Jeff Francis got away from the Yankees too?

Hey Jeff Francis... congrats on the new contract with the Royals...but...
You DO know that the Yankees current starting rotation goes as follows:

Terrific ace in CC Sabathia.
Guy who had a good first half and a shaky second half in Phil Hughes.
A super talented guy who is slowly turning into Crispin Glover in A. J. Burnett.
A nice arm who could very well be another overrated Yankee prospect in Ivan Nova.

And evidently the 16th caller on WFAN.

There is at least 1 or maybe as many as 4 holes in the Yankee rotation.
And as we now enter mid January (and soon after that February) it is looking more and more like Andy Pettitte will be sitting on his porch, whittling, this season.

Before signing onto a rebuilding project keep in mind four things going in your favor.

1) The Yankees are desperate for starting pitching.
2) You are a starting pitcher.
3) You throw with your left hand.
4) You have a pulse.

I am assuming the fourth one is true.

But that is a combination that should bring about the expression "CHA-CHING!"

Did you REALLY exhaust any conversations you had with the Yankees?
Yeah you are going to make $2 million his year and that is $2 million more than a lot of us will make this year.

But man alive you could have squeezed a few million more.
Oh, did Cashman say "No way"?

You fool. He would have reversed himself a week later. It is his M.O. these days!

Listening in on a pitcher-catcher in game conversation

PITCHER KYLE DAVIES: Jesus these uniforms suck.

CATCHER MATT TREANOR: Just stop thinking about it. If we can win this game than we can give our fans the illusion that this is going to be a great year in Kansas City.

PITCHER KYLE DAVIES: Seriously... these are powder blue. We're the damn Royals. They couldn't find Royal Blue?

CATCHER MATT TREANOR: What are you, Tim Gunn? Just try not to make it too lopsided. We can't rely on that Hawaiian kid every night.

PITCHER KYLE DAVIES: What his name?

CATCHER MATT TREANOR: Kila Ka'aihue.

PITCHER KYLE DAVIES: How do you pronounce that?

CATCHER MATT TREANOR: Kila Ka'aihue.

PITCHER KYLE DAVIES: So the apostrophe is silent?

CATCHER MATT TREANOR: Yup.

PITCHER: KYLE DAVIES: OK, let's play ball.

Kila Ka'aihue is pronounced Kila Ka'aihue

The Royals won their first game of the season with a walk off shot by Kila Ka'aihue... which is easier to write than say.

Truth be told, I cut and pasted it, so if I spelled it wrong, blame Yahoo Sports.

But I had no idea how to pronounce it, so I went to Wikipedia.
This is what they had for the pronunciation:


That's not helping me.
What's the point of a pronunciation guide if you need to get ANOTHER guide to figure out the first guide?

I still don't know. Maybe he'll play long enough to figure it out. If I could figure out how to pronounce Mientkiewicz then how hard can Kila Ka'aihue be?

(Truth be told, I cut and pasted Mientkiewicz as well.)

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Sully Baseball Honors... Luis de los Santos

Going through my old baseball cards tucked away in my parents house, I stumbled across one for Luis de los Santos. Chances are you never heard of him, and don't feel bad if that is the case.

But I believe this obscure player, a native of the Dominican Republic who grew up in New York and was drafted by the Royals a few picks ahead of Tom Glavine, is worth honoring for a few reasons. One of those reasons reflects what was truly unfair about the steroid era, but I will get to that later.

First of all, while he never made it as a big league hitter, he was a terrific AAA hitter. He became part of that mysterious and ultimately frustrating category of players too good to stay in the minors but can't quite figure out major league pitching. For three straight seasons he was one of the leading hitters at AAA Omaha, winning the American Association MVP in 1988.

He had three cameos in the big leagues. He played briefly for the Royals in 1988 and 1989 and had a cameo with the Tigers in 1991. He didn't exactly light the big leagues on fire and wound up playing in Independent Leagues and elsewhere.

He was partially affected by a log jam of good hitters in Kansas City. Remember in the late 1980s, the Royals still had the aura of being an elite team. Between 1976 and 1985, they made the post season 7 out of 10 seasons, winning the 1980 pennant and 1985 World Series.

And by 1988 they seemed ready to make another run at it. The team still had George Brett, Bret Saberhagen, Mark Gubicza, Frank White, Willie Wilson and Bud Black from the World Champion squad. But they also had new stars like Kevin Seitzer, Danny Tartabull, Jeff Montgomery and of course Bo Jackson.

