul Byrd — another Allard Baird reclamation project — went 17-11 and won himself a sweet contract offer from Atlanta (the Royals could not even afford Paul Byrd). Mike Sweeney went into the final weekend with a chance to win the batting title. Something happened in that final weekend that I think was oddly significant in the downfall of the Royals. Others disagree, though. They have the better argument, probably, because the one good thing that happened for the Royals in the entire decade happened at the beginning of the 2003 season — so it’s not like the pain of that final weekend carried over.
Still … the Royals went into the last game of the season with 99 losses. I know that the difference between 99 losses and 100 is only symbolic. It only matters to sportswriters and historians. But it seems to me that when you are trying to turn around a franchise, symbolism plays a role. The Royals had never lost 100 games in a season in their history, not once, and I think the people involved with the Royals took just a small measure of pride in that. The Royals had been bad — but they had never been TRAGICALLY bad. They had never crossed that 100-loss line.
Then, on that final Sunday in Cleveland, the Royals crossed that 100-loss line. No … they jumped over that line. They carried their bride over that line. They happily crossed that line. The Royals went into a three-game set in Cleveland needing just one victory to avoid 100 losses. They lost the first two games and on Sunday, this was the lineup they sent out:
1. Michael Tucker, CF
2. Carlos Beltran, DH
3. Raul Ibanez, 1B
4. Kit Pellow, 3B
5. Aaron Guiel, RF
6. Angel Berroa, SS
7. Dee Brown, RF
8. Luis Ordaz, 2B
9. Dusty Wathan, C.
I think if the Ghost of Royals Past would come to visit, he would take Royals management back to that day. That was the only major league start of Dusty Wathan’s career. Kit Pellow was a 28-year-old minor leaguer, Berroa was called up from Class AA because Neifi Perez was such a fiasco. And so on. The Royals lost the game 7-3 and dropped their 100th game. Many times afterward, I heard Royals management say something along these lines: “Big deal. When you’re bad, you’re bad, and 99 losses or 100 losses doesn’t really matter.”
Maybe that’s right. Maybe it does not matters. But it seemed to me that day — and it seems to me now — that they really did make the final push into “bad organization” on that day. There’s a great line in the movie “Avalon” — “If you stop remembering, you forget.” And I think if you stop caring about little things like the difference between 99 and 100 losses, you will not care enough about bigger things and you will slip deeper and deeper. That would happen to the Royals.
But not right away. First … there was the magic of 2003. Indian Summer II. Well, nobody saw it coming. Manager Tony Pena turned out to be this quirky, rah-rah kind of manager who gave player T-shirts with oddball slogans like “We believe!” It’s the sort of stupid stuff that never works. Only, it kind of worked. The Royals went to train in Surprise, Arizona and they played with some abandon, and they won the Cactus League.
Then, inexplicably, they started the season 16-3.
It was this beautiful lunacy. A nutbar of a pitcher named Runelvys Hernandez — who would once take off his cap and wave wildly to the crowd when he was taken out of a game in like the seventh inning — started off the year 4-0 with a 1.10 ERA. It made no sense — Hernandez wasn’t any good. He couldn’t strike out anybody, and he walked a bunch of guys. But for a month, nobody could hit him. He gave up one home run and the league hit .155 against him.
Mike MacDougal — Mac the Ninth as he was so briefly called — picked up seven saves and a win in his first nine appearances of the year. He didn’t give up a single earned run. Raul Ibanez was killing the ball, rookie Angel Berroa was playing as well as Allard Baird had expected when he made the Damon deal, the Royals won a bunch of close games. You hear about sports fairy tales … stories that make no sense. That was one of the stories. The Royals got off to that 16-3 start … and they did it without Carlos Beltran who started the year on the disabled list. It was inexplicable … and unsustainable. But, damn, it was fun for a little while.
The Royals leaked oil for the next few weeks and it appeared that they would go away quietly. In mid June, they were back to .500, five games out, and the story seemed over. Only then, more miracles. The Royals went to the Independent League and found an old fossil named Jose Lima — Lima Time! — and in Lima’s first eight starts he went 7-0 with a 2.17 ERA. Ridiculous. Michael Tucker — MICHAEL TUCKER — went on a crazy three-week streak where he hit .386/.449/.657 and carried the team. Carlos Beltran went on his own more realistic stretch where he hit .460 for three weeks and stole 11 bases in 11 attempts. The Royals went 18-9 heading into the All-Star Break and led the division by a full seven games. Absurdity had become reality. The Royals suddenly seemed a real threat to win the division.
Of course it didn’t work that way. The season is always longer than you think. The Royals didn’t exactly go in the tank — they went 18-24 over their next 42 games which is probably pretty consistent with their talent level. But the Twins got hot, and they took over first place. Once it became clear that the miracle wasn’t going to happen, the Royals coughed and lurched to the finish line, losing five of their last six.
Still, it was a happy year. The Royals finished fourth in runs scored — a higher rank than the supposedly great offensive team of 2000 (not coincidentally, they finished sixth in on-base percentage — their highest place since 1990). Six regulars posted OPS+ of better than 100 — first time that had happened in a decade.
Angel Berroa won the rookie of the year award, and though he was flawed player (zero plate discipline, for instance), he did hit 17 homers and steal 21 bases, and his defense seemed pretty good with a chance to become better. Mike Sweeney put up a solid enough year (.293/.391/.467) despite dealing with injuries — and the Royals better-than-.500 record meant that Sweeney’s unusual five-year contract kicked in.* Pitcher Brian Anderson had pitched well in September (4-0, 3.35 ERA) and seemed to be the leading candidate for “Next Jamie Moyer” honors.
*Sweeney and his people were worried that he would be stuck with a losing team and so they gave him an escape clause unless the Royals finished better than .500 in one of his first two seasons.
Yes, it looked so promising that the Royals spent a little money in the off-season. They re-signed Brian Anderson and Joe Randa. They lost Raul Ibanez in free agency, but hey, they signed two-time MVP Juan Gonzalez, who was coming off a year when he hit 24 homers and drove in 70 RBIs in just 82 games for Texas. They signed five-time All-Star Benito Santiago, who was coming off a couple of moderately good seasons in San Francisco. They signed part-time slugger deluxe Matt Stairs to give the team some pop off the bench. They had Tony Pena, the American League manager of the year, running the show. Yes, it all looked so promising.
And, of course, everything about the Kansas City Royals turned to dust. Everything. Looking back on it, the answer seems to be that the Royals brief burst of success was built on sand — nothing was as it appears. Angel Berroa seemed like a promising player when the Royals thought he was 23 years old. But he was actually 25, and overnight he would go from rookie of the year to lead anchor. Mike Sweeney’s five-year contract kick-in seemed like a good thing — extremely popular player, terrific hitter, face of the franchise — but he had a balky back and various other ailments and over the remainder of his contract he would average 91 games per season. Brian Anderson did not turn into Jamie Moyer — more like Jamie Easterly.* The Royals made their final big salary dump, trading off Carlos Beltran.
*Riddle me this Batman: There have only been a few players named Jamie or Jaime in the Big Leagues — and it seems a disproportionate number of them have been left-handed pitchers — Jamie Moyer, Jaime Easterly, Jaime Garcia, Jaime Cerda, Jamie Walker. Maybe it’s just my imagination.
Juan Gonzalez deserves his own chapter in the Royals Story of the 2000s. He showed up at spring training with, no exaggeration, the slowest moving bat I have ever seen. It wasn’t like his bat slowed — yes, that would be understandable for a 34-year-old former slugger. No, it was almost like he was swinging the bat regretfully; I have rarely seen anyone so uninterested in playing baseball (and I was there in 1999 when Jeff King just quit in the middle of the season and went to his ranch in Wyoming or North Dakota or Idaho or wherever). Gonzalez played 34 games and then went on the 15-day-turned-career-ending disabled list. He hit five home runs for the Royals. Before the season was out, the Royals would have the second-best player named Abraham Nunez as their right fielder. That was one of their lesser problems.
The amazing part of that 2004 season was not that things went bad — looking back, we probably should have seen a drop-off coming. It was HOW FAST things went bad. The Royals won on Opening Day in one of the most dramatic victories in team history — they trailed 7-3 going into the bottom of the ninth, and then someone named Mendy Lopez hit a three run homer to tie the game, and two batters later Beltran hit a two-run homer to win it. If EVER there was a game that seemed to promise good things …
… and the Royals promptly lost 20 of their next 27 games. It was during those 27 games that Tony Pena jumped in the shower with his clothes on to motivate the team. It was during those 27 games that Pena “guaranteed” the team would win the division — another off-key motivational ploy. It was during those 27 games that the now-famed Eduardo Villacis — a 24-year-old non-prospect who had started three games above Class A — was called up to start a game at Yankee Stadium. It is no exaggeration to say that the Royals players had never heard of him. Nobody had ever heard of him. He lasted 3 1/3 innings, gave up five runs, and was released two weeks later. It was so nonsensical that you had to figure there was SOMETHING behind it, some super secret Sixth Sense type of surprise that would reveal … that Tony Pena was dead the whole time. Or something.
