Joe Posnanski article from the KC Star

[Royal Rooter]

We will get to David Glass’ baseball paralysis in just a moment, but first let’s talk about luck. Most people would tell you the Kansas City Royals, in addition to their other failings, are also unlucky. I have certainly felt that way.

Look: Mike Sweeney was virtually indestructible until the Royals signed him to a long-term deal. He has not been healthy since. That’s unlucky, right? Zack Greinke was one of the more promising pitchers in the game when he ran into personal issues that threaten his career. Unlucky. Jose Rosado and a half-dozen other young pitchers showed potential until their arms blew up. You can go on like this for a while.

Yes, the Royals, at first blush, seem to have a luck problem.

But last week, I was talking with author Bill James about luck (he just wrote an essay about luck for Playboy), and he pointed out that luck is a complicated thing. He’s right. If you look at the Royals another way, you realize they have been very lucky.

Consider just three items:

1. The best hitter in baseball — one of the best hitters ever — played high school ball in Kansas City. That’s Albert Pujols. What are the odds a player that good would play a few minutes from Kauffman Stadium? Hardly anybody in America knew about him. He was not taken in the first 10 rounds of the draft. How lucky can you get?

2. Most of the star Royals from the 1970s and 1980s live in town and are dying to help the team. These were players who won year after year. Between 1975 and 1990, only the Yankees and Red Sox won more games than the Royals.

3. The best mind in baseball lives in Lawrence and was one of the world’s big Royals fans. That’s Bill James. Last week, he was picked by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, along with George W. Bush, the richest man in China and the guy who created the Sudoku craze. What are the odds this guy would be here, would love the Royals and would not have a job in baseball?

Point is: Luck is what you make it. The Royals did not draft Pujols. They rarely use the knowledge and experience of those former players in town. And the Red Sox, not the Royals, hired Bill James (and, shortly thereafter, won the World Series). Alec Baldwin delivers the killer line in “Glengarry Glen Ross”: “I’d wish you good luck, but you wouldn’t know what to do with it.” Those are your Kansas City Royals.

This leads us back to Royals owner David Glass, who somehow managed for the second straight week to do absolutely nothing. When you watch Glass run the Royals, don’t you expect some low-level representative from Fortune magazine to call and say, “Uh, we’d like our ‘most underrated CEO ever’ title back.” There is something about baseball that makes brilliant, shrewd and exceptional businessmen go loopy.

Imagine this Wal-Mart scenario. There’s a general manager of a store. It’s a difficult store — not enough money, lots of problems — but the GM is a bright, hard-working and loyal man. For years, his store loses millions of dollars. The store is in fact the worst performer in the chain. The general manager tries to make some good hires, he tries different promotions, he signs Juan Gonzalez. But everything backfires. The store keeps losing big money at a record pace. What do you think David Glass does in that scenario?

You can bet your everyday-low-price smiley face that he would do something.

When it comes to baseball and the Royals, though, David Glass turns into Homer Hamlet. To fire or not to fire? Glass unleashed his frustration recently with the Royals mired in a losing stretch that never seems to end. Saturday’s loss at Baltimore was the 501st game since the Royals’ brilliant 16-3 start in 2003. The Royals are 191-310 over that time. Few teams have been worse for that many games.

Glass finally had enough. He announced that a hard rain was a-gonna fall.

“I’ve got to do something,” he said.

“I’m not willing for us to sit and wait and see if it gets better,” he said.

“People have to know you’re decisive,” he said.

This was a man of action. Glass expected to have something big done by the weekend. He did not say what he would do, but it was a fairly easy game of “Clue.” He said Buddy Bell’s job was not in danger. He said it would be tough to make many player moves. The president of the team is his son. And when asked about Royals general manager Allard Baird, Glass said, “We’re all responsible.”

Bingo. It’s Professor Baird in the billiard room with a lead pipe.

No matter what he might say now, Glass intended to fire Baird and hire a new GM. It was the talk of baseball. Only something strange happened. Baird was not fired on Friday. He was not fired Saturday or Sunday. The Royals returned home on Monday, and Baird … was not fired. Reporters asked David Glass about it, and he got snippy. He started saying bizarre things that sound like quotes from the old show “Kung Fu.”

Listen, Grasshopper, to the wisdom of Master Glass:

Glass: “I don’t think you can do anything until you know what you’re going to do.”

And: “We’re going to change everything that we can change. Right now, I don’t know what we can change.”

And: “When we know what we will change, we will be happy to let you know.”