And to show how different baseball was then, they also had one of the highest payrolls in the game.

With that much talent on the big league roster, there wasn't a lot of room for de los Santos to play. If he had been traded as a prospect to a less talented squad, he may have had the opportunity to play every day. But there was no moving George Brett off of first, who had another batting title in him.

So instead de los Santos stayed at Omaha for 4 straight seasons, piling up hits and driving in runs, waiting for a spot to open up on the big league club that never did.

He wound up in Detroit briefly in 1991 and missed the 1992 season. By 1993 he was in the Angels organization, still hitting well (he batted .311 at AAA that year) but he never got the call to come back to the show again.

After the 1993 season, he began a global odyssey playing baseball in Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Italy. In 2002, as a 35 year old he played 50 games for AAA Rochester, but never got the call from the Orioles.

And as far as my limited research has gone, his playing career ended in 2002 with the Mexico City Reds.

So what does de los Santos have to do with steroids?
When people talk about what harm did the steroid era do and what difference does it make if they were getting a competitive edge, I can't help but think of players like de los Santos.

Here was a guy who was obviously a good hitter but he also had unimpressive power numbers. He never hit more than 6 home runs for the season in AAA. His highest slugging percentage at AAA was .416. So while he got hit after hit (and drove in 87 runs in 1988 despite only hitting 6 homers) he didn't have the eye popping stats that would prompt someone to keep him in the big leagues. And certainly not one to move a George Brett or Kevin Seitzer to the bench.

And he was doing this in the early 1990s, the infancy of the juiced era. It was also the post collusion period where baseball salaries were starting to skyrocket. Imagine the choices he could have made. Imagine the thoughts and temptations that could have gone through his head.

"I am a good hitter, but nobody is interested in a first baseman with no power. If I could just add some home runs to my game, I could stick around on a big league roster and become a millionaire many times over."

Of course he could have thought that.
And I bet he was starting to see some teammates and other players starting to try stuff out. Remember we know Canseco was using the stuff in 1988 and no doubt people were asking in the work out rooms "What is Jose doing differently?"

Canseco was the AL MVP in 1988 the same year de los Santos was the American Association MVP. No doubt Luis would rather have Canseco's trophy, and his respect around the league and his bank statement.

And yet his home run and power numbers stayed the same.

How many Luis de los Santos couldn't find a big league job during the steroid era because they were playing with their natural gifts rather than enhancing them with hormones meant for cows? How many other good hitters never got past AAA while they saw players with a worse sense of the strike zone but bigger biceps get prolonged shots in the big leagues.

We'll never know.
I am sure when de los Santos was globe trotting playing in leagues so obscure that I can't find the stats for them he was watching the inflated bodies and pay checks of the players back in America. I wonder how many of them were teammates of his in the Royals and Tigers farm system.

One side note. In 2000, nine years after his last big league cameo, Luis de los Santos surfaced in the Mexican League as a member of the Saltillo Saraperos. While he never hit more than 6 homers nor slugged higher than .416 professionally in his 20s, he suddenly hit 25 homers and posted a .632 slugging percentage and an OPS of 1.050 as a 33 year old.

I am not saying anything. I am just listing the stats.

And I am still saluting you Luis.
You deserved a real shot in the big leagues.

Zack Greinke helps complete the Gary Sheffield trade

I started thinking about Gary Sheffield when Zack Greinke arrived in Milwaukee yesterday. Let me explain.

There was a telling moment in Zack Greinke's introduction to the local press. He said "The main reason I wanted to get out" and he stopped himself with a smile and made a correction "I mean preferred to get out of Kansas City..." and he continued.

The first statement was the correct one. He wanted out of Kansas City, the once proud baseball city that was home to one of the true marquee franchises of my youth. Now it is the Pittsburgh of the American League. The team that is there to develop players for other teams while perpetually piling up prospects for a pennant run that never comes.

All the while people complain that their lack of success comes from their small market and revenue, all the while teams with smaller revenues consistently make the post season.

So you can't blame Greinke for wanting to get out of that purgatory and the Royals dealt him when his value was still high and teams that wanted Cliff Lee were craving a consolation prize.

But after reading Tim Brown's article on Yahoo Sports, I lost a little bit of respect for Greinke. He won the Cy Young in 2009 with his slider being his best pitch. And when the Royals stunk as they have every year he pitched in KC, he didn't throw the slider as much making sure his arm was good and strong to whatever contender he landed with.

Sorry but the Royals drafted him, made him a millionaire many times over and didn't give up on him when his anxiety disorder made him leave spring training in 2006.

