Baseball Musings: We Don't Need No Extra Players

February 25, 2006

We Don't Need No Extra Players

The Kansas City Royals only need four pitchers for the first couple of weeks of the season, but Bell doesn't like having an extra position players around:

“The tough thing in the American League,” he said, “is you don’t use a lot of guys on your bench. So guys get (ticked). You don’t want guys just sitting around.”
A projected four-man bench includes backup catcher Paul Bako, first baseman/DH Matt Stairs, a utility infielder (Esteban German or Joe McEwing) and a backup outfielder (Chip Ambres, Aaron Guiel or Kerry Robinson).

The Royals starting nine is just so talented that Bell would never want to:

Platoon two players.
Burn a pinch-hitter to get the platoon advantage.
Make a defensive replacement for one of the old players signed this winter.
Carry three catchers for more flexibility.
Pinch run in a one-run situation.

Nothing of use there.

Posted by David Pinto at 07:44 PM | Management | TrackBack (0)

Comments

It's hard to believe, but things seem to keep getting worse and worse for the Royals (and their fans) every year.

Posted by: sabernar at February 25, 2006 08:50 PM

This is the sound of the final stages of clinical depression: "You know, it doesn't matter if we carry extra positional players, because, you know, we're the Royals and, you know what, we just aren't going to win anything because we don't deserve to win anything, really. I don't know. Maybe more mediocre pitchers will help. Probably not. Do you know if the Twins are looking for a Third Base coach?"

I think what's sadder in this statement is that Stairs is a bench player even though he's easily a much bigger offensive threat than Doug "Defensive Replacement" Mientkiewicz. This whole thing strikes me as just giving up before the season starts.

Posted by: Hunter at February 25, 2006 10:52 PM

The Royals are sunk until they get a new GM who knows what he's doing. Baird is just not creative enough to put a winning team on the field with the restraings that David Glass (the owner) puts on him. Thats not to say his job isn't a difficult one, but by now we can all see that Baird just is not capable of doing it. They need someone new to run that team, get rid of Buddy "waiting to be fired" Bell, and inject some new ideas and some new talent into that franchise. Badly.

Posted by: mattymatty at February 25, 2006 10:59 PM

Oooh, ooh! Pick me! I can do it. I can't possibly do worse. Plus we can see if my weird ideas work.

Posted by: Marc Normandin at February 25, 2006 11:41 PM

I don't know why Glass even owns the team. He obviously has no interest in running a major-league franchise, and he can't be making loads of money off it. Why not sell it to someone who cares and who will give Bell, Mientkiewicz and Reggie Sanders their well-deserved walking papers, and start from scratch with some real players.

Posted by: david at February 25, 2006 11:51 PM

David:
Maybe a tax write-off?
That was one episode of WKRP, mom wanted the radio station to keep losing money, she got upset when her son (the station GM) actually had the station rise in the ratings and make a profit.

Posted by: rbj at February 26, 2006 04:09 PM

..or perhaps he wants to move the team to Florida by putting together the worst possible team, just like Rachel Phelps tried to do with the Indians back in '89.

Posted by: chad at February 26, 2006 05:05 PM

A tax write-off sounds right for a guy who made his money in Wal-Mart, but don't you have to lose money to write it off? I suppose that would explain the Royals upping their payroll 22 million dollars. I guess if there was a city desperate for a team and someone willing to pay good money the moving option makes sense, too, but I sdon't see where the Royals would move to.

Posted by: david at February 26, 2006 07:04 PM

Bell's right. It's one thing having role players and pinch hitters if you have a veteran team and a contender but if you've got the worst team in baseball then you probably don't have a lot of platoon talent and are going to have limited number of 1 run games requiring big pinch running or pinch hitting spots. You either end up with vets who are just playing for themselves and bitching if they sit or young guys who need to play to develop and are going to bitch if they sit. It's hard to figure out what they're doing signing marginal veterans who are neither going to help them win now or in the future unless they have a secret cache of super prospects nobody knows about.

Posted by: ICallMasICM at February 27, 2006 12:52 PM

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