Somewhere deep down I wonder if I'm not anually more excited about the Hot Stove season than the real season. That's twenty years of Royals fandom at work. See, I became a Royals fan in 1986, so I don't even know what winning that World Series was like. I showed up in KC when I was twelve, and remember thinking "they sure are making a big deal out of that World Series title." By about 1989, I remember thinking "they sure are (still) making a big deal out of that World Series title." But I get it now. If the Royals won a World Series next year, I'd still be celebrating it in 2058.
But what might be even more exciting would be a Hot Stove title. The Royals were definitely in the Hot Stove playoffs last year, landing Meche, Dotel, and Soria. The Cubs ultimately won the Hot Stove Series, but let's be honest, they bought that series. With cash. It's a cruel world.
This year, I believe we could make the playoffs again if we accomplish something I saw suggested over at Royals Authority: by signing Francisco Cordero. If we signed him and then moved Soria to the rotation...whew, look out, we could be this year's Hot Stove version of the Rockies. We'll do that, of course, after we've accomplished the following move, which I'm convinced is going to happen:
A package trade between the Braves and Royals that basically amounts to David Dejesus for Scott Thorman.
Now, I'm not lobbying for this to happen, although I think I'd be okay with it. I'm just saying I see it in my crystal ball. My crystal ball, mind you, did not see us signing Meche last year. I also didn't see myself living in Hoboken, New Jersey, or watching my hairline recede. But here's why the trade will happen: 1) The Braves are in need of not only a major-league-ready centerfielder, they really want a somewhat accomplished centerfielder because they're close to contention (again). Why is that player going to be Dejesus? 1-a) The Aaron Rowand sweepstakes are going to be absurd. The Braves do spend money, but they don't like to go above 90 mil. 1-b) Coco Crisp is going to require Kelly Johnson or some other player they'd rather keep. 1-c) David Dejesus is a solid player, maybe an all-star in disguise, cheap, an incredible clubhouse guy, and young. He's perfect for the Braves. Perfect for the Royals, too (if we didn't have Gathright and a dire need for a bat), perfect for any team, really, but especially for a team without a particularly cavernous outfield. I love Dejesus. I don't want him to go, but..
2) Dayton's not happy with the offense; the Royals need to score some runs. And they also need to work with what they have. And what they have is two centerfielders on the roster right now, one of which is a semi-valuable trade commodity (Dejesus). Gathright, still largely unproven, would not fetch much on the trade market (which is why trading Dejesus would be a gamble. But we've seen that Dayton gambles). What they don't have is a left fielder or a first baseman. It would be interesting to see what Shealy has to offer in 2008, but we're done sacrificing seasons "to see what we have." And as far as left field goes, well, Dejesus is a good centerfielder, but not what you want in left. Right? I mean, do we want Dave in left? "No, we keep him in Center," you say, "And we obtain a left fielder." Excellent idea. I couldn't agree more. Except how, exactly, do we obtain a left fielder?