Once it became clear that, no, there was really no secret plan behind it — the Royals apparently did not have a pitcher for Yankee Stadium and did not want to spend money to bring one up — well, I think that Villacis move was another crossed line. The 100-loss game showed that the Royals were sort of non-commital. The Villacis game showed the Royals had run out of ideas.
And then it got just dreadful. Allard Baird remains a good friend, and I have tremendous respect for his knowledge about baseball, his sense of the game and he is one of the best people I know. But he was in this terrible spot — he was given little money, little support, there was way too much ownership meddling — and looking back it is clear to me that he did not really know what to do to get out of it. Once things go THAT BAD, every move seems to go sour. If you had to put a book title on the Royals decade, it might be: “Desperation Makes Things Worse.”
The Royals rushed Zack Greinke to the big leagues at age 20, and he pitched quite well — especially for a 20 year old — but he was probably not emotionally ready for the moment and he would would crash. The Brian Anderson signing seemed solid, but he immediately lost any ability to get people out. Angel Berroa regressed and regressed. John Buck and Mark Teahen — the two players the Royals got in the Beltran deal — would not develop into impact players like the Royals hoped. The team’s best prospects — Jimmy Gobble, Ken Harvey, Byron Gettis, Ruben Gotay, Colt Griffin, Andres Blanco, Justin Huber — did not become big league regulars (though Harvey did play in an All-Star Game). Baird found himself trolling the bottom of the barrel and hoping that an Emil Brown or Jose Bautista or D.J. Carrasco or Chip Ambres or Matt Diaz or Calvin Pickering would burst into something like stardom, the way Raul Ibanez had. Allard had a pretty good track record at finding treasures in other people’s trash … but it’s no way to build a baseball team.
In 2005, Tony Pena quit mid-season — saving Baird from having to do the job — and then Allard Baird made what I think was perhaps his most inexplicable decision of all. He hired Buddy Bell to be manager. I say this with great affection: I really like Buddy Bell. He was a hero of mine as a child, and he is one of my absolute favorite people to talk with. He has lived a great baseball life, and I have nothing — I mean nothing — but admiration for the guy.
But he was absolutely the wrong hire for the Royals at that moment. I mean the absolute wrong hire — if I owned the Royals, my instruction would have been something like: “Hire anyone you want, but not Buddy Bell.” It’s not Buddy’s fault … he had managed six seasons in the big leagues and his record was 345-435. He had been fired mid-season twice. The Royals needed a fresh start, an energetic force, a manager with a presence, a manager who had won. Buddy Bell, I believe, would be a great manager for a veteran team looking for some stability. He could win with a team that has talent but lacks stability. He could have managed the Yankees to a championship last year, I feel sure of it. But it seemed obvious that the Royals needed someone who could move mountains and change the landscape.
That’s not what Allard thought — he wanted someone who fit it. He brought Buddy in and things went from bad to comical in a hurry. Buddy was there to play escort during the Royals astonishing 19-game losing streak. He was there when all those ridiculous things happened — there when the outfielders ran in toward the dugout with a fly ball in mid air, the Kerry Robinson wall-climb, there when Chip Ambres dropped a fly ball to lose a game and so on. The Royals went on an 11-game losing streak in early 2006, and then a 13-game losing streak less than a month later. Buddy was sort of the sitcom father who would occasionally shout, “ALVIN!”
But what could he do? Zack Greinke took a break — he considered quitting baseball. The five pitchers who made the most starts in 2006 were: Mark Redman, Scott Elarton, Runelvys Hernandez, Luke Hudson and Odalis Perez. A crazy kid — no, really, crazy — named Ambiorix Burgos was his closer. Not a single player in Buddy’s lineup would hit 20 home runs or walk 60 times. Angel Berroa had now regressed to the point where he was almost certainly the worst every day player in baseball. Allard Baird kept looking in dark alleys to find players — Andrew Sisco? Joe Nelson? Esteban German? — who might help out. It was a mess.
And finally, the Royals decided they had no choice but to fire Allard Baird. Of course, they screwed that up too. They kept him dangling for weeks while looking for his replacement. Everyone KNEW Allard was fired, but no one SAID Allard was fired. It was probably the least classy move I’ve ever seen from any sports organization — Baird, for all his weaknesses as a GM, had given his heart and soul to the Royals. They treated him like a bum. I don’t know how much I believe in karma. But I believe good organizations — even ruthlessly good organizations — don’t treat people that badly.
Finally Baird was fired, and the Royals hired Dayton Moore, probably the hottest GM prospect in baseball. And even THAT they screwed up. They hired Dayton Moore BEFORE the 2006 amateur draft, but Moore insisted that he could not start until AFTER the draft because it would not be fair to the Braves. It was a classy decision by Dayton … except that the Royals had the No. 1 pick in the 2006 draft. It was one of those critical moments for an organization. The No. 1 overall pick can make or break a team’s future. And the Royals went into that draft with no GM.
They spent that No. 1 pick on Luke Hochevar, a 22-year-old pitcher who had been pitching Independent League ball after agreeing and then refusing to sign with the Dodgers for $3 million. The pick shocked baseball people who had expected the Royals to take a big left-handed pitcher named Andrew Miller. Evan Longoria, Clayton Kershaw and Tim Lincecum went in the Top 10.
Hochevar’s future at least is still somewhat cloudy — he had excellent moments in his generally terrible 2009 season — but second round pick Jason Taylor was a disastrous choice. He has been suspended at least twice. Blake Wood, the third round pick, is a fringe prospect at best. Fourth round pick Derrick Robinson is very fast — I remember Keith Law writing a hilarious blog post about the Robinson scouting video and how he had the worst swing Keith had ever seen. That swing has made him a .243/.307/.318 hitter in his four years in the minor leagues. Perhaps the best player the Royals took in that draft, pitcher Bradley Boxberger, did not sign and is now a prospect with Cincinnati. Bottom line: If Hochevar bombs — a better than 50-50 proposition at this point — and Robinson doesn’t improve, that will rank as one of the worst drafts in baseball history. And … well, that’s what you get when you don’t even have a GM in charge the year you have the No. 1 pick in the draft.
Dayton Moore is an impressive guy. I like him a lot. He came to Kansas City with a purpose … and he accomplished some important things right away. One, his reputation and background gave him enough presence to make owner David Glass and president Dan Glass spend more money on infrastructure and back off somewhat. Two, he was able to hire some excellent baseball people. Three, he worked hard to create a new baseball mindset — one which the Royals would be one of baseball’s classier organizations. The Royals had been so cheap they had canceled their annual banquet and one year did not have have the players in Negro Leagues Uniforms on Negro Leagues Day. It was a ragtag operation. Moore worked hard to change that.
The Royals added a minor league team, built a new baseball academy in the Dominican and spent a lot more money on the draft and in signing international players. They started a Fan Fest. The feeling going into 2007 was that, sure, it might take some time but the Royals were finally back on the right track after years in the wilderness. The previous regime did leave behind a couple of big-time prospects — Alex Gordon and Billy Butler — and the unlimited Zack Greinke seemed to be recommitted to the game.
And right away, bam, good things started to happen. The Royals got the ultra-talented reliever Joakim Soria in the Rule 5 Draft — probably the best move of the decade. They traded Crazy Joe Duvola-Burgos to the Mets for Brian Bannister — who had a very good rookie season. Moore drew screams and laughter for signing Gil Meche for $55 million over five years … but then Meche led the league in starts with a very nice 124 ERA+. Moore also traded for Joey Gathright, a brilliantly fast little outfielder who, in limited time, punched up a .371 on-base percentage and played a big centerfield. No, it wasn’t going to be easy — nobody said it would be easy — but you got this feeling that, yes, the Royals were focused now. They were moving forward. They lost 93 games in 2007, which is lousy but, hey, they had lost 100 the previous three seasons. The train was chugging forward.
Then, Moore went all the way to Japan to hire Trey Hillman as the new manager. Hillman had won the Japan Series, and he had managed Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada and others in the Yankees minor leagues, and he was viewed by many as a can’t miss managerial prospect. Shoot, there was talk that the Yankees wanted him.*
*You may have noticed — though if you somehow waded this far into the story you probably do not remember — that I started this epic with a quote from Bill James Guide to Managers. It might be Bill’s best book — more on that in a future blog — and so much of what Bill has learned and has thought about baseball is in there.
There’s a section in the book about Vern Rapp, who briefly managed the St. Louis Cardinals and was interim manager for the Cincinnati Reds before Pete Rose. Bill’s thought is that Vern Rapp seemed like a virtual can’t miss manager — a terrific minor league manager with a full life in baseball and a great sense of the game. But he flopped miserably. In his first year, he sparked a virtual players revolt. He tried to enforce stupid rules — shaving was big with Vern Rapp — and he would do disrespectful things like send local legend Lou Brock out to pinch-hit and then pull him back. He exploded during postgame press conferences. “I’ve said it before,” Bill quotes Rapp saying, “I didn’t come here to be liked.” This he achieved marvelously. He was fired 17 games into his second season.
