MLB Notes: Are the Royals for real?

By Matt Smith

Bob Dutton, the Kansas City Royals beat writer for the Kansas City Star, was on MLB homeplate on XM radio the other day, and he was talking about why the Royals could win it all.
Not that they should, or they would, but that they could. He said everything would have to go right and basically acknowledged many people would have to have career years for them to have any chance this season.
Let’s just get this straight: The Royals cannot, will not and should not win the World Series this year, because of these factors that Dutton overlooks:

1) They’re the Royals.
2) They suck.
3) They have Brett Tomko on their team.
4) Did I mention they’re the Royals?

Don’t get me wrong, I love the small market team and outside of actual Kansas City Royals fans, I would love to see them compete, but they just don’t have the horses.
Kansas City is slowly getting better, and general manager Dayton Moore has made plays to get some big names such as Andruw Jones and Hiroki Kuroda and he did sign Jose Guillen.
I actually do look for the Royals to get slightly better this year and maybe within the next couple of years, having a winning season is something they can shoot for if they can keep young players like Mark Teahan and Alex Gordon around for a while.
A winning season would be a nice start for the fans and the franchise, considering they’ve had just one of them since 1994.
So, with the start of Spring Training, we can mathematically eliminate the Royals along with the Giants, Pirates, Nationals, Marlins, Devil Rays, Orioles and A’s.

No bullpen, no problem: When evaluating the trade that sent Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis, it turns out the smartest part of the trade might have been including the lefty. Cabrera is obviously the better player of the two, but when you look at Detroit’s bullpen situation right now, the acquisition of Willis was pretty genius.
There is really no clear idea when Joel Zumaya will be back to the Tigers bullpen and now Fernando Rodney has been shut down.
This is why having a guy like Willis looks great, because with him joining Justin Verlander, Jeremy Bonderman, Nate Robertson and Kenny Rogers, you have five guys that will get close to or go over 200 innings.
It doesn’t matter that Willis went 10-15 with a 5.17 ERA last year because, A) we know he will do better than that and B) it won’t matter if he doesn’t do too much better because the offense is going to win them games more often than they lose them.
As long as Willis chews up innings, which he will, he will give the Tigers exactly what they need.

Will play for food: What is going on with this year’s free agent market? It was almost a certainty that Kyle Lohse was going to get a lucrative deal, yet he remains unsigned. A guy with great power like Mike Piazza has no job, and Shannon Stewart, who played in 146 games last year, proving he was healthy on top of hitting .290 with 12 homers and 11 stolen bases, signed a minor league deal.
Let’s not forget that the guy who has hit more home runs than anyone else ever has is still looking for a place to work.
It’s a funny market this year where most teams have shied away from throwing money at every free agent in sight. In fact, there have only been a couple of bad signings, with the four-year, 48 million dollar contract that Carlos Silva received leading the way.
Teams would probably be getting a better and younger pitcher with more upside in Lohse, but only the Mariners were stupid enough to offer such a ridiculous contract and it went to the other guy.
For guys like Piazza and Bonds, they will probably have to wait for an American League team to suffer a few injuries, prompting them to bring in a guy that can absorb some at bats in the DH slot.

Milestone watch: A number of players are looking to crack some home run milestones as Ken Griffey Jr. will enter the season with 593 home runs, looking to become the sixth player in the history of the game to reach the 600 HR plateau.
Also, by the time this season is over Alex Rodriguez will likely move past names like Ted Williams, Willie McCovey, Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Mantle and Mike Schmidt and with another year like last year he would move past Reggie Jackson as well. He could end up approaching the top ten when the season ends.Also, keep an eye out for Manny Ramirez (490) and Gary Sheffield (480) who are both looking to 24th and 25th members of the 500 home run club.