Do we sign one via free agency? Have you seen the free agent list? You want to get in on the Torii Hunter bidding? Guy's asking 15 mil per, 5 years. Whoa. He's slugged above .500 exactly twice in his career, and he's 32. Andruw (phonetic spelling) Jones? Umm...that's Yankees/Red Sox/Cubs territory. I could write an entire post on how the baseball financial playing field might actually be leveling out now because big-market teams are wasting hilarious sums of money on guys who are not that much better than players small market teams are fielding at the same positions for umpteen fewer million dollars a year. No Jones. Let me just give you a quick synopsis of the free agent list, which I've looked at about a hundred times over the last several days while impatiently awaiting the Hot Stove season: It's filled with a few good guys who will be grossly overpaid by big market clubs, making them extremely risky. The Yankees can afford risks. The Royals really can't (even though we sometimes take them anyway, see Gil Meche. But I think Gil Meche-sized risks will be few and far between, and we have to really, really, really believe in them. We had to take the Gil Meche risk. Our rotation was one of the worst in history. And I'm convinced Dayton Moore had some CIA intel on Meche--he'd received word that Meche was to have a top-secret surgery in which a bionic, titanium, hydrolic elbow was going to be installed in his arm, and nobody else knew about it. Listen, if Gil Meche utterly failed, a la Carl Pavano, the Royals would have been seriously screwed. Whereas the Yankees weren't. I tried to drive this point home to my Yankees fan friend the other day, and he thought I was griping the small market vs. big market song yet again. But I'm really not. I'm just saying, matter-of-factly, that when the Royals roll the dice at the Craps table, they are sweating more heavily than the Yankees are at the same table. The Yankees have quite a few chips stacked up in front of them, they can roll away. The Royals have one roll. And it has to be a good/lucky one. That's all I'm saying. And they rolled last year, and it turned out to be a good/lucky roll. Awesome. I don't think we should do that again anytime soon. Read: we shouldn't roll the dice on Torii Hunter or Andruw Jones. Or Aaron Rowand. Or Adam Dunn. Dayton needs to leave the casino while he's ahead).
Where the hell was I? Oh yeah, the free agent list. The free agent list is basically those high-rolling pricey guys who will play for the Yankees or Red Sox or Cubs, and some more affordable guys you really don't want anyway. Geoff Jenkins, Shannon Stewart, Brad Wilkerson...zzzzzzzzzz...snort, huh, what? Sean Casey, Tony Clark...you get the picture. Forget about free agency this year. Really, just cross it off your list (except for Francisco Cordero, whom we'll get back to).
No, we obtain a left fielder or first baseman via trade. Trust me, Dayton is thinking trade. Because he's a reasonable man, I know this, and he's also a horse trader. The man loves to trade. Remember the deadline flurry of 2006? People talk about "the Blizzard of '78" which hit the East Coast, and then they talk about "the Flurry of '06." Dayton made about fifteen trades in two days or something, I'm still trying to remember all the guys that came and went. It was dizzying, it was beautiful. I'm not saying he's going to trade a dozen guys this offseason, but he is going to do a little barter, and at least one transaction is going to be significant.
Well, significant if you're a Royals fan. Trading Dejesus wouldn't exactly be significant on the national scene, no offense to Dejesus who is currently among my three or four favorite Royals. But for us veteran Royals Hot Stove Day-dreamers, trading Dejesus would be serious breaking news. And the guy we're going to trade him for, Scott Thorman, is going to elicit yawns across the country. It's going to tick off a bunch of Royals fans. But let me tell you, briefly, why it might not be the end of the world for the Kansas City Ham Fighters:
Thorman is 6'3", 235, so he's big. You know, one of the reasons why so many people are depressed by the idea of anointing Ross "Grampa" Gload (I call him this not because he's old--he's younger than me, ahem--but because he kind of looks, to me, like a seventy-year old former dock worker who sits on the porch and tells stories; his knee swells up when a rain storm is comin') our first baseman is that he's not that big. We Royals Day-dreamers want a big guy over there, somebody who looks like he can mash (while Dustin--a buck fifteen--Pedroia hits homers over in Boston). Thorman is big. And he's athletic. They say he gets down the base path pretty quick for a big guy. And he can hit; he's slugged over .500 for an extended period in the minors, hit 21 dingers in 2005 and 15 (in 300 at bats) in '06, which would translate out to, what, 25 over 500, 30 over 560? Personally, I think there a 30-100 guy inside Scotty Thorman.
Lastly, you know Dayton and his Braves prospects.
At any rate, here would be your 2008 lineup:
Gathright
Grudz
Gordon
Butler
Thorman
Teahen
(Left Fielder to be named...Shane Costa? Carlos Quentin?)
Buck
Pena
Oh yeah, another move important to our Hot Stove playoff run? We trade somebody to Arizon for Carlos Quentin (thanks to Royals Review for that idea). Who's that somebody? Would have to be somebody good. Probably a pitching prospect. I'll get back to you.
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