There were many theories about why Rapp failed (he did, after all, lead the Cardinals to an 13-game improvement his only year as coach) but Bill comes up with probably the most compelling reason:
“But to me, the most striking fact here is this: that Rapp had no experience on a major league roster. I believe that was among the things that defeated him.“Rapp had very strong ideas about how his players should behave, and that’s good. He had no clear understanding of how those ideas would play out in a major league setting. … If he had gotten past that, I believe that he might have been a good manager. If he had just one year to sit on a major league bench, to bend his ideas to what he saw around him before anybody took a position on them, he might have been great. Sparky Anderson had that one year. Earl Weaver had a half year. I think it’s a prerequisite for the job.”
When the Royals hired Trey Hillman, he was a successful manager in Japan. He obviously had a great feel and love for baseball, and a deep desire to do well. But he had never managed in the big leagues. He had never coached in the big leagues. He had never played in the big leagues. He is still managing the Royals and, as such, may have a good feel now for how things play out in a major league setting. The hope is that he has learned enough to become a good manager. But it’s hard to learn those things when you’re in charge. I think it comes down to this: Bill’s right. A manager needs some time in the big leagues. It should be mandatory.
Yes, it was going well. And then … well, the Royals started to do some odd things again. They spent $36 million to sign Jose Guillen, a 32-year-old outfielder with a reputation. Well, that was just plain weird. They went to Japan and signed a reliever, Yasushiko Yabuta, and the scouting reports I heard from in Japan were: “This guy was kind of washed up HERE.” Well, hey, Trey Hillman managed in Japan, he would know, right? They signed Miguel Olivo, a 29-year-old right-handed hitting catcher with occasional power who could not get on base … to go along with John Buck, the 27-year-old right-handed hitting catcher with occasional power who could not get on base that they already had. They went into the year with Tony Pena Jr., a 27-year-old who everyone knew could not hit, as their starting shortstop. They traded for Alberto Callaspo, a young second baseman who had been arrested (the charges lated dropped) for domestic violence.
Well, hey, not every move is genius, and not every decision is inspired. The idea is to just keep going forward. And the Royals started off the 2008 season reasonably well. In mid-May they were 21-22 — which, after the first few years of this decade, was practically a reason for a downtown parade. Greinke was pitching pretty well, Meche too, Soria was even better. After a terrible start, Jose Guillen was beginning to pummel the ball. It was coming together!
Then the Royals got no-hit in Boston and that sent the team careening on a 12-game losing streak. Guillen started making waves. The Royals kept it together and played decent ball again — on August 4 they were 53-60. Again, hey, baby steps. Then, they lost 18 of their next 21 games. Hillman seemed to lose the clubhouse — players were openly making jokes about him. Then, they put it together again. The Royals finished the year hotter than they had been since that 2003 start — 13-3 in their last 16 games — and they salvaged a 75-87 season. Analysts noticed that the Royals were the streakiest team in baseball in 2008 … and everything about that season felt streaky. The Royals were on the right path … then the wrong path … then the right path. Trey Hillman was in over his head … then he righted things … then he was in over his head again. It was a hard season to gauge.
But again, it did feel somewhat promising. The Royals had improved for the third year in a row. Alex Gordon showed signs of becoming the player the Royals hoped when they drafted him second overall. Billy Butler — well, there seemed little doubt that he would become a big-time hitter. David DeJesus had his best season. Zack Greinke looked just about ready to emerge as a superstar, and Joakim Soria looked like Mariano Rivera II. All the Royals needed were a couple of breaks, a couple of young players to emerge (Hochevar? Kyle Davies? Kila Ka’aihue?) and, hey, in the weak American League Central, things might turn out …
And then, well, I don’t know what happened. Maybe impatience has something to do with it. Maybe it’s frustration — year after year of watching other teams signing the big stars. Maybe it’s just this sense that the Royals have been so bad for so long that the time has come to make something happen. I don’t know, but it seems clear that Glass and Dayton and the Royals decided it was time to win. They traded reliever Leo Nunez, a good find, to Florida to get Mike Jacobs because he believed in Jacobs’ power and competitive spirit. They reliever traded Ramon Ramirez, a good find, for center fielder Coco Crisp because he believed in Crisp’s defense and competitive spirit. They signed pitcher Horacio Ramirez, because they desperately wanted a lefty in the rotation and they did not have one in the system. They signed pitcher Kyle Farnsworth because … I don’t know. They signed Willie Bloomquist because he plays the game the right way. They signed Juan Cruz because he’s a power arm, and they wanted a bullpen with power arms. They signed Sidney Ponson because … things were that bad.
All of these moves did not HAVE to fail, I suppose. They all DID fail, but it did not have to work that way. Crisp did not have to get hurt. Cruz did not have to go in the tank. Bloomquist did not have to get 468 plate appearances. Jacobs did not have to get 111 plate appearances against left-handed pitchers. But this is how it tends to go with desperation … the worst usually happens. Dayton Moore had come to Kansas City with a reputation as a great finder and developer of young talent — exactly what the Royals needed.
But in 2009 — his fourth season on the job — the Royals every day lineup did not feature a single young player he drafted or signed, and the Royals rotation only featured Kyle Davies, who Moore drafted in Atlanta and traded for not too long after he came to town. The only young impact player from the Moore era was Soria, and many people around baseball wondered why the Royals had not at least tried to make him a starting pitcher.
There was plenty of talk throughout the organization about how depleted the system was and how much better things were in the minor leagues … but midway through the season Moore traded their 2009 Baseball America top pitching prospect Daniel Cortes (from that doomed 2005 draft — though he was not a Royals pick) for Yuniesky Betancourt, a 27-year-old shortstop who was hitting .250/.287/.330 and who had awful looking advanced fielding stats. Cortes wasn’t anything special, apparently, and Moore and the guys insisted that Betancourt was in fact an excellent defensive shortstop (the numbers were wrong) and a potentially good offensive player (those numbers were wrong too). Betancourt’s numbers continued to make analysts eyes bleed, and the Royals people kept on insisting that he was darned good.
The 2009 Royals were a terrible baseball teams. Just terrible. They had the best pitcher in baseball going every five days — Zack Greinke went 16-8 with a 2.16 ERA and 242 strikeouts against 51 walks — and Soria was about as good as he had been the previous two years and Billy Butler hit .314/.386/.540 after the All-Star Break. And still, the Royals lost 97 games. They blamed much of this on injuries and bad breaks, but in truth those pesky numbers suggested the Royals were the worst defensive team in baseball and the worst baserunning team in baseball. They also walked more hitters than any team in the league. They were 13th in the league in on-base percentage, 12th in the league in ERA (despite Greinke and Soria), 13th in walks drawn, 13th in homers, dead last in sacrifice flies (not that sacrifice flies is that important a category — but their 32 tied them for the lowest total in American League since 2001) and so on. There may be teams that did the little things more poorly than the 2009 Royals … but I can’t name them.
This off-season, the Royals have already signed a 36-year-old catcher, Jason Kendall, who has not had even a 90 OPS+ since George Bush’s first term. They traded Mark Teahen for two youngish players — 26-year-old Chris Getz and 27-year-old Josh Fields — who they hope can be every day players for the first times in their careers. They signed soon-to-be 28-year-old Brian N. Anderson to a major league deal, and despite his lifetime .290 on-base percentage and 69 OPS+, he seems to be the leading candidate to be the Opening Day center fielder. And so on.
I have commented a lot on these moves already, so I should probably say here: Maybe they will work. Maybe Kendall will bring the stability and leadership the Royals crave. Maybe Getz will become a poor man’s Luis Castillo or something. Maybe a new atmosphere will help Josh Field rediscover the ability that made him one of the best prospects in baseball and helped him slug 23 homers in only 100 games his rookie year. Maybe Brian Anderson will be a defensive dynamo in Kauffman Stadium’s huge center field.
And for that matter: Maybe Alex Gordon will be healthy and will pick up where he left off at the end of the 2008 season. Maybe Jose Guillen will have one more hitting year in the sun. Maybe Luke Hochevar will find the success formula that clicked rarely in 2009, and maybe Gil Meche will return healthy and inspired, and maybe Yuniesky Betancourt will indeed flash that multi-faceted talent the Royals insist is buried inside him. Maybe, after four years of hard work, the Royals minor league system will start pumping out jewels.
Maybe. That’s what 2010 brings. When the decade began, the Royals had four of the best young players in baseball and a reason to hope. Now, they have a whole lot of maybe. I go back to the quote way up at the top of this post … I put Bill James’ thought about Earl Weaver up there because Weaver always had a point to everything he did. That was his strength. That’s what made his teams great. Every move had a specific purpose. This guy played because he was sensational defensively, and this guy played because he got on base at a very high rate, and this guy played because he destroyed right handed pitching, and this guy played because he never walked anybody, and this guy played because he was magical on the double play, and this guy played because he stole bases at a very high percentage, and this guy played because he destroyed left-handed pitching. And so on. There was always purpose to the moves. Earl didn’t want guys who could “play baseball.” He wanted guys who could “do something.”