The Royals stood by him as he had to leave baseball for psychological reasons. A team could have said "This clearly isn't going to work. His head is all messed up."

They didn't. They let him work out his issues and let him back in to be in the position to go from "a head case" to "elite ace."

The Royals deserved a little more than "I'll save my best stuff for the winner." And the other contenders in baseball deserved to face Greinke at his best as the Royals could have played spoiler down the stretch.

He checked out. And I guess it was karma that he was dealt to Milwaukee.

Remember all of those years ago when Gary Sheffield was playing for the Brewers? He was a future superstar playing with future Hall of Famers Robin Yount and Paul Molitor. But he hated playing in Milwaukee and wanted out and supposedly made errors on purpose to hasten a trade out of town.

He was shipped off to San Diego (and then Florida, and then Los Angeles, then Atlanta, then the Yankees, then Detroit, then the Mets...) and put together a career that at least deserves to be part of the Cooperstown discussion. (And somehow he managed to circumvent the whole steroid stigma despite being as involved in the BALCO accusations as Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi.)

So one star dogged it to get OUT of Milwaukee.
And today one dogged it to get traded TO Milwaukee.

In a way I guess Greinke was a player to be named MUCH later in the Sheffield trade.

It shows how far the Brewers have come that they are considered to be a destination for someone wanting to win NOW!

Now if a star will play at half speed to get traded TO the Royals then Kansas City fans could call it even.

The Brewers Statement: We are NOT Kansas City (nor Pittsburgh for that matter)

When the Royals traded Zack Greinke to Milwaukee the other day, there was a beautiful symbolism to the move that wasn't lost on me.

Greinke wasn't dealt to New York. Forget the spin of "He couldn't handle New York." Neither the Mets nor the Yankees have the prospects to have pulled off the trade.

He wasn't dealt to the Red Sox, Phillies, Cubs, Angels or Dodgers.

The Royals, a small market club that ships off all of their stars, sent him to Milwaukee, another small market club that used to ship off all their stars.

Instead of sending Prince Fielder packing and looking to rebuild, the Brewers are going for it and adding a Cy Young contender.

And with that trade, the Brewers are doing something I've been urging the Pirates to do for a while and will pretty soon may encourage the Royals to do the same thing.

Go all in and give your fans a reason to be excited.

There is a reason I am bringing up the Pirates in this post about the Royals and Brewers.

From when the Wild Card era began in 1994 until the end of the 2006 season, the Pirates, Royals and Brewers combined for 34 losing seasons out of 36.

Only the 2003 Royals got their nose over .500 ith an 83-79 season.

And those three teams became the symbol of everything unfair with baseball. Their revenue was so much lower than the big spenders... how could they POSSIBLY compete?

This of course ignored the fact that low revenue teams like the Marlins could win the World Series twice in that stretch. And ignoring the fact that contraction worthy teams like the Twins and the A's could be playoff regulars. And the Expos, despite having no owner nor ANY fanbase managed to contend into September in 2002 and had a winning record in 2003.

Those three teams kept building for a future that would never arrive.

And the mantra of Brewers owner and commissioner Bud Selig (no conflict of interest there) was to change the economics of the game to help teams like his own.

Well, a wonderful thing happened to the Brewers: The Seligs sold the team.

Sometimes that's what you need. A change at the top could lead to changes in the whole culture of the team. Remember how the Red Sox couldn't win the World Series all of those years? From the mid 1930s to 2002 they were owned by the Yawkeys.

2 years after they sold the team, they were the World Champs.

After years of putting a losing club on the field under the Seligs, the Brewers finished at .500 in 2005, their first season under Mark Attanasio's ownership.

By 2007 they had a winning record and contended into September for the first time since 1992.

And in 2008, they did what would have been unthinkable just a few years before and would be sacrilegious in Pittsburgh and Kansas City: They dealt away one of their major league ready prospects for a veteran who was on the verge of free agency.

And even if Matt LaPorta turns into a good player for Cleveland... and even though CC Sabathia bolted town the second the season was over... it was the right move for the Brewers.

Sabathia pitched his heart out in his cameo for the Brewers. And when he pitched a complete game on the last day of the season, propelling the Brewers into the playoffs for the first time since 1982, he did something that no prospect could EVER do:

He gave Brewers fans too young to remember Harvey's Wallbangers or the great start of 1987 an actual awesome baseball memory of their team.

And guess what happens when you give fans a wonderful feeling about rooting for their team?