OK, I have no idea what he is talking about. It’s like “Zen and the Art of Losing Baseball Games.” Meanwhile, more days have gone on, and nothing with the Royals has, you know, “changed” — the team has not even made obvious changes like scrapping the Dance-Off or sending Justin Huber to Omaha where he can play every day. It seems obvious that Glass had a plan to hire a new GM, the plan fell through, and he has absolutely no idea what to do.

Now Glass has a problem. On the one hand, he has to fire his GM. After all, he already called out Baird, embarrassed him nationally and rendered him virtually powerless. Allard Baird (Motto: Proudly taking heat for ownership incompetence for six years running) twists in the wind. No matter what you think of his efforts, he deserves better than that. Even now, Baird stands up for the Glasses. Last week, he passionately defended the strategy of letting Huber, one of the team’s best prospects, rot on the Royals’ bench. Baird said this is not hurting Huber’s development.

“That’s a big misconception,” Baird said.

I know Allard Baird. He does not believe this. I mean, if you follow that line of thinking, then the Royals should call up all of their prospects and sit them on the bench so they can spit sunflower seeds all day. Heck, why not? No, Baird does not believe this at all. I also don’t believe calling up Huber was his decision.

So why did he say that? Well, let’s put it out there: It’s no picnic being a general manger for the Royals. There’s no guessing how many times over six years Baird has had to say or do things that made him look dumb so he could deflect blame from ownership. He has always taken those hits gracefully. It’s one of the reasons I admire him.

Anyway, Glass has already shown up Baird, and he certainly knows that he will look hopeless and toothless if he does not fire Baird. He should have done it that first day.

But that leads to the problem. Glass did not do it that first day, or the next or the next. And that little world keeps on turning. Now you look up, and the amateur draft is three weeks away. The Royals have the first pick. This is a crucial draft. I have been adamant that the Royals need a new direction and should let Baird go. But, in my mind, you can’t do it now. The window of opportunity closed. You can do some real long-term damage if you tear up everything so close to the draft.

So now what? Well, now it’s a mess. Every move leads to checkmate. The only thing David Glass can do is minimize the damage.

I would advise Glass to say this: “I am very frustrated with the losing, like everyone in Kansas City. And my frustration may have come out in some of the things I have said. But now, we need to move forward together and concentrate on the draft and the future of the Kansas City Royals. That is more important than anything else. Allard and his staff have worked very hard to prepare for this draft. I promise we will invest real money and allow them to take the best players available all the way through. That’s the only way we can get better in the long run. After the draft, we will look hard at our organization and what we need to do to improve there. For now, though, we must stay focused.”

Of course, that’s not the perfect solution. No matter what he does, Glass will look inept. He’s earned that. It wasn’t bad luck.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To reach Joe Posnanski, call (816) 234-4361 or send e-mail to jposnanski@kcstar.com

Great article from this guy. http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansas...s/14574388.htm

[Royal Rooter]

I like the idea that he may be keeping Baird around until the end of the draft,it sounds logical. There is not enough time for a new GM to wiegh the ins and outs of each player. But on the other hand, we can take the best player in the draft at every level because we need help everywhere.

I was looking over Puljos biography on MLB.com the other day and I noticed he was from the KC area . . . I also shook my head in disgust when it appeared he went undrafted. In my mind Puljos is the best hitter in baseball right now, he is young, and he has the "hard working 9-5er" look to him. Then to think that we had a better chance than any other team to snag him . . . makes me cry.

He does reiterate an important question though, is it really Bairds fault or is it Glass's fault? How many of these moves has Glass "insisted" upon without the full support of Baird? Is Glass one of those behind the scenes owners that makes all the decisions leaving the GM as the fall guy or patsy? On the other hand though, if Baird was worth anything as a GM he would stand up to Glass and tell him about stupid moves.

Finally, the Royals have had luck. We used to develop a lot of talent in the minors, they came up to the majors and performed beautifully. Or we aquired them when they were young and unknown, and then they became good. The problem is that we never keep them. It appears to be the Royals policy that cannot have more than one quality player on the team at a time. We got rid of Dye, Beltran, Damon (this one was excusable though), and to a lesser degree Randa. We could have resigned all these guys. We could have a decent team right now, or at least not on the war path to break the loss record.

Think about it, we could have fielded a line up as such if Glass made reasonably intelligent moves (no particular order)

Dye - OF
Beltran - OF
Damon - OF
Randa - 3B
Puljos - 1B
Sweeney - DH
Berroa - SS (or Mark Ellis w/o the trade to Oak)
??? - C
Grudzielanek - 2B

There are a few holes on the team, but if we had resigned a few of these guys we may have been able to fill the gaps with quality free agents over the years. We could have been competitve right now.