In the decade, the Royals had five every day players who hit between .255 and .265. They had 13 every day players who hit between 10 and 15 home runs. They had 22 every day players who stole between 5 and 14 stolen bases. They had 19 every day players who had OPS+ of 95 or less. They The Royals drifted in the decade. They never tried to become great at anything — they never put their all into becoming a great defensive team, a great on-base team, a great stolen base team, a great control pitching team, a great strikeout pitching team, a great slugging team, even a great bunting team. They drifted. They hoped. They thought long term. They thought short term.
People sometimes mock the Royals talk about “The Process” but it seems to me a process is exactly what the Royals need in the new decade. The Royals need to figure out who they are. And then every single move they make — every one — should reflect who they are. It isn’t easy. The Royals do face serious disadvantages. But at the end of the day, and the end of an awful decade, you can only utter those cliches: These are the big leagues. And you are what your record says you are.
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Quick note: You called Yuni a catcher. Wishful thinking I guess.
Royals 2009 season summary:
Royal’s position player Total WAR 6.8
Prince Fielder’s Total War 6.8
Players worth more WAR than all of the Royals position players combined:
Ben Zobrist
Albert Pujols
Joe Mauer
Chase Utley
Derek Jeter
Hanley Ramirez
Evan Longoria
Ryan Zimmerman
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Process!
This was really depressing to read, actually…
Does it help to mention that after trading Matt Diaz to the Braves for a spare arm, he’s become quite a fine little platoon player/spot starter?
Wasn’t Dye traded to the A’s from the Royals in 2001? (Not to the Rockies.)
Whoops, I stand corrected. Dye did go to Colorado en route to Oakland. I’ll show myself out.
Nice work. One note:
“but midway through the season Moore traded their 2009 Baseball America top pitching prospect Daniel Cortes (from that doomed 2005 draft)”
I’m not 100 percent sure if you’re saying this, but in case you are, Cortes wasn’t a Royals pick. He was acquired from the White Sox along with Tyler Lumsden in the Mike MacDougal trade. Which happened to be a good trade for the Royals.
If you’re just happening to say that Cortes was selected in the ‘05 draft, carry on.
(Also apologize if this turns into a double post, as I got a “connection was reset” screen the first time.)
Joe, you stated that Yuniesky was a catcher instead of a shortstop.
Very interesting to read. It’s hard to think that Dye, Damon, and Beltran were all Royals at one point. Actually, it’s fun in general to look back and see where star players first started out in professional baseball.
Awesome.
One thought that came to mind repeatedly — you could replace “Royals” with “Browns” and a lot of the story would be similar. A couple of brief, luck-based flashes, and an equal number of cover-your-eyes ugly moments. The one constant between the two? Confused management. It’s an MBA cliche, but it does appear that having the right people in the right roles is one of the keys to success.
So here’s a question (one the Browns and maybe the Royals are currently facing): Better to stick with sub-optimal management in hopes of things getting better, or better to keep searching for the right combo?
Also: Juan Gone! What a majestic, talented wet noodle of a player.
PS: No “circle me” comment, for once.
“This was really depressing to read, actually…”
The German ref was pretty funny, though.
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by JPosnanski: Put up that 10,000 word post about Royals decade. People with white coats and nets wait outside house. http://bit.ly/4G56j7...
Thank you Joe. You made my Saturday much more enjoyable.
“The Process”
Joe, hard for us to not knock the mantra about trusting the process, when:
1) Moore never says exactly what the hell the process is, thus leaving us to conclude
2) the process involves signing overpriced, mediocre veterans to above market contracts, repeatedly trading for toolsy centerfielders who don’t actually produce anything, and avoiding giving even a small chance to younger players who might just be good at one skill, such as Kila K, who might easily produce the best OPB on the team if only given a chance to play
Very enlightening read. I was wondering about the “Print This Post” option. I don’t think it’s ever been there for any other posts. Is it a message/command for all of us….
My suggestion would be to think of 2011 as the beginning of the decade (as many have argued). That way, there is a greater chance the Royals will be good.
You forgot how Hillman Dusty’d Meche’s arm last year
After a few years of lapse, I renewed my interest in the Royals (and baseball) at the start of the 2001 season, buoyed by the optimism following the previous season. Little could I have known. Your post vividly chronicles book, chapter, and verse the horror show we Royal fans have witnessed during that time.
I now have the urge to go play in traffic.
*Where does the talent of Royals prospects go? I imagine a man in Germany shouting “Why can I play baseball so well? WHY?”
Somewhere Johnny Carson is saying “Now THAT is funny stuff!”
In 2004, during the Yankees-Red Sox playoffs, “All Things Considered” ran a commentary where the speaker talked about “baseball masochism.” If one wanted to be a masochist, one would not be a Red Sox fan. One would not be a Cubs fan. The true baseball masochists are Royals fans. Joe has given excellent reasons for this speaker’s claim.
Joe,
I’m not a Royals fan, but I’ve been reading you and Rob Neyer and Rany Jazayerli write about the Royals online for a long time, going back to the old Rob and Rany days in the late 90’s. It’s amazing – and, honestly, kind of sick – that I know all of the various names in this post better than I know the regulars and prospects that my actual favorite team – the Reds – played/developed over the last 10 years. Ken Harvey? Ruben Gotay? Oh yeah, I remember those guys. I remember all of these guys and, God help me, it’s not even my team…
As an Orioles fan, it’s a testament to how good a writer you are that I sat down and read this from start to finish. You could write a 9000 word essay on watching paint dry and it would be compelling and readable.
God it must suck to be a Royals fan though.
I don’t know if you did this for cathartic purposes or because there’s a chance no one has ever been able to write so many words about the 00-09 Royals without breaking down…but thanks.
Just before Opening Day, 2000, I started a new column for Baseball Prospectus, entitled “Doctoring The Numbers” – I had just completed my MD the summer before. I still use that column name during those ever-rarer occasions when I write for BP.
I started that first column, naturally, with an ode to the Royals, whose 1999 offense hinted at something historic. Here’s the whole thing:
“The Best Young Offense Ever?
Despite their 64-97 record last season, the Kansas City Royals set a franchise record with 856 runs, and did so almost entirely with youngsters. Mike Sweeney, who turned 26 last July, was the senior member of a group that included Jermaine Dye, Johnny Damon, Rookie of the Year Carlos Beltran, Carlos Febles and Jeremy Giambi.
How impressive was that group? Combined, Royals hitters under the age of 26 (as of July 1, 1999) produced 523 runs, where “runs produced” is simply the average of runs scored and RBIs. This led baseball easily; the Montreal Expos were the only other team with more than 400 runs produced from their under-26 crowd, and most teams had fewer than 200.
Where does this rank historically? The top teams of the 20th century:
Year Team Runs Produced
1999 Kansas City 523
1942 Boston (AL) 521.5
1921 Philadelphia (AL) 516.5
1937 St. Louis (NL) 515.5
1928 New York (NL) 502.5
1929 New York (NL) 495
1935 Chicago (NL) 485
1962 Los Angeles (NL) 480.5
1930 Philadelphia (NL) 469
1929 Philadelphia (NL) 468
1979 Montreal 465
That’s right–the Royals had more production from hitters aged 25 and under than any team in history. Or at least since 1894, back when pitchers were still getting used to the idea of throwing 60 feet, 6 inches and the entire Phillies’ outfield hit over .400.
The best young offense ever? I’m too biased to answer that question; I’m just supplying the data. But if the criteria are changed to include all hitters under age 27–the traditional peak year for a hitter–last year’s Royals still rank ninth, and they have a chance to move up on that list this season.”
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=511
I will now light myself on fire. After peeling off my skin with a cheese grater. And throwing up a little in my mouth.
Excellent. I agree about the point on identity. I hope they pick one (or two) and stick with them. Defense would be my choice as it better fits the ballpark and probably gives them a better chance at .500.
You didn’t dwell on the Raul Ibanez non-re-signing. I remember being very disappointed about that as he was an excellent all-around player and good in the club house. But, frankly, if you had dwelled on how well a lot of these guys did after they left …I don’t think I could have finished reading the article.
Wow, Poz … I wish you lived in Baltimore…
I wish you could give Omar Minaya and the Mets this kind of treatment.
I especially liked the “print this post” feature, Joe, and I hope it’s a regular feature for your longer postings.
Excellent article but I think it’s much more likely that small market teams (like KC, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, etc) are just being blown out of the water due to steroids.
The good players use steroids and thus, get even better and thus, end up on even better teams. The Royals have had some roid monkeys on their team but it’s usually after they’ve fallen apart. Players like Juan Gonzalez, Jose’ Guillen, and even 39 year old (Yes, the Royals payed money to a roid fueled has been 39 year old catcher named Benito Santiago) .