You build a FAN BASE!
You get excitement for your team instead of apathy!

Young kids in Wisconsin experienced a thrilling season and even a post season win at home in the Division Series. There isn't the hum drum "What's the point of watching them. They NEVER win" attitude.

And those fans who experienced the fun of 2008 have added hope in 2011. A new manager, a powerful lineup (with or without Fielder) and a rotation that now features Yovani Gallardo, Shaun Marcum and Zack Greinke.

Meanwhile the Royals got more prospects and continue to promise their fans that happy days are just around the corner.

The Brewers aren't playing that game, at least not now.
They are going for it and saying to their fans "We want you to have more good memories of your team."

All it took was a change in attitude (and getting the Seligs out!)

Who else is blogging about the Royals now?

The Royals scored 6 runs before the White Sox even came to bat on Sunday's game.
The result? THEY were blown out, losing 12-6.

It's been that kind of a year for the Royals.
They aren't the worst team in baseball. That would be the Pirates.

They aren't the worst team in the American League. That would be the Mariners and the Orioles.

They aren't even the worst team in the AL Central. Right now the Indians are worse.

In fact there are 5 teams in baseball presently worse than KC.

And yet I can think of no team worse off than them.

Seriously, what is the direction of this team?
They were supposedly built around Zack Greinke, Billy Butler, Joakim Soria and Alex Gordon... and that plan isn't working.

Oh, they got a Cy Young out of Greinke... All Star appearances out of Soria and Butler is a decent player.

But Gordon has been a bust (so much for the next George Brett) and the rest of the team is filled with guys who seem like prospects until you realize they've been prospects for years and are now on the wrong side of 25 with the word "potential" still dancing over their heads.

The Yuniesky Betancourts, Mitch Maiers, David DeJesus', Wilson Betemits, Chris Getzs, Josh Fields', Gregor Blancos, Kyle Davies', Bryan Bullingtons, Robinson Tejadas, Brian Bannisters, Luke Hochevars, Phillip Humbers and Jesse Chavez's of the world all seem like young prospects until you realize that they are all past 25 years old and might be in that world of "maybe we overrated them."

The Pirates may be the worst team in baseball, but with McCutchen, Milledge, Alvarez and Tabata, they may have a core to a solid line up.

Baltimore is the worst team in baseball, but with Adam Jones, Brian Matusz and Matt Weiters, they have players in the big leagues to build around and so far they have been playing winning ball under Buck Showalter.

There's nobody on the Royals now to build around... and Greinke is already making noise about wanting out.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Dayton Moore was supposed to come in and turn the Royals around. He learned under John Schuerholz while at the Braves... who turned a decrepit franchise into a model of consistency.

John Schuerholz of course learned the art of being a GM while being with the Royals in the 1980s. So basically his protege was coming back to Kansas City.

It was going to be the circle of life.
He arrived at the end of the 2006 season.

There was no big spender in the AL Central and he had a clean slate to build a team.

Here we sit in 2010 and the Royals are at drift at sea.

Four full seasons and nothing to show for it.

Is there even hope?

Well sure...
2007 #2 overall pick Mike Moustakas has been hitting the hell out of the ball in AA and AAA.

David Lough looks like a legit outfield prospect.

Left hander Mike Montgomery is having a good year at AA as is first baseman Eric Hosmer.

Left handers Danny Duffy, Chris Dwyer and John Lamb are shooting up the system
Will Myers is an excellent catching prospect.

But none of those guys will be ready for 2011. Maybe 2012.

So Moore has to gulp big and declare 2011 a lost cause. He HAS to.

With Billy Butler in line for a big raise and Greinke already grumbling, he needs to flip those two players into 4 good young players.

The only way the Royals can turn things around is if they draft well and bite the bullet by trading players when they are at peak value.

Tampa realized that they weren't going to get what they were expecting with former first pick overall, Delmon Young, so they flipped him for Jason Bartlett and Matt Garza.

Those players came in just as an influx of young talent matured at the big league level and BANG! The Rays leap frogged the two behemouths of the league and went to the World Series.

Get two good players for each... don't worry so much about quantity as quality and they'll be ready when Moustakas, Montgomery et al are ready.

Save for the fun 2003 season, it's been a while since the Royals have been relevant. If they don't screw those trades up and get ready to insert a veteran into the rotation and the DH slot in 2012, they could make a run for the AL Central crown.

Just be prepared for irrelevance in 2011... irrelevance with a goal in mind.

Now Royals fans, don't ever say I don't write about you.