But we don't have enough money. We have a payroll of 47.5 million right now tied up in the likes of Dougie, Sanders, Redman, Elarton, and Sweeney. (26.5 million) Those guys are doing us a ton of good right now. And just about everyone predicted they would have the impact they did during the offseason. Basically they are overpaid. So point #1 - we are wasting money

Point #2 - our payroll is only 47.5 million!!! We get more money from revenue sharing (55 million, correct me if I am wrong) than we spend on player salaries. Where is this money going? In 2001 the Royals had an estimated 16 million dollar deficeit from baseball operating expenses. Most of which can be attributed to the stadium operating expenses. The money from revenue sharing covered all but 100k of that deficiet. Basically the Royals broke even that year fielding the team they had, with 1.5 million paying customers. (18,518 per game) (http://www.baseballprospectus.com/ar...articleid=1333)

Basically the Royals are a 0 sum team. They can operate perfectly without having to be competitve, just the same as anyone can live perfectly pennyless being a bum on the street. You will survive, you don't have to take risks. Thus the Royals are the homeless bums out on the street. They contribute nothing, but they have no fear of ever being in the hole.

But what if we did take a risk and try to become competitive? Success would not happen overnight. It would take at least 1/2 a year for the fans to start attending the games again, and at least 1 year before we got anywhere near the playoffs. Thus the balance sheet at the end of the year would be in the red even with MLB handouts. Basically, that is money coming out of Glass's personal pocketbook. This does not sound like such a bad proposition , what business owner did not have to sacrifice financial security in order to make it big? Glass would obviously not be a stranger to this thought. To make money, you have to spend money, etc. The real problem is not the concept of risk vs. reward, but rather what is the incentive to seeking that reward.

To a normal person, the incentive would be to make more money. Better product = more fans = more money. But, the problem lies with the nature of how Glass aquired the team. Ewing Kauffman, god bless his philanthropy, had a clause stating that any profit from the sale of the Royals would go to charity. Thus this leaves Glass in a difficult position. If he wants to take the risk of creating a better baseball team, he has to spend his own money, which he may not get back. And even if he does make the franchise more valuable, all his hard work and effort will go to charity. Thus the only real option for Glass is either take a risk that will never have a reward, or do nothing and come to the same conclusion. Either way, Glass makes nothing. Thus why try if you have no opportunity to improve?

The real enemy here is David Glass. He appears to be willing to destroy a once proud organization and the love of Kansas City baseball, all in order to save himself from having to give money to charity. Scrooge has taken a new form and he is running the Kansas City Royals. Baird is just his Crotchett, doing what he possibly can to give money to Tiny Tim. Our only real hope is that Glass will sell the team. But that seems unlikely, he gets all the presitige of being a professional sports franchise owner, with none of the risk. Firing Baird will only mean that Glass has to hire a new deflecting shield.

Royal Rooter

[KCGHOST]

Would it make you happier if we upped the current payroll for these loser to $60M?? For crying out loud the problem isn't what we spend on payroll it is who we are putting on the field.

You have to be extremely naive to think Damon and Beltran would still be here if somehow we would have ponied up a little more dough. Damon's agent was Scott Boras. That is a Day One announcement of "Show Me the Money". Beltran's final price was way out of bounds for a team and the financial level of the Royals. If you don't like how the $11M for Sweeney for 5 years how would you like $17M for 7 years??

But, I do concede the problem is Glass. It is not that he is cheap, but that he doesn't provide a consistent framework for a GM to work in and he doesn't understand baseball. A GM cannot conduct business if every year he is sweating out what the budget may be. Likewise Glass has to learn that he has to put serious money into player development and scouting.

The Royals would be better off if Glass would find a competent GM and tell him that he can spend $60M a year on salaries without consulting him. Further he can pump another $5M into player development and scouting which includes getting people who can actually do those things.

[Royal Rooter]

Would it make you happier if we upped the current payroll for these loser to $60M?? For crying out loud the problem isn't what we spend on payroll it is who we are putting on the field.

First of all, it was implied that we spend our money to get better players by using the excess to fund thier salaries. No one said pay these bums more money. Read a little closer.

Beltran's final price was way out of bounds for a team and the financial level of the Royals.

Secondly, Beltrans price was high, but he is also one of the best outfielders in the game. This is a perfect example of the Royals mindset. We want to win, hell everyone wants to win, but we don't have the resolve to put a plan into action in order to win. If we would have had the mindset to build a winner, paying Beltran the money would not have been that big of a deal.