Anyway, they Royals can’t compete with teams that have super duper phenom roid players like A-Rod, Pujols, Manny Ramirez, Clemons, Bonds, you know the names. Heck man, just ONE player like that completely changes your team and can take you to a title. The Royals haven’t had one player like that, not ONE! Ibanez came close but he really turned on the juice as of late, which is too late for KC lol.
No, it’s roids, roids, roids. KC is dead last in sneaking roids, PED’s, HGH..whatever you want to call it..into their system. Pun intended.
See what being almost completely clean gets you?
@ 26…When did Pujols get busted taking PED’s like the rest of those on your list?
Thanks, Joe!
@2
“Ladies and Gentlemen, The Process!”
I actually did, honestly, LOL at that.
Can someone tell me why the signing of Juan Cruz was a bad idea? Sure, in retrospect it wasn’t good, but the guy was a very, very good reliever with + stuff.
@20 Matt J,
I agree that I would read 9,000 words from Joe on his compelling take on watching paint dry, but while it obviously sucks to be a Royals fan, as a fellow O’s fan I think it sucks more/harder (or should I say, it sucks with greater power or more suction?).
There’s two things the Royals have that the O’s don’t. 1) A spot in a division without the Red Sox and particularly the Yankees; and 2) Joe Posnanski frequently writing tremendous blogs about them.
I anxiously await Peter Schmuck’s annual overly optimistic take on the 2010 O’s on WBAL radio followed by my friend Mark’s vociferous disagreeable call followed by my less disagreeable call only because Mark beat me to it and I don’t have the stomach to rhetorically kick a man when he’s down and I’m more resigned the Orioles perpetual state of sub-mediocrity.
I agree with #26. Steroids were the number one sports story of the last decade and the Royals were in a pathetic position. They just had to sit there with their mouth shut and take the abuse of being the least roid filled team in baseball.
Also, it’s ironic and pathetic that the Royals would sign has been players like Juan Gonzalez and Jose Guillen AFTER they either got caught with or stopped taking roids.
Talk about being late to the party.
“This off-season, the Royals have already signed a 36-year-old catcher, Jason Kendall, who has not had even a 90 OPS+ since George Bush’s first term.”
I think it’s fitting that I had to think for a second about WHICH Bush you were actually talking about. As far as I know, it has been since the early ’90s that Kendall put up a 90 OPS+. Sums up the Royals in a nutshell, me thinks.
These pictures of Albert Pujols remind me of Jeremy Giambi and his before/after pics of his steroid fueled physique.
http://grg51.typepad.com/steroid_nation/2009/03/albert-pujols-now-and-thenjuiced.html
@29 – The Juan Cruz signing wasn’t bad. Sure, he wasn’t very good, but the contract was a good one, the Royals didn’t have to give up a 1st round pick#(##), he had/has a ton of talent, and it’s not like they signed him to a long-term deal. Bad teams need more than great 8th inning guys, but if you can get one for cheap, have money to burn, and no one else is taking your money, why not bring him in and see what happens? If he sucks, so be it. If he’s good, maybe you can trade him midseason for a prospect or 3.
# – Correct me if I’m wrong, I believe teams who’s 1st round picks 1-13 can sign type A free agents without losing that pick, but instead lose their 2nd round pick.
## – I went with the pound sign instead of the asterisk.
I’m hoping the same situation happens with Valverde and the O’s. I know they already signed Mike Gonzalez, but if Valverde is lingering and team drafting later than 13th is willing to lose a 1st rounder, see what it takes to land him. No one else is willing to come to Baltimore to be fodder for the Yanks, Red Sox, and Rays. If the O’s can get a potentially good or great asset for cheap and maybe even turn him into a young prospect, do the s— out it!
I meant to write…
“# – Correct me if I’m wrong, I believe teams who’s 1st round pick is from 1 to 13 can sign type A free agents without losing that pick, but instead lose their 2nd round pick.”
… and …
I’m hoping the same situation happens with Valverde and the O’s. I know they already signed Mike Gonzalez, but if Valverde is lingering and teams drafting later than the 13th pick in the 1st round are NOT willing to lose a 1st rounder, see what it takes to land him. No one else is willing to come to Baltimore to be fodder for the Yanks, Red Sox, and Rays. If the O’s can get a potentially good or great asset for cheap and maybe even turn him into a young prospect, do the s— out it!”
I love your posts but this is my favorite. I agree with you completely that the Royals act like things like losing 100 games don’t matter. Until you become a contender again, it’s the only thing that matters. I think it plagues the GMDM administration. They continue to make moves (Guillen, Bettancort, etc.) almost like Allard did. Just making moves without a long term plan. Hoping one strikes gold. We keep hitting coal. One more note. I took my four kids to a game on girl scout night two seasons ago. There was about 30,000 there that night. The Royals kicked ass and scored a bunch of runs. My kids asked me if the Royals ever had crowds this big. I explained how you used to have to buy your tickets in January. They looked at me like I was speaking Japanese. More than anything else I want them to sit in that stadium when it means something. That is why the past decade hurts so bad. Once again Joe, probably my favorite post ever and I love your posts.
About Hochevar, the numbers suggest he really wasn’t that bad last year. Without looking, I think his FIP was around league average or so, at 4.65. THAT is how bad the Royals defense was, and I see no reason to think it has gotten any better.
Good START Joe. Now you just have to add 20 pages per year and make it a book.
[...] 2, 2010 by dingers Joe Posnanski of the Kansas City Star and Sports Illustrated wrote a very long post about the Royals and what went wrong in the decade that wasn’t. Obviously the aughts were a terrible decade for the Royals and no one has said it better than [...]
@30 Brad,
You make a good point about the O’s less than desirable position in the AL. I would posit that having more financial resources, the beautiful Camden Yards, and the brilliant Andy MacPhail allows for more hope as an O’s fan than any sane Royals fan could muster. It’s almost a consensus around baseball that MacPhail and Joe Jordan have, in short order, built one of the most talented young foundations in the league. You think the Royals would have had the stones to go down to the wire with Scott Boras and Matt Wieters? Unlike JoePo’s Royals, every move MacPhail makes has a clear purpose and is defensible in that context. The Tejada, Bedard, and Olson trades were nothing less than heists. I have faith that MacPhail is deliberate and careful enough not to throw this promising future away.
But dammit I hear you about the local writers around here. Poz could write circles around all of them.
The 2000 and 2001 drafts that produced so little talent. 01 only brought us Angel Sanchez and Devon Lowery, ouch! Especially, for a franchise that can not make a mistake in its drafts.
Also, very few people mention the trade of the “troubled” young P Danny Gutierrez. His make up is a big ? but his talent is not. The 2 Danny’s traded in 09 weren’t the best guys off the field…and they were traded…but it is hypocritical when you sign other troubled guys like Callaspo, Farnsworth, and Guillen…in the end it is very hard to be a fan of this team (especially when you cover them and see all the insecurities) great article Joe….
I will always be a Royals fan because I don’t know how I can quit them
Oh Joe..
Jamie Moyer, Jaime Easterly, Jaime Garcia, Jaime Cerda, Jamie Walker. Maybe it’s just my imagination.
Jamie Quirk, of all people, weeps in apparent anonymity
Seriously though – awesome blog post – the nod to the Snickers ad with the German guy is why I keep reading you. Pitch perfect, man.
talk about your nightmare journeys down memory lane…still very much appreciated though. and although you gave us 9k+ words on the decade, i still wish you would’ve written more about the Royals drafts during the decade. The decisions of the early decade and the positioning that resulted due to either bad luck/karma/stupidity in the middle to late part of the decade are still bewildering to me. you wrote at length about the hochevar fiasco, but there are at least 2 other drafts that I think deserve as much mention as I think they’re representative of what the organization has become. the first is the alex gordon draft. that year the royals picked 2nd and took Alex G, a move that was roundly understood/applauded by all serious commentators. However, that year, Justin Upton was taken with the first pick by the Arizona Diamondbacks. Upton was described as being one of the best high school talents of a generation, and not surprisingly he went first overall. What still befuddles me to this day is how the D-backs lost more games than the Royals that year. The Royals were truly horrific that season, and the D-Backs had Randy Johnson in one of his Cy Young years. Of course, fast forward to today and Justin Upton is well on his way to becoming one of the young superstars in baseball and Alex G is looking more like a bust with each disappointing year. That is an example of the Royals apparent magic touch of sapping all of the talent out of can’t miss prospects. The other draft that left me numb was the David Price draft. Depending on perspective, this one was either an example of Royals stupidity or…well I’m going with stupidity. Going into the draft, it appeared that this was a David Price and everybody else type draft. The Royals owned the first pick of the draft entering the last weekend of the season and were playing the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers were fighting for post-season positioning (wild card or division champion) and were not resting their starters. All the Royals had to do was not sweep the Tigers and the number 1 pick was theirs. Of course, the Royals swept the Tigers. The Rays end up taking David Price number 1, and the Royals get Mike Moustakas who may turn out to be a great hitter but right now looks more like a 260 hitter with a little pop who can’t take a walk. David Price, although not yet a frontline starter, has shown brilliant flashes in the Rays post-season run and during his first full year. There are lots of other examples – passing on Buster Posey and Matt Wieters – yet spending millions on guys like Olivo and Posey for example. And this doesn’t touch upon the complete draft disasters of the first few years which were truly criminal. It seems to me that the major difference between a team like the Royals and a team, like say the Rays, is ineptitude in the amateur draft (granted, the Royals have ineptitude pouring out of multiple facets of the decision making process so hard to try to narrow things down to one being more relevant than the other). I know we’re spending $ on the drafts now, and it sounds like we may have some promising arms in the system, but until we find an administration that can have prolonged track record on draft day I suspect that the organization’s fortunes aren’t going to change very soon…
Joe,
What you’ve accomplished is no small feat. I myself am about 4,800 words into my Royals recap of the decade and am up through 2004. I chose to break mine up by seasons instead of having a mammoth post (plus I had to break it up for my own sanity).
I’d imagine after writing the articles for 2005-2009 plus my decade wrap-up piece that I will be up around 10,000 words.
In short, if the men in white coats do come to take you away, send them to my house next.
[...] This post was Twitted by lendamico [...]
Great article Joe. You really should get the KC Star to print this. There are too many fans that would like to see your factual take on this subject. Unbelievably, there are also too many fans that continue to give this sorry organization and its ownership an out every year due to the ingrained “small-market” excuse.
As a minor critique, I would like to make the point that the horrendous trade of Beltran for Teahen, Buck & Wood as well as the re-signing of Raul Ibanez was barely mentioned or glossed over. Especially the Beltran trade finalized this organization’s descent into oblivion. With that trade, the Royals managed to trade their entire, young and talented starting outfield for peanuts and for only one reason, MONEY. A travesty that David Glass should NEVER be forgiven for.
And thus, my point. David Glass is the WORST owner in professional sports history. He was chair of the trust fund that ran the team for 6 seasons following the death of Mr. Kauffman. He immediately sold off the ‘94 team following the end of the strike in ‘95 because the team was not allowed to lose money. However, what is not fully acknowledged is that he proceeded to tank the next 5 seasons all the while the value of the club plummeted to a point that he was willing to “graciously” purchase the team for a Wal-mart ‘buy-for-less’ approach on April 18, 2000. Upon his purchase, he immediately sold off the remaining players over his next 4 seasons crying small market. These are facts.
Now I will move to opinion. David Glass is not a bad man. But he was the wrong kind of man to buy a club in this era, in this market. The man has never shown an ounce of spine or competitive fire that would indicate a desire to win. I don’t buy your hypothesis that he & DM wanted to win the last 2 years. They simply wanted to put up an illusion that the team was trying to keep fans interested while the true plan or “process” played out. That process being the rebuilding of the franchise SOLELY through the minor leagues. Any knowledgeable fan knows that the rebuilding of the minors was required anyway. It’s academic and does not make DM a genius for insisting it upon his hiring or prove David Glass has changed his approach. But the real insidiousness of this approach is that David Glass has NEVER spent the money on the big club, EVER. He’s always gone after marginal players (Guillen) because the excuse has always been that he could not sign the top shelf ones (Tori Hunter) because they would not come to KC (he created the situation & now can’t sign players because they don’t believe he’ll follow thru – they’re right btw).
The point here is that an owner of an MLB team (especially in this era) needs to have the heart of a gambler and the money to back it up. An MLB owner has to be willing to put his own money in the pot, for a while at least to garner a return. Glass has NEVER been willing to do this and has brazenly admitted as such right after he bought the club for next to nothing. Unlike Lamar hunt who lost millions his first few years starting the AFL (his famous reply when asked about his loss of over a million one year, “Well, I guess in 250 years, we’ll be broke”) Glass doesn’t have the competitive fire to own a professional sports franchise. Glass HAS the money (despite the objections from is apologists), but not the stones. He’s a weak and spineless owner that feels that his ONLY objective is to keep the franchise afloat in KC but to make no moves (risking his own money -even for a short period) to put together a team & organization that could win.
Example, Glass could take advantage of the nucleus of Greinke, Soria, Butler & DeJesus and get agressive in FA for the next 2-3 years getting real talent and not has-beens/never-was players and show the league, Greinke (who will almost certainly be traded by the deadline in ‘11 -more on that next) and God-forbid, the fans, that he is serious WHILE Moore rebuilds the minors. He spent some money ONE year out of TEN, and when it didn’t net a return, he crawls back in his cave in Arkansas and pulls back the cash and gives up. If Moore does his job and gets the returns in 2-3 years from the minors (he’s had 3 years already) then when the FA contracts begin to come to fruition in ‘12, Glass can actually reign back the spending because he’ll be able to infuse the big club with low-cost talent from the minors (oh, and have the cred with Greinke to re-sign him and the money to make it happen).
Does anyone think that Greinke will re-sign (contract thru ‘12) with a sorry outfit like this after ‘10 & ‘11 seasons go in the tank? No way. This guy nearly quit baseball because he couldn’t stand the way the Royals were losing. Glass & Moore are all but ensuring that Greinke will be traded sometime between the trade deadline next year and in ‘11 or risk getting ‘Beltraned.’
Sorry for the long post, but I think it is important to remember how we got to this point over the last 10 years. David Glass has NOT changed. Moore is making the SAME mistakes Allard did because Glass is setting him up for failure. He’s simply using 2009-2010 dollars instead of 2001-2004 dollars. $60-70MM now or $45-58MM then. It’s called inflation, that’s all. David Glass is the architect of this mess and you better believe that DM is NOT the solution. There isn’t a GM out there that could solve this mess short of requiring Glass upon their hiring to up the payroll for the next few years. After Moore is fired, there will be another GM put into the same no-win situation as the previously 3 GM’s.
David Glass is the Alpha and the Omega of this decade’s march toward the abyss. David Glass is bad for baseball in Kansas City, in any city.
“David Glass, the respected CEO of Wal-Mart”
Isn’t that an oxymoron?
Joe,
If you’re going to write at this length you need to provide cocktail service.
Wow Joe that was a two cup of coffee post, but by the end I needed a whiskey.
Nice job.
@47 Adam,
I agree that DM is certainly NOT beyond the notion that he is in over his head. His oscillation between philosophies is very troubling and indicates that he’s as lost as Allard or Herk. But I believe that, as the CEO/Owner, you have to set your people up to succeed. These aren’t the Twins, where there’s a supply of talent in the minors. DM has ZERO room for error and that is just not realistic in any business but especially when gambling on player abilities. Now if DM can’t make the right call with the money, then he should be given his pink slip. I simply think he’s being asked to go after marginal ‘reaches’ instead of at least 1 sure thing. Glass won’t let him go after that sure thing and that is my problem with Glass. Will the player come? Players will go where the money is if it is enough. This team is more apt to convince a prospective FA to sign now with the emergence of Greinke & Butler than at any time in the past 4-6 years. But as usual, the owner will let this opportunity pass until it is too late and then he’ll lose Greinke too (probably Butler & Soria in the future as well).
Also, I don’t advocate spending money frivolously because no owner could afford that approach. But to pull back the reigns after 1 failed attempt (and yes one – ‘07 & ‘08 PR was only $58MM) is disingenuous and gutless.
At the rate they are going (solely thru the minors) it will be another 5-10 years before they have enough talent AT THE SAME TIME to supply the big club with a competitive team. And that’s if they hit on nearly every draft.
@25:
>I wish you could give Omar Minaya and
>the Mets this kind of treatment.
I agree completely. These days the Mets sadly appear to be a wealthier version of the Royals. Why sign Bay? They’re so desperate for pitching! Talk about identity issues…
The last time the Royals had an identity was 1994, when they had Hal McRae as manager. Schuerholz fired him– 7 years after he broke his promise to him and released him mid year. Mr. K knew it was wrong and let John S walk to Atlanta. We never were disrespected as an organization when Kaufman was alive.
Matt J @20: As a recovering O’s fan myself, I think the distance between the Royals and the Orioles is less than you think.
Is the organization rebuilding? If so, then why give a 4-year extension to Brian Roberts at precisely the time when speedy leadoff 2B types *always* fall off the cliff? Why the failure to move Baez, Huff, etc. back when they had value? Why sign a (semi) closer for a whopping *two* years — and surrender a high 2nd round draft pick in the process?
The Bedard trade was the gold standard of ripoffs, and having Matt Wieters fall into your lap on draft day is always a plus — that’s all well and good, but I still don’t see a plan here. And don’t get me started on the last two drafts….
Boo Hoo.
Joe, as someone that’s always read your stuff here in KC, I find this somewhat funny.
You’ve been the ONE guy here that ALWAYS wrote about the silver lining. No matter how much went wrong with the Royals over the past decade you were ALWAYS there telling all of your readers how great things were.
Even in this article you want to go out of your way to say that all these ‘great’ guys are your friends and good baseball people and smart people….
but amazingly none of them succeeded in running the Royals.
Something doesn’t add up.