Glass has the mindset that operating at zero sum is the way to build the franchise. Our stadium operating expenses run in the red every year because we cannot get people out to the ballpark, even with some of the cheapest tickets in the league (28th). Glass uses the money handed out by MLB to cover the operating expenses. These operating expenses are in the red because we have such a piss poor team and no one wants to waste a few hours and 12 bucks to watch them play. If we used the money to go get some quality players that might actually be competitve, more people would show up to the ball park and fix the operating expenses problem.

Glass will never spend the money to get or keep quality players. In order to put out a quality team, Glass would have to spend some of the MLB's charity on the players, thus leaving the operating expenses in the red. Basically, he would have to run in the red for one year. This is money out of his own pocketbook that he would have to risk, and due to the nature of how he aquired the team, there is no reward for such a risk.

Glass's two options
#1 - Operate at 0 sum and accept MLB charity to cover the operating defeicits, and never spending money to gather quality players. (basically, it means we are always going to be the bottom of the barrell)

#2 - Use the MLB handouts to put out a good team, increase the fan base, more ticket sales, merchandise sales, ESPN games, etc. But in order to do this he has to risk something to which there is no reward.

The only reason we spent more money on players this year was due to the excessive amount of MLB handouts we received. I'll paraphrase a quote I saw earlier this week from Glass, "If the other owners are going to give us money, we should show a reciept as to where that money went." Basically, Glass is saying that the other owners would get angry if he just pocketed the money. Thus, he overpays washed up has beens to provide evidence that he is putting the money to good use. The reason he over paid them is because he had to spend the money, yet there was a very weak market out there last year. Thus you spend a bunch of money on a bunch of losers. Had there been a good market out there, we might have actually got someone worth the price we pay them. But that was not the case last year, and we got back to 0 sum.

In addition, the Royals have such a bad reputatoin for being losers that it requires even more money to get anyone to play for us. No one really wants to spend thier summer travelling around from city to city getting whooped up on, thus the higher price tag. A very large personal investment by the owner would be required in order to break this trend, something that Glass is unwilling to do. Not only will Glass not pay to put a competitive team on the field, but a competitive team is much more expensive to Kansas City than it would be to any other MLB team, bases largely on reputation.

Being a GM in KC has to be one of the toughest jobs in baseball. You have an owner who is a cheap skate, limits your budget to the point of non-competitveness, players do not want to play for you because of this, and the farm system raises guys that want to get out as soon as they make it big. I do not know if Baird is to blame for many of the lapses, it seems to me that he has never been given a fair deal. I agree that Glass provides terrible working conditions for the current GM and any future GM. But I do not forsee this changing at all. A GM is just a patsy to Glass, it takes some of the heat and attention away from him.

Basically, we do not get better until Glass sells the team. He will never make the commitment to building a successful franchise when he has nothing to gain from it.

[KCGHOST]

It obvious that you vastly overrate Beltran. He is not a $17M a year player. Never has been and never will be. It might startle you, but David DeJesus had a better year last year than Beltran.

You are the one missing the point. The Royals spent money last off-season to get players. That's spending; not being cheap. And they came home with an embarrassing group of stiffs. Had Baird been told to go ahead and someone how spend another $8M or so to get us to the revenue sharing number he still would have brought a group of stiffs home. You could have given him $50M more and we still would suck.

With Glass and Baird there is a core incomptence that has to be eradicated. Until that is done the idea we should spend more on players us a sheer smoke screen.

[Royal Rooter]

Originally Posted by KCGHOST

You are the one missing the point. The Royals spent money last off-season to get players. That's spending; not being cheap. And they came home with an embarrassing group of stiffs. Had Baird been told to go ahead and someone how spend another $8M or so to get us to the revenue sharing number he still would have brought a group of stiffs home. You could have given him $50M more and we still would suck.

With Glass and Baird there is a core incomptence that has to be eradicated. Until that is done the idea we should spend more on players us a sheer smoke screen.

You can't focus soley on last year to justify not spending money. I will agree with you that the money spent during past this off-season was a waste, even if they only spent 37 cents. But last year was an anomoly. It was one of the worst free-agent markets in a long time. It's like safari hunting at the north pole, you can waste as much ammo as you want, but you will not catch a lion. But on the other hand, you cannot go on a safari hunt in Africa with only one bullet and expect to bring home a couple of lions.

That does relate to your "core incompetence" statement though, Glass is only willing to buy one bullet, and Baird has been slowly going blind the past few years. Thus you have one bullet given to a blind man.

But still, I would argue that a lot of this does hinge upon Glass and his cheapness. Only the most skillfull of hunters could kill two lions with one bullet. And he could never do it at the North Pole.

Although last year was a dry market, previous years have yeilded better prospects, which if we were not so damn cheap, we could have aquired, hung on to, and developed a core around. Money does matter.