You made a career of writing in Kansas City about how great things were… UNTIL the fact that even you couldn’t gloss over how bad things were. Until it would have been incredibly stupid, even for you, to try and pull the wool over your readers eyes about what was really going on.
You’ve never written a true piece about the Royals until it was impossible to hide the truth about them.
All you ever did was write fluff about them.
There’s no doubt you’re talented and can write a great story. But you’ve been a big part of the problem here by covering up the problems with this team to the fans that didn’t know any better because they wanted to trust what you had to say.
Not that you could have done anything about the team… but it sure would have been nice to see someone with your talent actually be ‘truthful’ about what was going on… rather than telling us how we’d all have loved to have Tony Muser as our neighbor because he was just that nice of a guy.
51 – “These aren’t the Twins, where there is an endless supply of talent in the minors”
Haven’t the Twins drafted after the Royals every year in the 2000s?
There have been two devastating events that have destroyed any chance for the Royals to succeed:
1. The 94/95 strike eliminated small markets from any chance of lasting and meaningful competition. It also destroyed the Royals fan base.
2. Steroids. It is impossible for the Royals to compete with the better players taking designer steroids and going to the top teams.
We can argue all day and all night long on how the Royals have been mismanaged. However, there’s nothing they can do to have excellent pitching, hitting, and defense all at the same time. They’re doing exactly what they’re capable of–which is they have 3 or 4 above average players and the rest just average or below average.
Still, if I was the GM I would never have signed Jose Guillen. In my opinion that is the worst transaction in the history of baseball second only to the Rangers signing A-Fraud for 50 million over his asking price.
In conclusion; it’s not the Royals management that sucks. It’s the MLB and the Players Union that sucks. They’ve rigged the game where only the big teams have any chance to win.
How is that fair? It’s not.
I just checked and Jose Guillen has a total of 226 hits in two seasons for the Royals.
The Royals paid Guillen TWENTY FOUR MILLION DOLLARS for 226 hits, that’s $110,000 for each hit, what a bargain!
@54 One of those last two drafts had Brian Matusz. I’m just sayin’…
Yes, it’s that broken system where only big teams can compete. That’s the problem!
The Royals had an opening day payroll that was $5 million MORE than the Twins. By the end of the season, it was nearly $9 million MORE than the Twins.
The Royals finished 21.5 games behind the Twins.
They also had a higher payroll in ‘08, when they “only” finished 13 games behind the Twins. The system must have been less broken that year.
Wow, Jose Guillen gets over $110,000 for just one hit? I don’t make that in over 3 years!
Why would anyone pay a roid monkey like Jose Guillen so much money? Somebody got screwed over on this deal, like the fans.
I bet that oversized new scoreboard cost less than Jose Guillen!
[...] This post was Twitted by ryan_j_lewis [...]
The Twins have won 4 playoff games in the last 18 years. They have a little more hope than the Royals but they’re still way, way, way over matched by the big dogs.
In this case I believe that the word “process” is used more like the same word “process” in French: a trial.
Neat summation, that
@64
That’s true, but I think that’s a separate argument. It’s not just that the Royals can’t compete with the “big boys” — they’ve also shown they can’t compete with the likes of the Twins and Indians, who combined to win SEVEN division titles in the past decade while the Royals were losing 90 to 100 games nearly every year.
That’s not the fault of a broken system, that’s the fault of a broken team.
True, the Royals are broken but there’s only so much these small market teams can do. The Royals haven’t been to the playoffs in a generation.
If the Royals get lucky they may play in one or two playoff series in the next 10-15 years.
It doesn’t matter who owns the Royals or who the GM or manager/victim. The Royals will not/can not compete in the current economic climate that is major league baseball.
Joe, I really anticipated your article and it sure delivered home for me. Why? Well, I’ve been a fan of the Royals for 35 years and I’ve decided that since it’s a new decade to end this tragedy by giving up on the Royals and major league baseball(frauds) all together.
The first ten years were great but the last 25 really was depressing. Not just because KC lost a team but because the strike and the steroids left such an overwhelming disadvantage to loyal fans to me, why be a sucker any longer?
No, it’s time to hang up my blue baseball cap and go on without this sorry game full of greeds and cheats. I haven’t felt this liberated since I don’t know how long. I feel like..I feel like..I WIN! Yeah, that’s it!
Thanks for a great start to 2010!!
I guess it depends on what we mean by compete. World Championships? No, probably not. But there is no good reason the Royals should be so bad, so out of it, in the weakest division in baseball.
If it had been the Royals who lost to the A’s in the ‘06 ALCS, or to the Red Sox in the ‘07 ALCS, or lost a 1-game playoff to Chicago, or got swept by the Yankees last season, Joe’s post would have been VERY different. And it could have been them, because they should be on an even field with the Twins and Indians. But they haven’t even been close, and that’s they’re own fault.
Wow-I lived through this, but after reading it all at once I may need medication and a soft room with no sharp objects.
I write a recap of the Royals season for a few friends (It is thousands of words with stats to back it up) and I usually do it the week after the World series. This year it took until now because it was too depressing to finish.
While I am in much agreement that Baseball is set up to prevent teams like the Royals from winning, the sheer idiocy of many of their moves assures me that they would still lose in a different system.
@#46- I am glad that someone else recognizes that the root of the Royal’s problems is David Glass. Neither you or Joe mentioned that the Dye for Perez trade (One of the worst in Baseball History) was Glass’ move, and he instructed Baird to make it. Indeed it seemed that his main goal for several years was to make bad moves to hamstring his team and blame money, with perhaps the lofty goal to change the inequity that exists. Of course, some of the moves were so asinine that the Royal’s stupidity was the more valid point.
Like many cost cutters, he does not realize that he is costing himself money long term. Many Royals fans grew up loving a competitive and scrappy team with good management. A person graduating from college in 2010 was 5 or 6 the last time the Royals were not a league joke, and if he does love baseball, he roots for another team. Glass has singlehandedly (He has run this team since the strike, despite not officially becoming the owner until later) killed off most of an entire generation of fans!
We’ve now become the place where respected baseball men lose their minds, as I suspect Dayton Moore has become certifiable over the last year, as many of his moves have become funhouse crazy.
I was hooked on the team in 1973. They were a wonderful part of my childhood and teenage years. They have become a painful addiction I cannot quit.
@55 Adam,
I completely agree that the philosophy has to be a concentrated effort on rebuilding the minors. I simply believe that for a short 3-4 year window, this team can do both – spend on the minors and spend at the major league level. After what Glass has done to this franchise, it is the least he could do. If this approach doesn’t net at least a .500 season and at least 1 decent run at the playoffs then, clearly DM is incapable of assembling the talent at the major league level and should be shown the door. I think the fans deserve better than David Glass trying to atone of past sins by building a team cheaply thru the minors and taking another 5-10 years to do it. We’ve waited too long already.
@ 57 Spud,
You’re right. They have, but look at HOW they drafted for much of this past decade. Signability was the goal and not talent. Players that were represented by Boras were avoided like the plague. This organization is utterly DEVOID of talent and akin to an expansion franchise. This is the most grievous and unforgivable sin of the David Glass regime.
@56 Rich,
I like Joe’s writing and his ability to not jump to easy conclusions until some thoughtful consideration (unlike his previous colleague Whitlock). However, I agree with your assertions that Joe could have been more critical of this organization and specifically the owner. He always focused his critiques on Herk, Baird, or one of the various managers. But rarely took ownership to task for their cheap ineptitude. And while I agree with this criticisms of DM, he never goes the final step and links DM’s performance with Glass’s pocketbook. In 1994 the Royals’ PR was $47MM. In 2007 it was $58MM. In 2008 it was $58MM. Then came 2009 and he upped it a whopping $12MM to $70MM. Now that sounds like a lot but in the grand scheme, is it really? I agree that for a market the size of KC, $70MM is a decent payroll but within a certain context, I disagree. The context being that you also have to have other avenues (like the farm system) to pull from. The Royals are empty in that department. So an owner that says that they want to win now should go further than other teams like the Twins (the most oft used example of bang for the buck). It’s disingenuous to compare the Twins and their system with Royals at this stage. Yes their in similar markets, but the Twins are major league and the Royals are AAAA with only a nucleus of a farm system. DM should be blamed on doubt for his jumping the ship to go after the Guillen’s, Farnsworth’s & Jacob’s, but I still believe he was forced into those moves by a salary cap installed by Glass that would only allow him to go after marginal players. You can’t tell me that if he had the money he would have gone after Jacobs over Abreau. Yes they would have had to overpay for Abreau but that’s Glass’s fault for letting this franchise slip so far to begin with. Still this blogticle is a pretty fair summary of the ineptitude of this organization and I only hope that he would be willing to post it at the KC Star. This organization needs to be held accountable and there doesn’t seem to be a willingness at the Star to tell it like it is.
The Royals are thrust back to the KC A’s of the 50’s and 60’s. How? Well, now the Royals are basically a farm team for the big market teams like the Red Sox and the Yankees. Whenever the Royals get a decent player he’ll be gone before you know it. Beltran, Damon, and soon to be Greinke. It’s hopeless, utterly hopeless.
On the bright side, the Royals weren’t really much of a farm team to big market clubs last decade because they didn’t have that many good players. The last good player they lost was Beltran, and that was six years ago.
Wait…what does bright side mean again?
Dye, Beltran, Sweeney, Appier, Damon, Ibanez, Byrd. Next up Soria, Meche(ruined) and Greinke.
@54 Andrew,
Didn’t the Red Sox, a pretty well run organization, just sign a 36 year old second baseman? Is there anything in his production (http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/roberbr01-bat.shtml#batting_standard) that suggests a steep decline? Are you aware he lead the league in doubles last year? Posted a third straight year of an OPS+ of at least 110? His defense is declining, but there’s no indication that he can’t handle the position, and his bat more than makes up for any drop in defense. His 3.4 WAR was 8th among all 2B last season, and FanGraphs projects him to be a half run better in 2010. Of all the Orioles issues, you chose Brian Roberts as one of them? Seriously?
I’m struggling to see the error in the Gonzalez signing. Why do you scoff a the two years? It’s a highly appropriate contract to give a reliever. Not to mention that Gonzalez is actually, you know, good? Consider that Brandon Lyon got 3 years and 15 million from Houston, while the Gonzalez contract was 2 for 12. Furthermore, the O’s should be ready to contend by 2011, which will be exactly when we will need reliable late game relievers to bolster a young rotation.
Finally, what is your problem with the last two drafts? As Concerned Citizen pointed out, two drafts ago we snagged Brian Matusz, who is one of the top prospects in the game? What’s your beef with Matt Hobgood? Would you have rather they picked a more expensive and higher risk prep pitcher? Keith Law projects 2nd rounder Mychal Givens as a “potential front-line setup man/closer.
The distance between the Orioles and Royals is a chasm. When Andy MacPhail trades for the likes of Mike Jacobs and Yuniesky Betancourt, or signs someone like Jose Guillen, I’ll reconsider.
@74 Adam,
I think a team like the Royals CAN spend on both sides for a limited (2-3yr) time considering that they should have plenty of funds in hand from all the years of NOT spending. In fact, if they want any chance of re-signing Greinke, they’ll have to. It could be a catch 22 I know (spend money now and hope you have enough left to re-sign Greinke or don’t spend and watch him walk anyway), but if they continue on their course and tank ‘10 & ‘11, there is ZERO chance that Greinke will re-sign. He’s already put them on notice with the latest signing that he expects them to compete. Considering his contract is up at the end of the ‘12 season, that gives them 3 seasons. 2010 is almost certainly a 95-100 loss season and the odds don’t look good for ‘11. The Royals have given up on themselves and so Greinke will give up on them as well. And when he goes, remember that the cry for justice from what few fans remain will be loud and pointed (at Glass & Moore).
I agree that Moore is starting to seem too wishy-washy in is philosophy to instill confidence that he can do anything but scout talent (and that is still suspect as well).
Alas, I’m afraid, Glass and Moore will follow the prescribed plan of “0-3 service time” players for the next 2 plus years and then they’ll be starting over, again, in ‘12 after losing Greinke or ‘13 (after Moore is fired).
Yes the system is broken but that doesn’t apply the Royals. It applies to the Twins but not a team like the Royals that let their system dry up thru negligence and cheapness. When the Royals develop their own talent on a consistent basis and then lose said talent to FA then they can cry.
#77 Adam – Great point, you describe exactly why the Royals are just a farm team for the Yankees, Sox, Dodgers etc.
I feel I’m reading the brochure for Astros seasons to come.
St pat lays it out in his post. Glass is the worst owner currently in major league sports, and rivals Ted Stepian and the Clippers owner as worst ever. MLB should force him to sell the team. The major league team is so bad it is going to make a run at 120 losses this year unless there are some major signings that take place before opening day.
I guess with the newly refurbished stadium the Royals are locked in KC for the foreseeable future. Still, I wonder how bad attendance will get in the next few years, especially since they will still lose anywhere from 95-100 games each season.
Its been 25 years since KC has been in the playoffs, longer than every single other MLB team.
I can see it going another 25. Easy.
Matt J @75:
Struggling to understand your post, but here goes:
1. Roberts is signed at $10MM per year until 2013. Do you honestly think he will be a productive player in ‘12 and ‘13, let alone a ten million dollar one? Before you answer, take a quick look at Roberto Alomar’s career curve — or Chuck Knoblauch, or, I don’t know, pretty much every other 2B in the vicinity of Roberts’ skill set. This was a bad signing, and it’ll be obvious very soon.
The comparison to Scutaro makes no sense on multiple levels — (a) the Red Sox got Scutaro to play short, not second; (b) they’re paying him half of what the O’s are paying Roberts; and (c) they’re the freakin’ Red Sox.
2. I guess my fundamental problem with the Gonzalez signing is that I see no indication that the Orioles — who almost lost ONE HUNDRED GAMES last year — will be 35 games better by 2011. If you’re that optimistic… I don’t know, good for you, I guess.
If you’re slightly more realistic about the Orioles’ chances, it makes no sense to pass on players who might actually help you in 2012 and beyond to make this team slightly better in 2010 and 2011. That’s my point about lack of direction. A 98-loss team simply should not be signing Type A free agents unless it’s Mark Teixeira or the like.
3. You’ve made my point for me about the Orioles’ last two drafts — it’s Matusz and then a whole lot of crap. Seriously, just page through the Orioles’ 2008 draft; it’s garbage. I guess I should be happy that the Orioles didn’t screw up the #4 pick.
But then they *did* screw up the #5 pick this year. I mean, I can’t help you if you think taking Hobgood made more sense than, oh, the 20 guys who went after him.
4. I do agree with you that — so far, at least — MacPhail hasn’t thrown a ton of money at truly worthless players. On the other hand, he has (a) thrown SOME money at worthless players, and (b) inexplicably squandered resources that a rebuilding team shouldn’t squander (signing Type A free agents, failing to trade Aubrey Huff in 2008, etc.).
So on the whole, I don’t see a whole lot of reason for optimism here in Charm City.
Great post. Loved it. When I first started reading it, I thought it would be uproariously funny. Instead, it was full of sadness and desperation. I think that’s actually the direction baseball is going. I keep hearing Red Sox fans lamenting the fact that they will always be 2nd fiddle to the Yankees, because they simply can’t compete with the New York financial behemoth. But if the $150M Red Sox feel this way, then the Royals must feel like they’re at the bottom of a well with Jaime Gumb looking down on them.
What I would like to know is-if you take the 25 best Royals players of the decade and assembled them in 2010 (assuming they could still play at the level to be considered the best) what would be the Royals payroll? I did some quick math (for current players I took 2009 salary, for non-current I took their last year salary). Again just a quick math computation and came up with $133 M. Would the Royals EVER spend $133M to field a contender?
If we adjusted for inflation (baseball inflation) I wonder if this is comparible to what Mr Kaufman spent in the 70’s and 80’s to field a contender?
Current ownership does not have the same need to win-the Royals are a buisness venture not a passion! Joe won’t call out the owner but really when you boil down what he is saying it IS the owner who sets the tone for the entire organization.
Regardless, we can speculate and blog all we want but nothing will change here.
Just because I live in KC doesn’t mean I have to be a Royals fan. Thinking maybe Dodgers-same blue color…
Circle me Scottie Pose!
@84 and Joe:
With the web and everything else available, how long before people stop rooting for teams in their cities, and picking teams they actually like the way the play/run/whatever?
Really, the Vikings play here, at most 10 games that matter here a year. 10. Why do they need to play here for me to care? Why pay $500MM for a stadium here, when we could just root for them from afar?
When I read the line about the guy in Germany playing baseball so well I about fell over laughing. A funny commercial that was made even funnier, well played.
“I imagine a man in Germany shouting, “Why can I play baseball so well? WHY?”
Albert Pujols is German?
Thanks so much for the reference to that Snickers commercial.
That spot should win every award ever created for TV advertising.
Thanks. I’ve lived as a Royals fan in St. Louis for the past decade, which only seems to make it worse. This is the evidence my wife needs to realize how bad it has been for me.
Two thoughts:
1. Denny Matthews is the most underpaid man in America.
2. Whoever can read Joe’s post without laughing, crying, and/or drinking is a better man than I.
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This was brilliantly done, Joe. As an impossibly diehard Royals fan it helps to put everything into perspective. I can certainly understand those like Tom Brett who want to hang up there blue hats for good, but my hope will endure to end despite the mistakes made. The Royals are family and I’ll never walk out on them, even if they might try to walk out on us…
I must be a loser like the Royals, I read this entire article. I didn’t see any mention of the pitcher who threw a DP comebacker into CF when he slipped on the rosin bag. The Royals need to be contracted in the 2010s. No one outside of the KC listening area will miss them.
[...] After a month and a half, and approximately 11,400 words, the Royals Rotten Decade series is finally at an end. If you want to spend more time reliving the last ten years of Royals baseball, check out Joe Posnanski’s article on the topic. [...]